{"id":6764,"date":"2001-12-31T14:47:44","date_gmt":"2001-12-31T13:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.nenasilje.net\/?p=6764"},"modified":"2012-05-03T12:49:38","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T11:49:38","slug":"exploratory-trip-in-yugoslavia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/exploratory-trip-in-yugoslavia\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploratory trip in Yugoslavia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong>
\nIvana Franovic, Milan Colic and Ned\u017ead Horozovic from the Centre for Nonviolent Action
\nmade an exploratory trip to Yugoslavia in October and December of 2001.
\nThis research had the following goals:
\n– Getting to know NGOs and their local conditions
\n– Analysis of the political situation in the country and problems of society
\n– Assesment of needs of the groups working on peace building, conflict resolution, interethnic relations and cross border cooperation
\n– Assesment of needs for education in nonviolent conflict transformation.
\nDuring the research, we visited 46 organisations from all over Serbia and Montenegro, from:
\nNi\u0161, Medveda, Leskovac, Vlasotince, Vranje, Bujanovac, Pre\u0161evo, Cacak, U\u017eice, Novi Pazar,
\nKraljevo, Kragujevac, Dimitrovgrad, Pirot, Knja\u017eevac, Zajecar, Negotin, Bor, Beograd, Novi Sad,
\nSombor, Becej, Kola\u0161in, Podgorica, Nik\u0161ic, Cetinje, Kotor, Herceg Novi, Tivat, Ulcinj, Bijelo
\nPolje.
\nHaving in mind the size of Yugoslavia, and the number of organizations active in it, our
\npriority was to spend as much time as possible in the province, in small towns and cities, to
\nexplore the situation and contact organizations that are active there, rather than in Belgrade.
\nResearch did not include Kosovo, for security reasons<\/p>\n

Political situation<\/strong>
\nThe political situation in FR Yugoslavia is rather complex. The complexity begins with
\nperception of the term “Yugoslavia”, which can be quite different. Some people consider
\nYugoslavia as: Montenegro and Serbia (together with the regions Vojvodina and Kosovo).
\nFor others Yugoslavia means: Montenegro, Serbia proper and Vojvodina. For some people
\nYugoslavia means only Serbia (questions remains whether “Serbia” is just Serbia proper,
\nor includes the region of Vojvodina). All this means that the use of the term
\n“Yugoslavia”, for some people from this region, may sound like a political statement by
\nitself, regardless of the fact that it is the official name of the country. The situation is
\nsimilar with the term “Serbia”.
\nToday, part of the population of the Republic of Montenegro wants an indipendent
\nstate. Part of the population of Vojvodina wants more authonomy for Vojvodina, and the
\nmajority of the population of Kosovo wants this region to become an independent state.
\nParliamentary elections held in Montenegro in April of\u00a0 2001 were mostly perceived
\nas a referendum for the independence of Montenegro. The two biggest political
\ncoalitions confirm that with their names: “Collition Together for Yugoslavia” and “The
\nVictory of Montenegro\u00a0 \u2013 Democratic Coallition of Milo \u00d0ukanovic”. This unofficial
\nreferendum, however, did not untangle the complicated situation in Montenegro,
\nbecause no one won more than 50% of the vote (official results were: 40,9% to 42% in
\nfavour of Milo \u00d0ukanovic’s coallition). The\u00a0 rest of the votes went to the pro –
\nindependence Liberal Alliance (7,9%) and to some small parties like those of Albanian
\nand Bosniak ethnic minorities.
\nDuring 2000, while Slobodan Milo\u0161evic was still in power in Serbia, Montenegrin daily
\npapers were full of feuilletons about “centuries of\u00a0 torture of Montenegro under Serbia”.
\nThis atmosphere was very reminiscent of what was happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina
\nor Croatia just before the war. Heavy police forces were present on the roads of
\nMontenegro, with police wearing combat uniforms and khalashnikovs. There was fear of
\npossible war between Serbia and Montenegro. The fear is gone now, especially after the
\nso called “changes” in Serbia (the fall of the former regime).
\nWhat remains is the question of independence as an urgent problem in Montenegro.
