Interview: Sonja Liht, President of the Open Society Foundation

"It is high time to understand that non-governmental organisations are not the enemy, but rather complementary and necessary conformations which help the state to function for the overall benefit of its citizens. And therefore, the Open Society Foundation will continue in that direction to offer support to the non-governmental institutions."

After the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia a new form of "Marshal plan" for the Balkans will probably take its place. The World Bank and other international financial institutions will invest capital in the economic reconstruction. But, even if they want to, such institutions have no clue about reconstruction of the social structure. That venture will be, by definition, taken over by non-governmental organisations - how to help children get rid of the war trauma, how to re-bind the broken family and neighborly ties, how to rebuild from dust new science, research, cultural and other organisations and institutions. The non-governmental organisations are already compelled to engage themselves with reconstruction of the basic social structures devastated during the NATO bombing campaign.

The shock of war, according to the estimation of Sonja Liht, president of the Open Society Foundation, deprived, for a short while, of the essential sense, the organisations of the real civic participation in public business, known as the non-governmental section. The degree of destruction of the basic social infrastructure and the indispensability of its reconstruction regain the sense of existence to the non-governmental institutions.

"The effect of the first shock is slowly passing away, and people are asking themselves what they can do", says Sonja Liht for VREME. "Within the partnership Independence, 17 non-governmental organisations gathered, and after long discussions and rethinking we designed the central scheme for our work which contains three groups of activities. The first group of anti-war activities assumes distribution of messages worldwide to stop the aggression, bombing and all forms of violence, then the communication with all friends who can be of some help in elucidation of justice to the publicity abroad, and dispatching of numerous appeals to prevent the ecological catastrophe and disconnection of the Yugoslav internet providers. The second group consists of humanitarian activities such as visits of both old and new refugees, giving psycho-social support in the broadest sense to children and all young people, and collecting international humanitarian aid. The third group is based on conceiving a project 'What after', in which, apart from the aforementioned 17 non-governmental institutions, those of Novi Sad, Nis, Podgorica, Niksic and so on, also took participation. Within the margins of that project, a great consideration is taken about how to reconstruct the post-war traumatised society overwhelmed by hopelessness and despair. And just in that, I see the most important role of the non-governmental organizations."

VREME: You spoke about that new role of the non-governmental sector at an international assembly.

SONJA LIHT: In New Orleans, on April 20th and 21st, the annual Convention of all American Foundations was held, for which I received an invitation long before this war. I went there to express my opinion about importance of the non-governmental sector and organisations in the reconstruction of not only the Yugoslav society, but also of the entire South-Eastern Europe, and all that in addition to the strong protest against the bombardment. I think, and that is what I said during the discussion, that the philanthropic organisations are the last to accept this kind of 'humanitarian intervention', violent operations for ceasing the clash and retribution over the entire country and its citizens. At the same time, I appealed to those foundations to be much more active in constructing of their preventive mechanisms, because NATO bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrated that non-governmental institutions in the world are not capable for such a role. It is time that the non-governmental institutions and their leaders openly reproach the aggression, since they have nothing to lose and since they do not have to, as politicians, be afraid of the forthcoming elections. Hence, I addressed the plea to all private donations to be more active and brave in supporting the alternative of violence.

What does the notion of reconstruction mean?

The economic restoration will be carried out by the World Bank and other international financial institutions. The basic social infrastructure can be rebuilt only by non-governmental organisations. On official media we can hear that more than 100.000 people are in a sort of internal exile. Vuk Draskovic speaks about tens of thousands of people who have left Novi Sad. It is the same with Belgrade, Nis, Kragujevac, Valjevo, Kraljevo, the unfortunate Aleksinac... New tension is being caused, and when this war finishes, we will have to build the new structure, and if so, then let it be of a better quality. It is of utmost importance to start building a new spirit in these terrible conditions under the bombs. The new role of the non-governmental organisations is to build, on those positive values, a new spirit of the citizens emancipated of fear, xenophobia and anything displeasing that these times brought about. However, it is impossible to imagine the complete activity of the non-governmental institutions, or the socially employed citizens creating a publicly useful aim, without the non-governmental, independent media. Therefore, there are no non-governmental organisations without the true pluralism, which itself is not imaginable without the independent media. The society cannot be reconstructed in the year of 1999, without pluralism and democracy.

Does democracy on these territories, after the bombing, have any advantageous connotation?

No matter how much the word democracy became unpopular due to 19 NATO countries which call themselves democratic, we must not make mistake and condemn something much more universal, something that lasts since Aristotle's time and constitutes the core of any good government, nor can we neglect it as a result of NATO's air campaign. Perhaps a paradoxical fact can emerge - that we, citizens of this country, who sincerely believe in democracy, shall be called together with the citizens around the world to create a new understanding of democracy in both national and international relations. Of course, with a presumption that we have to set up our society here on the real participation of citizens in the public affairs.

In Rome, 10 days since the beginning of NATO strike on Yugoslavia, 100.000 people went out on the streets and protested. Demonstrations were organised by the peace-loving movement 'Arci', one of the greatest non-governmental organisations in the world, consisted of two million members. From Greece to Canada, demonstrations are organised by the non-governmental institutions of those countries, either on their own initiative or in correlation with our immigrants. Many of those organisations are in a permanent contact with the non-governmental sector in Yugoslavia, and on that ground, a great deal of the future informal foreign policy will be built upon. By that, of course, I do not deny the necessity of the formal foreign policy for our country.

Those non-governmental organisations were not very welcome here even before the NATO aggression.

It is high time to understand that non-governmental organisations are not the enemy, but rather complementary and necessary conformations which help the state to function for the overall benefit of its citizens. And therefore, the Open Society Foundation will continue in that direction to offer support to those non-governmental institutions.