Slovenian peace movement in the context of Yugoslav
anti-war contention
Re-discovered history of war-prevention
(1984-1992)
Marko Hren Ljubljana, 2012
Abbreviated version of this paper first published in: Bojan Bilic and Vesna Jankovic (eds.) Resisting the Evil: (Post-) Yugoslav Anti-War Contention, Nomos: Baden-Baden, Center for European Integration Strategies, Geneva, 2012.
Special thanks to Bojan, Vesna and all reviewers who provided initiative as well as hundreds of questions and recommendations that made this paper clearer, more substantiated and comprehensive.
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Slovenian peace movement in the context of Yugoslav anti-war contention; Re-discovered history of war-prevention (1984-1992) Published by Marko Hren, Ljubljana, 2012 Edited by Marko Hren
For free download at: http://www.dlib.si/
CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji
Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana
32 3.25(4 97.4)"1988/1992"(0.034.2) 327.36(497.4)(0.034.2)
HREN, Marko, 1959- Slovenian peace movement in the context of Yugoslav anti-war contention [Elektronski vir]: re-discovered history of war-prevention / Marko Hren. - El. knjiga. -Ljubljana : samozal., 2012
Način dostopa (URL): http://www.dlib.si/
ISBN 978-961-92623-2-0 (pdf) 262640128
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Introduction
Slovenian Peace Movement (SPM) published its first book titled »Cold Peace and other Hot Topics« in 19851. Instead of introduction we left a blank page with a short memo noting our pretentious dilemma of the time: "The introduction will be written by The History". Well, that "History" referred-to by the SPM nearly three decades ago, was never laid down by the social sciences. The Peace Institute in Ljubljana partially filled-in the gap with its recent volume "War and Peace"2. As I compiled an introductory text for it, I felt an urge to simultaneously prepare a compilation of primary sources3 to provide a reader with an archive illustrating the role of the resistance movement in Slovenia during the process of the independence struggle in Slovenia and the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. This web-archive documents the role of the Slovenian grass-roots, pro-democracy, human rights and pacifist movement in the process of the nonviolent resistance to Yugoslav regime, its contribution to the independence struggled and its position4 within the pan-European process known as the Fall of the Iron Curtain. The period of time concerned in the paper extends from 1985 till 1991 and is later referred to as the "Slovenian spring".5
1	Hladni Mir in druge vroče teme/ Cold Peace and Other Hot Topics. Ljubljana: RK ZSMS, ABC Mirovni zvezki, Ljubljana, 1985.
2	Vlasta Jalušič and Lev Kreft, Vojna in mir, refleksije dvajsetih letih / War and Peace, reflections after 20 years (Ljubljana: Peace institute Ljubljana, 2011). Published during the occasion of the 20th year anniversary of the Peace institute
3	Marko Hren, Če hočeš mir pripravljaj mir / If you want peace, prepare for peace (Hren, 2011) ; the compilation is published in electronic format for free download at Slovene national digital library www.dlib.si under the title in Slovene language. Larger part of the book includes articles and documents in Slovene language, however a selection of documents in English is also included to give scholars who may not be familiar with Slovene language an opportunity to get a grasp of primary sources. Since the majority of primary sources referred-to in this paper are reproduced in the above cited electronic compilation, we will be using an abbreviated reference: Hren, 2011, throughout this paper . The compilation lays down details about the Slovenian peace movement from the 1980-ies and particularly its efforts to prevent the war - amongst other it gives evidences of the consistent essays to call International Peace Conference before elections in all the republics of former Yugoslavia were held in 1990/1991 and outlines details concerning our (SPM) disputes and differences in opinion in a dialogue with international movements (particularly the Helsinki Citizens Assembly) in a pre-war and earl-conflict stage period (1988-1991).
4	It shall be emphasised, that all my contributions in this contexts are intentionally subjective; they provide a view of active participant in the process and therefore do not pretend to represent an objective academic study.
5	The term was adopted by the Slovenian opposition in the spirit of the political warming-up (spring) in other socialist countries after the Cold War. For the first time, the term was used by the special edition of the Independent Voices, entitled Slovenian Spring, Centralism or Democracy?, co-edited by Braco Rotar and Marko Hren and published by SPM in 1989. The events prior the independence were interpreted and compiled under the title
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This paper shed some light onto the early beginnings of the SPM, its pre-war activities, then it frames the key disputes of the SPM within the international peace and democracy movement and reveals a "missed opportunity" embedded in a potential convergence of the processes approaching the pre-war crisis in Yugoslavia from below ( Helsinki Citizens assembly on the Pan- European level and the Peace institute initiatives in Ljubljana) and from above (the activities of the CSCE, UN and European Community). In addition, this paper intends to stimulate further research in this domain and it finishes with some concrete proposals in this direction. Most of the available material documenting the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, focus on anti-war activities during the wars, while this paper focuses entirely on the pre-war and early-conflict-stage period.
In Slovenia, we had to wait till 2011 to open a contradictory debate on the archives of intelligent services from the "Slovenian spring" period; Slovenia was faced with a relatively large political scandal when an independent researcher and publicist Igor Omerza was prevented access to data from the official archives. This event has caused a public debate which oscillated around the legal issues and concerned the conduct of the archive management, while I believe that a true scandal was represented by a mere fact, that Omerza was apparently the first researcher requesting access to secret archives; it seems that none of the scholars, mentors or professors at public higher education or research institutions in Slovenia ever in 20 years proved interest for the archives concerned. The same is true for private archives of protagonists - including my own personal archive; none of the public institutions had shown an interest for the extensive volume of primary sources concerning the nonviolent resistance movement in Slovenia. Why such an illogical - even absurd to the first glance - abstinence of domestic social sciences? The answer might be simple; the public institutions in social sciences and humanities are still dominated or impregnated by (post)communist nomenclature. Is it in their interest to reveal the role and the facts related to the former communist party hierarchies and their extensive networks of influence? It is of no surprise that 20 years after the independence of Slovenia - a range of Slovenian intellectuals had to form a new independent association, the Association for values of Slovenian independence, with the first and immediate objective to publish a compendium of sources on Slovenian independence process6. Not only the nonviolent resistance movement, the whole movement for independency of Slovenia, found itself in a "knowledge lacuna".
Slovenian Spring [Slovenska Pomlad] also in a documentary web portal <www.slovenska pomlad.si> (Accessed 9 July 2012).
6 The Association for values of Slovenian independence was established in December 2010. One of its core aims is to document the facts prior to and during the process of the fall of iron curtain in Slovenia. The author of this paper has contributed an introductory essay to the opening congress of this association - the essay is published in its en-
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Concerning the history of the SPM, there were only two outstanding exemptions of researchers showing great deal of interest - and both are not Slovenian citizens: Padraic Kenny and Andrea Licata7. Omerza, who remains the only domestic writer in Slovenia, who contemplated into secret and private archives until now, discovered - amongst other facts - that the intelligence services in 80ies had exercised intense surveillance and the highest degree of interest for the activities of the activists of the SPM. This indicates, that the role of the SPM in the times of decomposition of militaristic Yugoslavia was perceived by the elites in power as substantial. It is therefore important to note, that a number of radical pacifists from Slovenia were on the list of most observed individuals by the counter intelligence and intelligence services in Yugoslavia in the 80ies. In other words, the intelligence person-nel/ researchers was much more aware of the importance of the work of the SPM then the Slovenian historians and social sciences are today, after the transition was accomplished. Documents were revealed proving that key pacifists were amongst the most exposed "objects of direct surveillance" of the intelligent services.8 This was true even for a bohemian poet, Jure Detela, an outstanding figure of Slovenian pacifism, an early prophet of deep-ecology, amongst other, a key-note speaker at the historic rally against Krsko Nuclear power Plant during the Chernobil disaster on April 1986. 9 The coun-
tirety at the internet address of the association and is also reproduced in Hren, 2011. Hren was elected as a member of presidency at the opening congress in December 2010 and remains a member of this board. The White Book on Slovenian independence struggle is a mid-term project of the association and shall be compiled by 2014. www.vso.si
7	Padraic Kenney, the author of A Carnival of Revolution, Central Europe 1989 (Princeton University Press, 2005) and Andrea Licata is the author a thesis Resa del pacifismo e nuova resistenza, I movimenti per la pace dalla smilitarizzazione alla contestazione della NATO in Slovenia 1989-2005 ( University of Trieste, 2005). Kenney and Licata are the only authors apart from already mentioned Igor Omerza and apart from the Slovenian journalist Ali Žerdin, autor of the web-portal-based archive on Slovenian spring (www.slovenskapomlad.si) who were interested in private archives of the actors concerned!
8	Marjan Kranjec in The role and the impact of counter-intelligent services of the YA Borec, št. 567-569/1998 (Ljubljana: Borec, 1998, reproduced in 2008 on http://sl.scribd.com/doc/86522563/Balkanski-Poligon-Marijan-F-Kranjc). Marjan Kranjec served in headquarters of Slovenian part of intelligence service (SDV) during the period concerned. He reveals that I was assigned a coded label, a personal dossier of the intelligence services as early as in 1984. Agents regularly reported about my activities to political as well as military, republic (Slovenian) as well as federal (Yugoslav), authorities. Kranjec claims, that I was "the only person in Slovenia, about whom the agents of Slovenian part of intelligence service directly reported to the Yugoslav Army authorities". See also footnote 93.
9	Detela wrote a book, an encyclopaedic guideline for identification of spies and agents, Jure Detela, Pod strašnimi očmi pontonskih mostov / Under the Scary Eyes of Pontoon Bridges, (Ljubljana, novel, National Library, the department of manuscripts, 1988). The compilation that I published to commemorate the 20years anniversary of the inaugura-
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ter intelligence was aware of the dangerous paradigm shifter -visionary bohemian Detela - while Slovenian historians, and sociologists remained ignorant for decades.
Missed opportunity
This article contributes a particular angle of views concerning the failure of the global peace movement in the case of the wars in former Yugoslavia. Most of the other authors focus on anti-war activities during the wars, therefore, after summer 1991, while this contribution focuses to the pre-war period. A sober analysis of the situation in Yugoslavia was available to international peace movements at least by the SPM, but it cannot be disputed that not sufficient effort was made to scrupulously discuss it, without ideological biases of "un-violability of borders", ideological views on nationalisms, and other points of disputes of the SPM discussed later in this paper. The misunderstandings and differences in opinion, led to confused and even manipulated10 policy making and to the fiasco of European and global peace movement approach to the "Yugoslav crisis".
European Peace movement activists, scholars and experts, the key interlocutors of the SPM in 1980ies, did not make an emphasis on a joint understanding of the rules of European Policy-making11! As a result I was - to take one example of numerable instances of a lack of joint understanding.- not made sufficiently aware of the importance of the meeting of US Secretary of State James Baker with European troika of foreign ministers under the presidency of Netherland in the first half of 1991. The meeting was held in Berlin immediately prior to the well-known visit of Mr. Baker in Belgrade in June 21st 1991. Today, I believe that that meeting was crucial and decisive, a missed opportunity for the European social movement. Baker met the
tion of the Peace Institute in Ljubljana in 2011 (Hren, 2011) was dedicated as a tribute to Jure Detela. See also footnotes 78 to 82.
10	See extensive correspondence between the SPM and the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA), for example, where the SPM complains loudly against the manipulative practice of the HCA headquarters! Some documents in English language are reproduced in Hren, 2011. A thorough study concerning the positions of global peace movements and related spokes persons would contribute essentially to the understanding of the failure of the peace and democracy movement in Europe concerning the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.
11	Sufficient to hint that I see the story of the policy making of that epoch, today with the eyes of an experienced European Policy maker; during the last decade, I am employed at the government of Slovenia in the department for development and European Affairs, I was involved as a dossier leader during the Presidency of Slovenia of the European Council in 2008 and I learned to become an insider concerning the rules of the game of European policy-making. I claim, that a well-coordinated action of European movements could bring efficient results providing that at least relative consensus would have been reached at least on the level of the HCA.
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European "presidency troika" during the CSCE meeting on June 20th 1991 in Berlin, which was a first meeting of ministers within the framework of the CSCE Council of Ministers12. The ministers held consultations on the European architecture and the strengthening of security in Europe. The meeting resulted13 in the adoption of a mechanism for consultation and co-operation with regard to emergency situations14, and made some operational decisions for the functionality of the CSCE Conflict Prevention centre in Vienna15 .
