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SHAPING INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE: THE ROLE OF TRANSLATION AND
INTERPRETING AT THE ICTY IN THE HAGUE
Ellen Elias-Bursać
[This is the pre-publication draft; the article was published in Translation and
Interpreting Studies, 7:1 (2012, 34-53)]
This article will consider the role translation and interpreting play in the courtroom at the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, by
looking at the way a military concept, asanacija (in the original Bosnian, Croatian, and
Serbian), was translated in documents and during interpretation, and what role the
discussions of translation of this concept played in the Krstić and the Popović et al. trials,
two of the twenty-two Tribunal cases1 focused on, or including charges related to, the
Srebrenica massacre which took place in Bosnia in July 1995.
The work of the courtroom is an ongoing exercise in translation. The proceedings
are interpreted simultaneously as the participants discuss documents in a number of
different languages, and nearly all the documents they discuss are themselves
translations. I am privileged to know how this functioned because I worked as a reviser
for over six years at the Tribunal in the English Translation Unit on the translation of
documentary evidence. Because I worked there it is incumbent upon me to state
unequivocally that all ICTY documents and transcripts discussed and quoted from here
are available to the public on the Tribunal website.
Ludmila Stern notes that translation and interpretation enjoy visibility at the ICTY:
"Unlike in national courts, where legal professionals and the judiciary can be unaware of
the interpreting process and the preconditions for successful interpreting, the complexity
and challenges of the interpreters’ task are recognized by the judiciary and the lawyers of
the Tribunal. Moreover, the quality of their work is appreciated by the legal professionals
whose effective communication with their own witnesses, the other party, and each other
largely depends on the quality of the interpreting." (Stern 2004: 2)
In fact court proceedings often zero in on points of translation. These discussions
are so germane at times to a trial that they merit inclusion in the trial judgment.
Furthermore translation affords a variety of translation-specific opportunities for
courtroom strategies for both the defense and the prosecution. Hence translation and the
forces it sets in motion often influence jurisprudence and shape international justice.
Translating Institutions
1 Aside from the trial of Radoslav Krstić, and the consolidated trial of Vujadin
Popović, Ljubiša Beara, Drago Nikolić, Ljubomir Borovčanin, Radivoje Miletić, Milan
Gvero, Vinko Pandurević, which were focused exclusively on Srebrenica, the
following cases include Srebrenica-related counts: Blagojević & Jokić, Erdemović,
Nikolić, Obrenović, Orić, Perišić, Stanišić and Simatović, Tolimir, Trbić, Milošević,
Karadžić, and Mladić. Of these, at the time of this writing, Tolimir, Perišić and
Karadžić still await judgments, and Mladić is still at large.
1
Translators do not work in a vacuum. No matter whom they are translating for
there is a person or institution requesting the translation, a set of discourses and
terminologies relevant to the field in question, and an expectation as to the final product.
This applies even to literary translation, as Lawrence Venuti points out, which functions
within the loosely knit institution of publishing, where the authority of the institution is
defined not just by discourse-related norms but by stipulations such as remuneration
patterns (Venuti 1995: 8-17).
Brian Mossop (1988, 1990) and Kaisa Koskinen (2008) analyze translation within
more closely knit and explicit multi-lingual, multi-cultural and/or multi-national
institutions. In Mossop’s case this is the bilingual government of Quebec, while Koskinen
considers the role of translation within the European Union. Mossop notes that the style
of translations within institutions “...is the one best suited to the goals of the institutions
which translate them.” (Mossop 1988: 67), and suggests that “...translation transforms
meaning (...) in the sense of making the translation serve the purpose of the translating
institution.” (Mossop 1990: 345). Building on Mossop's observations, Koskinen remarks:
"...translations are constrained and controlled by the translating institution, and the
official nature of the institution endows the documents with authority and performative
power." (Koskinen 2008: 2-3). She contrasts translation for institutions as a collective to
translation as an individual process, and concludes, "The translated text is not mine, nor
does it have my name on it: it belongs to the institution, and it bears the name of the
institution on it. It is not my trustworthiness but the trustworthiness of the translating
institution that will be maintained, enhanced or harmed by my translation. In the
Commission, my words are not mine; I am a spokesperson for the institution. The
institution speaks through me." (Koskinen 2008: 24)
Keeping in mind that there can be no international justice without the offices of
translation and interpreting, this article will consider how the institutional context of the
Tribunal shapes and channels the translation process, and, reciprocally, how translation
and interpreting shape the Tribunal.
