The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

ANALYSIS OF THE COUNTRY REPORTS
In the analysis of the country reports, we refer to the categorization
established in feminist peace research, taking particular account of:
economic
ethno-nationalist, and
religious
contexts of development, and the process and resolution of conflicts.
However, for the examples we selected, we also had to incorporate
additional categories into the analysis, in particular:
post-colonial
post-socialist, and
imperial geostrategic interest driven
conflicts and war developments: Especially in Africa, post-colonial struc -
tures are still dominant, both as regards internal conflicts, and through
the presence of former colonial powers which have repeatedly seen
themselves called upon to intervene in conflicts, including militarily. This
is particularly true of France.
The extent to which the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of
the Soviet Union as a geostrategic superpower has accelerated the outbreak
of regional and intra-societal violence, conflicts and wars, or promoted
geo-strategically based wars by the United States and its allies
worldwide, is not to be addressed here. Particularly however with regard
to the Middle East conflict, these changes have to be taken into account.
Here, an unholy alliance between the power interests of the West and
the conservative regimes of the region has become obvious, on alliance
which undermines any possible peace process in favour of an iron military
security doctrine.
What is clear in the case of Yugoslavia however is that the end of the
Yalta system promoted the development of war. To that extent therefore,
it would appear appropriate to incorporate the changes and conflicts
in post-socialist societies into the analysis. Bosiljka Schedlich has
said in this regard: “In former Yugoslavia…, as in all post-socialist countries,
a vacuum in terms of key values occurred after the political change,
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