Last but not least, the meeting resulted in an adoption of the Statement on the situation in Yugoslavia. This Statement included a strong message concerning the support for democratic, human rights and economic as well as constitutional reforms in Yugoslavia, sovereignty of Yugoslav peoples to make decisions and clearly vowed a message that "international community would stand ready to assist Yugoslavias' efforts to transform itself economically and politically". These messages were presented to the leaders of the Yugoslav republics through the positions displayed by Baker in Belgrade, on June 21st 1991 when Baker apparently claimed16 that US will not recognise neither Slovenia nor Croatia while suggesting that Yugoslavia shall be transformed in its integrity into a democratic state. Baker apparently claimed that independence shall not be achieved through unilateral decisions but through negotiations and peaceful means.17 Bakers' performance in Belgrade was understood by YA analytics as a hint, that military intervention in Slovenia would be tolerated by US. Did Baker bring a politically correct message to the leaders of Yugoslav Republics? Or did he act on his own, shadowing the message according to his or someone-else's agenda? Or, did Slovenian leaders misunderstand or even misinterpret him? Comparing the minutes, the memories and the statements, the stories just do not mach. The Berlin statement could and should be understood as a neutral statement, but certainly the diplomats that drafted the text did not exclude an option of independence of
12	The council was originally established in November 1990 by the Charter of Paris.
13	CSCE, First Meeting of the Council, Summary Conclussions and the Statement on the Situation in Yugoslavia, Berlin, June 19-20th.
14	Later referred- to as the "Berlin mechanisms" which were drafted as emergency mechanisms providing procedures which may be used by CSCE states in crisis situations.
15	At that time, German foreign minister, Dietrich Genscher served as a chair of the CSCE Conflict prevention center which is an important fact to understand the "German shift" that followed soon-after.
16	The main source of information concerning the meeting with James Baker is a document titled »The minutes of the meeting of president Milan Kučan with the US secretary of state James Baker in Belgrade on 21st of June 1991". The author also made ad-hoc interviews with dr. Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenian minister of foreign affairs as well as with Lojze Peterle, Slovenian Prime Minister at-that-time. It would be interesting to compare minutes made by other delegations of the republics of former Yugoslavia present at the meeting.
17	Baker, James A. (1995) The politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989-1992. New York: G. Putnam's Sons.
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republics. The fact, that as early as in November 199018 the US State department proposed and the Congress voted for strict embargo on funds disbursements for Yugoslavia and conditioned any aid with free elections held in all republics, is controversial to the messages seemingly communicated by Baker on June 21st 1991 in Belgrade. Some sources from within the State department19 claimed that the US administration was well aware of the situation in Balkans (also aware of the fact, that there was no doubt, that the whole crisis was due to the aggression of Serbs backed by Yugoslav army (YA) and that the conflict could not have been interpreted as civil war) as early as in 1990. These experts acted promptly - the cited Bill Text is a proof, that the US administration was fully aware of the dynamics of the elections held in particular republics in 1990 and the intervention of US via the cited Bill was timely and pro-republics; I claim that this was in fact a political gesture that should have been understood as pro-independence.
The fact is, that Bakers messages did not tranquilise the process on the ground, on contrary, they gave wing to Miloševic, Serbia, YA and the Federal Yugoslav authorities, to escalate military interventions in Slovenia and Croatia. Open military conflict in former Yugoslavia started by the aggression of YA in Slovenia on June 26th 1991, only few days after the Bakers departure from Belgrade. This caused an armed resistance offered by formal Slovenian troops - known as the "10 days defence war for Slovenian independence". Immediately-after, the German diplomatic mission recognized the
18	Bill Text 101st Congress (1989-1990) Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act , SEC. 599A. The Bill makes it clear that "none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended to provide any direct assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and (2) the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director of each international financial institution to use the voice and vote of the United States to oppose any assistance of the respective institutions to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Provided, That this section shall not apply to assistance intended to support democratic parties or movements, emergency or humanitarian assistance, or the furtherance of human rights: Provided further, That this section shall not apply if all six of the individual Republics of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have held free and fair multiparty elections and are not engaged in a pattern of systematic gross violations of human rights: Provided further, That notwithstanding the failure of the individual Republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to have held free and fair multiparty elections within six months of the enactment of this Act, this section shall not apply if the Secretary of State certifies that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is making significant strides toward complying with the obligations of the Helsinki Accords and is encouraging any Republic which has not held free and fair multiparty elections to do so".
19	George Kenney, desk officer for Yugoslavia at the US State Department during 19901993. He spoke publicly of wrongs of US policy and repeatedly noted that American policy was - after the adoption of the above cited Bill Text - wrong, counterproductive and that the voice of independence shall be heard at early stage. He resigned in 1993 to strengthen his point.
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mistake and Germany revised their diplomatic positions, thus becoming a leading country propelling the diplomatic process for recognition of Slovenia and Croatia. German and European diplomats quickly adjusted their views after June 26th. Did the European Peace Movement ever do the same? Were pacifists able to adjust the pacifist positions? The positions and proposals of Slovenian Peace movement were made public promptly, continuously and repeatedly; a pile of documents serve as reference! But they were neither discussed properly nor taken seriously by the networks that we used to identi-fy-with (END, HCA, East-West Dialogue group20 Key arguments and disputes follow later on in this paper.
From todays' perspective, it seems that the meeting in Berlin on June 1991 was decisive. A proposal was agreed for all Yugoslav republics, to accept a technical office21 of the joint EC and US diplomacy. Slovenian president Kučan clearly presented the views of Slovenia at the meeting in Belgrade, insisting, that Slovenia intends to fulfil the decision made at plebiscite (December 1990) and declare independency on June 26th 1991, and in such a way become a fully sovereign state, and only under such conditions, namely, as fully sovereign player, enter negotiations and talks concerning the future forms of cooperation's with other equal partners.22 The point of agreement of Slovenian and International policy makers of that epoch was, that all processes shall be backed by legal, constitutional arrangements. Slovenia did fully respect this line of acting and has backed all its actions with constitutional arrangements. Such attitude was crowned by prompt and extensive recognition of independent Slovenia later in 1991 and early in 1992 when Slovenia
20	I would love to see a truthful and thorough study, bringing to surface all lobbyist documents drafted by influential conflict resolution and peace policy experts of that time, particularly those, whose responsibilities involved direct membership in multilateral or national advisory bodies. The correspondence between the SPM and the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA) key personalities is partially documented also in English language in Hren, 2011 and available at www.dlib.si. From todays' perspective I assume, that at least some leading members of HCA were close to decisive European and US policy makers (i.e. both HCA co-chairs, Mary Caldor and Mient Jan Faber). HCA had strong political relations and positions in their own countries; particularly Faber did hold a prominent post in Netherlands, since he served as secretary-general of the Interchurch Peace Council (IKV) thus having large manoeuvre space to influence the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, mr. Hans van den Broek, who was - at that time - holding the post of presidency of European presiding Troika) and could have played a role shaping more effective policies during the Yugoslav transition.
21	Not much details are known to us, we understand that a sort of vaguely defined technical office was offered, as referred to in the minutes found in Slovenian official archives; this was not only meant as an assistance for negotiations between federal authorities and individual republics, but also as an experts help for the "drafting of new constitution".
22	President Kučan displayed a variety of options for future integrations (including confederation) while insisting on the respect of Helsinki Accords and European values. Kučan also highlighted, that the violence in Yugoslavia already was in effect and that we can therefore not speak of "a possibility of out-brake".
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was recognised also by the European Community and in May 1992 became a member of the UN.
The diplomatic efforts of the EC and US were appropriate but arrived "just too late".23 However, it is to note, that the official offer of EU and US diplomacy did perfectly match to the proposal of the SPM and the Peace Institute in Ljubljana, in the framework of the preparations of the Peace conference (preparations were held from June 1990 till June 1991). From the todays perspective, the potential fusion of both processes (from below and from above) seemed possible and realistic. We had all instruments on our disposal and we failed because we were not able to find consensus amongst opinion makers. The numerous letters of the SPM24 to the international community witness the failure of our efforts to present the situation in Yugoslavia as truthfully as possible, and, consequently "the lack of understanding of the situation in Yugoslavia which prevented the peace movement from trying to avert the war has become an obstacle to its effective contribution to stopping the violence".25
I therefore disagree with those authors who advance conspiracy theories and blame big-powers for the collapse and for the violence in Yugoslavia; the international community cannot be blamed for the roots of wars in Yugoslavia, in fact, it can be blamed for not preventing the wars. However, I agree with the parts of such interpretations26, clearly outlining the colonising role of some fractions of US international policy that were in charge of preparing grounds for wild privatisation of publicly own enterprises in Eastern Europe and for grabbing of the available resources in future "open markets".
23	Dimitirj Rupel, in the ad-hoc interview with the author, February 2012.
24	Key documents are reproduced in Hren, 2011 at www.dlib.si.
25	SPM Open Letter to European Nuclear Disarmament conference Held in Moscow, August 1991; printed in a form of a leaflet and widely distributed under the title Understanding the "War" in Yugoslavia. Reproduced in Hren, 2011.
26	See for example the interpretations concerning the roots of wars in Boris Malagurski "documentary" film under the title "The Weight of Chains", last accessed at http://www.weightofchains.com/buy or search youtube for updated link. I agree with those parts of such interpretations which point to the colonising elements of the role of some fractions of US actors that were in charge of preparing grounds for wild privatisation of publicly own enterprises in East Europe and for grabbing of the available resources. For example, the Georg Soros's "open society" operations in Eastern Europe (shall be better called "open markets operations") are under-evaluated in this respect for obvious reasons; large part of so-called "progressive" authors in ECE cooperated closely with mr. Soros and his economic interests. The "open market" was the main agenda of this operation while the open society was a marketing tool. Some of us - actors on the ground in civil society- perceived Soros and his empire as well as his strategy including his local agencies, as a clear and ruthless dumping on the scene. It is now clear to me and to many progressive thinkers, that "operation Soros" was but a blackmail, a sort of "New Age Jesuit grabbing frontline strategy" to bring US economic interests acceptable by target civil societies. This topic goes beyond the purpose of this paper, but I would love to contribute to a study on this topic. I use this opportunity to call for a regional research effort in this domain. Not funded by Soros himself hopefully.
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This paper shall contribute to the reduction of the manipulations of the events in history, to the revealing of the global blackmailing and to the vital-isation of the pacifist tradition on the planet..
Long Live Satya graha. Long Live Satya graha.
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Early beginnings of the SPM
I owe a great deal of tributes to War Resisters International, Swiss basic democracy movements, French cultural and political left, as well as to Bask & Spanish & Italian Anarchists, German Greens, Eastern European colleagues-dissidents, then to Italian & Austrian friends in Alpe Adria Peace network, to my Croatian friends and to many individuals from all over the globe who have offered us inspirations, strength, shelters, love and friendship.
The thoughts in the mind of a teenager were revolt and heretic. The dreams were puzzling; I was repeatedly dreaming wars and conflicts, but seldom arms worked; in a critical situation of battles appearing in my dreams, all weapons were demobilised, as if some invisible guides would have been teaching me a good old eternal transcendental lesson: Ahimsa Paramo Dhar-ma. Dreams played an important role in a formation of a pacifist writing this paper. Another crucial cultural factor shaping my thought was a clear observation of hypocrisy in a so-called Christian society; since Slavic nations were deprived their cosmologies due to centuries of violent Christianisation and inquisitions, the roots of violence seemed clearly related to false religion, historical manipulations of power elites and to the merge of ideologies and state-powers; Communist Militarism was found easily comparable with Inquisitors Catholicism. Of course I thought I was alone on a planet with my thoughts - until my ethno group (dedicated to the cultivation of traditional songs and instruments) went touring to Switzerland in 1975. This is where I met WRI activists mingling in a crowd at the international festival, handing over leaflets and selling badges on street-stalls. That's where I got my first broken rifle badge and my first "War is a crime against humanity" leaflet. I will never know who the person handing the leaflet and offering a deep light in her eyes was?!? Thanks to all who hang on street stalls! It is worth inspiring randomly! The encounter in Switzerland has turned me into an activist instantly and forever. An entirely new horizon has opened for a young rebel, a horizon of action rather than a horizon of dreams and bohemian poetry. Instantly I found another two bohemians at my secondary school in Ljubljana, and a first pacifist troika was formed in 1976.27 For long years before this event, I have been involved in an UN promotion club in primary school and my first step after the tour in Switzerland was to re-establish contacts with
27 We translated first leaflets "war is a crime against humanity" into Slovenian language and called for disobedience. Conscientious objection nested as a high value and supreme term of ethical reflection. Soon we were taken to "consultation" to socialist authorities in Ljubljana. I remember well that we were kindly dis-recommended to continue our "counter-constitutional activity" and were sweetly threatened to be expelled from the school.
