Sonja Lokar
The Women's Role In Armed Conflicts1
The Case of the Stability Pact Gender Task Force
Do Women Play a Special Role in Conflict Prevention, Crisis Management and Post-Conflict Rehabilitation?
In the South-eastern part of Europe, this is not an academic question. We can answer it in a very concrete way by analysing the role of women throughout all three phases of the conflicts in the today's Stability Pact region: pre-war, war and post-war.
All the countries of today's Stability Pact region are countries in transition. Transition is just one form of globalization. War is just one form of post-poned and disfigured implementation of transition - the most brutal, inhuman and destructive way.
When transition started picking up momentum in the mid-1980s, in post-Tito's Yugoslavia, the tired communist elite gave up, admitting that the Yugoslav League of Communists did not have any acceptable answer to the challenges of globalization. New political actors came onto the scene.
In Serbia (with the autonomies of Vojvodina and Kosovo ruined) and in Montenegro, former communists who had become nationalists, came to power. In Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, central and right wing, mostly nationalist parties or party coalitions were democrati-cally elected and started the difficult process of transition.
All over the world, transition is essentially a huge redistribution of political power and wealth within each nation as well as between nations. The trend is undisputed. The rich and the mighty are becoming richer and mightier, the poor and the powerless are becoming poorer and more powerless.
In some cases, like the Balkans, transition became at the same time a savage attempt to newly partition state territories and even newly distribute popula-tions. Aggressive nationalist civil wars were simply the handiest of tools for this redistribution.
Transition has taken on different patterns in the Stability Pact region. Slove-nia dealt with its transition through a slow gradual reform process, Hungary was subject to a form of shock therapy, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Ma-cedonia are going through "stop and go" shock therapy. In Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Vojvodina, "ethnic" wars have masked a very brutal and distorted transition. Warlords and organized criminals became the main profiteers in this process.
1 This article reflects the personal opinions of the author and not those of the Stability Pact Gender Task Force.
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2 The exception to this rule was Romania, where abortion was illegal.
Whatever the pattern of transition, it is obvious that transition is hostile to human capital. In all the countries of today's Stability Pact region, women were just this: human capital. They had been rather well educated, usually employed on a full-time basis and economically independent, made their own decisions on family planning,2 and in addition carried out 90 per cent of the responsibility for their households and children. And now suddenly they were supposed to play fake roles by being "queens of the home" and "mothers of the nation".
Through the first multiparty elections in all the countries of this region women were practically excluded from political decision-making bodies. At best they became objects of ultra-conservative exclusively male politics, at worst, victims of the wars, led by aggressive, conservative, nationalist and exclusively male politics.
Table 1
Percentage of Women in Parliaments and in Governments in Some Countries of the South-Eastern European Region Country Wom-en's
Right to Vote Best % of Women in Parliam. % of Wom-en
Elected
1990/1 % of Wom-en
Elected
1992/4 % of Wom-en Elected
1996/8 % of Wom-en Elected
1999 % of Wom-en
Minis-ters
1999
Albania 1920 1974-33,2 3,6 5,7 6,4 11,11
Bulgaria 1944 1981-21,8 12,9 13,3 10,8 0
Hungary 1958 1980-30,1 7,3 11,4 8,3 8,3 8
Romania 1946 1985-34,4 3,6 4,1 7,3 7,3 0
Slovenia 1943/6 1982-26 11 14 7,8 7,8 0
Croatia 1945 1982-17 4.4 5.8 7.8 7.8 ?
BiH 1945 1982-23 5 3 26 26 0
Serbia Vojvodina Monte-negro 1945
1945
1945 3
3 ?
? ?
? 5.5
? 5.5
0
WCDI = Women Can Do It; WVCDI= Women Voters Can Do It; ToT= Train the Trainer training
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Schematic Recapitulation of the Role of the Women in Times of Transition in the Stability Pact Region
From the mid-1980s till today, the Balkans has experienced all phases of war.
Preparatory phase of the armed conflicts 1986-1991:
- downturn in economic development;
- mounting social tensions;
- destabilization of former predominant political players;
- formation of new mainstream political leaders by transformation of de-velopment impasse and social tensions into ethnic exclusion and hate;
- massive abuse of mass media to persuade people of all nations to accept war as a solution;
- exploitation of the Serb national minority to eliminate the rule of law and to dissolve the legal state authorities in Kosovo, Vojvodina, Monte-negro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina;
- hidden low scale arming of future adversaries in the armed conflict, who had not been armed previously.
The role of the women in the pre-war phase:
- The majority withdraw into their private lives or are sucked into the new mainstream politics.
- A minority becomes organized in new women's movements, first for political and personal rights of women, disarmament and demilitariza-tion, as well as - before the outbreak of wars - becoming active in the prevention of armed conflicts. These groups remain marginalized in their own nations and never receive serious support from mainstream international politics.
The war phase:
- The attempt to exploit the multinational army to prevent peaceful sepa-ration of Slovenia fails, thus the "Serbianization" of the Yugoslav Peo-ple's Army is begun.
- Underground fighters (criminals, paramilitary mercenaries) are sent to start armed conflicts in Croatia. The Yugoslav People's Army is ex-ploited as an occupational army.
- The same model is used in Bosnia and Herzegovina combined with the fact that the now purely Serb Yugoslav People's Army has already oc-cupied it.
