The rise of racism and Nazism in Europe presents a challenge to the world as a new global human rights system needs to be built. Dragana Trifkovic, political scientist, director of the Belgrade Center for Geostrategic Studies, and OSCE observer from Serbia, spoke about the first steps in this direction and where the human rights movement was heading in an interview with Russkiy Mir.
ernational Tribunal on Ukraine formed in the spring of this year?
– I visited Donbass as a human rights activist twice: in 2014 and 2015. And I see some striking similarities with the helplessness of civilians in Kosovo and Metohija of the former Yugoslavia and in Donbass. In both cases, I was an international election observer as part of UN and EU missions. And both times I was described as an agent of Belgrade, then of the Kremlin, a Serbian and a Russian terrorist. It was even reported that I had fought in Kosovo and Donbass. As a matter of fact, the only thing I do as an expert is insist that the parties to the conflict are subject to Article 4 of the Geneva Convention. It requires them to protect those who do not take part in armed conflicts. The convention is signed by NATO countries and Ukraine. However, it does not function. These days, there are numerous instances of civilians being forced into armed confrontation by the Kiev authorities. The cities and towns of Donbass are exposed to brutal shelling, just as defenseless cities and towns in Serbia that used to be bombed by NATO. The right of civilians to evacuate has been violated. Russia establishes humanitarian corridors, while Kiev agrees but then rejects them. All these cases should be documented to initiate legal prosecution of the violators of the Geneva Convention.
– Will the pattern of the Nuremberg International Trial be followed?
– I don't think so. It is necessary to use the legal experience of Nuremberg, however, the world is not the same, and the international environment is very different. Russia acts competently being supported by human rights advocates from 20 countries, thus the public International Tribunal on Ukraine has been established. The efforts to document human rights violations and war crimes in Donbas for eight years since 2014 and throughout Ukraine since February 2022 were the foundation for its establishment. We collected many particular facts, including the shelling of civilians, the rise of neo-Nazism, reprisals against priests, the looting of temples, and the establishment of concentration camps and detention centers for torture. They all became the basis for such testimonial books as Euromaidan and Ordinary Fascism: Ukrainian War Crimes and Human Rights Violations. There is also a report titled "War Crimes by Armed Forces and Security Forces of Ukraine: Torture and Inhuman Treatment of Residents of Donbass". The investigative and judicial authorities of the LPR and DPR have already commenced work on their basis. Their mission is to pass legally relevant sentences for the crimes committed. So the purpose of the tribunal is to inform the public and law enforcement bodies as thoroughly as possible.
– Why aren't international platforms of the Council of Europe and the OSCE used by the Tribunal?
– Human rights advocates have submitted the relevant documents to the UN and the OSCE more than a few times. Nevertheless, the documents were not even studied. More than 8,000 documents registered by human rights advocates have been stamped with "Refused by Recipient".
– Then what's the point of applying there?
– It is necessary at least to record the crimes. In fact, Kiev's authorities have been and are following the same pattern of violence against civilians in Donbass that was used in the former Yugoslavia. This is the genocide of the Russian population, which was previously carried out in Iraq, Syria, Libya, the former Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. Obviously, I do not believe that those crimes will be investigated by the Council of Europe. Needless to say, it is essential to establish a new international legal human rights system. And until that exists, the facts of human rights violations on an international scale should at least be recorded by the existing institutions. As a matter of fact, combat formations of the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalists continue to commit crimes in Ukraine. Civilians are used as human shields to support combat operations. Schools and hospitals are turned into defense bases. Robberies and looting are on the rise. The AFU troops do not let refugees out through humanitarian corridors. Prison camps are again being set up to persecute those who favor the Russian army or receive humanitarian aid from it. Tortures and extrajudicial reprisals continue.
– What is your opinion about the first sentences imposed on foreign mercenaries who fought in Donbass and were condemned to death by the courts of the LPR and DPR?
