Documenta Zagreb Email & Phone Number

Croatia

By monitoring war crimes trials, investigations and numerous unresolved war crimes we came to a new, inevitable theme of our work which imposed itself on us - the status of injured parties / victims of war crimes and their right to compensation for damage suffered. Upon numerous contacts with victims and their lawyers, as well as a presentation of the issues of civil court proceedings relating to compensation for damage caused by criminal acts during the war, Documenta began also to follow these court proceedings. We collected and analysed some 120 filed claims for the compensation of damage caused by the loss of their close relatives during the war, which were intiated based on the Law on Responsibility for Damage Caused by Terrorist Acts and Public Demonstrations and the Law on Responsibility of the Republic of Croatia for Damages Caused by Members of Croatian Armed Forces during the Homeland War. Some of the analysed lawsuits are still pending before the Croatian courts. Family members in the mentioned cases of vilent death alledged the cause of death to be as follows: shot gun wounding, punches, kicks and stab wounds inflicted with a knife, or, as another example: a person is missing and declared dead, but the exact cause of death remained unknown. According to the available documents plaintiffs filed also criminal suits for a murder of a war crime. In most of the cases, these are unreslolved war crimes in the pre-investigation phase and the proceedings are conducted against unknown offenders.

The aim of the culture of memory program is to systematically educate about politics of remembrance, practices of marking sites of violence and commemorative culture in Croatia and the wider region, to initiate public dialogue on the culture of remembrance, as well as to strengthen a team of experts interested in dealing with the past in particular countries.In this way, we want to make a modest contribution to the acknowledgement of suffering of all victims by enlarging the group of individuals who are well informed and interested in a public debate on the appropriate ways of commemorating different sites of past violence.In addition to organizing study visits, we are producing short documentaries about all organized visits, which will be accessible on our web site www.kulturasjecanja.info, as well as a web map with marked sites of violence.

Croatia

The main aim of implementing the project "Documenting Human Losses in Croatia during the War 1991-1995" is the fact that even 15 years after the war had ended there is no reliable, verifiable and undisputable number of victims of war, killed or missing on the territory of theRepublic of Croatia.The necessity to implement this project stems from the need to prevent political and ideological manipulations with the number of war victims in Croatia. Such condition does not help alleviating effects of the war, which is a pre-condition for the development of a multiethnic and multicultural surrounding. Determining the facts about war events and their consequences is extremely important for Croatia's citizens, citizens of other post-Yugoslav countries, as well as the entire Europe.Implementation of this project will make impossible arbitrary, false and malevolent manipulations of the number of war victims. Ensuring relevant data is helpful to institutions and organizations which participate in judicial processes (domestic courts, ICTY, etc.) and processes of building sustainable peace and trust. In this way, we are contributing to individualization of responsibility for war crimes.

Croatia

Our intention is to affirm personal memories of all interested witnesses of historical events in Croatia and to preserve them from oblivion. We believe that, through recording and transferring of subjective experiences of people, it is possible to gain deeper insights into seemingly hidden aspects of political turmoil and war conflicts which had happened in these areas. Our aim is to support and strengthen personal and social processes of dealing with the past, which we find as a necessary pre-condition for building sustainable peace and stability in the society.The project “Unveiling Personal Memories on War and Detention” is intended to create a collection of video-recorded testimonies on a wide range of war experiences in Croatia proposes the use of oral history as a method to collect and open up individual memories on past traumatic events from a wide range of perspectives, including those of minorities, victims, women, war veterans... Moreover, the project aims to combine the method of collecting personal memories, with innovative ICT tools in order to make these sources accessible and searchable through the Internet for a wide range of audiences. The purpose is to record a set of 400 interviews and narratives on personal experiences on various wars and political violence in the period between 1941 and 1995 in Croatia. Personal memories are recorded in the form of video-interview which will be accessible on an internet platform www.osobnasjecanja.hr and www.croatianmemories.org

Croatia

Systematic teaching about twentieth century conflicts, forms of political repression and propaganda, war suffering, war heritage and war narratives should be a part of peace education and sustainable peace development.Croatian society is burdened with issues of recent history war heritage, heritage of the Second World War and the Homeland War. Thus, teaching about war heritage should be an integral part of peace education. Partialy, it is already a part of history education, but unfortuannetly it still optional to teach about these aspects of the issue. Teaching controversial and sensitive issues should not be sporadical and optional. Critical analysis of historical sources should be systematically taught through all educational cycles and this method should be applied to all historical periods. The concept of multiperspectivity should introduce pupils to poliphony of war experiences. These concepts are essential in considering and teaching conflicts, overcoming conflicts and coexistence.Therefore, in the year 2007 Documenta published Supplement for history textbooks on recent history, which caused a lively debate. Today, most of the controversial contents and methods used in the Supplement are today a standard part of history textbooks.

Croatia

Dealing with the Past encompasses a wide range of activi­ties which address past human rights abuses of serious nature and, in some cases, also root causes of wars and conflicts. Wars which have been conducted on the territory of our and neighbouring countries caused painful wounds and tremendous losses. This fact provides an insight about the values of truth, establishing facts, and delivering the justice as a ground for building the future.Dealing with the Past encourages human approach with the victims’ restitution and relief of injured people, endangered groups and society as a whole as its lodestar.Dealing with the Past, at the institutional level is also known as transitional justice – a process that, after a war conflict aims to establish democracy, peace building process and attain the justice.At the heart of the re-building war affected societies and promoting lasting peace in Croatia and the region, Documenta has contributed to the development of many important processes. Since 2004, it has been committed to activities concerning Dealing with the Past based on principles of the right to know, the right to justice, the right to reparation, and the guarantee of non-recurrence.

Croatia And Post Yugoslav Countries

The Coalition for RECOM is a non-political regional gathering of civil society organizations. It consistis of a network of more than 1800 non-governmental organizations, associations, and individuals who represent and promote the Intiative for RECOM towards the establishment of a Regional Commission Tasked with Establishing the Facts about All Victims of War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights Violations Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia in the period from 1991-2001 (RECOM).Members of RECOM can be found at: http://www.zarekom.org/documents/Coalition-members.en.html

Croatia

Human Rights organizations - Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek; Documenta – Centre for Dealing with Past, Zagreb and Civic Committee for Human Rights, Zagreb; have been monitoring war crimes trials at the courts of the Republic of Croatia since 2005. Overall goal of the war crime trial monitoring is the strengthening the rule of law in the area of war crimes proceedings by increased efficiency and improved legal framework for the war crimes proceedings as well as the improvement of the victim’s status in the proceeding. At the same time, the goal is also to build a strong regional cooperation, to initialise a public debate on the reparation of victims of war, to create a public dialogue and an inter-sectoral cooperation as well as to have an impact on local /national /regional level and to proceed with the capacity building, partneship and human resources building. All war crimes trials at the courts of the Republic of Croatia are monitored, including the revisions of the previous proceedings conducted in absence of accused persons. We also monitor and encourage, within our capabilities and based on direct contact with victims and other available information, the processing of the war crimes trials against unknown perpetrators that are still in the pre-investigative stage. It is certainly our interest to monitor the war crimes trials that are dealt by the courts of the neighbouring countries, especially if the crime was committed on the territory of the Republic of Croatia, as well as to monitor the trials at the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) for the former Yugoslavia. The basic guidelines for the war crimes trials monitoring is the respect of the fair trial principle in criminal court proceedings as well as the respect of the parties in the proceedings.