A long-term ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, was announced at the end of August between Israel and Palestine with the aim of bringing to an end fifty days of armed conflict. The following day Ukrainian President Poroshenko announced a potential roadmap that aimed to end fighting between the Ukrainian military and separatist forces. So far, neither of these initiatives have been hailed as victorious peace pacts. Despite the efforts towards an Israel Palestine peace settlement, there has been no real progress to end the hostilities between the two parties. The crisis in Ukraine also remains unresolved as instability continues in parts of the country.
While these steps towards peaceful resolutions should be applauded, it is worth to remember that attaining peace is not solely the product of high-level talks and declarations. Organisations like International Dialogue have come to conclude that transitioning out of conflict
and fragility is a long process, which needs to harmonize with the national and local context. Declarations are not enough.
The causes of conflict are usually complex and it goes to follow that peace building initiatives need to be equally varied. However, the right leadership, dialogue between opposing viewpoints, an inclusive resolution, closure for victims and an economy that supports peace, commonly feature in peace building. Countless lesser-known peace building initiatives embody these features and while some of these initiatives may have grown out of a specific context, their experience could be drawn on when we face future conflict and efforts towards conflict resolution. So in light of yesterday’s Peace Day I thought it was worth celebrating and learning lessons from a few of the world’s lesser known peace building initiatives.
Leadership-The Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative
ARLPI’s Governing Council
The Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) is an interfaith peace building and conflict transformation organisation formed in 1997 in reaction to the conflict in Northern Uganda. It brought together the leaders and constituencies of six different religions and denominations (Anglican, Catholic, Muslim, Orthodox, Pentecostal, & Seventh Day Adventist) with the aim of transforming the conflicts in Northern Uganda and the surrounding region.
Northern Uganda faced a brutal insurgency from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) for around two decades. The leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, claimed their mission was to overthrow the Ugandan government and to start a new government based on the Ten Commandments. The resulting conflict saw two million people uprooted from their homes and tends of thousands kidnapped, mutilated or killed.
There were multiple causes to the conflict, which will not be covered here, but the religious narrative and the regard that communities give to their religious leaders meant that local religious leaders were in a position to undermine the LRA movement and to promote peace between communities. Hence the ARLPI’s important role in peace building in Northern Uganda.
The ARLPI has had numerous successes. It achieved unity among the religions in Northern Uganda to work together for peace and nonviolent solutions to end the war. It contributed to the development of the Ugandan Amnesty Act. Its members acted as peace observers and consultants to the Juba Peace Talks. The ARLPI even went past its initial remit by bringing the plight of war-affected children to international attention by sleeping on the street. For their efforts the ARLPI won the Niwano Peace Prize in 2004 and the Peace Award for URI Africa in 2008. The ARLPI is a good example of the right leaders enabling dialogue and peace building between different communities.
Local Business and Economies That Support Peace-COMPAÑIA ENVASADORA DEL ATLANTICO
The Compaňía Envasadore del Atlántico Logo
The Compaňía Envasadore del Atlántico (CEA) is a family-owned company in the food and canning industry. In 2006, International Alert featured them in a case study on the peace building potential of the domestic private sector In Colombia.
In 2003 the CEA approached the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to work together on an illegal crop prevention project. In the context of the Colombian conflict these sorts of business initiatives played and continue to play a significant role in peace building.
Colombia’s conflict had its origins in a power struggle, which led to the rise of illegal armed groups. Unlike many other conflicts, Colombia has been a constitutional democracy for most of the 20th century and it has stable and independent institutions. Colombia has not suffered deep cultural, religious or ethnic cleavages and none of its regions have seriously advocated separatism. Poverty is not as extreme as in many other conflict areas and its economy has been relatively stable. Neighbouring countries are not unstable with their conflict spilling into Colombia. This has led some to argue that a cause of the prolonged nature of Colombia’s conflict was its illicit coca crops and drug trafficking, as these funnel millions of dollars to illegal armed groups.
CEA and UNDP’s illegal crop prevention project contributed to CEA’s commercial interests by enabling them to grow passion fruit on vulnerable land that has been, or could become, sites for narcotics production. It also contributed to peace building because it created
an alternative livelihood for farmers who had been lured into the drug trade, there by undercutting a source of the conflict. The success of the project led the High Commissioner for Peace to approach CEA with a view of exploring ways to develop similar productive projects involving reintegrated members of
illegal armed groups.
