Committee for Conflict Transformation Support

CCTS
Newsletter 13

The Interplay of Domestic, Regional and International Forces in Peacebuilding

III. A revolution of sorts is needed

III.a) It must be possible to conceptualise peacebuilding without resorting to the imposition of a mold, to have interim administrative arrangements with work on developing governance as priority, rather than emphasis on immediate elections. Rama Mani argues (Pugh, p.11) that peacebuilding should be exercised with extreme caution 'to avoid collapsing - for entirely different reasons, and with benign intentions - into the pitfall of last century's empire builders'. Facilitating human security, demilitarisation, justice, good governance, accountability, national reconciliation and social development, should not be driven by a technical inventory, a blueprint, organisational imperatives or the quest for an imposed normative order. She suggests that the standards to which external organisations aspire for war-torn societies are often not only unrealistic, and therefore of dubious legitimacy, but rarely achieved in their own societies.

"Whose" peace is being built? There is a paradox in the top-down authoritarian imposition of "democratic" forms. Pugh (2000) stresses the importance of renewal and regeneration for "peace", conditions in which:

    "survivors not only acquire a stake in achieving non-violent goals but also assume direction of the means to achieve them. This approach to peaceful regeneration assumes that because conditions are dynamic, all kinds of relationships will adjust: the relationship between emergency relief providers and recipients; between external agencies and local authorities; between former elites and the people who follow or oppose them. The direction of the process is significant because when survivors do not have a stake in making non-violent adjustments, then 'recidivist' pressures can become ascendant." (p.2)

In an attempt to provide connected platforms - to pre-empt or transform possible "recidivist" pressure, the former WHO Bosnia and Herzegovina policy officer came up with the idea in 1999 of a regional Balkan health forum under WHO auspices. In Bosnia he had spearheaded a DfID funded project which consciously addressed (through health sector activities) such issues as human rights, freedom of movement, and cross-community co-operation. (Although initially met with scepticism by local field offices, the "Peace Through Health" initiative met with some success.) In spite of talk of a "Balkan Stability Pact" which gave off regional overtones, he could not raise interest or resources for his idea, and cited reasons as lack of vision, poor management, and a clinical approach to reconstruction. Internationals thought "with their heads, locals with their hearts" (Hess, 2001).

Interviewed for this paper about the interaction between levels in the Bosnian Peace Through Health initiative, he said the following:

    "In terms of communication, I would say there was a great deal of communication about actions and activities. However, I don't think we ever reached a common ground of understanding or expectations of peacebuilding initiatives. For the internationals, Peace Through Health was about positions and principles, e.g. we could not accept discrimination in health services as an inevitable by-product of implementing our projects. At the local level, I believe Peace Through Health was perceived by many as the international community's desire to make people be friends. As such, it was rationally accepted (i.e. we need to avoid going back to war) but was emotionally untenable (i.e. they tried to kill us for 4 years, why do you want us to be friends??!!).

    To do over, we (WHO) might have tried to find more ways to discuss with national authorities the "fault lines" of conflict and their implications for the health sector. WHO national staff began to understand this perspective during the implementation of Peace Through Health and the national staff were absolutely essential for communication between WHO and Bosnia and Herzegovina nationals (health authorities and general population). Conversely, WHO international staff began to understand that Peace Through Health was not about making people be friends but rather was a conflict-sensitive approach to health sector reconstruction."

A comment on "interplay between levels":
"The concept of levels (by implication one being higher or lower than another) was itself a source of conflict at the field level. The clearly demarked and repeated distinctions between international and local "levels" were in contradiction to many of the principles we were espousing. It also led to an implicit valuing and devaluing of different types of knowledge - rational knowledge was valuable, emotional knowledge was not. Related to one of my earlier points, reconstruction is a matter of the mind and the heart; successful reconstruction must value and incorporate both aspects. Perhaps alternative terminology would help in this regard."

