Croatia began participating in civilian components of international missions and operation in January 2005, when Dražen Hrastić from the Ministry of Foreign and European and European Affairs and Dario Dudas and Ivan Odeljan from the Ministry of the Interior went to Afghanistan.
From our experience during the 90s we knew how important the civilian component was as well as how important it was that the people of the countries where military peacekeeping missions are being deployed knew that these missions are accompanied by civilian projects, that there was an element of normalcy, a future life… that after all the wars and fighting normal, everyday life could resume. That is precisely the way we see civilian missions: as ending conflicts in combination with military missions and as harbingers of a return to normal life. And that is why civilian missions in post-war circumstances are extremely important: for making military mission more acceptable by giving them an element of longevity, communicating with society, not just stopping conflicts.
By participating in such missions and working on civilian projects in conflict and post-conflict situations, we are improving the image of ourselves, proving that we are capable of sympathizing with other societies and recognizing their need to lead a normal life. This improves our self-image and makes us want to do better, and that is, I think, one of the criteria for everything we do.
Finally, we consider civilian missions important because they affirm the principle of combining peacekeeping and civilian missions in a single package. This is something Croatia advocates in all of the military missions we are taking part in, in order to provide an everyday component through civilian projects.
Croatia began participating in civilian missions in 2005 in Afghanistan. I would like to thank Germany and the Regional Command North, as this is where we deployed our first diplomat, who was involved in implementing development projects as part of the German-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Feyzabad. Since then, 10 Croatian diplomats have participated in ISAF. Three of them are now ambassadors – Hrastić in Turkey, Starčević in Greece and Bošnjak in Qatar. In the meantime, a younger generation has taken over and did it in a more inspired manner. The projects we were involved in there prove that with relatively limited means one can have a strong effect.
I will mention some of those projects, but I can’t name them all because there are many of them. One of them is women’s entrepreneurship – carpet weaving in Afghanistan, which has since turned into manufacture, and represents means of existence for these women. There is also the seamstress project for female prisoners with sentences of lesser than six months – most of them widows with no means of income, not criminals. They received training and were given sawing machines so when they were released they were able to launch their businesses and start earning money. Other projects include building a school, a school library, and a midwifery training centre. Estimates show that 95% of maternal deaths, be it mothers giving birth or new-borns, were due to elementary issues that could be avoided with a basic knowledge. Is the projects proves a success, we have potential partners that could help us develop it into a wider network.
It was very important that our armed forces have collaborated with the U.S. armed forces, from which we received immense support and assistance. I would also like to thank our armed forces who served in Afghanistan and are now a part of the Resolute Support, backing up our civilian missions.
I will present a project we ran with little money but, I dare to say, to great effect. If there’s any luck, it will be translated into Croatian. I’m talking about “Our Village”, a book of poems by Afghan poets that we financed, complete with photos and English translations, which portray a different picture of Afghanistan – not just as tragedy, killing and hostility, but as a country where poets live and write, describing their everyday life through poetry, also captured on beautiful and poignant photographs. This is Afghanistan – important to us because that’s where we started from.
The changes during the past few years and the new crisis points in Liberia, Libya, Mali, Sudan and Ukraine have faced peacekeeping missions and operations with bigger and more complex challenges. Croatia is still taking part in military missions – in some with civilian and more notably police components, while in other places preparations are underway because as we know from experience (including our own), after every conflict comes peace. That peace has to be achieved and protected, and that is the purpose of military missions. While the normal life and lasting peace that comes after it has to be ushered in, and this is where civilian missions come into action. We will certainly take part in everything that lay ahead of us. Whenever our army goes out to establish and preserve peace, we will certainly participate with civilian missions as well.
In the context of global changes, we support the UN secretary general’s initiative to re-evaluate the UN peacekeeping operations. We are taking part in them too, but our involvement could be much greater. We believe that in order to reach their goals, peacekeeping missions should be efficient, accepted by the citizens, capable of achieving lasting peace and be supported by a global consensus.
In that regard, we have launched a global initiative called “Making a Case for Small Donors”, fully aware that there could be no peacekeeping missions without the big donors and international consensus. But there are many more countries that can contribute in a small way financially and in terms of personnel. That is why our initiative tries to encourage as many countries as possible to participate even with small projects, limited means, fewer men, in order to make the sum as large as its parts.
Croatia is currently participating in 11 missions and operations within various international organizations: four led by the UN, four by the EU, two by NATO and one by OSCE.
One of the targets of our civilians missions are women, health of women and girls, women’s entrepreneurship, and education of women and girls. Some of the reasons for choosing this are obvious, but others pertain to efficiency. A UN research has shown that any woman who is educated enough to get employed, notably in poor countries, reinvests 90% of her income back into family, while men invest only 40%. Since we are a small country with not a lot of money, we have to make sure that we’re investing efficiently, that our projects would produce maximum effect. That is why we have choses education, health and female entrepreneurship. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, we have made that choice not because it’s good, important and just, but because it’s also smart. The most recent project that we’ve gotten involved with is the training of female police officers for peacekeeping missions, a project that is to include women from all over the world.
To conclude, I would like to underline that this anniversary is especially important to us because in the last 25 years Croatia has traversed a hard and diverse path, from a country at war, a post-conflict society whose consequences are still felt today, an aid recipient with various peacekeeping missions to a country taking part in them, providing various forms of development aid and creating projects – from artistic (this poetry book) to health (midwifery school) to economic (carpet manufacturing).
There are too many institutions and people that I would have to thank and I’m bound to forget some, because there were too many to list in my notes. This job certainly wouldn’t be possible without the General Staff of the Armed Forces, our army and the Ministry of Defence, representatives of the security and intelligence services and the Ministry of Health, who have been helping us throughout it all. We’re counting on you in the future as well. Logistics and information support as well as field monitoring of participants are a crucial part of our involvement in peacekeeping missions and operations in which, I am proud to say and hopeful that it will continue like that, we haven’t had a single casualty. We have achieved excellent results with first-class people and portrayed an image of Croatia that we should and always will strive for.
Thank you.