(Published by Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee)
The Honourable Maria Menna, the newly appointed
minister responsible for international co-operation, will have her hands full
right off the mark in this new post-Kosovo world marking the beginning of the
new century.
With growing poverty and inequality worldwide,
increasing natural disasters due to global climatic changes, and escalating
battles for democracy, independence, and human rights including women's rights
and religious freedoms, the job should keep anyone busy for some time.
Add to this renewed or continued armed conflicts in
Angola, Soudan, Congo, Kashmir, and elsewhere, as well as an as yet ill-defined
new world order coming out of the recent NATO bombing campaign in what was left
of Yugoslavia, just to name a few of the immediate challenges, and the task is
understandably daunting for any new minister. Nor more so than in the Balkans,
the first item on her new agenda.
Following more than a decade of destabilizing policies
towards former Yugoslavia, World leaders adopted a Stability Pact for
Southeastern Europe on July 30th in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Pact establishes a regional framework for social, economic and political
stability and development in the Balkans.
Indeed, after a series of highly controversial
policies that fueled the flames of regional and inter-ethnic conflict, it was a
welcome change to hear the newly appointed head of the Stability Pact and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's former top aide, Bodo Homback, state at
the summit that, "The region needs to forge a sense of common purpose.
Particularly in terms of cross-border infrastructure, this is an economic
imperative as well". Adding, "No Balkan nation should count on EU or
NATO membership without first working hard to build new, friendly ties across
the region."
This is a marked change in direction for the international
community. The IMF’s imposed structural adjustment policies on the former
Yugoslav federal government in the 1980s, leading to currency devaluation, mass
unemployment, a huge drop in the standard of living and an end to federal
transfer payments to the republics, are seen locally as major contributors to
the country's violent disintegration.
Here as elsewhere, you can always count on a few
opportunistic politicians to play on people's collective fears and turn them
against each other in order to distract attention from a poor economic
performance or to gain popular support for one's cause or party, sometimes with
deadly consequences.
Equally destabilizing was the rapid international
recognition of Slovenia and Croatia as independent states while headed by
ethnic-nationalist governments, without adequate protection of minority groups
within those states. Further examples of such ill-advised policies include the
de facto partition of Bosnia along ethnic lines with the West's stamp of
approval, the continued freedom permitted the main war criminals on all sides,
and finally the semi-covert support of the Kosovar Liberation Army, or UCK,
bent on achieving independence for Kosovo through armed struggle.
A few analysts have started to view these policies not
as a series of major, yet unintentional blunders, but as a deliberate strategy
to divide and conquer what was a stubbornly independent socialist country, with
a unique labour-managed market economy and non-aligned foreign policy, and is
still today Europe's gateway to the Middle East and an under-exploited resource
base.
The idea is not so far fetched. Not only have Western
powers used such a strategy successfully in the past in the oil-rich Arab
peninsula, in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, in South America and elsewhere, but
more recently in the brake-up of the Warsaw Pact and the former Soviet Union.
And looking to the future, former U. S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
wrote an essay in the June 1996 issue of Foreign Affairs about the need to
weaken Russia further by splitting up its federation into three separate
independent republics in European Russia, Siberia, and the Far East. Others
have expressed similar views regarding China – Russia and China being the
biggest potential threats to "Western" civilization.
At the first Balkan regional conference of local
non-governmental organizations and democratic movement representatives since
the end of the war in Kosovo, held July 9-10 in Tuzla, B-H, in preparation for
the summit, participants from across former Yugoslavia and neighboring
countries were understandably skeptical. The West's past relation with the
Balkans and the fact that the region is solely represented at this time by
nationalistic governments does not inspire much confidence.
They called for greater democracy, respect for human
rights including minority rights, an end to ethnic division and
ultra-nationalism, open borders, free-trade in the region, demilitarization,
the return of refugees, widespread economic reconstruction and development, and
peaceful solutions to the region's problems. All this in preparation for the
individual countries entry into the European Union within 5 to 10 years.
To ensure their views are taken into account, the
participants set up a regional Council of Democratic Alternative for Stability
in Southeastern Europe. Their immediate goal: to insure public participation in
the formulation and implementation of any reconstruction and stability plans
for the region.
The participation of civil society in this effort is
crucial to the development and maintenance of peaceful and democratic society
in the region. Individual citizens are, in the final analysis, the custodians
of democracy and as such sovereign. They
stand on guard for and ultimately guarantee the respect of civil liberties and
freedoms, of minority rights, and the rule of law. As such, they ensure that
the institutions of state, its governments, legislative assemblies, police and
armed forces respect these. It is therefore essential that every citizen, young
and old, be instructed as to her or his rights and responsibilities and those
of their fellow citizens, and allowed to exercise them.
Citizens learn of those rights and responsibilities
through formal education, obtained through public and private education
systems, and through informal education and practice obtained through civil
society organizations (CSOs). Indeed, outside of periodical voting in elections
and referenda, the instruments for the safeguard and expression of these rights
and responsibilities are found in the independent media and political parties
that citizens support, and in the non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, they
create and are involved in.
