Associations of Victims,Veterans-Podgorica, Montenegro-May 09, 2008

Regional Consultation with Associations of Victims and Veterans on Mechanisms of Truth-Seeking About War Crimes

The consultation was organized by the Humanitarian Law Center (Serbia), Documenta (Croatia), and Research and Documentation Center (BiH) in cooperation with the Association of citizens of Bukovica (Montenegro) and the Association of the families of the kidnapped, missing and killed in the period from 1998 to 1999 in Kosovo Crveni božur (Montenegro). Nataša Kandić (Humanitarian Law Center, Serbia), Vesna Teršelič (Documenta, Croatia), Mirsad Tokača (Research and Documentation Center, BiH), Jakub Durgut (Association of citizens of Bukovica, Montenegro) and Ljubiša Flipović (Association of the fami- lies of the kidnapped, missing and killed in the period from 1998 to 1999 in Kosovo Crveni božur, Montenegro) opened the gathering. The gather- ing was marked by the launch of the initiative to create the regional commission for establishing and telling the facts about war crimes (RECOM) which was presented by the HLC, Documenta, and RDC as a concrete support given to the regional approach by the participants of the consultations who believe that it is the most reliable method for investigating and disclosing the truth about war crimes. 44 Participants representing victims’ associations, victims who are not members of any associations, and veterans from Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Kosovo supported the initiative to create RECOM with the strong conviction that the initiative would receive the strong support of associations of family members of the missing in all post-Yugoslav countries, but being aware that without political will of national governments and strong support of the international community this initiative cannot be implemented. Dan Journal from Podgorica reported on the gathering.

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