Translation and Interpreting at the ICTY
The English Translation Unit where I worked as a reviser, is part of the
Conference and Language Services Section (CLSS), and is called upon by the
Prosecution, the Defense, Chambers (the Tribunal judges), and the Registry (the Tribunal
administration) to translate into English approximately 40,000 pages of documents yearly
from Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (often referred to as BCS2), Macedonian, Albanian,
French and other languages, including Tribunal correspondence, military, legal, and
medical evidence, expert-witness reports, witness statements, correspondence, official
Tribunal indictments and judgments, and submissions to the Registry and Chambers from
those among the accused who have chosen to defend themselves before the court rather
than relying on attorneys for their defense.
CLSS, within which the English Translation Unit functions, also serves as the
umbrella administrative section for the French Translation Unit and the Conference
2 While this abbreviation originated at the ICTY in the 1990s, it is now used widely at universities
throughout the world to refer to the languages of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, previously known as
Serbo-Croatian.
2
Interpretation Unit, the unit for the interpreters who translate the proceedings
simultaneously from the courtroom booth. CLSS staff numbers over 100 in-house
interpreters and translators and also works with outside contractors. (Schweda Nicholson
2010: 43)3 There is also staff working within the Tribunal but outside of CLSS whose
work entails regular translation duties. Until 2004, while investigations were still
underway, translator, interpreters, and language assistants accompanied investigators into
the field, working at times in wartime or immediate postwar conditions, to interview
potential witnesses and build the Prosecution cases. Furthermore the staff of the Victims
and Witnesses Section often translates and interprets while making arrangements for the
victims and witnesses who testify before the Tribunal. The Office of the Prosecutor also
employs a staff of support translators whose job it is to provide draft translations of
documents the prosecution is considering tendering into evidence, to interpret
consecutively during telephone conversations, interpret for the proofing4 of witnesses,
and handle other language-related jobs.
In regard to the relationship between translators and interpreters in the EU,
Koskinen remarks, "...these two professions [translation and interpreting, op. au.] are (...)
kept separate institutionally, with a separate organizational structure for both, and no
posts for translator-interpreters available." (Koskinen 2008: 3) The situation in this regard
is slightly different at the ICTY. A number, though not all, of the interpreters started out
working in the translation units and later moved over to work in the booth. When court is
on winter or summer recess those interpreters who are not on leave are asked to produce
written translations. Interpreters also work closely with translators to clarify points of
terminology, sometimes even calling the translators and revisers of the ETU to consult on
a terminological dilemma at a whisper from the booth while the court is in session.
The question of terminology makes clear essential differences in the way the
translators and interpreters work. While translators in the English and French translation
units must provide the court with reliably consistent rendering of key words and phrases
so that the judges and parties can be sure that the evidentiary documents refer to one and
the same subject, the interpreters who work in the booth must have the leeway to respond
to situations as they arise, particularly during debates on nuances of language meaning.
The English Translation Unit developed its own collection of terminology which became
part of the larger multilingual database known as Termidata, and while the interpreters
have access to it, they often find that terms which work for written translations do not
work as well in courtroom interpreting. For instance while a written translation can
tolerate a term translated descriptively, the interpreters often find that descriptive terms
are unmanageable in heated courtroom debate. Also if the discussion in the courtroom
turns on the definition of a term, the interpreters must respond by finding a number of
different ways of translating the term as the discussion explores its meaning. Courts have
several fundamental tasks, and one of them is dealing with ambiguities in phrasing and
clarifying terms essential to the case at hand, and at the Tribunal there have been many
3 Citing the Tribunal’s Fifteenth Annual Report to describe the output of the entire Conference Languages
Services Section, Schweda notes: “In 2008, a combination of in-house and contract translators had an
output of 75,000 translated pages, including all of the ICTY’s various language combinations.”
4 The proofing of a witness is described as follows: "...generally, it refers to "a meeting held between a
party to the proceedings and a witness, usually shortly before the witness is to testify in court, the purpose
of which is to prepare and familiarize the witness with courtroom procedures and to review the witness'
evidence." (in: ICTY Manual on Developed Practices. ICTY, UNICRI, 2009, p. 83)
3
such discussions about translation of terms since 1996 when the first case, the Tadić trial,
was heard.
