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"Volunteer but not amateur"Balkan
Peace Team in FRY
by Howard Clark
Nobody should expect too much of citizen dialogue projects in Kosovo -- not before the
fighting, and certainly not now. However, they remain essential to establish at least the
minimum basis of goodwill and understanding necessary for future co-existence and
tolerance between the Albanian and Serbian communities.
The basic roles of the Balkan Peace Team in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)
are to promote unofficial dialogue between Serbs and Albanians and to be an independent
channel of information, both at the level of international peace groups and locally. We
try to maintain a team of three volunteers based in Belgrade, but spending about half
their time in Kosovo. The work is sensitive and low-key. Volunteers spend a lot of time
"networking" -- they need to know, both in Serbia and in Kosovo, enough about
useful contact points to be able to play the role of go-between. The first step is to
identify any interest in dialogue or contact: usually that's a matter of volunteers
responding to what they hear, but occasionally they also try to awaken that interest. Then
comes checking if there is interest on the other side, and helping arrange a first
meeting. Quite often people then need continuous encouragement and even escorting to make
sure that it happens.
Five illustrations of BPT at work:
- Nis, one of the major towns in inner Serbia, lying between Belgrade and Prishtina, is
where most of the Kosovo Albanian political prisoners are held.This seemed a natural base
to try to make connections between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians. However, when the Centre
for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution first discussed the question, it brought up all sorts
of tensions. The next step was for them to ask BPT to find someone to lead a
"prejudice workshop". After this, BPT arranged the group's first visit to
Kosovo. By October last year, when Albanian students resumed nonviolent protest for the
right to education, members of the Nis group went to Prishtina to monitor what transpired
and published a report describing the police brutality and the Albanians' nonviolence.
- BPT got to know many of the Belgrade students active in the pro-democracy demonstrations
in the winter of 1996-97. When in October 1997 Albanian students at the
"parallel" University of Prishtina (that functions out of makeshift private
buildings) began to protest, BPT contacted the Belgrade students to ask what they felt.
After the first demonstration, some of the Belgrade students issued a statement of
solidarity, condemning police violence and supporting the right to education. Before the
second, BPT arranged for a deputation of Belgrade students from various groups to go to
Prishtina for separate dialogue meetings with Serbian and Albanian students. Some
unfortunate remarks at a press conference later threatened to damage this process, but
subsequently Belgrade students successfully backed Albanian students for the Nasa Borba
Prize for Tolerance, and some of them are at the heart of the new Anti-War Campaign in
Serbia.
- Visiting in Prishtina in May, when the BPT volunteers were away, I substituted for them
in accompanying four Serbian students in their visit to Albanian neighbourhoods to the
seat of the "parallel" university, their attitude changed from exuberance to
inhibition. Without a friendly foreigner to escort them, I suppose the Belgrade students
would have tried to catch a taxi -- but maybe the Prishtina students would have decided to
stay away.
- In June, an Albanian woman from Prishtina and a Serb from Pancevo (Vojvodina) agreed at
a workshop in Budapest to set up a mixed Albanian-Serb workshop together in Prishtina.
However, back home, neither of them could find Kosovo Serb women willing to take part --
until they asked the BPT.
- One particular feature of a continuous presence is that the team can follow up other
international initiatives. For instance, Pax Christi International's Link programme
periodically brings together young people from all over former-Yugoslavia, including Serbs
and Albanians, while the Nansen Peace Academy in Lillehammer, Norway, has by now had
perhaps 20 people from Kosovo (Serbs and Albanians) on its courses for people from
former-Yugoslavia. At several levels, it's been useful for participants in these projects
to have a sympathetic international ear back in their home situation: to reflect and to
think about possible developments. We are currently investigating starting a second team
working on Kosovo.
"Volunteer but not amateur"
BPT has high standards for its volunteers. We expect them to make a commitment of a
minimum of one year, and choose them after a three-day assessment. Before they go to the
field, they take part in a 10-day training (which is normally now co-facilitiated with
trainers from the region), and, once in the field, the first month includes daily language
lessons. In May this year we were in the exceptional position where all three volunteers
in FRY could speak Serbian fluently and could read and make themselves understood in
Albanian.
The commitment our volunteers show to the particular situation they are in brings a
response from locals that is quite in contrast to the common attitude to bigger and
better-funded international agencies. Each team has a sub-group of people with a
continuous and long-term engagement in the situation, giving regular feedback on the
team's bi-weekly reports and advice on questions that come up.
As well as evaluating the work of the volunteers (after three months and upon leaving),
BPT also has periodic evaluations of the team's role with input from local reference
people. The wars in former-Yugoslavia have attracted many well-meaning people to go there
as individuals, and many people have designed peace-building projects -- some of them
attracting big money. In BPT, we feel that our rather modest project -- currently two
teams of three volunteers in Croatia and one in FRY -- has continuity, a team culture, and
a sense of accountability that others would benefit from.
Further information from Balkan Peace Team: Ringstr 9a, 32427 Minden, Germany phone
+49 571 20 776, fax +49 571 23 019, email: Balkan-Peace-Team@bionic.zerberus.de, Web page:
http://www.antenna.nl/bpt
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