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local Ljubljana UN information center - a UN club as it was called28. I grew into a convinced pacifist before reaching the age of conscription, - well aware of the consequences of my eventual objection. It was not easy to make a choice29. But finally I subordinated to supreme law - the law of Omnipresent Love; I was in love and this made me decide to enter the military service and not to choose a career of a prisoner. But to compromise my consciousness I also made a decision that I will not use arms while in military. I told military personnel at the very beginning of my military service, that they have got my body, but haven't caught my personality and that I cannot use weapons. What I did in the army was - that I played guitar in a band, organised cultural events, and last, but not least, discussed CO issues in detail with some dedicated military personnel.30 I learned in the Army that this institution was a Ship of Fools; upon my return from the army, I knew "the enemy" and I was even more convinced pacifist than ever. Arriving back home, I decided to dedicate myself to action31. I made links with emerging progressive circles in Ljubljana and established working relations with WRI office in London, started to travel frequently and made friendship with WRI staff, particularly with Howard Clark, legendary desk-officer and todays chair.
For me, there was never a single trace of doubt: the Yugoslav army (YA) was a key structural and the key psychological problem in Yugoslavia. When it became the only federal infrastructure remaining in 1991 after national elections in all republics and after the Central committee of communist party disintegrated, YA clearly became a main threat. I learned during my service, that YA officers were in largest parts recruited from the poorest southern Serbia regions. Most of them grew in-depth anti-albanian traditional hatred, but in public, they would be loudest protagonist of Yugoslav ideologies. YA was a so called seventh republic - it was represented in all structures of the decision making, including the parliament. A Good Old joke
28	These were in fact the only public, relatively open infrastructures to browse trends in human rights, international agreements and legal practices worldwide. The UN library was our Google of that time.
29	Conscientious objectors in Yugoslavia were repeatedly sentenced and imprisoned for the same act of disobedience - some of them served more than 8 years sentence.
30	It became clear, that the military had already been well aware and well informed about my previous life prior to my service- they knew about most of my sins concerning the secondary school pacifist circle, as well as about the fact, that I sang in a church choir. In any case, the military hierarchy in Belgrade, where I served my term, were promptly briefed about my convictions - I discussed my views openly, even translated Broken rifle and other papers that I was receiving to my home address in Ljubljana; a couple of extra holidays were granted to me to bring the in-coming issues to Belgrade which I appreciated of course. I used time in military to contemplate, dream and I wrote my personal book on yoga, practiced music and had time for reflection.
31	At that time, in early 80ies, UN mandated Asbjorn Eide and Chama Mubanga-Chipoya to write a report on Conscientious Objections. This process became my key political reference.
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about Yugoslavia goes as follows: Yugoslavia has 7 bordering states, 6 republics, 5 nations, 4 languages, 3 religions, 2 scriptures and 1 political party. That One Political party was the point of the explosive fusion of interests with the interests of YA: they both needed the status-quo, they both needed the integral territory, they both needed each other - they were one. These interests met the interests with the protagonists of the idea of great-Serbia. A lack of a sober, scrupulous, truthful analysis of the role of YA, within the progressive circles in Europe in the 80ies32, was, in my view, a key obstacle that prevented the international civil movement to respond to the crisis in former Yugoslavia in a constructive manner. The responsibility is - overall -on us, intellectuals from former Yugoslavia. There was no trace of a real peace movement in Yugoslavia until the appearance of SPM in Slovenia in early-80ies. All initiatives were absorbed by existing institutions; i.e. The Official League for Peace was a completely useless interlocutor and severely criticised during the mature stage of the SPM. Viewed from todays' perspective, the efficiency of the peace movement depended on its maturity at the time prior to the crisis - we were simply too late!
The early 1980ies have brought new opening for initiatives from bellow in Slovenia; the Socialist Youth Organisation (RKZSMS) became a nest of some outstandingly brave and open-minded individuals33 who conceptualised an open, pluralistic public arena within the framework of the formal institutional fabric, and complemented a set of independent editorials (i.e. Mladina, Nova revija, Students radio etc.). In 1983 the working group for Peace Movement began its outreach activities, started publishing its own bulletin in Slovenian and in English34 language and endorsed radical issues as for example the right to conscientious objection. While the new-age and subculture movement inspired citizens, the RKZSMS leadership facilitated the activities of diverse individuals who would - by the end of 80ies- become the protagonists of the Slovenian social movements. These activists were recruited
32	Throughout years, the SPM speakers tried to present our analysis of the Yugoslav reality to international interlocutors, in too many cases without a major success; Yugoslavia figured (particularly within the left political intellectual circles) as an outstandingly positive experiment, and everyone wanted to maintain this dream/illusion.
33	Amongst them, the outstanding role was played by Ignac Krivec and Ingrid Bakše. They facilitated the establishment of so called "working groups" for particular trend themes, i.e. new age spirituality & theosophy, ecology, peace, feminism, they opened room for gay&lesbian, youth subculture activities and systematically challenged the regime.
34	The Slovenian peace movement continuously and without interruption published independent information in English (sometimes also in French and German or Italian languages) from 1984 (known as Information Bulletin of the Peace Movement, later transformed to the widely distributed Independent Voices from Slovenia) till 1994 when the volumes were known under the brand name The Intruder. At its best, the SPM bulletin was issued 4-5 times per year and was distributed to more than 500 addresses worldwide, including research institutions, media, NGOs, political parties etc. See also footnote 58.
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from a variety of settings: they were academics, experts working in different professions, war veterans, representatives of youth subcultures as well as employees in the Youth Organisation administration. A core group amounted to around 15 individuals, both men and women of different ages.
It is not the purpose of this paper to trace the roots of Slovenian Peace Movement. Numerous authors repeat, that social movements in Slovenia were incubated by youth subcultural movements, or even by punk subculture of the early 80is. In my personal view, such hypothesis has as much ground as an alternative hypothesis, claiming, that social movements in Slovenia were incubated by the new age spiritual movement. Early 80'ies in Slovenia offered fertile ground for plural, diverse, decentralised initiatives. Most of them found transitional home, an incubator-kind-of environment under the official Youth Organisational umbrella. I would claim that the Youth organisation leadership of that time had a role of facilitator as much as new-age and sub-culture movement had a role of inspiration for diverse individuals, who -later on - figured as lead protagonists of the social movements.
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The history of the war-prevention activities
A large part of the SPM archives was lost over time, however, a couple of individuals35 have kept archives until the time has come in 2011 to reestablish the archive while the Peace institute decided to commemorate the 20 years anniversary. 80ies and early 90ies were pre-internet times; the main technology used was fax and faxmodems. Most of the material sent and received on this media, and not copied, vanished with time. In early 90ies, the Green Net and the APC, the Association for Progressive Communications played an important role for the region enabling the birth of legendary ZaMir
network36.
By 1988, democratic developments and particularly the activities of the peace movement in Slovenia were labelled 'counter-revolutionary'. The army, backed by the Federal Presidency, elaborated a plan for an armed intervention aimed at cracking down on the democratic counter-revolution. The worst was averted, however the YA staged a show trial in Ljubljana, in the summer of 1988.37 The charge involved the betrayal of military secrets by an officer in the YA to Slovenian journalists. It was later revealed that these secrets involved details of unconstitutional actions that the army planned to take regarding Slovenia. The case abounded in illegal and anti-constitutional practices, and was clearly intended to provoke the local Slovenian population and resulted in a nationwide mobilization in 1988; the peace movement engaged fully within the early stage local Slovene democratic and human rights movement and shaped its identity with a flavour of the values of nonviolent struggle.
35	Special thanks to Nace Kalin, who kept dozens of archive boxes patiently in his house for 20 years, some documents of great value were revealed thanks to this discovery.
36	We have created a first Zamir node in Ljubljana and with an enormous effort of Eric Bachman and with a grand support of international movement, the Zamir grew all-over the region. I served as a node - in its early beginning - for the APC where we gained enormous moral and operational support, amongst other by Amailia Souza and the IGC (the Institute of global communications).
37	The Committee for the Protection of Human Rights [Odbor za varstvo človekovih pravic] of four defendants was established immediately after three civilians, Janez Janša, David Tasič and Franci Zavrl and one military officer, Ivan Borštner, were arrested in Ljubljana on 31 May 1988; the Committee is referred to as the OVČP JBTZ. The trial against the defendants was held in a military court in Ljubljana in Serbian; both facts - civilians tried at a military court and the lack of respect for the Slovenian language as the official language in Slovenia, represented a violation of the Slovenian and federal constitutions. These events have been central to the Slovenian Spring process. See: <http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/>. See also: Janez Janša, Sedem let pozneje, (Ljubljana: Karantanja, 1995). See also footnotes 8, 92 and 94.
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"If you want peace, prepare for peace"; such was a title of a conceptual paper of the Movement for the culture of peace and Nonviolence38 at the peak of its pre-war endeavour, published shortly before the inauguration of the Peace institute of Ljubljana39. The document shapes the comprehensive alternative security concept for Slovenia40 bringing social cohesion and nonviolent conflict resolution to the centre of gravity of proposed concept. The Slovenian peace movement thus contributed to the creation of a sovereign, autonomous reflection of Slovenian Security concept.41 In fact, as seen from todays perspective, the race with time corresponded to the escalation of conflict in the region. The SPM proposed a well-defined process of research and moderated dialogue between all relevant actors in all republics of former Yugoslavia. We shall recall, that all republics did undergo first democratic elections in the period from April 1990 (Slovenia) till December same year. This was a key time to propose and govern a Peace Dialogue under the auspice of international multilateral institutions such as CSCE or UN. Let us underline, that democratic election in particular republics was a constitutional right and duty of all republics.42 We have envisaged an in-depth analysis of
38	SPM was registered as a legal entity named Movement for the culture of peace and Nonviolence (Gibanje za kulturo miru in nenasilja) in June 1990 under the law prepared for political organisations prior to the first democratic elections. This was immediately after a part of SPM joined a political list of Independent Social Movements which actually did propose candidates during the first democratic elections in 1990, but failed to enter the parliament. Marko Hren was a head candidate of this independent list. Being registered as a legal political organisation, the SPM ceased acting under the umbrella of Youth organisation.
39	Hren and Kalin 1991. Document Si vis pacem para pacem is dated on May 6 1991 and was undersigned by Ignac Kalin and Marko Hren who proposed it as a draft to be discussed within the Presidency of Slovenia. The role of the SPM within the approach of the Presidency of Slovenia was later evaluated by the former Presidency member Dušan Plut; Dvajset let pozneje- med vojno in mirom/ Twenty years after - between war and peace, Dušen Plut, Ljubljana, Delo 2011.
40	The Concept was titled: An Active Global Peace & Security Concept.
41	This represented a structural follow-up to a long lasting campaign of the promotion of the culture of nonviolence in all domains of public life - from the kinder garden to diplomacy. The idea to constitute a Peace research institute found itself in a core of the plans to implement the proposed concept. The proposed role of the institute was central for the process of the demilitarization of Yugoslav society and in first place, the Institute was proposed to be instrumental for the process of the peaceful disintegration of the federal Yugoslavia. In such a way, enormous expectations were projected into the creation of Peace Institute; large quantities of primary documents held in private archives witness the potency, the intensity and the extensive ambition of the pacifist movement in the period from the first proposal for the constitution of the institute in June 1990 till its inauguration a year later in June 1991.
42	Major part of international public opinion makers and politicians were not aware of the level of autonomy of republics in former Yugoslavia - this was relatively high, involving a complete sovereignty over some parts (education, culture, police, etc) and limited under the other (customs, fiscal, parts of a three-fold military system were under the authority
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the state-of the art of social, economic and political realities in all individual republics. It is important to remember at this point, that the federal institutions were collapsing rapidly at the same time when the elections and new governments on the level of separate republics were implemented. The Peace institute in Ljubljana would, with a help of renowned international conflict resolution experts43, identify potential conflict areas, and then facilitate the process of negotiations and dialogue. From 1987 onwards, the SPM consistently proposed the internationalization of the Yugoslav conflict and we have intensified the proposals for international intervention into the conflict in 1990. The movement itself had, with its activities, performed the internation-alisation of the conflict in Yugoslavia. The SPM cultivated high and realistic expectations concerning the support of-that-time Slovenian Authorities, the Executive Council of the Slovenian Assembly (ECSA), latter referred as Slovenian Government44. There were relatively well established communication channels45 between the SPM activists and the ECSA as well as with the Slovenian Presidency. Also, the public opinion in Slovenia was - in the period of independence struggle - strongly in favour of the alternatives to a militarised society of that time.46 The support for the SPM project for demilita-
of the republics and only the federal army formed of conscripts and professionals, was subordinated to the federal authorities).
43	This was reflected in the International Scientific Board as nominated at the inauguration of the Peace Institute; its members were Brian Martin, University of Wollongong, Australia, Arno Truger, Institut fur Friedensforschung, Austria, Peter Bruck, University of Salzburg, Austria, Jean-Marie Muller, Institut de recherche sur resolution nonviolents des conflits, France, Michael Randle, Dpt. of Peace Studies, University Bradford, Great Britain, Ferenc Miszlivetz, researcher, Hungary, Antonio Papisca, University of Padua, Italy, Johan Galtung, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway, Juan Gutierez, Insti-tutet Gernika, Euskadi, Spain, Lyne Jones, Myfanwy, researcher, Great Britain, Andreas Gross, Institut fur direkte Demokratie, Switzerland, Gene Sharp, Albert Einstein Institute, Boston, ZDA, Dietrich Fischer, Exploratory project on the conditions of peace, US, Danilo Turk, Faculty of Law, Anton Grizold, Faculty for social sciences, University of Ljubljana, Radmila Nakarada and Sonja Licht, Institut for European Studies, Belgrade, Serbija, Zdravko Grebo, Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Silva Mežnarič, University of Zagreb, Croatia. In addition, a partnership was agreed with Julio Quan, UN Peace University in Costarica, Alberto L'Abate, University of Florence, Piotr Ogrodzinski, East European Research Group, Poland, and Peter Wallensteen, Peace and conflict research, Uppsala University, Sweden.
44	Even the program of the newly established Slovenian government dated June 27 1990 included utopian items like »... the government will support studies and other peace activities which will contribute to the establishment of a security concept that will not be based on military« (Hren, 1991).
45	An important share of the cabinet members including the Prime Minister Lojze Peterle, were -together with the SPM representatives, former colleagues and members of the boards or co-signatories of pre-elections independent oppositional formations; such as collegium of the CPHR JBTZ etc. Therefore, the communication channels were in principle, at least at the beginning, open. See also footnotes 8,37 and 93.
46	This was reflected in public opinion pools and materialised in a creation of innovative political structures, i.e. The Parlamentarian Commission for Peace Politics under the
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rised Slovenia (Slovenia as a zone without an army) was outstanding and reached its peak in 1990 when we proposed a referendum on Demilitarisation of Slovenia47. The public opinion pools48 as well as the number of declarations signed under the title "The Peace Declaration" have manifested the results of a long-lasting activities to create peace culture. By June 1990, the Slovenian Government was presented a first outline for the creation of Peace Institute and for the launch of the Peace Conferences for Balkans49. The correspondence witnesses a strong line of arguments of the SPM concerning the need of international multilateral framework to conflict resolution. SPM argued, that Slovenia has a moral duty to lead this process, since Slovenia was known for years as an entity striving for human rights and basic democratic values, respect for the rule of law and of legal procedures, as well as for nonviolent resistance.50
The SPM campaign for Demilitarisation of Slovenia gained an extensive support of both, political actors as well as civil society and the SPM was provided optimistic grounds for ambitious action despite of the fact, that the remainders of federal authorities (including the YA) showed no positive response to the emerging reality. The SPM managed to build a solid institutional environment for its proposals; the newly elected parliament has accepted the proposal of SPM and nominated a special Commission for Peace Poli-
Slovenan Parliament, presided by MP member Viktoria Potočnik. The Presidency of Slovenia was also very active, particularly its member dr. Dušan Plut one of leading representatives of Slovenian Greens.
47	The Slovenia without an army initiative was for the first time promoted by the SPM at the Youth Organisation congress in Portoroz, held on November 3rd 1989. The goal was clear: to create a Peace, fully demilitarised zone on the territory of Slovenia. On November 15 the initiative was formally delivered to all political parties of that time and to the international community. On March 28th 1990 all political organisation that joined the campaign performed a first joint press conference under the title »Slovenia Abolishes the Military«; this was promoted as a non-party initiative and was undersigned by: Tomaž Mastnak on behalf of The Movement for the culture of peace and nonviolence, Marko Hren, Vlasta Jalušič, Zoja Skušek on behalf of the Independent list of Social Movements, Janez Janša on behalf of the Slovene Democratic Party, Peter Jamnikar on behalf of the Slovenan Greens and Jožef Školč, Jaša Zlobec and Janez Sodržnik on behalf of the Liberal Democratic Party.
48	The public opinion pools in 1990 leave no doubt: for example, the research executed by the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana in early 1991 indicates that 53% of the population of Slovenia would abolish Yugoslav Army, concerning the question on demilitarization concept for Slovenia, 38.3% expressed themselves clearly in favour of the demilitarisation concept for Slovenia, 29.8% would support the establishment of Slovenian Army and others remained undeclared.
49	The Slovenian Parliament and the first democratic government were inaugurated in second part of May 1990, immediately following first democratic elections held in April 1990.
50	Marko Hren's letter to Lojze Peterle (Hren, 2011) dated June 12th 1990 witness that there was a number of meetings and exchanges made between the SPM and the government of Slovenia to establish the Peace Institute as a national institution.
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tics, presided by the liberal member of the parliament Viktoria Potočnik. A speaker of SPM was a member of consultancy body of the President of the Republic of Slovenia for the defence. As early as in July 1990, the SPM formally proposed to nominate an experts body to prepare the consultation process for conflict resolution and demilitarisation to the Presidency of Slovenia. This proposal involved the creation of the framework for dialogue with the existing and newly elected representatives in all republics of former Yugoslavia as well as the options for the umbrella multilateral environment for such process and for the final Peace Conference for the dissolution of former Yugoslavia. The SPM envisaged that the CSCE would be the most convenient umbrella (a CSCE conference in Paris, planned for October 1990 deemed to be the right timing to raise the issue). SPM also suggested that UN and European Community institutional capacities shall be engaged synchronously. The proposals of the SPM, both, for the demilitarisation of Slovenia and for the nonviolent conflict resolution in Yugoslavia, together with the proposal to establish the Peace Institute, were formally discussed and formally supported for the first time at the Council for the social defence at the Presidency of Slovenia.51 During the summer of 1990, the SPM has compiled and promoted the cluster of its proposals in a conceptual paper titled Slovenian Peace Option.52 This document was proposed to become adopted as a Slovenian official diplomatic proposal. But in the fall of 1990 it became gradually evident, that the Slovene Government got preoccupied with other scenarios, based on information proving conspiracy preparations of YA to disarm troops in Slovenia that were legally and constitutionally under the sovereign authority of Slovenian headquarters.53 Viewing events from todays' perspective it is evident, that the Slovenian government assumed that the probability of military intervention of Yugoslav authorities instrumented by YA was too high and that it had to prepare for an armed confrontation; thus a legal, constitu-
51	The Council for Defence of the Slovenian Presidency discussed the proposal prepared by its member, Marko Hren on its session held on July 13th 1990. The proposal was promoted as a preparatory phase for the negotiations with the federation (Hren, 2011). The formal minutes of the session of this body clearly indicate, that the Slovenian executive authorities shall »provide sufficient funding for the establishment and the program of the Peace institute«.
52	Document entitled »Slovene Peace Option« appears in minutes of the coordination of ministers of the Slovene Government as early as on September 24th 1990, while on October 1st 1990, it was formally delivered to the Government and to the Presidency of Slovenia as well as to the Slovenian parliament. As a first step, we proposed a study on the analysis of the state of the art (economic, political, demographic) in former Yugoslav Republics, identification of conflicts and early stage conflict management.
53	The armed defence strategy, elaborated by Slovene general Tone Krkovič in 1990, is under-researched, however, well documented . See for example a recent volume by Tone Krkovič, Veleizdaja Slovenija - Razorožitev teritorialne obrambe RS, May 1990 / Grand Betrayal of Slovenia - the disarmament of the Slovenian territorial defence troops in May 1990, Založba Nova obzorja, Ljubljana, 2011.
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tional and formal, however managed in clandestine, manoeuvre structure of territorial defence was getting formed.
The formal negotiators of Slovenian government seemingly understood, that there was too little room for dialogue with Yugoslav authorities and little support of international, multilateral institutions, to put a firm bet on negotiation process. The government accordingly only supported financially some of the proposed research of the Peace Institute, while the Slovenian Peace Option project remained without funding - PI suggested 70.000 USD initial funding to bring newly elected leaderships of separate republics into a negotiable process and at the next stage implement the process under multilateral umbrella. The support for the Slovenian Peace option was expressed also by the Commission for peace politics at the Assembly, particularly in view of the proposed internationalisation of the conflict. We found ourselves in situation, when the Presidency and the Assembly in Slovenia agreed with proposed scenario of the peace process, and suggested government to fund it.54 In October 1990 the Presidency of Slovenia followed the proposal of the SPM and hosted a meeting with our key proposed expert, dr. Julio Quan, director of the program on Conflict resolution at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica.55 It is evident from the correspondence of SPM of that epoch that an enormous effort was invested into a realisation of Peace Conferences for Former Yugoslav territory in the second part of 1990,56 and the SPM was realistically counting on a considerable amount of support from Slovenian diplomats for the Slovenian Peace Option as proposed by SPM. The Presidency of Slovenia summarised the proposal underlining that "nonviolent conflict resolution was the only rational path leading away from the crisis".57
SPM kept publishing its information bulletin in English regularly. In 1990 it was known as an Independent Voices from Slovenia and the SPM invited all political parties and organisations in Slovenia, to contribute to the paper and for some years, this was informally, but de-facto, the only representative information of the Slovenian spring, regularly published. The proposed Slovenian Peace Option has inspired SPM to strengthen the efforts for internationalisation of the evolving conflicts on one side and on the other side, to expand the constituency of the Independent Voices in order to arrive
54	Minutes of the 2nd session of the Commission for Peace Politics of the Slovenian Parliament dated October 24th 1990 (Hren, 2011).
55	The visit of Dr. Julio Quan was prepared by the SPM, a formal invitation was granted by president Milan Kučan and dr. Quan arrived to Slovenia on November 11th 1990.
56	Presidency of Slovenia discussed the proposals on November 6th 1990 discussed the questions of internationalisation of the conflicts and in this respect the proposal of the SPM to initiate a round table on Yugoslav crisis at the pending CSCE meeting in Paris (November 1990).
57	A letter of president Kučan to the president of the Slovenian Government Lojze Peterle dated November 7 1990 (Hren 2011).
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to a coherent and consensual international performance by domestic opposi-tional political actors. 58 At that time the SPM served as a focal point for the coordination of external policy divisions of emergent political groups in Slovenia, simultaneously promoting Slovenian Sovereign rights for self-determination, Human Rights agenda Yugoslav-wide, an Antimilitarist Analysis of pending crisis, pacifist responses to the crisis including demilitarisation and diplomatic proposals embedded in the document the "Slovenian Peace option". Despite of the relatively strong and widespread support to SPM proposals in Slovenia, the SPM had to establish the Peace Institute entirely on its own - early in 1991 the decision was made by SPM board, to establish the Peace Institute as an NGO and not as a public research institute as was originally planned. At the same time the SPM prepared and promoted a revised version of the Civilian Based Security concept titled »Si vis pacem para pacem«. The late 1990 and early 1991 represent a culmination of the activities of the SPM; in collaboration with majority of political parties of that-time Slovenia, and in collaboration with other NGOs as well as with a number of media outlets,59 the SPM collected signatures nationwide in support of Declaration for Peace60, a short but comprehensive policy paper including all major priorities for Slovenia of the time: the right for self-determination, the support for independence struggle, the need to resist the federal authorities and particularly the federal army, the determination towards the demilitarisation of Slovenia and the dedication to the peace and nonviolent conflict resolution processes for the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
At its origin, the Declaration for Peace was promoted and co-signed as a non-party, consensual policy paper, but gradually, the representatives of left wing parties have contributed larger share of public promotion which escalated after the Slovenian President Milan Kučan joint his signature. The SPM was not sufficiently aware of the depth of political divisions in Slovenia and failed to understand, that the amount of publicly known figures signing the
58	Only small number of correspondences survived to prove this effort: amongst other, Peter Jambrek, an outspoken Slovenian intellectual, member of Social democratic party, answered the SPM initiative with his letter from November 1990 (reproduced in Hren, 2011) and declared that he would recommend his party (SDS) to fully support the Slovenia without an army initiative as a non-party initiative of all political actors in Slovenia.
59	The collection of signatures on the ground was co-organised and managed by representatives of diverse political parties, a large volume of archive documentation is available on this activity.
