HLC: Past must be remembered

Humanitarian Law Center Director Natasa Kandic says there can be no democratic future for the states of the former Yugoslavia unless they face up to the past . Kandic said that this was why several hundred non-governmental organizations in the region were insisting on the formation of a Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about War Crimes (REKOM). HLC: Past must be remembered “What happened in the last decade cannot be forgotten. We must be responsible towards the past, we must ensure justice for the victims, in order to create the conditions that guarantee that these crimes will not be repeated,” Kandic told an Assembly of the Coalition for REKOM in Becici. She said that the fact that several hundred NGOs were participating in the consultations for forming REKOM, which have been ongoing for three years, showed that they had successed where the political elite in the region had failed—by uniting around an initiative for the crimes to be looked at from a regional, as opposed to national, perspective. She said that the regional NGOs would formulate a REKOM model and then offer it to governments in the region, with a request for the commission to be formed on an international level. Kandic said that war crimes trials were important, but were not enough for the victims to receive sufficient satisfaction for their pain, adding that this was one of the main reasons for forming REKOM, as was the need to prevent attempts at historical revisionism. Director of the Zagreb-based NGO Document Vesna Terselic said that communities in the region needed facts, truth and justice, and that the victims’ families needed compensation. She said that a regional approach towards shedding light on war crimes and other serious human rights violations was necessary, in order for the facts to be looked at from different angles. Terselic said that if war crimes trials continued at this pace regionally, only 1,200 people suspected of war crimes during the wars in the former Yugoslavia would have passed through the system by 2020. She said that this clearly demonstrated how ineffective court justice was for ensuring satisfaction for the victims, since more than 16,000 people in the region were still listed as missing. Terselic announced that the REKOM model would be submitted to governments in the region some time in 2010. She said that REKOM was expected to draft reports and give pertinent recommendations, adding that NGOs would then see to it that the commission’s recommendations were being respected and implemented.

HLC: Past must be remembered

“What happened in the last decade cannot be forgotten. We must be responsible towards the past, we must ensure justice for the victims, in order to create the conditions that guarantee that these crimes will not be repeated,” Kandić told an Assembly of the Coalition for REKOM in Bečići.

She said that the fact that several hundred NGOs were participating in the consultations for forming REKOM, which have been ongoing for three years, showed that they had successed where the political elite in the region had failed—by uniting around an initiative for the crimes to be looked at from a regional, as opposed to national, perspective.

She said that the regional NGOs would formulate a REKOM model and then offer it to governments in the region, with a request for the commission to be formed on an international level.

Kandić said that war crimes trials were important, but were not enough for the victims to receive sufficient satisfaction for their pain, adding that this was one of the main reasons for forming REKOM, as was the need to prevent attempts at historical revisionism.

Director of the Zagreb-based NGO Document Vesna Teršelić said that communities in the region needed facts, truth and justice, and that the victims’ families needed compensation.

She said that a regional approach towards shedding light on war crimes and other serious human rights violations was necessary, in order for the facts to be looked at from different angles.

Teršelić said that if war crimes trials continued at this pace regionally, only 1,200 people suspected of war crimes during the wars in the former Yugoslavia would have passed through the system by 2020.

She said that this clearly demonstrated how ineffective court justice was for ensuring satisfaction for the victims, since more than 16,000 people in the region were still listed as missing.

Teršelić announced that the REKOM model would be submitted to governments in the region some time in 2010.

She said that REKOM was expected to draft reports and give pertinent recommendations, adding that NGOs would then see to it that the commission’s recommendations were being respected and implemented.