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From notes@igc5.igc.org Sun Nov 19 04:31:40 1995 Received: from igc5.igc.org (192.82.108.36) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Sun, 19 Nov 1995 04:31:41 -0500 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (cdp.igc.apc.org [192.82.108.1]) by igc5.igc.org (8.7.1/8.7.1) id AAA01901 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Sun, 19 Nov 1995 00:47:22 -0800 (PST) Date: 18 Nov 1995 23:52:13 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat"From: Ivo Skoric Subject: ... To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <199511190752.XAA08285@igc3.igc.apc.org> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 34 From: "ORAPOST" To: zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Subject: Return Message Reply-To: ORAPOST@uk.oracle.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; What is your opinion about the War Crimes Tribunal? Do you believe that the guilty must be brought to justice before any peace is possible or is it a symbolic empty gesture of a world community who couldn't prevent the atrocities so it will now try to punish them? Do you think it will be funded properly and if not what will be the consequences? Do you believe that the prosecution will be fair and ubiased? In particular, I am wondering if the war crime of rape will be connected only to the Serb side or will it also be attributed to any other perpetrator (UN soldiers, Moslems or Croats)? --Boundary-4263770-0-0-- From notes@igc5.igc.org Sun Nov 19 04:39:01 1995 Received: from igc5.igc.org (192.82.108.36) by MediaFilter.org with SMTP (MailShare 1.0b10); Sun, 19 Nov 1995 04:39:02 -0500 Received: from cdp.igc.apc.org (cdp.igc.apc.org [192.82.108.1]) by igc5.igc.org (8.7.1/8.7.1) id AAA01880 for "conf-zamir.chat"; Sun, 19 Nov 1995 00:47:01 -0800 (PST) Date: 18 Nov 1995 23:51:53 Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" From: Ivo Skoric Subject: Croatian elections viewed by a Croatian woman To: Recipients of zamir-chat-l Message-ID: <199511190751.XAA08249@igc3.igc.apc.org> X-Gateway: conf2mail@igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-zamir-chat-l@igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 99 Turning Off the Dark Despite of pale public statements of opposition leaders that they will win, almost everybody in Croatia expected HDZ, the ruling party, to win with great two third majority. HDZ nomenclatura hoped that their "pre-election preparation" will bring good results (for them), and majority of citizens expected the same outcome with fear. Namely, Tudjman's HDZ imposed the early elections hoping to capitalize politically the victory of Croatian forces against Serb rebels in early August. The electoral law favorized big parties (HDZ in the first place): the 5% limit for one proportional voting and the simple majority clause in the districts. The manipulation through media was more intensive than ever. The coverage of each move of the candidates who kept governmental offices exceeded by far their official roles. Therefore, anything below 50-60% was a failure, which actually happened. HDZ got 44%, which is more or less what they already won twice at elections in 1990 and 1992. Having in mind what was going on in last hours of counting of votes it is rather clear that they got much less than was officially declared. There was hardly any control against forgeries in counting of votes and further data processing. In other words, all marginal results are unreliable and it is possible that in many districts HDZ candidates would not have won had there been a proper independent control. The same applies with the result of HSP (Croatian Party of Rights, radical right wing, by its self-understanding the successor of the Ustashas-Fascists): 5% was the minimum share for a party to get seats in the Parliament, and HSP is an open ally of HDZ. Almost everybody could have known that the only chance to win against HDZ election machinery (which means pressure and manipulation) was to have a great coalition of all opposition parties. Some of them realized it and succeeded, like the centrist coalition of Croatian Peasant's Party, Istrian Democratic Assembly, Croatian Christian Democratic Union, and Croatian People's Party, which won almost 20%. Opposition winners at previous elections, Croatian Social Liberal Party, decided to run alone in these elections and lost more than half they had before (26% in 1993 and 11% 1955). They were playing on nationalist sentiments trying to compete with Tudjman's inarticulate populist movement and they lost. Obviously, situation in Croatian society has changed and consciousness of socio-economic problems in the country made citizens to vote differently. It was clear that, since opposition parties are not yet clearly profiled and therefore they are rather week and confused, these elections can be seen as voting against HDZ rather than voting for any opposition program. Regarding women in these elections in general, nothing has changed. They were not visible neither in public campaign nor in programs of the parties (with some exceptions: four, out of sixteen parties which took part in elections, had something to say regarding women, and mostly this was not anything to be happy about). Previous Parliament had 5% women MPs while the newly elected one has 8%. This small improvement can make happy only those who love statistics. Otherwise, the main pattern remains the same and unfortunately, most of these newly elected female MPs can be considered honorary men. An attempt to challenge the public sphere at least, to think about women, was the Ad Hoc Coalition of twelve women's groups from all over Croatia initiated by Women's Infoteka Zagreb and Group for Women Human Rights B.a.B.e. (Be Active Be Emancipated). The Coalition prepared the Women's Election Platform for monitoring and influencing the Election '95 in Croatia. Their request was based on fundamental human rights like: full economic, social and political equality for women, elimination of all forms of discrimination against women: by fighting discriminatory practices and attitudes/stereotypes in public and in family; ensuring full and equal participation of women in all official structures and on all institutional levels; implementing broadly based efforts and public actions to discourage private and public violence against women; providing high social and health standards for women in Croatia; introducing educational programs about equal rights between genders and eliminating all religious and ideological (especially nationalistic) indoctrination in public education; immediately stopping the militarization of society, the glorification of war and the construction of enemy ideology... However, this action, no matter how small this was in a context of the whole event, played certain role. Most of the parties (HDZ, HSP and some other small parties were exceptions) expressed at least good intention to deal with women's issues. Some of them, right wing, fascist parties were very much irritated. At a public hearing under the title "Women's Voices Must Be Heard", organized by Women's Coalition with their guests, women candidates from opposition parties, a group of New Croatian Right Wing interrupted loudly the hearing and in the mess they produced, one of them hit a woman in audience. Only then police intervened and restored order. Looking at all this, there are some reasons for optimism in the society in general. The fact that Croatia did not become one-party state and that nationalistic, right wing ideology is not anymore that strong and beyond any question as it was before, is certainly an opportunity for development of democracy. And regarding women in particular, democracy is always much better pattern for struggle for women human rights than totalitarianism. Djurdja Knezevic ## CrossPoint v3.02 ##