Disclosing hidden history:
Lustration in the Western Balkans

www.lustration.net

Executive Summary

The “Disclosing hidden history: Lustration in the Western Balkans” project will create a regional network of NGOs and specialised work groups with the purpose of strengthening good governance, the rule of law, and the participation of civil society in the democratic process, via regional and local activities. Specifically, this project aims to enhance lustration legislation and practices and to extend citizen participation in the public debate on the past in the Western Balkans. The project impacts on the societies as a whole because it addresses a fundamental legal and political issue of democratisation. Main beneficiaries will be legislators, legal experts, officials of public administrations and civil and human rights activists and groups. Activities will include a series of thematic workshops and seminars, the initiating of an NGO network on “Lustration and the Public Debates on the Past,” the creation of a continuously updated website with a manual on lustration legislation and practices and the publication of recommendations on best practices.

Objectives

The objectives of this project are to strengthen good governance, the rule of law, and the participation of civil society in the democratic process by expanding and upgrading the legal and political basis and practices of coping with the authoritarian past in the region.

To achieve the above objectives the project has the following general aims:

• To improve lustration legislation;
• To improve lustration procedures;
• To enhance legal and political awareness;
• To improve the public debate on the past.
• The specific aims are as follows:
• To create and expand a regional network of NGOs;
• To execute a regional comparative analysis and report on lustration in the Western Balkans;
• To design and present specific recommendations on lustration practices;
• To initiate constructive analytical and critical discussions on lustration amongst legal professionals;
• To involve human rights groups in the lustration debate;
• To make the project findings and results widely publicised and easily accessible;
• To promote gender balance in all project activities.

The issue of lustration has two distinct but interrelated components. On the one side is the legal system, the rule of law and good governance, and on the other, civil society. The objectives and aims of this project likewise resonate on two levels, addressing and connecting both the state/legal and the civil/public components. For example, widely publicising the project findings will have a positive effect on the level of the state by improving lustration procedures, but also a positive effect on civil society, which benefits from increased knowledge and awareness of issues that directly affect them.

The process of facing the past, especially disclosing historical facts hidden in secret archives, and making a clean break with it, is a sensitive and complex issue in all post-authoritarian countries. In the Western Balkans, this process is unfolding at a slow and halting pace, especially if it is compared with the developments in other post-authoritarian states.

In the Western Balkans both pillars, the drafting and implementing of lustration legislation as well as the public debates on the past, show great weaknesses and deficiencies. Apart from Albania , no other country in the region has so far passed a lustration law. The implementation of the lustration legislation in Albania has remained restricted and sometimes highly controversial. In other countries, initiatives in this direction were either isolated (as in Croatia ), concentrating on a single issue (in most cases the opening of the archives of the secret services) or not undertaken at all. On the other hand, some issues or incidents of the past have sometimes been hotly debated in the public, but too often this was abused as a tool in on-going political conflicts. Civil and human rights activists and groups as well as victims have pleaded for a comprehensive debate on the past, but so far to no satisfying effect.

The constraint in this endeavour is that public debates on the past and their consequences for democratisation are so highly sensitive and politicised. Experience has shown that so far many debates on the past in the region have been either single-issue orientated, extremely emotional or abused as tools in on-going political conflicts. In some cases, a real public debate on the past was simply non-existent. Furthermore, attempts at initiating such a debate met with considerable difficulties and resistance. The project will overcome this constraint by relying on project staff members who have professional and personal experience in the process of lustration. The staff members will be able to guide the project activities so that sensitive issues are dealt with in a constructive and effective way. These individuals are also NGO representatives, creating in themselves a regional network of organisations that is highly qualified to lead public debates that are essential to the development of civil society.

The primary target group consists of legislators, legal experts, officials of public administrations, and civil and human rights activists and groups. Three seminars will bring together over 30 individuals, and the creation of working groups to research lustration practices will involve another 15 individuals all from the primary target group. They are the direct beneficiaries of the project.

Because of both the political and personal nature of lustration, as well as the importance of the expected results, whole societies will benefit from the project. Involvement of the public will be facilitated by widely publicising the main findings and recommendations of the project. Modern technology will facilitate the publicising efforts; a website at www.lustration.net will provide easy access to all project materials and information. The address is catchy and easily remembered in all languages. The website will be publicised in major media in the seven target cities included in this project.

Activities

The proposed project envisages four main strands of activities, which are mutually connected and should lead to synergetic effects.

These four strands aim at:

1. Enhancing the public debate on the past;
2. Improving lustration legislation and procedures;
3. Increasing the legal and political awareness;
4. Strengthening citizen participation and the role of civil and human rights groups.

Full description of activities available upon request.

