In Practice

Working to Prevent ConflictIn the New Nation of Macedonia

John Marks and Eran Fraenkel

Despite appalling ethnic violence elsewhere in former Yugoslavia, Macedo-nia has stayed relatively peaceful, thus providing a model of successfulconflict prevention. The authors, whose organization leads a nongovern-mental consortium to help defuse ethnic tensions in Macedonia, believeviolence has been largely avoided because Macedonian leaders havedemonstrated sufficient political will and because the international com-munity has applied an appropriate mix of diplomatic, economic, military,psychological, and conflict resolution measures.

Two years ago, a feature film from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Mace-donia, Before the Rain, was nominated for an Academy Award. Probably theonly Macedonian film most Westerners have ever seen, it reinforced thestereotype of former Yugoslavia as a land where the end of Communismresulted in an explosion of ethnic violence. But while Before the Rain is abrilliant film, its plot is fictional.

Unlike nearby Bosnia, Macedonia has not erupted. Before the Rain is,in fact, a cautionary tale, showing what might have happened in Macedoniaif preventive measures had not been implemented.

The absence of war in Macedonia does not imply the absence of seri-ous ethnic, economic, social, and political disputes. Macedonia suffers fromall of those, to varying degrees. Since Yugoslavia broke apart in 1991 and

John Maries is founder and president of Search for Common Ground, 1601 Connecticut AvenueNW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20009. Eran Fraenkel is executive director in Skopje of Search forCommon Ground in Macedonia.

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Macedonia unexpectedly became independent, there has been an almostcomplete politicization of life, in terms of ethnicity, loyalty or disloyalty tothe new state, and real or perceived aspirations to unite with ethnic home-lands. This politicization, coupled with outside pressures from Serbia,Greece, and Albania, has led to numerous internal crises, including a nearlysuccessful assassination attempt on President Kiro Gligorov in 1995. But, sofar at least, Macedonia has avoided all but sporadic violence. In essence, thecenter has held, and extremism has been marginalized.

There are many reasons for this. Despite enmities among the country'sethnic communities — Macedonians (an estimated 66 percent), Albanians(23 percent), Turks (4 percent), Rom, or Gypsies (under 2 percent), Serbs(under 2 percent), and Vlachs (under 2 percent) — the Macedonian govern-ment has carried out relatively sensible policies. In addition, theinternational community has supported a series of preventive actions thathave helped keep the lid on. And, fortunately for Macedonia, even potentialextremists are acutely aware that ethnic tensions, if allowed to get out ofhand, could lead to the kind of violence that has devastated Bosnia.

As for the future, several sets of issues, internal and external, will deter-mine Macedonia's ability to survive: how to reconcile its national interestswith those of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania; how to reconcile theinterests and demands of the country's ethnic communities, which are stilllearning to exercise their political identities; and how to revive the country'sstagnant economy — unemployment is about 50 percent. But for now, giventhat Macedonia is located in a region where neighboring states have beentorn apart by ethnic conflict, it would seem instructive to examine why pre-vention has worked comparatively well.

Our basic premise in this article is that the prevention of ethnic vio-lence must include a full range of official and unofficial initiatives, carefullychosen and mixed together from the diplomatic, economic, social, military,psychological, and conflict resolution domains.

Since the end of the Cold War, ideological struggle and power politicshave played a diminished role in determining the Western response to ethnicconflict. Today, political reality has changed to the point where policymak-ers faced with ethnic conflicts are much less interested in geopolitics than insaving lives and preventing wars from spreading. No sector — includinginternational organizations, national governments, and nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs) — has a monopoly on the wisdom or capacity neededto carry out effective preventive programs. In Macedonia and elsewhere,each sector has something important to offer. By coordinating these efforts,all can avoid working at cross-purposes and maximize the use of scarceresources. Each sector thereby increases the likelihood that prevention willactually work.

Acting before violence erupts is obviously more effective in saving livesand less expensive in expending resources, but the overall aim of preventiveaction should be to create within a divided society a climate in which con-

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flicts can be resolved peacefully. For the country to become peaceful, a sys-tem needs to be established — or expanded — in which negotiatedsettlements predominate and in which disputing parties recognize thatenough of their interests are served by collaborative solutions that they arewilling to eschew violence. Ultimately, the goal is to transform an adversarialculture to a nonadversarial culture of peace. (Indeed, UNESCO has a Cultureof Peace program whose aim is to use peace education to build systems andinculcate attitudes that move societies away from adversarial behavior.)

