Angelina Jolie Photo: Slobodna Dalmacija
According to the Guardian’s article Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut “In the Land of Blood and Honey was intended to remind the world of the horrors of the Bosnian war which began 20 years ago, and trigger a debate among Bosnians over what happened and why. But it has succeeded most in exposing the depth of the rifts in a country that many fear is moving away from reconciliation and drifting once more towards dangerous instability. Since the film opened, with a peace award at the Berlin film festival on Monday (13 February 2012) and a premiere before 5,000 people in Sarajevo on Tuesday night, Jolie and several Serbian members of the cast have received threats.
In the Land of Blood and Honey is a stark, brutal and often shocking portrayal of the war. It shows summary executions and the systematic rape of Muslim and Croat women by Serbian officers at one of the many camps set up around the country.
An estimated 100,000 people were killed in the war, 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered at Srebrenica in 1995, which the Hague tribunal has declared an act of genocide.
The current Bosnian Serb leadership rejects the findings of the tribunal and other international investigations, and Jolie’s film is not being shown in the Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity which makes up more than half of Bosnia.”
Republika Srpska (Serbian Republic) arose from within the borders of the former Yugoslav state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and it’s “birth” is soaked in genocidal blood and horrors of the 1990’s wars when Croatian and Bosnian Serbs and the Serb-led Yugoslav Army mounted terrible aggression in order to stop the secession of Croatia and Bosnia from communist Yugoslavia. It is, therefore, no surprise that Bosnian Serbs have hostile attitudes towards Jolie’s movie. One can safely conclude that Serbs don’t want the world to know or imagine more about their horrors.
Critics, including renowned Serbian film director Emir Kusturica, “alleged that Jolie unfairly had depicted ethnic Serbs as sole aggressors in the war and associated ethnic-cleansing campaigns. Kusturica told Serbian daily Blic that Jolie’s new film was a work of Hollywood propaganda.”
Does it really matter whether it’s propaganda or not?
In all its history, movie making has been about bringing to the world portrayals of factual as well as fictional events. Jolie has brought a factual story of horror told by fictional characters. There’s no propaganda in that. But even if it were propaganda then it’s high time for more of it because justice has not yet been served to all the innocent victims, and especially not to rape victims in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
So, I say: “good on you, Angelina! Now make a movie on the thousands upon thousands of rape victims in Croatia because Croatian women who were raped by the Serbs during the 1990’s war still await their justice. But worse than that, they are forced to live in the same community as their rapists (e.g. in Vukovar) because the international community, particularly the European Union, has been pushing for the return to Croatia of Serbs who fled the country in 1995 without insisting on justice and conditions that Serbs need to meet if they wish to rehabilitate themselves back into the country which they so brutally ravaged.
Attending the Croatian premiere of the movie in Zagreb, Croatia, Friday February 17, Jolie said: “I hope that my film will throw a light upon this region, that people will come and travel here, be excited by your beautiful country and artists that inspire”. When, on the red carpet, asked why she made the movie she replied: “It was the bloodiest conflict since WWII, and I felt that I did not know anything about it, like many people in other countries. People here have suffered enormous agonies and are still suffering through much. International community needs to continue helping them.”
Let’s hope that Jolie’s movie will trigger more investigations and prosecution of all rapists from the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While Serb rapists from Bosnia have maintained a relatively safe haven from prosecution within the Serbian Republic and Serbia, in Croatia most roam freely because the international community insists on their return to Croatia. While the ICTY in the Hague has included rape as a war crime, only the individuals who are before it get to answer for it. The majority of the rapists are still at large and much more needs to be done for justice to be served. Every bit helps and Jolie’s film may well trigger some blood into a boiling point that will see an increased number of criminal investigations and criminal trials for rape, wherever the rapists may be – even in “Western” countries where many live normal lives as refugees from former Yugoslavia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A. Ps. (Syd)