Local consultations in Vukovar
The meeting was visited by more than 70 participants coming from all areas of society, public sector, local governance, representatives of civil society and media.
Zeljko Sabo, mayor of Vukovar
The mayor of Vukovar, Croatian defender and war detainee, Zeljko Sabo has given his support to RECOM stressing the importance of the whole process for environments such as Vukovar, that still bear a burden of war killings and following happenings in post-war peace. Peace activist, Ljiljana Gehrecke has estimated RECOM consultations significant gathering which gives hope that war crimes and other heavy human rights violations are possible to discuss in the atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect.
Participants of the meeting pointed out the issue of finding missing persons in the area of Vukovar, whose number is still very high as a result of non-processing of war criminals, which, they have concluded, makes the importance of collecting documents even before the establishment of the Commission, even higher, in order to continue the work of war crimes investigation.
“Due to the fact that our states restricted us of the right to know what happened, support to this initiative should not be based on their free will, but rather be their duty”, says Mario Mazic in behalf of the Initiative of Youth for Human Rights in Croatia.
“Vukovar consultations on RECOM Initiative are the continuation of our long-term efforts to contribute, in partnership with regional and local organizations of civil society, to the process of dealing with the past and seek for those mechanisms of transitional justice that can and will satisfy justice and truth for the victims, as well as for whole societies”, said Vesna Terselic, manager of Documenta and added how all of them expected too much from war crime trials, since families of the victims saw in them the most important form of dealing with the past. However, number of war crimes is too high and war crime trials procedures are being too slow, which is why RECOM reckons that is it very needful to discuss about establishment of complementary mechanism. They reckon that creating the Regional Commission would be another step closer to seeking of post-human remains of missing persons and determination of facts on war crimes.
“We have the responsibility towards following generation, to leave them the heritage which is not marked by crimes, but the facts which will help them not to have the similar happenings in these areas ever again, but which will also help us and them realize what actually happened here at those times”, stressed Natasa Kandic, director of the Fund for Humanitarian Right from Belgrade, and added that regional organizations of civil society has shown that they have the strength to prepare and make whole regional debate, but that the states themselves have to take over the responsibility and make a decision on establishment of such Commission, for the future generations, victims and creation of mutual trust in the region.
RECOM initiative was estimated as “the last straw for rescue’’ for societies in the region, and that it deserves every praise because it focuses on war crime fact findings regardless of the ex Yugoslav state that victims come from.
Local consultations in Pakrac
In front of around 60 participants, the Initiative of RECOM was presented by Vesna Terselic, manager of Documenta and Mirjana Bilopavlovic, the president of the NGO “Delfin” from Pakrac. All participants have pointed out that the aim of such consultations is to establish true historic fact on war crimes and establish regional commission that would be an extra-court instrument, and its work would be in the first line, focused to the victims of war crimes.
Vesna Terselic, Documenta
“Commission for fact finding which we suggest could be a complementary mechanism to war crime trials which are not so far, giving the guaranty that the interests of the victims will be satisfied”, said Vesna Terselic and added that the Commission eventually plans to present its results in the report which will contain names of the victims, concentration camps and all places that witness the killings and sufferings of the innocent.
Mirjana Bilopavlović as a human rights activist for many years and president of the NGO “Delfin” from Pakrac, reckons that “interpretation of the historic facts, and therefore manipulations of those facts, which witnesses we are, represents the main reason of the establishment of the initiatives such as RECOM”.
“Witnessing of the victims on suffering and killings as the most transparent part of the work of the future Commission, will represent an obstacle to all those who deny the war crime facts”, says Bilopavlovic.
Goran Bozivecic from Miramida Center Groznjan and Suzana Kunac from B.a.B.e. talked about the reasons on which the Initiative of REKOM was based, and also shared the experiences of other regarding RECOM consultation process.
The advisor of the president of the Republic of Croatia on political issues, Sinisa Tatalovic, as well as the vice president of the Croatian government Slobodan Uzelac, have addressed their letters of support to the RECOM meeting in Pakrac.
Two basic aims of the consultations are creation of the public platform where victims and representatives of civil society can express their needs in regards to truth-seeking and truth-telling in order to achieve justice after war. HLC, RDC, and Documenta advocate the establishing of a Regional Commission for Truth-seeking and Truth-telling about War Crimes since they are deeply convinced that it could support the work of prosecutors in the region by collecting, organizing, and preserving evidence that could be used for initiating and conducting criminal trials.
Related articles:
RECOM – Official website;
Vukovar consultations – 2008.
Organized by the Coalition for RECOM:
