times | Dion van den Berg
Mr Dion van den Berg reviews five campaigns in the Netherlands that are cited as the most striking of collective city diplomacy initiatives: nuclear-free local authorities; twinnings with Nicaragua; anti-apartheid policy;
East-West municipal twinning; and solidarity with former Yugoslavia (in particular Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Analyses focus, but not exclusively, on the aims of the campaigns; the variety of activities; the initiation of and support for municipal
international policy; the relation to national government policy; and on the successes of the respective city diplomacy campaigns presented.
The author concludes that these city diplomacy campaigns were part of an overarching process of democratization of foreign and security policy and evolved similarly: from political statements, via solidarity, to
development projects. Civil society organizations were already providing assistance in the development of campaigns when the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) was still considering active steps in this direction. However, since the early nineties, VNG has been very active.
Analysis shows that lobbying has led to limited successes at the level of national and international politics, and that the greatest added value of city diplomacy surfaces in the more practical transitional processes (often in a post-conflict setting).
The author explains that many root causes of conflict have still not been solved, and that the ‘Liberal Peace Thesis’, that suggests that political reform should go hand in hand with the development of a free-market economy, is creating more problems than expected!
Local governments and their associations worldwide should meet these challenges and develop municipal anti-terrorist policies, engage in dialogue between the Muslim world and the West, pick up their part of bottom-up responsibility-to-protect strategies, and help rethink and remodel democratization strategies into more inclusive and tailored approaches. Let them do it.
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Summary
1 For more information on how international municipal policy developed in the Netherlands, see Brouwer (1990), Klein (1987), SGBO (1991), Ter Veer (1996), Wielders (1995), Van den Berg & Van Tongeren (1989) 2 See chapter 1 of this book.
3 For the wider perspective, see Zelinsky (1991), Schep et al. (1995), VNG International (1995) or UNDP (2000). For municipal foreign policy in the USA see Schuman (1987), for Germany see Stad Mainz (1989) 4 Double-track: prepare for deployment whilst at the same negotiating with the Soviet Union to reach an
agreement that would make deployment superfluous.
Introduction
Some consider city diplomacy something new. It is not. One of the earliest examples of what United Cities and Local Governments now calls city diplomacy is provided by the many city twinning contacts developed after 1945, so-calledjumelages. The success that these twinnings have had in bringing together local governments and citizenry from different countries is impressive. Other long standing examples of city diplomacy include local governments involving themselves in peace campaigns and programmes dealing with conflicts and conflict regions.1Under the definition used in this document, both sets of activities qualify as city diplomacy.2
It is impossible to cover the whole history of city diplomacy. So this chapter focuses on certain developments in the Netherlands.3However, brief references to similar developments in other western countries are also made. The study is limited to five campaigns. In the Netherlands, the municipal campaigns rank as the most striking of collective city diplomacy initiatives. They are the nuclear-free zone local authorities; city twinning with Nicaragua; anti-apartheid policy; East-West municipal twinning; and finally solidarity with former Yugoslavia (in particular Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Of the first four, five aspects are reviewed for each: relevant discussions at municipal level;
activities of Dutch municipalities; the position of central government and the VNG; similar activities in other countries; and relevant developments after the 1980s. The analysis of the only case that took place in the 1990s, the solidarity campaign of (Dutch) municipalities with the former Yugoslavia, is further subdivided.
The analysis focuses on the aims of the campaigns; the variety of activities; the initiative and support for municipal international policy; the relation to national government policy;
sustainability of the campaigns; similar developments in other western countries; and on the successes. A comparison between the 1980s cases and the 1990s case is made. Differences and similarities between the respective city diplomacy campaigns were found and are presented.
Nuclear-Free Local Authorities
The context in the eighties The issue of (new) nuclear weapons has been high on the agenda of Dutch politics and society for many years. The Dutch peace movement always lobbied hard against the nuclear option and pleaded against deployment of such armaments as cruise-missiles on Dutch soil. It forced the Dutch government to have a footnote added to the NATO double-track4decision of December 1979, declaring that the Netherlands
supported the decision as such but would decide later on local deployment of cruise
missiles. End-1985 the Dutch government decided in favour of deployment of cruise-missiles 76
5 Van den Berg (2006), p.14-25
6 As of the 1st of January 2007, the two Dutch peace movements, Pax Christi and IKV, merged. The movement is now known as IKV Pax Christi.
