In The Arrogance of Power, Sen. J. William Fulbright observed that wars were fought over abstractions. "The more I puzzle over the great wars of history, the more I am inclined to view the causes attributed to them -- territory, markets, resources, the defense or perpetuation of great principles -- were not the root causes at all but rather explanations of excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature. ... I refer to them as the arrogance of power -- as a psychological need that nations seem to have in order to prove that they are bigger, better or stronger than other nations."
On March 27 the Library of Congress hosted its first Fulbright Spring Colloquium, "Beyond Balkanization: Towards Resolution of Ethnic Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia." The four-hour colloquium in honor of the Senator from Arkansas, who died Feb. 9, 1995, was cosponsored by the Capital Area Chapter of the Fulbright Association and the European Division of the Library.
More than 200 people, including several ambassadors, foreign dignitaries, journalists, scholars, Fulbright Fellows and alumni of other international exchange programs, as well as congressional staff, attended the colloquium.
The event, which was televised and broadcast to the Balkans by Voice of America, focused on the ways that ethnic conflicts might be defused or resolved. After the welcoming remarks by Prosser Gifford, LC's director of Scholarly Programs, and Maka Larsen-Basse, the president of the Capital Area Chapter of the Fulbright Association, the colloquium proceeded to the morning session.
Professor Dan Nelson of Old Dominion University, who opened the session, called the policy of "calculated minimalism a looming moral debacle." The former foreign affairs adviser to Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) proposed a return to diplomacy that combines principles with power. "We have detached principles from power," he said. Professor Nelson advocated the use of punitive force when United Nations resolutions are violated as well as convening wartime tribunals to bring war criminals to justice.
"Democracy is security-dependent," he reminded the audience. "Fear, peril are the nutrients of demagogues."
Because the violence continues uninhibited by political discussions, U.N. involvement and the threat of NATO's military muscle, Professor Nelson suggested that the long-term solution to avert future conflict should be to establish "a true organ of collective security in the Euro-Atlantic community that would abate threats, that would keep the peace where there is a peace to keep. The U.N. blue helmets clean up carnage; they do not keep the peace, NATO does not keep the peace. We lack the institution."
Similarly, Mark Ellis, the director of the Central and East European Law Initiative of the American Bar Association, who spoke about reestablishing the rule of law, saw "the Yugoslav quagmire" as an example that "ignoring principles affects the lives of millions of people."
Mr. Ellis conceded that Yugoslavia has been shaped by its ethnic groups rather than national borders. To see the Balkan conflict as inevitable in a region predisposed to violence and centuries-old ethnic hatred is tantamount to an apologia for a timid policy that rewards aggression, he said. "To conclude that the Bosnian crisis was somehow predestined was to accept a kind of fatalism that completely foreclosed any possibility for action."
Mr. Ellis sees slim hope in the Bosnian-Croat federation to bring about the rule of law and arbitration to the region and called for Nuremberg-like trials to punish the individuals guilty of crimes against humanity as well as the establishment of a permanent war crimes tribunal. Such a tribunal, he suggested, would serve an educational role and be a deterrent to future war crimes.
The tragedy of the former Yugoslavia, according to Vesna Pesic, the outspoken opposition leader of the Civic Alliance of Serbia and member of the Serbian parliament, was that this nation of nations artificially held together by authoritarian rule did not have a common strategy to find an exit from the old system. It "failed to transform itself into a noncommunist liberal state because of the different plans and strategies of its component nations."
After a brief historical reflection on the post-communist options in the Balkans -- democratic, ethnocratic, national socialist -- Professor Pesic proposed short-term and long-term solutions to defusing ethnic conflict. According to Professor Pesic, the balance of power must be restored to the region without reaffirming the legitimacy of current boundaries in order to depoliticize ethnic nationalism. "A nation conceived as a container of collective emotion is conducive to manipulation and authoritarian rule," he observed.
According to Professor Pesic, ethnic homogeneity will lead to more conflict. Thus the long-term goal should be cultivating development and cooperation based on the principles of a civil society.
Milan Andrejevic, commentator for Radio Free Europe in Munich, reminded the audience that in six months the war in the former Yugoslavia will have lasted longer than World War II did in the Balkan region. Mr. Andrejevic proposed that in the disintegrating Yugoslavia, the leadership cliques carried over from the communist regime used nationalism as the means to consolidate their power. "The former communists who based their legitimate claim to power as guaranteeing social justice now defined their legitimacy as the guardians of national justice," Mr. Andrejevic said.
Proclaiming the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dead, he nonetheless argued that the economic and political ties in the area cannot be ignored, particularly in view of European integration.
The morning session ended with Steven Walker, the former U.S. diplomat and State Department official who resigned in protest in 1993 over U.S. policy toward Bosnia. He now heads the American Committee to Save Bosnia and Action Council for Peace in the Balkans. Mr. Walker characterized the Clinton administration's Bosnia policy as a "lack of policy." Mr. Walker said that the West is "offering carrots to those who are committing genocide. The carrots are getting bigger, but the stick has disappeared."
The afternoon session began with Jonathan Landay of the Christian Science Monitor, who believes that the conflict serves the interests of the power elites. Leaders like Serbian President Slobodan Milosovic are not driven by any hardline philosophy but rather by the accumulation of power, Mr. Landay observed. The collapse of communist institutions did not bring about the collapse of authoritarian mentality.
Croatian TV journalist Tena Perisin said the illusion of freedom in the former Yugoslavia has made television a more effective tool of political propaganda, with many journalists exchanging one dogma for another.
Mihailo Mihajlov, who is an ethnic Russian, illustrated the absurdities of ethnic extremism. As a dissident scholar, he has been accused of anti-Croat feelings by the ‚migr‚ press and convicted by the Belgrade regime as a Croat nationalist. Mr. Mihalov said that the current political scene has not changed much since the collapse of Yugoslavia. The former communists now wear nationalist colors and the democratic forces, who believe in the peaceful integration of the region based on mutual respect for national identity, still represent the political fringe.
A potentially explosive situation exists in the overwhelmingly Albanian-populated province of Kosovo, which Serbia regards as its historic homeland. Elez Biberaj, the Albanian commentator for Voice of America, provided an account of the ethnic Albanian situation in Kosovo and western Macedonia, suggesting that an outbreak of violence in the Albanian-populated Serbian province of Kosovo would bring about a wider Balkan war, involving not only neighboring Albania and Macedonia, but also Greece and Turkey. "Prospects for a peaceful compromise are very bleak," Mr. Biberaj said, "because the gulf [between Serbs and Albanians] is too deep to bridge."
The afternoon session was concluded by Vasil Tupurkovsky, Macedonian historian, who said that the ethnic conflict is due not necessarily to the dissolution of Yugoslavia but to the failure to reform political structures. "We have lost the citizen in the Republic of Macedonia, both Albanian and Macedonian. ... The discussions and the deliberations are between political elites. We have not done enough to create a citizen state, a civil state ... to establish the rule of law."