From Translation to Judgment
Particularly pertinent to translation and interpreting at the Tribunal is Rosemary
Arrojo’s description of translation, as “...an activity that provides a paradigmatic scenario
for the underlying struggle for the control over meaning that constitutes both writing and
interpretation as it involves the actual production of another text: the writing of the
translator’s reading of someone else’s text in another language, time, and cultural
environment.” (Arrojo 2002: 73). What helps translation succeed at the ICTY is not just
the experienced translators and interpreters who work there, but the sheer number of
different speakers and writers who contribute to “control over meaning.”
Once a document which was not originally in English or French has been selected
for admission into evidence it is submitted to the English Translation Unit to be
translated5. The translated evidence is then introduced to the trial through a witness who
was involved in the original drafting of the document, or knew firsthand of the
circumstances detailed in the document, or is an expert witness who can speak to the
credibility, language, and significance of the document. Koskinen makes the point that
there is no explicit authorship in the EU translations she describes (Koskinen 2008: 25),
however the question of responsibility is an important one in the context of the Tribunal,
hence all translations of documentary evidence to be tendered in court are initialed by the
translator.
Court reporters provide an ongoing written English-language record of every
session of every trial, which appears on screens in front of the parties, witness, and
judges. After the session this on-the-spot transcript is finalized and made official, and any
spelling errors, omissions, or misunderstandings are clarified by reference to the audio-
visual recording6 of the session. The official transcripts of all sessions which were open
to the public are then posted to the ICTY website with a lag of a week or so. The French
transcripts of open sessions are also available, and select BCS transcripts coming
available for certain trials. Once official, these transcripts are evidence and are used as
such in other ICTY trials.
Hence courtroom debate serves not just for clarification, but it actually becomes
evidence once it is in transcript form. In his writing on justice as translation, James Boyd
White refers to what he describes as the building of a trial's text: “The client is thus led to
learn something of the language of the law; at the same time, the lawyer must learn
5 English and French are the working languages of the Tribunal. Some chambers are run in English
and others in French. Soon after the Tribunal began in the 1990s it became apparent that the amount
of evidence which needed to be translated from BCS would be staggering. For the sake of efficiency
the Chambers and Registry agreed that evidence should be chiefly submitted in English translation.
The French Translation Unit is mainly involved in translating into French those legal documents
which were produced by the Tribunal in English, such as indictments and judgments. There is also a
group of translators with a similar mandate for translation of these same Tribunal documents into
Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, the languages of the victims and the defendants, and a team of
translators works between Albanian and English for those trials which included Albanian-speaking
witnesses or defendants. There was also a trial with Macedonian defendants required the work of
Macedonian-English translators.
6 Every session of each trial is recorded on film. The Tribunal plans to make the videos of open
sessions of trials available to the public on the website.
4
something of the language of the client; between them they create a series of texts that are
necessarily imperfect translations of the client’s story into legal terms, and in doing so
they also create something new, a discourse in which this story, and others, can have
meaning and force of a different kind: the meaning and force of the law.” (White 1990:
261) If one thinks of the evidence tendered and full proceedings in transcript form as the
macro-text of a Tribunal trial, made up of hundreds, often thousands, of pages of
translated documents and interpreted testimony, then the judges’ understanding of the
substance before them, as articulated in the trial judgment, becomes, in a sense, the
ultimate moment of translation. The larger picture of what is being translated in the
courtroom is not any one text or even a body of texts but rather the body of experience of
what went on during the war as testified to by the witnesses and the tendered evidence.
Therefore the translation of a document is not finished when it is finalized by the revisers
in the English Translation Unit. It is not finished when it has been clarified and discussed
by the witness and the parties before the judges. It is finished when the judges adjudicate
based on the understanding they achieved by reading that document and hearing the
testimony about it in the course of the trial and publish the first instance and appeals
judgments for the trial.
