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THE NEW MILLLENNIUM AS A CHALLENGE FOR PEACE AMONG PEOPLE, NATIONS AND COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE
Founding meeting of the Peres Institute for Peace
Address by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Milan Kucan
Tel Aviv (Israel), 21 October 1997
"Even the globalisation of life demands complete freedom of autonomy, limited only by the freedom of others and those who are different", stressed Milan Kucan, president of the republic, in his address at the founding meeting of the Peres Institute for Peace.
"European politics of the late eighties and early nineties either overlooked, or refused to recognise, the causes of the political crisis of the then Yugoslav state. In that multinational federation, full initiative was taken by the aggressive national egoism of the strongest nation. In the European situation after Helsinki, the demand that a nation become united within the borders of a national state and that all means be allowed to this end, actually implied a violent modification of the borders between countries as came into being after World War II. This was obvious, therefore it is incomprehensible that the beginning of the military violence of the Yugoslav, in truth Serbian, army in Slovenia and Croatia was not recognised as pure aggression. This particularly applies to the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was already an internationally recognised, sovereign state when aggression occurred"
"Now, six years later, it is clear that the maelstrom of war could have been stopped through resolute European intervention such as is needed to stop aggression at the very beginning. This has been proven not only in the case of Slovenia, but most of all in the effectiveness of resolute military intervention by NATO in 1995, and by Dayton."
My dear friend Shimon Peres,
Distinguished participants of today's celebration
Excellencies,
It is a great honour for me to address such a distinguished community assembled for the consultation on the challenges of peace facing mankind on the threshold of a new millennium. I shall speak of peace not from generally philosophical, but essentially empirical aspects of the concrete human world accessible to me.
I come from a country which gained its independence only in 1991, after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. War raged there up to the Dayton Accords, a war that in atrocities and violence inflicted on the civilian population can be compared to the Nazi and Fascist destruction during World War II. Slovenia had some luck, as well as political wisdom, so that it was able to reach peace and independence after a short military conflict. We avoided the worst, although we still live at the edge of war, with a direct perception of the human drama and impotence of the international community, at the threshold of the heart of Europe.
It is an illusion to think that the political crisis has come to an end in the narrower and broader regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina; or that the danger of a new outbreak of war has been eliminated. The situation there is neither peace nor war, with an entirely uncertain future. How can this be possible on European soil, after the bloody experience of two World Wars, concentration camps and the genocidal destruction of entire nations? Is it possible to answer this challenging question? I shall try to.
A new millennium is a challenge for peace, an opportunity for a civilisation of peace, co-operation and mutual understanding. The famous paradigm on the indivisibility of peace in an interdependent world cannot be implemented with beautifully worded rhetoric, while persisting in real relationships in the narrow-minded assertion of group and state interests. We will need to understand and recognise the causes for all the turmoils in the world, and commit ourselves to their elimination. Peace is not merely the absence of war. Peace is the elimination of the causes of war. Here, too, are the answers to the bloody four-year Bosnian war.
European politics of the late eighties and early nineties either overlooked, or refused to recognise, the causes of the political crisis of the then Yugoslav state. In that multinational federation, full initiative was taken by the aggressive national egoism of the strongest nation. In the European situation after Helsinki, the demand that a nation become united within the borders of a national state and that all means be allowed to this end, actually implied a violent modification of the borders between countries as came into being after World War II. This was obvious, therefore it is incomprehensible that the beginning of the military violence of the Yugoslav, in truth Serbian, army in Slovenia and Croatia was not recognised as pure aggression. This particularly applies to the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was already an internationally recognised, sovereign state when aggression occurred. In the dramatic appeal made to the superpowers and the international community: What the West Must Do in Bosnia, from September 1993, over 100 distinguished American and European scientists and politicians (Margaret Thatcher, George Shultz, Jeane I. Kirkpatrick, Zbignew Brzezinski, Elie Wiesel, Czeslav Milosz, Josif Brodski, Daniel Bell, George Soros and many others) clearly labelled the war in Bosnia as an act of all-Serbian aggression and genocide and demanded immediate allied military intervention.
Instead of identifying the military violence, stereotypical quasi - philosophical theories on civil, ethnic and even religious war were being used. Thus the alleged genetic nature of ethnic hatred was being justified, to be neutralised only through the division of Bosnia along ethnic borders and with the annexation of the Serb and Croat parts to their respective motherlands, and with the formation of a Bosnian mini-state. With this the aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be cynically justified and rewarded.
Now, six years later, it is clear that the maelstrom of war could have been stopped through resolute European intervention such as is needed to stop aggression at the very beginning. This has been proven not only in the case of Slovenia, but most of all in the effectiveness of resolute military intervention by NATO in 1995, and by Dayton. Intentional or unintentional non-observance of the entirety of all the political, ethnic, economic and spiritual causes and non-consideration of the character of the crisis of the former Yugoslav state and, in particular, ignoring the character of war and different roles of the parties involved at its very beginning, led to a four-year war with all the consequences that we know today. Erroneous was the wish to isolate the war, to ghettoize it by confining it to a specific area, and to wait for the military and political attrition of the states involved and of their respective political and military elites. Erroneous was the conviction that it was possible to divide peace, safeguard it in one location, and let war blaze in another. The price of this error, which in the short term had even seemed efficacious, by far exceeds the one Europe would have paid, had it resolutely intervened in the crisis at the very beginning. There would then have been no need to involve the USA and the UN. The war in Bosnia is a confirmation of the fact that peace is indivisible in a globalised and interdependent world. I believe that in this sense the Middle East, too, is a common challenge for us all.
Other, vital considerations stem from the Yugoslav developments which I myself directly witnessed. The first one concerns our understanding of the universality of globalisation and individualisation processes. The globalisation of life, too, demands full freedom of autonomy, limited only by the freedom of others and those who are different. The Yugoslav example is paradigmatic, as the crisis that led to the breakup of the country is illustrated by the prior violent denial of different national, economic, religious and cultural entities. And let me add straight away: the future of the unified Bosnian state as an already recognised member of the UN, is possible only as a multicultural, multiethnic, economic and political community on the principles of the federal national and political order. Bosnia is either like this or else there is no Bosnia. For this very reason Bosnia remains a symbol of the understanding in the contemporary world for the prevalence of peace.
The other consideration relates to the perception of peace. It is my firm belief that peace is multi-faceted and structurally indivisible, too. The universality of peace is possible only in the interdepence between one's purely personal, internal peace; peace in the family and other smaller communities of individuals with their identifications, values and interests; economic and social peace, religious ecumenism and finally, peace among states. I perceive peace not only as the absence of internal disorder or violence, as the absence of special social and economic conflicts of a violent nature or as the absence of the language of arms. I perceive it as a recognised and generally accepted project of implementing positive, stimulating conditions for the everyday life of individuals, social groups, nations and states. A project which takes into consideration the fact that in an interdependent world various autonomous civilisations perceive differently the relationship between man's individual and collective rights. This may be merely utopia. Life, however, confirms that many bold ideas of our own era become the reality of the following era. Never in its history has mankind had such spiritual and material potential at its disposal, with which global peace and the well-being of all nations can be secured. The realisation of this noble ideal necessitates the active perseverance of us all, but chiefly of the states of this world, big and small, rich and less rich, of the developed and of those that are still to experience the benefits achieved by contemporary civilisation. In my eyes this is the only and binding choice.
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