Getting Wiser by Sharing Ideas

CIAO DATE: 12/99

Getting Wiser by Sharing Ideas: the International Community and Deeply Rooted Conflicts

Building Peace In Deeply Rooted Conflicts:
Exploring New Ideas to Shape the Future
A Centre for International Understanding Conference
in association with INCORE
Larnaca, Cyprus
28 September–5 October 1997

Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity

Introduction

Over the course of a week of wide-ranging discussions, our group sought to “get wiser” through sharing ideas and experiences about the role of international actors—from individual states and international organizations to a range of private individuals, groups, and institutions—in addressing deeply rooted conflicts. We recognized that dealing with “deeply rooted conflicts” almost inevitably involved the challenge of building peace in deeply divided societies, and we spent some time exploring the nature of those divisions. Our focus on the international dimensions of this challenge reminded us that while there are many ways in which external forces can contribute positively to building peace in divided societies, there are also limits. Our discussions considered the limitations as well as the possibilities for international action, and sought to stimulate new thinking on the part of the participants about areas for action and cooperation in our work.

In agreeing to take a comparative approach, we recognized that each conflict has its own unique history and characteristics, which must be continually learned, and that there is a “lego building set” aspect to conflicts: each has its own shape and construction, and a number of key pieces unique to it. But, at the same time, learning the principles of construction and gaining the practice of putting together the basic pieces is useful in understanding how to approach other sets, even if quite different in origins, complexity, size, or outcome. We discussed a number of cases—Sri Lanka, South Africa, the Middle East, Mozambique, Cyprus, former Yugoslavia, and Northern Ireland—and will use examples from these to illustrate our points.

Several of the conclusions we took from our case studies and discussions included:

Our definition of “the international community” should be broad enough to include the wide range of public and private actors who operate within a much-changed international environment. Better appreciation by government and U.N. officials of the potential, not only of traditional NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), but also of the business and academic community and a multiplicity of grassroots organizations, will help address the limits imposed on governmental action by limited resources, lack of consensus. or insufficient political will.
Further developing international law, and refining the use of a variety of sanctions, are both useful. though limited ways. in which to improve the international community’s ability to prevent and ameliorate conflicts.
Important as these “top-down” and issue-oriented approaches are, they must be accompanied by steps aimed at building basic relationships, and at building the basis for peace from the bottom up. This conclusion reinforced our view of the importance of a greater appreciation by all of the need for a multi-functional, public-private partnership in addressing conflicts. This strategy would require greater coordination among actors than exists at present, and it was agreed that this coordination should be carried out at the political/diplomatic level.
The CIU conference itself is an important exercise in “relationship-building,” with participants able not only to learn from one another’s experiences and expertise, but also to keep in touch in order to identify and carry out concrete ways of working together to address the specific problems of conflict resolution that each of us deals with in our professional lives.

“The International Community:” Limits and Possibilities

“The international community” is traditionally a term used to describe primarily multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, or at times, regional groupings of nations acting together. Our group took a broader view of what comprises the “international community,” seeing it as including the whole and expanding range of external actors who influence or seek to influence conflicts, at the governmental or nongovernmental level, unilaterally, bilaterally or multilaterally.

Changes in the international environment over the past decade, including the end of the Cold War and the accompanying changes in global power structures, the growth of transnational and other kinds of business (“globalization”), the increasing role of regional organizations, the information revolution, and the perceived limitations of individual national governments and multilateral organizations, all lead us to look more closely at the role and potential of nongovernmental and unofficial groups, from NGOs to international business, etc. Our discussion was based on the recognition that there is room for far greater appreciation and understanding of the potential roles of each of these groups, and a need to find ways in which public and private efforts can complement each other.

The United Nations:

The crises and traumas of the past decade have led to a change in attitudes about what international organizations, notably the United Nations, can do to address deeply rooted conflicts. The early optimism about the possibilities for developing effective, flexible U.N. peacekeeping or peacemaking forces has passed. There is now a general recognition that crises must be addressed in a multi-dimensional, multi-functional way, and at both the preventive and post-conflict as well as the ongoing conflict stages.

