Al Akhawayn University

Conflict Resolution approaches implemented in Yugoslavia

conflict

INS 5313

Conflict Management and Resolution

Dr. Bouzidi

Prepared by: Ismail khejjou

Monday, March 16, 2009

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 The emergence of Conflict Resolution is traced back to the era

after the Second World War. As an academic discipline, conflict

resolution has contributed to the management and settlement of post

Cold War conflicts through a range of processes and approaches.

Among these processes are mediation, facilitation, negotiation and

conciliation. The objective of this paper is to explore the conflict

resolution approaches that have been implemented/ adopted during

the war in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) or simply

Yugoslavia as it is called today. the paper`s emphasis is on countries in

which peacekeeping missions took place and how the peace operations

were carried out. Before going directly into the topic, it is important to

go briefly over some of the sources of the conflict that plunged

Yugoslavia into one of the most inhuman and vicious wars in history.

As a starting point, it is important to note that the death of Josip

Broz Tito marked, to some extent, the beginning of a new era

characterized by ethnic tension, massive economic disruption, and

political turmoil. All these factors led to the second disintegration of

Yugoslavia and the creation of its most troubled history. Politically

speaking, relations among the republics started to decline and the

inability of the political reforms to resolve the national problem of

different interests and ideologies. Civil Wars and the severe economic

crisis worsened the social situation and left the country at strong

turmoil. The ethnic dimension of the Yugoslavia crisis should not be

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ignored at this point in that it sparked fierce conflict among different

group divisions which, in turn, challenged the stability of the country at

large.

As it became clear that the situation was getting worse in

Yugoslavia, the call for the international community to intervene was

critical since Slovenia and then Croatia declared their independence.

The conflict in these countries was mainly triggered by the rise of

nationalism which, to some degree, contributed to the dissolution of

Yugoslavia. According to Mihailo Crnobrnja, “The essence of their

[Slovenia and Coratia] nationalism was not towards Yugoslavia but

away from it.” (107) As a note, the withdrawal of Slovenia from the

federal republic was not as destructive as that of Croatia which was

prolonged and devastating. This intention of reducing the federal

authority brought Croatia to a serious confrontation with the Yugoslav

National Army, and it was this first conflict that strongly called for a

serious involvement of the international community. According to

Nambiar, the first initiative that the international community took was

“to set up the Badinter Commission, whose task was to establish

whether or not the newly emerging states fulfilled the primary

requirement for recognition by the community.” (170)

Initially, the war was between the Socialist Republic of Croatia

and Serbian minority who opposed its independence. The ethnic

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tension between these groups escalated the conflict to the point that

the Yugoslav People's Army supported Serbia for fighting Croatia. It is

true to say that nationalism was the driving force that motivated the

Serbs to revolt against Croatia`s declaration of independence from the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In the midst of increasing

diplomatic negotiations to contain the conflict, a mediation approach

was primarily carried out by “Mr. Cyrus Vance who was sent to

Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991 as the personal envoy of United Nations

Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.”(Bercovitch, 177) On the

basis of “Security Council Resolution 740 of 7 February and 743 0f 21

February 1992” (Baletic et al), UNPROFOR was the first peacekeeping

operation to be set up in Croatia to maintain conditions for conflict

settlements and the demilitarization of armed forces. The efforts of

the mediation process put emphasis on securing the cease-fire

agreement that the two parties agreed to sign as well as the

implementation of the United Nations plan for peacekeeping mission.

James Gow makes this point crystal clear when he says:

UNPROFOR came into being on 21 Februray 1992 for an

initial period of twelve months (six months longer than the
customary initial period for UN peacekeeping forces),
having been created to underpin the ceasefire between
Serbian and Croatian forces in Croatia. Although its
primary aim was to strengthen the 2 January ceasefire
agreement negotiated by the UN Secretary-General`s
special Envoy, Cyrus Vance (the Vance Plane), it also had
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 the secondary aim of providing a symbolic presence in
neighboring Bosnia and Hercegovina which it was hoped
would be sufficient to prevent the outbreak of armed
hostility there. (102)

In the context of conflict resolution approaches, the UN

peacekeeping operation in Croatia had a significant role in the sense

that it helped alleviate the conflict and gradually forced the Yugoslav

army forces to withdraw from the country as it was stated in the Vance

plan which will be addressed later. In analyzing the situation in

Croatia, it is clear that the deployment of UNPROFOR created a space

for security and negotiations that would bring an end to Yugoslavia

crisis in general. Interestingly enough, another important aspect of the

UN forces was, among other things, to ensure that that the United

Nations Protected Areas “remained demilitarized, to protect the

indigenous population from ‘fear of armed attack’ and to help return

displaced persons to their homes.” (Gow, 103). In addition to this, UN

peacekeeping forces performed other mandates, such us keeping the

conflicting parties separated, protecting of civilians and, most

importantly, facilitating communication. The involvement of the

European Community Monitoring Mission was an approach of resolution

in the Serbo-Croatia war. It is certainly important to bear in mind that

the EC response to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, was, to some extent,

instrumental in the sense that it was relatively able to limit the conflict.