Trial Proceedings
Before I proceed with discussion of the Krstić and Popović et al. trials and the
question of how the Serbian term, asanacija, was variously translated, it is worth
providing a brief summary of how trials are organized. As the Office of the Prosecutor
has conducted the investigation and published the indictment, it is incumbent upon them
to demonstrate to the Trial Chamber, the panel of judges presiding over the case, why the
indictment was justified. They do so in the first half of the trial by presenting evidence
and witnesses to substantiate their charges. These witnesses are cross-examined by the
Defense during the Prosecution phase of the trial. The Defense counsel has the second
half of the trial in which to present their witnesses and evidence and counter the charges
made by the Prosecution, while the Prosecution cross-examines their witnesses. After the
parties have finished presenting witnesses and evidence, the judges retire for a period of
several months to review the proceedings and the evidence, often numbering in the
thousands of pages, and then they present their verdict. Both the Defense and the
Prosecution may file appeals based on errors of law or errors of fact found in the first-
instance judgment. Most Tribunal cases have gone to appeal.
Tribunal trials often go on for several years as a result of the prosecutorial
strategy of comprehensive indictments designed to cover the full gamut of crimes alleged
to have been committed by each indictee. A few trials have gone on for as many as four
years7. The Krstić case, for example, ran for 19 months with 98 trial days, 103 witnesses,
910 prosecution exhibits, 183 Defense exhibits8. The seven defendants in the Popović et
7 As of the writing of this paper, 37 accused are currently involved in trials while proceedings are
completed for 124 accused, of whom 12 were acquitted, 63 sentenced, 13 referred to a national jurisdiction,
and 36 had their indictment withdrawn or are deceased. Cited from:
<http://www.icty.org/sections/TheCases/KeyFigures>
8 These data are available on the Case Information Sheets for each case on the ICTY website:
<http://www.icty.org>.
5
al. trial (still pending appeal) were on trial for three years, including 425 trial days, with a
total, for both parties, of 313 witnesses and 5380 exhibits.9
The Krstić and Popović et al. Trials
Radoslav Krstić (born in 1948) was arrested and charged with genocide,
complicity to commit genocide, a crime against humanity (extermination), murder as a
crime against humanity and murder as a violation of the laws or customs of war, and
persecution, and he was brought to the Tribunal in December 1999. He pleaded not guilty
to all charges at his initial hearing, was convicted at trial on all counts and sentenced to
48 years in prison. The appeals chamber affirmed all counts but the charge of genocide,
reducing his sentence by 11 years. Having spent six years at the Hague detention center
from his arrest to the completion of the appeal, Krstić was transferred to the UK where he
is serving his sentence in Wakefield prison.
The largest Srebrenica case with seven defendants completed the trial phase in
June 2010; the defendants are still being held at the detention facility in The Hague
awaiting appeal. The case is referred to as Popović et al., and includes Vujadin Popović
(sentenced in the first instance to life imprisonment for genocide), Ljubiša Beara (life
imprisonment, also for genocide), Drago Nikolić (35 years), Ljubomir Borovčanin (17
years), Radivoje Miletić (19 years), Milan Gvero (five years), and Vinko Pandurević (13
years). The length of the sentences may change, as others have, in the appeals process.
Translation of the Term Asanacija
In her article on interpretation at the Tribunal, Stern describes what ICTY
interpreters do when they are faced with a lack of lexical equivalence between a French,
English, and/or BCS legal term, based on interviews she conducted with a number of
ICTY interpreters and staff (Stern 2004: 1). She found that interpreters used either an
interpreter-centered approach or a listener-centered approach. For those who describe an
interpreter-centered approach she lists examples of the use of very literal translation,
reliance on cognates, use of Latin phrases to translate French when there is no English
phrase available, cultural substitution, introduction of neologisms (Stern 2004: 4-5). For
those interpreters who described a listener-centered, pragmatic approach she lists the
techniques of paraphrasing, making explicit what is implicit, explanation (Stern 2004 6-
7).
An interim combat report, signed by Vinko Pandurević during the war when he
was a lieutenant colonel of the Army of Republika Srpska10, was first introduced to the
Krstić case by military analyst Richard Butler, a Prosecution expert witness, in June of
2000. Apparently the prosecuting attorneys found that discussion of the translation of this
document was productive in exposing concealment of criminal activity, because this
same combat report has since been tendered in several of the Srebrenica cases to
demonstrate that troops and officers of the Army of Republika Srpska knew of, or, in
some cases, were involved in, the massacres that were going on in and around Srebrenica.
One sentence in this document has been analysed several times, and in fact Pandurević's
defense counsel in the Popović et al. trial submitted a 17-page expert report dedicated
9 The exhibits tendered are chiefly documents. If one takes into consideration that many of these documents
run to several pages in length, the vast quantity of documentation before the Chambers becomes apparent.
