for violations of international law, it might be instructive to explore some indirect avenues toward the question.
In the first place, institutions that might deal with questions of guilt had weak credibility at the end of the Communist period and continued to be largely discredited afterward. In 1999 a survey indicated that just 23 percent of citizens expressed faith in the judiciary as opposed to 45 percent who did not.25 This put the judiciary well behind institutions with traditional authority (65 percent trusted the military and 14 percent did not; 56 percent trusted the Church and 18 percent did not), and behind some other institutions remarkable for their corruption and lack of credibility (the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts was trusted by 45 percent and distrusted by 18 percent, police were trusted by 39 percent and distrusted by 35 percent).26 Yet the judiciary “scored” higher than political institutions, whose authority was rejected in the survey by majorities ranging from 51 percent (opposition parties) to 62 percent (ruling parties).
In relation to institutions that could approach questions of responsibility more informally, traditional institutions like the military and the Church enjoyed relatively high levels of public trust. The military was, however, poorly positioned to engage in an exploration of the recent past because of its extensive complicity in the worst events of the period. The same could be said for the Church.27 Media were similarly distrusted, privately run media (trusted by 19 percent, distrusted by 37 percent) somewhat less than state-run media (16 percent, 61 percent).28 Perhaps in searching for institutions that could be helpful in addressing psychic and emotional needs related to responsibility, a residual high level of trust was still enjoyed only by cultural and educational institutions.
These general points regarding perceptions of institutions, though, are at best signpoints along the way to the fundamental question, which is how people perceived themselves in the light of the experience all of them shared to some degree. Some interesting research has linked the power of nationalist mobilization to the various dimensions of personal powerlessness people felt during the declining years of SFRJ.29 This current of research continues a trend of general lack of hope for the future already noted in the 1960s, but which became overwhelming in Serbia in the 1990s.30 A meaningful change in feelings of hope and self-efficacy would not be likely to occur without major changes in social and material conditions, but also without a fundamental transformation of values and self-perceptions. Such processes are neither impossible nor unknown, but they occur slowly and subtly, and are unlikely to be massive. In this regard, public opinion surveys are unlikely to be of much help at all. The indicators we are after are mostly cultural in character.
What this early snapshot of public opinion probably does show is that Serbian society in 2001 was neither wholly prepared for the confrontation with the past that was being demanded of it nor did it entirely reject the idea. There were institutional weaknesses that made a quick engagement less probable (if quick engagement was indeed ever probable): these included a political and legal establishment with severely degraded credibility, a media system largely discredited for a variety of reasons, and institutions of traditional authority with severe restrictions on their capacity for active engagement.
The data also suggest that any efforts or initiatives to promote campaigns for public engagement would have had to meet several conditions in order to succeed. They would have to be perceived as having their origins in the society rather than being imposed from without. Within the society, they would have to be perceived as originating from or involving institutions with meaningful public credibility. They would have to be perceived as taking into account not only calls for regret but also sources of grievance. And they would have to involve, not only authoritative sources directing discourse toward the public, but active exchange of discourse among the public.
Further on in the text, analysis of the work of ICTY and related initiatives will show that these efforts did not meet the conditions described above and so did not make the expected contribution to the process of developing a discourse around guilt and responsibility. In this regard, they were not helped by a political and institutional structure that was either unprepared for the challenge or declined to take it up. This meant that much of the work of developing an understanding of the recent past took place not in the field of politics and law, but in that of culture.
If the surveys cited so far have offered representations of latent or existing public opinion around 2001, the explorations in the following chapter draw on cultural expression to get at what might have been emergent public opinion.
Chapter 3
Moment I: The Leader Is Not Invincible
The previous chapter indicated that public opinion surveys offer at best a mixed view of the state of public opinion just after the end of the Milošević regime. Part of the reason for this may be that opinion was in fact mixed, as could be expected in a period when a strongly ideologized form of control of information was coming to an end, and when uncertainty remained regarding what might follow. Another part of the reason may be that opinion was still in formation, just as political institutions and the parties and movements that would influence them were also in formation. Many of the perceptions and understandings that would become important in the years to follow were in negotiation in this period. While it may be uncertain what perspectives were dominant in 2001, contention between residual and emergent perspectives was clearly visible.1
This chapter explores some of the negotiation that took place around these perspectives by examining two cultural-political moments: (1) the discussion of the arrest of Slobodan Milošević at the end of March 2001, the moment at which it became clear that the former absolute ruler was neither untouchable nor invincible;2 and (2) the emergence of the literary genre of “regime memoirs,” in which writers would, using diary, fiction, and polemic, generate an account of the meaning of the period that had just ended.3 It was in cultural sites like these that positions and themes were elaborated that would come to define the discussion over the following decade.
Initial Responses to the Arrest of Milošević
As criminal investigations commenced following the inauguration of Serbia’s government in January 2001, major political actors frequently insisted, sometimes instrumentally, on the independence of prosecutorial and investigatory agencies. This was clear when Vojislav Koštunica refused (before, several days later, relenting) to meet with Carla Del Ponte, chief ICTY prosecutor, claiming that cooperation with the Tribunal was not a responsibility of the federal president. The ministers who met with Del Ponte echoed the arguments about separation of powers. When the U.S. government imposed a deadline of 31 March 2001, by which time Milošević had to be arrested or economic aid would be blocked, several Serbian government representatives argued that they could not order police to make an arrest or complete an investigation without compromising the independence of law enforcement.
Milošević was arrested nevertheless, just in time to meet the deadline—an event that marks a symbolic break, consolidating the power of the incoming regime. It is one thing to defeat an opponent politically, and quite another to hold this opponent politically responsible, to puncture the perception, built up over years, that he is above the law. Nobody who saw Milošević driven off to the Belgrade central prison believed afterward in the myth of his invincibility.
The government that carried out the arrest spoke about it very little while it was taking place and immediately afterward. Many government figures either would not give information or, in Koštunica’s case, did not seem to know themselves what was happening.4 One vice-president,Žarko Korać, was shown around the world claiming, inaccurately, that Milošević had already been arrested half a day before he was. Federal premier Zoran Žižić declared that the arrest “is not under the jurisdiction of the federal government.”5 Prime minister Zoran Djindjić told reporters that he had not been following events on the night of 31 March, but had been