60	A Declaration for Peace was made public on February 7th 1991. The Signatories to the Declaration for Peace expressed their dedication to "Slovenia as sovereign, peaceful country that actively contributes to world peace", they propose a project of demilitarisation of Slovenian industry and the abolition of the military. The Declaration clearly states that "struggle for independence, demilitarisation and building up of peace politics" shall be understood as indivisible, parallel, complementary processes. The declaration even specifies, that for the transition time, the Slovenian territorial Defence (armed Slovenian troops) structures shall provide for armed defence
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declaration from the "left" political block would lead to a destruction of the original SPM strategy to form a consensus on the peace proposals. At the same time the government, formed from predominantly right-wing political parties was preoccupied by the scenarios based on threats from JLA and subsequently realistic assumptions that Slovenia will need to defend itself militarily to preserve its democratic achievements. The proposals for disarmament were in this context labelled as an act of capitulation, an obstacle towards the independency of Slovenia rather than as an alternative path61. This is how the campaign for demilitarisation in-a-way imploded. The Declaration for Peace- due to political polarisation in the country - remained a subject of long-lasting dispute between different political factions in Slovenia.
The SPM was well experienced with the techniques of building social and political consensus and fully aware of the potential of social networks for such campaigns. It will be reported later on in this paper, that it was the SPM together with other independent social movements, that was both initiator and instrumental for the first large "Slovenian Spring" political consensus-making, the widespread signing of the Declaration for the changes of Slovenian constitution in spring 1988, so called Declaration for Democracy62. The network, created around this process later smoothly evolved into the Committee for the protection of human rights (referred to as CPHR JBTZ)63, when four independent individuals were arrested in May 1988. This process was known as a Trial against four defendants in Ljubljana. The broad scope of the SPM had given us wings, to evolve ambitious plans later known as "Slovenia without an Army Initiative" and also enabled the successful gathering of signatures under the Declaration for Peace in 1991.
The Declaration for peace was discredited after the independence was declared, and remained a subject of long-lasting dispute between different political options in Slovenia; some treated it as treason, while the main political supporters of the Declaration for peace remained silent for nearly 20 years. However, before the 20th anniversary of Slovenian independence, during 2010, the Declaration for Peace witnessed political rehabilitation. During the constitutive debate accompanying the foundation of The Association for
61	See for examle http://www.tu-je.si/index.php?id=111 and the footnote 53.
62	See Igor Omerza, The referendum stampede of the New Social Movements in the Constitutional Arena in Hren, 2011, pg 346..353. Omerza analyses the various drafts of this important document, treasured in private archives of Marko Hren. This declaration shaped the consensus of a pluralistic Slovenian civil society and channelled it into a decisive political resistance campaign.
63	These events have been central to the "Slovenian Spring" process as displayed at http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/. The trial is documented extensively at the referred portal, additional information was released during the parliamentary investigation. See also Janša, Janez, Seven Years later /Sedem let pozneje, Karantanja, Ljubljana, 1995. ". See also footnote 95.
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values of Slovenian independence (VSO) in the second half of 2010, an exchange of arguments was convened in a spirit of tolerance and mutual recognition of the values of all efforts leading to independence. The Association VSO endorsed peace initiatives as constitutive part of Slovenian Independence struggle.64 This was followed by a clear declaration of two of former Presidency members, Dušan Plut and Milan Kučan, former Slovenian president, rehabilitating the Declaration for Peace65 in mass media leaving no doubt, that the Declaration has vowed the right messages to Slovenian, Yugoslav and international public, expressing the will of Slovenian people, to transform Yugoslavia in a peaceful, negotiable manner without arms, and respecting the sovereign will and the constitutional rights of nations for independence. Namely four members (out of five) of Slovenian Presidency supported and signed the Declaration for peace in 1990-1991. Since the government of Slovenia of the same period understood this gesture of the presidency as counterproductive and even as a treason, this became a spot for long-term dispute about the role of particular political players during the independence struggle. As a leader of the campaign, I was not sufficiently aware of the political polarisation at the epoch; the fact, that the transitional "left" political wings (Social democrats, Liberal democrats) have - in certain moment -promoted the Declaration for Peace with an outstanding enthusiasm, has produced suspicious reaction of the right coalition in power; this resulted in somehow spontaneous withdrawal of former allies from the campaign66. Some members of at-that-time right wing coalition claim today, that former president Milan Kučan and his political allies consciously aspired to manipulate the Declaration for Peace and to convert it into a strategic tool to surrender Slovenian population to Yugoslav Army and Yugoslav regime. However, no proof has been presented so far and this dispute remains a matter for fur-
64	The Association for values of Slovenian independence (Združenje za vrednote slovenskega osamosvajanja). The initiative for the foundation of ZVSO was promoted by the first prime minister of independent Slovenia, Lojze Peterle, two of his ministers, Janez Janša and Igor Bavčar (former spokesman of the OVČP JBTZ) and the head organiser of the Slovenian armed defence prior to independence, general Tone Krkovič. This group issued an open call to all of those who were active during the period of Slovenian spring. Parts of debates before constitution are published at www.vso.si and in Hren, 2011. The positions of SPM regarding the Slovene independence was made absolutely clear and, is displayed in details in the section on key disputes of SPM with international movement.
65	Kučan, Milan. 2010. The Independence Was not framed in a proper Content, interview published in. Delo, 24. 12. 2010. http://www.delo.si/clanek/133937.
66	The author preserves but one written evidence proving such - entirely ideological argumentation: a letter of one of the leading Rome-Catholic church representatives of the epoch, at that time a president of the Justitia et Pax Commission Anton Stres to Marko Hren, dated February 16th 1991, explaining the reasons for his withdrawal of a signature to the Declaration for Peace; these reasons were not content-wise, but solely political clearly indicating, that the withdrawal of the signature was due to the fact, that the campaign became a tool of left political wing.
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ther research. It shall be made clear at this point, that the initiators and the leaders of the campaign for the demilitarisation of Slovenia had had acted on our own initiative and autonomously; however, if indices or proofs were presented, that particular politicians (i.e. Milan Kučan) tended to subvert the campaign and turn it against the sovereignty of Slovenia, I, as an originator and leader of the campaign call for scrupulous investigation and public confrontation of arguments.
After 20 years, we are at the point where we might be able to value all the processes from 1990-1991 with a positive connotation. A closer view to the text of the Declaration for peace leaves no room for speculation - the declaration endorses all political priorities of that time in Slovenia that harvested a large level of consensus. The symbolic rehabilitation of the Declaration for Peace in 2010 has finally opened space to analyse and discuss the Gandhian (nonviolent) and the David's (Slovenian military troops in relation to Yugoslav army as Goliath) components of Slovenian resistance against the Yugoslav militarised regime.
The inauguration of the Peace institute was scheduled for June 20th 1991 at the Old square in the very centre of Ljubljana. I still recall the joyful, serene, however, sober and troublesome atmosphere at that event. Some days later, the hopes and aspirations of SPM were buried by the military intervention of YA in Slovenia, The ten-days war for independence has started, as a beginning of the militaristic tornado that ferociously devastated Balkans for the next 10 years. Let the reader ponder on the fact, that the participants celebrating the inauguration ritual of the Peace institute at that historic eve, were NOT AWARE of the meetings of diplomats held at the same time in Berlin and in Belgrade.67
Let me conclude the chronology of the activity of the SPM with a reference to consistent set of positions published and promoted by SPM during the military intervention in June 1991, and during the negotiations project known as The Brioni Peace Agreement68, as well as and particularly shortly after, the Slovenian Parliament had to ratify the Peace Agreement which requested a moratorium on activities laid down in a plan for resuming full sovereignty of Slovenian authorities on the territory of the Republic of Slovenia.69 The
67	See footnotes 12 till 19 on the diplomatic missions of James Baker at that epoch.
68	The Peace Agreement known as Brioni Agreement is a document agreed on the Brioni islands in Croatia on July 7th 1991 by representatives of the Republic of Slovenia, Republic of Croatia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the political sponsorship of the European Community. With this document, the SFRY stopped all hostilities on Slovenian territory, thus ending the Slovenian War, whereas Slovenia and Croatia froze independence activities for a period of three months which was latter disputed as a "step-back of Slovenian diplomacy".
69	See Hren, 2011.
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SPM consistently promoted proposals to internationalise the conflict, to manage the conflict with nonviolent conflict resolution institutional processes under multilateral auspice, to respect the legal procedures and constitutional frameworks. SPM advised that parallel political structures in some republics have to be formally consulted and brought into dialogue, in especially in those cases, in which elected authorities had shown no response ,70 The SPM consistently claimed, that not all options for peaceful resolution were exercised and that there was an unused room for internationalisation (this generic term was used repeatedly in SPM position papers to promote proposals for the involvement of multilateral institutions for conflict resolution),71 The SPM called for immediate peace talks under an international umbrella, 72 and insisted, that all diverse, different conflicts in the former Yugoslav regions have to be brought to negotiating table simultaneously.73 The SPM appealed Slovenian parliamentarians to consistently vote for gestures leading to peace and not to confrontation74. Particularly the former was not self - evident at all; many parliamentarians opposed Brioni agreement and disagreed with what they perceived as a step-backwards. This part of the story was not researched; in my personal view, the symbolic victory gained with the final ratification of Brioni Peace Agreement in Slovenian parliament presented a symbolic victory for the culture of peace in Slovenia over the culture of militarism. Sufficient to note at this point, that extensive activities were performed in public during the debate on ratification in the parliament, hundreds of citizens got engaged in a decentralised manner, without umbrella organisation, to lobby parliamentarians and to rise voice of civil society and of the independent public opinion against the war, in a support of peace agreement as agreed by president Kučan on Brioni island.75 The ratification of the Brioni
70	I.e., a Statement of the SPM following the violence in Plitvice, Croatia, on March 31th 1991 (Hren 2011).
71	SPM Statement during the events in Pekre, May 26th 1991, during the conflict between the YA and the conscript center of Slovenian troops occurred; SPM appealed for interna-tionalisation and the call of a Peace Conference as well as to enhance peace-treaties between neighbouring republics. At the same time the SPM called for large scale civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance (Hren 2011).
72	SPM statement on June 23 and on June 27 during the first military confrontations with the Yugoslav Army in Slovenia (Hren, 2011).
73	SPM statement accompanying the Brioni Declaration , early July 1991 (Hren, 2011).
74	SPM statements during the ratification of so called Brioni Agreement prior to July 7th 1991. After I have spent days and nights lobbying parliamentarians to vote for the ratification of The Brioni Peace agreement.. I concluded that there is a high risk that the Slovenian parliament would not ratify it and I made a radical step. I publicly announced that I am emigrating "from the country that is eventually taking a conscious step towards the continuation of war" and left for Austria, where I was kindly hosted by the friend of SPM Werner Wintersteiner. The Slovenian parliament voted to confirm the Agreement from Brioni on July 7th 1991. Fortunately they voted for peace with large majority (189 for, 11 against). I returned to Slovenia immediately.!
75	Kenney (2002, 229) emphasised that Slovenia was in the respect of democratic engagement of pluralistic civil society substantially different that other republics. Kenney, Pa-
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Agreements by the Slovenian parliament can be understood as an impact of the decade long activity of SPM and other social movements, of the Slovenian spring period in 80ies. Viewed from the perspective of comparative studies of nonviolent resistance movements, this events can be taken as an emblematic case of spontaneous massive civil resistance - all this taken in pre-internet, pre-electronic social networking context. The long term results of the SPM activities are manifested in the living structures; The Peace Institute and the Metelkova Cultural Center76 in Ljubljana, together with a dozen of military structures around Slovenia converted for educational and youth tourism activity, recall the heritage of the movement from the 80ies of the previous century and its insistence on conversion of military structures for civilian purposes.
draic. 2002. A Carnival of Revolution, Central Europe 1989. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
76 This project has been documented well, amongst other in two digital volumes (Hren 2008a in 2008b) available at Slovene digital library www.dlib.si. The compilation of the Anthology of Metelkova cultural center, subtitled »how we failed to stop the war«, was catharsis; the general failure preventing the war was compensated by a struggle to succeed to convert the former military headquarters for civilian, cultural, creative purposes (creative cluster).
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Conceptual pillars and action lines of the SPM
We can simplify the program of the SPM by clustering the activities under five pillars with one overall common denominator: the transversal networking domestically and across borders. The five pillars enabled great ambitions in 1990 and provided enough strength to manifest the Metelkova and the Peace Institute plans; the pillars nest in a cluster of values that shall be nourished in collective memory on long term.
