Olivera Simić on How to Understand the Intellectual Turned War Criminal Biljana Plavšić

In this episode, Peter Vermeersch, Professor of Political Studies at KU Leuven, speaks with Olivera Simić, Professor at Griffith University, about Biljana Plavšić—a respected biologist and university professor who became a senior Bosnian Serb political leader during the Bosnian War and was later convicted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 

 

At the heart of the conversation is Simić's effort to gain access to Plavšić and build a relationship that led to many hours of conversations - and to the publication of her latest book, Madam War Criminal. Reflecting on this unusual encounter, Simić discusses what it means to listen to, write about, and seek to understand a perpetrator of mass violence without diminishing responsibility for their actions.

The conversation explores human complexity, asking how an accomplished intellectual became involved in a political project that led to the persecution, expulsion, and suffering of thousands.