War propaganda, war crimes, and post-conflict justice in Serbia: an ethnographic account.

Recent international criminal trials of incitement have brought about a novel precedent for prosecuting war propagandists that not only moves incitement from being inchoate to causally proven but also neglects the voices of perpetrators. Following recent ethnographic research in Rwanda, this article examines the new precedent and suggests that incitement should return to being inchoate. The discussion centres on interview data collected among Serbian veterans of the Yugoslav Wars about the degree to which wartime media motivated them during the breakup of Yugoslavia and interview data collected among Serbian prosecutors about the alleged influence of Serbian wartime media. Serbian veterans report that they were not motivated by wartime media but rather former conflicts, peer-to-peer stories on the frontline and evident threats to Serbs. Moreover, prosecutors’ assumptions about the influence of war propaganda and the unwillingness to interview ‘perpetrators’ about their motivations illuminate the complexities of post-conflict justice in Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]