SERBIA MUST ACKNOWLEDGE EXTENT OF LAST DECADE CRIMES

BELGRADE, Jan 31 (Hina) - Serbia's prospects for the future depend on its willingness to acknowledge the extent of crimes committed during the recent wars and bringing the direct perpetrators to justice, Latinka Perovic of Belgrade's Institute for Modern History said on Wednesday. "It will be the most important step towards severing ties with the policy of ethnic nationalism, for which crime was a legitimate means," she told an international conference entitled "Revolution, Transition and Democracy in Serbia, which is dedicated to changes in Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The participants in the recent changes in Serbia were opposition parties, non-governmental organisations, the Resistance movement, the citizens, as well as the international community, said Vesna Pesic, president of the Anti-War Action Centre. She added a lot more had to be done to ensure a discontinuity with the former regime. "The citizens were so mature that they decided to not support Slobodan Milosevic, despite the bombing," she said. Robert Helvey, a representative of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP), advocated decentralisation, the division of power and control of authority as preconditions for transition towards a democratic society. Changing leaders is not enough, police and military work has to be controlled, investments enabled to revive the economy, religious and media freedoms have to be provided, Helvey said. The two-day conference in Belgrade has been organised by Serbia's Helsinki Committee on Human Rights in cooperation with the USIP. (hina) ha sb