Homecomings From “The Hague”

• DOI: 10.1177/1057567718766222
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• Author: Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc
• Date: 01 December 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Homecomings From “The

Hague”: Media Coverage of

ICTY Defendants After Trial

and Punishment

Jovana Mihajlovic

´Trbovc

1

Abstract

Based on the analysis of media reporting on the release and return of the International Criminal

Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) defendants after the end of their trials or imprisonment,

this article focuses on the homecoming celebrations organized for politically prominent defendants.

While large celebratory homecomings were vastly covered and discussed by local media, most of the

defendants actually returned with no public welcome. This article demonstrates that the home-

comings of politically significant returnees became part of a normalized political folklore, in which

the convicted individuals are welcomed in the same manner as those acquitted. Nevertheless, this

article suggests that these events are not necessarily (or not only) an expression of popular support

to wartime “heroes.” Instead, it argues that political actors seek to utilize the occasions of the return

of those ICTY defendants who possess symbolic capital as wartime political or military leaders in

order to gain political profit. As these homecomings have become an expected political and media

spectacle, they are treated by media professionals as such. The local media coverage of the

homecoming spectacles reveals that while they are politically potent events, they are also contested:

on the one hand by the proponents of competing ethnonational historical narratives and on the

other by more critical media outlets that refuse to take them at face value.

Keywords

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, defendants, homecoming, media

reporting, mediatization

On August 30, 2013, after serving two thirds of his 20-year sentence for crimes against humanity,

Momcˇilo Krajisˇnik, a member of the wartime Bosnian Serb leadership and President of the Assem-

bly of Republika Srpska (RS; the Serb-dominated part of Bosnia and Herzegovina [BH]) during the

1992–1995 war, was released from jail in the United Kingdom. Upon being flown to Banja Luka

1

Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Corresponding Author:

Jovana Mihajlovic

´Trbovc, Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences

and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Novi trg 2, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia.

Email: jovana@zrc-sazu.si

International CriminalJustice Review

2018, Vol. 28(4) 406-422

ª2018 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1057567718766222

journals.sagepub.com/home/icj

(the capital of RS) by a government-owned aircraft reserved for the highest dignitaries, he was

welcomed by Milorad Dodik, the president of RS. The local media followed every step of the way

as Krajisˇnik was then taken in a sta te-owned helicopter to Pa le, the town where his fami ly had lived

since the end of the war, which was also the wartime stronghold of the Bosnian Serb leadership from

which the siege of nearby Sarajevo was directed. In Pale, his supporters organized a gathering in the

form of political rally, which was live broadcasted on the public television of RS. Although a similar

laudatory welcome had been organized for Biljana Plavsˇic´, another wartime member of the Bosnian

Serb leadership, Krajisˇnik was seemingly taken aback by the warm reception, stating with an ironic

smirk: “I do not know why this welcoming event has been organised. After all, I am still a war

criminal” (Glas Srpske, 2013). It appeared tha t, of all those who att ended, only the con victed war

criminal saw anythingunusual in the celebration. However, in a matter of minutes, Krajisˇnik began to

enjoy his newcelebrity status. While hissupporters waved nationalisticsymbols and spoke againstThe

Hague Tribunal (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [ICTY]), theBosniak and

Croat communities in BH, as well assome critical voices within theSerb community, were enragedby

the dismissal of thecrimes for which Krajisˇnik was convicted andthe lack of empathy for the victims.

The fact that the ICTY is situated in the Netherlands, geographically far away from the region of

former Yugoslavia, influenced (in part)perceptions of the ICTY by the post-Yugoslavpopulation as a

distant foreign institution (Clark, 2009). This distance contributed to larger public attention being

given to the momentsof initial departure and final returnfrom “The Hague”—the city’s name is used

interchangeably with the word “Tribunal” in the post-Yugoslav region. Hence, “leaving for The

Hague” was often construed as a rite of passage by the involved individuals—that is, the defendant,

his/her supporters and family,and the relevant public officials—and coveredas such by the media (see

Ostojic´, 2014; Pavlakovic´, 2010). Especially in the case of well-known fugitives—such as Radovan

Karadz

ˇic´ and Ratk o Mladic´—apprehensionand official transfer to The Hague garneredhuge attention

by the local media(Ahmetasˇevic´ & Tanner, 2009; Igric´ & Tanner, 2012). Therefore, one could expect

that “returning from The Hague” would also garner considerable public and media attention.

The word “homecoming” in English language does not mean only “coming home” but is often

used in the context when return home is also a moment of “settling accounts.” This is why I chose to

use that word even though it is not used by the local population and there is no one-word translation

for it in the common local language. Instead, local media use word doc

ˇek (welcome, reception) for

these events, in the same way as it is used for the welcome of sport representatives after being

successful at the Olympic games, for instance. Precisely, this dimension of “settling accounts,” that

is, of posterior evaluation of the individual and legal trial is what makes these homecoming events

relevant for the study of international criminal law.

The celebratory homecoming of Momcˇilo Krajisˇnik was one of the several similar events orga-

nized for ICTY defendants (both those who were convicted and those who were acquitted) in the

Yugoslav successor states after the end of the trial and/or imprisonment, garnering large attention by

the local media. For instance, the welcoming events for Ante Gotovina in Croatia (Vukusˇic´, 2014)

and Vladimir Lazarevic´ in Serbia (Blagojevic´ & Mihajlovic´ , 2015) were public and celebratory.

Although this phenomenon occurred in virtually all of the countries to which ICTY defendants

returned, I am examining only cases of individuals from BH, which, because of its ethnic complex-

ity, encapsulates the dynamics characteristic of the whole region of the former Yugoslavia. Drawing

on a representative sample of cases relating to BH (i.e., defendants from the three warring sides and

media reports from the three ethnically divided media spheres), this article explores the meanings

media reports attribute to these homecomings as well as what is neglected in the media coverage.

Bearing in mind the importance played by media in transitional justice processes (Hodz

ˇic´ & Tolbert,

2016; Laplante, 2015; Price & Stremlau, 2012), the aim is to provide a nuanced understanding of

how media paint the picture of the returning defendant and his or her reception by the community,

once, presumably, justice has been done. As has been previously noted by scholars, the topic of “life

Mihajlovic

´Trbovc 407