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- Classical territorial wars, sold to the domestic and international public as inter-ethnic civil wars, ravage Croatia as well as Bosnia and Herze-govina from 1992-1995.
- NATO bombs Republika Srpska.
- In November 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement is signed.
The role of women during the war phase:
- The majority of the women become victims of war atrocities and its economic spillover effects.
- Former women's peace movements become actors in providing humani-tarian aid and international justice to the victims of wars.
- The UN Conference on Women in Beijing proclaims rape in war as crime against humanity, as well as devoting a chapter in the Beijing Platform for Action to the necessity of an active role for women in the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts.
- Women begin to organize within some political parties (mostly social democratic and centrist ones) and within trade unions. First quota regu-lations are established in the statutes of political parties (in Slovenia, Croatia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina).
- International mainstream politics completely ignore a possible women's role in the formulation and implementation of the Dayton Peace Agree-ment.
The post(?)-war phase:
- Serbian crackdown on the Kosovo Liberation Army/UCK (1999);
- NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1999);
- Stability Pact Initiative (July 1999);
- Peace Agreement with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1999);
- Albanian terrorism against the Serbian minority in Kosovo (1999 till today);
- gradual democratic takeover of the political leadership by the more de-mocratic political parties: Djukanović in Montenegro, Racan's coalition in Croatia, the Democratic Opposition in Serbia and Vojvodina, Rugo-va's victory in local elections in Kosovo (2000);
- shaky implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina; slow growth of the parties supporting a multi-ethnic and territorially integrated Bosnia and Herzegovina; unexpected renewal of the extreme nationalist parties of Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herze-govina;
- Albanian minority extremists' armed rebellion in Macedonia (March 2001).
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Albanian minority extremists' armed rebellion in Macedonia (March 2001).
249 The role of the women in the post-war phase:
- permanent efforts to instil real equality into mainstream politics with clear perception of how to change it;
- first enactment of the quota rule in the Provisional Electoral Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998, 26 per cent of the Members of Par-liament are women; 30 per cent quota rule on open lists enacted in the Permanent Bosnia and Herzegovina Electoral Law, 18 per cent women elected on local and entities' levels; national equality machinery estab-lished at state and entities levels;
- creation of the Stability Pact Gender Task Force, focusing on political empowerment of women;
- women receive 21 per cent of the seats in Croatian post-Tudjman Parlia-ment and also receive the posts of deputy prime minister and three ministers; national state equality mechanism is upgraded;
- crucial role of organized democratic women's movement in Serbia and Vojvodina in ousting Milošević, twelve per cent (previously five per cent) women elected in Serbian national Parliament, many more women in important positions in executive in Vojvodina and Serbia;
- positive spillover effect in the perception of possible women's role in Kosovo: gender equality department in the OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMIK), 30 per cent quota rule enacted for the first free local elections in Kosovo; eight per cent of women elected to the posts of local coun-cillors on open lists;
- organized efforts to ensure that better prepared women get elected to the future Parliaments of Albania, Macedonia, and to local governments in Croatia; begin of the parity campaign in Slovenia;
- organized women's struggle in Macedonia to be included as equal part-ners in the political solution to the crises before it becomes too late.
With the support of the OSCE, for the first time ever, the actors of main-stream international politics gave the women of South-eastern Europe a small chance to devise strategies and implement a plan for their own political em-powerment.
The Future?
The Stability Pact Gender Task Force pays a high price for its originality and stubbornness in maintaining regional women's groups' ownership of their projects: no institutional stability, no guaranteed future. Its first results are not irreversible. The Gender Task Force must take a new step in its develop-ment and needs stronger, more reliable, long-term support from the interna-tional community. It requires small, but very professional regional centres for
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the development of concrete gender equality policies as well as national of-fices in all countries of the region. The continuation and upgrading of the "Women Can Do It" training modules for all present and up-and-coming women politicians are just as indispensable as the enlargement of its focus on the issues of the economic empowerment of women and their systematic par-ticipation in building peace, safety and security in their countries and in the region.
Women of the twelve countries transformed the Stability Pact into their new window of opportunity. With the support of the OSCE, they invented and put in place a new international institution to work for them: the Stability Pact Gender Task Force.
Democratic Europe and international democratic mainstream politics will have to find one way or the other to stabilize and develop the explosive South-eastern part of Europe. After their experience with the Stability Pact, there is a realistic hope that women of this region will find a way to persuade the international community to take them seriously as equal stakeholders and real partners in any of their future endeavours for peace, democratization and prosperity in this region.
Sonja Lokar nova predsednica Evropskega ženskega lobija
http://www.siol.net/novice/slovenija/2012/05/sonja_lokar_nova_predsednica_evropskega_zenskega_lobija.aspx
Evropski ženski lobi, krovna organizacija ženskih nevladnih
organizacij v Evropski uniji, je v nedeljo na letni skupščini v Budimpešti
dobil novo vodstvo.
Igor Lukšič, novi predsednik SD
On 2nd June 2012 he was elected president of the Slovenian
Social Democrats
http://www.siol.net/novice/slovenija/2012/06/sd_na_danasnjem_kongresu_pred_izbiro_novega_oziroma_starega_predsednika.aspx
Igor Lukšič
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Lukšič
Igor Lukšič,born 3 December 1961. is a Slovenian political
scientist, politician and president of the Slovenian Social Democrats since
June 2012. Between November 2008 and February 2012, he served as Minister of
Education in the center-left government of Borut Pahor.