CONCLUSION

Human Rights Watch/Helsinki supports the concept of projects to assist ordinary people and provide jobs for citizens of Republika Srpska and the Prijedor area, but is concerned that well-intentioned assistance programs are serving to financially reward those persons who participated in war crimes and who actively seek to obstruct the Dayton agreement, particularly those provisions relating to human rights and return of refugees and displaced persons. While economic assistance is important in the rebuilding of a civil society in Bosnia and Hercegovina, it is unconscionable that public funds should financially reward, to any extent, those suspected of committing atrocities or those involved in other criminal activities.

Among the projects funded by British ODA are some very worthwhile projects, but because so many local businesses were taken over by the illicit (not legally elected) authorities in Prijedor, the infusion of large sums of money into Prijedor is not only unsound business practice, but is also unethical.

While it is important to presume innocence in a legal sense, neither indictment nor conviction are required in order to exercise good judgment in distribution of reconstruction aid. There is no requirement that donors give money to anyone. Donors and international organizations involved in the rebuilding of Bosnia and Hercegovina have an obligation to consider the events of the war in their dealings with the authorities. Further, while it is true that rumors abound in Bosnia and Hercegovina, the allegations made against Drljaca, Stakic and others in the Prijedor area are based on considerable evidence, including the substantial preliminary work done by the United NationsCommission of Experts, the testimonies of many victims and witnesses, and numerous news accounts from journalists who had direct contact with these individuals. It may take a considerable amount of time for the ICTY to complete its investigations and indict individuals believed responsible for war crimes. It is also likely that many war criminals will never be brought to justice. There is no requirement in the meantime that aid agencies do business with persons under suspicion of war crimes. Instead, the international community should be pressuring the entity governments to enforce the law when these officials are engaged in organized crime or corruption, and should work toward the removal of persons who have clearly obstructed the implementation of the Dayton agreement or have admitted to participation (as have Stakic and Drljaca) in the creation and management of concentration camps. By insisting on viewing those who illicitly came to power in Prijedor through a distorted lens of objectivity, the international community is essentially engaging in revisionism and is diminishing the gravity of their crimes.219

The fact that money contributed in good faith by donors to assist ordinary people is to any degree lining the pockets of persons like Stakic and Drljaca, who engaged in or advocated "ethnic cleansing", murder, torture and rape; who forced thousands into concentration camps where they were treated with brutality and/or murdered, who stole millions from the local non-Serb population, and who have been actively obstructing the Dayton agreement, leads to questions about the failure of the international community to address the real problem. In this situation, as in the wartime conditions that preceded it, neglect of underlying human rights abuses only encourages ongoing intimidation and undermines the prospects for justice in the future.