CCTS
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by Emma Kay

Our group withdrew to discuss the organisational aspects and implications of NGOs becoming involved in negotiation and mediation. The first thing we agreed was the necessity of guidelines, the need to have a clear understanding of what you stand for. Earlier in the day a former member of the Balkan Peace Project had pointed out to us the difficult situation in which volunteers can find themselves when left in doubt as to whether a line of advocacy or mediation is to be pursued. According to her, she was left in a situation in which she felt morally compromised when the two practices had been combined.

Therefore, guidelines were called for:

• For the individual: if an NGO has drawn up clear guidelines defining what they stand for, the individual has but to stick to those guidelines and compromising situations can be avoided. The volunteer has to subscribe to these beliefs and have the responsibility to represent their NGO correctly.
• For organisational accountability: you cannot hold your personnel accountable if there are no set guidelines they are obligated to use.
• To avoid compromising the NGOs future work in that country: to safeguard your reputation.

The next issue for discussion was how to formulate the guidelines. What are the key issues that need to be addressed ? Let us first of all look at how conflict resolution can be approached. We came up with seven ways:

• By strengthening civil society
• By tackling the root causes of the conflict
• By mediation and negotiation
• Via active support to one of the warring parties
• By full embargoes
• By programming aid to reduce the violence
• By military intervention

Support for civil society

What, then, are the dilemmas raised when trying to formulate your beliefs with regard to the first point? Are you providing financial aid to local organisations or are you purely practising advocacy? What kind of organisations will you get involved with -- only those that stand for non-violent political struggle? How do you define civil society? Will you not be playing into the hands of the rulers, the elite of the country? By choosing whom to help you are perhaps in danger of being a cultural 'imperialist', i.e. your Western values and ideals might clash with the values of those you want to help. And how do you place civil society support into a broader context of resolution? It seems that you are clearly choosing sides here.

When looking at tackling the root causes of a conflict you will have to start by defining the root causes. This immediately appears to be a value-based exercise. How do you view the capacity of the political leadership with their intention with the conflict? How do you approach the causes? Historically, economically?

For all of the points above it is evident that a wide range of dilemmas will come to light, thus indicating how hard it will be for an NGO to formulate its mandate, although all of us agreed that that it is an essential exercise.

Unfortunately, our very interesting and lively discussion had to be cut short due to lack of time: we all felt we could have continued for the rest of the weekend at least. But hopefully our too-short discussion will provide some food for thought.

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