With the armed conflict in the Gaza Strip continuing to increase the number of dead, wounded, and displaced and the danger of the conflict spreading to other areas of the Middle East, renewed efforts of conflict resolution need to be made. The United Nations (UN) has been active especially in relief efforts, and many Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) have expressed their concern. NGOs have also been active in relief efforts. However, the inadequate amount of relief supplies that enter the Gaza Strip limits the impact of nongovernmental activity.
From the start of the Gaza conflict more than 100 days ago, NGOs such as the Association of World Citizens have been highlighting positive steps on the path to negotiations. They have stressed four major steps:
1) An immediate ceasefire;
2) Release of hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails – often under administrative detention without trial;
3) Preventing the extension of the conflict to Lebanon’s frontier through negotiations with Hezbollah;
4) Preventing an increase in violence in the West Bank between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villages.
In October 2023, a building destroyed in Gaza (C) Ali Hamad/APAimages
The start of hearings on the charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice has added international attention to the Gaza Strip situation and more broadly to the Israel-Palestine drama.
The need for conflict resolution action is great. The proposals of NGOs hold a light of hope.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Antony Blinken, the United States (U.S.) Secretary of State, has been again in the Middle East working to prevent the violence of the Gaza Strip of spreading to much of the area. The Gaza Strip conflict has already spread to the West Bank with increased violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinian inhabitants. There is increased violence along the frontier of Lebanon with the activities of the armed faction Hezbollah and the displacement of Israeli villages. Negotiations in good faith seem far off, and political speeches grow more conflictual. Could there be a role for unarmed, non-governmental peace brigades to monitor frontiers and lessen tensions?
One possibility, inspired by the efforts of Shanti Sena (Peace Army) developed by followers of Mahatma Gandhi in India to deal with Hindu-Muslim violence is to place some nongovernmental teams on the frontier between antagonists in order to provide an opportunity for all parties to “cool off” and negotiate.
(C) Exotic India
One such effort in which I was directly involved was an effort to place a peace team on the Nicaraguan-Honduras frontier in 1981. At the time, it was thought that the 400 strong U.S. troops stationed in Honduras might cross the frontier to attack the Sandinista-leftest government in Nicaragua or to help actively the anti-Sandinista Contras to do so. A group of persons associated with the Santa Cruz Resource Center for Nonviolence in California and affiliated to the organization Peace Brigades International were able to put a team together and move to the Nicaragua-Honduras frontier on short notice. The group called itself “The Jalapa Brigade” after the small Nicaraguan city near the Honduran frontier where it was posted.
When the Jalapa Brigade was being put into place, the Ambassador of Nicaragua to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva was a former student of mine, and his brother, also a former student of mine, was the legal advisor to the President of Nicaragua. In fact, when the team arrived, Daniel Ortega, the President, introduced the team as “Friends of Humanity.”
Through the Ambassador, I was able to inform all the Central American Missions to the UN as to the aims and role of the Peace Brigade. In the end, the U.S. military did not cross the frontier. Perhaps it never intended to do so. It may also have been that the interposition of U.S. citizens with good organizational contacts helped to weigh in the U.S. military decision-making process. When the team left, the leader of the Protestant “Evangelical Committee for Development Aid” said “The proof of your triumph lies in the fact that no attacks were made while you were in the Jalapa area.”
There have been other such interposition efforts. One was the Gulf Peace Team created at the time of the 1990 Iraqi annexation of Kuwait. The aim of the 73-member Peace Team was to be an “international multicultural team working for peace and opposing any form of armed aggression by setting up one or more international peace camps between the opposing armed forces. Our object will be to withstand nonviolently any armed aggression by any party to the present Gulf dispute.” However, on January 27, 1991, the peace camp was closed by Iraq because the authorities had “decided that the continued presence of the camp was a security risk.”
