Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans by Olivera Simić & Zala Volčič

Author:Olivera Simić & Zala Volčič
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

Coalition for RECOM (Regional Commission Tasked With Establishing Facts About The War 1991–2001)

The Coalition for RECOM (ZaREKOM or “for” RECOM) originated from a partnership between three leading human rights organizations in the Balkans: the Information and Documentation Center (IDC) in BiH, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Serbia, and Dokumenta in Croatia. During internal discussions, the founders became interested in a new initiative to address ongoing concerns that the international and domestic courts were not contributing to an authoritative account of the war. These organizations began holding regional forums around the region, seeking input from survivors, scholars, youth, and others interested in new strategies to investigate, document, and publicize facts about the violence.

The founders knew that they would have to address the skepticism with which survivors view both governmental and civil society initiatives designed to help them, particularly when foreigners are involved (Coles 2002). As a former HLC staff member who participated in early discussions explained, the organization was particularly wary about calling their proposal a truth commission: The founders of the RECOM Initiative would say it’s not about a truth commission. They would say it’s about a fact-finding body. They want to get away from this idea from using the term truth. In essence, it remains the same. It’s essentially a truth commission, but they were talking about a body that would establish the facts about human rights violations rather than a body that would establish the truth, which seems more sort of esoteric and just—a bit out there, really (67, personal communication, 16 May 2011).

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