– I hope this is just the beginning because the ECtHR does not function as a general human rights mechanism despite declaring such a role. This is not the first instance. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999 and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and injured, we addressed the Council of Europe with a request to investigate those crimes. We have not received an answer yet. NATO started bombing Serbia without a UN Security Council resolution, so it was against the law. About 15 tons of depleted uranium warheads were dropped on Serbia within 78 days. Currently, we see dramatic spikes in cancer rates among the second generation in the areas exposed to those bombings. The legal appraisal of those crimes has not been provided so far. Later, after 250,000 Serbs were expelled from Kosovo, and the facts of organ harvesting and trafficking were uncovered there, Serbian human rights advocates drew up reports. They included testimonies from civilian victims of the bombings, as well as reports about organ harvesting and trafficking. It was only in 2011, after years of "delays," that the CoE finally accepted the report but only on organ harvesting and trafficking. So far, there has been no progress in handing documents to the ECtHR, let alone investigating them. Nobody has been brought to justice, and 250,000 Serbs are not able to return to Kosovo. That's why the legal firmness of the Donbass Republics encourages me. It suggests a way out of the legal dead end.
– Your evidence about the bombing of Serbia has never been accepted, has it?
– The same situation is faced by human rights advocates of Donbass. CoE and OSCE do not accept reports about the shelling and shooting of civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk both in 2015 and also now, following the forceful detention of civilians as hostages in Mariupol and Severodonetsk.
– Why, do you think, is there such disparagement toward Serbs of Kosovo and Serbia, as well as Russians of Donbass?
– What about Afghans, Syrians, Libyans, and Iraqis? Human rights violations in the EU have become more than just a regular thing. They were caused by vigilante justice against dissenters in the Balkans, the Baltics, Ukraine, and throughout Europe. And this spirit is not condemned by EU institutions, including the European Commission, the CoE, and the OSCE. On the contrary, they scale it down and express anti-Serb attitudes previously and Russophobia today. Not so long ago, the National Institute for Monitoring conducted comprehensive research on confronting the racism issues in Germany. The result confirmed that racism is a social problem in Germany and the EU. Anti-Asian, anti-Muslim, and anti-Slavic attitudes demonstrate rather large-scale sociological trends in Germany. This is not my finding but the result of the research: racism is a reality in a democratic Europe. Racism has become entrenched because society is increasingly fragmented into caste corporations and ethnic enclaves without the slightest trace of social equality between them. One more reason behind it is institutional support for racism in the EU. The media is another issue. They encourage demonstrations of Nazism and racism. We need an alternative mechanism for dealing with them because violation of the 1965 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination has become a regular thing as well.
– Is it possible for a public, even if international, tribunal to challenge racism and Nazism through local national jurisdictions?
– This is the reason why we have established the Public International Tribunal on Ukraine. It is the first move to set up a system of a new human rights movement. The Tribunal is intended to continue its work by collecting information about rights and freedom violations. Then the information will be forwarded to the courts of national jurisdiction. Sooner or later, the offenders will be punished. Another important thing is that lawyers, journalists, and human rights advocates from different countries are involved in the tribunal's activities. There is a small effect of the tribunal's efforts. It has become a public penetration force that helps to build a new information policy replacing the Russophobia frenzy. Incidentally, it is losing ground in the EU. The trends in France, Germany, and even the United States prove this. The problem is being redefined everywhere: why do we have to tolerate rising prices and rampant vandalism of Ukrainian refugees in the EU, whereas, Russians have been persecuted in Ukraine for years simply because they are Russians?
– Do you believe that those responsible for the rise of Nazism will be punished, as it happened at Nuremberg in 1947? I mean, the terror of refugees in the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan remained unpunished.
– Lack of information is one of the reasons. Now the International Tribunal is erecting a wall of legal resistance to the ignorance of violations of people's rights and freedoms. I do believe that this is the first step in creating a new legal framework for the protection of human rights. Another reason is the hand-wringing to local elites that surrender and keep silent on the issue.
– You have stated more than once that Russia is being prepared for the fate of Yugoslavia, and that economic sanctions may be followed by "direct actions". What actions do you mean?
– The West does not have that many resources to affect Russia. External impact, such as "color-coded" revolutions, and sanctions, is not effective. Bombing a nuclear country is not an option. There are still attempts to destroy the country from within, for instance, hacker attacks, corruption, the polarization of the elites, and civil society. However, the sanctions have shown that the economies of Russia, China, and other countries are more robust than those of the United States and the EU. The U.S. keeps printing dollars, which have become less in demand because of Russia's competent policy. And so far, the U.S. has no other strategy but to bomb the dissenters. Meanwhile, they are silent on human rights issues, except for LGBT people. This is a chance for the world to reshape the protection of human rights and freedoms taking into account the sovereign rights and freedoms of countries, as well as their right to have their own concept of freedoms.
July 9, 2022.