\nThe first reactions in Serbia were: “Let them go if they want”, “To hell with them”,”No
\none asks us whether we want to live with them, only they are asked whether they want
\nto live with us”. During 2000, however, people became slightly tired and disinterested in
\nthe subject. For a long time, both authorities and most of the media acted as if a
\nconsensus had been reached on the issue of independance in Montenegro. All the
\nattention was drawn to Serbia, like it was only up to Serbia whether Montenegro would
\nbecome an independant state or not. Not enough opportunity was given to the citizens
\nof Montenegro for diallogue and public debate. The situation is however very
\ncomplicated, and people are extremly divided. In some cases it affects families: familiy
\nmembers don’t speak to each other because of their different political position. In some
\ntowns, those who support one or the other side go to separate pubs and do not mix.
\nRiding in a car with Belgrade registration plates and asking people for directions gives
\nyou an idea about whose side most of the people are that you talk to. Political parties or
\nthe media in Montenegro do not make it any easier, and instead increase polarization.
\nThe media has clearly made its choice. It seems there is no independent media to offer
\nconstructive criticism of both\u00a0 political options, and to give an effective approach to the
\nproblem.
\nAccording to the latest research from the Center for Democracy and Human Rights
\nfrom Podgorica and Damar\u00a0 Agency (January 2002) the referendum results for
\nindependence of Montenegro would be: 46,7% to 41,9% in favour of independence. When
\nasked about the best way for Serbia and Montenegro to establish their mutual relations,
\npeople gave the following answers: an independent and internationally recognized state
\n(37,2% ); a federation based on the new constitution (32,7%); a union of\u00a0 independent
\nstates (11,2%).
\nThis conflict will certanly not be overcome without contructive dialogue and the
\npublic debate of suppo rters of different political options in Montenegro.
\nAs well as Montenegrins and Serbs, there are members of other ethnicities in
\nMontenegro: Albanians (mostly in the southern part), Croatians (in central and northern
\npart of the Adriatic coast), Bosniaks\u00a0 (in the east\u00a0 \u2013 the Montenegrin part of Sand\u017eak),
\nRoma and others. There are evident inter-ethnic tensions, but the matter of
\nindependance has pushed all the other problems in the background. These problems are
\neither not discussed or denied. The precise ethnic structure of Montenegro is unknown,
\nbecause the last census was done in 1991. The next census is expected in April of 2002.
\nAccording to the figures obtanied in this research, Albanians make 7.6% of the total
\npopulation, while there are 83% Albanians in the town of Ulcinj, at the very south of the
\nAdriatic coast. Quite a large number of Albanians got their qualifications in Albania and
\nKosovo, because that way they had a chance to study in their native language. However,
\nthe authorites do not acknowledge degrees from Kosovo and Albania and that is one of
\nthe most common problems Albanians encounter in everyday life. It is interesting to
\nnotice that during the holliday season, the largest number of tourists visiting Ulcinj
\ncome from Kosovo (Albanians),\u00a0 while visitors from other parts of Yugoslavia are very
\nrare. Undoubtedlly, there are strong predjudices towards parts of the country inhabited
\nmostly with Albanians.
\nSand\u017eak is a region in Yugoslavia, with a mostly Muslim (Bosniak) population, divided
\ninto two parts by the border between Montenegro and Serbia. Bosniaks in Montenegro do
\nnot have one political party to represent their interests. Their political leaders are
\nmembers of the ruling coallition and support the independence of Montenegro. In Serbia,
\nthere are Bosniak political parties, and most of them are against\u00a0 the indepedance of
\nMontenegro, because that would break the region of Sand\u017eak into two, and break many
\nfamily, firend and bussines ties of these people.
\nAccording to the 1991 census, almost one third of the population of Serbia including
\nVojvodina and Kosovo, are not Serb nationality. Ethnic structure has certainly changed a
\nlot due to intensive migrations of population over the last decade. However, Albanians,
\nBosniaks\/Muslims, Croats, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Rusins, Roma, Vlahs, Macedonians, Slovins, Germans, Gorans and others still make significant percent of
\npopulation.
