Putting people at the heart of the peace process. 2.7 million children in Colombia voted in a UNICEF-sponsored referendum in 1997 to place peace on top of the country's agenda and the Bishop-Ulama Forum fostering inter-faith dialogue in Mindanao. These and other inspiring stories of civil society empowerment were just one of those mentioned in the seminar, "Owning the Peace Process : Public Participation in Peace-making" held at the Switzerland Embassy, London on April 2.
"Now more than ever, we need to talk about peace," said one speaker, Prof. Ed Garcia of International Alert, a peace NGO, refering to the the global focus on the war in Iraq. He mentioned 35 other "forgotten" wars in the world.
The seminar comes at a time when the British Prime Minister along with the US government launching war in Iraq.
The seminar aimed to raise the common challenge on how to engage the masses in the political process especially during a transition from war to peace. Often decisions about new political, constitutional and economic arrangements to address the causes conflict were made exclusively by government and combatant groups.
ACCORD (a peace NGO publicartion) issue director, Dr. Katherine Barnes cited the basic principles on peace-agreements making to be as follows: - focus on negotiation. In reaching agreements, this requires the consent of the governed and the will of the people to give it legitimacy. This will only be possible if there are mechanisms to provide public participation.
- it matters who participate. Peace agreements are the bridge to lasting political change; it is the roadmap to a political future, transforming attitudes of the antagonistic.
- those who resort to violence are often those who are excluded (from the peace process) and who use other venues to be heard
Barnes mentioned three modes of involving people in the peace process - the representative participation through political parties , consultative mechanism where non-combatants are given space to discuss structural violence ie Philippines National Unification Commission, direct participation where local leaders initiated the process to pragmatic peace ie Mali, South Africa
"Debates (on peace-making) should be taken out of the capital (of a country) and be given access to ordinary people," said Barnes. She also cited the role of the international community to encourage governments to open modes (of peace making) to non-combatants.
Switzerland Embassy representative Thomas Greminger cited contributions of his country to peace-making as follows: - offering good offices ie facilitation, mediation
- establish conflict transformation programs
- making expertise of Swiss (80 of them) accessible in the framework of multi-lateral negotiations ie human rights, constitution-making, civil administration, rule of law
- supporting United Nations framework on human security
- developing partnership with particular competent institutions ie NGOs such as International Crisis Group, Geneva Center, Conciliation and Resources.
Prof. Ed Garcia mentioned the need to build a sustainable peace after a process of peace agreement. "The principle of power must be for people to be empowered to solve their problems," he said. In outlining the peace process, he cited the following framework: - Preparatory Phase - formulation of the peace agenda; mobilize a peace constituenc; build local capacities
- Formal Negotiations - encourage complementarity; ensure broad ownership
- Consolidation Phase - help implement agreement; monitor the accord; link to democratization and development efforts; build institutions
The forum was sponsored by the 12-year old London-based Conciliation and Resources, an NGO involved in conflict resolution and prevention and the Switzerland Embassy's Section for Peace Policy.
End.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed