Peace and Conflict Review

Peace and Conflict Review Volume 5 – Issue 2 – Spring 2011 ISSN: 1659-3995 Articles Humanitarian intervention in East Timor: An analysis of Australia’s leadership role (p1-11) Alan A. Lachica Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA): Lessons from Pakistan (p12-27) Zahid Shahab Ahmed Crime and Violence as a Barrier to Gender Equality in Nigeria Politics (p28-40) A. D. Ikuomola and R. A. Okunola Peace and Reconciliation through Environmental Cooperation: Changing the Image of Japan in China (p41-53) Shunji Cui Towards Peace in Colombia: The economic obstacles to a Colombian Peace Process (p54-79) Christopher Thornton and Rainer Gude Book Reviews Civilization: The West and the Rest (p85-87) Reviewed by Nubia Nieto The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict, 5th ed. (p88-91) Reviewed by Jephias Mapuva Amr Abdalla Executive Editor aabdalla@upeace.org Ross Ryan Managing Editor rryan@upeace.org Board of Editors Paul Rogers, University of Bradford, UK Kevin Avruch, George Mason University, USA Elisabeth Porter, School of Communications, International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia Priyankar Upadhyaya, Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, India Ryokichi Hirono, Professor Emeritus, Seikei University, Tokyo Linda Johnston, Kennesaw State University, Georgia Christof Heyns, University of Pretoria, South Africa Edward Newman, United of Birmingham, UK Ulrike Christine Paula Niens, University of Ulster, Coleraine, NI, UK Lori K. Sudderth, Quinnipiac University, USA Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, Makerere University, Uganda Surya Nath Prasad, Executive Vice President of International Association of Educators for World Peace Alexander I Gray, University of Deusto, Spain Stephan Emilov Nikolov, Institute of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria Francisco Sagasti, Director, Agenda Peru, Peru Barbara Tint, Portland State University, USA Mary Jo Larson, International Consultant in Conflict Resolution, USA Kazuyo Yamane, Kochi University, Japan Necla Tschirgi, former President, International Peace Academy George Cheney, University of Utah University for Peace Board Members Victoria Fontan Rolain Borel Robert Fletcher Christer Persson The Peace and Conflict Review is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to the publication of high quality academic articles in the field of peace and conflict studies. Issues are published on a semi-annual basis, in Fall and Spring, and generally include a selection of scholarly articles, conference papers, and reviews of academic work published elsewhere. For further information, including guidelines for contributors, please visit www.review.upeace.org. The Peace and Conflict Review is hosted at the headquarters of the United Nations mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) in San Jose, Costa Rica. Editorial Policy 1. 2. 3. Research articles published in this journal are submitted for blind review by members of our board of editors with relevant expertise and may undergo additional editing before publication. The responsibilities for opinions and conclusions rest entirely on the respective author(s). Publication does not necessarily constitute endorsement of the same by the Peace and Conflict Review or the University for Peace. Copyrights of all papers published in this journal are reserved by the Peace and Conflict Review. Editorial Note After focusing in on the environmental dimension of peace and conflict studies in our previous issue, this spring issue of the Review pulls the lens back once again to take in a broader sweep of the discipline. The articles compiled in this collection should, therefore, be treated individually, as each provides a distinct insight into an issue of its own framing, informed by a particular, though typically interdisciplinary conceptual grounding. Still, there are some common themes across the issue – pointing less to a shared ideological or philosophical doctrine so much as an intellectual curiosity and a willingness to challenge perceived truths, characteristics which extend far beyond individual disciplines, and indeed, academia itself. One such theme is intervention (whether by state, NGO, economic, or other social actors), and the motivations, implications, and ethics involved in social engineering or activism of any kind. Often, intervention is accompanied by a competition of narratives, and some of the following articles have engaged with this process head on, especially Lachica’s analysis of the 1999 intervention into East Timor, which contextualizes the Australian government’s policies within a clear theoretical understanding of state behaviour in the international arena. Others approach the issue from another angle, as it were, such as Ahmed’s research findings on gaps between the theory of ethical intervention espoused by many NGOs working in Pakistan (embodied by the recent development of peace and conflict impact assessments), and the realities experienced by those on the ground. Although it is far less central to the argument, the theme of intervention appears again in Ikuomola & Okunola’s analysis of factors inhibiting greater gender-balance and democratic participation in Nigerian politics, in terms of the political machinations of “godfathers”, for example, and again in Cui’s exploration of Sino-Japanese relations in light of increasing environmental cooperation, which touches on the issue of official development assistance, among several others. Of course, all of these articles evoke multiple themes, some more fundamental than intervention, such as the intersection of identity and politics, and the relative weight of economic factors in the mechanics of conflict escalation, protraction, and resolution. This latter theme is the explicit focus of the final research article in this collection, Thornton & Gude’s analysis of peace agreements in Colombia, which argues for the greater consideration of economic factors in future peace negotiations. I am grateful to all of our contributors, including Nieto and Mapuva for their book reviews, as well as our board of editors, and, of course, our readers. As always, your comments and contributions are more than welcome, please direct all correspondence to editor@review.upeace.org. Ross Ryan Managing Editor Humanitarian intervention in East Timor: An analysis of Australia’s leadership role Alan A. Lachica* The Australian-led intervention during the 1999 crisis in East Timor has been considered as a success story in responding to a massive humanitarian emergency. It has been touted as the start of the emergence of a wider acceptance by the international community of the duty to protect innocent civilians who are suffering serious human rights violations. The critical role of Australia as the acknowledged leader of the International Forces for East Timor (INTERFET) was an indispensible factor for the success of the humanitarian intervention. Challenging the conception that the intervention into East Timor represents a significant shift in international relations based on state commitments to protect human rights, this paper argues that Australia’s leadership during the crisis was motivated primarily by the pursuit and protection of its strategic and economic interests. * Alan A. Lachica is a researcher on human rights issues and international security. He holds a Ph.D. in International Studies from Sogang University. He is currently based in Seoul, South Korea. 1 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 The occurrence of massive violations of human rights in the post-Cold War era has greatly challenged the willingness of international society to intervene when widespread abuses committed by intra-state actors have resulted in the deaths of many defenseless people. The decision whether to intervene or not has always been a contentious issue in international relations mainly because of two reasons: firstly, because of its intrusive nature and its potentials of being misused for selfserving national interests other than the intended humanitarian objectives; and secondly, the operational costs of sending military forces across national boundaries. However, in spite of these supposed limitations, humanitarian intervention have had happened in several instances when willing states have stepped-in in order to rescue civilians from genocide and other forms of mass killings such as in East Timor. This paper will analyze Australia’s willingness to act on behalf of the people of East Timor during the post-referendum crisis in 1999, with a particular focus on its motivation to assume the leadership role in the UN mandated humanitarian intervention. The Destruction of East Timor In August 1999 the people of East Timor voted to be an independent country after 24 years of Indonesian rule. Immediately after the results of the referendum were announced the country descended into mayhem. The pro-integration militias, supported by the Indonesian military turned East Timor into “an apocalyptic landscape” (Bartholet 1999). Innocent pro-independence supporters were deliberately targeted and the greater part of the territory was set in flames through a wellplanned scorched earth policy. Moving with deliberate haste and organizational efficiency, the militias fanned out to every village and town, looting and burning every house and building (Traub 2000). This manner was not a random act of frenzied rage but a deliberate strategy by the militias to make sure that an independent East Timor would face a herculean task of rebuilding the county’s public infrastructure, economy, and social capital. Emerson (2003) claims that the destruction was so precise that about 70 percent of East Timor’s basic infrastructures were wiped out. Humanitarian aid workers and journalists were shocked with the extent of the devastation and the magnitude of human suffering. Villages were abandoned and the capital Dili in the description of Mydans (1999a) was a “dead city, burned, looted and evacuated.” According to some estimates, as many as 250,000 East Timorese were displaced, the majority of whom were forcibly removed from their homes and shipped to the neighboring Indonesian territory of West Timor (Crosette 1999). The militias sent local pro-independence East Timorese to neighboring islands while others were shipped to far-flung areas of Indonesia. The militia’s strategy was to remove the pro-independence East Timorese and replace them with a new pro-Indonesian population which will have a sympathetic attitude towards the Indonesian government. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that in just a matter of days “7,000 people had been killed and 300,000 to 400,000 people had been displaced” (Mydans 1999b). The INTERFET The United Nations quickly responded to the humanitarian crisis by adopting Security Council Resolution 1264, creating a multinational force led by Australia. The International Forces for East Timor (INTERFET) was conferred with a Chapter VII mandate and was tasked to restore peace and security in East Timor (UN Security Council Resolution 1264). The speed with which the Security Council had passed a resolution authorizing a coalition of troops and their deployment is unparalleled in UN history. It took only five days from the adoption of the resolution for the troops from 22 countries to be assembled. By September 20, the first batch had landed in Dili and 2 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 immediately restored order in the territory. Four days later, Indonesia started to pull-out its military and by October 31st the last Indonesian troops left East Timor after 24 years of occupation. Weiss (2007) has called the intervention as a “success story of UN involvement.” The military operations were so successful that Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has unabashedly suggested that they be made as a model for future humanitarian interventions (Wheeler and Dunne 2001). The effectiveness of the humanitarian intervention in East Timor can be attributed to a confluence of factors but one reason that stands out was the crucial role played by Australia in committing the bulk of the manpower and logistics to the military operations. Australia made its 14 war ships readily available for the INTERFET on top of the 5,592 troops, which comprised the largest military contingent (Stevens, 2007; Martin 2001). It is claimed by McDougall (2002) that without Australia’s leadership the humanitarian intervention would not have been possible. Australia’s offer to lead and organize a multinational force and its willingness to fund most of the costs were crucial factors in the speedy deployment of the INTERFET, being the closest neighbor of East Timor and the only country in the region with the military capability to mount a highly complex humanitarian operation. In defense of human rights? The successful intervention in East Timor has been considered an example of how military forces can be used to halt large-scale and organized attacks against a defenseless civilian population whose basic human rights have been bloodily infringed (Human Rights Watch 2000). While previous cases of severe human rights violations have been ignored or ineffectively responded to, the intervention in East Timor was executed in haste and demonstrated superior organizational planning. The willingness of UN member-states to participate was a marked departure from the often lengthy planning of UN military operations in the past. It should be noted that the sending of troops to intervene in East Timor was not an impromptu decision on the part of Australia, as the process had started weeks and months before the carnage began. The deployment of international troops to East Timor had been considered even before the signing of the May 5, 1999 agreement between Indonesia and Portugal, which granted the people of East Timor the right to choose for or against integration with Indonesia. With the possibility that the autonomy offered by Indonesia would be rejected by the people of East Timor and with the anticipation that the rejection would lead to a humanitarian crisis, Australian Prime Minister John Howard met with President Habibie on April 27 and urged Indonesia to accept an international peacekeeping force before the ballot, but he was quickly rebuffed (Nevins 2005). Days after the violence erupted on September 3, Australia put its troops in the northern territory of Darwin in advanced readiness with a twenty-four hour notice to be deployed in view of the serious security situation in East Timor. Such state of preparedness was undertaken to provide the government with varying courses of actions including the possibility of joining an international military force (Australia’s Ministry of Defense, 1999). Mydans (1999c) has observed that when the violence in East Timor started, Australia clearly demonstrated its intention of leading a multinational force by dispatching two warships with 500 troops to the waters of East Timor. This so-called “readiness”, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (2000), was taken as a sign that the international community is now ready to utilize resources and mobilize troops to stop crimes against humanity. For Koffi Annan (1999), the case of intervention in East Timor represented a break from the UN member-states conception of sovereignty by sending troops to defend and rescue helpless civilians from mass murder. For many, the apparent willingness of the international community to forcefully intervene in East Timor seemed to demonstrate an acceptance of the norms of intervention, and a growing sense of international morality. 