Thus, the creation of interposition peace teams in the Israel-Palestine conflict would not be easy to create for political and logistic reasons. There are economic and logistic resources required and, more importantly, there is the need to raise enough volunteers who are mature, culturally sensitive, and analytically minded to achieve a critical mass that would make a difference in the decision-making of the conflicting parties. There is also the need to keep the unity of purpose within the teams if they have not worked together before. However, the current situation is very dangerous. The dangers are widely recognized. Therefore, all forms of conflict reduction need to be explored.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
The armed conflict in the eastern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) on the frontier with Rwanda seems to be growing worse and is impacting in a negative way the lives of people. The current fighting adds to the insecurity of the area and has virtually stopped cross-frontier activities largely done by women small traders. As a result, the price of existing food supplies has increased greatly, and shortages are to be feared.
The current armed conflict is among a Tutsi-led militia, the Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23), the forces of the RDC government and different ethnic militias. The President of the RDC, Felix Tshisekedi, sponsored the creation of local militias to help government soldiers, but the government does not control these militias. The United Nations (UN) Stabilization Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) which has been in the RDC since 1999 is the largest UN peacekeeping force with some 15,000 members. However, it has been unable to halt the fighting or to protect civilians. In fact, the area of conflict has grown and engendered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, causing the displacement of more than one million civilians in North Kivu Province. The M23 has recently launched attempts to win allies in South Kivu Province, in particular the armed group Twirwaneko, with the objective of opening a front in South Kivu.
The government of Rwanda has become increasingly involved in the Kivu conflict with direct intervention by the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) and, despite a theoretical UN sponsored arms embargo, with weapons and other military equipment. The M23 is also fighting against the Forces démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) a Hutu-led group hostile to the government of Rwanda.
Recent attacks by M23 on populations associated with, or presumed to support the FDLR, have grown. Incidents of rape, including gang rape, by M23 combatants are prevalent but are not limited to the M23. The armed conflict is colored by a tense political situation with general elections, most significantly a presidential election, scheduled for December 2023.
The increased violence indicates the need for local non-governmental peacebuilding efforts which can be also facilitated by international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). There is also a greater need to build respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL). When the framework of current IHL as drafted in the 1948 Geneva Conventions in light of the experiences of World War II, the focus was upon the actions of national armies. Today, much violence and strife is due to non-State actors and armed militias such as those in the RDC.
There are two major weaknesses in the effectiveness of IHL. (1) The first is that many people do not know that it exists and that they are bound by its norms. Thus, there is an important role for greater educational activities, the dissemination of information to the wider public, specific training of the military, outreach to armed militias, and cooperation with a wide range of NGOs.
The second weakness is that those violating IHL are rarely punished. Few soldiers are tried or court-martialed. This weakness is even more true for non-state militias and armed groups. There is yet much to do for the realization of the rule of law.
Note
1) For useful guides to International Humanitarian Law see:
D. Schindler and J. Toman, The Laws of Armed Conflict (Martinus Nihjoff Publishers, 1988)
H. McCoubrey and N.D. White, International Law and Armed Conflict (Dartmouth Publishing Co. 1992)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
June 4 makes the security forces in China somewhat uneasy, especially in Hong Kong where, in the past, there were large memorial meetings to remind people of June 4, 1989, when the military and police moved against those who had been protesting publicly for over a month. Students from colleges and universities in China’s capital initiated protests after the death of the former General Secretary of the Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, on April 15, 1989 who was considered a liberal reformer. The movement then spread over a number of weeks to most of the major cities. Students made numerous demands, among them were calls for an end to government corruption, increased funding for education, and freedom of the press. As the movement went on, students were increasingly joined by industrial workers.
There were differences of opinion within the ruling government circle as to how to deal with the protests. As the protests continued, there was more and more international media attention, especially as there were an increasing number of journalists in Beijing in advance of the visit of the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, with a large delegation of Soviet officials.