The international contribution to preventive action requires a highdegree of cross-cultural understanding. Whereas preventive experiencegained in one nation may be useful in another, the techniques of prevention,at a minimum, need to be acculturated before being applied elsewhere. As ageneral rule, it seems the more that preventive programs are tied to indige-nous culture and are developed locally, the more likely they are to succeed.

Domestic Political WillWhen ethnic tensions surfaced in Macedonia after independence in 1991,both the government and the international community acted prudently tokeep the situation under control. Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov, a one-time member of the post-Tito collective Yugoslav presidency, did not allowthe unfavorable negative stereotypes that Macedonians and Albanians holdtoward one another to prevail across the society. Although the ethnic Mace-donian majority is large enough to maintain democratic rule without sharingpower, Gligorov formed a coalition government with the two leading Albanianpolitical parties and named Albanians to several important ministries. In addi-tion, his government made limited provisions to safeguard minority rights.Certainly, many of the primary Albanian grievances were not — and still havenot been — resolved, but the government has largely avoided gross abuses.

In this climate, both the government and the Albanian leadership pro-vided a precondition that is virtually indispensable for prevention to work:political will. In Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia, by contrast, the political willnever existed to prevent violence.

International InvolvementThe Greek government has actively opposed the existence of a state calledMacedonia because it insists that the name is an inalienable part of Greekhistory. Although Greek pressure prevented the United States, key Europeanpowers, and the European Union from providing formal recognition until1996, the international community found nondiplomatic ways to providesupport. In August 1992, President George Bush proposed that monitorsfrom the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), nowcalled the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), besent to Macedonia. The CSCE agreed and named Ambassador Robert Frow-ick, a just-retired U.S. diplomat, to head its mission. The aim was to preventconflict in Serbia and Kosova from spilling over into Macedonia. Frowick

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was initially assigned a staff of one — a junior American foreign service offi-cer, who, like Frowick, was on detail to the CSCE and paid directly by theU.S. State Department.

Although nominally working for the CSCE, Frowick was personally dis-patched by Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who had aspecial interest in Macedonia dating from 1963, when he went to Skopje toprovide earthquake relief (and earned the nickname "Lawrence of Macedo-nia"). Eagleburger advised Frowick to "take a high profile" in making sureBelgrade understood that Macedonia must not be brought into the conflict.Frowick proved an effective envoy. He was the only ambassador resident inSkopje and became, in effect, the Western pro-consul. When he left after sixmonths, the CSCE had expanded its resident mission to include a dozenEuropeans, and Frowick's key internal mediating function was assumed byformer Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel, the CSCE High Commis-sioner for National Minorities, operating from the Hague.

From 1992-96, the U.N. put in force economic sanctions against Serbia,which unintentionally resulted in severe damage to the Macedonian econ-omy. Until the collapse of Yugoslavia, Serbia had been Macedonia's leadingtrade partner and provided its essential overland corridor to the rest ofEurope. U.N. sanctions ended much of the legal trade. However, there werecommodities without which Macedonia simply could not survive — electric-ity, for example. Even during the darkest days of Serb-backed atrocities inBosnia, Macedonia continued to receive and pay for electricity from a gridshared largely with Serbia.

In 1993, Greece made Macedonia's economic problems even worse byimposing a trade embargo. The embargo, on top of U.N. sanctions againstSerbia, almost completely denied Macedonia access to imported raw materi-als and prevented it from exporting finished goods. The results were evenhigher unemployment and a falling Gross National Product, thus increasinginstability and reducing the country's ability to guarantee social welfare. Theeconomic and social distress, coming in mid-transition from a centrallyplanned to a market economy, aggravated both ethnic and class tensions.

Not wanting to confront the Papandreou government in Greece, theinternational community responded to the Greek embargo with little senseof urgency. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali did appoint a medi-ator, former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and President Clinton appointedhis own mediator, Matthew Nimetz, Vance's former Counselor at the StateDepartment. After about 18 months of intermittent negotiations, a settle-ment was reached on many of the symbolic issues that so infuriated theGreeks, and Greece consented to end its embargo and reopen the border.However, there still was no agreement on the country's name. As of thiswriting, Greece and Macedonia are reporting their intention to settle thename issue by the end of August 1997.