Gow, asserts that

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 While the 300-strong ECMM no doubt helped to limit the
scope of the conflict in some parts of Croatia, as well as
ensuring some local cease-fire agreements which resulted
in implementation, and successfully accomplished their
mission resulted in Slovenia, perhaps its most significant
achievement was to negotiation the withdrawal of the JNA
from the Prevlaka in September 1992. (106)

The EC was among the leading regional organizations that

enhanced the role and position of the United Nations regarding its

conflict management in Yugoslavia. In addition to the peace mission,

the EC had a significant role in consolidating peacekeeping in order to

encourage negotiations and dialogue in Yugoslavia. It should be noted

that the EC involvement in Yugoslavia crisis came after war broke out

in Slovenia with the objective of securing a cease-fire. The Slovenia

conflict, although it lasted only for ten days, received a serious

response from the European Community which sent “troikas” to

negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Negotiation was an

effective policy approach that the European Community used in the

crisis which compelled Yugoslavia to agree on the “Brioni Accord on

08th July 1929.” (Terrett, 74) Achieving a cease-fire in Slovenia was, as

seen by many, a real action and timely international response to the

Crisis. But, it became clear that the EC`s increased effort to resolve the

conflict in Croatia was far from being realistic in terms of attainable

goals and was thus unsuccessful. It remains to be said whether the

failure of the EC was because of the the hold out against Serbia or if it
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was due to other significant reasons. Spyros Economides and Paul

Taylor assert that

This followed the failure of the EC`s efforts to end the

crisis in Croatia, in part because it was now seen, not as an
unbiased mediator, but an opponent of Serbia. The EC also
made mistakes in concluding and administering ceasefires:
it did not have the mechanisms or experience of the UN in
such matters. (70)

The underlying idea that Spyros Economides and Paul Taylor

assert is that the European Community effort to mediate a peaceful

solution of the break-up of Yugoslavia, especially in Croatia, lacked the

important mediatory techniques among which are impartiality and

neutrality. On a more serious note, the inability or the weaknesses of

the European Community to completely carry out its mediation mission

sprang from the fact that it did not give serious attention to the root of

conflict.

The dissolution of The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

came as an outcome of the Cold War and the emerging concept of

“the new world order” (Michael Clarke, 11). The mounting of conflict in

the three states, Slovenia, Croatia and later Bosnia called for a strong

and urgent international response. As a result, the focus here is on the

international response and policy approaches of the United Nations

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towards Bosnia, as it was the third country to break up. As the conflict

escalated and extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the situation

started to deteriorate which inevitably led to the outbreak of a bloody

Civil war among the country`s Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The

deployment of UNPROFOR troops, which was reserved for Croatia, had

to move to Bosnia and Herzegovina to negotiate the possibility for a

ceasefire which relatively seemed unachievable at the outset.

The international efforts were unable to bring about a peaceful

resolution to the conflict until later when the Security Council decided

to impose economic sanctions on Yugoslavia as an attempt “to

encourage a settlement of the conflict.” ( Terrett, 75) Another

prominent UN policy was the embargo on supplies of weapons to

Yugoslavia to reinforce the view that the use of force to resolve internal

political conflicts is illegitimate. In Bosnia, and elsewhere in the former

Yugoslavia, the U.N.-led Protection Force was mainly designed to assist

humanitarian aid missions and, most importantly, support and

reinforce the effort of the international community to establish peace

and security essential for negotiations. These concerns to bring an end

to the Bosnia and Herzegovina conflict proved difficult especially

because the situations became hostile which then called for the

International Community to consider peace enforcement measures.

This muscular approach was encouraged by the Security Council

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resolution 816 which called for using “all necessary measures” under

the mandate of UNPROFOR.

A further active involvement in Yugoslavia crisis was undertaken

by the Western European Union (WEU). In essence, the WEU played a

major role in supporting the activities that significantly called for

respect for humanitarian missions and other peacekeeping and

enforcement missions which were initiated by Commission on Security

and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), for example. Furthermore, the WEU

contributed to the unity of Bosnian and Croat parties and it was “The

only mission coming close to the functions of a peace-keeping force …

to Mostar in 1994, incorporating 150 military and civilian personnel.”

