About Documenta
Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek, Centre for Peace Studies, Civic Committee for Human Rights and Croatian Helsinki Committee decided to found Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past in an attempt to encourage the process of dealing with the past and establishing factual truth about the war and to contribute to shifting of the discussion from the level of dispute over facts (the number of killed people, etc.) towards a dialogue on interpretations.
The key reason for making this
attempt was the silence about and falsification of war crimes and
other war-related events in the period from 1941 to 2000, which has
influenced the recent past of Yugoslavia, as well as post-Yugoslav
societies.
Since its establishment Documenta contributes to the development of individual and social process of dealing with the past, in order to build a sustainable peace in Croatia and the region by deepening the dialogue and initiating a public debate on public policies that encourage
dealing with the past,collecting data, publishing research on war events, war crimes and violations of human rights, and monitoring war crimes trials at the local and regional
level as a contribution to the improvement of court standards and practices in the war crimes trials.
Since 2006 Documenta is working on building and strengthening regional coalition of civil society organizations from post-Yugoslav countries, advocating the establishment of Regional Commission for establishing the facts upon conflicts in the region (RECOM).
In
order to achieve its goals, Documenta
cooperates with its founding organizations, associations of families
of the missing people, other civic initiatives, governmental
institutions, international institutions and organizations,
institutions of state and local government, academic institutions,
religious groups, the media and other interested individuals.
Documenta is a member of following networks and professional associations:
- Human Rights House Zagreb / International Human Rights House Network
- Initiative for RECOM
- International Practitioners Network
- The Global Coalition for Conflict Transformation
- Croatian Network for Cooperation on Euro-Mediteranean (Anna Lindh)
- Coalition for the International Criminal Court
- The Fundamental Rights Platform
- International Council of Archives; Human Rights Group
- Platform 112 - Platform for Croatia Under the Rule of Law
- Inicijativa za uvođenje kvalitetnog odgoja i obrazovanja za demokratsko građanstvo