-Caveat Lector-
> Neo-colonialism in the Balkans?
>
> By our Internet editors, based on an interview by Jeroen
> Brouwers, 29 July 1999
>
> <Picture: The destroyed Mosque in Djakovica, Kosovo (photo Jan
> Jansen, Amnesty)>The international community has reached deep
> into the pockets to give help to Kosovo. The first donor
> conference in Brussels produced a total amount of 4.2 billion
> guilders. Dutch Minister of Co-operation and Development Herkens
> promised 30 million guilders. That brings the total Dutch aid to
> Kosovo to nearly 120 million guilders.
>
> Andr� Gerrits of the Institute of Eastern Europe in Amsterdam
> contends that the West must learn a lot more lessons from the
> Bosnian experience, where rebuilding has been under way for four
> years already. And it's not an attractive prospect when virtually
> all the functions of government are still in the hands of the
> international community.
>
> Andr� Gerrits: "The core of the problem is that we are inclined
> to think that we can simply export our democratic norms and
> values in this type of situation. A typical Western
> overestimation, which moreover is accompanied by an inability to
> accept setbacks. Time after time the <Picture: High
> Representative Carlos Westendorp>international community in
> Bosnia has reacted to setbacks by strengthening the mandate of
> the UN High Representative. Carlos Westendorp now enjoys almost
> unbridled power. He can hire and fire officials at his
> discretion, he can sack or arrest legislators, he can promise or
> block economic aid. In fact, a modern colony has been created
> under the guise of a protectorate. One of the most negative
> consequences is that there's also a sort of neo-colonist culture
> of dependency. People don't use their own strength, don't draw on
> their own resources, but leave it to the international community.
> Also the economy of Bosnia is showing virtually no growth, and
> would founder without international money".
>
> According to Gerrits, the way that the international community is
> intervening in the region, and the extent to which it interferes
> in day to day matters, is becoming a more and more significant
> factor. A factor which often has an effect on the actual
> situation in the Balkans. As an example he cites the excessive
> influence that NGO's have in the Balkans at the moment:
>
> "Another problem, crazy as it sounds, is that the international
> community is concentrating too much on the Balkans. The NGO's are
> active in the region in enormous numbers, and seem to do it out
> of a sort of organisational need. It seems banal, but in fact
> they're doing it purely out of self-interest, to justify their
> existence. Activity in the Balkans has become an organisational
> imperative in this world. This is only strengthened by the fact
> that the Balkans are a region "where the money is". This focus on
> the Balkans is also at the cost of regions in Africa where the
> problems are far greater".
>
> Gerrit has no clear suggestions for a different policy. But he
> definitely thinks that the West must stop its paternalistic
> patronising and return to a more discrete approach:
>
> "I think that the West should realise that it must lower its
> ambitions. We mustn't get the idea that we can set up a sort of
> democratic administration against the wishes of the local
> population. We should direct our efforts much more towards the
> creation of the infrastructure for the gradual building of a
> sound administration and a native economy. And we must certainly
> not respond to every setback by strengthening the mandate of the
> international community".
<<Never fails to amaze *how* the West can assume that cultures
from other parts of the world are as fertile soil waiting for
the seeds of democratisation to be planted. Like palm trees in
the Northern Tier. >>
>From www.mw.nl/foreign/eng/html/balkan290799.html
A<>E<>R
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