Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS

The author considers the coping strategies used by the newly poor households of the now-independent nation-state Kyrgyzstan. Like other former members of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has fared badly economically since the disintegration of both the Union and complex economic links with it. In 1994, Save the Children Fund (SCF) carried out research into these coping strategies, the findings of which are briefly presented here. Full details can be obtained from SCF in a report entitled `Coping with the Transition: Household Coping Strategies in Kyrgyzstan' (SCF, December 1994).

The British government has increasingly assumed the role of international arbiter and peacekeeper, both with and without a UN mandate. The hijacking of the moral high ground and recurrent assertion of global consensus - even in the presence of overwhelming opposition - reveals a disregard for the integrity of cultural diversity and opinion. Often `humanitarian' concerns have been used to justify military intervention, and the promise of aid is used to deflect dissent. Based on her experiences as an aid worker in post-conflict Kosovo, the author makes two central points.