(C) Jeff Widener/Associated Press
Students and intellectuals started writing petitions setting out demands that were signed by more and more people. The decentralized structure of power and decision-making among groups in Tienanmen Square allowed for tactical innovation as each group was free to act as it desired and stress the symbols it wanted. Thus, art school students created the Goddess of Democracy, largely based on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. The growth in support for the student-led protests led the more anti-reformist faction in the government to order a crackdown by the military and the police. The tanks started to move into Tiananmen Square.
Since June 1989 there have been reforms within China – what we might call “democratization from below” but without large scale, highly visible public protests. ‘Stability’ and ‘harmony’ have been the stated government policy aims, colored by the breakup of the Soviet Union and fundamental changes in Eastern Europe. So, democratization needs to proceed quietly and gradually. Such democratization requires long-term vision and skillful leadership. Democratization is basically linked to individualization, to an ever-larger number of people thinking for themselves, creating their own lifestyles and ‘thinking outside the box’. It can be a slow process and repressive forces within the government watch events closely. However, it is likely that the direction of individualism is set and cannot be reversed.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
In our current globalized world society, there is an increased role for politics without borders. Politics no longer stops at the water’s edge but must play an active role on the world stage. However, unlike politics at the national level which usually has a parliament at which the actors can recite their lines, the world has no world parliament as such. Thus, new and inventive ways must be found so that world public opinion can be heard and acted upon.
The United Nations (UN) General Assembly is the closest thing to a world parliament that we have today. However, all the official participants are diplomats appointed by their respective States – 195 member states. UN Secretariat members, the secretariat members of UN Specialized Agencies such as UNESCO and the ILO, are in the hallways or coffee shops to give advice. Secretariat members of the financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are also there to give advice on costs and the limits of available funds. The representatives of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) in Consultative Status with the UN who can speak at sessions of the Economic and Social Council and the Human Rights Council cannot address the General Assembly directly. However, they are also in the coffee shops and may send documents to the UN missions of national governments.
(C) Jérôme Blum
Politics without borders requires finding ways to express views for action beyond the borders of individual countries. Today, most vital issues that touch the lives of many people go beyond the individual State: the consequences of climate change, the protection of biodiversity, the resolution of armed conflicts, the violations of human rights, and a more just world trade pattern. Thus we need to find ways of looking at the world with a global mind and an open heart. This perspective is an aim of world citizenship.
However, World Citizens are not yet so organized as to be able to impact political decisions at the UN and in enough individual States so as to have real influence. The policy papers and Appeals of the Association of World Citizens (AWC) are often read with interest by the government representatives to whom they are sent. However, the AWC is an NGO among many and does not have the number of staff as such international NGOs as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Greenpeace.
The First Officer and External Relations Officer, Bernard J. Henry, and the Legal and Mediation Officer, Attorney Noura Addad, representing the AWC at an OECD roundtable in March 2019 (C) Bernard J. Henry/AWC
We still need to find effective ways so that humanity can come together to solve global problems, that is, politics without borders. Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
The continuing armed conflict in Ukraine and the lack of any formal governmental negotiations forces us to ask if more can be done on the part of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to encourage negotiations in good faith. The same lack of formal governmental negotiations exists in the tension-filled relations between China and Taiwan.
On the Ukraine conflict, there have been efforts at mediation through the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General and leaders of individual States to encourage ceasefires and the start of negotiations, but without visible results for the moment.
These governmental efforts can be called Track One. Track One diplomacy is official government negotiations with backup resources of government research and intelligence agencies. There can also be Track One “back channels” of informal or unofficial contacts.
Track Two diplomacy is a non-official effort, usually by an NGO, academic institutions, sometimes business corporations. The use of non-official mediators is increasing as the recognition grows that there is a tragic disjuncture between the UN’s mandates to keep peace and its ability to intervene in internal conflicts within a State – often confrontations between armed groups and government forces and sometimes among different armed groups.
Track Two talks are discussions held by non-officials of conflicting parties in an attempt to clarify outstanding disputes and to explore the options for resolving them in settings that are less sensitive than those associated with formal negotiations. The participants usually include scholars, senior journalists, former government officials, and former military officers. They must be in close contact with national leaders and the secretariat of international organizations such as the UN who may be able to help in the peace process.