\nVojvodina is the most multi-cultural part of Serbia, where the biggest minority is
\nHungarian. Nacionalists still “remember” and blame Hungarians for being Nazi\u2019s allies in
\nThe Second World War. The support of a large part of the population and political
\nleaders of Vojvodina for more autonomy of this region is perceived as a call for
\nseparation and unification with Hungary. These kind of populistic comments comming
\nfrom certain politicians are not harmless, because they fall onto the fertile ground of
\nstill existing smoldering nationalism.
\nBulgarians are the largest minority in the south -east of Serbia (in Pirot county, they
\nmake up about 30% of the population). While the Hungarian minority have primary and
\nsecondary schools in their native language in Vojvodina, there are not any schools in
\nBulgarian language. Aspirations of some Bulgarian political parties to have primary and
\nsecondary schools in Bulgarian language are perceived as attempts towards unification
\nwith Bulgaria (just as with Hungarians). Nationalistic predjudices are very strong in that
\npart of the country. Even the term \u00bbBulgarian\u00ab sounds defamatory.
\nOver the last few years more young people of Bulgarian and Hungarian nationality
\nchoose to study in Bulgaria and Hungary, because they have a chance to learn in their
\nnative language, but also with the hope that they will be able to find a job and a better
\nlife in those countries.
\nAlbanians are the largest minority in the southern part of Serbia. The situation is
\ncalm there after armed clashes between members of OVPBM (Liberating Army of
\nPre\u0161evo, Bujanovac and Medveda) on one side and the Yugoslav Army and police on the
\nother side. There are, however occassional incidents. Intensive police and army
\npresence is quite evident. For instance in the centre of Medveda, on the town square,
\nthere is a big army baracks. After the armed conflict, the majority of the Albanian
\npopulation moved from Medveda, mostly to Kosovo. According to Serbs it was
\n“voluntary”, while Albanians said “they were forced to leave”. Fear itself is a good
\nenough reason to leave. Authorities in Serbia made some steps to calm down the
\nsituation, but most of it was rather clumsy. The establishment of a multi-ethnic police
\nforce sounds like a constructive step, but those Albanians who decide to join the force
\nface the following problem: most of them got their training in Kosovo or in Albania, and
\ntheir degrees are not accepted in Serbia. There are very few Albanians in the local
\nadministration of the town of Bujanovac. A local Serb commented: \u201cThe biggest problem
\nis the fact that Serbs are now supposed to share something they consider to be their
\nown, and they are not used to sharing it, but to be the bosses.\u201d But also: \u201cThere isn\u2019t
\nany conflict between the Serbs and the Albanians here, it\u2019s the conflict between the
\nAlbanians and the state.\u201d
\nBujanovac is divided: different radio stations for Albanians and Serbs, separate pubs,
\nseparate schools, different languages.
\nMedia in Serbia still often use the term \u201c\u0160iptar\u201d, which is pejorative name for an
\nAlbanian.
\nEhtnic groups have difficulty in preserving their cultural traditions in the educational
\nprocess. Even if there are textbooks in their native language, they are simply translated
\nfrom Serbian language and they bring a one-sided perception of history. Furthermore,
\nthere is either very little or no information whatsoever about the culture of those ethnic
\ngroups. It’s absurd that history textbooks for pupils in primary school, translated into
\nAlbanian language, have a photograph of an ortodox church, on the cover. There are no
\nbooks with the photo of a mosque on the cover page.
\nAdditionally, there are a minor number of literary works written in the languages of
\nthe minorities of Yugoslavia, translated into Serbian language.
\nEducation certanly does not offer a multicultural picture of the society we live in.