7 Van den Berg & Benschop (1985), Van den Berg (1987) 8 De Haar (1989)
9 This position was taken by Minister Van Thijn (PvdA, social-democrat) in 1982 as well as his successor Rietkerk (VVD, conservative-liberal) in 1983.
10 Van den Berg & Benschop (1985)
in the Netherlands. But thanks to the INF (intermediate range nuclear forces) Treaty of 1987, the cruise-missiles were effectively not deployed.5
Discussions at the municipalities level The Interchurch Peace Council (IKV)6and other peace organizations lobbied for local government support for the peace movement.
More than 100 Dutch municipalities declared themselves nuclear-free. Hellevoetsluis was the first to do so, in October 1981, following the Manchester Nuclear-Free Zone Local Authority (NFZLA) resolution of 1980. A strong element of self-commitment made the resolution politically relevant, notably the decision that local governments would use all legal means possible to prevent deployment of nuclear weapons on their soil and resist transport of nuclear weapons over their soil.7In numerous municipal assemblies, christian-democratic council members decided not to follow the official position of their party (CDA) and supported the resolution.
Activities at municipalities level Dutch municipalities undertook many activities:
political statements against nuclear weapons, appeals to participate in peace
demonstrations, educational programmes and brochures, financial support for local peace groups, and promotion of peace education at school.8Some municipalities undertook action against companies involved (by boycott, overruled by the national authorities) and protested against the civil defence policy for which the municipalities were considered responsible.
Some activities were even initiated by municipalities who did not adopt a NFZLA resolution.
IKV and its local chapters were actively involved. For IKV, the emphasis was not only on the nuclear-free resolution. It called for a 'proactive policy', as opposed to a 'reactive policy'.
Local governments could help create conditions for overcoming the Cold War dynamics and the East-West divide by means of: information policy, educational programmes, support for local peace groups and most of all international contacts – within the framework of the existing twinning contacts and with municipalities in Warsaw Pact countries. Attracted by this approach, some half of the nuclear-free municipalities implemented a municipal peace policy in the course of the eighties.
The position of central government and VNG The Dutch Ministry of the Interior informed Parliament that such a resolution could be adopted by any municipal assembly,9 but could and if necessary would indeed be overruled by national legislation. Interestingly, in that same period the VNG advised municipalities not to adopt such a resolution
('parliament must decide, not local governments'), thus taking a rather restricted legal position and ignoring the political dimension of the resolution.10
June 1983, the government decided to prepare deployment of cruise missiles at the airbase in
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11 www.mayorsforpeace.org 12 Arnold (2008)
13 For this paragraph, the case study research done by Mrs. Pascale Schuit (Schuit, 2008) was very valuable.
14 Walker (1982)
Woensdrecht. The municipal assembly promptly adopted a resolution against the
deployment (with the support of a few CDA council members). This municipal decision was indeed later overruled by state authorities and building activities started to prepare the base for the cruise missiles.
Developments since the nineties Already by the mid-eighties, only a few
municipalities were (still) actively involved in anti-nuclear activities. They had shifted their attention to other topics and campaigns. Nevertheless, over recent years support for the international network of Mayors for Peace (MfP) was growing. Internationally, this network, headed by the Mayor of Hiroshima, has grown, and Dutch Mayors were joining. Currently, 40 Dutch Mayors are full members of MfP. An additional 58 Mayors have signed a letter of support for the 2020 Vision Campaign (demanding a world free of nuclear weapons by the year 2020) .11
NFZLA campaigns in other countries The Nuclear-Free Zone movement in the 80s covered almost all continents. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Italy, the NFZLA campaigns started earlier than in the Netherlands and continued to play a central role for many more years. In the United Kingdom, the debate over civil defence and local
governments' responsibilities in that field lasted for many years and dominated part of the discussion on nuclear policy in national parliament.12Logically, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other Japanese cities were very active (Kobe declared itself a nuclear-free port city) and local governments in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada also set up elaborate programmes.
In this period various international peace networks of municipalities were active, among which the Peace Messenger Cities and the ‘Union of Martyr Cities, Cities of Peace’, but the only international municipal peace organization that had its roots in this period and is still growing is Mayors for Peace. As of March 2008, Mayors for Peace membership stood at 2,170 cities in 127 countries, with new members enrolling every week.