3 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 The assumption behind this optimistic view of intervention seems to be that Australia, being the major proponent and contributor of the INTERFET acted out of a commitment to human rights and a moral responsibility to save the lives of the East Timorese. Wheeler and Dunne (2001) have given voice to this argument, claiming that the move by Australia to risk its troops was based on moral impulse, and not supported by strong national interests, which were even put in jeopardy by its decision to save the people of East Timor. By responding to the humanitarian crisis, they consider the Howard-led Australian government to have acted as a “good international citizen”. For their part, the Australian government claims that the deployment of troops to East Timor was done in order to defend that country’s desire for independence and not to occupy the territory, impose its will on others, or act against the legitimate interests of another country (National Library of Australia 2000). The euphoria over the INTERFET’s success has earned Australia international goodwill and commendation on its benevolent and humane foreign policy, and cemented its role as a regional player. However, there is another perspective from which to view Australia’s eagerness to restore stability and security in East Timor, one that explains state behavior in terms of selfish interest rather than the moral impulse described above. There is already a well-developed literature within political science supporting the contention that intervention generally takes place within the context of the well-calculated foreign policy of the intervening state for the primary purpose of furthering its own goals. For example, Ayoob (2002) and Miller (1995) argue that intervention is a tool used by powerful states to extend their influence on weaker states. Walzer (2002) argues that national leaders have both the right and the duty to prioritize the interests of their own people even when in pursuit of a humanitarian objective. Mearsheimer (2005) observes that “states are rarely willing to expend blood and treasure to protect foreign populations from gross abuses including genocide.” Far from challenging this perspective, Australia’s behavior as the lead-state of the INTERFET seems to have been in direct service of two major aspects of Australia’s national interests: security-political concerns and economic gains. The Role of Australia in the East Timor crisis Security and Political Concerns For several decades after World War II, the focus of Australian defense strategy has been on the potential threats perceived to emanate from its northern boundaries, particularly from the lessdeveloped states within its immediate periphery – what some scholars have label as an “arc of instability”.1 Two years prior to the crisis in East Timor, the Australian Ministry of Defense (1997) argued that the stability of the littoral islands from Indonesia down to Papua New Guinea including the Solomon Islands and the Southwest Pacific all haves a direct bearing on Australia’s strategic interests. This is not to say that all threats were considered equal by the Australian government; Leaver (2001) writes that, for many years, it was widely assumed that military threats to the Australian continent would “come either from or through the Indonesian archipelago”. Under this scenario, the Northern Territory would be the most vulnerable to any attack launched from any of the islands scattered close to the area. This sense of vulnerability heightened in the 1950s when President Sukarno of Indonesia veered towards the political ideologies of the left and the threat of a 1 For a detailed explanation on the concept on the “arc of instability” see Ayson, R. (2007) The Arc of Instability and Australia’s Strategic Policy. Australian Journal of International Affairs 61 (2): 215-231; Rudd, K. (2001) st ANZUS and the 21 Century. Australian Journal of International Affairs 55 (2): 301-15; Duncan, R. and Chand, S. (2002) The Economics of the Arc of Instability. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature 16 (1): 1-9; Reilly, B. (2002) Internal Conflict and Regional Security in Island Asia: Stabilizing the Arc of Instability. In Bruce Vaughn (ed.) The Unraveling of Island Asia? Governmental, Communal and Regional Instability (Westport, CN: Praeger): 3-16. 4 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Communist attack against Australia seemed possible. Hence, with the assumption of power in Jakarta by Suharto in 1967, Canberra supported the change of leadership and developed a close relationship with the Suharto government, despite the authoritarian nature of his rule, and its repression of civil and political freedoms. For Australia, nothing could be more beneficial than engaging Indonesia in close bilateral relations, and successive Australian governments sustained this policy. In fact, because of the country’s huge size, strategic location in maritime Southeast Asia, and its rich mineral resources, “no bilateral relationship was valued more highly than Indonesia” (Leaver, 2001). A weak or failed Indonesia is an enormous security threat for Australia (Shuja 2000). If Jakarta would be unable to control separatism and secessionism in any of its more than eleven thousand islands, there is a great likelihood that these islands might be used as a staging point of any attack against Australia by terrorist groups or other major powers with hegemonic ambitions. The fragmentation of Indonesia would be disastrous to Southeast Asia, including Australia, in terms of trade disruption, the flow of refugees, and security concerns. A fragile central government in Jakarta would also invite adventurism from within the military, resulting in a political vacuum and wider social unrest. The stability of Indonesia has thus been linked to Australian security and was made an integral part in the country’s foreign relations and national defense policies. The Australian Ministry of Defense, in a white paper published in 1987, has reiterated the government’s stance that: Australia sees a stable Indonesia as an important factor in its own security. Not only does Indonesia cover the majority of the northern archipelagic chain, which is the most likely route through which any major assault could be launched against Australia, it also lies across important air and sea routes to Europe and the North Pacific (Australia Ministry of Defense 1987). This conception of the geo-strategic importance of Indonesia became the cornerstone of Canberra’s relations with Jakarta all throughout the period of the Suharto regime until its fall in 1998. Therefore, in the case of East Timor, Australia chose to deal with the territory in the context of its recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over the territory. When Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1975, Australia was the only country who extended both de jure and de facto recognition. For Australian policy makers, the suppression of East Timor’s independence was seen as more beneficial to overall Australian national interest. An independent East Timor with weak political and economic institutions, incapable of sustaining national development and stability, would have posed as security threat to Australia. Moreover, the alliance of East Timor’s independence leaders with communist groups from abroad fuelled Australia’s fear of a communist attack possibly staged from the territory thus unbridled support was extended on Indonesia’s annexation of the territory. Shuja (2000) has noted that there was also apprehension among Australian government leaders that the independence for East Timor would result in the balkanization of Indonesia by encouraging other separatist group to demand independence from Jakarta. Subsequent severe human rights violations in East Timor committed by Indonesia’s government were relegated to the background since trade and political relations with Indonesia had a more profound impact on Australia’s national interests. Australia’s “Indonesian first” policy notwithstanding, the destruction of East Timor after the UN sponsored referendum was a political nightmare for Australia. When Indonesia agreed to hold the UN-sponsored referendum, Australia supported the idea of putting the Indonesian military in charge of the security of East Timor, a move which signaled Canberra’s priority of preserving its bilateral ties with Jakarta. Though there were calls for the sending of UN military forces to provide security for the referendum, the Howard government chose to ignore them, believing that to push 5 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 for the presence of international troops would put Jakarta on the defensive. But with violence raging on in East Timor, Australia was caught in a dilemma – to preserve relations with Indonesia or to address an immediate security need. With the rampaging militias killing hundreds of people and threatening the lives of thousands, the threat of a massive flow of refugees caused Australia to rethink its stance of nonintervention. If a large group of East Timorese would show up in Australia seeking political asylum and refuge, Australia would be morally and legally bound to accept them. The country is a signatory to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, thus it would be forced under its international obligations to open its doors to hundreds if not thousands of people and, as a consequence, strain the country’s resources and impact its domestic security. If, however, Australia turned away these threatened East Timorese, its international image and credibility would be greatly tarnished. Therefore, for Australia, a quick end to the crisis would be to restore stability in Dili. If a national government could be constituted quickly and order be restored, a massive exodus of people would be averted. A few months prior to the referendum when all indications have pointed to a rejection by the East Timorese of the autonomy offered by Jakarta, Australia had no choice except to adjust its policies towards East Timor. Hence, as early as May, the Howard government approached the UN Secretary-General and other ASEAN states to discuss the possibility of sending an international force to East Timor. On the political front, if Australia, being the only country with the resources to stop the killings, would abandon the East Timorese for the second time, the prospect of building cordial relations between a new government in Dili would be difficult to attain. With the overwhelming rejection of the proposed Indonesian autonomy, the emergence of an independent East Timor was already a fait accompli that Australia would have to accept. A hostile East Timorese government would be capable of threatening Australia’s security by various means, such as allowing the country to be a base for groups or states with an incentive to attack continental Australia. Shuja (2000) claims that there is also a risk that East Timor would end up a haven for transnational criminals trafficking drugs, illegal migrants and women, and those involved in money-laundering activities. With two immediate concerns at hand, the security implications of the carnage in East Timor and the future of Australia-East Timor relations, Canberra was left with no choice but to break its close relations with Jakarta. Given this kind of political calculation, the decision to intervene in East Timor should not be construed as a “mission of compassion” in the service of purely humanitarian objectives. Prime Minister John Howard made this point in