The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

The Programme for the Long-Term Consolidation of the Yugoslav Economy,
adopted in 1983, remained a mere proclamation, for nothing could
be implemented without the consent of all six republics and the two autonomous
provinces Kosovo and Voivodina. The country was in the
stranglehold of regional self-determination. Neither the reform projects
nor the Commission to Reform the Economic System, convened at the
end of the ‘80s, succeeded in imposing a decisive turnaround. While the
experts were demanding a market economy, pluralism of ownership,
deregulation and privatization, abandonment of the fixed organizational
structure, creation of a uniform market for goods, labour and capital, reform
of the banking system, opening of the Yugoslav economy and the
restriction of the function of the state to indirect control of the economy,
new legislation was passed in the areas of foreign investments, invoic -
ing, financial aid, the export financing bank and foreign trade law that
actually heightened the sense of legal insecurity amongst investors.
These laws were frequently amended or suspended shortly after being
passed.
Out of the dead end of nationalism
The dissension between the eight regions led in the parliament to biased
considerations, and to changes without any real change. Instead of addressing
economic questions, the League of Communists – the Party –
preferred to concern itself with staff and nationality issues that escalated
to the breaking point. The party became a church without faith, leaving
a spiritual void into which nationalism moved. The ideological décor, the
bottle, remained the same, only the liquid it held was now completely
different.
The crisis was most clearly noticeable in the poorest region, Kosovo. Income
there was just one seventh of income in Slovenia. Many people
sought possibilities to earn money in other parts of the country, so as to
feed their families. While the Albanians went abroad on a massive scale,
where they could usually only work illegally, many Serbs sold their possessions
and moved with their families to Serbia. In the language of the
nationalists, this process was equated with the expulsion of the Serbs
from their homeland.
88