I. Ahimsa paramo dharma, the culture of peace and nonviolence
»Slovenia builds its security on foundations of peace politics and the culture of peace and nonviolence.«77
The most refined author of pacifist thought in Slovenia was a poet Jure Detela. He interwove radical nonviolence, ecology and contemporary spirituality not only as his personal stand but also as a political philosophy and social action. He himself exercised the philosophy of radical minority, of which the mission is to refine and consciously defend ethical standards and values of the society. He was in favour of democratic dialogue of such radical minorities with the majority to achieve political relevancy and general acceptance of radical ethical standards.78 His writings witness a great focus also on animal rights. In 1989 Detela contributed essential parts to the conceptual paper for the emergence of a radical pacifist political party; the paper was known as "The Pacifist alliance Manifesto"79, launched to engage pacifist in dialogue and to prepare grounds for the performance of such political group during the first democratic elections. In this document Pacifists envisaged also their participation of such political wing in the government coalition where »the party would enhance and create processes, that contribute to the reduction and annihilation of violence between people and all sensual beings". The members of Pacifist Alliance shall unconditionally abstain from any form of violence, would be vegetarian, would commit themselves to ethical / fair trade and to nonviolent resistance in case of conflict situations. Detela, being ethical purist and refined eloquent speaker, "that uses all his powers to bring values clearly into the consciousness of people" 80 represent a pillar of Slovenian pacifist thought, both with his extensive writings involving deep radical values of nonviolence, and with his rational, realistic political analysis and action. The historical role of Detela was never researched.
77	Article 124. Of the Slovenian Constitution was elaborated and proposed by the Parliamentary Commission for Peace politics in summer 1990.
78	Jure Detela in his letter to Marko Hren, Ljubljana, October 30th 1989 (Hren, 2011 ).
79	Detela, Jure in Hren, Marko. 1989. Program of the Pacifist Alliance, manuscript. Reproduced in Hren, 2011.
80	Ibid.
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But without his inspiration, we could hardly imagine the courage with which Slovenian pacifists promoted for example the peace treaties signed amongst the citizens of Yugoslavia.81
Detela claimed, that ethical values (also concerning animal rights) shall be raised to the level of general political acceptance82. The spirit of Detelas' deep and radical pacifist convictions was later on embodied in the text of Peace Treaties that was proposed and signed by thousands of citizens of all republics of former Yugoslavia.83
A part of the SPM was also close to various new age movements of the epoch. The close link that SPM drew between the concept of nonviolence and the spirituality, is not only evident from the activities in the field of conscientious objection and peace education but also in a later fact, that the representatives of SPM also provided a bridge between the main church in Slovenia and the democratic movement manifested via the Committee for protection of human rights in the case of the trial against four defendants in Ljubljana in 1988. Interreligious dialogue was embedded into the activities of the SPM and it was self-evident for us, that religious, spiritual leaders and followers bear a great responsibility and shall become substantially more active in a pre-conflict times. The concept of nonviolence provided grounds for common language with emerging green groups. It is not at all by chance, that one of the presidents of Slovenia to follow during the mature phase of independency of Slovenia, Janez Drnovšek, incarnated the values of compassion, spirituality and environmental responsibility. Janez Drnovšek was a honourable sponsor of the inauguration of the Peace institute' being a member of the presidency of Federal Yugoslavia at the epoch.
One important project line of SPM within this category was so called "peace education from the Kindergarten until the University". We envisaged the establishment of a Peace University but failed to fulfil this ambition. However, the actions of the movement under the slogan "lets give children a chance" and the promotion of conversion of war toys harvested un-preceded and definitely not expected success in Slovenian society84 - war toys largely
81	Peace treaties were translated to all languages used in former Yugoslavia.
82	Jure Detela in his private letter to Marko Hren, Ljubljana, 30. October 1989 , reproduced in Hren, 2011.
83	The proposal for text of Peace treaties was translated by Slovenian peace movement to all languages used on the territory of former Yugoslavia. The peace treaty text request from all signatories to abstain from any form and any act of violence or intolerance, including the verbal forms (i.e. jokes). The text of the treaty is reproduced in Hren, 2011.
84	Actions are documented in Peace Movement bulletins issued from 1984 to 1987 as well as in countless articles published in Slovene newspapers. The SMG activists organised street stalls and public workshops for war-toys reconversion into creative toys, a "blacklist" of shops promoting military education was created and promoted.
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disappeared from the shelves of Slovenian supermarkets for a while. SPM even managed to enter school curricula with an optional subject "culture of peace and nonviolence", that children could choose as an extra-curricular theme. Some of the SPM members were entitled to lecture in schools occasionally. The Ghandian doctrine of the Power of the Truth ( Satya Graha) and the Jain doctrine of radical nonviolence (Ahimsa paramo dharma) and its social wing ANUVIBHA, provided a deep motivation.85
II. Human dignity, human freedoms, rights and ethics
The above mentioned program of the pacifist alliance expressed the highest dreams about standards and ethics in human fabric and it articulated a platform for coherent set of ethical values. The conflict with existing legal norms was evident. Human rights and freedoms were both, motivation for action as well as the field for reflection on values. It is none of the coincidence, that the earliest issues of internal samizdats of SPM in Slovene language published interviews with pacifists and dissidents from Eastern Europe. The historic slogan "Peace and human rights are indivisible" was completely accommodated within the reflection of SPM. It was therefore obvious that the frontline project of the SPM in the 1980ies arose around the issue of the conscientious objection to military service in Yugoslavia. The members of the religious group of Jehovas witnesses provided an obvious case for SPM »It is simply a matter of preserving the peaceful consciousness.«86. Slobodan Perovic, who entertained as a first Yugoslav attorney acting in a defence of Jehovas witnesses, expressed a high appreciation for the SPM activity, noting that "a couple of contributions published in mainstream media, had gained a larger effect on these legal cases than 40 years of court procedures practices; the theory of law kept a blind eye to this problem until the media had brought it to public".87 And the SPM made it sure that media did exploit the case of conscientious objection; supported by the War resist-ers international (WRI) knowledge base. WRI provided both, somewhat security in terms of international support as well as a framework of international solidarity in terms of campaigning.
Over time, the SPM has extended its HR activities within the East-West Dialogue Network and linked-up closely with pan-European pro-democracy movements; those became a domicile, a sanctuary for the SPM activists who
85	It is not by coincidence, that one of the first activities of the Peace institute (in May 1991) was a planned study visit to Rajahstan that was meant for a large group of domestic scholars and activists. The emerging war and the collapse of the SPM prevented those plans.
86	Jehovas witness in a documentary film »Clandestine games«, directed by Helena Koder, TV Slovenia 1986.
87	Ibid.
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were free to travel extensively east and west and profited largely to this fact. We have embarked monthly to travel either to east European dissident groups (Bulany circle and the Dialogue group in Hungary, Charta 77 in CzechoSlovakia, Wolnosc I pokoy and Solidarity in Polland, East German solidarity groups, etc.). and to western enclaves of solidarity in Paris, London, Brux-elles, Amsterdam and elsewhere. The international activities of the SPM in 1980ies were intense and movement got ready to offer a platform for international solidarity activities during the campaign for protection of human rights of four defendants during the military trial in 1988. The SPM coordinated international activities of the Committee for the protection of human rights CPHR JBTZ.88 The culture of expressing solidarity with movements abroad was an important characteristic of Slovenian movement, we were campaigning and petitioning regularly, which is an indicator of strong dedication to Human rights and to dialogue as such - this differentiated Slovenia from other republics in Yugoslavia!
III. The Rule of Law, Legal State, Constitutionality
The fact, that Slovenia has fought its sovereignty and independence through a completely and consistently legal, constitutional process, is far from being a coincidence. Great majority of international consultants and experts were not at all aware of constitutional outline of Yugoslav federation, let alone of the level of sovereignty of separate republics. The formation of Slovenian state followed strictly the constitutional steps. Even the military confrontation in June 1990 had no characteristic of a civil war - the armed confrontations were exercised by members of legal troops under Slovenian authorities (police and military) and legal (however far from legitimate) troops of Yugoslav army. In the case of Slovenia, the 10 days defence war was a confrontation between absolutely legal forces, between two states, thus. The president of Slovenian parliament, France Bučar, consistently monitored the constitutionality of the process. This was a decisive set of procedures for the moment when the international community had to judge whether or not to recognize Slovenia as a new state.
The "Rule of Law" and the "Legal State" concepts had roots in the movement of the 1980ies. The human rights campaigns and the projects for demilitarization were referred strictly to constitutional and legal instruments, conventions and standards, such as to UN and Council of Europe acquis of international law. The SPM addressed its proposals and demands to all relevant institutions, both, federal and republic; in this terms, the SPM was strictly legalistic. The format of documents was normally an "open letter" or a public declaration published in a media, since - when addressed only to the address of the recipient, the letters would normally remain unanswered.
88 See the Slovenian spring portal www.slovenskapomlad.si. See also footnotes 58 and 95.
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The SPM itself constantly developed institutionally (its institutional fabric and its legal shell) according to the situation in the environment.89 In 1990 the SPM had established its own infrastructure, known as a Center for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence (CCPN) in Ljubljana. This center became a domicile of many emerging social movements, and provided offices for the Peace institute and for the Network for the conversion of Metelkova Military Barracks for civilian purposes at its early incubating stage. The management of the Center for the culture of Peace and Nonviolence inspired the SPM to attain an independent legal form and we selected a legal framework established for political associations emerging during elections campaign in 1990; the SPM took form of a political association in June 1990; a Movement for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence was established as an independent political association. This legal entity served as a constitutive legal subject for both, the Peace institute and the Network for Metelkova which have to be understood as direct institutional successors of the SPM. SPM was therefore flexible and dynamic concerning its legal appearance, but, consistently insisted on acting legally, using institutional channels, however, always radical in its proposals and demands. The SPM consistently performed dialogue with all parties involved within our diverse campaigns. Even the cessation of activities of the SPM and the closure of institutions, was performed with legal acts and involving legitimate procedures within
90
existing institutions.
The activists of SPM were in the center of gravity of the historic Slovenian Declaration with an appeal for the referendum for constitutional changes in March 1989 ; this action, incubated and instrumentally coordinated by SPM, was a decisive act leading to internal Slovenian oppositional groups coherency, and to the creation of operative political informal network, which, shortly after, spontaneously and smoothly evolved into the national-wide, cross-ideological campaign referred to as CPHR JBTZ. The draft of declaration for constitutional changes was prepared by the protagonists of the peace movement and was entitled "For Democracy"; social movements wanted to
89	Until 1990 the SPM took form under the umbrella of the Socialist youth organisation and also as a so called People for Peace Culture within the Students cultural center. During the elections campaign in 1990 a part of the SPM had established an independent list of Social Movements. Also the positions of radical pacifist wing, represented in co-writings of Jure Detela, are emblematic for the point raised here; see also footnotes 78 and 82.
90	In September 1992 the SPM acknowledged the facts, that many of its activities were accomplished successfully, some got institutional umbrella under newly established institutions and some activities caused conflicts within the constitutive members of the SPM. The epilogue of the SPM itself witnesses the dedication of the movement to the Rule of Law.
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leave no doubt - our focus was pluralism of interests, basic democracy and human rights.91
IV. Civil disobedience and the power of the people
In the period from 1988 till 1991 the SPM called on the public to exercise civil disobedience and to use the tactics of nonviolent resistance, including strikes and boycotts. SPM was inspired by Gandhian and other more contemporary nonviolent resistance doctrines. The SPM has regularly published appeals concerning the rights and duties of public servants and uniformed troops members (police, army ...) while on duty.92 The paradigm of nonviolent civil resistance was a novelty for the intelligence services of the communist regime and they have closely followed all of our actions. SPM published a series of articles on this topic in newspapers and by April 1989 I have compiled a conceptual paper titled "Civilian disobedience and nonviolent resistance". This paper was ready for publication and distribution at the offices of MikroAda when some indications appeared that the authorities were preparing the arrestment of protagonists of the Slovenian democratic movement. Janez Janša and Marko Hren treasured large number of copies in their drawers of Mikroada Office.93 »When it is evident that the YA is preparing for a warfare against civil population in clandestine, and secretly, even in a secrecy concerning the Communist Party, then it is obvious, that the civil society has to perform its preparatory activities publicly and openly". This was a core of our call to civil disobedience, and at the same time we insisted at internationalisation of the pending conflict. These activities of the SPM represented a direct threat to CP and YA. Analysis of the so called "attacks
91	See also footnote 62.
92	In April 1989 a leaflet recalling the Nuremberg principles of international law was printed in large numbers, to remind repressive institutions and their personnel, to act according to their conscience and not according to the orders of hierarchies of the regime. Some of us would always keep some copies of the leaflet with us and handed it out at all occasions of confrontation with the agents of the regime - and such opportunities were many.