Municipal Twinning with Nicaragua13
The context in the eighties In the seventies, the Central American country of Nicaragua was governed by the kleptocratic and dictatorial Somoza family, an ally of the USA administration. The Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN or Sandinista National Liberation Front), organized popular resistance to the government. After a civil war, the Sandinistas – following Marxist ideology – came into power in Nicaragua in 1979. By means of a literacy campaign and other social programmes, the FSLN government sought to improve living conditions for its citizens.14
US President Jimmy Carter chose a rather neutral approach to Nicaragua but his successor, President Reagan, perceived Nicaragua as a communist threat, thus legitimizing support for 78
15 Walker (1982), Lemahieu (2005) 16 VNG/NCO (1990)
17 VNG/NCO (1990)
the Contras, a group that tried to overthrow the Sandinista government by military means.
The USA provided extensive financial and political support for the Contras until 1990. In 1989, the Nicaraguan government and the Contras agreed on a peace settlement that included the demilitarization of the Contras and free and fair democratic elections. After the defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections, the new government strengthened the economy and democratic institutions.15
Discussions at the municipalities level In many countries, a pro-Sandinista
movement grew in the first half of the eighties. In the Netherlands, as early as 1978, a national Nicaragua Committee was set up. In the early 80s, especially in the bigger cities, local Nicaragua Committees grew up. Regularly, they targeted the Dutch parliament and government with political demands. Many were supported by left-wing parties, but also by the more pro-Atlantic Christian-Democratic party (CDA).
The Nicaragua Committees started to lobby for municipal twinning contacts with Nicaragua. The campaign was quite successful, and in only a few years over 15 such friendship links with Nicaragua were established.
Discussions on Nicaragua in Dutch town halls had a political profile. Starting a twinning contact for instance meant rejecting US policy. In many municipal councils, the position of the Christian-Democrats was crucial. Without their support, there would be no majority. In big cities, among which The Hague, Leiden, Groningen, Tilburg and Nijmegen, majorities were achieved.
Activities in the Dutch-Nicaraguan municipal twinning contacts In the first years of the twinning contacts, co-operation in the Netherlands between local governments and the local Nicaragua committee or Dutch-Nicaraguan twinning foundation was strong.
Official twinning structures facilitated work on a number of issues and topics.16Over time, a certain (logical) division of labour developed, with the municipality dealing with the issues of local democracy and municipal policy, and the committee or foundation focusing on the concrete projects dealing with housing, education, sports, health-care and so on.
There was a lot of travelling, mostly in mixed delegations (mainly local government officials and civic activists). Many volunteers were involved, active both in the partner city, and in awareness-raising activities in the Netherlands. Dutch-Nicaraguan twinning contacts made good use of the long-term co-operation: knowledge of the local context, tailor-made projects, a management infrastructure (Dutch people working in the partner city) to help design and implement activities.17
The national network for Dutch – Nicaraguan twinning (LBSNN) The ’National Council City Twinning Netherlands – Nicaragua’ (LBSNN) was set up by the national Nicaragua Committee and Dutch local governments and local twinning foundations in 1986.
Its main aim was to organize the exchange of ideas and information and to facilitate co-operation. LBSNN was successful in assisting local partners, both in the Netherlands and in Nicaragua. It also played an important role in the situations of change (elections) or urgency
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18 Van der Hijden (1996)
19 The consequence of programme financing was that twin cities focused most energy and resources on a limited number of issues. Flexibility declined , but in this way the municipalities had much to gain from active participation in the LBSNN network.
20 Many partners from Czechoslovakia, just liberated from communism, had difficulties understanding that the Dutch cities were supporting the (Marxist-oriented) Sandinistas: 'We were forced to work our free weekends for the communist comrades in places such as Nicaragua. And you, Dutch people, supported the FSLN government and at the same time worked for détente in Europe, looking for alternatives to communism...?'
21 The NEWS project led to five new Dutch-Nicaraguan twinning contacts.
22 Van Ardenne (2006)
(hurricane Mitch) in Nicaragua. It coordinated numerous delegations – such as the delegation with the Nicaraguan deputy-minister of Education and representatives of educational institutes, who visited the Netherlands in 2007. Over the years, LBSNN co-operated on various projects with VNG and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Since 1994, LBSNN has handled Nicaragua-related project applications18presented to the government-funded subsidy programme KPA (Small Local Activities).19
The position of the central government and VNG The first VNG involvement came about in 1990, with the NEWS (North East West South) programme: linking cities from Nicaragua, the Netherlands and the then Czechoslovakia in a triangular working
relationship, with the main focus on exchange of expertise on good democratic governance.