Gregory Hess, The Peace Path Group, formerly WHO Bosnia

Approaches which foster local ownership, recognise local norms, culture, values, and skills, will be longer lasting than the technical imperative. Hess and others encountered local groups in central Bosnia (as in East Slavonia, as in Vojvodina) which had organised self-supported multi-ethnic initiatives - on ecological, disability, or national traditions themes. They had their own approaches to reconstruction, and they were in charge. They welcome international interest, but the agenda is their own. This stands in stark contrast to a memory I hold of a Croatian woman in tears in Eastern Slavonia, because she could not meet the fixed "target" for staged reconciliation in Vukovar as stipulated in her Washington D.C. funded project. You cannot programme reconciliation on a technical basis. Perhaps even democracy cannot be programmed, but rather cultivated as a gradual process.

In Maluku a prominent women's group which had intervened with militia, child soldiers, orphans, and the needs of IDPs was offered UN funding (a lot of it) if they re-constituted as a formal NGO. They reacted with incredulity - why fill out forms and change your way of organising if you were effective already?? East Timorese and Indonesian student human rights activists make their own bridges to discuss the politics of reform in their region. Peace and Security groups will hold a regional meeting in Malaysia this year, examining ways to support each other, to stay in contact, to build a broad base of concerted change. The NGO forum in East Timor continues in its efforts to influence and lobby for their own government and future.

On the "micro-level" of inter-action, international donors should revisit their funding formats and look for alternatives to fixed cycle project plans. On the "macro" side, instead of purely vertical short term concentration on localised protectorates, long term political co-operation on the regional level to promote regions as viable economic, cultural, and ecological units may be the way of the future.

III.b) New Thinking for Transformation
A myriad of transactions, structures, histories, motivations, values and experience inform each of the examples alluded to here. It is striking how both (ex)Yugoslav (in this case Bosnian) and Indonesian contexts are experiencing a roll-back, from old centralised, militarised orders to something new, however painful and uneven the process. Obviously this is not comparing "like" with "like", nor is it a broad sampling of case studies. But it does prompt the question of the very idea of security, which is also central to peace.

It may be that we stand at a juncture of doctrinal shift:

Perceived as a follow-up to peacekeeping, the humanitarian efforts of peacebuilding tend to be viewed in 'old' security terms. Inter-action is a sub-set of military or quasi-military operations for the restoration of order. Seen as a preventative long term process, peacebuilding links 'new' and 'old' security agendas by helping to bridge the gaps in theory and practice which have existed between security and development. Social development and political transition must be cultivated on an inclusive basis.

A sweeping view of the inter-play between local, regional and international levels has been attempted here. What linkage towards policy, toward inclusion, towards local ownership, is within the remit of individuals? Individuals make their mark as spokespeople and leaders in affected populations, in the U.N. system, in related networks. "Thinking laterally" has led to cross community work (endorsed by both Diana Francis and Howard Clark in earlier papers of this series), accompaniment, witness, grass roots consultation, assistance to ex-combatants, work with "hard liners" and militants, creative use of media and journalism, education, job creation and institution-building.

The movement of information, of "truth" from local to international forums such as the Hague Tribunal is an example of inter-action between levels which peace constituencies applaud. While the War Crimes Tribunal receives criticism for being slow or cumbersome, you need only sit in a café in Sarajevo and watch with locals its daily broadcast to appreciate what it means. We can speak to policy, speak through advocacy as well as example - and ask difficult questions, loudly, or to very particular audiences, when necessary. For example, why is it that current doctrine builds markets but not economies?? (Scope for another discussion here)

Useful current thinking on the subject of peacebuilding includes Luc Reychler's work on "Peace Architecture" (EPCP, 2001 doc I) and Robert Ricigliano "The Chaordic Peace Process" (ECPC, 2001, Doc II) Cousens and Kumar (2001) contrast deductive (blueprint) versus inductive (elicitive problem-solving) approaches in a refreshing volume which looks at case studies from Haiti, Somalia, Cambodia, Bosnia, and El Salvador.

This paper has attempted a modest description of ongoing peacebuilding initiatives in different forms. It has attempted to demonstrate that the "inter-play", the inter-action between levels, may be experienced as imposed or enabling. Peacekeeping requires the imposition of forces to provide security and safety, to create a space for some type of non-violent normality to be cultivated. As we move to a deeper understanding, often from bitter experience, of peacebuilding our flexibility must be challenged, and innovation sought. Treating "peace as process" is more difficult than it sounds, and the time for renewed strategy and action is now.

Judith Large, April 2001

Notes and References

 

 

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