\nIn April 2001, SMMRI (Strategic Marketing & Media Research Institute) completed
\nresearch titled “Perception of truth in Serba”. The results were amazing: 39.9% of\u00a0 the
\npopulation of Serbia think they should never again trust to those nations they once made
\nwar with . About 21% of those aged 18 to 29, and 34.6 % of people over 60 say they are
\ntotally unprepared for reconcilliation with nations with which we were at war. The Army
\nis considered to be the most important factor of the country’s security and an institution
\nof utmost trust. The most important factor for the dissintegration of Yugoslavia is
\nCroatian nationalism (77.7%) and the interests of USA (73,5%). Serbs in Bosnia and
\nHerzegovina were more tolerant than the other nations there, which is why they
\nsuffered (41.9%). This is how some relevant factors from the Serb side are estimated:
\nRatko Mladic and the Army of Republika Srpska\u00a0 – excellent (46.3%); Radovan Karad\u017eic
\nand the Serbian leadership from Pale – excellent (34.9%). According to 52.5% of the
\nrespondants, Serbs comitted 0 war crimes in the past ten years.
\nThe federal Ministry of Ethnic and National Communities started a campaign with the
\nslogan “Tolerance!” After so many years of hate speech in the media. This is certanly
\nrefreshing and a step that deserves welcome and support.
\nThe economy of Serbia and Montenegro is in vary bad state. As an example,
\naccording to the figures of the Federal Statistics Institute, the average salary in
\nYugoslavia in November of 2001, was 6.944 dinar (about 115 EUR). At the same time the
\nbasket of goods for the family of four was 1.2067,58 dinar (about 201 EUR). Many people
\nare losing their jobs because big factories are closing down since they are no longer
\nprofitable and budget funds are spent on them. This can cause social turmoil of great
\nproportion, but people have got used to various difficulties such as\u00a0 international
\nsanctions, war, bombing, and inflation; and don\u2019t seem to react in a way one might
\nexpect.
\nAt this moment several hundred thousand refugees and displaced persons from
\nCroatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo live in Yugoslavia. Figures about them vary
\na lot (according to the Red Cross, there are about 350.000 refugees and 185.000
\ndisplaced persons in Serbia). Most of them live in collective centres and very often their
\nliving conditions are inhuman. They are mostly situated in central Serbia and Vojvodina, and they often make 14-37% of the total population of the municipality they live in,
\nincluding the poorest municipalities in Serbia like Kraljevo, Kragujevac, and some towns
\nin the south of Serbia.
\nThese people usually are not accepted by the local population. They are often
\naccused of being the cause of the difficult economic situation they find themselves in.
\nTherefore, its not uncommon for refugees to\u00a0 live their lives as in a ghetto.
\nIn our contacts with NGO representatives, most of them expressed their
\ndissapoinment with “changes” in Serbia. People complain it is taking too long for results,
\nthat they are almost invisible, that there is hardly any change in the system, that the
\nnew authorities do not know or are unable to perform true changes. However almost all
\nthe people we’ve talked to emphasized that there was a sense of freedom, no more fear
\nof the police, arrests, no more of underground work. No matter how much
\ndissapointment, there is a general understanding of the problems the new goverment
\nhas, and therefore there’s patience and hope that some essential changes will come in
\ntime. There’s slightly less understanding for local authorities in some towns, where the
\nvery same people (who were once part of the previous regime) stay in power, but now
\nbelong to the different political party, or those new people who adopt old manners
\n(corruption, nepotism, arrogance, etc).
\nThis is what activists identified as problems within society, and in their local
\nenvironment:
\n– Economic problems, strikes, low salaries, fear of losing job
\n– Quarrels within the ruling coalition
\n– Corruption (\u201cWhen you want something\u00a0 done you have to take at least 200g of
\ncoffee to the clerk at the township, not\u00a0 the mention doctors\u201d)
\n– Apathy, melancholy, having no power or\u00a0 energy, especially apathy amongst young\u00a0 people
\n– Young people do not have a space to\u00a0 express themselves
\n– Unemployment
\n– Silent migrations of young people from\u00a0 villages and small towns
\n– Criminal
\n– Racism
\n– Nationalism
\n– Xenophobia
\n– Not accepting differences
\n– Disrespect of civil rights of minorities
\n– Hate speech in media
\n– Violence in families
\n– A minor number of women and young people in local government structures
\n– Population which is not informed \u2013 fertile\u00a0 soil for manipulations
\n– A minor number of independent media with well educated journalists who check
\ninformation before broadcasting them<\/p>\n

Non Government Organizations and Authorities<\/strong>
\nNon goverment organizations blame the “new” authorities in Serbia for the absence of
\nlaw on nongoverment organizations, so they continue to function according to the old
\nlegal regulations. This means that when it comes to finances and taxes, NGO’s are
\ntreated like profit organizations. NGO’s are forced to engage in “creative bookkeeping” in
\norder to survive. NGO’s had an important role in overthrowing the old regime and gave
\ndirect support to the present goverment, which is why their dissapointment is even
\nbigger. One of the activists says: “We protested for them. We did everything as
\nvolunteeres, never asked for any help. We haven’t done that for their sake, but for our
\nown. I don’t need a medal or a tap on my shoulder. All I want is to know is what my
\nrights are, and not someone to do favours for me. At the moment it’s in our favour, so
\nthere are no financial police here. The question remains whether they will be in favour
\nof us when we start to criticize them.”