This programme encountered many difficulties (miscommunication and misunderstandings due to history and transitional dynamics in Nicaragua and Czechoslovakia20), but also provided numerous unexpected and expected learning moments.21
In the eighties, the Dutch government gave reconstruction aid to Nicaragua (22 million EURO per year), but was at the same time silent on US political interference and aid to the Contras. In the course of the nineties, various government funds found their way to the Dutch-Nicaraguan twinning schemes, and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of LBSNN, the Minister for Development Co-operation, Mrs. Agnes van Ardenne, acknowledged the relevance of the Dutch-Nicaraguan twinning contacts: ‘The past decennia, city links have made an important contribution to democratization in Nicaragua with ideas often in contrast with each other.’22
Developments in the nineties and in the new millennium The involvement of Dutch citizens with Nicaragua developed on from anger about the civil war. Twinning contacts gave expression to this. Over the years, the focus shifted. The solidarity remained but the development projects attracted new groups in the Dutch local communities (sometimes less motivated by political anger, more motivated by humanitarian considerations). This process coincided with political changes in Nicaragua.
Rather unexpectedly, the Sandinistas lost the municipal elections in 1990. New mayors were appointed from the ranks of the anti-Sandinista, National Opposition Union (UNO, Union Nacional Opositora) coalition. Discussions commenced in Dutch cities, and almost all decided not to break ties with partner municipalities. The developmental component of twinning efforts started to dominate. After the 1990 elections, many local Nicaragua committees closed down.23
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23 Vrieze (2007) 24 Berge (2007)
25 VNG (2005), IOB (2004)
26 See Peace (2008) for an interesting analysis of the coalition of pro-Sandinista movements in the USA.
27 To illustrate the broad support for the city twinning: the conference was organized by LSBNN, the city of Amsterdam, Novib, Pax Christi and the national Nicaragua Committee, and financed by the EU, Dutch MFA and Terre des Hommes.
28 Posthumus (1998)
29 For interesting information on activities of US local governments, see the Bulletin for Municipal Foreign Policy, published by CID (Center for Innovative Diplomacy), in the period 1984-1992
Sometimes, unexpected discussions popped up. The UNO government was in favour of more conservative legislation on homosexuality for instance, and many Dutch partner cities used the opportunity to explain the rights of homosexuals in the Netherlands (among the large group of Dutch solidarity workers, there were many homosexuals).24
In 1998, Nicaragua was devastated by hurricane Mitch. In a nationwide humanitarian action, Dutch cities twinned with Nicaragua and LBSNN raised EURO 7 million. They decided, in co-operation with the Nicaraguan government, that a special local government capacity building programme should be implemented fostering municipal administrative reform. In the nineties, Dutch municipalities saw a special role in supporting the processes of
decentralization by means of municipal staff exchanges and expert visits. Both the LBSNN and the VNG provided assistance and advice.25
When the UN launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, LBSNN and the twinned cities decided to use the MDGs as umbrella for the further development of their relationships. Four priorities for the work were listed: tax systems, strategic planning, housing, and education. The Nicaraguan government was making a serious decentralization effort – although financial resources did not follow the transfer of mandates to the local level. The MDG framework enhanced the division of labour already developed: local governments dealt with the transfer of knowledge, and civil society organizations dealt with concrete projects. As a consequence, much municipal work was of a rather technical character.
Twinning with Nicaragua in other countries The region of Central America was worldwide news in the seventies and eighties: people fighting dictators, 'dirty wars', and US support for suppressive regimes (but anti-communist and therefore legitimate allies). In many countries, people sympathized with the Sandinistas and municipal twinning contacts were, in addition to 'building brigades', common instruments to work on political agenda and express solidarity with the Nicaraguan people.26
May 1988 saw the ‘First European Conference on City Linking with Nicaragua’ in
Amsterdam27, with some 350 people from over 15 countries. The action-oriented conference led to the drafting of the 'Amsterdam Appeal' and establishment of small networks of cities all working with the same city in Nicaragua. Some of these small networks still exist today.28 In the eighties, local governments from many countries had twinning contacts with
Nicaragua. By 1988, there were in total 323 twinning contacts, mainly with the United States of America (91)29and various European countries (Germany 49, Spain 43, United Kingdom
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30 Zelinsky (1991)
31 At present, less than 20 US-Nicaraguan and 30 German-Nicaraguan twinning contacts exist.
31 At present, less than 20 US-Nicaraguan and 30 German-Nicaraguan twinning contacts exist.