10 Often referred to in the English-language press as the Bosnian Serb Army.
6
entirely to linguistic analysis of this combat document. The sentence in this report which
has received the most attention reads (in English translation): “An additional burden for
us is the large number of prisoners distributed throughout schools in the brigade area, as
well as obligations of security and restoration of the terrain.”11
The phrase “restoration of the terrain” is the wording used by translator A.K. to
translate the Serbian word asanacija, a BCS military term for which there is no
established equivalent in either English or French military terminology. Because the term
has no obvious translation in either of these languages, interpreters, the parties, and the
Chamber devised a number of different ways of rendering it.
The Vojni Leksikon (Military Lexicon) of the pre-war Yugoslav People's Army is
explicit in its definition of the meaning of asanacija. The entry, in an English translation
by translator S.V., was submitted as evidence by the Prosecution in the Krstić trial in
order to clarify the meaning of the term:
"HYGIENE AND SANITATION MEASURES /asanacija/ (Lat.): Sanitary-
hygienic or sanitary-technical measures taken in the field, in inhabited places or in
buildings in order to remove anything conducive to the emergence and spread of
infectious diseases and other health hazards. Hygiene and sanitation measures in wartime
or during natural disasters include: finding, identifying, and burying the dead, removing
animal carcasses, biological and other waste, disinfecting (q.v.), extermination of insects
(q.v.) and rats (q.v.), repair of water mains and sewers and, in cases where nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons have been used, also decontamination (q.v.). Hygiene
and sanitation measures are conducted by field hygiene and sanitation units (q.v.) and
specialized firms."12
So the Leksikon makes clear that though there may be other tasks subsumed in the
concept of asanacija, it is firstly the removal of human corpses and animal carcasses
from scenes of combat or natural disasters. The translators of the English and French
translation units found no similarly explicit definitions in modern French or English
military lexicons. The only dictionary besides the Leksikon to address the underlying
gruesome reality of the task of removing corpses and carcasses is the Serbo-Croatian-
English Military Dictionary by Jack Jones, which is largely based on that same Vojni
leksikon13.
11 Office of the Prosecutor, Exhibit 609/a in the Krstić trial. Available to the public through the ICTY
database of court records at: <http://icr.icty.org/>. The sentence is taken from Vanredni borbeni izveštaj,
dated 15 July 1995, signed by Lieutenant Colonel Vinko Pandurević [typo]. In the source language the
sentence reads: “Dodatno opterećenje nam predstavlja veliki broj zarobljenika razmeštenih po školama u
zoni brigade, kao i obaveze obezbeđenja i asanacije terena.” For the first page of the handwritten source
text, see Appendix 1.
12 “Asanacija (lat.), preduzimanje sanitarno-higijenskih i sanitarno-tehničkih mera na terenu, u naseljima,
ili u objektima radi uklanjanja svega što omogućuje pojavu i širenja zaraznih bolesti i drugih oštećenja
zdravlja. A. u ratu i elementarnim katastrofama obuhvata: pronalaženje, identifikaciju i sahranjivanje
poginulih, uklanjanje životinsjkih leševa, bioloških i drugih otpadaka, dezinfekciju (v.), deizinsekciju (v.),
deratizaciju (v.), popravku objekata za vodu i kanalizacije, a u slučaju primene NHB-oružja i
dekontaminaciju (v.). A. izvode jedinice za asanaciju terena (v.) i stručne radne organizacije.”
Office of the Prosecutor, Exhibit 611/b in the Krstić trial, available to the public through the ICTY database
of court records at: <http://icr.icty.org/>.
13 The definition in the Jack Jones dictionary for Asanacija is given as:
Asanacija med. sanitization (taking medical and technical sanitary measures on terrain, buildings, or
population to eliminate all possibilities of appearance or spread of infectious diseases. Includes finding,
7
When faced with the task of finding a way to translate asanacija into English, the
translators and revisers of the English Translation Unit chose the route often favored
when no obvious term presented itself in English - to stay as close as possible to the
source text. As the Leksikon definition begins with the words “preduzimanje sanitarno-
higijenskih i sanitarno-tehničkih mera,” the English translator chose “sanitary-hygienic or
sanitary-technical measures taken...” In the same literal spirit the descriptive definition:
“hygiene and sanitation measures” or “clearing up (the terrain)” was entered into
Termidata14. As mentioned earlier, while descriptive terms may be useful in written
texts, such terms are often cumbersome and inflexible for use in the courtroom.