(Terrett, 102) In addition to the peace support objectives of

UNPROFOR, a peace plan was initiated by the European Community

and the United Nations in 1992. This plan was carried out in a form of

a mediation and negotiation approach by “David Owen, on behalf of

the EC, and Cyrus Vance, on the behalf of the UN, [and they]

attempted to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the worsening Bosnian

crisis.”(Terrett, 95) This Vance-Owen peace plan was reached through

the International Commission on Former Yugoslavia (ICFY) which

essentially called for and ensured respect for human rights as well as

national communities and group minorities.

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 In relation to this, the involvement of the international

community in Bosnia was also seen through the Office of the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as an intervention

approach to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in the areas torn by

humanitarian atrocities in the country. As an effective approach,

UNHCR played a significant role in the sense that it “attempted to

coordinate an inter-agency programme of action on humanitarian

issues in Yugoslavia and played an active role on the Humanitarian

Issues Working Group within the ICFY.” (Terrett, 98)

Closely connected to this is the Dayton peace agreement which

came up as a result of the three-year civil war and the acts of violence

in Bosnia. Signed on November 21, 1995, this agreement was mainly

enforced by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) under the

arrangement of the United States which, at the last stage, became

involved in the Bosnia Crisis. The Dayton agreement was signed in

order to strengthen the implementation of peace that Bosnian

president Alija Izetbegović, Serbian president Milošević, Croatian

president Franjo Tudjman, agreed upon. Specifically, this accord called

for the reintegration of Bosnia`s ethnic groups as well as the

importance of promoting human rights standards and the rebuilding of

the economic sector. Interestingly enough, the involvement of the

NATO in Bosnia had a positive role in the performance and

enforcement of the peace accord particularly under UN-SC Resolution

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770 which called for monitoring the cease-fire and the “delivery of

humanitarian assistance to Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia.”

(Terrett, 100)

It should be noted here that the conclusion reached through the

Dayton peace agreement brought a relatively peaceful resolution to

Bosnia crisis. Equally, it is clear that the American intervention

initiative participated in fostering not only peace and security in Bosnia

but it also its development in the long-run. Clarke says “It [U.S]

facilitated the creation of a partially coherent policy to resolving the

conflict by creating a broader consensus within the international

community as to what ought to be done.” (15) Attempts to address

Yugoslavia conflict were significantly taken by other international

institutions and organizations such as the International Committee of

the Red Cross (ICRC) which “created a Commission to trace missing

persons and mortal remains as well as assisting in the evacuation of

refugees in areas which had been ‘ethnically-cleansed’.” (Terrett. 102)

While the international community was trying to maintain peace

in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, new ethnic tensions erupted in

Kosovo. The growing nationalism and separatism, as said mentioned

before, ultimately paved the way to conflict between Serbs and

Albanians. With the escalation of violence, the international

community was urged to intervene in order to take substantial action

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to quell hostilities which resulted in a great number of refugees in the

county. At the outset, the United Nations Security Council passed a

“Resolution 1160 which placed an arms embargo on the region.”

(Scorgie, 28)

As the conflict continued to escalate, the United Nations Security

Council (UNSC) called for a cease-fire by the conflicting parties which

partly resulted in an agreement of limiting the Serbian forces in Kosovo

as apparently agreed on by Milosevic Slobodan. However, the

agreement did not last in the sense that Milosevic did not stick with the

disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that led to the

resuming of conflict again. As a result, ‘Renewed international efforts

were made to give new political impetus to find a peaceful solution to

the conflict… It was agreed to convene urgent negotiations between

the parties to the conflict, under international mediation.’ 1

The

mediation approach at this point was taken by the Contact Group (The

United State, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia) at

Rambouillet in order to bring the Serbs and Kosovo representatives to

negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Another international

response was that of US ambassador to UN Richard Holbrooke who

started negotiations with Milosevic threatening him with NATO air

strikes, but the effort was not effective. In essence, this situation left

NATO with one choice and that was to start its bombing mission. After

1
NATO's role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo, http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm
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that, the involvement of NATO brought the conflict to an end and,

interestingly, “Peace was formally instigated on June 10 by UN Security

Council Resolution 1244.” (Scorgie, 29)

Up to this point, it is interesting to see that the international

responses to Kosovo War took a primarily non-violent approach to the

settlement of the conflict. But, it appeared that while negotiations and

diplomatic measures were used as instrumental means to arrive at a

peaceful resolution, nothing impressive had been achieved. Although

the Kosovo case was, to some degree, characterized by neglect from

the international community, initiatives that called for a peaceful

settlement were undertaken by a NGOs and Track initiatives, “for

example, a significant dialogue developed among student groups in

Belgrade and Pristina.” (Maill, Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, 126). On

a more serious note, this leaves us with the view that, although it was

aggressive, NATO`s military approach was effective because its

mission, after all, was to quell a humanitarian crisis in the country.