(C) SIWI/Shared Waters Partnership
As a study of Track Two efforts points out “Track Two talks can be defined by what they are not: neither academic conferences nor secret diplomacy conducted by government representatives… Track Two talks are convened specifically to foster informal interaction among participants regarding the political issues dividing their nations and to find ways of reducing the conflict between them… The purposes of Track Two talks vary, but they are all related to reducing tensions and facilitating the resolution of a conflict. At a minimum, Track Two talks are aimed at an exchange of views, perceptions, and information between the parties to improve each side’s understanding of the other’s positions and policies.” (1)
By informing contacts within government of the insights they have gained, participants may indirectly contribute to the formation of new national political priorities and policies. Much depends on the caliber and dedication of the participants and their relations with governmental leadership.
As Kenneth Boulding, the Quaker economist who often participated in Track Two efforts, wrote,
“When Track One will not do, We have to travel on Track Two. But for results to be abiding, The Tracks must meet upon some siding.” (2)
Notes
(1) Hussein Agha, Shai Feldman, Ahmad Khalidi, Zeev Schiff, Track II Diplomacy: Lessons from the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003, 225 pp.)
(2) Quoted in John W. McDonald with Noa Zanolli, The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding: Stories and Lessons (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008, 341 pp.)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
With the United States (U. S.) and Chinese military engaged near Taiwan, a miscalculation could lead to armed violence. The armed conflict in Ukraine has heightened the debate on the possibility of armed conflict between China and Taiwan. Tensions between the two Korean states remain high. The border clash between Indian and Chinese forces in June 2020 has highlighted residual tensions between the two countries. One could add other tensions in the Asia-Pacific area to the list.
Less obvious are the possibilities of confidence-building measures that would reduce these tensions and might open doors to cooperation in the security, economic and social spheres.
There are confidence-building measures that can be undertaken by governments. Whereas we, outside of governmental positions, can make suggestions as to steps that governments could take, we nevertheless have little possibility to oblige action by them. Thus, we have to consider what confidence-building measures we as academics and nongovernmental organization activists can undertake.
Fortunately, we have long experience of working to reduce the tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) which led to the Helsinki Agreements and finally the end of the Cold War. Much of the analysis is still of value such as Mary Kaldor (Ed), Europe from Below (London: Verso: 1991). Many of the peace organizations that were involved are still in existence and could focus on Asia-Pacific issues.
There have also been efforts on confidence-building in the Israel-Palestine conflict and in the wider Middle East. Repeated efforts concerning tensions between India and Pakistan often focused on the tensions in Kashmir.
Today, there is a need to draw upon these experiences to impart conflict resolution skills to new individuals and groups, thereby building and expanding the constituencies working for conflict reduction measures. New participants can have backgrounds in psychology, religion, law and communications with experience in social movements and community action programs.
There is also a need to draw upon categories of people who were not directly involved in earlier efforts. Often women were marginalized not only in government negotiations but even in nongovernmental efforts. These processes of dialogue have a value in deepening understanding of a situation. However, the emphasis should be on developing proposals for confidence-building measures.
Seeing with eyes that are gender aware, women tend to make connections between the oppression that is the ostensible cause of conflict (ethnic or national oppression) in the light of another cross-cutting one: that of gender regime. Feminist work tends to represent war as a continuum of violence from the bedroom to the battlefield, traversing our bodies and our sense of self. We glimpse this more readily because as women we have seen that ‘the home’ itself is not the haven it is cracked up to be. Why, if it is a refuge, do so many women have to escape it to “refuges”? And we recognize, with Virginia Woolf, that ‘the public and private worlds are inseparably connected: that the tyrannies and servilities of one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other.
