Image via thepoliticalcarnival.net
By Susan Koscis
The world has lost a champion for peace with Richard Holbrooke’s premature death at age 69. At the height of his powers, who knows how many more “Dayton Accords” he might have negotiated. He was a staunch believer that diplomacy was by far the strongest card to play, even if it meant sitting down with tyrants. “I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn’t lose one’s point of view,” he said.
Richard Holbrooke was known for his tough and somewhat unorthodox negotiating style. A profile in The New Yorker said “He yelled at Foreign Ministers and cursed at a President.” According to a State Department official quoted in a Washington Post article, “He’s like Muhammad Ali — he’s yakking and talking; he’s jiving. The first time you see it you think it’s just bull; in fact he’s psyching out the other person and reading the reaction.”
Lawrence Summers, a colleague of Holbrooke’s in the Clinton cabinet, said “It is a better world because of what this man has done as a negotiator.” Summers said he learned from Holbrooke that “negotiating may seem obvious and easy but it isn’t. . .you must know what you want to accomplish and why and stay focused. . .and a basic toughness, cynicism and deep distrust need to be harnessed to achieve most idealistic ends.”
Upon receiving The Great Negotiator Award from Harvard, Holbrooke said, “This award honors the art of negotiation. I say ‘art’ intentionally because it is not a science and never will be. Negotiation is like jazz. It is improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don’t know how to get there. It’s not linear.”
That is probably as good a description of conflict resolution as I’ve ever heard. You do your homework and carry out a conflict mapping; do a country/regional assessment; root the program in local culture; work with local partners; establish yourself as a 3rd party neutral who engages with all stakeholders – and even then, things can and will change. All you can do is improvise.
No doubt Richard Holbrooke would have been a great jazz musician, had that been his career choice! RIP.
Image via trendsupdates.com
Although the Second Congo War (sometimes referred to as the “African World War”) officially ended in 2003, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains a combat zone. Pervasive sexual and gender-based violence continues throughout the country, especially in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. Just this past August, reports emerged from the Walikale territory in the North Kivu province about a mass rape of over 300 women, girls, men, and boys by armed groups fighting the DRC. Adding to the inherent horror of the situation is the reality that peacekeeping forces stationed nearby failed to protect the victims. In a field news report filed by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, mental health worker Joelle Depeyrot discussed the lasting impact of the attacks on the local population:
Since these incidents, other patients have come to us in a state of agitation and fear. They were not there. But they have lived through other horrific events. And they have heard the stories. They report being scared, scared all the time. They spend their time wondering when they will be tortured and killed.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, 7,700 acts of sexual violence were reported during the first half of this year alone—and those numbers only reflect reported acts, where women were brave enough to come forward about being attacked. read more…
Democratic Republic of Congo: Past. Present. Future?
from Forced Migration Review
Foundations for repatriation and peace in DRC
By Vanessa Noël Brown
Parties to the protracted Congolese conflict have long promoted fear of ‘the other’ and a thirst for revenge; these attitudes must be addressed if peace is to have a chance.
In 2010 there has been a steady return of Congolese refugees from Zambia and the beginnings of an official process for the return of refugees from the camps in Burundi. Returns to South Kivu from Tanzania, however, have been at a standstill due to persistent insecurity in return zones while North Kivu’s repatriation process remains highly politicised. The return of Congolese refugees from Rwanda and Burundi is expected to be problematic given the ethnic minorities involved, and what stability currently exists may deteriorate. NGOs have an important role to play in advancing reconciliation, social cohesion and healthy relationships in refugee return zones.
This article explores Search for Common Ground (SFCG) initiatives to educate refugees and the communities in the return zones about the conditions of repatriation and reintegration, to build trust across ethnic lines, and to shift attitudes to favour the fight against sexual and gender-based violence. SFCG’s arts-based approach in disseminating conflict management skills highlights how international non-governmental initiatives can address the psychosocial needs of both returning refugees and residents alike. read more…
Image via cia.gov
In the November 2010 issue of Forced Migration Review, the journal explores the complex problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
“The Democratic Republic of Congo is unfortunately synonymous with its dreadful past and its terrible present, despite its beauty, complex history and unachieved potential. Locked not only into its own internal troubles but also into those of the Great Lakes region, it has provided more than enough material on forced migration, violence and political quagmires for the latest issue of FMR.”
Search for Common Ground is familiar with the challenges the DRC faces: we have been present in the country since 2001. In collaboration with 100 local partners, SFCG implements a variety of programs, including radio and television production, participatory theatre, and anti-sexual violence campaigns.
This week, we will be taking a closer look at the DRC, offering insight into our projects there as well as the challenges that affect the country. In Vanessa Noël Brown’s “Foundations for repatriation and peace in DRC,” she examines the role NGOs can play in “advancing reconciliation, social cohesion and healthy relationships in refugee return zones” given the often fraught, tense scenarios Congolese refugees face. We talk to Mike Jobbins about SFCG’s Tosale’lango (Let’s Do It), the country’s only reality TV show that calls on youth participants to carry out their vision of change in their community. We’ll also talk about alternative ways of reaching an audience—like comic books and mobile cinema!
During this holiday season, all of us at Search for Common Ground send warm wishes for a year of joy and peace in our hearts…Peace in our homes…And peace in the world.
We hope you enjoy this video, made for SFCG and recorded by Grammy award-winning American singer Melissa Etheridge and Pakistani musician Salman Ahman, founder of Junoon – South Asia’s biggest and longest-lasting rock band.
A SFCG participatory theater production on land conflict in Burundi
Land continues to be a major source of conflict in Burundi and in one of Africa’s most densely populated countries, clashes between repatriated refugees and residents are common.
Kibago a village in the southern part of the country has been the site of much conflict. Located near the Tanzanian border, it has one of the highest return rates in the country. At one point, 300 families lived in makeshift shelters around the outskirts of the village. Most of the repatriates fled Burundi’s ethnic conflict in 1972 which set the country’s largest ethnic groups (the Hutus and Tutsis) against each other. They have returned only recently claiming land they left behind that has since been occupied by others in the intervening decades. A year ago, the situation was fragile enough that the vice-president made several visits to call for a calming of tensions. The National Land Commission, CNTB also paid extra attention to the area.
To help address the problem, Search for Common Ground produced Icibare Cacu, “our piece of land”, an award-winning radio show. Icibare Cacu played a major role in raising national awareness on the conflicts and provided its listeners with practical solutions to deal with their conflicts in collaborative ways. read more…
