Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

"democracies make elections, elections don’t make democracies” The counting of Millions of votes cast in Iraqis elections is going on to choose the right ones from more than 6,000 candidates from 86 political groups to gain seats in the 325-member assembly. Some violence occurred - 38 citizens were killed and around 100 were wounded in result of bombings. The country's electoral commission called it a "glorious day" and a victory for Iraq. While election hype and afterwards PM selection and government coalitions are taking headlines some other aspects before, during and after elections may have more effect for the future of Iraq. Comments from West have praised democratic development and even the UN Security Council Monday hailed parliamentary elections in Iraq as an "important step" toward strengthening the country's national unity. From my point of view democracy played minor role in elections and the outcome probably will be splitting ethnic/reli...

One thing which concerns me with today's media coverage from Afghanistan and Iraq is that only military aspect is highlighted and regular headlines are informing mostly (western) military casualties. From my point of view capasity building by civilians would bring sustainable solution. This is not easy, mistakes occur as one can read below - but right approach might create circumstances where people in beneficiary country could see US and EU as practical partner instead of colonialist administrator or mastermind. When the project is made like desk plan in Washington or Brussels with some cooperation with state’s central government there always is a risk of more or less big gap between beneficiary needs and centralized aims. Some of these failures I have earlier described in my writings “ World Bank destroyed Albanian village in joint operation with corrupted Government… ” , " UN death Camps, EU money, local negligence ” and “ Squandering Kosovo’s Aid Funds ”. The key elemen...

This post was first published in TH!NK ABOUT IT site 21st February 2009. An Italian non-governmental organisation – the Rome-based “Un ponte per …” - is investigating consequences of NATO's 1999 bombings of Serbia and the effects of the use of depleted uranium (DU) on the civilian population. The NATO allegedly used shells with depleted uranium which are still today causing an increase in the number of cancer patients. NATO has admitted the use of DU in the bombing campaign and Italian media has reported that 45 Italian soldiers who served in the international forces in Kosovo (KFOR) died after the bombing and 515 became ill with cancer. In Serbia and its separatist province Kosovo the number of civilian victims is still unexplored but most likely the figures are manifold compared to those of soldiers. This topic was discussed years ago when e.g. I was working in Kosovo, however any proof and warnings then did not came to my hands. Later more information was available and on ...