\nNGO law in Montenegro is not much different when it comes to the financial aspect
\nof their dealings (for example, if the organization has any money left on their account at
\nthe end of the year it’s considered as profit and they must pay tax for it).
\nBoth the goverment and local authorities in Montenegro provide some money in their
\nbudgets to support activities of NGOs. However, information on the amounts of money
\nplanned in the budget or organisations which were granted the money is unavailable. It
\nseems that this kind of information is not for public consumption.
\nMany of those political parties in power, in both Serbia and Montenegro, have their
\nown nongoverment organizations.
\nIn some municipalities (like Ni\u0161 and Pirot), there is an \u201cempty seat\u201d in the town hall
\nfor the representatives of NGOs, who cannot vote, but have a chance to take part in
\ndiscussion.
\nRepresentatives of local authorities rarely or never respond to invitations for
\nseminars organised by NGOs. Several people we talked to say that they were under the
\nimpression that loca l government had considered them as some sort of competition. It\u2019s
\nbecause they were working on programmes local authorities should have been doing but
\nnever did. Also, it was difficult to get any information from the authorities. One of the
\npeople we spoke to said: I think local authorities see us as competition, because we had
\na chance to get more education than they had. We know more about some of the things
\nthey are supposed to know about. It is absurd that when we want to share what we know
\nwith them, they simply don\u2019t show up at the seminar.”
\nThere are very few organisations that achieved any kind of cooperation with local
\nstructures. There are also very few of those who got any kind of support from them,
\neven though they work on programmes of common benefit. This is not the case when
\nNGOs distribute humanitarian aid, because than they usually have the support of local
\ngovernment.
\nCases of cooperation between NGOS and the republic or federal government are also
\nrare. A woman we talked to said: \u201cIt is easier to get in touch with some foreign
\nambassador than with an official from the ministry.\u201d
\nThe Difficulties NGOs Encounter
\nMost of the NGOs we visited experience one major difficulty\u00a0 – people are leaving
\nthem. There are several reasons for it:
\n– Educated activists go to work for bigger international organisations (they are mostly
\nadministrators and rarely in a position to make decisions, but they get better paid
\nand their salaries are regular)
\n– Educated activists have become representatives of local and other authorities
\n– After the regime was overthrown the\u00a0 motivation of activists dropped.
\nMost of the people working in NGOs haven\u2019t got any social or health insurance.
\nThe lack of adequate law on NGOs forces them to ask for funding from foreign
\ndonors, since local companies have no interest in financing NGOs because it\u2019s not tax
\ndeductible.
\nMost of the NGOs in Serbia and Montenegro are \u201cproject oriented\u201d, meaning they
\ndon\u2019t have a clearly defined mission and strategy, but prepare their project proposals
\nbased on open competition donors announce. Thereby, donors directly define strategy of
\nwork and development and priorities of civil society. Thus, authentic initiative of the
\nlocal people is lost, and they are the ones who know local conditions better than donors.