reference to the intervention by saying that “foreign policy needs to be based on a clear sense of national interest and on our values” (McDougall 2002). It was clear, therefore, that intervening in East Timor was to the best of Australia’s geopolitical and strategic interest. Economic Interests The Timor Sea is rich in oil and natural resources and, according to Ishizuka (2004), is the “world’s 27th largest oilfield with reserves of five billion barrels of oil and fifty trillion feet of liquid natural gas.” Australia’s recognition of Indonesian sovereignty in East Timor was not only a way of maintaining stability in the region, but also a means through which Australia was able to negotiate favorable commercial agreements. In the analysis of Shuja (2000), the Timor Sea could provide huge profits for Australian business, especially for the oil industry. Under the 1989 Timor Gap Treaty (TGT) signed between Australia and Indonesia, the area was divided into three sections for oil and gas 6 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 production and this was called the Zone of Cooperation (ZOC). Under the agreement, in Area C, which is closest to East Timor, 90% of the revenues would be apportioned to Indonesia while Australia gets the remainder. In Area B, closer to the Australian northern territory, Australia would get 90% as opposed to Indonesia’s 10%. Revenues for the greater Area A would be equally split between the two countries. Of the three areas of petroleum and gas exploitation, Area A has turned out to be the most promising and productive with the discovery and development of three oil fields: Elang- Kakatua, Bayu-Undan and the Greater Sunrise which is the largest. Australia’s de facto and de jure recognition of Indonesia’s illegal occupation of East Timor seems to have been in exchange for securing an agreement on seabed rights and oil exploration in these areas (Aubrey 2000). While Indonesia has gained less in terms of economic benefits under the Timor Gap Treaty, its economic generosity paid off political dividends. By allowing Australia to have a greater claim on the Timor Sea, it was able to receive the most sought-after political recognition of its annexation of East Timor, which no other country had extended. Australian economic interests in East Timor were secured as long as Indonesia was able to maintain control of the territory. However, with the possibility of an independent East Timor, Australia was compelled to change its course, if only to maintain its security needs and protect its economic investments in the area. An independent East Timor would not be bound to honor whatever agreement Canberra and Jakarta has concluded under the Timor Gap Treaty. If and when East Timor would assert its claim on the larger area of the Timor Sea, where oil companies granted concession by Australia are pouring billions of dollars into petroleum exploration and production, then under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the whole area of oil exploration would fall under East Timor’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Under the UNCLOS, the median principle would set the maritime boundary between two states whose distance from each other’s shoreline is less than 400 miles. If this principle was applied, areas A, B, and C would all be within East Timor’s territory. Australia’s aggressiveness to protect its business interests continued until the early days of the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET), the governing body in East Timor prior to the country’s independence. The two parties agreed that the issues of oil investments and developments would be governed by an “Exchange of Notes” in which the provisions of the Timor Gap Treaty were continued with Indonesia replaced by East Timor (La’o Hamutuk Bulletin, 2002). This deal was opposed by the East Timorese leaders who proposed that negotiations for a permanent maritime boundary be commenced, but this was rejected by Australia. From 2000 until 2002, leaders from both sides tried to hammer out an agreement that would supplant the Timor Gap Treaty. During a series of negotiations, the Australian government ‘bullied’ and ‘blackmailed’ East Timor’s leaders into accepting a deal that favored Australia (The Economist 2003). According to Scheiner (2006) the Howard government pressured East Timor into agreeing a series of dodgy resource sharing deals allowing it to take billions of dollars that rightfully belongs to the East Timorese. The leaders of East Timor were subjected to personal attacks by Australian officials who portrayed them as lacking a sense of gratitude. The rhetoric went further into strongly worded claims that ‘East Timor wouldn’t be an independent country if it wasn’t for Australia’ (Schofield 2005). The result of the series of negotiations is the Timor Sea Treaty (TST) signed in 2002 just several hours after the proclamation of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. The new agreement renames the previous Zone of Cooperation into the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA) and Australia has agreed that 90% of the revenues would go to East Timor which, if compared the previous 50-50 sharing under the Timor Gap Treaty, is obviously beneficial for East Timor. However, the most contentious issue is the management of the Greater Sunrise - the largest among the oil 7 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 fields in the area. Greater Sunrise according to Chaudhry (2006) is projected to yield as much as $40 billion in revenue over its lifetime. It is believed that the oil field contains a gas reserve of 9.5 trillion cubic feet and 300 million barrels of oil (McDonald 2002; Head 2010). Under Annex E of the Timor Sea Treaty, both countries have agreed that 20.1% of the Greater Sunrise is considered located within the JPDA while the remaining 79.9% is within Australia’s jurisdiction. In effect, even if East Timor would get a 90% share of the revenues within the JPDA it is entitled to receive only 18% from the total revenue of the lucrative Greater Sunrise field (Chaudhry 2006). The treaty was further supplemented with the Agreement on the Unitization of the Greater Sunrise Troubador Fields in 2003 which provides the legal framework and regulations on the exploitation of the oil fields thus providing a level of certainty and assurance for international investors and developers. Due to the wide-spread international criticism that these lopsided agreements have generated, Australia has signed the 2006 Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS). Under the provisions of this treaty, revenues from the Greater Sunrise will be equally shared. Furthermore, the treaty would be in force for fifty years in which during this period both countries are prohibited in claiming sovereign rights over maritime territories or to initiate negotiations for a permanent maritime boundary (CMATS, 2006). This provision on the non-discussion of maritime borders has granted Australia the right to develop more oil fields on the other part of the Timor Sea outside the JPDA. Although the agreement on revenue sharing is beneficial for East Timor, if the median principle of the UNCLOS was considered, then Australia would have no right to claim any revenue from oil and gas in the contested areas. The Greater Sunrise is just 180 kilometers from East Timor as compared to 450 kilometers from Darwin (Head 2010; Wilkinson 2010). However, East Timor was in a weak position to negotiate, as Australia is the biggest donor of international aid to the impoverished countryi, and East Timor lacks the technology, resources, and infrastructure for oil exploration and development itself. A protracted negotiation would prevent East Timor in receiving any share from oil revenues in the Timor Sea. It is a different matter for Australia because whatever the outcome of the negotiations with East Timor, it is assured of receiving a windfall of financial dividends; first, the oil and gas production and exploration in the Timor Sea would help meet its growing energy demands; and second, it is poised to enjoy a variety of great economic benefits from employment opportunities, greater investments, diverse business opportunities and technological innovations especially in the northern territory where the gas pipe lines would run through (Ishizuka 2004). The economic dividends of humanitarian intervention continue to be a strong motivating factor for would-be humanitarian heroes as clearly shown in Australia’s shrewd maneuvering in using humanitarian intervention as a means to protect its investments in East Timor and to gain a foothold on the territory’s critical resources. Unmasking the humanitarian hero Saving the lives of strangers caught in a maelstrom of violence is highly dependent on the gains that serve the national interests of states acting as humanitarian heroes. The willingness of Australia to lead the INTERFET was used to camouflage its self-serving goals. To advance its interests, Australia was left with no other option except to engage itself in East Timor and there could be no better way to attain these objectives than to exploit the humanitarian needs of the East Timorese people. Though the greater economic, political and geostrategic interests provide incentives for intervention, these interests are often cleverly camouflaged by moral imperatives. In order to gain support and legitimacy of the humanitarian intervention, Australia had to take the higher moral ground of saving East Timor instead of openly pursuing its selfish goals, otherwise the intervention would have had great difficulty in gaining international acceptance and support. The existence of a 8 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 massive violation of human rights provided legitimacy and a moral cover in advancing the broader Australian national interests. Australia had to address the East Timor intervention with tact and diplomatic skill. A unilateral intervention by Australia was out of the question, given its potential for regional and global condemnation no matter how carefully it is couched in humanitarian terms. The only way to go was through the United Nations and in building a coalition of willing states. Australia had the most to gain from stability in East Timor, thus it decided to lead the INTERFET and largely foot the operation’s bill, as well as committing the largest troop contingent. This study has demonstrated that, rather than ushering in a new era of international relations based on limited sovereignty and international morality, as some have argued, a careful analysis of the Australia-led intervention into East Timor reveals the continued primacy of rational and self-interested state behaviour in pursuit of political and economic gain. References Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Democratic Republic of TimorLeste relating to the Unitization of the Sunrise Troubador Fields, March 6, 2003. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/2007/11.html (accessed March 2, 2010). Annan, K. (1999) Two Concepts of Sovereignty. The Economist (September 16). http://www2.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PNQSJV &source= login_payBarrier (accessed October 9, 2009). Aubrey, J. (2000) Canberra: Jakarta’s Trojan Horse in East Timor. In Hainsworth, P. Hainsworth and McCloskey, S. (eds.) The East Timor Question: The Struggle for Independence (New York: I.B. Tauris Co. Ltd.): 133150. Australia’s Ministry of Defense. (1987) The Defense of Australia: 1987 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service). Australia’s Ministry of Defense. (1997) Australia’s Strategic Policy 1997 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service). Australia’s Ministry of Defense. (1999) Government Announces Increased Readiness. (September 6). http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/timor/index.html. (accessed January 10, 2010). Ayoob, M. (2002) Humanitarian Intervention and State Sovereignty. The International Journal of Human Rights 6 (1): 81-102. Bartholet, J. (1999) The Clinton Doctrine is tested by murderous pro-Indonesian militias. Newsweek (September 20): 22-26. Chaudhry, F. (2006) Minding the Timor Gap. Dollars and Sense (266). http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0706chaudhry.html (accessed on April 5, 2010). CNN. (1999) Australia Wants U.N. Peacekeepers in East Timor. (April 22). http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9904/22/timor.01/index.html (accessed May 14, 2010) Cotton, J. (1999) Peacekeeping in East Timor: An Australian Policy Departure. Australian Journal of International Affairs 53 (3): 237-246. 9 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Crosette, B. (1999) UN Begin Taking Refugees Home to East Timor this Week. The New York Times (October 5, 1999). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage. html?res=9403E3DD1 631F 936A35753C1A96F958260&scp=99&sq=east+timor&st=nyt (accessed April 17, 2010). Emerson, D. (2000) Will Indonesia Survive? Foreign Affairs 79 (3): 95-106. Head, M. (2010) Australia-East Timor conflict intensifies over Greater Sunrise gas project. World Socialist Website (June 9). http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/timo-j09.shtml (accessed July 14, 2010). Human Rights World Report 2000. http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/Asia-05.htm#TopOfPage (accessed February 15, 2010) Ishizuka, K. (2004) Australia’s Policy Towards East Timor. The Round Table 93 (374): 271-285. La’o Hamutuk Bulletin (2002) With independence, what changes for the Timor Gap? La’o Hamutuk Bulletin 3 (4):1-20. Leaver, R. (2001) Introduction: Australia, East Timor and Indonesia. The Pacific Review 14 (1): 1-14. Martin, I. (2001) Self Determination in East Timor. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc.). Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). McDonald, H. (2002) Canberra’s Unfriendly acts over gas field irks East Timor. Sydney Morning Herald (April 13). http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/12/1018333420174.html (accessed March 22, 2010). Mc Dougall, D. (2002) Australia’s Peacekeeping Role in the Post-Cold War Era. Contemporary Southeast Asia 24 (3): 590-608. Mearsheimer, J. (2005) Tragedy of the Great Power Politics. In Art, R. and Jervis, R. (eds.) International Politics: Enduring Concepts and Contemporary Issues (New York: Pearson Longman): 50-60. Mydans, S. (1999c) The Timor Enigma. The New York Times (September 8). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDB163DF93BA3575AC0A96F958260&scp=183 &sq=east+timor&st=nyt (accessed December 12, 2009). Mydans, S. (1999b) Australian Forces Reach East Timor to Aid in Recovery. The New York Times (September 20). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/ fullpage.html? res=9C04EFDE 1E3CF933A1575AC0A96F958260&scp=88&sq=east+timor&st=nyt (accessed January 31, 2010). Mydans, S. (1999a) U.N. Peacekeepers Stake Timor Claim. The New York Times (September 21). http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B04E5DA1F3 CF932A1575AC0A96F958260&scp=188&sq=east+timor&st=nyt (accessed February 6, 2010). National Library of Australia. (2000) INTERFET http://pandora.nla.gov.au/parchive/2000/S2000-Nov7/easttimor.defence.gov.au/index.html (accessed December 16, 2009). Nevins, J. (2005) A Not So Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor. (New York: Cornell University Press). Scheiner, C. (2006) Drilling East Timor: Australia’s Oil Grab in the Timor Sea. Multinational Monitor 27 (1). http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm 2006/012006/scheiner.html (accessed May 9, 2010). Schofield, C. (2005) A Fair Go for East Timor? Sharing the Resources of the Timor Sea. Contemporary Southeast Asia 27 (2): 255-280. Security Council Resolution 1264, September 15, 1999. (S/1999/1264). 10 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Shuja, S. (2000) Australia’s Role in East Timor. Contemporary Review 277 (1616): 138-146. Stevens, D. (2007) Strength in diversity: the combined naval role in Operation Stabilize. Working Paper 20 (Canberra: Sea Power Center). The Economist. (2003) A Squabble Over Oil. (March 15). http://www.economist.com/node/1633471 (accessed October 7, 2009). Timor Sea Treaty between the Government of East Timor and the Government of Australia, May 20, 2002. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/2003/13.html accessed (March 4, 2010). Traub, J. (2000) Inventing East Timor. Foreign Affairs 79 (4): 74-89. Treaty between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on the Zone of Cooperation in an Area between the Indonesian Province of East Timor and Northern Australia (Timor Gap Treaty), December 11, 1989. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1991/9.html (accessed February 22, 2010). Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea, January 12, 2006. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/2007/12/ (accessed February 27, 2010). United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Walzer, M. (2002) The Argument About Humanitarian Intervention. Dissent 49 (1): 29-37. Weis, T. (2007) Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action (Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press). Wilkinson, R. (2010) Timor Leste Continues Fight for Greater Sunrise LNG. Oil and Gas Journal (June 24). http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display.articles.oil-gas-journal.transportation-2.lng.2010.06.timorleste_continues.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html (accessed July 5, 2010). 11 Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA): Lessons from Pakistan Zahid Shahab Ahmed* In the early 1990s, on the basis of prior experiences of International Development Agencies (IDAs) in conflict zones, a need was identified to explore, understand and carefully address impacts of such projects. In response to concerns regarding development and humanitarian interventions in conflict zones, the concept of Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) evolved. PCIA emphasizes that IDAs need to conduct conflict analyses at key points during and before entering into project cycles in conflict or conflict-prone areas, to ensure peace and conflict sensitivity. This paper provides a critical analysis of PCIA as adapted by IDAs in Pakistan. It is shown that an understanding of PCIA is non-existent at the grassroots-level, and that there is a lack of comprehension of such tools at a project-level. The gap between theory and practice is analyzed and several recommendations are offered. * The author has seven years of experience of working with various development organizations in Pakistan. He obtained his MA degree in Peace Education from the UN mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica and MA in Sociology from the University of Agri. Faisalabad, Pakistan. Presently, he is a PhD candidate in the department of political and international studies at the University of New England, Australia. 12 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 The development of instruments to ensure the conflict-sensitive orientation of development work was given a high priority after the so-called ‘Rwanda-shock’ in 1994. Following this, It was recognized that development cooperation has often had unintended impacts on the existing peace and conflict dynamics, and that development interventions are never neutral in conflict zones (Schmelzle 2005). This led to discussions regarding the political role of development cooperation in conflict ridden areas. Highly motivated debates resulted in development and application of instruments to ensure conflict-sensitive orientation of the development projects, such as “Do no harm” (Anderson 1999) and “PCIA” (Bush 1998). Several examples regarding the application of PCIA in IDA projects have been observed in the 21st century. Tools of conflict sensitivity have been utilized throughout the decade, and have necessitated the need to further explore the application and impact of PCIA by looking into the experiences of PCIA users in conflict prone regions. The ultimate objective of this paper is to look into the application of PCIA and related tools in Pakistan, by bringing in insights from the work of IDAs in the country. Most parts of the country are home to rising extremism, sectarianism and militancy, therefore it is worthwhile to analyze the way in which PCIA tools have been put into practice at project levels. The purpose of this paper is also to share some lessons from Pakistan for the benefit of development workers in Pakistan and beyond. The findings of this research suggest that more context specific lessons are required to shape PCIA into something which will be mutually beneficial to all stakeholders. Moreover, the paper analyzes some of the key issues related to implementing PCIA in the field from a local perspective. It intends to open up a much-needed discussion with respect to the role of PCIA and other related tools, at the interface, between international and local organizations, in conflict environments and touches issues such as power relations, skill transfers and the overall value of supposedly universal tools. However, it should be noted that the paper is not a comprehensive analysis of all IDAs’ projects in Pakistan vis-à-vis PCIA and related tools, due to the limited number of project samples obtained within the country. This research is based on the researcher’s direct exposure to PCIA from 2006 to 2008 and a three-month period of fieldwork from November 2006 to January 2007 in Swat, Swabi and D.I. Khan. During the fieldwork, face-to-face interviews and focus groups discussions were conducted with PCIA developers, practitioners and implementers (staff of IDAs and partnering NGOs). Conflict Context Besides internal conflicts in Pakistan, there are a number of external/regional conflicts, influencing the socio-political state of affairs and security of the country. Pakistan faces a resurgence of nationalists (mainly in Baluchistan and Sindh), sectarian violence, the volatility of Afghanistan to the west, insurgency-ridden Kashmir to the north, and an ongoing conflict with India. Overall, the following six structural weaknesses in Pakistan have been identified to be producing and sustaining conflicts (FES 2005:1-2): 1. Special role of the military in socio-political and economic affairs; 2. Strongly manifested socio-economic disparities within the country; 3. Restricted chances of participation for civil society in political, economic and social development; 13 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 4. Segregation of the genders and distinctive gender inequalities; 5. Presence of various regional, sub-regional and local identities against weak or non-existing collective national identity; and 6. Prevalence of reciprocal stereotypes and hostile perceptions against some of the local groups and the international community. The frequency of terrorists’ attacks in Pakistan has drastically increased since the country initiated the war against terrorist groups in the tribal areas, bordering Afghanistan. As a consequence, a portion of the country is observed to be flooded with the local militants that are involved in terrorist activities. In relation to that, there have been several attacks reported on the local army, police and the public places. Furthermore, there have also been a number of attacks on people from the West, such as the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl1, the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, the targeted killing of aid workers and attacks on offices of NGOs. In 2008, a suicide bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed at least 53 people and injured over 200 (BBC 2008). Earlier, there was an attack on an Italian restaurant in Islamabad, Luna Caprese, which injured five staff members of the US embassy (Rondeaux 2008). These attacks were well planned and targeted favorite spots of the country’s elites and foreigners. The anti-West attitudes increased after a Danish newspaper published blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2007 following which, several other Danish newspapers reprinted them in February 2008. In reaction to that, a bomb was blasted outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad (Perlez & Shah 2008). Aggression against Western elements has been the common response of extremists in Pakistan, but occasionally this has also affected the lives of minority Christians in the country. Since the revival of democracy in Pakistan in 2008, there have been a number of positive developments observed along with the return of the army to its constitutional role and restoration of the rightful and free judiciary. In relation to conflict analysis (FES 2005), at present a significant change with regards to civil-military relations involving the democratic government is taking place to ensure sovereignty of the parliament. One example is of a landmark development is that, in June 2008, the country’s defense budget for the fiscal year 2008-09 was debated in the parliament. In February 2009, the Pakistani government, troubled with numerous domestic and international issues, reached a ceasefire agreement with the Tehrik-i-Nifaaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) to establish peace in the turbulent Swat valley, which is the movement for the implementation of the Prophet Muhammad’s Sharia (Islamic law). For well over a decade, the TNSM was penetrating in the local areas with the help of local Taliban. Its anti-secular education operations are alleged to have destroyed around 300 schools in the region, primarily girls’ schools. Since October 2007, violent clashes became severe in Swat between Pakistan security forces and approximately 3,000 militants (Ahmed 2009:30-31). There was an agreement reached between the TNSM and the government, which allowed the former to implement the Sharia in the Swat valley region. The democratic government could not bypass the parliament and the parliament unanimously passed a resolution to support President Zardari’s decision to sign the peace deal, irrespective of concerns regarding human rights abuses in Swat under the militants’ rule. Ultimately, 1 Daniel Pearl, an American journalist with the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi in February 2002. 