Counselled by military advisers working for the Office of the Prosecutor and in
conjunction with CLSS, the translator of the interim combat report, whose initials, A.K.
are given at the bottom of the page, chose the term “restoration of the terrain” as the
translation of asanacija15. The term was endorsed by military expert Richard Butler--a
native speaker of English--who was the first to introduce discussion of the term asanacija
in his testimony as a Prosecution witness:
13 The restoration of the terrain, particularly the phrase that’s
14 used here, is found in the former JNA or the Yugoslav National Army
15 lexicon or military dictionary and it defines that phrase as the process
16 involved in the burying of bodies or other biological waste on the
17 battlefield.
18 MR. McCLOSKEY16: If the Court could turn briefly to Exhibit 611,
19 you’ll see the definition of “asanacija” as hygiene and sanitation
20 measures, and then it defines in wartime what asanacija means and it
21 includes finding, identifying, and burying the dead.
22 Q. So as you read that first paragraph, security obligations and
23 restoration of the terrain could be fairly interpreted to be guarding the
24 prisoners or killing the prisoners and then burying the bodies.
25 A. That is correct, sir.17
The next three witnesses who are questioned on the meaning of asanacija are
native speakers of BCS, so the English-language transcript of their remarks reflects not
their terminological choices but the choices of the interpreters.
When General Krstić testifies on his own behalf on 1 November 2000, he does
what he can to deflect the suggestion that his men were cleaning up after a massacre,
claiming instead that they were involved in the regular military task of “restoring the
terrain” after combat.
9 MR. McCLOSKEY:
identifying and burying the dead, removal of dead animals and biological waste, disinfection
{dezinfekcija}, de-insectization {dezinsekcija} and de-ratization {deratizacija}, repair of water and sewer
installations, and decontamination after use of nuclear-biological-chemical weapons. Work is performed by
soil sanitization units {jedinica za asanaciju terena}.)
14 Termidata offers definitions and expansions of 8,600 terms and 3,300 abbreviations.
15 From private communication with the translator.
16 Mr. McCloskey was the attorney speaking for the Prosecution. Mr. Butler’s responses are marked as A.
17 Krstić trial transcript, 17 July 2000.
8
10 Q. And then we have a restoration of the terrain. This is the term
11 “asanacija terena”, in the B/C/S. Would restoration of the terrain
12 include the burying of the bodies at Orahovac and Petkovci?
13 A. I don’t think that that was what it meant. The “asanacija”,
14 restoration of the terrain in the fighting with the 28th Division, they
15 attacked from the rear the 21st Zvornik Brigade.
(...)
18 Q. The burying of bodies from the death field at Orahovac, would that
19 be considered “asanacija terena” or restoration of the terrain?
20 A. I don’t know what the Commander of the brigade had in mind, but I
21 have answered your question. When you speak of “asanacija terena” or
22 restoration, is where combat activities have taken place. And whether it
23 encompasses what you have said, I don’t know.
24 Q. Burying bodies after a mass execution can also be restoration of
25 the terrain, can it not?18
Page 6738
1 A. I don’t know who was engaged in that.
2 Q. General, my question is, it’s a simple one: Burying the bodies on
3 the field at Orahovac, is that -- could that be referred to as restoration
4 of the terrain?
5 A. Restoration of the terrain after combat activities can imply a
6 collecting up the persons killed on both sides.
7 Q. Could the burying of the bodies in Orahovac be considered
8 restoration of the terrain?
9 A. I don’t know whether burying bodies comes under the concept of
10 restoration of the terrain.
In the testimony of General Radinović of the Army of Republika Srpska for the
Defense, the issue of the meaning of asanacija comes up again during Prosecution cross-
examination19. In this instance, the interpreters translate the term as “clearing up the
battlefield.”
Q. General, the word “restoration,” can you explain to the Judges
24 what that means in military terminology?
25 A. Clearing up of the battlefield is an action which is undertaken in
Page 8408
1 order to -- that in the area where there was fighting to clear up the
2 consequences of that fighting, and that means picking up the casualties,
3 both human and animal, and burying the bodies and usually the animal
4 remains are burnt. “Clearing up” means also control of drinking water.
