Kandic Resigns From War Crimes Board

The director of the Humanitarian Law Centre and one of the founders and leaders of a coalition of NGOs, the Coalition for RECOM, Natasa Kandic, officially resigned as a member of RECOM’s Coordinating Council on Monday.

Kandic, however, explained that her resignation from the steering group did not mean that she is leaving the Coalition for RECOM, the Regional Commission mandated to establish and disclose the facts about war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia.

“I have announced my decision to resign in March," she said. "That position meant dealing with administrative work, for which I don’t have time.

“I will lead the regional coordination in next months. The phase of negotiations over the way of forming RECOM is ahead of us,” says Kandic.

The coalition of NGOs advocates the forming of a regional commission, dubbed RECOM, tasked with establishing the facts about the victims of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

According to the Coalition for RECOM, the proposed regional commission should be tasked with compiling a report that determines the list of killed and missing during the wars, along with a list of camps and other places of detention.

In late April, the RECOM Coalition launched a petition aiming to gather one million signatures, which is supposed to be submitted to the parliaments of all former Yugoslav countries in late June, along with a request for the establishment of a regional commission.

In the last two months, they managed to gather 500,000 signatures. Kandic said she was pleased with the figure, but the petition showed that in some countries the support for the regional commission was low.

“Our activities will be focused on changing that [public opinion and gaining support]. Now we have to put some pressure on the heads of states to start changing national legislations and form working groups [that would dealt with forming regional commission],” she said.

“There are some lines that can’t be crossed: RECOM has to be authorised to make a list of killed and missing, a list of camps, establish the facts about the victims and has to have the power to reduce sentences to those convicts who provide information on missing or dead,” said Kandic.

Eleven years after armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia ended, not one successor state has completed a list of those killed or missing in the wars.

According to RECOM, victims of war remain marginalised, their voices are rarely heard in public, and the number of those killed is often manipulated for political purposes.

The coalition, supported by the commission was formed in October 2008. Since then it has gathered about 1,500 NGOs, associations, and individuals who support and publicly advocate for the regional project.