Insight on conflict: BLOG.

Hope Diminished for Writing a New Constitution

  Mar 2010 | 1 Comment »

Nepal is currently in political stalemate, over three issues: civilian supremacy, as the President moves to reinstate the army chief; the formation of the new government under leadership of the Maoist party; and the reintegration of the Maoist combatants. This stalemate is a major setback for the peace process and the writing of the new constitution.

The High Level Political Mechanism (HPLM) was formed in the second week of January 2010 with the leaders of the major political parties of Nepal, namely the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML), to settle the political impasse and to bring the peace process and constitution writing process back on track.  Later on the HPLM decided to include other parties, mainly Madhesh based, in the process as well. However, almost all meetings and efforts of the HPLM have not been effective yet. To give an example, the only conclusion of the last meeting of the HPLM was setting a date and agenda for the next meeting.

Now that the discharging of the disqualified Maoist combatants from the cantonments has recently been completed, some fundamental questions on the issues of integration of the Maoist combatants come up again. These include:

• whether to integrate them into the Nepalese army or other security forces;
• if integration is best before the promulgation of the new constitution or afterwards;
• how many of the Maoist combatants should be integrated into the security forces.

The Maoists have consistently claimed that the integration of ex-combatants should be into the Nepalese army after the promulgation of the new constitution. The Prime Minister has proposed that 3,000 of the 19,000 combatants should be integrated into the security forces before the promulgation of the new constitution.

The Nepalese people from various fields, such as civil society, media, different professional groups, youth associations and student organisations are organizing different activities like rallies, conferences, speeches, sit-ins, fasting and the spreading posters, pamphlets and printings every day to create more pressure to write the new constitution within the given time frame. There are only 91 days left to promulgate the new constitution, and the slow progress is frustrating and worrying.

Ambika Pokhrel, Local Correspondent, 26 February 2010

‘Extreme Risk of Terrorism’ in Thailand

  Feb 2010 | No Comments »

In a worrying indication of the severity of the conflict in South Thailand, Maplecroft have just released their latest Terrorism Risk Index, and Thailand has entered the category of countries with an ‘extreme risk of terrorism’. Maplecroft have included 9 countries in this category, the others being: Iraq (1), Afghanistan (2), Pakistan (3), Somalia (4), Lebanon (5), India (6), Algeria (7), and Colombia (8).

The high ranking of Thailand may be surprising to some, but Eva Molyneux of Maplecroft points out that “media coverage can often skew public perceptions of terrorism risk in a country by publicising mass-casualty attacks. However, smaller terrorist incidents often go unreported”.

Ruairi Nolan, Insight on Conflict, 25 February 2010.

Sharing Stories of Building Peace

  Feb 2010 | No Comments »

Our Kashmir Local Correspondent Ashima Kaul this week attended a Peace Exchange in Nairobi, Kenya, organised by Peace Direct. Here she offers a personal reflection on the experience.

“What is your position on Kashmir?” Gulali Ismail asked me hesitantly at the Doha airport on our way back from Peace Direct’s peace retreat in Nairobi. Hailing from Peshawar in Pakistan the young 23 year old peacebuilder added, “Do you think it should go to Pakistan or India or get independence?” I smiled and said, “I have no predetermined position on Kashmir. The various solutions that are being floated around every other day will not lead to the resolution. It is the peacebuilding work that people like you and I do will carve a path for a final resolution”. With a thoughtful expression, Gulali nodded her head up and down, as we Asians do in agreement.

Later as we sat uploading the Nairobi pictures and waiting for our respective flights to Pakistan and India, I knew that while our physical journeys had different paths, the ‘powerful blend of personal peacebuilding stories’ that we shared with other peace builders from different parts of the world in Nairobi had touched us in a way that allowed us to envision a future full of possibilities even in the midst of severe adversities.

My thoughts raced back to the scores of untold stories that peacebuilders hold within their hearts; stories of courage and determination. Some of these stories unfolded in the sunlit room at the far end of Lukenya Getaway Hotel off the Mombasa highway almost an hours drive from Nairobi city.

As our conversations deepened over the three days, each one of us brought to life the people of our communities – from young people, women, tribal leaders, and religious clergy, to ex-combatants or even dreadful militia. “I befriended them (ex-combatants) and built trust as it was very hard to include them in peacebuilding initially”, said Henri Bura Ladyi, a cheerful Congolese peacebuilder. Dishani Jayaweera from Sri Lanka narrated stories of her befriending the Buddhist monks and Ramzi-Al Absi from Yemen shared about winning the trust of tribal leaders for a truce. Each person reflected on how ‘people in communities have the sharp edge’ in the restructuring and decentralizing processes that are integral to peacebuilding.

