August 30 is the International Day of Missing Persons
00:00, August 30, 2006 | The Rights of Conflict Victims
August 30 was celebrated for the first time in South Caucasus (Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi, Ganja, Vanadzor and Stepanakert) in 2004 by the offices of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly South Caucasus. Since 2003 HCA Vanadzor, Helsinki Initiative ’92 of Nagorno Karabakh, HCA Ganja and HCA Georgian and Azerbaijani National Committees have implemented the project “Yellow Tulips” with support of Interchurch Peace Council (IKV, the Netherlands). The project is directed to the solution of the problems of missing persons of regional conflicts.
Within the framework of the project the draft law “On Information Bureau of Missing Persons” was worked out with which by the three countries of South Caucasus the principles defined by the European Conventions will be fixed in the national legislations. At the same time a number of events were organized with the aim of raising public awareness on the problems of missing persons and their relatives.
A number of meetings were held with representatives of ICRC Yerevan office, International Classen Group, different structures of authorities.
In spite of all this, the right of relatives to get information about their missing relative comes after the problems of political settlement of regional conflicts.
Attaching importance to the efforts of ICRC in exchanging POWs and in searching missing persons, we think that involvement of the Council of Europe in those processes can have a vital impact on the humanization of the positions of conflict sides.
This year, for the first time the reporter of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, dealing with issues on missing persons of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan arrived in South Caucasus who is preparing a report on the problems of missing persons of the conflicts of South Caucasus. The report will be presented in January of 2007 in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Welcoming the next visit of the representative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to South Caucasus in September 2006, attaching importance to the report in the sphere of missing persons’ human rights protection, HCA Vanadzor calls the parties involved in the conflict
• to follow the commitments defined by articles 32 and 33 of the 1st protocol of the Geneva Convention
• to show political will and observe the activities of getting information on whereabouts and destiny of missing persons as an issue of humanism, separate from the processes of peaceful regulation of the conflict