14 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 the agreement proved to be fruitless and the security forces had to completely remove militants from Swat in 2009. It is palpable that, in the presence of several structural flaws in Pakistan, the country is prone to conflicts at various levels and thus needs the application of tools such as PCIA. Kenneth Bush answers the question: where should PCIA be done? PCIA should certainly be embedded in project located in “hot” war zones. However, they should also apply to initiatives in a far wider range of conflict-prone settings that is; places where there is a risk that non-violent conflict may turn (or return) to violence. This includes areas: (1) where there control over, or use of, territory or resources is disputed; (2) where the socio-economic gap between groups is increasing; or (3) where unemployment is rising while living standards and human security are declining (2003:5). Since 9/11, at the international level, there has been a policy shift towards Pakistan, as the USled war against terrorism started to focus on the terrorists’ safe havens in the country’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The NATO forces in Afghanistan also made several pre-emptive strikes into the Pakistani tribal areas, which further caused the increase in animosity towards the center and the West since the people living in the tribal areas of Pakistan have ethnic ties with a significant group of people in Afghanistan. Therefore, the war on terror has channeled of a lot of funding from the US and dozens of IDAs to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province) for projects on education, women’s empowerment, environmental security, infrastructural development and so on. The West paid a lot of attention to the socio-political environment of these areas, such as the “Understanding FATA” project supported by the British High Commission in Pakistan. Similar initiatives are also being heavily funded by IDAs, in particular USAID. However, much more than mere understanding of the conflict context is required and we have to see how various IDAs in the country have attempted to address conflicts of various kinds and levels, especially by integrating PCIA in their national level development of strategic objectives and planning of projects to contribute to conflict transformation in conflict and conflict-prone areas of Pakistan. Prior to sharing the findings of this study, it is pertinent to introduce PCIA, existing PCIA models, and discuss existing arguments about PCIA and related tools. Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) Most evaluation research and tools coming from the international development community focus on assessing outcomes of development interventions. Little attention has been devoted to adapting these development evaluations into contexts faced with violence (Paffenholz et al. 2005). Increasingly, there has been an understanding of the fact that no actor could be entirely neutral in the context of violent conflict and all development interventions have the potential to have unintended negative impacts on the context faced with conflict (KOFF 2004), hence a need was felt in the circle of IDAs to develop concepts and tools to assess impacts of development projects in conflict and conflict-prone zones. In the early 1990s, in response to relevant concerns, development actors started to discuss the need for specific evaluating tools for project areas faced with conflict and for conflict-prone zones. In the beginning, these concerns were accepted by the 36 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member states and by the United Nations, and, as a result, by several IDAs. Due to this Western acceptance, several conflict-sensitive tools were designed and 15 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 implemented. Specifically, an approach called the Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) (Bush 1998) was developed in conjunction with the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The evolution of PCIA is classified by Paffenholz (2005) into the following three stages: 1. 1996-1999: This era is characterized by a recognition of the potential impacts of aid interventions on conflict dynamics and peace processes and the subsequent development of tools to address this issue, such as the “Do no harm” approach of Mary B. Anderson (1999) and the PCIA approach of Kenneth Bush (1998). The approaches were well received and quickly implemented by hundreds of IDAs in areas faced with conflicts. 2. 1999-2004: This was a developmental period, with dozens of tools related to conflictsensitive project planning and management emerging, mainly inspired by peace research. These tools were either developed by IDAs or developed for them. During this period, some confusion emerged due to various tools of conflict analysis carrying the same label of PCIA. 3. The third phase starts from 2004 and continues. This phase is characterized by greater perplexity in defining PCIA due to the existence of so many different concepts and tools. Several IDAs have replaced the term “PCIA” with “conflict-sensitive development” and other similar terms, in an attempt to focus directly on conflict without being distracted by the broad range of activities under peace-building. The PCIA approach is based on the assumption that any development program, in any context currently experiencing conflict or in a post-conflict state, may cause unintended negative consequences. This approach goes beyond simple project assessment as it is intended to promote conflict-sensitivity through greater awareness of the interaction between development projects and project contexts. A central developer of the PCIA methodology, Kenneth Bush, states: “PCIA is a means of anticipating, monitoring, and evaluating the ways in which an intervention may affect or has affected the dynamics of peace or conflict in a conflict-prone region” (Bush 2003:3). It is important to highlight that the “Do no harm” (Anderson 1999) approach is limited since it is aimed at emphasizing the negative impacts of development interventions on areas faced with conflicts. In comparison, the PCIA approach is comprehensive in nature with equal emphasis on both the conflict dynamics and peace processes in a particular project area. PCIA is employed at two levels: macro and micro. Macro or country level PCIA is performed prior to planning of aid, which is useful for strategic planning at the headquarters of IDAs. In the country level analysis, the national implications of conflict(s) are assessed for designing relevant strategies to reduce the harmful effects of conflicts. PCIA at the micro or a project level is handy for project staff responsible for ensuring the successful implementation of projects. At this level, the primary focus is on defining local dimensions of major factors causing, triggering or aggravating tensions, to formulate enabling strategies to act in response to conflicts. It is worth underscoring the point that PCIA does not evaluate the effectiveness of a development project against its stated objectives rather it evaluates the project against indicators in connection to peace and conflict dynamics. It therefore helps to make decisions on how to design, implement, and evaluate any project, in an effort to maximize opportunities for peace-building and minimize the risks of conflict (Besancon 2005). 16 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 PCIA Models Several PCIA models have been developed but without any significant differences. Organizations have developed specific PCIA models by considering PCIA’s compatibility with their organizational goals and capacity. The PCIA model presented (Diagram 1) is adapted from the work of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES 2007). This model thus far has proven to take care of most of the criticisms of PCIA. There are five stages in PCIA process (FES 2007:4-5): 1. Conflict analysis: This exercise is conducted to ensure the conflict-sensitive orientation of development interventions and helps in providing entry points in particular contexts; 2. Courses of action: Systematic incorporation of recommendations stemming from the country or a project-level conflict analysis into the project planning; 3. Conflict-sensitive project planning: At this stage strategies are defined and activities are planned along with development of SMART indicators. PCIA must always be sensitive to the project context, for example to conflict dynamics, peace processes etc. (Hoffman 2003:19); 4. Conflict monitoring: is about monitoring changes of conflict dynamics and progress in peace initiatives, since the implementation of the project; and 5. Validation of impact hypotheses: considers the impacts of a development project on conflict dynamics and peace processes, as well as adaptation of project planning with impact hypotheses. Diagram 1: PCIA Model Planning Stage Conflict Analysis Socio-Political International conflict analysis response analysis Possible courses of action Sectors, activities, Identify approaches, tools suitable partners Implementation Stage Conflict monitoring Collect data and Analyze conflict information development Conflict-sensitive project planning Propose impact Develop hypothesis/ overall relations/ strategy indicators Validation of Impact Hypotheses Review impact Adapt hypotheses relations project and indicators planning Source: adapted from the (FES 2007:4). The “Aid for Peace” approach is introduced by Paffenholz (2005) and builds on the existing debates on PCIA. This model provides answers and possible solutions to criticism faced by PCIA theories and practices. Since the commencement of debates about “conflict sensitivity” and PCIA, the development world has been flooded with concepts, guidelines and tools on PCIA and this is the reason that, to-date, we find no commonly agreed understanding of PCIA. Many PCIA concepts and tools are developed in connection with the objectives of a particular organization, and many IDAs have been reinventing the wheel as the intended objectives of PCIA have remained the same. However, according to Paffenholz, not all PCIA approaches are built on the original concept. PCIA approaches have in common the comprehensive task of conflict analysis, formulation of recommendations to adjust programs in a particular context to reduce possible unintended impacts on conflict and to enhance contribution to peace-building (2005:3). The Aid for Peace approach differs from the PCIA of Bush (1998) in that it focuses on the peace-building needs of a particular country or area and tailors projects’ objectives to the identified needs through peace-building 17 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 relevance analysis. On the other hand, this model builds upon PCIA and focuses on developing conflict and peace result-chains and indicators for impact assessment of a particular intervention on conflict dynamics and peace processes (Paffenolz 2005:5). A shortcoming of PCIA (FES 2007) and the Aid for Peace approach (Paffenholz 2005) is that they propose almost the same sets of procedures to be adopted in conflict and conflict-prone zones and cater for the needs of IDAs without mentioning anything regarding developing peace and conflict sensitive implementation plans in consultation with partnering organizations at the local levels. PCIA and IDAs in Pakistan During the period of my direct exposure to PCIA, I observed that PCIA and conflict sensitivity in project management are “alien concepts” for the majority of the project staff of non-government organizations (NGOs) in Pakistan. Thus, the benefits of these tools are unknown to them. In a group discussion with NGO fieldworkers in Swat, I inquired about PCIA and similar concepts, and received the response: “what is PCIA?” Clearly, concerns are to be raised on the effectiveness of PCIA when implementers at the grass-root level are absolutely unaware of such a tool. Examples of PCIA in Pakistan are few, and difficult to access, as most organizations (IDAs) keep PCIA-related work confidential. There are a couple of well-known PCIA related examples, however, which come from the work of a German foundation called Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) through their country offices in Pakistan. Both the FES and the SDC have prepared complex procedures and tools related to PCIA (FES 2007; SDC 2006), and also have trained local staff in Pakistan in this respect. The Aid for Peace model fits very well as a supplement to the PCIA model (FES 2007) as it is more comprehensive in nature with certain sets of procedures that are carried out until the project is implemented. However, after the implementation of a particular project there was a felt need for certain procedures, provided in the given PCIA model, for conflict monitoring at required instances after the execution of a project in order to adapt a particular project under existing circumstances at the project-level. Paffenholz (2005:13) provides an example of an FES project in Afghanistan. Similarly, I would like to share an example from the FES Pakistan office, which conducted a comprehensive national-level conflict analysis in 2007 to explore the entry point in relation to the organization’s strategic objectives. A country specific conflict analysis makes donor policies more sensitive to local socio-political dynamics, and if carried out on regular basis, offers projects opportunities to continue to adjust in response to changing circumstances (Hoffman 2003:27). The FES conflict analysis specifically explored how, across the country, the youth was at risk of being exploited by extremist elements; and rising civil-military conflict. Therefore, the FES country office developed the following three projects: 1. Young Professionals’ Network (YPN): this project was created with the aim of empowering the marginalized young people across the country. The participants were selected from neglected areas of Pakistan and were provided with training on various issues/topics such as, communication skills, conflict transformation, project management and leadership skills. The intended outcome of this project was the capacity building of selected participants to enable them to play a significant role in the country’s development. 2. Youth Parliament: this project was launched in an effort to provide a capacity building oriented platform for politically oriented youth to voice their concerns on political issues of Pakistan. The aim of this project was to bring a new generation of perspective politicians in 18 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Pakistan to strengthen the existing institution of democracy. The project was initiated in 2006, when General Pervez Musharraf was the head of the state. 