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platform in recognition of the international day against fascism, they were attacked by a right wing
group which interrupted the proceedings and harassed Esperanca members. Because the members
from Esperanca recorded everything, they managed to charge the offenders in court, and succeeded
in having them send to jail. However, the right-wingers were only in prison for a short time and
now publicly give statements on TV that Esperanca is a threat to the state. In April 2006, when I
conducted my interview with Nada, Esperanca was planning to sue the offenders. During her long
tenure as a peace activist, Nada Dabic has very often been publicly attacked, stalked by telephone,
and personally threatened, to the extent that she now must avoid using public transportation.
5. DWP in Women Peace Organisations
In the following I will analyse how the women’s organisations deal with different aspects of DWP:
International courts. Since the beginning of their existence in 1991, WiB has contributed to DWP
most in the form of vigils and street actions, where they meet and try to awake the awareness of the
citizens with symbols and slogans. They inform citizens about the responsibility of the state to
extradite war criminals who have been indicted for war crimes and genocide and who are still
living in freedom. They demand an end to the culture of denial and are extremely present in their
activities.
National courts. Women’s groups are active in monitoring national courts. Different women’s
organisations from the WiB network go to every trial that is held and write reports which can be
read on their website. The reports are also being sent to other international feminist sites and thus
serve as a means of exchanging information and tactics. In these reports they explain the need for
public interest in this issue and exchange details of their analyses of the crimes. They identify the
real motives of some of the perpetrators and soldiers as well as army members like the “Scorpions”
who during the Srebenica genocide executed six Muslim war prisoners and who for their own
amusement filmed their own crime.
Reconciliation. The women’s strong involvement in networking, not only inside Serbia but all over
the region, as well as their strong commitment to visiting “hard places” can be seen as an important
aspect of reconciliation with the victims from other nations. The workshops, panel discussions and
different methods they apply in their educational programs are important, as they involve women
from all social and educational levels. In this way, they provide a unique space that gives women
the opportunity to participate as active members in political and military matters. There are also
other NGOs in Serbia which are working on DWP issues using an educational approach, but they
remain more exclusive and are oriented toward an elite group of students and NGO activists often
younger than 30 years old (see for example www.hlc.org).
For most of the women from the core of WiB, there is not a huge gap between private life and life
in activism. They consider their work and their private lives as inseparable, and see their private
lives as important examples of and models for what they advocate in public. Most of them see the
importance of a long-lasting women’s peace policy in Serbia. This view in turn makes it easier for
new activist groups, which are rapidly growing, to flourish.
6. Women and Peacebuilding
Among the international community there has long been attention given to women’s opinions on
and contributions to various phases of conflict management. There has also been considerable interest
in a gender-based analysis of the cultural construction of sex in peace research literature.
While the peaceful predisposition of women has been an established and accepted concept for some
times, it is still denied in many cultural and biological theories. However, it cannot be disputed that
women are often the ones who search for ways to avoid violence when the potential for conflict
arises in a society. The fact is that the patriarchal system stimulates images and identities in which
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