OPINION

Movement for Peace’s activities in 2007 – The evolution of the organization’s work in the Balkans region

The "Program for Strengthening the Return and Stabilization in Balkans", funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), is now in its final phase, after 3 years of direct implementation in the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and Montenegro.

The tumultuous political map of the area for action has been altered again, this time by the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence last February, whose echoes are consciously used in Serbia, with the partition of the new state as a backdrop, or in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose delicate balance depends on the constant pulses between the political representatives of the majority groups (Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats) and between them with the High Representative, the figure created by the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995 and whose tutelage on the political life of this country endures today.

It should be noted that the administrations of the countries listed have not completely undertaken social and legal assistance for the most vulnerable population, which continues to generate risk of social exclusion.

Therefore, the activity of the Movement for Peace –MPDL- has helped to consolidate the return or local integration, as well as to stabilize the area, through projects as Access to the Legal-Administrative System, Project for Training and Distribution of Productive Aid, the Social Development Project and the Project for the development of Agricultural Rural Communities in eastern Herzegovina.

The Movement for Peace –MPDL- has tried to adapt itself to the reality of the intervention zone, with the aim of achieving better assistance to the beneficiary population, greater visibility of Spanish cooperation, greater participation by institutions and, above all, a strengthening of civil society. In the quest of all these elements, Movement for Peace has developed its activity in 2007 in 3 different but complementary fields:

(a) Direct Intervention:

- On the one hand, teams of lawyers of the Movement for Peace –MPDL- have provided free legal assistance to some 10,000 beneficiaries (mainly refugees, internally displaced, returnees and minorities), which has led to the initiation of over 20,000 legal proceedings. To that end, the regional network of 9 offices has been completed with another one in Sarajevo, forming a team of 35 lawyers.

- In this regard, it should be noted an evolution in the type of legal proceedings initiated since, while those related to property (restitution or compensation for damage during the war) or personal documents (which in turn is required for access a subsequent rights) remain the majority, there has been a growing demand for cases related to labour law (referring to contracts extinctions on grounds of ethnicity before, during and after the war or those that occurred during the process of privatization of companies).

- Moreover, the Movement for Peace –MPDL- distributed productive aid lots to 160 beneficiaries, and 11 workshops were organized in which vocational training courses were offered to 275 unemployed beneficiaries, in order to train the target populations of the project, which allows them to join the formal labour market or to generate self-employment.

- The result is that we have created two associations of women in traditional sewing (7 women) and massage (4 women) in the office of Trebinje, a cooperative composed of 4 women in the industrial sewing workshop and a cooperative formed by 3 men in the repair electrical items in the office in Pristina, while in the office of Nis two men have formed a drywall installer company. As for the cosmetics shop's office in Belgrade, 19 women have registered their businesses in economic activity related to the training received.

- Finally, as far as agricultural development project in the Popov Valley is concerned, the possibilities have been improved for irrigation sectors integrated into the irrigators communities and traings have been carried out in agricultural and environmental development. Also, Movement for Peace –MPDL- has supported partnerships between farmers in the areas of the valley members for the promotion of production, distribution and marketing of their products.

(b) Collaboration with International Organizations:

- The obstacles in access to the rights of the beneficiary population is unfortunately a constant in the intervention area. Beginning with the absence of a law that guarantees access to a lawyer, the various administrations are still governed by political inertia impeding access to those rights, in addition to still lack the resources to implement the "Rule of Law".

- In this context, the Movement for Peace –MPDL- has decided to intensify collaboration in 2007 with the various important international organization in the area, especially with the various missions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with the order to boost compliance by the administrations of those duties more directly related to access to the human rights of the beneficiaries of the program said.

- The result is the active participation of the Movement for Peace –MPDL- in the "Study on Access to Rights and (Re) integration of Displaced Persons in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in 2006", promoted by the OSCE Mission in Serbia and supported by the U.S. Government, in order to assess compliance with the countries indicated about their obligations in relation to refugee and displaced population, whose outcome was presented in Belgrade, Sarajevo and Warsaw, during the "Human Dimension Annual Meeting - 2007 "organized by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

- Also, the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia have supported the development and submission of a legal study referred to monitor implementation of the "Housing Care Programme" in Croatia, in which again Movement for Peace –MPDL- has had an important role to interview some 150 beneficiaries of the project.

- Additionally, the Movement for Peace –MPDL- has helped to create a space for debate on the complex problem which is the restitution of property in Kosovo, organizing a conference, together with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, attended for the first time and under the title "You are Displaced .Your Rights Are Not", representatives of Serbian authorities and Kosovo, along with members of NGO working with displaced people and the rest of the most representative actors in this field.

- Finally, the Movement for Peace –MPDL- collaborated in 2007 with the Serbian Ministry of Justice, through the Program of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the creation and installation of a database based on the Movement for Peace –MPDL-‘s database, so that Serbian institutions could begin to assess the implementation of various forms of free legal aid, with a view to adopting a law in this regard.

(c) Civil society development:

- As a complementary part of the above, and as the final piece in the work of Movement for Peace –MPDL-, this organization leader in this area since 1993, has opted to strengthen the local NGO arising from the decision of workers Movement for Peace - MPDL to create their own NGO.

- In this regard, the Movement for Peace –MPDL- has begun working with the NGO created in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo in the implementation of the Convention "Improving the economic and social capacities, and strengthening the productive structure and the insertion in the labour market, with special attention to vulnerable groups ", funded by the AECID, by replacing the direct implementation of these last 6 years by working with these local counterparts.

- This has been accomplished since the understanding that in a situation of post conflict peace can only be built through an organized and efficient civil society, with the added value of being three multi-ethnic organizations, with regional perspective and "Heirs" of the work of the Movement for Peace –MPDL- in Balkans.

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