by Johan Galtung, Kinhide Mushakoji and Ramon Lopez-Reyes
The present illegal NATO war on Serbia is not conducive to anylasting solution. The only road is through negotiation, not diktatand, pending that, an immediate cessation of the hostilities andatrocities, and agreement on a massive UN peacekeeping operation.
For a political solution consider the points made by former UNSecretary General Perez de Cuellar in his correspondence withformer German Minister of Foreign Affairs Hans Dietrich Genscher inDecember 1991: do not favor any party, develop a plan for all ofex-Yugoslavia, make sure that plans are acceptable to minorities.
In this spirit TRANSCEND suggests:
[1] The United Nations, which has to learn from its previousfailures, should replace NATO and assume a peace-keeping role inFormer Yugoslavia, including Kosovo/a, with contingents from non-NATO countries. The United Nations will have to mobilize all itsagencies, UNHCR, UNHCHR, UNICEF, WHO, etc. to rebuild Kosovo/a, andbefore that, to provide the minimum needs of the people and toguarantee the safe return of the refugees.
[2] If the Security Council is paralyzed by a US or Russianveto, this gives the General Assembly and the UN Secretary Generallegitimacy to play an active role in negotiating an end ofhostilities. The Secretary General could be supported in that roleby a group of eminent world leaders such as Nelson Mandela, formerGerman President Richard von Weizsaecker, and Jimmy Carter. Pressure from world public opinion is necessary.
[3] A Conference on Security and Cooperation in SoutheastEurope, CSCSEE, should be organized, sponsored by the UnitedNations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation inEurope. The UN Security Council is too remote, the EU and NATO toopartial. All concerned parties (also sub-state, super-state andnon-state) should be invited, with all relevant themes on theagenda; possibly lasting 3-5 years.
[4] The negotiations should aim to establish a Kosovo Zone OfPeace Protectorate, KZOPP, under direct United Nations Trusteeship,or if political circumstances preclude this, under an OSCE mandate.The protectorate would consist of an Administrative Office; aNegotiation Task Force consisting mainly of retired personnel withexperience in diplomacy, nonviolent conflict resolution, andinternational negotiations; a Legal Advisory Unit; ReconciliationTeams, deployed throughout the region to promote reconciliationamong conflicting parties, human rights, and peace education; anda Security Group of police and peacekeeping forces to train policeforces and maintain security.
[5] For a more lasting solution, the similarity between theSerb position in Krajina/Slavonija and the Kosovars in Kosovo/a canbe used. Both ethnic groups form clear majorities in those areasbut minorities in Croatia and Serbia as a whole, with “mothercountries” near-by. Refugees, most of them forced to leave, arebrought back, and the Kosovars are accorded the same status withinSerbia as the Serbs in Krajina/Slavonija. To draw exact borders,each community can join the side its voters prefer, the processused in 1920 to define the Danish-German border. The possibilityof Kosovo/a as a third republic in Serbia, with guarantees againstseeking independence for a period of perhaps 20 years, and the samefor Krajina/Slavonija in Croatia, should not be excluded (norVojvodina as a fourth republic). The parallel is not withBosnia-Herzegovina, which was never part of Serbia.
[6] For the Southern Balkan, a Balkan Community might beconsidered, including Albania, Yugoslavia, Romania, Macedonia,Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (maybe only the “European part”). Itwould allow the Southern Balkan peoples to decide their own fate–economically and politically–supported economically by theEuropean Union, but without meddling by outside big powers. Itmight be capable of accommodating some of the Orthodox/Muslimtensions, working towards such features found in the Nordic andEuropean communities of the 1980s as a common market, free flow ofgoods and services, capital and labor, coordination of foreignpolicies; it might also come up with original and better solutionsthan the European Union.
[7] A dense network of municipal solidarity with all parts ofex-Yugoslavia, for refugee/relief work and reconstruction can bedeveloped. Similar groups in Germany (“Gemeinde gemeinsam”) andFrance (“Cause commune”) have been highly successful. The Councilof Europe could provide help and advice.
[8] Let 1,000 local peace conferences blossom, support localgroups with communication hardware, elicit and collect people’sideas and present them to the governments.
[9] Intensify ecumenical peace work, building on peacetraditions in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, and Islam.Challenge hard line, sectarian religious institutions in the wholeregion, not only in Yugoslavia.
[10] In the spirit of future reconciliation, drop thesanctions, and have inside and outside specialists search forunderstanding of what went wrong, and for positive past and presentexperiences that can inspire a common future, such as a Yugoslavconfederation of more and smaller parts (somewhat similar to theSwiss cantons, with a high degree of internal autonomy, which havelong helped a linguistically and religiously diverse people live inpeace). And rather than criminal courts initiate massivereconciliation processes.
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Johan Galtung, a Professor of Peace Studies at several universities,is Director of TRANSCEND, a Peace and Development Network – and TFF associate. Kinhide Mushakoji, a Professor at the Faculty of Global and Inter-CulturalStudies at Ferris University, Yokohama, and Ramon Lopez-Reyes,International Center for the Study and Promotion of Zones of Peacein the World, Hawaii, are members of TRANSCEND.
