About the project
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has been informing citizens and raising awareness about the importance of peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube Region for a number of years by implementing activities in Vukovar, together with our partner organization Europe House Vukovar. This unique UN peace mission saved many lives and prevented new suffering. The mission is indeed special because it showcases that occupied territories may be restored peacefully. It is also unique because it clearly shows that every single individual who lived in the Croatian Danube region in the 1996–1998 period contributed to its success. The implementation of this peace mission would have been questionable if cooperation and desire for peace among locals had been missing.
Educational activities that have emphasized improving dialogue have enabled us to provide information to citizens. Our publications, videos and conference transcripts demonstrate our efforts to encourage learning about peace. Peace is the biggest value we have in our democratic society and that’s why we must preserve it and celebrate it!
Blanka Smoljan
Project Coordinator at the Fridrich Ebert Foundation,
Regional Office for Croatia and Slovenia
Peaceful reintegration fascinates me as a very challenging and sensitive political and social experiment that has succeeded, but whose outcome was initially completely uncertain and in which many did not believe. Sometimes it feels like a video game rebuilding a ruined civilization, not because the peaceful reintegration is so spectacular, but because successful negotiated solutions to war are so rarely implemented that they seem implausible. And peaceful reintegration shows precisely that such solutions are entirely possible.
Barbara Matejcic
Freelance journalist and author for many years with a special interest in war and war-related issues