The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

Yugoslavia is to some extent an exception, since the intervention by
NATO put an end to the genocide. At the same time however, the postwar
order in ex-Yugoslavia is highly problematical in some regions, because
ethnic cleansing could not be stopped and the conflicts continue
to smoulder, as in Kosovo.
The UN peacekeeping missions in Rwanda and Yugoslavia under Art. 6
of the UN Charter also dramatically failed in their missions, since those
soldiers looked on and did virtually nothing as the genocidal actions unfolded
in Srebrenica and in Rwanda.
5. The conclusion widely drawn by the UN that, given the failures of
peacekeeping operations, peace-enforcing operations should now be
carried out instead, is however a dramatic mistake. For in conflicts and
wars which have already broken out, military intervention has not led to
any pacification of the situation, but rather has caused wars to drag on
and turn into long-lasting civil wars. The experience from Somalia during
the 1990s, the experience of wars in Iraq, and our presumed future experience
in Afghanistan and Libya should have a consciousness-raising
effect here.
6. International development agencies must be clear that humanitarian
aid in violent and warlike conflicts often serves at least partially as a war
dividend for the war-making parties, and hence reinforces violence. It
would make much more sense, it appears, to orient international devel -
opment agencies, such as those of the EU, towards cooperation with
regional actors, so as to develop solutions to conflicts – which may not
yet have broken out – and to implement in that context.
7. In all cases examined here, the conflicts developed over a long period
be fore exploding into violent warfare. It is inconceivable that today, with
all our possibilities for exchanging information, societal conflicts should
continue to remain unnoticed for so long, until they escalate, and the world
pauses to consider them for a moment, due to the shocking pictures.
8. In every society, there are civil actors who have developed a sensitive
antenna for upcoming change with regard to the development of
conflict. That includes journalists, who can ascertain changes in public
opinion, school teachers who teach history and can tell when the man-
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