Cynthia Cockburn, Negotiating Gender and National Identities
October 31 is the anniversary of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 which calls for full and equal participation of women in conflict prevention, peace processes, and peacebuilding, thus creating opportunities for women to become fully involved in governance and leadership. This historic Security Council resolution 1325 of October 31, 2000 provides a mandate to incorporate gender perspectives in all areas of peace support. Its adoption is part of a process within the UN system through its World Conferences on Women in Mexico City (1975), in Copenhagen (1980), in Nairobi (1985), in Beijing (1995), and at a special session of the UN General Assembly to study progress five years after Beijing (2000).
Since 2000, there have been no radical changes as a result of Resolution 1325, but the goal has been articulated and accepted. Now women must learn to take hold of and generate political power if they are to gain an equal role in peace-making. They must be willing to try new avenues and new approaches as symbolized by the actions of Lysistrata.
Lysistrata, immortalized by Aristophanes, mobilized women on both sides of the Athenian-Spartan War for a sexual strike in order to force men to end hostilities and avert mutual annihilation. In this, Lysistrata and her co-strikers were forerunners of the American humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow who proposed a hierarchy of needs: water, food, shelter, and sexual relations being the foundation (see Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature). Maslow is important for conflict resolution work because he stresses dealing directly with identifiable needs in ways that are clearly understood by all parties and with which they are willing to deal at the same time.
Addressing each person’s underlying needs means that one moves toward solutions that acknowledge and value those needs rather than denying them. To probe below the surface requires redirecting the energy towards asking “What are your real needs here? What interests need to be serviced in this situation?” The answers to such questions significantly alter the agenda and provide a real point of entry into the negotiation process.
It is always difficult to find a point of entry into a conflict. An entry point is a subject on which people are willing to discuss because they sense the importance of the subject and all sides feel that “the time is ripe” to deal with the issue. The art of conflict resolution is highly dependent on the ability to get to the right depth of understanding and intervention into the conflict. All conflicts have many layers. If one starts off too deeply, one can get bogged down in philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. However, one can also get thrown off track by focusing on too superficial an issue on which there is relatively quick agreement. When such relatively quick agreement is followed by blockage on more essential questions, there can be a feeling of betrayal.
Since Lysistrata, women, individually and in groups, have played a critical role in the struggle for justice and peace in all societies. However, when real negotiations begin, women are often relegated to the sidelines. However, a gender perspective on peace, disarmament, and conflict resolution entails a conscious and open process of examining how women and men participate in and are affected by conflict differently. It requires ensuring that the perspectives, experiences and needs of both women and men are addressed and met in peace-building activities. Today, conflicts reach everywhere. How do these conflicts affect people in the society — women and men, girls and boys, the elderly and the young, the rich and poor, the urban and the rural?
There has been a growing awareness that women and children are not just victims of violent conflict and wars −’collateral damage’ − but they are chosen targets. Conflicts such as those in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have served to bring the issue of rape and other sexual atrocities as deliberate tools of war to the forefront of international attention. Such violations must be properly documented, the perpetrators brought to justice, and victims provided with criminal and civil redress.
I would stress three elements which seem to me to be the ‘gender’ contribution to conflict transformation efforts:
1) The first is in the domain of analysis, the contribution of the knowledge of gender relations as indicators of power. Uncovering gender differences in a given society will lead to an understanding of power relations in general in that society, and to the illumination of contradictions and injustices inherent in those relations.
2) The second contribution is to make us more fully aware of the role of women in specific conflict situations. Women should not only be seen as victims of war: they are often significantly involved in taking initiatives to promote peace. Some writers have stressed that there is an essential link between women, motherhood and non-violence, arguing that those engaged in mothering work have distinct motives for rejecting war which run in tandem with their ability to resolve conflicts non-violently. Others reject this position of a gender bias toward peace and stress rather that the same continuum of non-violence to violence is found among women as among men. In practice, it is never all women nor all men who are involved in peace-making efforts. Sometimes, it is only a few, especially at the start of peace-making efforts. The basic question is how best to use the talents, energies, and networks of both women and men for efforts at conflict resolution.