Nonetheless, the group agreed that the United Nations remains a key actor in the international community’s efforts to address deeply rooted conflicts, and that efforts must be made to continue to make it more effective. Peacebuilding is where the U.N.’s dual political and humanitarian missions intersect, and thus the key test of the organization’s viability. We had concerns about the advisability of attempting fundamental reform of the U.N. charter, as opposed to elaborating policies and procedures to assist and legitimate the organization in dealing with deeply rooted conflicts. But even with reform, at least in the near term, there will remain sharp limits to what the United Nations has the capability to do, and more fundamentally to what its sovereign member states will be able to agree to give it a mandate to do.

The Tension Between “Territorial Integrity” and “Self Determination”

One key reason for these limits is that there remains little consensus and little likelihood of broad international agreement on the question of when and how the international community has the right to intervene in international disputes. It is true that the principle of nonintervention in internal affairs has been and continues to be modified by considerations of human rights and violations of international law and agreements. But the lack of a common vision among international actors on this question—and on the related question of how to balance the tension between the principle of territorial integrity of sovereign states and that of the right to self-determination of peoples—limits the ability of international organizations or other multilateral groups to act in a timely, agreed, or coordinated fashion in responding to conflicts or in engaging in preventive diplomacy.

While recognizing the importance of these major principles of international law, conflict between these principles should be approached on a more or less case-by-case basis, seeking each time to accommodate the tension in different ways. There may be times when the parties in conflict may be persuaded that there are possibly differing approaches to satisfying self-determination, for example, by adopting confederation, federation, advanced autonomous status, and other approaches short of outright independence. The ability of the international community to resolve this dilemma imaginatively and convincingly will be key to its ability to act in deeply rooted conflicts.

Sanctions, International Law, and Other Tools of the International Community

The traditional menu of options that governments and international organizations draw from in responding to conflicts is not an extensive one. Short of the use of force, in recent years the international community has sought to rely on a variety of sanctions—economic and others—and on international law in seeking to prevent or resolve conflicts.

Recent experience with the use of economic sanctions has been mixed. They are, at best, a blunt instrument, prone to inflicting more suffering on the weaker, less influential segments of a society than on the decision-makers at whom they are presumably aimed. At times the international community has appeared to resort to economic sanctions out of frustration—the need to “do something” and be seen as doing so—than as a careful strategy. The notion of “just sanctions” was raised. Can a sanctions regime be so constructed that does not punish the innocent? South Africa was a case in which there was broad support among the population for sanctions, even though those who gave their support bore much of the cost. Even then, it was only after much time, and only in combination with many other factors, that sanctions could be said to have had some result.

Aside from purely economic sanctions, there are other types of sanctions that can have an impact. The withdrawal of ambassadors, the withholding of visa and travel privileges for key government figures, the exclusion from international sporting competitions—all of these can influence behavior, as they did, for example, in former Zaire and former Yugoslavia.

In the area of international law, the group agreed that areas of law developed after World War I and World War II, such as laws outlawing the use of certain types of arms (for example, chemical weapons) and dealing with crimes against humanity, now play a positive, if limited, role in conflict prevention. The development of the U.N. Situation Center and such fora as the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) of procedures and mechanisms for addressing deeply rooted conflicts is also a step forward. Particularly in countries such as Sri Lanka, which subscribe to democratic models, authorities act more cautiously when they know they may be held accountable. In Sri Lanka, police behavior has improved as the courts have become more active in protecting human rights; if an international tribunal took a similar approach, leaders would begin to feel at least the possibility that they might be held accountable for their actions. The Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is having such an influence.

In addition to looking at ways to refine the use of sanctions and international law to prevent or stop conflicts, the group agreed that there were a variety of noncoercive but highly effective ways to influence those involved in deeply rooted conflicts. One is by using prizes, meetings, or other forms of recognition; for example, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Burmese dissident Aung San Kyi served to protect not only her but those around her. The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk also helped to move the process forward in South Africa.

Building Bridges Among International Actors—Governmental and Nongovernmental

Although the international community will at times accept and act upon a perceived obligation to intervene in certain cases, the role of individual sovereign governments—often particularly neighboring states and/or regional or global powers—remains paramount. However, the limitations of what they can do, along with other changes in the world environment, make nongovernmental and transnational organizations increasingly important.

