The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

After three Slovenes were sentenced to imprisonment by a court martial
for “betraying secrets”, protests broke out.
Since the outbreak of the crisis in Kosovo, Slovenia had been the only
Yugoslav republic to take the side of the Albanians and shown solidarity
with the 1500 Albanians who were on strike in a mine for higher salaries
in 1989. This attitude triggered anger in Serbia, which still expected gratitude
from Slovenia for its “liberation” from Austria-Hungary in the First
World War. At that time, Petra Kelly and Gerd Bastian of the German
Greens had been the only prominent figures from Europe to travel to
support the miners. However, they were prevented from leaving the airport
in Belgrade, and were sent back to Germany by the police.
In the first free elections in Slovenia in April 1990, the opposition won,
but the people elected a communist president, thus safeguarding the
stability of power.
The Croatian communist leadership was paralysed between the demand
for maintaining socialist Yugoslavia on the one hand, and the desire for
a free market economy on the other. Private enterprise and political pluralism
could no longer be prevented. Speech liberated itself. The magazine
Danas became the organ of Croatian critical public opinion.
The leadership for a long time silently accepted Serbian endeavours for
hegemony. They hoped to be able to accomplish more by a policy of
quiet and stability, and were afraid that a wrong step would associate
them with the Second World War-era “Independent State of Croatia”,
which would provide support for the Greater Serbian movement. In addition,
some Communists were afraid they could be called to account
for the crimes of the partisans at the end of the Second World War. They
also had consideration for the majority of the Croatian Serbs, who feared
the return of wartime era of extremism, and couldn’t imagine a life with -
out a common Yugoslavia.
Only in view of the collapse of European communism and with the grow -
ing danger from Serbia did the long silence evaporate in Croatia. Convinced
that they would win in the elections, and in the hope of regaining
their fading legitimacy in the population, the Communist Party held the
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