In 1993, the CSCE presence in Macedonia was augmented by a militaryforce of about 1,000 U.N. soldiers, including 500 Americans, who were

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given the role of averting and containing hostile events on Macedonia's inter-national borders. Now called the U.N. Preventive Deployment Force(UNPREDEP), they patrol the borders with Serbia, Albania, and Kosova.Although their mandate is to "observe, monitor, and report" potentiallyinflammatory incidents, their role is not entirely passive. They are creditedwith preventing the escalation of a number of small-scale confrontationsbetween Macedonian and Serbian soldiers. Although they have little credibil-ity as a military force or even as a trip-wire, these two U.N. battalions'presence alone has a calming effect on internal Macedonian politics. Thishas been demonstrated by the Macedonian government's repeated requeststo have the UNPREDEP mandate renewed. If nothing else, these soldiersshow that the United Nations — and the United States — have at least a lim-ited commitment to the integrity of Macedonia.

Nongovernmental OrganizationsIn international affairs, the traditional role of nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) is in food and medical relief, human rights advocacy, and develop-ment assistance. We at Search for Common Ground, however, work for anew and different type of NGO, one dedicated to the resolution, prevention,and reconciliation of conflict — and ultimately to the transformation of con-flict into cooperative action. Search for Common Ground works in theMiddle East, Bosnia, Burundi, Angola, Liberia, Ukraine, and the United States(looking for common ground on the abortion issue). Since 1982, we havedeveloped a toolbox of methods to help defuse and prevent conflict; theseinclude customary methods of conflict resolution, such as convening medi-ated roundtables and training conflicting parties in negotiating techniques.Our toolbox also contains less traditional methods, such as TV and radio pro-duction, community organizing, music videos, and cross-ethnic journalismprojects. We are convinced that applying several tools at the same timeincreases their overall effectiveness. Thus, we carry out comprehensive,multipronged initiatives. The overall aim is to move a country away from anadversarial culture and to help build a culture that supports peaceful resolu-tion of conflict and collaborative problem solving. We call our field societalconflict resolution.

All our tools are based on the same strategy, articulated most clearly atone of our workshops in Johannesburg by Andrew Masondo, a top militaryleader of the African National Congress: "Understand the differences, act onthe commonalities."

Although the tools of prevention, in Macedonia and elsewhere, can beapplied separately, our experience shows they work much better when car-ried out in conceit with governments and international organizations. Whenconsultation and cooperation exist, synergy often occurs, and the whole canbe greater than the sum of the parts. The work of NGOs should be comple-mentary to, not competitive with, that of official bodies.

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Some mechanisms for prevention — for example, those which includebenign involvement in a country's internal affairs or which result in back-channel talks — are often best left to NGOs. We recognize that, in the end,only governments can make peace, but we believe NGOs can complement,supplement, and catalyze preventive action.

In early 1994, we launched an initiative in Macedonia to try to preventescalation of ethnic conflict. We opened an office in Skopje, and our first res-ident executive director was the same Ambassador Frowick who hadrecently retired as the CSCE envoy to Macedonia. (After six months with us,Frowick retired again to California but was called back once more by theState Department to become chief of the OSCE mission in Bosnia.) Wereplaced Frowick with Dr. Eran Fraenkel, an ethno-historian of the Balkanswho speaks both Macedonian and Albanian.

In Macedonia, we have launched numerous projects designed to helpthe country's ethno-linguistic communities find mutually acceptable ways ofdealing with sensitive issues; these projects have been supported by theCarnegie Corporation, the National Endowment for Democracy, the SorosFoundation, the Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss governments, and the U.S. Infor-mation Agency.

Interethnic Roundtables. A fundamental premise in our work is thatdirect contact between adversaries in a safe setting can facilitate the trust-building and mutual respect on which collaborative problem solving usuallydepends. Thus, from our first days in 1994 in Macedonia, we worked withother NGOs, both local and international, to bring together Macedonian andAlbanian community, political, and religious leaders to discuss divisiveissues. Since 1995, these roundtables have been hosted by the Center forEthnic Relations, a research institute affiliated with the University of Skopje.Each session focuses on a specific topic, such as primary and university edu-cation, local self-government, or the role of women in society. Thesemeetings go beyond traditional roundtables — usually limited to discussion— in that points of agreement reached by participants are referred to theappropriate government ministry for consideration. Participants tend to bemotivated because they realize their ideas will go forward to policymakers.For example, a multiethnic roundtable meeting on educational issues recom-mended that Albanian students from the University of Skopje be given creditfor certain courses attended at the University of Tirana, a measure thatwould help satisfy demands for higher education in the Albanian language.This proposal is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Education.(Obviously, if proposals emerging from the process are not adopted on occa-sion, participants will lose interest. So far, the record is mixed.)