5 It also implies taking control of the epidemiological situation, to avoid
6 any disease, epidemics from spreading. So that is the term that “clearing
7 up” means. It means to undertake all the necessary measures which would
8 enable an area which -- upon which combat had taken place should be
18 Krstić trial transcript, 1 November 2000.
19 Krstić trial transcript, 12 December 2000.
9
9 brought into a proper state. That is what we mean by clearing up the
10 battlefield. It implies a whole complex of steps and measures and also
11 means the taking of hygienic and technical measures with respect to people
12 in the area -- people who spent time in the area, once again to prevent
13 epidemics and so on and so forth. So that is what we mean in broad terms
14 by clearing up the battlefield.
When seeking an adequate translation, the interpreters sometimes use the Serbian
term without translating it at all.
16 A. Sir, this is a document dated the 15th, the 15th, and of course
17 Pandurevic is not doing asanacija on the 15th, but a part of the resources
18 of the brigade have to be engaged for that too.
19 Q. General, Colonel Pandurevic is reporting on the 15th of July that
20 one of the burdens that he has is the restoration of the terrain, and you
21 and I both know it’s a fact that he was not clearing the battlefield on
22 the 15th of July. He’s talking about burying the bodies of executed
23 Muslims, isn’t he, General?
24 A. If that was the action he was engaged in exclusively, he would
25 call it that. He wouldn’t say “restoration of the terrain,” he would say
Page 8411
1 “burial of killed prisoners.” However, as he’s talking about restoration
2 of the terrain, I am prone to interpret it as activities which involve all
3 the actions that I have described.
The next day, 13 December 2000, the Prosecution again used cross-examination,
this time of an anonymous Defense witness, an officer in the Army of Republika Srpska,
to explore the possible meanings implicit in the use of the term asanacija:
Page 8550
2 Q. Now asanacija, is that something that is generally carried out in
3 the middle of combat?
4 A. It can be done in the middle of combat, and it can also be done
5 after combat, depending on how long the combat goes on for.
6 Q. Ever hear of anybody burying troops while they’re being shot at by
7 the enemy, burying bodies while they’re being shot at in combat?
8 A. Not really. I haven’t heard that.20
The fact that this discussion was revisited so often during the trial is reflected in
several passages of the Krstić Trial Judgment, which embark yet again on a definition of
asanacija:
A journal (...) indicates that, on 16 October 1995, Captain Nikolić, the Assistant
Commander for Intelligence and Security, stated that the Brigade was engaged in tasks
issued by the VRS Main Staff. Captain Nikolić used the word “asanacija” to describe this
work. “Asanacija” (which translates as “restoration of the terrain”) is used in military
20 Krstić trial transcript, 13 December 2000.
10
lexicon to refer to finding, identifying and burying the dead. (Rodrigues, Riad, Wald: 92-
93)
Upon weighing this evidence and the ensuing discussion the Chamber concludes
that “...the Chamber is satisfied that, given the scale of the operation and the fact that it
was carried out entirely within their zone of responsibility, the Drina Corps must have at
least known this activity was occurring.” and goes on to say: “...the discussion provides
an important backdrop to Part II C, where the Trial Chamber considers the issue of what
General Krstić knew, or should have known, about the activities of the Drina Corps.”
(Rodrigues, Riad, Wald: 93)
As to the question of whether the asanacija activity referred to in the document was
a standard post-combat clean-up operation or the cover-up of a massacre, the Chamber
concludes:
"According to the Prosecution, when Colonel Pandurević wrote of “restoration of the
terrain” (or “asanacija terena” as it appears in the original B/C/S version of the document)
in his 15 July Interim Combat Report he was referring to burying the bodies of executed
Bosnian Muslim prisoners. The Defense disputed this, arguing that it referred only to
cleaning up the battlefield when fighting was over. Mr. Butler accepted that clearing the
battlefield to dispose of combat casualties was standard operating practice pursuant to
JNA regulations. However, as Mr. Butler pointed out, it seems unlikely that Colonel
Pandurević was referring to legitimate battle cleanup activities, as combat with the
Bosnian Muslim column was ongoing at this time. It would be a surprising military
practice for 'asanacija terena' to be carried out in the middle of the hostilities."