3. Civil-Military Dialogue was designed to provide a platform for former servicemen of armed forces and civil society members to debate on a range of issues to resolve the rising civilmilitary conflict in the country. The project was implemented with the objective of initiating debates on the constitutional role of army in the country, to ensure the sovereignty of democracy. The FES implemented these projects in 2006 and in the following year, 2007, conducted an exercise on conflict monitoring in project areas to adjust projects in response to changes in peace and conflict dynamics. The FES offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan implemented the above given PCIA model (FES 2007), similar to the Aid for Peace approach of Paffenholz (2005). The FES case differs from the case of other IDAs in Pakistan, for instance, the case of the SDC, which initially implemented projects in conflict-prone areas and later decided to aid in the conduct of a conflict-sensitive impact assessment with the aim of identifying unintended negative impacts of projects on conflict dynamics. IDAs are perceived with much suspicion in Pakistan, like the rest of the Western organizations that are perceived to be supporting the US agenda, or supporting the anti-Islamic motives of the Western world in Muslim countries by promoting Western values under the camouflage of development assistances (field note 1). This reaction towards IDAs mostly relates to aid coming from the USA. There is historical evidence justifying this attitude of people towards IDAs: “US financial and military assistance to Pakistan has always come with strings attached – and it will be used to tweak the Pakistani establishment whenever the need arises” (Siddiqa 2007:35). Field Note 1: I met the people working with the SDC in Swat, Swabi and D.I. Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The staff told me that they initially faced problems due to their offices and vehicles having the Swiss cross, which is prominent on the SDC logo. The backward and conservative local communities perceived the Swiss cross as the Christian cross. Therefore, in the beginning, the SDC staff had to persuade the local communities that their projects were not motivated by a faith-based propaganda from the West. In February 2008, armed men opened fire and hurled grenades at the office of a British-run aid agency (Plan International) in Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Four people were killed in the incident and ten wounded. This region of Pakistan is known to possess pro-Taliban militants, who have bombed the offices of NGOs in the past, alleging that IDAs are trying to undermine their version of true Islam. In addition, Mansehra until recently was a base for militants operating in Afghanistan and hence the anti-Western sentiment has grown significantly since the US-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan and neighboring tribal areas in Pakistan started. For example, in November 2009, Stephan D. Vance, working for the US-funded Federal Demonstrative Partnership was killed in Peshawar (Perlez 2008). After this incident, there were concerns from the US and several donor agencies as to how their money could be effective if their workers are unable to visit project areas? Partner organizations of IDAs are also not safe from these attacks, as in April 2009 there was an attack on workers of a Mansehra based NGO funded by USAID. Three local female workers along with their male driver were kidnapped and killed. NGOs are considered to be in conflict with local communities that perceive them as western agents (examples given in field notes 19 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 2 & 3). A common belief is that attacks on NGOs happen because these organizations employ women workers and organize mixed social gatherings in line with their professed policies on gender equality and gender mainstreaming (BBC 2009). NGOs in conflict(s) in project areas Field Note 2: Non-government initiatives such as that of the Innovation for Poverty Reduction Project (IPRP) in Swat (Pakistan) and its partner organizations are in conflict with the local communities. First of all, religious extremists are unhappy with the IPRP and its partners advocating for women’s rights. Secondly, middlemen are unhappy with the IPRP initiatives are working to benefit the poor segments directly, thereby reducing the benefits of middlemen. Thirdly, the timber smuggling mafia is also annoyed with forest conservation efforts of the IPRP. Field Note 3: Another case is of the Swabi district, where it was noted that the local NGOs are in conflict with communities, as they are labeled as outsiders propagating Western agendas against Islam. In addition, some religious fundamentalists are active in distributing hate material (pamphlets, banners) against NGOs. Therefore, I asked a group of women working for an NGO in Swabi about the issue of regular visits of staff (white men and women) from IDAs in connection to existing animosity from the local fundamentalists. They told me that the people from the community spread rumors about them being Westernized. Attacks on aid workers are not exclusive to Pakistan: in the period from 2006 to 2008, three quarters of total attacks on aid workers took place in the following countries that are faced with armed conflicts (in descending order): Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chad, Iraq and Pakistan. As identified, there could be the following reasons for attacks on aid workers: (1) aid workers are perceived as friends of the “enemy”; a government, a rebel group or a foreign power; (2) the attacked organization could be a primary target; or (3) to block the delivery of aid to a particular group of people (Stoddard et al. 2009:4-5). Most of the development projects in Pakistan, like in many other countries, are implemented with the help of partnering (local) NGOs. It is rare for IDAs to execute any project on their own, as most of them do realize their limitations in a context that is not very well-known to them, linguistically and culturally. On the evaluating side, IDAs try to take possible steps to ensure the effective implementation of their projects. However, when it comes to the application of PCIA, there seems to be a lot of confusion in the circle of IDAs in Pakistan. Either it is an unfamiliar concept to the project staff at local levels or it is not well understood. It has been found that mostly the local staff considers PCIA as an extra task or a burden on them. Therefore, not much interest is observed to be shown in learning PCIA tools and methodologies. After meeting with the local project staff of IDAs, discussing PCIA, conflict sensitivity and so on, I was frequently encountered with the question: why do we need it for projects on youth development, women’s empowerment, for promotion of human rights and democracy, trade unions etc.? And during the course of my research, I found that most of them have suspicions attached to PCIA and related tools, and they perceive it as yet another evaluating tool coming from the West and thus something which they don’t find relevant to their work. The local people working for IDAs directly or indirectly also believe that the outsiders (donors) do not “entirely” know their context and, therefore, even if there is a conceptual agreement on the use of PCIA, there is a huge gap between the theory and practice because the local staff are the ones who are directly in 20 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 communication with partnering or implementing organizations. In the words of Mark Hoffman: “The gap between theory and practice has not yet been closed; the various efforts at PCIAs are, so far, a practical dead end” (2003:34). It is significant to note that the ones implementing, the local partners, have no theoretical background on what PCIA is about. It was found that at the implementing end, IDAs are yet to clearly answer the following question: “who are PCIAs for?” (Hoffman 2003:34). It seems this is the overall case with the application of PCIA in different countries, as similar were the experiences from Sri Lanka: “Undue emphasis on complex tools, tables and methodologies seems to be a primarily Western approach that often has a limited resonance with many Southern organizations” (Barbolet et al. 2005:2). I have gathered enough evidence in this study to support the hypothesis of Marc Howard Ross that the PCIA concept “is not yet sufficiently user friendly” (2003:78) due to its unclear, complex and broad nature. There is a visible disagreement observed between donors and aid facilitators working for IDAs in countries receiving aid, and presence of such a conflict also constraints the execution of PCIA. This finding is also validated by Neufeldt by highlighting differences in practical sense for workers of IDAs and national NGOs. “Because their views often clash during program design, monitoring and evaluation processes, and leave both sides unsatisfied” (2007:2). To further clarify this debate, Neufeldt (2007) identifies two groups with distinct approaches to development interventions: “frameworkers” and “circlers”. For “frameworkers”, there is a linear relationship between peacebuilding program design, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. “Circlers” on the other hand often are interested in immeasurable aspects because they seek community based processes and view available frameworks as too focused. “Circlers are interested in the uniqueness of interventions and communities – they focus on the stories and lessons that emerge from specific cultural, geographic and temporal contexts and do not expect these to be generalizable” (Neufeldt 2007:3-4). Neufeldt further argues that “circlers” often view “frameworkers” as too rigid and biased on the basis of their Western thinking. On the other hand, “frameworkers” suggest that the “circlers” way of thinking is too vague because they do not spend the time to plan and critically analyze the required outcomes and impacts of their activities (2007:4). Another tension between the groups of people is as a result of power affecting relationship, specifically within design, monitoring and evaluation processes (field note 4). It became clear during my field study that people perceived PCIA as yet another evaluating exercise to look at the impact of funding coming to those NGOs. In the development world, “frameworkers” are people working at headquarters of numerous IDAs and “circlers” are the ones either locally working for them or for partnering NGOs. “Frameworkers” are faced with a serious challenge to measure the outcome or impact of their peace-building endeavors but to achieve this; they are internally faced with another challenge in the form of resistance from “circlers”, who resist any systematic and logical framework coming from “frameworkers”. The “frameworkers” approach is predominantly adopted by IDAs or donor agencies, which leaves us with a question: what we are at risk of losing by listening to “frameworkers” and not “circlers”? However, despite the above mentioned differences between the two groups of people, there are also some dominant similarities between both constituencies as they wish to change the course of conflict to promote peace in communities they work in (Neufeldt 2007:16). 21 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Field Note 4: In early 2007, I was invited by the SDC-Humanitarian Assistance (SDC-HA) office in Mansehra, Pakistan to conduct a day-long workshop on conflict prevention. The organization felt the need for the exercise after finding no other way to resolve a dispute between the SDC-HA and its partner organizations in the earthquake affected areas of Pakistan. The conflict was based on certain rumors based on miscommunication and a contentious power relationship between the donor agency and her partners, which they identified through the exercise and dealt with by creating a team of project managers from respective NGOs and the funding agency (SDC-HA). In this case, it was a Project Manager from Switzerland who observed this conflict and felt that her fieldworkers and partner organizations needed this training. Whenever we encountered a conflict and looked for possible causes, the study found that middlemen (facilitators at a country level) are unsatisfied with the way policies are developed in IDAs’ headquarters as they are not consulted during the development phase and receive nothing but a document with identified priority areas of work for the next 3 to 5 years. Primarily, it is the case with most of the IDAs as they all strategize in their headquarters, physically, and most of the times are mentally miles away from realities of the identified contexts. Hereby, I would like to share the example of the World Bank, which practically directs its country offices through the its headquarter in Washington from where it issues policies, procedures, and even reporting guidelines (Barbolet et al. 2005:2). Those using PCIA in Pakistan were challenged with the term “impact” because it is not something which could be measured on a short-term basis, as most of the development projects have a timeline of no more than 5 years. So how do we measure impacts or success in short-term projects? This question is yet to be answered by PCIA. It was also explored that there is an apparent ideological or operational