Club of Madrid - Members

Members

Several members of the Club played prominent roles in the diplomatic and military proceedings aimed at ending the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s:

  • In 1991, Milan Kučan, then the President of the newly-independent Slovenia, negotiated the Brijuni Agreement, bringing an end to the Ten-Day War.
  • In 1993, Bosnian politician Zlatko Lagumdžija advised the then-President of Bosnia and Herzegovina against agreeing to the Vance-Owen peace plan. The two had been kidnapped by the JNA in Sarajevo in 1992, before their release was negotiated through the U.N.
  • Former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a special U.N. emissary to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 and, in 1993, issued a report on human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia. In 1995, Mazowiecki stepped down in protest of the lack of international response to the atrocities being committed in Bosnia, particularly the Srebrenica massacre.
  • U.S. President Bill Clinton was instrumental in pushing NATO to intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. In 1995, his efforts produced Operation Deliberate Force, resulting in the Dayton Accords which ended the Bosnian War. In 1999, the U.S. and other NATO powers sought to end the Kosovo War with the Rambouillet Agreement, but Yugoslavia felt that the agreement forced them to concede too much and refused to sign. This refusal resulted in Operation Allied Force, during which NATO utilized air supremacy and strategic bombing to cripple Serbian forces and force them to withdraw from Kosovo.
  • Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt served as the EU's Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia and was a Co-Chairman of the Dayton Conference. He became the first High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, from 1995-1997, and was the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans from 1999-2001.
  • Other Club de Madrid members involved in the diplomatic process include Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany who oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany, who was a signee to the Dayton Accords, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who urged support for Canada's participation in Operation Allied Force, and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari who, along with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, convinced Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to retreat from Kosovo in accordance with NATO's demands.

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