The main methods of project implementation include:

• Legal, political and social research and monitoring, both by individuals and by working groups;
• Expert analysis of results and elaboration of recommendations at seminars and workshops;
• Enhancement of the legal awareness through public debates and publications;
• Communication with all concerned through web pages documenting all project activities;
• Creation of a NGO network on the project issue;
• Focusing the public attention on project topics by inclusion of media professionals and publications on best practices;
• Multiperspectivity by comparative analysis with a regional aspect.

The basic purpose of all activities within the project is to produce concrete practical results and communicate them to the public.

Partner Organisations

All activities of the proposed project will be undertaken in close co-operation with NGOs dealing with civil and human rights issues from each country of the region. The CDRSEE together with five partner organisations will create the core of a broad NGO network on “Lustration and the Public Debates on the Past.” The NGOs have complimenting goals, values, and activities:

• Partner 1: Albanian Human Rights Group, Tirana

Founded in September 1996, the Albanian Human Rights Group (AHRG) aims to raise awareness about violations of human rights; to promote the freedom of press and the rights of journalists; to labour for the recognition and protection of minority rights; to defend the rights of children and women; to investigate the conditions in Albanian prisons and police stations; and to assist the further education of Albanian society. Some of AHRG's projects to date include observing parliamentary elections, monitoring the violation of human rights, and an assistance programme for Kosova women.

• Partner 2: Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies of the University of Sarajevo

The Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies (CIPS) has existed since 1995, at first as a macro-project of the Open Society Institute BiH. It has a broad mandate to assist the legal issues surrounding the transition to a democratic state of BiH through review and reform of existing legislature and development of a strong civil society in order to bring the State of BiH closer to the legal framework of the European Union. CIPS focuses on legal educational programs for students, judges, lawyers, professors, ministry personnel, and human rights activities, and acts as a meeting point for more than one hundred prominent experts, local and international, in various academic and professional fields devoted to the establishment of working democracy and protection of human rights.

• Partner 3: Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Zagreb

The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (CHC) was founded in March 1993 as a member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, based in Vienna . The mission of CHC is to protect and promote human rights in Croatia and the rights of Croatian citizens, as well as to organise education in human rights. CHC supports the development of democratic institutions, promotes the rule of law, organises research, has established a data base for human rights in Croatia , and helps victims of human rights violations.

• Partner 4: Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia , Skopje

The Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (FOSIM) is one of the Soros Foundations that extends to 31 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and worldwide. The Soros Foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. Each national foundation in the network designs a work plan specific to the needs of the country. Activities include programmes in the fields of education, health, civil society, media, law, culture, arts, public administration, women's issues, and economic development.

• Partner 5: Center for Antiwar Action, Belgrade

The Center for Antiwar Action (CAA) is an association of citizens founded in July 1991 in Belgrade , who formed a nucleus of a revolutionary peace movement, with the specific goal of resisting war. Now, the long-term goals of the CAA are to lay foundations of a civil society, non-violent conflict resolution, the development of democracy and democratic institutions, a legal state and a civic society, as well as the study of human rights and humanitarian law. In line with these goals, the CAA has organised numerous seminars, round-tables, panel discussions, and actively researches and monitors minority rights.

CDRSEE consultant (Lustration Project Director)

Magarditsch Hatschikjan – Dr. Hatschikjan is currently a lecturer at the Institute of East European History of the University of Cologne , and is a consultant on Balkan politics, societies, and history. He has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Essen , Germany . He received his Ph.D. (magna cum laude) from the University of Essen on Bulgarian Foreign Policy and Balkan Relations 1944-1948; he received his MA in East European History and German Philology from the University of Dusseldorf . His native language is Bulgarian; he is fluent in German and English, proficient in French and Macedonian, and reads Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Russian. In the Lustration Project, Dr. Hatschikjan will be the project director, responsible for designing and overseeing the content of the project, and guiding the partner organisation project managers.

Publications and results

All activities of the project will be documented on the project web page: www.lustration.net , which will be linked from the pages of all partner NGOs:

The applicant – www.cdsee.org
Partner 1 - www.ahrg.org,
Partner 2 – www.cps.edu.ba,
Partner 3 – www.hho.hr,
Partner 4 - www.soros.org.mk,
Partner 5 – www.caa.org.yu.

The products will be available free of charge to all interested parties in electronic formats so that they can be multiplied easily and at little expenses. There is no upper limit to the number of potential users. Especially important publications resulting from the project will be:

a) An electronic manual on “Lustration Legislation and Procedures in the Western Balkans” (continuously updated);

b) An electronic book “Past and Present: Consequences for Democratisation”;

c) An electronic dossier with a set of recommendations on “Best Practices in Lustration”.

Financing Plan

This project is funded 80% by the European Commission and 20% by USAID.