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NEW FROM THE ADVOCACY PROJECT
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ON THE RECORD TO PROFILE THE BIRTH
AND REBIRTH OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN KOSOVOCivil society in Kosovo has survived a traumatic year of war and exile, but faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the weeks ahead, according to a new series of the online newsletter On the Record. This new series on Kosovo and its parallel society replaces On the Record Volume 6, The Kosovo Internet Monitor. (Please note that subscribers to the earlier series will not need to subscribe to this one.)
This dramatic and timely series, which examines the perspective of the citizens of Kosovo, comes at a time when the future of Kosovo and the credibility of the international community are very much in the balance.
The nine-part series, which will begin next week, is written by Peter Lippman and Teresa Crawford, two members of The Advocacy Project who traveled to Kosovo in July. Crawford is still in Kosovo, working on a project to link civic organizations to the Internet.
The series takes the form of individual profiles, interspersed with analysis and diary extracts. Among the prominent organizations profiled is the renowned Mother Teresa Society, which was founded in 1990 and developed an alternative health system for Kosovar Albanians who were bypassed by the state-run service. In 1996, Mother Teresa's 92 clinics admitted over a million visitors.
The series profiles the Center for the Protection of Women and Children, led by an inspiring pediatrician, Vjosa Dobruna; the women's rights organization "Elena;" and the Prishtina (Pristina)-based Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, which monitored persecution of human rights activists, arbitrary detention, torture, and murder throughout the 1990s.
The series also pays tribute to the work of the Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence, based in Belgrade, which spoke out on behalf of embattled Albanian friends in Kosovo even as its "fear counseling team" was helping Serbs traumatized by the NATO bombing.
Subscribers to the series will accompany these and other activists through a chronological journey, starting with the "parallel society" that was developed by the Kosovar Albanians during the 1990s in response to attempts by the Serbian authorities to suppress Albanian culture.
The second issue looks at their efforts on behalf of displaced Kosovars between February 1998 and the onset of NATO bombing this spring -- a year when Serbian forces attempted to root out the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with a scorched-earth policy.
Issue three profiles activists who were brutally expelled from Kosovo during the refugee exodus earlier this year. Many regrouped in the refugee camps of Macedonia and Albania.
Those of their colleagues who remained in Kosovo struggled to respond to Serbian violence often at great personal risk (Issue Four). Scores of activists were taken off to be imprisoned illegally in Serbia. They include Albin Kurti, the student leader, and Flora Brovina, a renowned physician, poet, and human rights activist.
The remaining issues find Kosovo's civil society returning to the province to pick up the pieces, amidst an unfamiliar political landscape. While no longer fraught with violence and repression, this last stage of the journey could present the greatest challenge.
Yet almost three months after the departure of Serbian forces on June 12, civil society still receives only half-hearted support from the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Like many peacekeeping missions, UNMIK has trouble tailoring its own political and bureaucratic agenda to the needs of the local population and its activists.
On the Record is distributed free of charge to subscribers by email. You may subscribe to Volume 9 of On the Record by sending an email message to <majordomo@lists.advocacynet.org> with the words "subscribe kosovo" in the body of the text. For more information, please contact us at <advocacy@advocacynet.org>.
On the Record is produced by The Advocacy Project, an association of professionals set up to work on informational projects with advocates for civil society and human rights campaigners. Four series were produced in 1998. They covered the establishment of an international criminal court, refugees and displaced persons, human rights defenders, and the campaign against landmines.
Series this year have reported on violence against women in Southeast Asia, the response of civil society in Central America to Hurricane Mitch, Internet traffic on Kosovo civil society, and efforts by Bosnian refugees to return home. These can be found on the Project's website: <www.advocacynet.org>
ON THE RECORD TO REPORT ON CIVIL SOCIETY AMID THE KOSOVO CRISISExcerpts from Internet traffic show that civil society struggles, but survives.
The crisis in Kosovo is changing the face of civil society in the region, according to a new series of the E-letter, On the Record.
The series, which will shortly be sent out to subscribers by The Advocacy Project, will start by excerpting previously unpublished reports and personal accounts from Internet traffic. This will be developed and expanded into a series of profiles of civil society in the region once funding is secured from donors. The second phase will also involve working with others to help Albanian groups make better use of the Internet and broaden their contacts abroad. This is one of the goals of The Advocacy Project.
The series is being compiled and edited by Teresa Crawford, a founding member of the Advocacy Project who was arrested by the Serbian authorities in 1998 while working in Prishtina with Kosovar peace groups.
Like others, Crawford was impressed and inspired by the alternative "parallel" society that was constructed by Albanians in Kosovo after provincial autonomy was revoked in 1989. In an introduction to the series, Crawford writes that these autonomous structures also fueled the demand for independence: "These autonomous structures were developed by ordinary people, even if they were funded in large part by the diaspora community. It meant that Kosovars began to see themselves in a democratic political environment. This helped to change the demand for autonomy into one of independence."
While not disputing the brutality of the Serbian crack-down, and the devastation it has caused to civil society inside and outside Kosovo, the first issue also shows that Albanians and their friends are responding to the crisis with courage and initiative in the refugee camps and in private homes:
"We are learning of women helping other women. There is the woman who was blocked at the border for 24 hours before being able to leave Kosovo. Once in Macedonia, she contacted the local Macedonian Albanian Women's Organization. Within days, they had a clinic open. There are the two women from the United States, who rescued another woman's 84-year-old mother in law from the camps and paid for the rent of a clinic with money collected in the United States. There is the group of former women journalists who are organizing to go out and interview refugees in private homes in the south of Macedonia and sell their stories to news services to avoid becoming dependent."
"There is the man in Tirana who is helping women organize within the National Albanian Farmers Union. There is the 24-year-old Albanian-American woman who (with her father) has started the "Kosova Humanitarian Aid Organization" and is sending two teams to Macedonia and Albania to distribute aid and register the names of refugees in a database. Then there is "Women 4 Women," an organization that originally started working with women in Bosnia, and is now opening an office in Tirana."
These examples underscore the fact that civil society is never completely destroyed by a crisis. More important, it often rises, Phoenix-like, from the ruins in a different form to play an important role in reconstruction. This has happened in many other war-torn societies, from Bosnia to Rwanda, and the current crisis will prove no exception. In the meantime, however, international agencies and foreign governments must do more to identify and nurture the seeds of self-help, even as they struggle to provide basic emergency aid.
This series is one of two new initiatives by The Advocacy Project to inform our subscribers about the efforts of civil society in the Balkans to build something amidst the chaos and carnage. Peter Lippman, who was also arrested and expelled with Crawford in Kosovo last year, has spent the last six months visiting communities in Bosnia, and trying to understand why so few refugees have managed to return home. His dispatches will be available to subscribers and posted on the ProjectÕs webpage, early in May. They present a unique community-based portrait of one of the key elements in the Dayton peace package.
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http://www.advocacynet.org/cgi-bin/browse.pl?id=kosovo1.htmlOn the RECORD
Your independent electronic link to Civil Society in KosovoVolume 6, Issue 1. May 4, 1999.
In this issue:
more: http://www.advocacynet.org/cgi-bin/browse.pl?id=kosovo1.html
- Albanian Civil Society Survives Amidst the Carnage
- Albanian Doctor and Student Activist Reportedly Disappears in Pristina
- Civil Society's Three Answers -- Local and International
- Kosovar Civil Society
- The Roma -- Before the War
- The Roma -- Since the Destruction of Kosova
- Macedonia
- Kosovar Media
- Albania
- Host Families -- UNHCR
- Information Technology
- International Support for Local NGOs
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