3) The third contribution of a gender approach with its emphasis on the social construction of roles is to draw our attention to a detailed analysis of the socialization process in a given society. Transforming gender relations requires an understanding of the socialization process of boys and girls, of the constraints and motivations which create gender relations. Thus, there is a need to look at patterns of socialization, potential incitements to violence in childhood training patterns, and socially-approved ways of dealing with violence.
The Association of World Citizens has stressed that it is important to have women directly involved in peace-making processes. The strategies women have adapted to get to the negotiating table are testimony to their ingenuity, patience, and determination. Solidarity and organization are crucial elements. The path may yet be long, but the direction is set.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
October 2 is the United Nations (UN) General Assembly-designated Day of Nonviolence chosen as October 2 is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi, shortly after finishing his legal studies in England, went to South Africa and began working with Indian laborers, victims of discrimination. He looked for a term understandable to a largely English-speaking population to explain his efforts. “Passive resistance” was the most widely used term and had been used by Leo Tolstoy and others. However, Gandhi found the word “passive” misleading. There did exist a Hindu term, ahinsa – a meaning non- and hinsa, violence. The term was basically unknown among White South Africans, largely uninterested in Indian philosophical thought.
Gandhi wrote to a friend from his legal studies days in England, Edward Maitland. Maitland and Anna Kingsford were the leaders of the Esoteric Christian Union and the leaders of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society. Maitland introduced Gandhi to the writings of the American New Thought writer Ralph Waldo Trine. Trine was a New Englander and his parents named him after Emerson. His best-known work from which Gandhi took the term for his actions in South Africa is In Tune with the Infinite or Fullness of Peace Power and Plenty. (1)
Trine uses the term “soul force” which Gandhi then used for his work in South Africa. Once back in India, Gandhi wanted an Indian rather than an English expression, and he coined the term satyagraha − holding on to truth: satya as Truth in a cosmic sense is an oft-used Hindu term while “soul” would need some explaining to Indian followers.
All of Trine’s writings contained the same message: soul force could be acquired by making oneself one with God, who was immanent, through love and service to one’s fellow men. The Christ Trine followed was one familiar to Gandhi − the supreme spiritual exemplar who showed men the way to union with their divine essence. Trine promised that the true seeker, fearless and forgetful of self-interest, will be so filled with the power of God working through him that “as he goes here and there, he can continually send out influences of the most potent and powerful nature that will reach the uttermost parts of the world.”
For Trine, thought was the way that a person came into tune with the Infinite. “Each is building his own world. We both build from within, and we attract from without. Thought is the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces. Like builds like and like attracts like. In the degree that thought is spiritualized does it become more subtle and powerful in its workings. This spiritualizing is in accordance with law and is within the power of all.
“Everything is first worked out in the unseen before it is manifested in the seen, in the ideal before it is realized in the real, in the spiritual before it shows forth in the material. The realm of the unseen is the realm of cause. The realm of the seen is the realm of effect. The nature of effect is always determined and conditioned by the nature of its cause.”
Thus, for Mahatma Gandhi, before a nonviolent action or campaign, there was a long period of spiritual preparation of both him and his close co-workers. Prayer, fasting, and meditation were used in order to focus the force of the soul, to visualize a positive outcome and to develop harmlessness to those opposed.
Another theme which Trine stressed and Gandhi constantly used in his efforts to build bridges between Hindus and Muslims was that there was a basic core common to all religions. Gandhi wrote “There is a golden thread that runs through every religion in the world. There is a golden thread that runs through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages, and saviors in the world’s history, through the lives of all men and women of truly great and lasting power. The great central fact of the universe is that the spirit of infinite life and power is back of all, manifests itself in and through all. This spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all is what I call God. I care not what term you may use, be it Kindly Light, Providence, the Over-Soul, Omnipotence or whatever term may be most convenient, so long as we are agreed in regard to the great central fact itself.”
Note:
(1) R.W. Trine, In Tune with the Infinite (New York: Whitecombe and Tombs, 1899, 175 pp.)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Association of World Citizens 