No Regrets

Autor: Julienne Bušić

Peaceful co-existence, if it is to succeed, requires an expression of regret, remorse, and repentence from the aggressors. This has not occurred, even twenty years after the war.

One of the most highly publicized cases of clemency involved 19 year old Patricia Campbell Hearst, heiress to the Hearst Publishing empire. Taken hostage in 1974 by a group calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army, she was held for several months blindfolded and handcuffed, imprisoned in a narrow closet, and physically and sexually abused, after which she “joined” their cause and participated in an armed bank robbery. She and several other gang members were ultimately arrested and Patricia was formally charged for the bank robbery, even though, once out of the custody of the SLA, she recanted statements she had made in support of their “revolutionary” goals. In spite of expert witness testimony that she exhibited all the signs of having been brainwashed, she was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to 35 years. It was later modified to seven years, but there was still an uproar among her supporters, who began a letter writing campaign to then President Jimmy Carter to grant her clemency or a full pardon. They cited the cases of professional soldiers, who were trained to withstand these same brainwashing techniques, yet often signed statements under duress supporting their enemies or admitting to crimes they had not committed. If trained soldiers succumbed, how could one expect a 19 year old university student with little or no life experience to do otherwise? It was a compelling argument. People sporting T-shirts with Patricia’s picture, and the phrase “Pardon me!” printed on the front, began to appear all around the country. This was a miscarriage of justice! This was a violation of common logic! Something was terribly wrong with the judicial system!

Of course it helped that Patricia’s family owned a huge publishing empire to publicize her case, including 15 daily newspapers and 38 weekly newspapers; for example, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, the Connecticut Post, and the San Antonio Express, plus several magazines and cable TV channels. Nonetheless, the merits of her case, heiress or no heiress, garnered wide support around the world, and President Jimmy Carter was finally persuaded to grant her a clemency in January 1979, after she had served 21 months of her seven year sentence. Her conviction remained on her record until President Bill Clinton pardoned her and 140 others on his last day in office.

Other instances of amnesty raise the question of elemental justice

In contrast to clemencies and pardons, there is another legislative or executive act that goes even farther: amnesty (from the Greek word for “oblivion”, which conveniently shares the same root as “amnesia”) An amnesty not only restores those who may have been guilty for a criminal act to the positions of innocent people, but it removes all legal mention of the act, as though it had never occurred. The reasons are usually pragmatic. When large numbers of people are involved, it is often more important to bring them into conformity with the law than to punish them for past offenses, as it spares the government the costs of mass prosecutions and encourages lawbreakers who otherwise would have eluded authorities to come forward. Some typical examples are the surrender of illegal weapons, or even overdue library books. Amnesty was also granted to American conscientious objectors and draft dodgers during the Vietnam War, as an effort by President Carter to “heal war wounds.”

On the other hand, other instances of amnesty raise the question of elemental justice, as it can be seen as implying a certain impunity, in that individuals or groups can commit acts of atrocity and refuse to stop unless amnesty is granted (which allegedly occurred during the Homeland War, according to several sources, when Radovan Karadzic was promised amnesty if he and his cohorts ceased their murderous aggression). It has nonetheless been used in numerous cases as an element of conflict resolution: the Ugandan insurgent, Joseph Kony, who has been involved in the slaughter of countless innocents, and participated in widespread criminal activities against the government and his own people, was offered amnesty in 2007. According to a Foreign Military Studies report, „the litany of his crimes against humanity does not end with murder. The „Lord’s Liberation Army“, LRA, launched numerous raids across northern Uganda, abducting children along the way. The captured boys serve as soldiers and are forced to participate in acts of torture as well as execution-style murders of would-be escapees. Many of the girls serve a life of forced sexual slavery as ‘wives’ of the LRA commanders, often becoming pregnant and giving birth in the bush. Some are sold into bondage.“ And the Khmer Rouge, to cite another example, who were responsible for almost two million deaths in what are known as the „killing fields“ of Cambodia, were given amnesty in 1994, as were members of the junta in Argentina, whose actions resulted in the disappearance and presumed deaths of over 30,000 people. (Interestingly, this blanket amnesty was recently repealed in the interests of justice.) And even in a currently ongoing conflict, Iraq, amnesty has been offered to the insurgents so that they might cease their violence and participate in „democracy-building“, so far unsuccessfully.

The defenders have truth on their side

The same form of „conflict resolution“ was applied toward rebel Serbs in the Republic of Croatia after the end of the Homeland War, the rationale being to create conditions for a peaceful co-existence between formerly warring factions; that is, between the aggressors and the victims. However, this utopian vision has proven to be, well, utopian. Peaceful co-existence, if it is to succeed, requires an expression of regret, remorse, and repentence from the aggressors. This is what happened when South Africa instituted the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, during which the perpetrators of apartheid admitted their crimes and asked for forgiveness from their victims. They weren’t required to go to prison, but they were forced to come to terms with what they had done, to expose themselves to the judgment of the entire civilized world. It is the bare minimum. This has not occurred, even twenty years after the war, the most recent example being just two days ago in a statement by the Serbian Prosecutor for War Crimes, Vladimir Vukcevic, on „Hrvatska uzivo.“ Commenting on the wave of legal complaints filed by hundreds of former defenders who had been tortured, raped, and abused in scores of Serbian concentration camps,Vukcevic says coldly „if they are true….“, „if they are accurate“, implying that the experiences of hundreds of defenders, many still suffering from PTSP, scores now dead by their own hand because the memories, the suffering, were simply too great to endure, were simply fantasies. The same goes for the concentration camps, the existence of which has been denied by Serbian officials. Meanwhile, aggressive lawsuits against their victims have been filed, among them Tihomir Purda. This, unfortunately, is not the material of „peaceful co-existence.“ In the absence of regret, remorse, and repentence, defenders organizations have demanded from the government the abolition of amnesty, and have begun collecting signatures around the country. „With this petition, we ask that Serbs who have committed crimes against Croatians answer for their crimes, because some have been granted amnesty for the uprising, but not for war crimes, which have no statute of limitations“ said the secretary of one of the many groups involved. „We call upon all citizens to sign, and for all defenders who have suffered torture in Serbian camps to submit their information and file a complaint with the District Attorney’s office so that they can be included in a class action lawsuit.“




I am reminded here of a quote from J.M. Coetzee’s book, „Waiting for the Barbarians“: „Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt. “The defenders, therefore, have truth on their side. There’s no doubt about that.

Autor:Julienne Bušić
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