From: pnmideast@igc.org
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: text from osijek
Date: 20 Jul 92 05:29:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1475300281:000:5767
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!pnmideast    Jul 19 22:29:00 1992


From: <pnmideast>
Subject: text from osijek

/* Written  5:43 pm  Jul 17, 1992 by wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org in cdp:yugo.antiwar */
/* ---------- "text from osijek" ---------- */
The following presentation from a symposium on Restoration of Eastern 
Slavonian Region" (sponsored by the Croatian Academy of 
Science and Art) was delivered  by Katarina Kruhonja in the name of 
the Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, Osijek, Croatia. 
It is entitled " A Multidimensional Approach to the Problems of Exiles and 
Returnees. 

We seek to realize a plan of returning the exiles by  establishing  realistic 
mediation in the following ways:

- Cessation of the use of armed conflict as an expression of the will of 
warring parties with the help of the international community, an opportunity 
to which we must relate responsibly.

- Stimulation of a relationship which will consolidate the peace.  
We consider this an obligation for both Croatia and Serbia, for the 
international community, for the soldiers, and especially for any 
possible future victims because of  the suffering  and destruction which would 
come through the recycling of violence.

- Victory which we see as the realization, preservation and 
construction of peace, but not as peace through military victory.

- Return of exiled persons and refugees to the area seized in  war and 
and held through occupation.  We consider this a crucial element of 
the peacemaking process.

- Local experience with the return of exiles to the areas newly returned to 
Croatian jurisdiction shows the necessity to establish a state of law.  
Otherwise, new conflicts will erupt and existing conflicts will multiply.

- We stress as a rule the responsibility of the mass-media and of 
political and other public figures for transforming the war rhetoric into 
peace rhetoric and for establishing realistic expectations about the dynamics 
of peacemaking.

- A precondition for the consistent and persistant realization of peace 
is accountability to the international community on the part of Croatia.

- Stressing the multidimensionality of the process in which an exile becomes a 
returnee,  we direct our efforts and activities to the human being as an 
individual and to the strengths which represent the prism through which the 
process breaks up and obtains a positive direction






What works and how?

Until March, when the delegation of Helsinki Citizens Assembly (an 
organization which connects prominent movements for the protection of human 
rights and peace movements in Europa) visited Osijek, we continually 
led educational advisory activities to develop a culture of creative, 
nonviolent and intermediate mutual relations with problems and conflicts 
on an individual and and on a group level.  Starting from different corners 
-- from reduction of prejudices and stereotypes, redefinition of problems, 
dependency  of leaders and participants on seminar -- they looked 
for and adopted the skills of communications by which thinking can be directed  
to realistic and creative mutual relations.  In practice, students were most 
likely to say: "I don't see what we can do and what is possible to do 
here at all".  This has become transformed into hope and impetus to do 
something.   And this something, although very little, has gained in its 
concrete content and importance.

In our programs, we included professionals who work in a curative role:
psychologists, social and medical workers, proffessors and teaching 
assistants, and, of course, peace activists.  We have realized a very good 
cooperative relationship with Civil Protection, the Center for Social 
Care, the Regional Office for Refugees and Exiles, the Regional Bureau for 
Schools, primary medical care providers, the Croatian Home Association, and 
with J.J. Strossmayer University.

The work occurs principally in intensive weekend group workshops.  
The workshops host up to 20 people and last two and a half days. A special 
program for the education of peace mediators is going on at this momment.
We are preparing and performing this programs in cooperation with  
specialists from Europa - mostly from Great Britain and Germany. We have 
realized cooperation with University from Bradford and Woodbruck, 
the Society for Social Protection from Minden, the Center for Critical 
Conditions from Great Britain, and the International Fellowship of 
Reconciliation.

After the visits of their members in March and May when they observed not only 
our needs but also the openness of city officials to cooperation, the 
international European peace networks made a decision to provide long term 
help to our peacemaking and democracy-building programs.  This meeting with 
Europa, which we had longed for, had started with Europe coming peacefully 
to us.  The European peace movement, which has grown in communal spirit and 
efficiency over the last few years, brings knowledge, experience, and support 
in the form of materials, volunteers prepared to live with returnees in their 
homes, professional continuous education support, and the possibility of peace  
mediation from the neighborhood level to the international level (through 
alternative channels) in cooperation with UNPROFOR forces.

It is long lasting, delicate and, by  necessity persistence work. The aim of 
this work is curing the human and interpersonal relations, relations inside  
groups and inter-groups relations. It is a part of process which 
through understanding will lead to forgiveness and reconciliation from one
individual to another. Entering these dimensions we enter into 
spiritual reconstruction. For Christians that means approaching and assembling 
around the Spirit of Christ, the Prince of Peace.