Vesna Teršelič

Director of the Center for Dealing with the Past, Documenta

Vesna Teršelič is Director of Center for Dealing With the Past, Documenta.  Documenta – was founded by the Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights, Osijek, the Centre for Peace Studies, the Civic Committee for Human Rights and the Croatian Helsinki Committee as an attempt to encourage the process of dealing with the past, establish factual truth about the war and contribute to a shifting of the discussion from the level of dispute over facts (the number of killed people, etc.) towards a dialogue on interpretations. Since its establishment Documenta has contributed to the development of individual and social process of dealing with the past, in order to build a sustainable peace in Croatia and the region by deepening the dialogue and initiating a public debate on public policies that encourage dealing with the past, collecting data, publishing research on war events, war crimes and violations of human rights, and monitoring war crimes trials at the local and regional level as a contribution to the improvement of court standards and practices in the war crimes trials. In order to achieve its goals, Documenta cooperates with its founding organizations, associations of families of the missing people, other civic initiatives, governmental institutions, international institutions and organizations, institutions of state and local government, academic institutions, religious groups, the media and other interested individuals.
As a peace activist Vesna founded the Anti-War Campaign of Croatia and in 1998, she was joint recipient of the Right Livelihood Award along with Katarina Kruhonja of the Centre for Peace, Non-violence and Human Rights, Osijek.

Patrick Coyle
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