Although the international community tried to stop the spread of

war to all the Yugoslavia republics, violent conflict flared-up in

Macedonia; however the conflict was not as fierce as that of Croatia

and Bosnia. Of particular interest is that Macedonia`s ethnic unrest,

economic difficulties, and the rise of nationalism were the same factors

that significantly led to the outbreak of the war in the other Yugoslavia

republics, namely, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. However, the

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international response to the conflict in Macedonia showed the active

involvement and the serious concern of the international community to

suppress the violence in fear of its extending to neighboring countries

and cause further threat to security and stability of the region at large.

In their book, Contemporary Conflict Resolution, Ramsbotham,

Woodhouse and Miall assert that “While the international community

failed to prevent the spread of violent conflict from Croatia to Bosnia, it

made great efforts in Macedonia to significant effect.” (127)

Interestingly enough, this worry about the situation compelled

the international community to take timely, effective preventive

measures to contain conflict between ethnic Albanians and the

majority Macedonian Slavs. Initially, the UN Security council took a

leading role in establishing UNPROFOR as a “preventive deployment

mission to provide security along Macedonia’s borders.” (Julie Kim) This

preventive peacekeeping mission played a prominent role in the sense

that it preserved the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Macedonia.

Moreover, the involvement of the United States and EU mediation

approach helped the disputants arrive at a peaceful resolution to the

conflict. Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall make this point crystal

clear when they say

With the help US and EU mediators, the Albanians and

Macedonian parties signed the Ohrid agreement, which
provided for new elections, arms to be collected by NATO

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 troops, a revision of the constitution to give more rights to
Albanians, and civilian monitors to assist the return of
refugees. (128)

Through their international diplomatic efforts, it should be noted

that the United States and the European Union both had a significant

role in bringing conclusion to Macedonia conflict. In broader terms,

the US and EU mediatory activity paved the way to NATO forces for

disarmament mission of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army

(NLA). Furthermore, the US military response to the conflict was a

strategic approach which significantly reinforced the UNPROFO

mandate. In addition to the symbolic presence and support of the

United State for a peaceful resolution, the EU envoy Javier Solana

mediatory activity maintained a cease-fire and fostered peace

implementation in the country. The voice of mediation was strong in

the conflict hand and it turned out to be a real success. According to

Bruce W. Hamilton

The common explanation is that, in contrast to the

international response to Croatia and Bosnia, timely
initiatives by the United Nations and other third parties
towards Macedonia prevented the outbreak of violent
ethnic conflict. These efforts are held up as a model of
effective international preventive diplomacy. (173)

It is noteworthy to add that the United Nations and other

international actors including Non-Governmental Organizations have

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taken preventive measures to aid conflict resolution. More importantly,

the economic development of Macedonia was essentially an approach

that the international community took to help bring the quick

settlement of the country and to foster the co-existence of the ethnic

groups. Linked to this is the leading role that NGOs undertook to help

bring an end to the ethnic conflict between the Albanians and Serbs.

Miall, Ramsbotham and Woodhouse say that “The Catholic Relief

Services, the Center for Inter Ethnic Relations and Search for Common

Ground” were examples of NGOs which had a major role in reducing

tension between the conflicting ethnic groups (122). Related to conflict

resolution, it should be understood that such international organization

are effective in terms of the measures they use to promote and foster

meaningful communication among the parties concerned. The case of

Serbia and Montenegro is another scene to be considered although the

involvement of the international community was less than that of other

republics discussed before. Montenegro got its independence in June 3,

2006 and its history was inextricably linked to that of Serbia. Although

there was not sever violent conflict in Montenegro, peacemaking

efforts were undertaken to assist and maintain the stability of the

country. These peace operations were sat in Montenegro to support the

United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) whose aim was

to monitor and reinforce the “effective implementation of international

human rights standards”

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 This paper has examined major conflict resolution approaches

applied to the conflict in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Whether under the umbrella of the United Nations, regional

organizations or Non-Governmental Organizations, it should be

acknowledged that international peace operations were, to some

extent, effective in bringing a peaceful end to the war in Yugoslavia. It

is noticeable that negotiation and mediation were among the most

non-violent approaches adopted by the international community to

accomplish a peaceful settlement of the war. However, it must be

emphasized that, in addition to enhanced peacekeeping mission,

peace enforcement measures were significantly used as an alternative

and appropriate policy approach to maintain security and impose

settlement in Yugoslavia. With regard to all this, it should be said that

the United Nations and NATO played a critical role in that they

reinforced the legitimacy of the international intervention in violent

conflict especially in Bosnia which represented the center of the

Yugoslavia war.

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