\nProgrammes become oriented towards the donor, and not to the target group. This is
\none of the reasons why many NGOs were created to obtain jobs to some people. A man
\nwe talked to said: \u201cWorking on the programme, which is not a priority, makes you feel
\napathetic, but unless you accept what is offered there are not any funds. Donors finance
\nhumanitarian aid, which is why we do it, we need something to survive.\u201d
\nAn additional difficulty lies in the fact that NGOs hardly manage to find donors eager
\nto grant resources for structural financing (for office expenses like: rent, phone bills,
\npower and heating bills, salaries), while the activities are easier to get funds for. In
\norder for organisations to realize quality programmes, they need certain experience and
\nwell-co-ordinated structure to perform that in a professional manner. However, this
\nstructure is often missing, because there are not enough finances to support it.
\nSeveral organisations, especially Roma, said that it is very difficult for them to write
\nproject proposals in English. The majority of the population can\u2019t speak English and this
\ngoes for many of the activists, too. Some of the organisations have stated this as an
\nexample of discrimination: “If we can\u2019t speak English, we\u2019re automatically deprived of
\nmany competitions and funds.”
\nVery few NGOs said they had a problem with local extreme groups.
\nWomen\u2019s groups working on: prevention of violence against women and raising
\ncommunity\u2019s awareness of its presence in families (against women and children) and
\nawareness of the unequal position of women in the community, very often are not
\naccepted by local communities, especially in small towns.
\nFor NGOs from small communities it is difficult to get access to information (about
\neducation, open competitions for fundng, similar groups from other towns, literature
\nabout their field of work). Organisations from Belgrade rarely have these kind of
\ndifficulties, because Belgrade is at the same time an information centre.
\nPeace Building, Regional Cooperation, Multi-ethnic Dialogue
\nPresent Initiatives
\nCNA regards contacts and acquaintances with groups working on peace building, inter
\nethnic dialogue and those groups whose priority is regional (cross border) cooperation
\nespecially important. It is amongst them, that we see our potential colleagues and allies
\nin many activities to promote shared values.
\nThere are over 3.000 registered NGOs in Serbia and Montenegro.
\nAccording to the latest figures from the Centre for Development of the Non -profit
\nSector, who has a data base of NGOs from Serbia and Montenegro, there are only 51
\norganisations that declare themselves as peace organisations and propagate a culture of
\npeace and nonviolence. A large majority of them are either not active at all or their
\nactivities often have nothing whatsoever to do with peace building.
\nMost of the NGOs we visited, whose mission is to propagate a culture of peace, have
\ndedicated most of their capacities to distribution of humanitarian aid. Although that
\nwork is certainly very useful and necessary for hundreds of thousands of people in
\nYugoslavia, it isn\u2019t a peace work in the true sense.
\nNevertheless, some organisations don\u2019t perceive their own work as peace work, but
\nin fact they are making steps towards sustainable peace.
\nVery few organisations work on conflict transformation and offer education in
\nnonviolent conflict transformation (like Most, Hrast, Hajde da…). Most of the
\norganisations we met never had a chance to get any similar type of education, and they
\nfound it necessary for their work.
\nSome of the organisations even want to include peace building and nonviolent
\nconflict transformation in their long\u2013term strategy, so they expressed an explicit need
\nfor education of their members. We haven\u2019t got any information on whether any
\norganisation does training for trainers in this area of work, or not.
\nWith respect to the parts of the country with an ethnically mixed population (south
\nand south -east of Serbia, Vojvodina), there are few ethnically mixed organisations
\nworking on inter-ethnic dialogue. Organisations of ethnic minorities are mostly focused
\non preserving their culture and tradition, and perhaps on protection of human rights of
\nthe ethnic group they belong to.
\nA small number of organisations are involved in the direct monito ring of human rights
\nand presenting cases of human rights abuse to the public. The work of those
\norganisations is invaluable to the social groups whose rights are being broken. This way
\nthey get direct support, but it is also very important to sensitise so ciety towards the
\ndiscrimination that is strongly present. We should certainly point out the Fond za
\nhumanitarno pravo (Humanitarian Law Centre) and Jukom (Yugoslav Committee of
\nLawyers for Human Rights), but also local organisations such as Odbor za ljudska prava
\n(Council for Human Rights) Bujanovac, Odbor za ljudska prava (Council for Human
\nRights) Negotin and others.