These stories of personal transformations, strategies, best practices and methodologies for peacebuilding have to be told and retold to the world, which sometimes seems only to listen to stories of horror, extremism and violence. We frequently hear news about motivated Sudanese, Afghan, Pakistani and Yemni Islamists fighting for Jihad in Kashmir, but we remain ignorant about equally motivated people like Rasha el Fangry and George Ngoha in Sudan, Ramzi Al -Absi in Yemen, Gulalai in Pakistan and Mirwais Wardak in Afghanistan who put their lives at stake to build peace in local communities, across borders and regions, dispelling stereotypes about identities and cultures.

I choose to as always hold their hands so that we can challenge extremism together, building relationships rather than destroying them!

Measuring the work of peacebuilders

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Bringing people together into dialogue, running capacity-building programmes, developing youth/empowerment empowerment and leadership, facilitating the DDR process are part of the work of peacebuilders in every conflict or post-conflict context.

Working in in a difficult context like a conflict is not easy. Local peacebuilders face all kinds of obstacles and challenges. And sometimes, peacebuilders ask themselves if their work is achieving results or is having an impact. Measuring the work of peacebuilders is a bit tricky. Most of the time, local peacebuilders don’t have indicators enabling them to measure their work effectively.

As a response to this, peacebuilders gathered in Lukenya Gateway by Peace Direct last week came up with some indicators that show the success of their work.

We can talk about peace in a given area when there is increased personal security, social relationships are enhanced, socio-economic stability and business opportunities are more widespread, communication and trust building are improved. In such context, human rights are respected or at least some improvements can be observed. There is an evident rule of law, inclusion of all communities or groups in decision-making, demobilization is successfully achieved, institutions function normally and youth and women manifest a strong interest or desire to participate in the socio-political life of the community and country as a whole.

The list is not exhaustive but has the essentials. When a local peacebuilder is seeing most of these indicators, one can say surely that the hard work of peacebuilding is having tangible results and feel encouraged to achieve more.

Landry Ninteretse, Burundi Local Correspondent. February 2010

Colombia: 200 years of solitude?

  Feb 2010 | No Comments »

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ a defining characteristic of the town of Macondo is its isolation; from generation to generation, the isolation of its inhabitants results in all sorts of feelings and reactions. The theme is one very familiar for Colombians, for whom the absence of the state has been a long-running concern, an absence which has contributed to the forming of numerous illegal armed groups. On a regional level, Colombia’s political isolation is well-known, particularly tensions with Venezuela and Ecuador.

As Colombia approaches its 200th anniversary of independence, Colombians are naturally minded to assess the capacity of their state to govern at this milestone. In particular, strong opinions have been expressed about the continuing ability of the state to maintain the rule of law and provide social welfare to its citizens across the whole breadth of the territory of Colombia. The scale of drug-trafficking, and its impact on society and politics as a whole, remains a serious concern.

The current administration of Alvaro Uribe has sought to strengthen the state largely through a security policy and strengthening the military, particularly in remote areas of the country. This policy has included notable military successes against the FARC guerrillas, notably killing of one of their leading commanders (Raul Reyes) and the rescue of the hostage Ingrid Betancourt after 7 years. Uribe’s ensuing popularity won him re-election in 2006. A topic of much debate is where the constitution will be changed to allow him to stand once more in this year’s elections. (The Colombian constitution, which had previously barred re-election, was changed in 2006 to allow him to stand once more, and would need a further change to allow a third term).

Though the hardline policies of Uribe have won him many supporters, he has faced consistent criticisms from human rights groups and political opponents over his strengthening of the military and also alleged links to paramilitary organisations. The most damaging allegations came in with the ‘False Positives’ scandal in 2008, in which high-ranking officers and soldiers were involved in the murder civilians, who were passed off as rebels by members of the armed forces. This involves many cases of missing people cases, with families denouncing the authority’s claims that their dead people did not belong to any illegal armed group.

Civil society has played a vital role in maintaining vigilance on Colombia’s increasingly-militarised state; for example, Ideas Para La Paz produce a monthly bulletin on the conflict in Colombia, as well as many other articles, and it was a report by the Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos (CCEEU), an alliance of civil society organisations, that submitted a report on hundreds of missing people in the ‘False Positives’ scandal.

Despite the severity of these allegations, many Colombians continue to back a ‘mano dura’ (hardline) military strategy on the part of the government. After 200 years of independence, will this strategy succeed in bringing long-term peace to Colombia? Ideas Para La Paz warn us against thinking there will be any easy solutions:

“Colombia’s armed conflict stands out due to its complexity: illegal armed groups or alliances among them, with different origins and structures, operate throughout the country, surrounded by organised crime networks. The split trend within every group is strong and their characteristics change as the geography does. Any effort for peacebuilding in Colombia has to start by understanding this complexity.”

Daniel Pardo, Insight on Conflict. February 2010.