Conflict Resolution Training. Another of our premises is that thevery existence of the field of conflict resolution in Macedonia — or any-where — increases the chances that the country will resolve its conflictspeacefully. This premise has been well demonstrated in South Africa. To

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spread conflict resolution skills widely in Macedonia, we have concentratedon institutionalizing the field in the educational system. In 1994, we spon-sored an initial series of training workshops for educators that presented anumber of different approaches to conflict resolution. Unfortunately, thesefirst workshops were not as successful as they might have been, mostlybecause they were too general and too closely tied to American culturalnorms. We and our Macedonian partners were in a learning phase at thattime, and together we concluded that the most effective training sessionsneeded to be more culturally targeted and pegged to specific issues. Thus,since 1995, we have been co-sponsoring with the Ethnic Conflict ResolutionProject (ECRP), also of Skopje University, a series of workshops for studentsand educators on the teaching and application of conflict resolution skills inthe Macedonian educational system. Initially, training took place at ethnicallymixed elementary and high schools and at Skopje's Pedagogical Faculty, withthe goal of providing both students and teachers an alternative to their tradi-tional view of conflict as an invariably destructive process. In 1996, welaunched a pilot PeaceGame program for fourth-grade students in twenty-fiveprimary schools to train teachers and to sponsor instructive games for stu-dents. These programs have been so well received that the MacedonianMinistry of Education has permitted the ECRP to integrate them into the pri-mary school curriculum across the country. In addition, we have producedseveral training handbooks in Macedonian and Albanian, as well as Macedo-nia's first book on conflict resolution, Conflicts: What They are and How toSolve Them (1995) by ECRP director Violeta Petroska-Beska. Additional con-flict awareness training sessions have been conducted for journalists andpsychology, sociology, and law students, with future sessions scheduled forsocial workers and leaders of domestic NGOs.

Interethnic Print Journalism. Since 1994, we have worked in part-nership with New York University's Center for War, Peace and the NewsMedia in supporting inclusive, noninflammatory print journalism in Macedo-nia. As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the press in Macedonia faces criticalissues, such as how to survive privatization, how to attract readers andadvertisers, and how to act responsibly in a multiethnic, pluralistic society.Macedonia's media reflect the country's ethnic cleavages. Most media outletspublish or broadcast in only one language and reflect almost totally the per-spective of one ethnic group. Thus, people rarely, if ever, learn much aboutany group but their own, and they generally feel misrepresented about howthey are portrayed in other groups' media. The result tends to be mistrust ofthe press and, often, worsening of interethnic conflicts. Our programmaticresponse comprises the following efforts.• Training Seminars. We co-sponsored a series of training seminars for

Macedonian journalists and editors from all ethnic communities. Emphasiz-ing noninflammatory ways to cover conflict, we brought in Westernjournalists to talk about such topics as inclusivity, community-wide report-

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ing, use of nonprovocative language, and differences between reportingand editorializing. These seminars achieved some success in passing onWestern standards and experience, particularly with younger Macedonianjournalists at both state-sponsored and private media. We realized, how-ever, that like their counterparts everywhere, Macedonian reporters donot relish being taught. The key result of the seminars seems to have beenthe establishment of trust between the journalists and us, thus providing abasis for launching subsequent, hands-on projects.

• Team Reporting. In June 1995, the NYU Center joined us in sponsoring aunique team-reporting project. Building on contacts made during thetraining seminars, we negotiated with three leading state-run newspapersand a radio station — two Macedonian, one Albanian, and one Turkish —to assign reporters to a month-long investigative project. We brought inDenise Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times to be their editor. Together,the team investigated and wrote a series on the impact of the economyon ordinary lives. Never before had journalists from Macedonia's differentethnic groups worked collaboratively and developed close relations.Their co-authored, three-part series appeared simultaneously in theirrespective papers and demonstrated that most Macedonians share similarconcerns about the economy. The reaction was so positive that we pro-duced three additional series, reporting on such subjects as the ailinghealth-care system, the state of the environment, and the role of women.We currently are involved in a monthly, four-language women's project,using a Macedonian editor and reporters from the Albanian, Macedonian,Turkish, and Rom press. As a result of these multiethnic series, large num-bers of Macedonians regularly have the chance to put themselves in theshoes of other ethnic groups.

