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29/04/1999 |
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One year ago, the Rome-based Sant'Egidio Community brokered a deal between Serb President Slobodan Milosevic and Albanian minority leader Ibrahim Rugova under which Kosovar Albanian students could return to the University of Pristina, from which they had been banished in 1991. The deal has since been overtaken by events, but the community has persisted in its efforts on a smaller scale. Last month, it opened a school for 800 Kosovar children living in a refugee camp in Kukes, northern Albania, with Italian and Kosovar teachers. It also sent a delegation to Belgrade seeking the release of Mr. Rugova from Serbian hands. Though the conflict in Kosovo has prompted freelance diplomatic initiatives from all sides in Italy � from the separatist Northern League, to the Party of Italian Communists, to Venice's deputy mayor from the Green Party � the low-profile Sant'Egidio Community is unique in that it has succeeded in the region before. While much of the world learned about Kosovo only in the past year, Sant'Egidio ha splayed a role in the region for the past decade and was the first non-government organization to establish aid centers in Albania before the fall of Communism there in 1991. A hybrid between an NGO and a religious charity; the community was founded by left-wing Catholic activists in 1968 to aid the Roman poor. It branched out in to diplomacy in 1982 when it launched peace talks in Lebanon and improved conditions for Christians in several Christian villages that had been occupied by Druze forces. Sant'Egidio later forays in to what it calls "non-government diplomacy" in countries such as Mozambique, Lebanon and Burundi won it the nickname the "United Nations of Trastevere," after the colorful, close-knit neighborhood in central Rome where it is based. It was founded in a climate of student radicalism by Andrea Riccardi, now a professor of the history of Christianity in Rome, and others, when they were students at Rome's Virgilio high school. In the early years, they established the soup kitchens and programs to aid the elderly that are still going strong in the capital. A telling sign of its origins, Sant'Egidio room mess hall and storeroom are in the former headquarters of the newspaper of "Lotta Continua, " a extremist left-wing movement that is now defunct. Sant'Egidio now counts over 17,000 members, at least 5,000 of them in Rome and the majority of them secular volunteers, and has branches in over 22 countries throughout the world, including Eastern Europe, Africa and Indonesia. Its volunteers bring food to the homeless in Rome, where the community has three shelters and also runs programs for drug addicts, AIDS patients and the gypsies, or Rom. It oversees a hospital in Guinea Bissau, sponsors soup kitchens in Germany and Belgium and has 12 centers for children and the of the handicapped worldwide. From its humble origins, the community has evolved into an organization with a respected role in international diplomacy. When in Rome in March 1998, U.S. secretary of Sate Madeleine Albright made three official visits: to the prime minister, the Pope and the Sant'Egidio Community. She praised Sant'Egidio members as "wonderful people." The organization was first thrust into diplomatic limelight in Mozambique in 1992, succeeding where others had failed. Wit the support of the Catholic Church and local bishops, it negotiated an accord between the Marxist government and right-wing resistance, putting an end to a 16-year civil war that took over a million lives and left over two million refugees. "Mozambique taught us that in diplomatic dialogue, what's often lacking is the human element, understanding the interlocutor's individuality. So whoever's talking about peace, liberty or human rights is often considered crazy and brushed aside," Mr. Riccardi said, "We and the Mozambique church tenaciously kept the doors to dialogue open even when professional diplomats maintained that there was no room for negotiations, because peace shouldn't lose any matches." But the community's peace efforts have not always succeeded. On Wednesday it abandoned efforts to bring Congolese rebels and officials together for talks in Rome, when the rebels seeking to oust Congolese President Laurent Kabila said they would not participate on the grounds the government had hand-picked its representatives. In the past, Sant'Egidio has also drawn fire for its choice of figures invited to the negotiations table. In 1994, it talked with Sudanese leader Hassan al Tourabi, whom many hold responsible for the forced conversion to Islam of largely-Christian southern Sudan and for numerous terrorist acts. The community maintains that it did not specifically invite Mr. Al Tourabi to its headquarters, but that he came to see them during a private visit to Rome, where he was also received by the Pope. In an effort to assist the stumbling peace process in Algeria, Sant'Egidio invited a variety of Islamic opposition parties to the negotiating table in Rome in 1994 and 1995, but did not include the Algerian government. In Algeria in 1998 to discuss joint Italian-Algerian economic ventures, including an oil-pipeline, Foreign Prime Minister Lamberto Dini told the Algerian government that there was no need for "parallel diplomacy," a remark that was interpreted as calling a halt to the community's attempts in the region. When asked once what was behind the Community of Sant'Egidio, Nr. Riccardi joked, "the Janiculum," the hill that backs Trastevere, named for Janus, the two-headed Roman god. Like Janus, the community also has two faces: its fervent catholic one, and a commitment to social justice that comes straight out of 1060s radicalism. Though it is a secular organization autonomous from the Vatican, Sant'Egidio nevertheless has a clear Catholic platform, and in 1986 the church approved Sant'Egidio's statute, which lists it three main objectives as evangelization, aid to the poor and interreligious dialogue. Many of its top supporters are priests, including its spiritual leader Don Vincenzo Paglia, the parish priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Sant'Egidio's neighborhood church, who was part of the delegation to meet Mr. Milosevic in Belgrade. It also counts Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Camillo Ruini of Rome among friends. Pope John Paul II made a visit to the community on its 25th anniversary in 1993, and Sant'Egidio has kept close ties with the Vatican head of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano, though the Vatican did not back its recent mission to Belgrade. Unlike the Algerian effort, many of the community's other diplomatic initiatives, including the delegation it sent to Belgrade earlier this month, have had the blessing of the Italian state. Over the years, the community has hosted former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the then Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, former European Commission President Jaques Santer and former Portuguese president, Mario Soares. To fund its peace initiatives and aid projects, in addition to private sponsors, the community's donors include Telecom Italia, which has donated up to 200 million lire a year, and Banca di Roma, which gave 600 million lire help Sant'Egidio start a foundation in 1996, Mercedes and Fiat have donated cars, and hotels often offer free rooms to community representatives during peace missions. In Albania, since the start of the current war, Sant'Egidio has established two medical centers in Kukes, one for children and the other for adults, which see up to 500 patients per day, and has 12 mobile medical units with over 70 doctors and nurses, both Albanian and Italian. Starting in 1993 it set up aid centers in Durres, Tirana and elsewhere to help the democratization process. Since then its medical volunteers have helped bring infant mortality down 50 percent in northern Albanian mountain areas. More than a month into the NATO bombing raids that have sent hundreds of thousands of Kosovars into Albania, Sant'Egidio's emphasis there is long-term planning. "We need to plan the humanitarian aid effort well, since the emergency will last for at least a year, and we need to guarantee that people don't die of sickness and hunger and can return to a normal life," said Community spokesman Mario Marazziti. How does David-like Sant'Egidio hold its own among the Goliaths of international diplomacy? "We have to look like more than we are," said Mr. Riccardi. "And that's our miracle. A great bluff."
Rachel Donadio
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