Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial. Eric Gordy

Milošević over the weekend of 31 March–1 April 2001, a series of public opinion surveys were conducted, generally around the question of arrest and prosecution of war crimes suspects, but with a particular focus on the figure of Milošević and the question whether he ought to be tried in Serbia, extradited to ICTY, or both.

      The results of these surveys are contradictory, and consequently it is not a simple matter to get a picture of the state of public opinion from them. From the point of view of survey research methodology, this is not surprising: surveys are least reliable in unstable political environments, particularly when the questions deal with matters of great sensitivity. There has also been extensive discussion about the weakness of survey research in the states of the former Yugoslavia in particular, especially because in the period since 2000 surveys generally failed to predict the results of elections.³ It is worth pointing out, too, that many of these surveys dealt with matters on which there was rapid change both in the surrounding situation and in the way media publicity was carried out. These are also sensitive and complex matters for which surveys might not be the most appropriate instrument.

      One possible explanation for the lack of clarity in survey results might simply be that opinion was still in formation, or was in transition, with regard to several of the questions asked. It may be possible to make a more ambitious suggestion that after decades of varying types of authoritarian rule, public opinion itself was still in a formative stage in Serbia in 2001. This suggestion was offered by sociologist Stjepan Gredelj in presenting the results of a general survey, when he presented among his conclusions that “at last something is changing in Serbian public opinion, and at last critical thought is appearing.”⁴

      In relation to known or suspected perpetrators, particularly people who held positions of power in the Milošević regime (as well as Milošević himself), there seemed to have been a general consensus that they ought to be charged and tried. There was somewhat less of a consensus on the question of what they ought to be charged with and tried for, with some people emphasizing offenses against the domestic criminal code, and others emphasizing offenses against international law. Opinion became sharply divided over the question of whether they should be tried in domestic courts or extradited to ICTY, although over the first half of 2001 a majority seemed to be developing, arguing that the former rulers ought to be tried both by domestic courts and ICTY. Some discussion was promoted in 2001 (among others by Serbian premier Zoran Djindjić) of an arrangement whereby charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity could be heard in Belgrade, with some level of official participation by ICTY prosecutors and judges.⁵ In general, however, while there continued to be strong resistance to ICTY, the position of complete rejection seemed to become a less popular one, held mostly by nationalists and supporters of the former regime, during the course of 2001.⁶

      An informal online survey by the daily newspaper Večernje novosti asked the question, “Do you think that the arrest of the former president of SRJ Slobodan Milošević was justified?” and found 66 percent answering yes and 34 percent no.⁷ While these results are as reliable as the results of any nonscientific online survey with a nonrandom sample, the readership of Novosti is nonrandom in an interesting way: the paper was not only the most prominent pro-regime paper in the 1990s (together with Politika), its readership was also demographically closest to Milošević’s base of support (older, less educated, rural).⁸

      However, other surveys produced contradictory results. A survey released in May 2001 by the Strategic Marketing agency, Seeing the Truth in Serbia (Vidjenje istine u Srbiji), found that more people blamed the United States than Milošević for the bombing campaign of 1999, and more people blamed former Croatian president Franjo Tudjman than Milošević for the fall of Yugoslavia. The same survey also found that respondents identified the indicted war criminals Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić,Željko Ražnatović, and Slobodan Milošević as the “greatest defenders of Serbhood.”⁹ These results suggest methodological rather than political problems: respondents were asked about immediate “responsibility” for particular events rather than situations, and responded consistently. Similarly, the list of “defenders of Serbhood” gives the appearance of demonstrating more support for the indictees named than probably existed, since only people (and we do not know how large a group this is, although election results tell us it is a minority) who accept the nationalist ideas of the regime represented by the names on the list would be likely to offer any answer at all to a phrase like “defenders of Serbhood.”¹⁰ It is probably unnecessary to point out that respondents who were not ethnically Serbian (35 percent of the population of Serbia in the 1990 census) may not have automatically regarded the category in a positive light.

      The Strategic Marketing Survey of May 2001 is primarily interesting for the contradictory nature of several of its results. It gave pessimistic findings in relation to the possibility of reconciliation, with 21 percent of respondents aged between eighteen and twenty-nine, and 34.6 percent of those over sixty, declaring they were completely unprepared for reconciliation. Similarly, 29.4 percent of respondents between eighteen and twenty-nine and 44.2 percent of those over sixty expressed extreme distrust toward members of other national groups.¹¹

      On questions related to responsibility, respondents in the survey showed a marked tendency to project responsibility onto factors far from themselves. For example, asked to name the most important reason for NATO intervention against SRJ in 1999, 29.8 percent named “the policy of the Milošević regime,” while 55.2 percent identified either the political or economic “interest of the West.”¹² The factor of distance applies on comparative scales as well. Asked to choose between two options for “guilt for misfortune,” respondents named Slovenes (45.3 percent) more than Serbs (10.8 percent), the United States (27.3 percent) more than NATO (25.2 percent), the “international community” (44.8 percent) more than “all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia” (20.5 percent), Milošević (42 percent) more than “the people who elected him” (17.6 percent), and the interests of international business (53.7 percent) more than the interests of domestic business (11.2 percent).¹³

      This form of projection did not necessarily arise from ignorance about the behavior of Serb military and paramilitary forces in the wars. Asked to name three events “which first come to mind” in relation to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the three most frequent responses were atrocities committed by Serb forces: the mortar attack on the Markale market in Sarajevo (48.1 percent), the siege of Sarajevo (28.8 percent), and the massacre in Srebrenica (21.3 percent). Respondents named atrocities committed by other forces far less frequently: the bombing and destruction of the bridge in Mostar (12.7 percent), the sniper attack on the Serb wedding party in Sarajevo in 1991 (12.6 percent), and general “crimes against Serb civilians” (7.2 percent).¹⁴ However, this pattern did not apply when the same question was asked about the war in Croatia. Although the siege of Vukovar was the second most frequently offered response (53.1 percent), actions on the part of Croat forces were dominant, such as the reconquest of the Knin region (55.3 percent) and the arrival of refugees from Croatia (30.5 percent). Only 5.3 percent of respondents named the bombardment of Dubrovnik.¹⁵ Asked to identify three war crimes committed by Serbs in the preceding ten years, a large majority named the massacre in Srebrenica (69.4 percent), while large numbers named the destruction of Vukovar (31.4 percent) and the massacre in Račak (18.6 percent).¹⁶ Results were more spread out when respondents were asked to name war crimes committed against Serbs: the three most frequent responses were the exodus of Serbs from Croatia (49.1 percent), the NATO bombing (35.4 percent), and the “suffering of civilians in Kosovo” (16.2 percent).¹⁷

      A curious contradiction emerged with regard to the question of knowledge. The preceding results suggest that knowledge of at least some events was widespread in Serbia. At the same time, when asked directly, respondents did not indicate that they believed they were well informed: 22.3 percent of respondents considered themselves well informed about the wars in Croatia, while 19.4 percent considered themselves well informed about the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina.¹⁸ Nor did respondents indicate that they believed their fellow citizens were well informed.¹⁹

      However, when asked the long and possibly confusing question, “Has it ever happened that a new fact which you have learned from any source about