Interview – Marko Attila Hoare: Genocide Not About Numbers

In an interview with BIRN, Hoare explained that in the past, historians had an image of genocide from the Holocaust, where millions of people were killed systematically: “The intent was that absolutely every member of the group be killed and that there be no survivors.”

But the Hague Tribunal’s verdicts in its Srebrenica cases offered a new perception of the crime.

“Thanks to the recent decisions on genocide, we can see now that a type of genocide can occur in a municipality, in one locality, where less people are killed in comparison to the total programme of annihilation of the Holocaust,” said Hoare, who worked for the Hague prosecution for seven months as an investigator.

Even though he believes that the Hague Tribunal achieved limited results, he said that what the court found in regard to the Srebrenica genocide is important.

“Of course, the problem with this discussion is that you won’t find two genocide researchers with the same definition of genocide. So, if you have a narrow understanding of genocide, than you will say that a massacre such as the one in Srebrenica is not really genocide, but if you have a broader understanding – as I do – then you can say that not only is Srebrenica genocide, but also what happened [in 1992] in Prijedor and Zvornik and other places is,” says Hoare.

As regards crimes in other parts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hoare believes that there was sufficient evidence to charge individuals with genocide, but that the type of crimes in Srebrenica fitted more closely with the more traditional understanding of genocide.

“Considering that the perpetrators aimed to kill every combat-age male member of the group, broadly defined, and not leave any survivors, this fits more closely with the narrow definition of genocide than earlier massacres in which a very large number of men were tortured or expelled, but not necessarily murdered,” he said.

He claims that genocide is not about numbers – instead it is important to prove the intent to destroy a certain group of people. Killings, according to Hoare, are only one way to achieve such a goal.

“If you look at the international legal definition of genocide, it does not say just killing as a type of crime, but also stopping births within a group. So in theory you could commit genocide without killing anyone if you sterilise all members of a group. So genocide is not a matter of numbers, but the intent to destroy a group,” Hoare says.

Genocide was proven in a courtroom for the first time at the UN’s international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Hoare believes that the tribunal for Rwanda was more successful in terms of convicting to key players, but not in general.

“When we compare the two tribunals, as a Yugoslav expert I believe ours was less successful, but when I spoke with a Rwanda expert recently they thought theirs was less successful. I think in Rwanda they had an easier job, the genocide case was easier to prove, a lot more people were killed and it was easier for lawyers to argue this was in fact genocide,” he said.

He added that lawyers in the Rwanda tribunal faced a defeated system, while the Yugoslav court had to deal with leaderships in Serbia, Republika Srpska and Croatia which were still in power.

While he was working for the Hague prosecution as an investigator, Hoare said that prosecutors had differing views about how to develop a strategy to indict suspects and secure convictions.

“The question was whether we charge suspects with lesser crimes than genocide, which would be easier to prove and make it easier for the prosecution to assure a conviction. In this case the Hague prosecution’s role was to achieve convictions, but if you wanted to prove genocide took place, then that was much harder to achieve,” he concluded.

As an investigator, Hoare focused on command structures in Serbia, especially with the role of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in the Bosnian conflict.

“It was difficult to think of what would convince the judges that Milosevic was in fact guilty of these crimes. For instance, as president of Serbia he did not have formal control over Yugoslav People’s Army forces, but despite this, Serbia and Montenegro had control over the army,” he recalled.

“So, even though we could prove there was direct control by these two republics and the army, we could not link Milosevic personally directly to the crimes. Even though from this perspective, his control over the army seems clear, we had to find clear and concrete evidence,” he said.