Other conflicts underpinned by illegal economies, for example the poppy growing in Afghanistan or piracy in Somalia, likewise need legitimate economies to replace illegal economies. The lessons learnt in Colombia could be taken into account, along with the local context of these conflicts, should there be a concerted effort to peace build in these regions.
Inclusive Peacebuilding– Sankalpa, Increasing Women’s Participation
Sankalpa’s Workshop on Conflict Affected Women
Sankalpa is a nongovernmental organisation that incorporates eleven networks related to women in peace and dealing with women’s issues. It was formed after the Nepalese civil war and it advocates for women’s participation and representation in Nepal’s peace process and peace structures.
The Nepalese civil war was an armed conflict between government forces and Maoist fighters, it raged from 1996 to 2006. Unlike other conflicts, Nepalese women were very vocal during and after the conflict on conflict resolution and peace building issues. There has been a broader acknowledgement that women should have greater participation in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace. For example, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 set out a framework that addresses not only the impact of war on women but also the pivotal role they play in peace building. Unfortunately, this has not been acted upon in many
cases. So we can take the Nepalese case as a small example of efforts towards inclusive peace building.
Sankalpa literally means a resolve, a promise, a commitment and determination. It is dedicated to ensuring women’s equal opportunity in the state making process irrespective of caste, ethnicity, religion, language, occupation or physical ability. Its “Mission 50/50” aims to gain proportionate representation and participation of women at all levels of the peace process and in all state structures. It acts as a change agent by informing the peace dialogue and speaking out for the democratisation of the peace process.
Some of the key outcomes of women’s advocacy in Nepal include; having a female member in the interim constitution committee and recognition of women’s role in the peace process monitoring committee.
Giving Closure- The International Commission on Missing Persons
Family members in ICMP’s Krajina Identification Project.
The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) was established in 1996 at the G-7 summit in Lyon as a result of the Dayton Accords. The accords were an agreement between the Presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia that effectively ended the internal ethnic and religious conflicts that has resulted from the breakup of former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
One key legacy of the conflict and a barrier to reconciliation was the fate of a large number of victims who disappeared during armed conflict or as a result of human rights violations. The ICMP was tasked with ensuring the cooperation of governments in locating
and identifying the disappeared and providing the public with a means of appropriate expression to commemorate and tribute the missing. The closure that provided arguably contributed to healing the scares of the conflict and aided peace building.
The ICMP is an example of a peace building initiative that was born from a specific context but then exported to other similar circumstances. For example, the ICMPA worked in Iraq to help identify victims from the First Gulf War and it is participating in a Government sponsored initiative in Chile aimed at identifying the remains of people who went missing during the Pinochet regime.
Challenging Perceptions through Dialogue- Encompass Trust
The Encompass Trust- Young People Working on Local Projects
The Encompass Trust is a small UK charity which aims to build peace through youth dialogue. Alex and Mandy Braden, whose son Daniel had died in a terrorist attack in Bali in 2002, established the charity. It is founded on the principal that “when people truly understand each other, one to one, prejudice and hatred give way to bonds of friendship which transcend political and religious divides”.
Born from a specific context, terrorist action, rather than a particular conflict, the Encompass Trust is one example of how dialogue is such an important aspect of peacebuilding and even conflict prevention.
Most notable amongst Encompass’s work is the “Journey of Understanding” project. This 10-day residential program in an outdoor center in Wales involves up to 28 young people. Participants come from America, Indonesia, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan and the UK. They are from a mix of backgrounds, faiths and cultures they are chosen by Encompass because their “perceptions of the world and each other are highly polarised through religious and social tradition and conflict” The “Journey of Understanding” brings them together through discussions and challenging adventure activities with the aim of confronting stereotypes, building confidence to interact with others from different backgrounds and learning skills that will enable them to promote intercultural understanding.
Once the participants return home they develop community projects with the aim of fostering the same spirit of understanding that they developed during their time with Encompass.
Concluding thoughts
The causes of conflicts and its continuation are never simple and it follows that conflict resolution and peacebuilding initiatives will need to be equally varied. A high level agreement is never enough on its own, peace must be built from the international level down to the local level. How this can be done will depend entirely on the local circumstances, however there are lessons and inspirations
to be drawn from historic and existing efforts. Be that the role that religious leaders can play in a conflict fuelled by religious narrative, the impact legitimate business can have in undercutting the illegal finance of conflict, the need for inclusive conflict resolution, the closure that reuniting victims bodies with their families can bring that heal the scares of a nation and the importance of challenging exclusive narratives through contact and dialogue, especially
amongst the youth.