Scorpions Film Documents Serbian War Crimes

Natasa Kandic is no stranger to controversy. At 55, the slight-framed Kandic has been a tireless activist for more than 15 years. With steely resolve, she has documented and highlighted some of the worst cases of human rights abuse in the former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian war (1992-1995) and the Kosovo conflict (1999). Although her work has been widely acclaimed in the international community, Kandic—having been the recipient of NED's 2000 Democracy Award and one of Time Magazine's "European Heroes" in 2003 and 2006—has been slandered and threatened with death in her native Serbia. Even in the face of such adversity, she refuses to abandon her crusade to bring the region's war criminals to justice. Most recently, Kandic was in the US to discuss the documentary film "Scorpions," produced by her organization, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC). The film, funded in part by NED, documents heinous war crimes committed by a notorious Serbian military unit and is a visceral primary account of the Bosnian war. Screenings were held in Washington, DC at NED on June 13, and in New York City at a New York Democracy Forum event on June 12 co-sponsored by NED, the Foreign Policy Association, and Human Rights Watch.

The HLC was founded by Kandic in 1992 in response to the outbreak of armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Since then, the Belgrade-based HLC has documented a multitude of conflict-related human rights abuses in the region, including instances of rape, forced dislocation, murder, and ethnic cleansing. The HLC has cooperated on many occasions with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague by making available its evidence of war crimes. Indeed, the HLC plays a vital role in this process of indicting and convicting war criminals as its thorough and professional documentation has been used regularly by the ICTY as key evidence in prosecuting cases.

Undoubtedly, the HLC's greatest success has been in shedding light on the atrocities committed by the Scorpions, a notorious Serbian military unit. In 2003, Kandic learned of a tape, filmed by the Scorpions themselves during the Bosnian war, showing members of the unit executing six young Bosniak civilians in Trnovo in 1995. Kandic doggedly tracked down the last copy of the tape and, in May 2005, delivered it to Serbia's war crimes prosecutor in the face of escalating public and governmental apathy about Serbia's complicity in war crimes during the Bosnian War.

The tape was subsequently broadcast on national television and provoked an instant firestorm. The country was horrified by the footage and several members of the Scorpions were immediately arrested. On April 10, 2007, four of the murderers on the tape were convicted of war crimes and sentenced to a collective 58 years of prison. That same day, the HLC released the film "Scorpions," which juxtaposes the Scorpions footage from 1995 with present day interviews with original members of the unit.

Having completed the production of "Scorpions," the HLC will continue its mission of documenting the abuses of the past. The HLC, which has been a NED grantee since 1999, is using "Scorpions" to promote public dialogue and lobby for legislation to redress the issues surrounding these and other war crimes. In anticipation of the closure of the ICTY in 2010, the HLC is also working to build a war crimes documentation center to preserve detailed information about human rights abuses during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. As Kandic herself has argued, "If its democratic transition is to succeed, Serbia must come to terms with the responsibility of its leaders for the bloodshed that occurred in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo."