The Kosovo Solution series

10. March 2005 by Leave a Comment

Broad framework, many roads

By Jan Oberg & Aleksandar Mitic

Published March 2005

 

Table of content

# 1   Why the solution in Kosovo matters to the world

Executive summary

# 2   The media – strategic considerations

# 3   The main preconditions for a sustainable solution of the Kosovo conflicts

# 4   The situation as seen from Serbia

# 5   The arguments for quick and total independence  are not credible

# 6   What must be Belgrade’s minimum conditions and its media strategy

# 7   Nations and states, sovereignty and self-determination

# 8   Positive scenarios: Turn to the future, look at the broader perspectives

# 9   Many models for Kosovo

# 10  Summary: From “Only one solution” towards democracy and peace

About the authors

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Conflict analysis, Lessons to learn, Peace processes, Treatment - Proposals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

From mistakes toward an end of the war in Bosnia?

5. February 1995 by Leave a Comment

By Johan Galtung

February 1995

Of the many mistakes made by the EU, the U.S. and the UN (Security Council) a major mistake was the recognition of BH as a country member of the UN within the administrative borders of the Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH) of former Yugoslavia.  As Kissinger said, this was a “country” in which 52%  (the percentage can be discussed) of the inhabitants did not want to live.

But since this mistake was committed by the Holy Trinity of EU/US/SC to admit a mistake is almost impossible.  The doctrine became sacred, like Vatican doctrines.

So when the Contact Group, adding Russia to three EU members and the U.S., came up with its peace plan last July, the only question discussed was the internal division, and in highly unrealistic terms as if there were only two parties in BH, with a 51-49% formula.

In addition there was also the old idea that all problems derive from Serb, meaning Beograd, aggression, seeing the conflict as Beograd against the rest. Serbs were Serbs, socialist or tchetnik, Beograd or Pale; and the same for the Croats. They never understood the old and new tensions between Beograd and Zagreb, and Serbs and Croats in BH.

However, the conflict, and indeed the war in BiH, is over self-determination for the Bosnian Serbs (and, possibly, for the Croats). [Read more…]

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What could be done? The politics of conflict-resolution

19. August 1993 by 1 Comment

By Johan Galtung

First version written mid-1993, revised 2006

Let us first engage in some counter-factual history.  Fall 1991 Yugoslavia and Europe, and the world in general, was faced with a war unfolding in Croatia.  Yugoslavia was not that strongly coupled so fortunately the war spread slowly; after all, it was a federation bordering on con-federation. Many of the national mixes were tripartite. So is gunpowder: carbon, sulphur and salpeter.  Proceed with care. And, if you use a hammer, do not be surprised if you see an explosion.  There were many hammers, some inside, some in the region some in the larger international system.

A major condition for war, polarization, was fulfilled as the logic of a war is bipolar.  If there are more parties than two the condition for war is alliance-formation combined with neutrality for some; the wars being more or less shifting.  Alliances, like the highly unlikely Croat-Muslim alliance in B-i-H could be forged from the outside; or, like the counterpoint, a Serbian-Croat alliance in B-i-H, from the inside (the Milosevic-Tudjman scheme).  What would be the minimum assumptions for an alternative, more conflict solution oriented course of history?  Opinions will differ on that one, but here are two, and they are far from unrealistic:

[1]  We might have not only expected but demanded more conflict literacy in the definition of the conflict. To cast this complex conflict in a small number of parties – or only Serbs versus the rest and Serbia alone in the role as problematic (to the delight of the others), ending up with the Hague Tribunal conflict map of the world against Milosevic is simply dumb.

[2]  We might have followed Pérez de Cuéllar’s three-point advice:  do not recognize “too early, selective and uncoordinated”. We could have decided to not recognize any party as independent before a solution satisfactory to the minorities has been found, not favoring the more Western of the republics and have a policy for Yugoslavia as a whole. In other words, priority should have been given to the United Nations over the European Community/Union.
There is also a third, but less realistic, assumption:  more attention given by media and politicians to the numerous ideas from NGO/civil society that we have mentioned in another post here.

Ten pointers toward a peace process in Ex-Yugoslavia 1991-1995 [Read more…]

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