New York 
November 8, 2001 
CROATIAN WORLD CONGRESS, 
OFFICE OF THE INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE 
TO THE UNITED NATIONS 
 
PRESS RELEASE 
 
On Thursday, November 8, 2001,the Croatian World Congress organized and 
co-sponsored a Round-table meeting concerning refugees at the United Nations 
in New York and moderated a Conference Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of 
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 
 
In the morning, the Round-table discussion, held as a special preparation for 
the afternoon conference, was a meeting for invited persons only and was 
organized by the Croatian World Congress (CWC) and the Society for the 
Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) as co-sponsors. The morning's 
discussion was moderated by Dr. Joseph Albeck, Psychiatric and Clinical 
Instructor at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Vladimir Kasnar, 
Croatian World Congress Representative to the U.N., Member-at-Large, 
Executive Committee, UN-NGO Committee on Health and Communication, and 
Member, UN-NGO Committee on Mental Health. Present at the meeting also was 
Mr.sc Mario Viscovich, Croatian World Congress International Representative 
to the United Nations, and Member, Executive Committee, UN-NGO Committee on 
Health and Communications. 
The same presenters from the Round-table meeting presented in the afternoon 
as well, but the subject was approached in more detail, with extended input 
from additional experts and professionals in the areas of repatriation, 
reconciliation, and conflict resolution, as well as from people from the 
affected areas under discussion. 
In the afternoon, the UN-NGO Committee on Mental Health presented a 
conference open to the public entitled: 
REFUGEES: REPATRIATION and RECONCILIATION 
The conference addressed refugee issues such as mental health, trauma, 
conflict resolution, repatriation, and reconciliation. The speakers were: 
· Radojka Kraljevic, MA, Clinical Psychologist, and Zdenka Pantic, 
Psychologist and Sociologist, of the International Rehabilitation Center for 
Torture Victims (IRCT-Zagreb, Croatia), presenting: "To whom do we belong?" a 
repatriation and reconciliation project - a working model 
· Dr. Joseph Albeck, Psychiatrist and Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical 
School, presenting: "Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma and Resilience" 
as it occurs in ethno-national groups 
· Dr. Elia Awwad, Psychologist and Head of the Mental Health Department of 
the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, presenting his mental health work with 
Palestinian refugees. This presentation was a video-interview prepared for 
this conference. 
Moderators of the conference were Joseph De Meyer, Ph.D., Member-at-Large, 
Executive Committee, UN-NGO Committee on Mental Health, UN Representative, 
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division of the 
American Psychological Association),and Dr. Vladimir Kasnar of the Croatian 
World Congress. Mr. Mario Viscovich was present at the afternoon conference 
as well, as was Mr. Ivan Dobra, Treasurer and Member of the Executive 
Committee of the New York Branch of the Croatian-American Congress. Several 
representatives from the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights presented 
their activities and contemporary issues of concern for the United Nations in 
related fields. 
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