\nIt is important to mention organisations whose programme is dealing with the past,
\nlike Odbor za gradansku inicijativu (Council for Civic initiatives) Ni\u0161, Gradanski
\nparlament Srbije (Civic Parliament of Serbia) from Cacak, Medija centar Beograd, and
\nothers.
\nRegional (cross border) co-operation is also badly covered. Most of the rare
\norganisations involved in cooperation with organisations from neighbouring countries or
\nprogrammes regarding these countries were focused on Romania, Bulgaria and\/or
\nHungary. Only several of them focused their work on one or several countries of former
\nYugoslavia, and set this as one of their priorities. A couple of organisations expressed
\ntheir wish for cooperation with organisations from ex-Yugoslav countries and a need to
\nestablish contacts.<\/p>\n

Needs and Lessons learned<\/strong>
\nMost of this research was done while CNA was preparing one of our basic training events in
\nnonviolent conflict transformation. We received about 160 applications for this training, 100 of
\nwhich came from Serbia. We were a little bit concerned about such a large interest, since we
\nwere able to accept only 20 applications per training.
\nWith respect to the number of various problems in society, there is certainly a big
\nneed for\u00a0 education in nonviolent conflict resolution.\u00a0 There is also an interest for it.
\nPresent capacities in Yugoslavia are insufficient to meet all demands, and therefore
\neducation of multipliers deserves special attention.
\nSome of the NGOs we\u2019d met expressed an explicit need for\u00a0 cross border work,
\nespecially within former Yugoslavia. We find this approach necessary for dissolving
\nprejudice and mistrust that exists, for establishing communication and opening up dialogue. An important dimension of cross-border meetings and cooperation is sensitising
\nto violence within society, which is a result of a whole range of different experiences
\nand perceptions. This means there is a need for more than just \u201crecreative\u201d gatherings
\nof people from different nationalities, \u201cfrom different sides\u201d, but also for a\u00a0 meticulous
\nand constructive approach to opening up those issues where conflict exist.
\nWe estimate that it is very important to work on education about different cultures
\nwith and by whom we live. Publishers need encouragement to translate into Serbian
\nlan guage and publish the works of those authors who belong to either minorities or
\nneighbouring nations.
\nNGO activities don\u2019t get enough media coverage. On one hand, the media are badly
\ninformed or not interested in NGO activities. On the other hand, NGOs\u00a0 don\u2019t give
\ninformation and are not presenting their work well to the public. That\u2019s why it is
\nimportant to educate people from the media and NGOs\u00a0 about each other, in order to
\nbroaden and empower the circle of individuals and organisations that understand and
\nsupport peace building and establishing of civil society.
\nWe also think it is a good idea to support cooperation between NGOs. One can often
\nnotice an atmosphere of rivalry between NGOs, which prevents fruitful cooperation and
\nexchange of information and experiences, and above all mutual support. The solution of
\nthis problem is not in forming massive NGO-networks with many members, because they
\nare doomed since they really are only formal. We estimate it is necessary to work on
\neducation on civil society based on cooperation, information exchange and mutual
\nsupport.
\nA great number of the organisations we met expressed their need for education in
\nteamwork, which is a basis for cooperation.
\nBesides cooperation between NGOs, there is a need to support cooperation between
\nrepresentatives of the media, authorities, NGOs and other representatives of civil
\nsociety. A successful strategy towards this would be to get to know each other and work
\non building mutual relations between them.
\nIt is important to exert influence on the Ministry of Education and other authorities
\nto carry out\u00a0 reforms of the educational system quickly and more thoroughly, and also to
\npay special attention to the changes of school programmes. Up to now, school curricula
\nare not sensitive on issues like minorities, gender, human and children rights, or
\nviolence within society. We would be very glad to see the transformation of those ideals,
\nnow presented in school books as \u201cto give one\u2019s life for the fatherland\u201d into values of a
\nsociety which is finally determined to promote the culture of peace and non -violence.
\nTo those organisations and individuals coming from outside this region, we
\nrecommend listening to local needs and circumstances, if they want to offer support to
\nlocal initiatives building civil society and sustainable peace. This way they can avoid an outcome in which programmes are oriented towards foreign organisations, instead of
\ntowards the target group and needs of local population.
