CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 123

BEATA BOEHM institutions, engineering bureaus, physicians, community representatives, international NGOs and local social workers. Prior to the meeting, all participants had received the contents of the agenda, but had not been informed that the UN expected a multi-ethnic and cooperative effort. This resulted in a situation that the Croatian leader of the Red Cross in Pakrac refused to take a seat at a negotiating table where Serbian planning engineers were seated. As a consequence, future attention had to be given to select suitable partners for project development and to identify persons within existing local networks who met the following criteria: - the person had not personally experienced traumatic events in the earlier fighting, since otherwise project discussions would be encumbered by the mourning of persons reliving traumatic experiences - the person was prepared to respect other ethnic groups - the person showed personal interest in social responsibility Only after all these criteria had been met, the person´s professional competence had been assessed. In the course of the project’s implementation, particular emphasis was placed on informing local decision makers and project participants (for example, people receiving loans) that the project in question assists Serbs and Croats equally on both sides of the ceasefire line. Since direct cooperation, communication and joint actions were impossible due to the physical and political separation within the Sector, special importance was given to positively motivating people with regards to conflict transformation. The necessity for redesign efforts throughout the entire project period led to significant delays. This resulted in unfunded cost increases due to higher staff expenses and to the loss of project resources. For example, due to the strictly regulated financial guidelines of UNHCR, only a fraction of the resources that had been allocated to the small business project could be deployed at the end of 1993 because of year-end and budgetary restrictions. Concluding remarks In summary, the project did not achieve its goal of normalizing inter- ethnic relationships between the conflict parties according to the Vance Plan. The Plan’s goals had been unrealistically high, especially with respect to the: - timeframe of the UN mandate - potential of projects to transform conflict situations - providing resources such as experts, funding and know-how The project’s transformative impact on the conflict at hand was limited. Nevertheless, it helped counteract a process of isolation on both sides, something difficult to measure in quantitative terms, as well as to normalize the lives of war-traumatized people in the region. 123