Zvonimir Separovic

permanent representative to the United Nations of the world association of victimology (Croatia)

ABSTRACT: Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia have abolished the death penalty. Serbia-Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina have not. "I come from a part of the world where people kill each other", says the author. This war "was started by Serbia, which occupied a third of Croatia and two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina". More than 250.000 people have died, a toll that is greater even that the number of persons killed in two centuries of capital sentences. The victims were almost exclusively civilians. The international tribunal for war crimes is a supranational body, not an institution of the victors of the war, as Nuremberg was. In addition to fighting for the abolition of the death penalty it is necessary to guarantee a complete protection of the victims' rights.

("HANDS OFF CAIN", 1 February 1994)

After the first free elections, Croatia abolished the death penalty. The same has been done in Slovenia and Macedonia but not in Serbia-Montenegro and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a victimologist who protects the rights of the victims I concern myself with the death penalty for two reasons: the first is that with its application victims are killed according to the law; the second is that it increases the violence in the world.

By saying "hands off Cain" we mean to say "hands off the criminals".

We do more than simply defend the murderer from the revenge of the State: we seek alternative instruments to capital punishment. For instance, life sentence is not alternative in that it assumes that people cannot change.

A fellow judge once examined the case of a criminal who had killed three people in three different moments of his life. He pronounced a death sentence as as president of the Supreme Court he witnessed the execution. That decision changed his life to the point of destroying it: he took up drinking and died soon after.

When, in this historical and political period, the problem of the death penalty is confronted, a fundamental means is the request of an immediate moratorium of the executions. We must ask the United Nations, the CSCE, the European countries, the European Parliament and the national parliaments to decide and to suggest to give up the death penalty, suspending all executions.

I come from a part of the world where people kill each other. This war has claimed more than 250.000 victims--a number that is higher than the number of people killed in two centuries of capital sentences. The victims are mostly civilians: young people, women, pregnant women and any other category. For this war - which was started by Serbia which occupied a third of Croatia and two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina - the U.N. Security Council has already proposed and organized an international war crimes tribunal, which has been set up in The Hague.

We welcome the establishment of the Tribunal, first of all because it is supranational, and not a tribunal of the victors of the war, as Nuremberg was. Secondly because it does not provide for the death penalty in any case.

In spite of the fact that it is an ad hoc tribunal, it will become a permanent tribunal for crimes committed not just in ex-Yugoslavia but anywhere in the world.

While it is true that we should not believe that an evil can be compensated by applying the death penalty, we should also be concerned about adequately protecting the victims, and their rights. The victims have their rights, which do not include that of punishing the criminal, but that of being informed and of being part of a trial that will decide on the events.

We should not only struggle for the abolition of the death penalty, but also strenuously seek alternative means of guaranteeing a complete protection of the rights of the victims.