WAR CRIMES RESEARCH CENTRE OPENED IN VUKOVAR

VUKOVAR, May 3 (Hina) - The Croatian Society of Prisoners of Serb Concentration Camps opened a War Crimes Research Centre in the Borovo Naselje neighbourhood of the eastern town of Vukovar on Monday.#L# The centre was jointly opened by Parliament President Vladimir Seks and Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor. The centre is the first such institution in Croatia which will collect testimonies and documents about Serb-run concentration camps where captured Croatian soldiers and civilians were confined and subjected to suffering after the fall of Vukovar on 18 November 1991, the society's president, Danijel Rehak, said. "Our goal is also to get in touch with related institutions around the world, and to promote the truth about the Homeland War," he added. Kosor underlined the need to constantly fight against oblivion and to preserve the truth about the Homeland War. Seks said there were attempts in the world, including in indictments issued by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, to spread lies about the Homeland War. He urged telling the world the truth about the Serb concentration camps and the suffering of Croats and other non-Serbs in the Homeland War. According to data collected by the Croatian Society of Prisoners of Serb Concentration Camps, about 8,000 Croats and other non-Serbs passed through those camps and about 3,000 died there. Rehak told reporters the society filed a complaint with the Croatian State Prosecutor's Office two years ago against several hundred persons who had taken part in the detention and torture of inmates in Serb-operated concentration camps. He added, however, that no action had been taken. Rehak said some people named in the complaint were currently being tried in Belgrade for war crimes committed on 20 November 1991 at the Ovcara farm outside Vukovar. He announced that the Society would file a complaint also in Belgrade seeking compensation from Serbian authorities on behalf of former detainees of Serb camps. (Hina) ha