(Rodrigues, Riad, Wald: 149-150)
The Krstić case was only the beginning of the discussion of Pandurević’s interim
combat report and other documents where the word asanacija appears. There are four
mentions of the word in its Serbian form in the Blagojević-Jokić Judgment, along with
two mentions of sanitation, arising chiefly in testimony by Momir Nikolić, one of the
defendants to plead guilty and thereafter testify in the Blagojević-Jokić trial and the
Popović et al. trial. In the judgment for the Popović et al. case, there are five mentions of
asanacija, given in one instance as “hygiene and sanitation measures” in a passage
describing Momir Nikolić’s testimony:
"Momir Nikolić also reported on the operation to his Commander during regular
meetings. The reburial operation was termed 'asanacija' in BCS, meaning hygiene and
sanitation measures. According to Momir Nikolić, 'asanacija' normally involved the
removal and burial of the dead from a battle-field, however, in this particular case, the
term referred to the relocation of the bodies buried in Glogova to smaller secondary
graves in the area surrounding Srebrenica." (Agius, Kwon, Prost, Stole: 240)
A footnote follows this last sentence in the Judgment: “Nikolić testified he
considered this an incorrect use of the term ‘asanacija.’” (Agius, Kwon, Prost, Stole: 240)
Nikolić seems to be drawing a distinction between the Leksikon meaning of asanacija as
a form of regular military activity and the meaning it acquired, particularly during the
Srebrenica massacres, which had a criminal dimension.
11
Vinko Pandurević, author of the much-discussed interim combat report, had his
Defense counsel commission an expert witness, Radmilo Marjoević, to analyze this
document from a linguistic perspective, in particular the sentence quoted on page 12 of
this paper. The same sentence is translated in Marjoević's forensic report as:
(Marojević 2008: 6)
Marojević concludes:
(Marojević 2008: 8)
In the response within the Judgment to this forensic report it is worth noting that
the judges quote not from Marojević’s translation but from the translation originally
submitted to them by the Prosecution, translated by A. K.:
"1947. The Trial Chamber accepts, as argued by Pandurević, that the linguistic evidence
adduced establishes that the last phrase of paragraph four—transcribed in English as
“obligations of security”—should be read together in interpretation of the word
“asanacija” with the result that “obligations of security” and “restoration” both relate to
the word “terrain.” In accordance with this construction, the entire phrase “obligations of
security and restoration of the terrain” thus describes an activity related to the terrain or
ground. While accepting this grammatical construction of this sentence in paragraph four,
the Trial Chamber does not accept that this phrase, “obligations of security and
restoration of the terrain”, as it is used in the context of the report is a reference to
operations related to the battlefield as submitted by Pandurević." (Agius, Kwon, Prost,
Stole: 240)
Conclusion
When faced with having to find a way to express the term asanacija in military
texts related to the Srebrenica massacre, interpreters and translators used several of the
strategies Ludmila Stern describes. The phrase “hygiene and sanitary measures” is both
explanatory and literal. “Sanitation” is a cognate, “restoration of the terrain” is a
descriptive term, and “asanacija” used in its original Serbian form is essentially a
neologism.
I suggest that the flexibility which translation and interpretation provide in
exploring the meanings of a word allowed the Prosecution to pursue a strategy which
ultimately unmasked the non-standard use of the term asanacija in these Republika
Srpska Army documents, where it functioned as a code word for mass burial of
Srebrenica-massacre victims. The entire sequence of translations and interpretations of
asanacija bring Koskinen’s and Mossop’s notion of the ways the institution constrains
and controls translation to the specifics of the institution of the War Crimes Tribunal in
The Hague, in this case through examination-in-chief, cross-examination, and the
12
adjudication by the Chamber. The English translation unit rendering of "sanitary and
hygienic measures" served as the starting point in the official definition, but once the
Prosecution began to pursue a strategy of returning again and again to discussions of how
to translate the term, the interpreters had to come up with multiple ways of saying it, from
"restoration of the terrain", to "asanacija" in its original form, and other descriptive terms.
These multiple possible translations freed the judges from the limitations of any one
translated term and allowed them to investigate, and ultimately understand, the criminal
subtext, helping them reach through the testimony, beyond language, to the events and
crimes of July 1995.
13
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15
Appendix 1: First page of interim combat report, handwritten BCS source text.
16
Appendix 2: First page of interim combat report, English translation.
17
