Initiative for RECOM

The Initiative for RECOM, full name Initiative for 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 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the period from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 2001, was an initiative to establish a regional commission for truth by agreement between the states of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The Initiative for RECOM is represented in public through the RECOM Reconciliation Network, which is the largest network of non-governmental organizations in the countries of the former SFR Yugoslavia. In 2019, RECOM Reconciliation Network gave up further insistence on the successor states of the SFR Yugoslavia to establish an intergovernmental commission. On that occasion, it took care and responsibility to make a list of victims of the wars caused by the disintegration of SFR Yugoslavia. The coordinator of the RECOM Reconciliation Network is Nataša Kandić.

History

The Regional commission for establishing the facts about war crimes and other serious violations of human rights committed on the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 2001 was supposed to be an official, interstate commission that was to be jointly established by the successors of the former SFR Yugoslavia. As an extrajudicial body, RECOM should have been tasked with establishing the facts of all war crimes and other serious violations of human rights related to the war; to list all war-related victims by name and determine the circumstances of their death; to collect data on places of detention, on persons who are illegally detained, subjected to torture and inhumane treatment, as well as to make a comprehensive list of them; to collect information about the fate of the missing, as well as to hold public hearings of victims and other persons about wrongdoings related to the war. The regional commission was supposed to be independent of its founders and to be financed by donations.
The process surrounding the establishment of RECOM began with a debate on instruments for discovering and telling facts about the past in May 2006 at the 1st Regional forum for transitional justice in post-Yugoslav countries, which was held in Sarajevo and was organized by the Humanitarian Law Center from Belgrade, Research and Documentation Center from Sarajevo and Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past from Zagreb. The participants, representatives of around 300 non-governmental organizations and associations of families of missing persons and victims from post-Yugoslav countries, gave preference to a regional approach in dealing with the past. In the meantime, the initiative on regional approach and context grew into an initiative to establish a Regional Commission for establishing and telling the facts about war crimes and other serious violations of human rights on the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 2001.

The Coalition for RECOM (2008-2019)

