(The following Fact Sheet on the International Commission on Missing Persons was released by the State Department on November 7, 1997.)

(begin State Department Fact Sheet)

International Commission on Missing Persons

FACT SHEET

On June 29, 1996, at the G-7 Summit in Lyon, France, U.S. President Clinton announced the formation of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia, under the chairmanship of former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

In addition to Chairman Vance, the ICMP's formal membership consists of, the following distinguished representatives of the international community:

Robert Badinter, Senator of Hauts de Seine; Paris Lord (Peter) Carrington; former British Foreign Secretary; London Cornelio Sommaruga, President of the ICRC; Geneva Max van der Stoel, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities; The Hague Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan, former Pakistani Foreign Minister; Islamabad

The objectives of the Commission are: to persuade the concerned governments to intensify their efforts to solve the cases of persons missing as a result of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, to assist family members of the missing and their associations, and to support specific projects of agencies active on the issue.

The Commission held its first meeting on October 11, 1996, in Geneva. Shortly thereafter, the ICMB's Sarajevo office was established, under the direction of a permanently based Chief of Staff.

From November 25 to 28, 1996, the Commissioners visited the region to meet with families of missing persons and relevant governmental leaders. As a result of that visit, the governments of the region designated the following officials as their representatives to the ICMP:

For Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH):

Dragan Kalinic, President of the National Assembly, Republika Srpska Jadranko Prlic, Minister of Foreign Affairs Haris Silajdzic, Co-chairman of the Council of Ministers

For the Republic of Croatia (RoC):

Mate Granic, Minister of Foreign Affairs

For the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY):

Milan Milutinovic, Minister for Foreign Affairs

The Commission's third meeting took place in Zagreb on March-21, 1997. The governmental representatives presented the Commissioners with their views about accelerating the process of determining the fate of missing persons. In addition, ICMP provided a unique forum in which governmental representatives and representatives of associations of family members of the missing from all over the former Yugoslavia met and discussed matters of mutual concern.

On June 20, the ICMP held its fourth meeting; after meeting with families of persons missing in Eastern Slavonia, the Commissioners proceeded to Belgrade for a plenary session with governmental representatives from BiH, FRY and RoC. In Belgrade, the FRY promised to deliver to the Croatian government by the end of August, 1997, all Vukovar death protocols -- autopsy reports created in 1991 and 1992 by Yugoslav military forensic experts in the course of exhuming and examining remains of those who perished in Vukovar during the conflict. The Republic of Croatia made a commitment to the Commission to free a number of a Serb prisoners of war; a portion of the group was released the week following the Belgrade meeting and by early August the entire group bad been released.

The ICMP has established an Advisory Group composed of the following organizations and individuals active on the missing persons issue:

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) International Police Task Force (IPTF) Office of the High Representative (OHR) Peace Stabilization Force (SFOR) Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights UN Mine Action Center (UNMAC) UN Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES).

The process of exhuming and identifying mortal remains can provide key information in resolving the fate of a certain number of missing person cases. ICMP funds projects designed to provide assistance in this process. The Antemortem Database Project conducted by PHR and the Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights and financed in part by ICMP has conducted over 5000 interviews with family members of the missing. These interviews provide information about the physical characteristics of the missing person at the time of disappearance. The Identification Project, funded by ICMP and administered by PHR, compares ante-mortem and post-mortem data and investigates other leads to the identification of mortal remains, most of which have been exhumed from the Srebrenica area. When necessary, DNA testing will be performed to confirm identifications.

In the spring, at the request of the Commission, a forensic needs assessment was carried out by PHR. As a result, ICMP funded the Forensic Logistics Assessment Project, which provides materials and tools needed for exhumations and identification of human remains.

In May, in response to requests by the parties, the Commission contracted an international mine clearance company to demine exhumation sites identified as part of the Inter-Patty exhumation process held under the auspices of the Office of the High Representative. However, due to a lack of cooperation by both entities, the deminers provided by the ICMP could be used only for a fraction of their capacity.

The Commission's Family Fund is designed to provide assistance to families of the missing in three main ways: by supporting the work of the family associations through the direct provision of office and communications equipment, by improving the ability of family associations from different regions to communicate and work together, and by supporting programs that assist family members directly in coping with the loss of their loved ones.

The Commission is financed by donations from governments; pledges have been made by the United States and the Netherlands.

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