Unfortunately such public participation seems a long
way off.
In Kosovo
The UN Civil Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
has taken over all aspects of the humanitarian relief, reconstruction, civil
administration and institution-building effort, giving the local population it
appears little more than a consultative role. All legislative and executive
authority now rests in the hands of the appointed head of UNMIK, Mr. Bernard
Kouchner.
This in a society that was able to continue to
function over the last ten years despite
Serbian domination and repression against all that was Albanian in
origin, through the maintenance of its legislative assembly (declared illegal
by Belgrade), the setting up of parallel structures such as education and
health systems, and the running of unofficial elections and referenda, paid for
through voluntary taxes, in one of Europe's greatest collective acts of
non-violent civil disobedience.
The anticipated lack of public participation also
seems to run contrary to the UN's own advocated principles, based on lessons
learned from recent experience and confirmed in the final reports of the
War-torn Societies Project, published in Geneva last November, part of which
reads: "It is thus all the more important that from the very outset local
and national actors are allowed, encouraged, expected and supported to play a
leading role in the definition of needs, the formulation of policies and the
operational implementation of all activities."
In the short run however Kosovar CSOs, which were
forced to shut down, go underground or seek refuge in neighboring states during
the war, are in great need of assistance. Many are presently trying to regroup
and reestablish themselves in the province, as a first step in playing a vital
role in the relief and reconstruction effort, and in the establishment of a new
democratic society in Kosovo.
In Serbia
Serbian NGOs, human rights organizations, independent
trade unions, women’s groups, youth organizations, independent media, and
others working to promote democracy, human rights, reconciliation and the peaceful
resolution of conflict continue to be under attack throughout Serbia. Already
upset with the lack of support they have received over the last 10 years from
the international community, these organizations need more than ever strong
political, technical and financial backing in order to build on the present
momentum and assist them in bringing democracy to that country, without which
stability and peace in the region cannot be achieved.
It is hoped that if non-humanitarian aid is to be
withheld from Serbia by donor countries, that these sums will be diverted to an
effective humanitarian effort and to the peaceful democratic forces working to
bring change. Discretion is advised. Mr. Clinton take note...
Throughout the Balkans
In addition to involving the local population and
their CSOs in a leadership role from the outset, and complementary to it, a far
greater emphasis must be placed on the longer term objectives of social
reconciliation, peace-building and development, as a way to reach real
stability. At least as much as is going towards short term hardware, ie.
peace-keeping (military and police), humanitarian aid, return of refugees and
internally displaced persons, and physical and institutional reconstruction.
Again according to the UN's own guiding principles in
war-torn societies, with regards to reconciliation: "The overriding challenge is to respond
to the destruction of relationships between social groups, neighbours and villages,
the damage to trust in authorities, and the disappearance of hope and faith in
a common future... Reconciliation is not a luxury that can wait... If not the
conflict will, at best, be contained and will ultimately re-erupt."
The primacy of long-term political and developmental
objectives is also emphasized. They represent, according to the guidelines, the
ultimate exit strategies of relief and peace-keeping, and therefore must be
initiated from the beginning and pursued simultaneously.
Canadian involvement
A great deal will be happening in the region over the
next five years in the areas of peace-building, rehabilitation and
reconstruction, and development. Some are referring to it as a mini Marshall Plan for southeast Europe.
There is much room for Canadian NGOs to work with
different partners in the region. Already Canadian NGOs such as CARE, CECI,
MSF, World Vision, and a few others are involved in humanitarian relief to
refugees. Some are also involved in, or will carry through to, reconstruction,
development, and peace-building, involving and strengthening local partner NGOs
in the process.
The Canadian government can continue to play an active
and positive role by insisting on a new, more helpful and stabilizing
international policy towards the region and its states. And beyond its useful
help with peace-keeping, police and electoral training and assistance, and
other areas of traditional expertise, Canada can insist on the full support and
involvement of local CSOs in all aspects of the reconstruction and
developmental effort.
The challenges to both local and international NGOs,
and to the international community at large, are indeed immense. The social
divisions are severe, historical and recently reinforced. The economic and
social devastation is enormous in FRY and B-H, and to a lesser degree in
Macedonia, Albania and elsewhere in the region. And the opposing
ultra-nationalist forces remain strong and ever present.
However with a redirected international policy towards
the region and local government and NGO efforts that give positive social,
economic and political reasons for people and communities of different origins
to live and work together, there is a chance for success. Indeed it is our only
chance.
Robert David is project officer
for Eastern Europe at Alternatives, an international cooperation NGO based in
Montreal. Alternatives works in solidarity with various groups in the region
working for democracy, reconciliation and peace, of which the Forum of Tuzla
Citizens, Media Plan, and the Belgrade Circle. It does so in partnership with
Harker Associates, of Ottawa. These projects are supported by the Canadian
public and CIDA’s IHA-Peacebuilding Fund.
