ZAGREB, Aug 13 (Hina) - The head of the centre called "Apel", Zdenka Farkas, believes that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) failed to make sufficient efforts to seek persons whose whereabouts have been unknown since
the Homeland War in Croatia or who were taken prisoner during the war.
ZAGREB, Aug 13 (Hina) - The head of the centre called "Apel", Zdenka
Farkas, believes that the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) failed to make sufficient efforts to seek persons whose
whereabouts have been unknown since the Homeland War in Croatia or
who were taken prisoner during the war.#L#
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the
Geneva Conventions, Farkas called on all associations and
societies of the Homeland War veterans and their families to join
Apel in lighting candles in front of the ICRC offices in Zagreb and
thus remind the ICRC and the world of the problem of missing
persons.
She invited them at a news conference held in Zagreb on Friday which
was attended by the ICRC mission's head in Zagreb, Phillippe
Gaillard.
Farkas maintained that ICRC officials had not known enough about
the situation in Croatia and they were not able to cope with the
problem of missing and detainees during the aggression against
Croatia.
She stressed that during the 1991 aggression launched against
Croatia with the aim to establish a greater Serbia, harsh
violations of the Geneva Conventions took place and the obvious
example of such breaches was the deportation of the wounded and
medical staff from the Vukovar hospital to be executed at Ovcara.
The Apel association is expecting from the ICRC mission's personnel
to make more efforts in searching for the missing persons before
they leave Croatia.
Farkas told reporters it would not be enough just to publish a book
with lists of names of people whose whereabouts have been unknown
since the aggression.
The Apel's head said one should not say that those people
disappeared during the war, as it is known who of them was arrested
and taken to Serb concentration camps and who was killed. She added
that the whereabouts of 1,700 people were still unknown, but it was
known that they were caught and taken away by the then Yugoslav
People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries.
Therefore Apel proposes to the ICRC to publish a book with lists of
names of victims of the violations of the Geneva Conventions rather
than saying for them in the book that they were disappeared.
The head of the ICRC mission in Zagreb, Phillippe Gaillard said at
least 3,500 people had been registered as missing in Croatia from
1991 to 1995.
The ICRC would like to publish a book with the names of those missing
persons in order to prompt those who know something about the fate
of the missing to report it and remind the Croatian and world public
of the problem, Gaillard said adding that in case families of the
missing persons do not want the publication of such book, the ICRC
will not issue it.
The ICRC representative told reporters that some of the gravest
breaches of the Geneva Conventions had been registered during
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. He also wondered how the
Conventions could be implemented if authorities who sign the
document have no intention to carry it out.
(hina) ms