93	Early 1988, the Intelligent services have repeatedly and invisibly entered and researched the offices of the SME Mikroada, where Janša and Hren were employed. During the investigation on May 31st when Janša was arrested, they confiscated a number of documents; the cited document was first on the list of confiscated material. It is also evident from the chronology of operations of the intelligent services (made public during the parliamentary investigation) that the communist party headquarters were primarily informed about the discovery of the document, calling population to civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance. This proofs, that the concept of nonviolent resistance represented a major threat to the regime. ". See also footnote 8.
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against YA"94 as well as the analysis of the activities of the intelligent services prove, that the activities of the SPM were on the top of the list of surveillance95 and attention of YA and the political elites in power, therefore, of the headquarters of the Yugoslav regime.
Kranjec, an agent of the intelligence agency, claimed "I admit that the YA understood the peace movement as its main threat In Slovenia in the whole period between 1983 and 1989. It is not clear to me why the leader of the peace movement escaped to US during the arrests in Mikroada in May 1988" . Kranjec continues: "The strategic influence of the SPM was displayed during the events that followed arrest of the four and the trial at military court itself. They have manipulated almost the whole republic leadership with their idea of demilitarisation. I will put it this way: if they (SPM) acted on their own, then, they were genii. However, the historians shall find out who was behind the SPM, who their true mentors were!" I can also claim - as a "subject of direct surveillance" - that there was absolutely no outside nor inside pressure or influence on the activities of SPM. Our action was autonomous; our political identity was matured within the movement. The fact, that our movement was autonomous, had puzzled both, local Slovenian politicians, as well as the variety of intelligent services on the ground; "as objects of direct surveillance", we were perceived by ALL as agents of "the opposite party". Only years later, I discover the truth behind the gradual failure of Slovenian Peace Movement; we were gradually loosing the support of political parties simply because ALL politicians thought, that our activities are influenced by "the other part of political spectrum". This is actually a proof, that we belonged to none of political wings - they all gradually flew away, being convinced that - by not-belonging to them, we belong to someone-else. At the end, I remained alone, as Havel declared during one meetings in Prague in Prague "it is inherited to a dissident - to primarily feel alone and isolated".
94	Igor Žagar and Peter Tancig, 1989. »Računalniška analiza napadov na JLA/ Computer Analysis of the articles criticising the YA«. Ljubljana, Časopis za kritiko znanosti, no. 119120/1989
95	Kranjec, 1998. Kranjec reveals that the intelligent services in Slovenia directly reported the counter intelligence only about the activities of the "object of direct surveillance" named Hren Stanislav Marko under the classified number HSM 098600470. According to the information available, they never discovered the true reasons why I left for US immediately prior to the historic events when the intelligence services researched my enterprise Mikro Ada and arrested 4 future defendants, thus leading to the campaign known as CPHR JBTZ. ". See also footnote 63. Marjan Kranjec in The role and the impact of counter-intelligent services of the JLA Borec, št. 567-569/1998 (Ljubljana: Borec, 1998).
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V. Cross border solidarity and international activities of SPM
The widespread activity of social movements within the processes of transnational solidarity, this great enabler of the fall of iron curtain, remain under researched. This is particularly true when we assess the proportion of activity targeting the transnational focus in relation to any other activity; it is clear that the SPM invested significantly in international solidarity networking. This was done somehow spontaneously, as we felt, that we belong to a global movement and we found our domicile, our intellectual and spiritual base within the trans-border movement. At the same level of belonging, we functioned at the regional level with our Alpe-Adria cross-border cooperation with Italian and Austrian friends, in solidarity campaigns in Bask regions, on anti-nuclear rallies in Belgium, Germany, France or in Great Britain and around the globe. The added value of this investment showed its effects at the peak of the dissolution of Yugoslavia when the SPM played a pioneering role for internationalisation of the conflict.96 The fact, that it was SPM that initiated the systematic coordination of Slovenian oppositional political organisations in 1989 also speaks by itself. The aim of SMG was to provide the Slovenian Spring protagonists with an independent media outlet that would target international recipients. The SPM somewhat assisted the growth of the foundations of the Slovenian external relations even before the independent political landscape came into place.97 The November 1989 issue of Independent Voices (year V, no. 3,) was dedicated to the first democratic elections and even included a translation of a joint declaration of a majority of new political parties agreeing on common principles for the pending elections.98 The cooperation with the Croatian movement seemed self-evident and was carried out spontaneously and smoothly, beginning with cooperation with SVARUN movement and the Green action [Zelena akcija] in mid 80ies.99
96	The chronological facts speak for themselves: a number of events organised by the SPM from 1984 onwards, a number of issues of independent information bulletins in English published from 1985 till 1993 consistently and without interruption. It is a fact that SPM participated actively and regularly in the most potent European civic networks of the epoch; the European Nuclear Disarmament, East-West Network and the Helsinki Citizens Assembly and it maintained extensive links with engaged environments in Europe and globally.
97	The SPM initiated and called first coordination meetings of all oppositional parties on the topic of coordinated foreign policy of Slovenia; the meetings were held already in November 1989. Participants discussed also the Slovenia without an army initiative (Hren, 2011). See also footnotes 34 and 58.
98	The editors of the Independent Voices clearly offered to the use the SPM communication platform oppositional political parties as a vehicle for internationalisation of Slovenian oppositional thought (Hren 1989b).
99	The smooth cooperation manifested during the constitutive moment of the peace movement in Croatia, at the meeting in Kumrovec, Croatia, on August 22.-24 when the Committe for Antiwar Campaign was formed and the strategy for action elaborated. The minutes of this meeting are reproduced in Hren, 2011.
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Since the social science and even the Peace institute itself, did not provide for an in depth research of the activities of the SPM, we can hardly assess the real impact of the SPM.100
100 The initiative of the Croatian peace research with the present book could provide for a good reason to re-start the evaluation of the domestic and international movement, In my view, the international movement would gain new motivation and new reassurance concerning the strength of civil resistance.
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Key conceptual disputes between the SPM and the international movement
I. Ethnic strife thesis versus sober analysis / Civil War versus Military Aggression
"There is a little civil war in Balkans; the rebellion nation of Slovenians is fighting federal authorities for its independence!" This breaking news from one of the global channels from June 1991 still echoes in my memory. It is emblematic, reflecting the miss-understanding of the state of the situation in Yugoslavia in 1991. The "ethnic/nationalists strife thesis" was ideological, tailor made to European left, simplistic, biased and biasing. It contributed decisively to a biased hypothesis, that what was happening in Yugoslavia was civil wars enhanced by groups that were non-constitutional, armed and ethnically demarcated.
The thesis that the Yugoslav conflicts were ethnic in nature, (referred as "ethnic/nationalists strife thesis101") was fabricated by official regime and supported by intellectuals in Belgrade and thereafter promoted widely. It
101 This thesis was promoted mostly by the Belgrade regime and its intellectuals as well as by many independent intelectuals. It involved at the same level of discourse the phenomena popularised as "Albanian irredentists", "Bosnian fundamentalism", "Croatian fascism", "Slovenian separatism" and similar. See for example Jelena Vasiljevic, Citizenship and belonging in Serbia: in the crossfire of changing, page 11(last accessed at www.law.ed.ac.uk/.../327_)... where the author summarises "...that in the rhetoric of Serbian leadership and state-controlled media nationalism became a feature of others/enemies (»separatist« Slovenians, »irredentist« Albanians, »fascist« Croats or »fundamentalist« Muslims)«. Such thesis was widely reproduced; prof. James Patras claims that " Most European and US progressives supported the following: US-backed Bosnian fundamentalists, Croatian neo-fascists and Kosova-Albanian terrorists, leading to ethnic cleansing and the conversion of their once sovereign states into US military bases, client regimes and economic basket cases - totally destroying the multinational Yugoslavian welfare state.«; James Patras in Separatism and Empire Building in the 21st Century, Global	Research,	June	8,	2008,	accessed	at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9246. This quote illustrates the "success" of the artificially fabricated and extensively promoted thesis. Later the same "lobby" got involved in one-sided conflict interpretations when sanctions against Serbia were declared. Even the international peace researchers community, gathering in Kyoto, Japan, in summer 1993 almost adopted a clearly one-sided declaration "Against Sanctions Against Serbia" as proposed by the Serbian participant Radmila Nakarada; vigil presence of Theodor Herman and myself prevented such a misfortunate action which — during the siege of Sarajevo, would have completely ignored the warfare in Bosnia and Herzegovina).
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involved at the same level of discourse the so called "Albanian irredentists, Bosnian fundamentalism, Croatian fascism and Slovenian separatism."102
The analysis of Slovenian peace movement was consistently deriving from constitutional set-up of Yugoslavia, the constitutional rights for self-determination and from human rights agenda. We directed our criticism to Yugoslav institutions, primarily to YA103, we analysed the role of Yugoslav army- Our analysis of conflict was antimilitaristic: the YA and Great Serbia scenario, the two militaristic interests have merged into an explosive mixture. We therefore presented an entirely different view to the conflict in comparison to the predominant "leftist discourse" which was biased by ideologies of "dangerous ethnic identities".
In fact, ethnic strife was only one element of the crisis and arised from more complex structural differences, in particular conflicts between incompatible political systems. With respect to Slovenia, the underlying problem was clearly a conflict between totalitarianism and democracy. Slovenia's process of democratization, for a long time received little or no support from other parts of Yugoslavia. "The slowly decaying federal structures of the communist dictatorship, militant Serbian communist authorities, and the Yugoslav army, were powerful and uncompromising defenders of the old
n 104
regime .
SPM proclaimed that "Neither a Yugoslav state nor an army of the Yugoslav state currently exist , the federal army is not under civilian control. The war against Slovenia was made possible by a covert military coup in Belgrade." 105
102	A referential Slovenian author on this subject was a peace activist Tomaž Mastnak. He was one of the key authors of the SPM position papers. Recently, he wrote extensively on relations of Europe to the Balkans, see for example his article Barbarians to the Balkans available at http://www.mirovni-institut.si/data/tinymce/Projekti/EE-vklju%C4%8Devanje/tomazmastnak.pdf.
103	"The federal army is one of the parties in conflict and is not impartial. It has substantially contributed to the building up of the conflict and to aggravating it, and it can neither solve it nor stop the bloodshed. It has always been a political and ideological army"; The SPM letter to END conference held in Moscow, August 1991
104	The SPM letter to END conference held in Moscow, August 1991
105	Ibid. The other important thing to understand is that the Federal Army has actually ceased to be a Yugoslav army. At that time Slovenia and Croatia have stopped sending recruits to serve in it YA and the fundamentalist YA headquarters have started a purge among the officer corps to exclude all who were politically unreliable, and begun a new mobilization to fill the ranks with exclusively Serbian recruits. It was no secret that the army has sided with Miloševič. YA was generally perceived as the Serbian army. Moreover, since the federal army has not only tolerated but also supported the Serbian paramilitary groups in Croatia (to say the least), it has lost the monopoly of force and violence and become a paramilitary force itself.
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II.	Sacred Frontiers
The only truth about Life is - that there is a Change!106
The ideology of inviolability of borders prevailed in Europe. The SPM has faced obstacles while arguing the right to self-determination We repeatedly asked our interlocutors in European social movements the same questions: do we need a third world war to design new borders, or will the change happen as a result of a peaceful process? Is it possible to redefine or/and correct miss-conceptualisation of borders from the end of 2nd world war without major shocks? European diplomacy answered that the change of border is only possible through war when they declared, that Slovenia would be recognized if Yugoslav army continues the aggression. Under what condition was the peace movement willing to recognize new state? So we concluded our questions with the following: »Avoiding to discuss the question of borders would mean to keep a blind eye to social dynamics. ... Borders are changing all the time. Not only in geographic terms, but mainly in qualities. Social and political dynamics are too strong to be suppressed with mere declaration of the STATUS QUO on the borders.«107
We claimed that there are simultaneous processes of integration and of disintegration. "Disintegration is a necessary process to abolish the old monolithic structures, for the parts included into them to be able to reintegrate with the international community on new basis, freely determinating their interests and relations. "There is no integration of Europe without the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The Dissolution of East Block was just a first and major, but least painful step. The political transformations in some East European countries were only as an introduction to much more profound disintegration processes".108
III.	Right to self-determination Slovenian people legitimately decided for independence.
The SPM called on the international community to rethink its positions on the struggles for independency. It was clear, that without the right to self-determination it was impossible to approach the problems since partners needed for dialogue were not performing on an equal level of sovereignty. SPM argued, that real danger lay in the non-recognition and that those opposed to the recognition of Slovenia were via-facti, tearing up the foundations of the rule of law in Europe. The SPM letter to END conference held in
106	Paraphrased spiritual truth embedded in numerous religious scriptures.
107	Amongst other in Marko Hren, An essay on Borders Presented at WRI Trienal July 1991, Belgium, reproduced in Hren, 2011.
