Interview of the week – Thomas Obruca: War through the eyes of a child

NÖN: Your book “Ahmici” was recently published. In it you tell the horrors of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the perspective of 13-year-old Adnans. What is “Ahmici” about exactly?
Thomas Obruca: In Ahmici, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on April 16, 1993, a massacre took place that left 116 dead, including women, children and the elderly. Adnan’s parents and sister were murdered in the process. He himself luckily survived, badly wounded, and hid for eight days, not knowing what was happening, before UN peacekeepers rescued him. I will repeat these eight days. The book shows the unvarnished reality of war from a child’s point of view, focused on an individual fate, true to detail and in all its brutality. A fate that befell thousands of others during the Yugoslav war, but unfortunately also affects many people and children worldwide today, whether in Ukraine or in Syria.

What was your motivation for writing this book?
Obruca: As a special investigator at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, I have been confronted with many tragic stories – unimaginable, incomprehensible. But it was this story that left a lasting impression. Even many years later, the thoughts of it have never left me. On the one hand due to the brutality of what happened, on the other hand I was particularly impressed by the role of the boy and his iron will to survive. As an investigator, you are also primarily a human being and deal with the cases from this side, applying them to your own life. What would I do in his place? That impressed me! Above all, how he then had to master his life alone. And mastered.

Wars end, but the suffering and misery remain for a long time afterwards.

How did you meet Adnan?
Obruca: I met him personally in 2005 during an interview with a witness, I already knew the story from the court files. And there was that moment when he introduced me to his daughter who had been born a few weeks before. He proudly presented it to me. We had just finished the interview, which revealed, among other things, how much he missed his family, especially his father. Nevertheless, he had a goal in mind and tried to build a happy life. That was so impressive for me – knowing what he had to go through and see. Many years later, when I told Adnan about my idea of ​​telling his fate, I could feel how important it was to him. We then met twice in person and made countless phone calls and wrote umpteen e-mails.

What do you want your book to do?
Obruca: Above all, it should create awareness. When we address and talk about such events, society becomes aware of how quickly bad things can happen and how thin the veneer of civilization is. One should also think and act outside of the “feel good bubble”. We live in a “none of my business” society, in which the focus is often only on one’s own well-being and not on the common good. This book can be a lesson for today’s society. After Tito’s death and the end of Communism, people became factionalized. Loyalty to the political leaders was absolute, people were divided. There is a risk that this could happen again almost everywhere.

How can one imagine your previous work as a special investigator at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?
Obruca: The main task was to collect evidence to prepare and support the charges in court. This included interviewing witnesses and perpetrators, securing evidence, exhumations, inspections of crime scenes and reconstruction of events. The investigative activity took place worldwide, especially in the Balkans. Above all, I was confronted with the consequences of the war and the resulting suffering for the population. Wars end, but the suffering and misery remain for a long time afterwards. What I also saw and felt in the conversations was that the people were concerned about justice. Her testimonies in court did not bring her relatives to life, but the public found out who was responsible. And that helps many a little, although the loss and lack of understanding for the deeds can never be overcome.

Given your experience of the atrocities in former Yugoslavia, how do you view the war in Ukraine?
Obruca: When I started writing the book in 2019, I could never have imagined that this would happen in Europe, on our doorstep again, so to speak. I can put myself in the position of the Ukrainian people because I personally experienced and documented many such fates in Bosnia. And there are clear parallels: the desperation, the incomprehension of the deeds by one’s own people – in Ukraine too there are many family ties to Russia. The patterns are also the same: the hoped-for rapid success of the Russian army has not materialized, the Ukrainians are insisting on their independence. Therefore, another strategy comes into effect: the attrition and displacement of the population through torture, rape and murder, and by depriving them of the basic necessities of life.

In your opinion, are there any signs of war crimes in Ukraine – whether in Bucha or elsewhere?
Obruca: I only know the pictures and media reports, but this seems very likely to me. It can also be seen in the Ukraine that non-war targets, i.e. civilians, are being killed or civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools or residential buildings are being destroyed, and food and livestock are being systematically destroyed. These are concerted military actions specified by various levels of leadership. These well-planned and organized acts have one purpose: to drive people away, create terror and fear, and ultimately prevent the survivors from coming back – these are clearly war crimes.

What do you think the coming to terms with the Ukraine war will be like once it’s over?
Obruca: Satellite images, mobile phones, a networked society make a big difference to the Yugoslavia tribunal in the preservation of evidence. At that time, it was only possible to travel to the areas to start investigative work, mostly years after the end of the war. This has bought the perpetrators or regimes a lot of time to destroy and/or falsify evidence. In the processing of war crimes in Ukraine, the technical progress will lead to a rapid finding of evidence and to indictments at the ICC (International Criminal Court, n.d.).

Are the current international criminal law instruments sufficient?
Obruca: With the establishment of the permanent ICC Court, the prerequisites for investigating and prosecuting such crimes are in place. The problem, however, is that 70 of the 193 UN countries do not respect the jurisprudence of the ICC. Russia is one of them. This means that no investigations can be conducted on Russian soil and no cooperation will take place. In contrast, since 2014 Ukraine has accepted the ICC’s jurisprudence, which has enabled the ICC to begin its investigations.

Can you assess how the war in Ukraine will continue to develop?
Obruca: That’s difficult to judge. I hope that there will be a diplomatic solution quickly. This is the only way to spare people even more suffering, pain and destruction and hopefully not carry the war beyond Ukraine. Unfortunately, many fates have emerged in the past few months that are similar to Adnan’s in my book. It is therefore all the more important to ensure that people are made aware of the “ugly face” of humanity. This is the only way to escape this spiral of death and destruction.