CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 124

THE UN “SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME” IN UNPA SECTOR WEST …
The project’s impact at the local level
The confidence-building measures of UNPROFOR helped normalize
the lives of individuals who participated in projects. Some of the projects
also strengthened people’s positive attitude toward conflict transformation.
The fact that many Serbs who participated in the “Social
Reconstruction Project” chose to remain in their homes, where they would
face the challenge of living as an ethnic minority, indicates the significant
influence the conflict-transformative activities held.
With respect to the region’s socio-economic development, the
reconstruction and economic projects on both sides contributed to
normalizing the conflict situation and set new impulses.
The national level’s impact on the project
Due to counter-productive efforts by the conflicting parties’ centres in
Zagreb and Knin, which were undertaken for nationalistic and tactical
reasons, but also due to UNPROFOR’s misjudgement of the conflict parties,
the most important economic cooperation projects, affecting both sides of
the ceasefire line – the “Daruvar Agreement” and the “Economic
Agreement”– could only be implemented five months before the violent
recapture of Western Slavonia. In retrospect, they thus mainly served the
interests of only the Croatian side to the conflict.
It is astonishing how quickly the “Economic Agreement” was
implemented at the end of 1994, especially when compared to the otherwise
long drawn out negotiations that had been going on for several years and
were often futile, the roadblocks that had been set up for its implementation,
and the time and effort that had been expended by the players involved. In
retrospect, one might gain the impression that the Croat government viewed
the implementation of the “Economic Agreement” as a precursor to the
impending invasion, especially when considering the fact that by that time,
the Krajina Serbs had already been dropped politically by the Serb
government in Belgrade. If the Krajina Serbs would have been aware of this,
they might not have agreed to sign the “Economic Agreement”.
The violent end to the conflict created a new situation, whereby the
problem of Serb refugees and displaced persons was “exported” to other
crisis regions: After the “Blitz attack” many Krajina Serbs fled to Belgrade,
the capitol of Serbia, but they were there unwanted displaced persons and
colonized by the Serbian government to Kosovo to strengthen Serbian
presence in the Kosovo conflict.
The project’s impact on international players
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