108	Ibid.
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Moscow, August 1991, clearly called for the responsibility of European policy makers. SPM claimed that without recognizing fully all parties in conflict it was impossible to seek solutions and alerted the international community that the armed conflict started because neither the Yugoslav state nor the international community recognized Slovenia as a partner in dialogue. Having failed in its attempts to reform the federal structure, Slovenia was forced towards unilateral measures to achieve independence.109
Since the military intervention in Kosovo in 1989, the SPM has warned that the country was heading towards a permanent violent crisis and, possibly, civil war. Little notice was taken of such analyses and appeals.110 The SPM displayed the substantial differences in separate republics in detail! Western diplomacy was either unable or unwilling to distinguish between the preservation of a unitary state, and the Serbian drive to dominate the federation. They failed to challenge the latter through supporting the former. They failed to recognize that the conflict in Yugoslavia was not one between "federalists" and "secessionists" but between those who strived to democratize and modernize the country and others who were willing to use any means, including the fomenting of ethnic hatred, to preserve the political and economic structures of the communist dictatorship. Western diplomacy has not understood that Yugoslavia has ceased to exist as a state.
IV. Discuss process, not solutions
Conflict resolution is about sober analysis and not about ideologies, certainly not about the promotion of dogmas. At my very last WRI triennial meeting in NY just before sanctions against Serbia were declared, the participants have spent days and nights arguing - without an agreement being reached. International attitudes changed dramatically only after Slovenia "had paid a high enough price". SPM claimed that the task of the international community111 is not to come up with new political maps but to define prin-
109	SPM Open Letter to The European Nuclear Disarmament conference Held in Moscow, august 1991; printed in the form of a leaflet and widely distributed under the title Understanding the "War"' in Yugoslavia; the leaflet is reproduced in Hren, 2011. The SPM argued, that the guarantee of self determination to all individuals, peoples, ethnicities, nations or minorities that require it, in the first place provides recognition of the entity which struggles for its rights and it further includes the legitimacy of its interests. »The recognition of the right to self determination provides entities with a sense of autonomous identity out of which they can negotiate."
110	Ibid.
111	Ibid. The SPM called on the international community to learn from both the good and bad aspects of the Slovenian experience and proposed the following principal. Recognition of all parties in conflicts as legitimate partners for negotiations before they enter armed confrontation. Request particular state authorities to assure and exercise democratic and nonviolent procedures in the process of negotiations. The international community should apply nonviolent sanctions to make parties sit down and talk before they
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ciples and values and request their implementation. The international community was appealed to leave all options for future political arrangements open (all positions to remain negotiable) and insist upon a fair and peaceful process.
The SPM argued that the question of change of borders should be transferred to a question of change of relations and qualities of the process of the change. There was no doubt whether we want status quo or free change of borders, what was important was to agree on "standards including the right to self determination, democratic tools and nonviolence." We wanted to discuss activities during the process and not political solutions, to declare on principles not on forms, to define qualities and not the borders. 112
"All we ask for is realism!» These were concluding words of the SPM letter to the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA) and international community, dated August 29th 1991 113. Slovenian activists were involved in the HCA process from the very beginning, starting with collaboration in the East-West dialogue Network. As "creators of HCA identity and structures", we did put much hope into HCA: "we understood the HCA to become an institution of great importance as perhaps the soled unspecialized international nongovernmental network of concerned citizens presently existing!" Our main hope was, that HCA would be democratically organized and governed. However, Slovenian movement was "deeply disappointed". The Slovenian movement has launched a wider debate on the criticism of HCA also outside HCA since "our attempts to address the problems within the HCA framework have not been particularly satisfactory". Our public letter to international community was meant to "reflect the HCA process and to contribute to the Assembly work in the future. We thought that the understanding of the nature of the Yugoslav crisis of the persons leading the HCA was not likely to effectively contribute to its resolution". The starting point for any successful peace effort in Yugoslavia is the understanding that conflicts in its constitutive republics and autonomous regions are of different nature, that there is, consequently, not a single truth about the situation and no single solution to the crisis. Instead of taking the existing differences into account, and recognizing the legitimacy of different and also conflicting views, HCA has, unfortunately, promoted only one of them and presented it as a the view of the Yugoslav
engage in armed conflicts. Insist that the federal army is brought under civil control since it represented a power by itself and on its own. Continuity of the sending of observers, offering good offices and mediation. The same principles were also agreed at the first Meeting of the Committee for anti-war campaign in Kumrovec, August 22-24th 1991. See the minutes from the meeting, reproduced in Hren, 2011.
112	SPM letter To the participants of the Belgrade HCA meeting, July 7th 1991,
113	A letter to European democratic movements titled »HCA and the Yugoslav Crisis«, signed by People for PEace Culture in Ljubljana, Marko Hren and Tomaž Mastnak. Published in The Intruder, October 1991.
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National Committee (if not HCA as a whole); the problem is, however, that a Yugoslav national committee does not exist. What functions under its name is the Belgrade group."
I claim (j'accuse!) that one-sided position of HCA and many independent experts in conflict resolution (i.e. Johan Galtung, etc.) has contributed to the warfare in the territory of Yugoslavia, since they have contributed to the biased positions taken by EU and US.
HCA has been more anxious than the EC diplomats to point at Serbian imperialism as the main destructive force in Yugoslavia. HCA talked about "possibility of war" in Yugoslavia, when there already was a war; about "civil war" when the war was all but civil; about an ethnic strife where there was a military aggression; about ethnic minorities as most threatened groups where the most threatened groups were not ethnic minorities; etc. HCA did talk about the necessity of keeping Yugoslavia together and refused to recognize, that the Yugoslav state ceased to exist some time ago; and failed to acknowledge that the insistence on keeping a non-state together has only bred hatred, violence and destruction.
In the opinion of Slovenian Peace movement HCA was "not likely to define a sound policy regarding Yugoslavia until it prefers desires and illusions to factual analysis. A sound policy cannot be founded on the intellectual insincerity and confusion, and double standards, neither on religion of civil society."114 We concluded that the HCAs discussion on Yugoslavia has not been conducted openly and honestly, without all forms of authoritarianism and exclusiveness; the values that HCA proclaimed as leading principles for its actions.
114 Ibid; for all quotations in this section.
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Conclusion - manipulated history
The Slovenian public discourse repeatedly operates with the term of reconciliation. The in-depth and effective reconciliation must be based on truthful display and analysis of facts. Unfortunately, the history remains manipulated with one-sided, too often fault interpretations. Our region still (and again and again) suffers gross misinterpretation of history, starting with under-researched question of violent Christianisation of Slavs in the period from 10 - 17 century which left the spiritual base and cosmology of Slavs almost completely vanishing under long periods of inquisitions, continuing with the manipulations of the true events during the second world war (the hypothesis concerning the cooperation between Hitler and Stalin despite of recent evidences lacks to find space in school curricula) are still largely miss-interpreted. The history books - used even today in schools - are, in this respect, irrelevant. Columbus is still interpreted as a great adventurer and discoverer, while it is clear, that he was guided by supreme and well informed elites in power, while it is also clear that he was far from being the first wanderers landing to American continents. It is somehow easy to accept, that the interpretation of events during the middle ages and even during the second world war is hard to reach the criteria of objectivity, however we shall not allow miss-interpretations concerning the events we contributed-to 20 years ago. There are diverse hypotheses concerning the roots of war; my assumption is that violent catholisation of cultures remain root cause of conflicts in Balkans. Why? Because it camouflaged the true identities and in-depth cosmologies of the ethnic groups ( todays nations) on the ground. The centuries of violence almost annihilated the true cosmological, spiritual roots and imprints in the habitats. True reconciliation can only be built on true recognition of deep cosmologies of individuals and groups. The Slavic cosmologies were castrated and almost annihilated during the long lasting inquisitions. Consequently, the primary values systems - coded in non-revealed etymological codes - were flooded by the experiences of direct brutal long-lasting violence; centuries of inquisitions were followed by a century of world wars; our parents and ancestors were either afraid to speak the truth or preoccupied with stress of contemporary violence. Is it time for true reconciliation arriving now, in 21st century?
Wars in Balkans at the end of 20th century could have been prevented! The Peace options elaborated from grass roots could easily find a point of convergence with the official CSCE process of the epoque, providing, that civil society initiatives had found agreement on the state-of-the-art analysis and had articulated consensual proposals for action; civil society created the proper instrument and did put it in place for such task in a right time: the Helsinki Citizens Assembly. This tool was miss-used and the convergence of
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the processes from above and from below made impossible. The HCA did not play its historical role due to manipulative individuals115 in its headquarters. Consequently we did not build a bridge between the EU and US diplomacy and the civil society. HCA did not contribute to the un-blocking of the situation; rather, it strengthened the position of its Belgrade representatives who manipulated its standpoints while supposedly acting on behalf of a virtual "Yugoslav HCA community".
This paper has described in detail a possible point of convergence between the CSCE efforts in Berlin, in June 1990, with the grassroots proposal known as Slovene Peace Option whose institutional memory remains in the form of the Ljubljana Peace Institute. These processes were in culmination just before the outbreak of wars.
Finally, this paper shall serve as a call116, as an index to topics deserving additional research to fill the knowledge lacunas of the epoch concerned! A provisional list of topics for further research is suggested here:
-	The emergence of radical pacifist thought in Slovenia (SPM) and in Croatia (Svarun) in 80ies, including the outstanding and completely overlooked role of Jure Detela117, in my view one of the most outstanding pillars of the East-central European Pacifism of the epoch.
-	The systematic and systemic efforts of SPM to call an international conference for nonviolent conflict resolution in Balkans (1990-1991)118.
115	Serbian intellectuals succeeded to completely overshadow and manipulate the standpoints later promoted by HCA. Also the END conference in Moscow in July 1991 was subordinated to the lobby of Serbian intellectuals, who were the only speakers from former Yugoslavia, given the floor at the HCA round table on Yugoslavia, and they apparently acted on behalf of virtual "Yugoslav HCA committee".
116	The author is using this opportunity to call for an establishment of a regional consortium of independent research institutions to facilitate the process of opening of all archives, former federal as well as all republics, and in a long run prepare a project to exchange archive documentation.
117	Jure Detela was an early prophet of deep ecology, radical pacifism and sustainable consumption, and early critic of totalitarian institutions. He was an invisible, modest pillar of Slovene pacifism. He is known to public mainly or solely as a poet. But he was an exposed activist for human rights, animal rights and for the protection of the environment. He was- amongst other - a keynote speaker at the historical rally against Krsko nuclear power plant during the Chernobil disaster on April 1986.
118	It shall be reminded that the Peace research institute in Ljubljana was founded in 1990 primarily for this very purpose. See Hren, 2011 for details.
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-	Comparative study of positions and proposals of the conflict resolution experts and peace-movement-lobbyists as well as of the independent social science experts in Europe, during the most important period (1988-1991) for eventual war prevention. The role of the peace movement and other civil initiatives in the framework of international cooperation (in all aspects of formal and informal diplomacy) with particular emphasis on the operation and effects of the HCA.
-	In-depth Analysis of the policy making of the CSCE, UN; EU and USA of the same period.119
-	The methods and means used by the civilian resistance movement in Slovenia from 1985-1991, including the strategies of civil disobedience. The comparative study of Slovenian civil resistance with other cases in Balkans and later contemporary cases.120
-	The role of social movements shaping political changes in pre-transition period, including the outstanding role of the peace movement initiating the need for constitutional changes of Slovene Constitution.121
I am aware of the obstacles preventing the suggested research, However, I use this opportunity to call on independent researchers and independent research institutions, to form an international consortia for cooperation amongst official, public, secret and private archives dealing with the period and region concerned in this paper.
I feel to conclude this paper with a warm echo dwelling in my memories; hundreds of powerful moments reflecting numerous deep, generous, serene and engaged interactions with countless people, friends and collaborators worldwide. I wish to express a sincere thanks to all and I hope that the reader can grasp a feeling of deep solidarity, determination to human rights, ethical values and to nonviolent action, the qualities that we have shared and radiated over decades, the qualities that impregnate the tradition of pacifism on Earth.
119	See also footnote 26.
120	Gene Sharp, for example, was closely involved and cooperated with the SPM in the prewar period. His role in civil-resistance movement is under-researched.
121	See footnotes 62 and 91 explaining the context of the historic Declaration for Democracy signed in Slovenia widely in spring 1988.
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