\nNo one can build a sustainable peace for the people of this region and make them
\ndeal with the past. This is a job they need to do themselves, with the support of all
\npeople of good will.
\nWe must underline that this society does not need to concentrate only on
\nextinguishing fires that are already burning, but to set priority to prevent them from
\nbreaking out in the first place .
\nThe Role of CNA in Peace Building
\nThe Centre for Nonviolent action certainly recognises its role in support of\u00a0 peace
\neducation where our capacities and competence are the most impressive. As until now,
\nwe will organize training events in nonviolent conflict resolution and try to respond to
\nthe present needs and requests we\u2019ve already received. Participants of our training
\nevents are people who work in NGOs, media, political parties and education, from the
\ncountries of former Yugoslavia. According to the needs assessment we find all four levels
\nof training to be important:
\n– work on techniques and skills of nonviolent conflict transformation (nonviolent
\ncommunication; teamwork and\u00a0 decision making; understanding, analysis and
\ntransformation of conflict; etc.)
\n– Sensitising of violence within society and dissolving of national and other kinds of
\nprejudice (establishing communication and giving people a chance to hear the other
\nside)
\n– Empowering people to work actively in both their local community and society and to
\nreact in an adequate way on violence and violation of their own rights and rights of
\ntheir fellow citizens
\n– Connecting and networking of people from both: different countries of former
\nYugoslavia, and different areas of public activity (NGO, media, political parties,
\neducation); and supporting their mutual cooperation.
\nWith the opening of an office in Belgrade and broadening our capacities we\u2019ve
\nintensified our work with a chance to respond to more requests for training events.
\nHowever, since we are not able to meet the demands of all those who are interested,
\nwe see our role in education of multipliers, and organisation and development of\u00a0 The
\nTraining for Trainers Programme,\u00a0 which includes special attention to the selection of
\nparticipants.
\nAn important aspect of our work is support to peace groups and individuals who wish
\nto work on peace building, nonviolent conflict transformation and sensitising of society
\nto violence around us. The Belgrade office enables a stronger presence in this part of the region of ex Yugoslavia from which the majority of requests for training events come
\nfrom,\u00a0 and therefore it is easier to respond to them and offer support.
\nWe find stronger\u00a0 public presence to be important for our work; in order to include
\nmore people in discussion on those issues we work on our training events.
\nWe think that the Belgrade office should have a special role in dealing with the\u00a0 past
\nand dissolving prejudice against other nations\/ethnic groups, pointing out discrimination
\nand other forms of violence within society. This kind of work would be accepted more
\neasily in public if local people do it.
\nCooperation with other groups from this area with whom we share the same values:
\nGradanski parlament Srbije (Civic Parliament of Serbia)\u00a0 – Cacak, Odbor za gradansku
\ninicijativu (Civic Initiative Council) – Ni\u0161, Most – Beograd, Centar za gradanske inicijative
\n(Centre for Civis Initiatives) – Kola\u0161in, Fond za humanitarno pravo (Fond for
\nHumanitarian Law) – Beograd, \u017dene u crnom (Women in Black)- Beograd, Jukom
\n(Committee of lawyers) \u2013 Beograd, etc. is very important and needed.
\nCNA is not a national organization. We have offices in Belgrade and Sarajevo with
\nstaff made up of people from different countries of former Yugoslavia. This fact seemed
\nto be important to the people we talked to on this trip, since it\u2019s really very rare.
\nMoreover, it is a concrete example of regional cooperation, communication and mutual
\npeace building and a direct way to promote all of it.
\nThis research has been invaluable for CNA, since we had a chance to personally meet
\nmany NGOs and their activists, and get a better picture of situation in local
\ncommunities.
\nWe thank all those individuals we met during this research for their hospitality, time
\nand useful discussions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ivana Franovic, Milan Colic and Ned\u017ead Horozovic from the Centre for Nonviolent Action
\nmade an exploratory trip to Yugoslavia in October and December of 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":6669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,653],"tags":[759],"class_list":["post-6764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications","category-research","tag-exploratory-trip"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}