Book Review: The Key to My Neighbor's House

First published in 2002, The Key to My Neighbor’s House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda by Elizabeth Neuffer is an excellent primer on the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides, the reemergence of international justice, and a stark warning of the international community’s capacity to effectively intercede in a crisis.  Neuffer frames her account through the lens of a handful of locals caught in the crossfire, weaving together those narratives over the course of the work.  While it might seem like an awkward pairing, having to jump back and forth between former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, it works quite naturally, given the larger emphasis.

The title comes from the testimony of one of the work’s central figures, Hamdo Kahrimanovic, a former history teacher in Bosnia.  Judge McDonald of the Yugoslav Tribunal asked him how an ethnic conflict such as what took place in the Balkans could have occurred, given the long history the people shared of living together in peace.  Kahrimanovic replied, “It is difficult to answer, this question.  I am also at a loss.  I had the key to my next-door neighbor’s [house] who was a Serb and he had my key.  That is how we looked after each other.  We visited each other for holidays.  My best man at my wedding was a Serb.  We were friends and he was the same one who threatened us.  It is inexplicable what happened to those people.  It was some kind of madness.”

Here are five nuggets I took from The Key to My Neighbor’s House:

1) While war crimes tribunals and international courts seem like an important, even critical, step in the pursuit of justice, the cynical view of the initial European commitment to a tribunal in Bosnia was that “It was a way [for the administration] to avoid doing other things… It was sort of a Band-Aid to hemorrhaging credibility” (65).  There seems to be clear merit to this interpretation – an international court has the potential to keep outside countries much cleaner than a military invention while still appearing that they are firmly committed to promoting the cause of justice.

2) Neuffer struggles in Rwanda with the apparent return to normality – restaurants and shops are open, Hutus and Tutsis walk the streets, and one might almost believe that nothing ever happened.  However, her translator explained that “We have all lost something.  We even have an expression for it: bapfuye buhagazi.  It means the walking dead.  This is the land of the walking dead” (251).  This reminded me of the Legacy Project’s visit to Chile, when we toured Villa Grimaldi with Pedro Matta.  Matta, a survivor of the detention and torture center, told us that, following his release, he didn’t have words to describe his experience and that he was, in fact, a “real zombie.”  He chose to go into exile because, if he had stayed, he “would have been a walking message of terror.”

3) The failure of the UN operations in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda are well-documented.  But, Neuffer manages to expose just how egregious those failures were.  In the case of Joseph Kavaruganda, it turns out UN forces – who were committed to protecting him – knew two months before the genocide erupted that the Hutus planned to assassinate Kavaruganda and his colleague (349).  Ultimately, they would hand him over to his killers.  This is one example out of many.

4) While it is painfully easy to criticize international efforts in these countries, the work of William Haglund and others like him must be saluted.  His commitment to not only document evidence of genocide, but also pursue the individual identification of the bodies found is an act of great humanity.  But, even in celebrating his efforts, other reasons are found to be skeptical of international efforts.  The decision to temporarily suspend Haglund and review his work reflects the lunacy of the system, in which individuals and groups are tasked with a massive project but given no resources, commit great personal sacrifices in the pursuit of mission success, and then are closely monitored for any potential indiscretions.  There is overwhelming sensitivity to minor failures, but no commitment of any kind to identify or prevent massive failures.  It is mind-boggling.

5) One of the more amazing events in the life of the Rwanda Tribunal involved the case of The Prosecutor vs. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza.  In this, the Chamber of Appeals dismissed charges against Barayagwiza, a critical figure in the Rwandan genocide, because his rights had been violated by the prosecutors.  The Rwandan government was outraged and moved to cut off relations with the international court.  While ultimately this would be reversed on further appeal, Neuffer points out how this event exemplified the differing views of justice.  “To the judges, the decision exemplified the purest justice… Yet to Rwandans, the decision was the highest injustice.  They knew only that the international court created to prosecute the genocide’s leaders had ordered one set free” (375).

Neuffer did a wonderful job throughout of blending reportage and history.  Sadly, there will not be a followup effort.  Neuffer died in an automobile accident in Iraq in 2003, traveling around the country to cover the aftermath of the war.