conflict between project administrators and those living at the projectlevel regarding what constitutes “success”. Such differences offer opportunities for stakeholders to consult everyone to produce joint project goals and working methodologies (Ross 2003:80). On most occasions, the process of “risk assessment” is confused with PCIA. Risk assessment exercises in Pakistan provide opportunities for IDAs to avoid conflict(s) as the task involves exploring the links of a particular project with conflict dynamics and vice versa. Ideally and logically, all peacebuilding and development programs in a conflict zone should contribute to peace processes. Since not all development programs in conflict or conflict-prone zones see this as part of their job, many IDAs have developed strategies for “working in, on and around conflict” (Paffenholz et al. 2005). In the Pakistani context, it has been found that most IDAs prefer not to be directly involved in conflict transformation or peace-building process, due to their fear of insecurity or policy restrictions. Therefore, either they continue what they are doing at a lower scale (working around the conflict) or quit from that specific project area (example provided in field note 5). Field Note 5: In the district of D.I. Khan, a conflict between the Powindahs and the Gandapurs over the issue of the Powindah’s cattle grazing in the fields of the Gandapurs occurred, which led to a fight between the two groups in which both sides lost lives. Insecurity created by the violent conflict forced the families from both sides to withdraw their children from a non-formal school of the Project for Livelihood Improvement (PLI). The PLI is supported by an IDA. Considering this scenario it is clear that to sustain this project, either the local partner organization or a funding agency needs to be aware of the situation so as to resolve the dispute in a timely manner. However, it was not the case as the PLI simply avoided the conflict and decided not to work in that area. 22 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 While working in a conflict environment, the option of conflict avoidance becomes almost impossible, especially when a particular conflict hurts or is likely to disturb the project’s performance. In some project areas, there are existing conflicts over the distribution of natural resources (land, water, forest etc.) and project design in such cases ideally has to follow the projectlevel conflict analysis. An example (field note 6) highlights the significance of a conflict analysis exercise at the project-level to avoid unintended negative impacts on existing socio-economic disparities due to inequitable distribution of water. Field Note 6: Conflict analysis in D.I. Khan has led to the strategy that development organizations avoid putting their irrigation projects under the control of upper stream elites. In the past, local elites were controlling the irrigation mechanism to solely irrigate their lands, which led to a drastic increase in socio-economic gaps between the people at the upper and lower levels in irrigated areas. The rich of the upper stream became richer while the poor of the lower stream became poorer. There is a strong mistrust observed among the common people regarding water management and distribution, due to the erosion of governing institutions. The local development organizations are aware of the situation have been trying to resolve this dispute by organizing “reflect circles” between the elite and the poor, in an effort to find a mutually acceptable way to provide equal rights to water for irrigation. It was observed that only few organizations possess the capacity to implement PCIA in conflict and conflict prone zones in collaboration with respective country offices, such as the FES and the SDC. Therefore, in 2007-08, both the FES and SDC offices in Pakistan decided to launch joint exercises on PCIA by pooling in their human and financial resources. It is definitely a great deal of work for a single person to comprehend and implement PCIA in his/her development projects, and organizations taking benefit from PCIA do lack a local level teamwork definition/mechanism to benefit from the conflict-sensitive tools. Development stakeholders must be clear about the fact that “PCIA is an on-going and dynamic approach taken before, during, and after a particular intervention in a conflict-prone region” (Bush 2003:6). Therefore, PCIA is supposed to be used at all stages in a project cycle. It can be used to facilitate project designing process, so that it contributes to peace-building rather than exacerbating conflicts, and to monitor ongoing projects, to make the required adjustments. Furthermore, it could also be employed to evaluate an entire project, so that lessons could be learned on how to minimize conflict risks and maximize peace-building aspects of a particular development intervention (Besancon 2005). However, quite often, PCIA is perceived outside the normal project cycle and it is hard to get PCIA integrated into an ongoing project cycle. Nevertheless, PCIA is something that is supposed to become an integral part of the project cycle, as a cross-cutting theme, in areas faced with conflict. To achieve this, it is of a paramount importance to enable PCIA-users, especially the local project staff, to firstly understand benefits of this very important framework and tool. There is disbelief of PCIA’s utility in development projects in Pakistan. It is clear that Pakistan provides a diverse context with some visible and invisible conflicts. Considering this, a comprehensive local-level conflict analysis is a prerequisite for PCIA’s application. Even after the conflict analysis, the project developers would like to know more on what kind of projects require PCIA approach. Whenever the project staff struggles to answer this question, they fail to get into 23 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 PCIA and rather look for a consultant to perform this task on their behalf. When a consultant appears on scene, he/she mostly accomplishes tasks independently and hence no transfer of knowledge takes place. Therefore, PCIA is usually not repeated again, as hiring a consultant each time is costly. There is a more open attitude among external staff (foreigners) of IDAs in Pakistan towards PCIA, but mostly to get to know what the tool is about, rather than to obtain its practicable benefits. In some sense, these expatriates are the real project developers, as they form the bridges between the local staff and headquarters of IDAs. These foreigners naturally possess some limitations in a local context, and therefore depend on the local staff to know the basics since the local staff know local dynamics and bearing this in mind, PCIA could ideally be put into practice in consultation with local or a field staff in any IDA, as well as with in consultation with some local community people. As Bush has emphasized: PCIA needs to be transparent, shared and people-centered. The real experts of PCIA are those women, men, girls and boys living in conflict zones. If they are not centrally involved in peace and conflict analysis and interpretation, then the exercise will fail, or worse, will disempower communities – that is, it will remove them from decisions that fundamentally affect their lives (2003:6). However, meaningful collaboration with local partners has been limited. There are associated fears that local partners might perceive PCIA as some sort of assessment or an evaluation to cut down funding. Therefore, PCIA and related assignments have to be transparent enough to achieve the trust of local people, and reach the desired objectives. “A rushed PCIA is a doubtful PCIA” (Bush 2003:6). PCIA does take time and under demanding circumstances of conflict-prone regions, this process has to develop its roots deeper into that context, which can be done slowly and steadily through various PCIA steps. This research found that no one (IDAs, NGOs etc.) knows how much time should be devoted for an ideal PCIA exercise. In some cases, conflict analysis took two months or so. In other cases, conflict analysis was performed simultaneously with other PCIA steps while looking at the impact of development interventions on conflict dynamics and peace processes, despite the fact that, theoretically, this is not the way it should be done. Once a project is implemented without a conflict analysis taken into consideration, it is almost impossible for the PCIA approach to prove its significance. In most cases in Pakistan, development projects were implemented without taking into consideration the local peace and conflict dynamics. The PCIA exercise was then performed partly to see their projects’ impacts on the local peace and conflict dynamics after the fact. The majority of IDAs opted for this approach to PCIA as it takes less time when all PCIA steps are merged into one assignment, and could be completed in less than a week. Most of these hurried PCIA assignments are performed on the directions of IDAs’ headquarters by the local staff in Pakistan. Earlier, I have presented several questions from IDA staff and program implementers, which I received while talking of PCIA in Pakistan, however, there are still a couple of questions left: how can one determine if obvious changes to the peace or conflict settings are the result of a particular development intervention? What would have happened to conflict dynamics without that particular development intervention under observation? This relates to the issue of developing relevant and measurable indicators to assess the impact of a particular development intervention, and even if indicators are perfect, there remains another dimension of attribution: when there are too many things happening in a complex environment, then how can we determine which actions bring about 24 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 apparent changes (outcomes)? These are all legitimate concerns which should be addressed at the theoretical level, and informed by dialogue with the practitioners (Anderson 2000:2). In most cases, cultural sensitivity exists in the circle of IDAs in Pakistan since they know that the lack of cultural sensitivity in some areas, mostly rural, might end up putting IDAs at conflict with local communities. For example, culturally, women from rural areas and in particular from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are not allowed to appear in front of unknown men. Therefore, NGOs working on women-related issues have to work with segregated groups of men and women. In some projects areas, specifically in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and rural areas, women cannot come alone to participate in any activity, therefore, development agencies allow a male family member to accompany a female participant, if required, and for both the travel expenses are reimbursed. This is a highly encouraging exercise in such a context, to encourage more local women in becoming a part of civil society activities. Talking of cultural understanding, there is the case of Musalihati Jirgas (Arbitration Councils). The project is intended to setup culturally acceptable mechanisms for conflict resolution. Traditionally in Northern areas of Pakistan, people have more faith on traditional mechanism of conflict resolution called ‘Jirga’. Therefore, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has established a Musalihati Jirga in each Union Council consisting of three Conciliators with a provision of one woman being its Convener. Conclusion and Recommendations In conclusion, although the concept of PCIA receives a lot of appreciation from IDAs, especially when it appears in theoretical discussions and official documentation, the whole view takes a negative shift when it comes to the application of PCIA, where it is labeled as “irrelevant”, “complicated”, “costly”, etc. This confirms observations not only from Pakistan but also Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, South Thailand, and Indonesia. Thus, it is important to bring the information to the people working at IDAs that PCIA is about understanding conflict dynamics to avoid conflicts, as well as minimizing the unintended negative impacts resulting in or inflaming conflict, and enhancing peacebuilding. Here it is relevant to share a quote from Hammill and Besancon: PCIA are not, nor do they aspire to be, the “silver bullet” for ensuring effective delivery and impact of development interventions in conflict zones. The process of assessing peace and conflict impacts of a project or program is unavoidably complex and involved, which can present challenges and shortcomings to different users. But these can be overcome, to a large extent, given enough time, flexibility and “outside of the box” thinking (2003:11). On the basis of the findings of this paper, I would like to take the opportunity to present some recommendations to further improve the implementation of PCIA in Pakistan and similar contexts: 1. It is crucial to combine development needs assessment and baselines studies with peace and conflict analysis; 2. Anticipating and assessing the relevance of peace-building in the planning stage of a development intervention; 3. Undertaking risk assessments that anticipate the impact of the conflict on interventions (both negative and constructive types of impact); 4. It is very important to enhance the participation of all relevant stakeholders in planning, implementation and impact monitoring of development and peace-building work in conflict affected areas; 25 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 