Governments and diplomats need to more creatively look for ways to increase cooperation and appreciation for the roles of these bodies and individuals. This is a natural way of addressing the need to build peace from the ground up at the same time that official, usually more “top-down” efforts are being made. The group agreed that neither approach alone suffices in building lasting accommodations, and a variety of instances were cited of the collapse of top-level agreements because the ground below had not been prepared, for example, in Sri Lanka in 1956, 1965, and 1987.

It was also stressed that there is a need for NGOs to endeavor to have and to be seen to have a nonpartisan role in conflict resolution. This is crucial to their credibility and usefulness as a component of the relationship-building process for conflict resolution.

A multi-track approach is also particularly important in addressing urgent human needs, such as the pressing needs of refugees and displaced people. The international community has developed systems for addressing these needs, but there are problems of lack of sufficiency, of longevity, and of coordination.

The example of Mozambique is a positive one in which numerous organizations were brought together to build and consolidate the peace. The involvement of the Catholic community of Saint Egidio from an early point was key in creating the conditions for progress toward negotiations. In later stages, international observers were involved in elections, with other experts in providing financial and technical assistance in demobilizing guerrilla forces and in getting development projects on the ground (the “peace dividend”). Different actors at different times provided needed services in a complementary and sequential manner.

But the competition for prestige and credit between international organizations, and between differing participating countries and interests, can limit the effectiveness of international actors. There have been examples of this in the Middle East, Nigeria, and the former Yugoslavia.

Building Relationships

The group’s lengthy discussion of the prospects for and limitations of “top-down” and issue-oriented approaches to conflict transformation led us to the conclusion that even when most effective, such actions must be buttressed by the strengthening of relationships at all levels. Relationship-building is, in a way, the raison d’être of diplomatic presences throughout the world. Its importance, however, is sometimes overshadowed by an overly hierarchical protocol and by a process driven by “substantive” issues, as well as by the tendency, particularly in conflict situations, to lurch from crisis to crisis. But examples abound of how relationship-building, in every phase of a peace process, has underpinned, made possible, and in some cases, sustained a fragile process that has otherwise been stalemated:

In both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in Northern Ireland, the main antagonists were able to build a modicum of trust and confidence through meeting outside their areas—in Oslo and South Africa, respectively—not for formal negotiating sessions but for opportunities to better understand each other’s perceptions and fears. In contrast, in Sri Lanka officials have notably failed to build relationships with the Tamil separatists.
In Cyprus, a great deal of effort involving hundreds of people on both sides has been invested in building conflict resolution skills and initiating a variety of bicommunal projects. For example, a group led by women from each community has concentrated on the grassroots level through meetings in schools and villages to address the suspicions and fears of the other side. While this bicommunal peacebuilding movement has not yet noticeably affected the atmosphere of the formal negotiations, it keeps alive, at the grassroots level, the hope of accommodation and may ultimately influence the political level.
Greater use of smaller groupings within international or regional organizations, such as forming “friends” groups, was done effectively in Guatemala and El Salvador. This is also a useful approach in the Middle East, particularly in light of Israeli distrust of the broader UN system. A system of “smart partnerships” with NGOs might be developed from such groups.
Working with expatriate groups to obtain funding or to build the groundwork for peaceful outcomes has been instrumental in peacebuilding. A private peace group in Cyprus is finding this approach fruitful. In other areas, émigré groups may be supporting armed conflict in their homelands, and in these cases more attention needs to be devoted to channeling their influence in constructive ways.

It is also through relationship-building that the issue of perceptions of the other side can be addressed. The Middle East is but one example of a conflict in which each side perceives itself as heterogeneous while viewing the other side as homogeneous and monolithic. This, in turn, influences ideas of what the other side is politically capable of accomplishing, and of its fears and intentions.

Final Thoughts

As we moved from considering the actions of international organizations and governments to the relationships between individuals, our view of the importance of appreciating and supporting a multi-faceted approach to conflict transformation was reinforced. We also recognized the importance of process as well as—and at times more than—substance. A conflict cannot be finally resolved except by the parties themselves, but there is more that the international community can and should do to play its part. As we have gained a greater appreciation for the complexity of conflicts and the limitations of external actors, we recognize that structural reform of international institutions, while necessary, will not be sufficient. Political will and individual commitment is required.