The Dispatch: Featuring Kip Hale
For our April edition of The Dispatch, The Reckoning Project’s monthly column, Chief of Staff, Kip Hale, reflects on his early work at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the testimony that continues to inform how we think about accountability at TRP. Read his piece below:
By: Christopher 'Kip' Hale
It was the summer of 2006 when I started my internship in the Trial Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, The Netherlands. I was assigned to a Srebrenica, Bosnia case, specifically Popović et al., which was, and remains, the largest multiple accused genocide case in the history of international law. Lost in the excitement of such an opportunity in the field of international criminal justice, little did I know that one of my supervisor’s first assignments would become one of the most impactful of my career.
Without getting too much into the proverbial weeds of ICTY procedures, the assignment given to me was to review hundreds of pages of witness testimony from previous Srebrenica trials at the ICTY for the purpose of helping the judges determine if those transcripts could be submitted into evidence without the need to recall the witnesses, or whether they needed to be recalled for new in-court testimony so as to respect the defendants’ right to cross-examination. Over the course of the following weeks, I reviewed the transcripts of numerous previous witnesses, poring over some of the most traumatic parts of their lives. Among the pages of harrowing testimony, one account stood out from a Bosnian Muslim man in his mid-fifties who was one of thousands rounded up by Bosnian Serbs for, among other crimes, illegal detention, torture and other degrading treatment, and summary execution.
His account described days of such abuses that often left him bloody, unconscious, and broken in body and mind, especially after going through several mock executions. After enduring days of such treatment, he was put into the back of a pickup truck for what he believed would be his ultimate demise as the truck parked near a remote field hidden in the forest. As his captors exited the vehicle, he jumped out the back of the pickup truck, using the car as a shield between them and him. He then escaped into the woods while the Bosnian Serb militiamen chased him into the night. During his flight, the blindfold and blood streaming down his face made it hard to see clearly, leading him to fall down a steep hill, ultimately landing in a small stream.
It was at this point in the testimony that a prosecutor asked the man what he was thinking at that time and what he was planning to do next. What the Bosnian Muslim man said in return was so profound. To paraphrase, he said that he was not overly concerned about where the militiamen were, but rather that all he could think about, as he cried in the stream, was whether he would see his children again.
What struck me as so powerful in his words was that he was not thinking about the immediacy of the moment, but about his family and the life that was ripped away from him. As my own tears dropped on the transcript, it became so vividly clear to me that at the heart of accountability for atrocity crimes is to bring a measure of justice to the thousands, if not millions, of people, often unnamed, who were victimized by those with power. In other words, to fight for the forgotten and to elevate their plight, thus empowering them to help identify those in positions of power who brought about such death and destruction, all within a credible and fair legal process.
Atrocity crimes (an umbrella term for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression), tear at the very fabric of society, using violence and hatred as politics by other means. If left unchecked, such mass criminality becomes more commonplace, making it increasingly hard to provide safety and security for people or carry out basic governance, among a myriad of other related problems.
It is in this regard that The Reckoning Project stands at the frontline of fighting back against atrocities as acceptable political expression, yet “fighting back” with the rule of law and strategic journalism. As the mantra of the late, great Ben Ferencz – the then-last living Nuremberg prosecutor who was a mentor to me and others – goes, “Law, Not War,” makes so much sense, especially in today’s world where grievances are increasingly settled with just more violence and hatred, undoubtedly sowing the seeds for further conflict. Rather, it is at these moments of societal failings that we choose to respond with the law, as opposed to a noose or the business end of a pistol, do we genuinely start the long but needed process of renewal and building a durable peace. It is this mantra and the thinking behind it that I implore everyone to think about when deciding how we best invest for a better future, not only for victims like this Bosnian Muslim man, but for all of us and our collective future.