Helsinki Citizens Assembly

The Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA) was an European  civil society network which was created in Prague in October 1990. In relation with the escalating crisis and then the wars in Yugoslavia, one of the aims of HCA became to support and to connect the different anti-war-groups in the Yugoslav republics and then post-Yugoslav countries, similar as the Verona Forum for Peace and Reconciliation on the Territories of the Former Yugoslavia. In 1991, for example, HCA participated in the creation of the monthly bulletin Yugofax, which gathered anti-war-voices from all parts of former Yugoslavia, and organized in September 1991 a peace caravan through the Yugoslav Republics which ended in Sarajevo.

In Sarajevo also existed a HCA-section, which was coordinated by Zdravko Grebo during the war. Next to Sarajevo, Tuzla became another important spot for HCA activities in BiH, in close cooperation with Citizens Forum Tuzla created by Vehid Šehić. After a first seminar on the importance of local democracy organized in November 1994, the HCA opened an office in Tuzla in April 1995, and in October 1995, the 4th general HCA Assembly was organized in Tuzla. More than 500 activists from 30 countries, including all post-Yugoslav countries and 150 from BiH alone, had the opportunity over four days to discuss, network and to discover the situation in Tuzla. The HCA Assembly was also attended by several high-profile international guests as Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who had just resigned out of protest from his position as UN- Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, and British actress Julie Christie.

After the war, HCA also opened an office in Banja Luka which became one of the major NGOs in Banja Luka in the fields of political activism and reconciliation (https://hcabl.org/ ).

HCA Tuzla also still exists today and is mainly active under the name “Youth Resource Centar Tuzla” (https://orctuzla.ba/ ).