The Zagreb-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights NGO has produced a guide for politicians on how to apologise for crimes committed during Croatia’s 1995 military operation ‘Storm’ as its anniversary approaches.
The Youth Initiative for Human Rights on Tuesday presented a guide to help politicians to say sorry for crimes committed against Croatian Serb civilians during and after the Croatian Army’s victorious Operation Storm at the start of August 1995.
The guide, entitled ‘How to Apologise for Crimes’, says an apology would represent a form of symbolic reparation by state officials to the victims. Croatian forces and other unknown perpetrators killed an estimated several hundred Serb civilians during and after the operation.
“Symbolic reparations such as apologies strongly contribute to reducing social segregation, mutual intolerance and hate in society by resolutely, clearly and unambiguously condemning perpetrators of violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” the guide says.
“With these symbolic gestures, the victims get back their dignity and hope that the brutality will not be repeated,” it adds.
According to the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, the apology should be publicly offered to victims in their presence at the place where the crimes took place, or one that has a strong symbolic significance.
The apology should include the recognition of specific crimes committed and the acceptance of responsibility for them, the guide says. It should also include a condemnation of the crimes and all activities that led to them.
Politicians should list efforts to investigate and punish the crimes, give victims the instruments at their disposal for reparations and remedies, and stress values that will lead towards “reconciliation, coexistence and tolerance”, it adds.
The guide notes that in 2005, the UN General Assembly passed the Resolution 60/147, which recommends a public apology, “including acknowledgement of the facts and acceptance of responsibility” by states for crimes committed by their forces.
The guide also lists what it describes as good and bad examples of apologies given by statesmen in recent history.
It analyses a statement by the former British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, in which he admitted and apologised for crimes committed by British forces in Derry in Northern Ireland in 1972, when 14 Irish civilians were killed on what became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’.
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