Targeting History and Memory:
The ICTY and the investigation, reconstruction and prosecution of crimes against cultural and religious heritage
http://heritage.sense-agency.com

Zatiranje istorije i sjećanja:
MKSJ i istraga, rekonstrukcija i procesuiranje zločina protiv kulturnog nasleđa
http://heritage.sense-agency.com/bhs/

an interactive online narrative featuring photographs, maps, and video footage presented in trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, documenting the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in the 1990s wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

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[From the introductory essay, by Helen Walasek]:

The ICTY and the prosecution of crimes against cultural and religious property

The massive intentional destruction of cultural and religious property in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1991–1995 Wars of Yugoslav Succession was the greatest destruction of cultural heritage in Europe since World War II. The devastation -- which took place almost entirely during violent campaigns of ethnic cleansing waged against civilians in an attempt to create ethnically homogenous territories -- was one of the defining features of the conflicts. Bosnia-Herzegovina was most severely affected, particularly its Ottoman and Islamic heritage. Among the most iconic images of the wars were the burning of the National Library during the siege of Sarajevo in August 1992 and the shelling of Mostar’s Old Bridge in November 1993.

While the devastation brought global condemnation, particularly attacks in urban settings, it was in towns and villages across wide swathes of ethnically-cleansed countryside where destruction was worst. That destruction was almost never collateral, a side effect of military action. The vast majority of attacks on cultural and religious property were pre-meditated, systematic, and took place far from the frontlines -- rarely in isolation, but accompanied by multiple atrocities against the targeted groups.

In cities like Sarajevo and Mostar, structures that symbolised or held proofs of Bosnia’s historic diversity were attacked: libraries, archives and museums. This was the deliberate destruction of a country’s and a people’s identity and memory which many have called cultural genocide.

The search for justice for victims of the wars in the former Yugoslavia was to become an important testing ground for international humanitarian and human rights law, not only with regard to more commonly recognised violations, but also with respect to the protection and preservation of cultural and religious property.

Cultural property has long been given legal protection in times of armed conflict, most notably with The Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 (The Hague Convention), on the basis of its universal significance to mankind. However, the development of international human rights law after World War II brought an emphasis on addressing the need for justice for victims of human rights abuses, their right to redress and reparation, and to call to account those who committed, or were responsible for, such abuses.

Part of this trend was the growth of international humanitarian law that advanced more complex reasons for the protection of cultural property, among them a people’s right to enjoyment of their cultural heritage and recognition of the links between cultural heritage and identity. With its ground-breaking legal precedents, the ICTY has played a seminal role in the development of this trend.

The inclusion of crimes relating to cultural and religious property in the ICTY’s Statute was an important addition to international legal instruments. However, the ICTY’s most distinctive contribution to the prosecution of crimes against cultural heritage has come through its landmark indictments and judgements which, in case after case, have established that the destruction of structures that symbolised a group’s identity during campaigns of ethnic cleansing were a manifestation of persecution and crimes against humanity.

[Helen Walasek, author of ‘Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage’ (Ashgate 2015) <https://www.routledge.com/Bosnia-and-the-Destruction-of-Cultural-Heritage/Walasek-Carlton-Hadzimuhamedovic-Perry-Wik/p/book/9781409437048>.]

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