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A Project for Bosnia Recently we received a proposal for a culture of peace initiative in Bosnia proposed by a doctor who had served as advisor to the Minister of Health of Bosnia during the war and had succeeded in bringing together health care workers across the lines of conflict to work for common public health goals. "After all," as he pointed out to me, "they were all educated together before the war and knew each other personally." And besides, under the terrible conditions of war health care workers had earned a respect among the general population unlike anyone else. His ideas corresponded well to that of peace-promoters - why shouldn't these health care workers become a network of peace promoters extended across the lines of conflict? We drafted a proposal with a modest cost of $1 million for two years, which CPP would be responsible for the training of peace promoters. I even made some preliminary inquiries to locate appropriate trainers who could speak Serbo-Croatian. However, the Bosnia project is already mired down in the bureaucratic problems described above. At the time, responsibility for UNESCO work in Bosnia was entrusted by the Director-General to his former Chef de Cabinet who, as mentioned above, had already spoiled the project in Burundi and been an overall impediment to the entire Culture of Peace Programme. Therefore, I tried to go around him by having the proposal given directly to the Director-General. However, the Director-General ignored the proposal which was submitted to him in July 1996. By October after numerous reminders, he finally read it and wrote "OK" but with the stipulation that it be done in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO). When I told that to the doctor who had proposed it, he was dismayed, for he had previously worked there as part of the famous AIDS project which was ultimately stifled by the WHO bureaucracy. By now the project had gotten referred to the former Chef de Cabinet and as I write this it is still sitting on his desk. It is dying a bureaucratic death. I had tried to get around the UNESCO bureaucracy in another way on the Bosnia project, but without success. As soon as the project was received, with permission of the doctor who proposed it, I contacted the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). One of the two co-Presidents, Dr Victor Sidel of New York, immediately saw the value of the proposal and said he would support it. He arranged for us to present the idea on the floor at one of their major meetings which was to take place in a few weeks. Unfortunately, the doctor who proposed the project was unimpressed and did not wish to go to the meeting or take advantage of the offer. Nor did he wish to follow up by seeing the IPPNW activists in Switzerland and Germany who expressed interest in becoming involved. |