The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

sary. Of course there were exceptions in situations in which western
credibility was questioned. The intervention in Kosovo too was not carried
out because of the terrible situation of the Albanians, but because
of the reputation of Nato, which had to show that it had teeth. After wait -
ing for four years in Bosnia while terrible crimes were committed – in
Srebrenica alone, Serbian units killed 8000 people within a few days –
they now reacted promptly after the expulsion of the Albanian population
from Kosovo. In 1992, there had been no common will to exert determined
influence on the region. At Dayton in 1995, Miloševi even was
considered a stabilizing factor for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Only in Kosovo
did relations with him completely bread down.
Of course, the open question is whether there might not have been
means other than the bombing campaign. These certainly had been avail -
able, especially during the time prior to the outbreak of violence. But
they weren’t used – as they had not been during the time when Hitler
had led Europe to disaster. Then, Europe’s weakness made Hitler possible.
This time, Europe didn’t take nationalism seriously once again, and
was surprised when it erupted into brutality.
Many mistakes were made; in particular, there was a lack of a uniform
line of the western European countries, which for a while supported
completely different sides and programmes. There were controversial
positions even within each country. For the British and French, fear of a
Germany once again large and united was mixed with memories of the
First and Second World Wars, which had been worked through psychologically.
While the war raged in Yugoslavia, perhaps also in fear of it, a
politically unified Europe was confirmed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and
French President François Mitterrand in the Maastricht Treaty. Germany
was in fact fairly reticent with regard to Yugoslav issues, perhaps so as
not to endanger the reunification of Germany by alienating its Allies, who
had not yet withdrawn from Germany. This sensible behaviour let the
aftermath of the Second World War come to an end for Germany, while
in Yugoslavia, everything that the people there had built up since 1945
was destroyed in a chaos driven by nationalistic passions. People were
dying in Sarajevo under fire from the surrounding mountains at the same
time as the German Reichstag was wrapped in white cloth in a huge,
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