Television. In 1994-95, we co-produced with Al-TV of Skopje, Mace-donia's largest independent television station, a six-part TV series called Pathto Agreement. As is true in most places, television in Macedonia normallystresses conflict. Our series was different: it aimed to show viewers therecan be common ground, even on sensitive interethnic issues. One programprofiled the village of Nakolec, where Albanians and Macedonians have forcenturies coexisted peacefully — and still do. The idea was to present a vividexample of ethnic communities living together amicably.

Next, we are developing, in association with Children's TelevisionWorkshop (producer of Sesame Street), a TV series for Macedonian children.The goal is to build and strengthen a culture of peace and understandingamong preteens. Children in Macedonia spend much time watching televi-sion, and most of what they see features martial arts, violence, and war.Thus, the daily diet of programs reinforces the concept that disagreementleads inevitably to violence, an extraordinarily destructive idea in a multieth-nic society. Our series, which will be a prototype for programming in other

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strife-torn countries, will use imagery easily acceptable to kids to inculcatetolerance building and cross-cultural fluency.

Joint Environmental Action. Yet another of our basic premises isthat relationships between conflicting parties can be greatly improved whenthe parties, instead of directly confronting each other, work together to iden-tify and address shared problems or superordinate goals. Thus, we havemounted two projects in Macedonia with twin aims of contributing to acleaner environment and providing a positive experience of interethniccooperation.• Adopt-a-Monument. We are working with nine schools in three cities to

clean up litter around historical and cultural sites. Each school hasadopted a particular monument. Once a month, an ethnically mixedgroup of 30-40 children makes a sweep through the monument groundsto gather refuse. In addition, there are weekly "eco-patrols" that monitorthe state of the site and report to the patrol's faculty adviser, to themunicipal sanitation department, and, if necessary, to the local media.The eco-patrols also produce a quarterly newsletter in four languages. Insupport of this project, we have compiled a workbook that provides con-crete ways for students to get involved in environmental issues, and weare preparing a series of multilingual broadcast and print public-serviceannouncements (PSAs).

• Lake Prespa. This project focuses on solid-waste management in twomixed Macedonian-Albanian villages in the Lake Prespa region. Since nei-ther village has a waste disposal system, much waste winds up in thelocal river. In March 1996, we organized an exploratory environmentalimpact assessment by a Macedonian and an American specialist. Theirconclusion was that residents were eager to breach cross-ethnic lines tocreate an ecologically sustainable waste disposal system. Thus far, wehave successfully promoted one interethnic clean-up, and we are cur-rently working with local environmental groups to give additionalconcrete form to this project.

ConclusionIn the end, it is impossible to demonstrate conclusively which, if any, of theactivities cited in this article have actually prevented violence in Macedonia.Validating prevention, as long as it is working, is like trying to prove a nega-tive. The bottom line, however, is that Macedonia has not exploded. Webelieve the combined effort of the international community — includinginternational organizations, governments, and NGOs — has made a real dif-ference. At the same time, we are convinced outside efforts would havebeen in vain if the political will had not existed within the country to keepMacedonia from becoming another Bosnia.

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In our view, the absence of warfare in Macedonia speaks volumes infavor of carrying out preventive activities. Although some argue that littlecan be done to help resolve the seemingly intractable clashes in the Balkans,we maintain that, in Macedonia at least, it is possible to prevent ethnic differ-ences from turning violent. And the cost is small compared to thetremendous loss of life and resources that occur when prevention fails.

REFERENCES

For readers interested in consulting the growing body of literature on conflict prevention, ananonymous reviewer for Negotiation Journal recommends the following.

Ackermann, A. 1996. The former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Security Dialogue 4: 409-424.Kriesberg, L. 1996. Coordinating Intermediary Efforts. Negotiation Journal 12: 341-352.Lederach, J. P. 1995. Preparing for peace: Conflict transformation across cultures. Ithaca, N.Y.:

Syracuse University Press.. 1995. Building peace. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.

Lund, M. 1996. Preventing violent conflicts. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press.

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