Coalition for Suport of REKOM Initaitive Created

04 November 2008

A coalition of civil society organizations to support the initiative to create a Region Commission (REKOM) to establish facts regarding war crimes and other serious human rights violations in the recent past was created at the 4th Regional Transition Justice Forum, held in Pristina, October 28-29.

On the eve and during the Forum, the Coalition was joined by 108 human rights organizations, associations of victims, missing persons and their families, youth and wome organizations, peace and democracy organizations and other NGOS and professional groups, as well as 155 individual citizens from the countries of former Yugoslavia.

The initiators, the Humanitarian Law Centre, the Investigation and Documentation Centre (IDC) and Documenta, transferred to the Coalition the competences to organize future consultations within the civil sector on the mandate and character of REKOM. The participants in the Forum agreed that the Coalition should prepare a working model of the REKOM, collect the one million signature necessary to create the Commission and start the proper initiatives at the national parliaments by the end of 2009.

The Forum and the Coalition demonstrated their strong support for the war crimes trials as the crucial legal response for determination of individual criminal responsibility, albeit well aware that the courts lack capacity to try all those suspected of being involved in war crimes. Representatives of Albanian associations of families of victims expressed their doubts that Serbian courts can give justice to Albanian victims. Families of Srebrenica victims presented their conclusion that the War Crimes Court and the Supreme Court of Serbia were not prepared to try on basis of law and available facts and evidence.

The Forum greeted the participation of assocations of victims and missing Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Roma and Egiptians, active in Serbia and in Montenegro, while expressing concerns about the position of Serb victim associations from the Republic of Srpska to not participate in the Forum for political reasons.