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Salzburg Global Fellow Sonja Biserko explores the theme of  "Democracy on the Front Lines" through her experience in former Yugoslavia

This op-ed is part of a series, written by Fellows and speakers of the Salzburg Global Weekend, with the theme "Democracy on the Front Lines".

The brutal war and breakup of Yugoslavia fundamentally changed my life. They placed in front of me different priorities and challenges, as they did for millions of Yugoslavs.

I had worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was probably the most liberal federal institution in Yugoslavia. Despite this, the Yugoslav leadership, even its pro-European part, failed to understand dramatic historical development and acted by inertia. 

After the failure of the Hague Conference in 1991, which was an attempt to maintain the Yugoslav state framework, I left the Ministry and joined the anti-war movement. Although not massive, it raised its voice against Belgrade's aggression leading to the collapse of the country that many in the West had considered to be the best candidate for a democratic transition. In that respect, Yugoslavia was offered several options.

The war decade, 1990 to 2000, became the reason for my subsequent actions, primarily through the Helsinki Committee (HC) for Human Rights in Serbia. It was founded in 1994 as one of the successors of the Yugoslav Helsinki Committee. 

The challenges were grave and numerous for us and many other newly founded NGOs dealing with the aftermath of the war. We were involved in many HR issues. Still, I want to single out our work with the refugees. In the war, ethnic cleansing was used as an instrument to create ethnically pure territories. Refugees from Croatia were a specific case. Their exodus was organized by Belgrade, while Zagreb gladly accepted and supported it. 

Our main goal was to help them return home. And we organized it through the project I WANT TO GO HOME. The project was not supported either by Belgrade or by Zagreb, nor the international community. The latter had already tacitly accepted the local leaders’ fallacy that "we cannot live together". 

From 2000 to 2012, my focus was on the cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and dealing with the past. In addition to the HR issues, the Helsinki Committee focused on a thorough analysis and critique of the Serbian imperial nationalism and its perniciousness not only for the region, but also for Serbia itself. At that juncture, both I personally, but also the HC, were under extreme political pressure. Still, we have managed to publish hundreds (to date, over 170) of reports, publications and books on those topics. They have become indispensable in the study of Serbia’s policies and war effects in the last decade of the 20th century. 

Nevertheless, that period also marked a step forward in the political environment despite the difficult legacy of Milošević and the criminalization of all institutions, especially the judiciary, the police and the army. All the accused war criminals were handed over to The Hague Tribunal, including Slobodan Milošević. Public dialogue started over time to the fierce opposition from the academia, the church and most political parties. Then, the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić brutally exposed the true nature of the undemocratic rule which has continued to this day.

Thus, my deliberations and activities today take place in what I consider as the third period in my human rights defender (HRDs) work. The period began with the emergence of the Serbian Progressive Party and its undisputed leader, Aleksandar Vučić. Having presented himself in the beginning as a pro-European politician and enjoying the support of the West, over the decade he has moved to authoritarianism, steeped in the politics and propaganda of the 1980s. 

Today’s revived Serbian aspirations to “a unified Serbian World” echo, as evidenced by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, a similar Russian vision of a “unified Russian World”. A part of “the Serbian World” narrative relates Kosovo as the mythological “cradle of Serbia”. I have been active in Kosovo for thirty years and hope that this last phase of Yugoslav disintegration - and the Serbian colonization - will not be further delayed.

All this has given a new urgency to my activities, as well as to the whole civil sector in Serbia. For ten years now I have been working on the HC’s strategic project - Yugoslavia History. We have gathered several dozens of eminent historians, researchers and experts from all over the region to put together a scholarly, objective insight into Yugoslavia, its relevance as a multinational state project, and its cultural and overall legacy, and the vanguard of multilateralism in the world.
In the long run, I believe, the two published books and the planned third will become an indispensible reference for all those interested in the twists and turns of history in this part of Europe.

In conclusion, I want to stress that the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia was emotionally shocking for each of us because our collective and individual losses were devastating. It was not just the collapse of the country. It was also the collapse of the vision on which my generation had grown up. We witnessed the most egregious crimes against human rights. It was as agonizing as it is agonizing watching today the horror that Russia has brought upon the Ukrainian people. The great support that I got internationally from many quarters and from many prominent individuals encouraged and sustained us morally, and, ultimately, ensured our safety.

Of course, personally and professionally I would not have been able to withstand all the ordeals without the support and cooperation on the part of my close collaborators. We all acted like one family and have remained so. Many older antifascists saw in us their successors. Because, indeed, what we did was resisting Belgrade’s rabid nationalism and imperialism.

Finally, all my activities, my commitment and dedication to the defence of human rights and freedoms in Serbia  - but also in Kosovo, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Northern Macedonia where the pernicious presence of Serbia is still present - have their origin in my deep anguish over the civilizational, political, social and cultural decline of the country, the rebirth of nationalism and authoritarianism, the policies which have destroyed peace and progress in the region and moved Serbia wide apart from the European family of nations. Despite all the efforts on the part of the EU and the US to help the democratic transition, the fundamental change can only come through the efforts of the society itself. We have a long way to go.

Sonja Biserko is a Serbian campaigner for human rights. She is the founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Established in 1994, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia began its mission at the time nationalism had not only culminated in disastrous wars, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide in the territory of Yugoslavia, but also in massive human rights violations in Serbia proper. On 8 May 2013, she was appointed as a member of the United Nations human rights investigation into North Korea, with Michael Kirby and Marzuki Darusman. Sonja is a Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar.