Controversy About the Serb Helsinki Committee
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Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 20:52:08 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Controversy About the Serb Helsinki Committee
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Greek Helsinki Monitor <[email protected]>
Controversy About the Serb Helsinki Committee
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Greek Helsinki Monitor distributes below two letters related to
whether the Serb Helsinki Committee signed the Belgrade NGO texts.
Following the two letters, Greek Helsinki Monitor offers its comments
on the controversy.
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From: "Nebojsa Tasic" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
In response to Ivan Jankovic's letter
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 03:50:51 PDT
In response to Ivan Jankovic's letter
It is not my intention "to contribute to a discussion on the unfolding
human rights tragedy in Kosovo" (a discussion, by the way, largely
stirred up by the Greek Helsinki Monitor), but merely to point out a
certain fact that has been misstated in Ivan Jankovic's letter.
The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia never formally
signed either the Appeal issued on 6 April or the subsequent letter of
Serbian NGOs, written in response to the IFH and NHC letter of 18 May.
Indeed, the Helsinki Committee in Serbia was put on the list of
signatories to the 6 April Appeal quite arbitrarily by whoever had
written that Appeal. After this Appeal had been published, the
association of Serbian NGOs was informed that the Helsinki Committee
in Serbia would no longer be a part of it, and, especially, that it
did not give a blank permission to anyone to use the Committee's name.
Afterwards, however, the author(s) of the letter to IHF again without
authority stated the Helsinki Committee as one of the signatories.
As anyone familiar with the past work of the Helsinki Committee in
Serbia and other Serbian NGOs is aware of the distinctive views of the
Helsinki Committee (and some other NGOs), in contrast to most others,
about the Kosovo crisis, it is clear that this unauthorized use of the
name of the Helsinki Committee in Serbia has but only one objective:
the authors of the Appeal and subsequent letter to IHF obviously want
to take the Helsinki Committee with them in their downfall. The
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia never (and I repeat:
never) considered that a "multi-casual explanation" of anything may be
"quite plausible", if such an explanation is devised to make a false
balance. The Helsinki Committee never equated human rights violators
and victims.
Therefore, Ivan Jankovic's statement that "Helsinki Committee (that of
Serbia) is a signatory of the very Appeal which you [IHF] have so
harshly criticized", simply is not true.
Igor Mesner
Member of the Helsinki Committee
for Human Rights in Serbia
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From: Miljenko Dereta & Dubravka <[email protected]>
Organization: Civic Initiatives
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 04:35:15 +0200
The whole communication on the letter to HC is really Balkan at its
best. A lot of emotions, accusations and bad feelings and very little
facts. The letter of Mr. Ivan Jankovic represents a much needed
difference by its non-partisan evaluation of the exchanged messages,
and I thank him for that.
As Executive director of Civic Initiatives, one of the members of
Yugoslav Action group of NGOs and TU Nezavisnost (which is the
official name of our group), and very active in its coordination body,
I hope I can contribute by clarifying some of the questions raised by
Mr. Igor Mesner.
The appeal of April the 6th was signed by the HC of Serbia as two of
its members were present when it was written and approved by all
(then) 17 representatives of NGOs. Mr. Mesner probably does not know
that as with most of the members of HC in Serbia he left the country
in the first days of war.
It is only several days after the appearance of the appeal that we
were informed that the HC of Serbia will not participate anymore in
the work of YU Action group. I was the one authorized by YU Action
group to talk to our friends from HC in Serbia and try to explain to
them our sincere wish and obvious need for HC to stay and contribute
to the work of our group. This friendly meeting gave no result
although informal cooperation was welcomed as the only possible way of
cooperation at this moment.
It took almost 40 days (!!!) to IHF and NHC to formulate their
comments and express their concern about our "balanced responsibility
approach". During these 40 days of war we issued 4 new announcements
which, for most good willed people, clarified both our positions and
the fact that we function under martial laws (which by my opinion
should be the real concern of IHF). None of those announcements were
signed by the HC in S and not one of them was referred to in the
letter from IHF. The fact that HC of S signature appeared again on the
letter of May 18th is a technical (copy - paste) mistake due to the
circumstances in which we work. The message was sent from the computer
in the part of town that at that moment had electricity. We realized
our mistake and sent a letter of apologies to our friends in HC of S.
Mr. Mesner, being out of the country, cannot know that. What he does
know, but purposely overlooks, is the clear position of all members of
YU Action Group against ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians and our
efforts to prevent it.
Now, I understand those NGO activists from Serbia that fled from
presumed repression of Milosevic's regime in war conditions, or even
because of simple fear from bombs. But most of stayed, respecting the
commitments we took in our 10 years struggle against the dictatorship
and feeling responsible for the democratic future of our society. As
one member of the group said recently, belonging to YU Action group
gave him support similar to the one Belgrade Circle public meetings
generated during the war in Bosnia.
In the past two months our group grew to 41 members, most of them from
towns in Vojvodina and South and Central Serbia. We formulated a
program of activities (also distributed through the network) and
started work on several projects. We established and maintain contacts
with NGOs from several EU countries. From where he is writing his
letter Mr. Mesner cannot see the positive effects of NGO solidarity
and rudely calls it downfall.
I have to express a personal feeling that it is a shame that the HC of
Serbia is not functioning at this very moment when human rights are so
drastically abused in Yugoslavia. Luckily, there are still some
courageous people like Natasa Kandic from HLFund and the lawyers from
the Yugoslav Lawyer's Association for HR and some other HR groups that
continue to work.
At the very moment I am writing this letter news on possible peace
agreement was announced. I hope it is the first step to the solving of
the tragical crisis we went through. I also hope it will re-create
conditions for a meeting with friends from IHF and NHC on which we
could clarify our differences and continue a fruitful cooperation.
Sincerely
Miljenko Dereta
Executive Director
Civic Initiatives
Belgrade
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COMMENT BY GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR
GHM confirms Miljenko Dereta's explanation for the initial Serb HC
signature. Indeed, when a doubt was first raised on that issue, GHM
received confirmation of the signature of the Serb HC by Sonja
Biserko, after she was specially contacted by the IHF, on 13 April.
Nevertheless, when GHM was to release the next Belgrade NGO statement,
on 12 May, an urgent message was sent to Sonja Biserko. She was at the
time with IHF's Executive Committee in Washington. She was asked to
warn of possible abuse of the signature before distribution. She sent
no answer. So we assumed that there was no problem. All NGO statements
were sent to both Biserko's address and Tasic' s address, from which
Igor Mesner sent his letter above; with the latter GHM even had an
exchange of messages. Never was any challenge of the signature
received.
Following Mesner's letter, we asked that the HC sends a letter on that
matter; we felt that a staff member (as listed in the IHF web page for
the Serb HC) is not the most appropriate authority to speak on behalf
of the whole Committee. No Serb HC was ever received till today. So
today we go ahead and release the above exchange.
Miljenko Dereta has promised to send GHM the accurate list of
signatures to each statement so that we can replace the existing ones
in our special web page with many texts from/on Serbian civil society:
http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/english/reports/Voices%20from%20Serbian%20Civil%20Society.html
When this task will be completed, GHM will send out a related
announcement.
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