Catherine Barnes (Ed.). Owning the Process : Public Participation in Peacemaking (London: Conciliation Resources, 2002, 100pp.). The French Prime Minister during the First World War, George Clemenceau said that “War was too important to be left only to the generals”. Likewise, peacemaking is too important for it to be left only to the political leaders who had created the violence in the first place. Thus there has to be movements and efforts beyond and outside the parties in conflict to help bring about negotiations and a climate in which peace measures are possible. Although this study has been published over a decade ago, the difficulties of non-governmental mediation and Track II diplomacy remain real. This study is a useful presentation drawing on a number of conflicts in order to look at the role of “civic involvement” – the action of local people and indigenous capacities –in the conflicts of Guatemala and Colombia in Latin America, Mali and South Africa in Africa, in addition to Northern Ireland and the Philippines. As Ed Garcia of the Philippines writes in his foreword “Crafting a viable peace is the work of many hands, involving different sectors of society and spanning generations. Peacemaking thus requires a marathon mentality. Success is rare and, to the perceptive, seldom permanent, since advances on one front often bring about a new set of challenges or change-generated conflicts…Yet it may be only where people and their communities put their hands to the task of building a more inclusive peace that the possibility of a human security addressing common concerns becomes less distant.” Sir Marrack Goulding, who served as a UN Under Secretary-General from 1986 to 1977 for political issues outlines a four-step process of negotiations - a complicated process of converting a situation of armed conflict into one of stable peace: 1. Overture When the parties in a conflict decide to enter into negotiations for a peaceful settlement of their conflicts. 2. The Settlement – a compromise that is a better option than continuing the war. 3. Implementation 4. Post-conflict peacebuilding – long term efforts to consolidate the peace and “especially to address the root causes of the conflict – which may have been only superficially addressed in the settlement”. Of course, reality never follows such a clear pattern. There are forward, backward and Side steps as all parties try to gain maximum advantage. Some actors focus on reaching agreement on minimum demands while others wish to change radically the socio-political situation and to develop new ‘rules of the game’. The role of civic movements will be different at different moments of the process. There is a great deal of work to be done prior to ‘the Overture’ when negotiations start. The warring parties are usually not convinced by just battlefield results that ‘there is a better game than war’. They must be convinced that there is a considerable sentiment for peace among their own supporters or the population they control. It is during the ‘tuning up’ period prior to the Overture when civic groups can ‘test the waters’, can try to see the agenda of issues to be addressed beyond just a ceasefire, can try to outline a process that is more than dividing the spoils among warlords. This last point is of particular concern in situations where both the government and the armed groups lack a wide support base as in Somalia. In many cases, ‘civil participation’ can be initiated by all-ready existing non-governmental organizations such as the churches in Guatemala or business groups in South Africa. Such organizations have the people and the resources needed to carry on discussions, to meet people outside the local area or outside the country, to have contacts with groups in other countries which can provide support. In other cases there are pre-existing women’s organizations and academic institutions. In some situations, such as the conflict in Mali which was largely between the pastoral Tuareg in the north and the government made up of representatives of sedentary groups largely from the south, civil society could be represented only by traditional clanic groups among the Tuareg and among their sedentary neighbours in the north, the Songhoy. However, Tuareg society was also divided along generational lines, the youth against the older traditional aristocracy. Algeria which feared a spread of the revolt to its own Tuareg in south Algeria as well as Libyan influence – since some Malians were being trained in Libya’s ‘Islamic Legion ‘ – played a useful mediation role. However, the military government of Mali which had undertaken the first negotiations was overthrown by other military which were more open to democratic movements from the south. Thus, negotiations had to start all over again. It took seven years of negotiations, coupled with a decentralization of the administration and increased development efforts in the north of the country to bring the Tuareg revolts to an end. Self-managed development programs and local self-government were clearly needed from the moment of independence in 1960. However, centralized government inspired by French colonial practice coupled by neglect of the nomads was the only existing administrative model. It took nearly 40 years and the Tuareg unrest in neighbouring countries such as Niger to bring about administration and development projects built on popular participation. The divisions within Mali led to the events of 2013 with the current intervention of French and African troops; still a very unstable situation. As Quintin Oliver writes in the useful concluding chapter “If civil society organizations and a broader proportion of the overall public are sufficiently prepared to engage in peacemaking, it can both create a climate conducive to negotiations and help ensure that the social infrastructure is developed for their voices to be heard at formal peace talks.” Yet mechanisms for public participation in peace processes are not created unless people make them happen. “This typically involves a substantial degree of both advocacy, to ensure that their voices are heard, and mobilization to generate the capacity to create opportunities…It is important to emphasize the significance of preparing people so that they feel comfortable and are able to participate fully and make effective contributions. Alienation and frustration can otherwise set in very quickly. Participation may be impaired if the environment is exclusionary because of over-reliance on unfamiliar procedural rules, for example, or a formal style that intimidates those with less experience.” Thus, training in the skills of negotiation for civil society representatives is extremely important, for as Ed Garcia notes “ waging peace in the current climate, characterized by the global ‘war on terrorism’ presents a daunting challenge. In past decades we have witnessed humanitarian disasters, monstrous massacres and seemingly unending wars in many regions of the world. However, in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001, the work of citizens on many fronts to bring about a just peace has become more difficult and the field for their participation greatly reduced; yet increased involvement is more imperative than ever. As governments form alliances to act against a perceived common scourge of ‘terrorism’ pre-eminence is given to military means of resolving disputes. Such approaches have tended to undermine efforts to address the specific grievances at the heart of intractable conflicts in diverse contexts. They have taken actions that can erode respect for the rule of law and advances in the fields of human rights, while making negotiating efforts even more difficult.” René Wadlow
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 11:25:54 +0000
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