Coalition for RECOM, full name The Coalition for establishment of the Regional Commission for establishing facts about war crimes and other serious violations of human rights in the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 2001, is a network of non-governmental organization, which was formed on October 28, 2008, in Kosovo Capital City Pristina. It was created in the framework of 4 of the regional forum for transitional justice in post-Yugoslav countries, by the decision of 100 organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro that participated in the forum - non-governmental organizations that deal with human rights, youth organizations, associations of families of the missing and associations of former inmates. Thus, the Initiative for the establishment of RECOM became the property of the Coalition for RECOM, and the Humanitarian Law Center, Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past and Research and Documentation Center, assumed the role of a technical-administrative support service for the consultation process. After the 4th Regional Forum for Transitional Justice in Post-Yugoslav Countries, the Research and Documentation Center withdrew from the Coordination Council and gave up further engagement and representation of the Initiative on the establishment of RECOM. In June 2010, non-governmental organizations and associations of victims and veterans from North Macedonia joined the Coalition for RECOM, and then non-governmental organizations and associations of the erased from Slovenia. Since then, the Coalition for RECOM has gathered 2,200 non-governmental organizations dealing with human rights, associations of camp inmates, associations of refugees, associations of families of the missing, artists, writers, lawyers and other prominent intellectuals who advocate the idea that the countries formed on the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia form RECOM, whose is a task to establish facts about what happened in the immediate past.
In the period from May 2006 to March 26, 2011, the Coalition for RECOM organized a comprehensive social debate on RECOM's mandate. It was attended by 6,700 representatives of civil society, including organizations dealing with human rights, victims, families of victims and the missing, refugees, veterans, inmates, lawyers, artists, writers, journalists and other distinguished individuals. 128 local and regional meetings and eight regional forums for transitional justice were held in post-Yugoslav countries. The views presented were translated into the Draft Statute of RECOM, which was adopted by the Assembly of the Coalition for RECOM on March 26, 2011, in Sarajevo.
After the consultative process, the second phase of the process began - the institutionalization of the Initiative for RECOM. This phase represented the transfer of the Initiative for RECOM from the level of civil society to the political level. In order to gain public support for the establishment of RECOM, the Coalition organized a petition for the establishment of RECOM in May and June 2011, which was signed by 542,660 citizens from all post-Yugoslav states. In October of the same year, 145 artists and intellectuals from post-Yugoslav countries sent an open letter, in which they requested the establishment of RECOM. The letter was signed by, among others: Dino Merlin, Mirjana Karanović, Danis Tanović, Slavenka Drakulić, Slavko Goldstein, Jasmila Žbanić and others. Then the Coalition for RECOM formed a Team of Public Advocates and the action REKOM za budućnost was launched. Advocacy resulted in the decision of the President, that is, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to appoint personal representatives for RECOM. The delegates were given the task of analyzing the Statute of RECOM proposed by the Coalition for RECOM and to check the constitutional and legal possibilities for the establishment of RECOM in each individual state.
On October 28, 2014, the delegates for RECOM submitted to the Coalition for RECOM the Amendments to the Statute of RECOM, as a harmonized document that represents the legal framework for the establishment of RECOM. The Coalition for RECOM supported these changes at the Assembly on November 14, 2014. However, in the meantime, elections were held in Bosnia and Herzegovina and new members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina were elected, and a new president was elected in Croatia, so in the first half of 2015 the Coalition for RECOM found itself in a situation where it was once again seeking support for the establishment of RECOM- And. Support was confirmed by the presidents of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from among the Bosniak people. They also supported the strategy of the Coalition for RECOM that the issue of establishing RECOM be considered within the framework of the Berlin Process. In just a few days, in May 2017, 52,919 citizens of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Pristina, Zagreb and Belgrade signed a petition for an agreement between the leaders of the post-Yugoslav countries on the establishment of RECOM within the framework of the Berlin process. In the Declaration of the chairman of the summit in Trieste, on July 12, 2017, the recommendation of the Civil Society Forum for the establishment of RECOM, as a joint effort of the participants of the summit, was highlighted. In connection with the summit in London, which was held on July 10, 2018, the Coalition for RECOM invited the prime ministers of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia to sign the Declaration on the establishment of RECOM and invite the remaining post-Yugoslav countries to join the joint job - making a list of human losses in the wars that resulted from the breakup of SFR Yugoslavia.
File:Vesna Teršelič Natasa Kandic at al rekom 23 may 2018.jpg|thumb|left|Conference "Roadmap for RECOM and Strengthening the Regional Reconciliation Network" in Belgrade on May 23, 2018. Left-Right: Vesna Teršelič, Nataša Kandić, Daliborka Uljarević, Ana Marjanović Rudan. The discussion was about initiative to call for leaders of former Yugoslavia to establish RECOM network on the forthcoming London summit within the Berlin Process in July 2018.
The Coalition for RECOM prepared the Declaration for the establishment of RECOM, with the proposal that it be signed by the ministers of foreign affairs of the Western Balkans at the summit of the Berlin Process in London in 2018, expecting that Croatia, as a member of the European Union, will subsequently join. However, the government's decision to sign the Declaration was made only by Montenegro, which is why the signing of the Declaration was removed from the agenda of the Berlin Process summit in 2018. As part of preparations for the Berlin Process summit in 2019, Honorary Director General of the European Commission Pierre Mirel, on behalf of the EU Directorate for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, visited Sarajevo, and at meetings with advisers to the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was informed that members of the Presidency from the ranks of the Bosniak and the Croatian people believe that the establishment of RECOM is an outdated initiative, that the priorities for Bosnia and Herzegovina are regional stability and security, and that Republika Srpska does not support the reconciliation based on court facts, which the Coalition for RECOM advocates.