5. IDAs in Pakistan need to come up with context specific guidelines and tools on PCIA (Hoffman 2003:27) and to achieve this objective, it will be much more realistic and workable if all stakeholders (developers, IDAs, partners organizations/recipients) are involved in the process (Hoffman 2003:34-35); 6. There is a need to introduce a culture of conflict-and-peace-focused monitoring and evaluation into program and policy implementation by supporting self-evaluations and organizational change for mainstreaming (Paffenholz et al. 2005); and 7. It has been explored that few IDAs in Pakistan work in collaboration with each other, even while striving for similar outcomes in a particular project context. Individually, most of IDAs don’t have enough human and financial resources to benefit from PCIA and therefore, it is recommended that IDAs in the country develop a common platform to pool in their resources for PCIA related exercises. IDAs working in Pakistan and similar contexts, where social change takes a long time due to peoples’ strong roots in the local traditions, need to understand that the desired “change” cannot be as sudden as the transaction of aid. It takes time and requires patience and consistency. Pakistan is not homogenous and it embodies significant ethnic and religious disparities, with the majority still deeply rooted into old traditions. Therefore, it is not an easy task for IDAs to work in Pakistan. Still, the country needs IDAs to support local initiatives to address numerous socio-economic and political problems. And such desired international interventions could be improved with the help of comprehensive and contextually relevant understanding of conflicts. I would like to reemphasize that PCIA is not about being sensitive only to traditional forms of conflict and violence but also to non-traditional insecurities associated with socio-economic disparities, gender inequalities and various other forms of discriminations leading to or having potential to turn into violent conflicts. To conclude, the following thought provoking expression of Helen Keller is very appropriate: I do not want the peace which passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace. References Ahmed, Z.S. (2009). Swat: Peace deal or compromise? South Asia Defence & Strategic Review, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 30-34. Anderson, M.B. (2000). Experiences with impact assessment: can we know what good we do? Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. Anderson, M.B. (1999). Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace -- or War, Lynne Rienner Publisher, Boulder. BBC (2009). Aid workers shot dead in Pakistan, BBC News, 7 April 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//2/hi/south_asia/7987083.stm BBC (2008). Militants claim Marriott attack, BBC News, 22 September 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//2/hi/south_asia/7630024.stm Barbolet, A., Goldwyn, R., Groenewald, H. & Sherriff, A. (2005). The utility and dilemmas of conflict sensitivity. Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. 26 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Besancon, C. (2005). Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment brainstorming workshop report. Rwanda: International Institute of Sustainable Development. Bush, K. (1998). A Measure of Peace: Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) of Development Projects in Conflict Zones. Ottawa: International Development Research Center. Bush, K. (2003). Hands on PCIA: A handbook for Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA): The Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Canada-Philippines Local Government Support Program. FES (2005). Conflict Analysis-Pakistan. Islamabad: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). FES (2007). Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment: Methodical Guidelines, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Berlin. GoP (1998). Census of Pakistan. Islamabad: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Statistics, Government of Pakistan (GoP). GoP (2008). Population Census Organization, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Statistics, Government of Pakistan (GoP). Retrieved 28 December 2008 from http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/index.html Hammill, A. & Besancon, C. (2003). Promoting Conflict Sensitivity in Transboundary Protected Areas: A role for peace and conflict impact assessment. 5th Parks Congress. Durban. Hoffman, M. (2003). PCIA methodology: evolving art from or practical dead end? in Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment, A. Austin, M. Fischer & O. Wils (eds), Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, Berlin, pp. 11-35. KOFF (2004). Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment and Conflict Sensitivity. Bern: Center for Peacebuilding. Neufeldt, R.C. (2007). "Frameworkers" and "Circlers" -- exploring assumptions in Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment. Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. Paffenholz, T. (2005). Third-generation PCIA: introducing the Aid for Peace Approach. Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. Paffenholz, T., Abu-Nimer, M. & Mccandless, E. (2005). Peacebuilding and Development: Integrated Approaches to Evaluation, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1-5. Perlez, J. (2008). U.S. aid worker slain in Pakistan, New York Times, 13 November 2008. Perlez, J. & Shah, P.Z. (2008). Embassy attack in Pakistan kills at least 6, New York Times, 3 June 2008. Rondeaux, C. (2008). Bombing hits popular Islamabad restaurant, Washington Post, 16 March 2008. Ross, M.H. (2003). PCIA as a peacebuilding tool, in Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment, A. Austin, M. Fischer & O. Wils (eds), Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, Berlin, pp. 77-81. Schmelzle, B. (2005). New Trends in Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA): introduction. Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. SDC (2006). Conflict-Sensitive Program Management CSPM: Integrating Conflict Sensitivity and Prevention of Violence into SDC Programs. Bern: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Siddiqa, A. (2007). The politics of USAID, Newsline. 27 Crime and Violence as a Barrier to Gender Equality in Nigeria Politics A. D. Ikuomola and R. A. Okunola* Electioneering in Nigeria has been characterised by violence, electoral irregularities and various criminal activities. However the continuous campaign for women to be actively involved in the democratic process has yielded little compare to the increasing number of women heading key positions in other domain. This paper therefore seeks to examine fear of crime and electoral violence in Nigeria as major factors mainstreaming women out of politics. Specifically the study investigates factors endangering women from politics, the trend and pattern of women’s participation in election over the last decade among forty-five (45) key women leaders in the informal economy. The study is anchored on Kanter’s Glass Ceiling theory which explains women’s roles in leadership. Collection and interpretation of data for this study were basically qualitative, involving the use of interviews and content analysis. The study recommends a constitutional approach that will stipulate a reasonable, minimum and special security placement for women in every government with little or no cost. * A. D. Ikuomola, PhD., and R. A. Okunola, PhD., Department of Sociology, Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. 28 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 The collective consciousness of women regarding the feminine mystique, which saw women’s identity restricted to the roles of wife and mother are gradually fading off as more women are liberating themselves in the workplace especially in civil and corporate organisations. However the same cannot be said for women’s involvement in politics. Currently statistics indicate that out of the 109 senators in Nigeria only six are women, while out of the 360 members of the House of Representatives only 26 are women, and in the State Houses of Assembly where there are more than over 1000 lawmakers across the country, only 53 of them are females. These figures represent only 5 percent which is grossly inadequate. By implication there are some states of the federation with no single female lawmaker either at the state or national levels. In Kano state with over 4million women for instance there is no single female senator or member of the house of representative from the state neither is there any woman in the state house of assembly. In Lagos state with over 4million women there is no single woman senator and only two out of the 24 members of the House of assembly are women (International Foundation for Electoral System, 2008; TMG, 2009; Sunday Punch, 2010). Over the last two decades, much attention has been given to women's leadership and their roles in politics (Tedrow and Rhoads, 1999). One reason is that the literature on women's participation in leadership generally reveals women are less likely than men to participate in upper levels of administration, and fewer in heated political atmosphere (Warner and DeFluer, 1993). In the Nigerian political terrain like most countries in the developing world, however, there are growing number of women in the formal sector and a great increase of women in senior-level positions between 1986 and 2006 (Best, 2006).Yet little existing research explores completely what may be at work in shaping women's career paths especially in the area of political participation, which has been abysmally poor. Past research has shown that biological and cultural factors are major hindrances placing women at disadvantage points in politics. Less emphasis has been placed on the fear of crime and electoral violence most often subsumed under the traditional argument of women socialisation into the private domain as key issues undermining women participation in electioneering. Objectives of the Study The main objective of the study is to examine the fear of crime and electoral violence in Nigeria as major factors mainstreaming women out of politics. Specifically, the study investigates factors endangering women from politics, the trend and pattern of women’s participation in election over the last decade. Research Setting and Methodology The study setting comprised of two states (Oyo and Lagos). Respondents were drawn randomly from both the informal and formal sector, forty-five (45) key women leaders in the informal economy and six (6) key women in selected Non-Governmental Organisations. The NGOs include Campaign for Change (C4C); Food Basket, Live Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO), Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), and Today’s Woman (TW).The interview guide was used for data collection and the interpretation of data was done using content analysis supported by simple statistical explanation. The study is anchored on Kanter’s Glass Ceiling theory which explains women’s roles in leadership, which suggests that females aspiring leadership positions would normally face several additional barriers to career advancement than their male counterparts. These barriers include not being a good fit within cultures dominated by males, being excluded from informal interactions where critical information is shared, not receiving appropriate mentoring, lack 29 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 of critical developmental assignments that leads to advancement, more reliance upon formal processes for promotional opportunities (Van Velsor & Hughs, 1990), and not being allowed chances for mobility (Adler, 1984). Literature Review Kanter’s Glass Ceiling Theory of leadership Among other things, Kanter’s theory develops the idea that in highly skewed political positions, minority-group members, (emphasis on women) are at a particular disadvantage because of a number of social behaviours exhibited by majority members (men). For example, because minorities are very salient to members of the majority, majority-group members may exaggerate the differences between themselves and the minority and view minorities in terms of stereotypes. In response, minority members are posited to experience increased social isolation, performance pressure, and pressure to conform to role expectations defined by the majority. As groups begin to move toward less extreme distributions, these effects are predicted to become less exaggerated. Kanter also argues that as sex ratios become more balanced, minority members can become ‘allies, can form coalitions, and can affect the culture of the group’ (1977: 966). A typical example is the formation of women wings in every political party in Nigeria, a coalition in support of the dominant political parties. Thus, in more balanced groups, members of the minority have the potential to influence management practices in ways that enhance their opportunity for success. While there have been studies that support the view that as minority representation increases, majority attitudes and behaviours toward minorities also improve (Konrad et al., 1992). It is at this level that Kanter’s (1977) ideas about coalition formation and cultural change have particular relevance and has the greatest possibility of contributing to our understanding of the glass ceiling. If, as female representation in lower-level appointive positions increases, female politicians (1) become less salient to the male majority and therefore experience less isolation and performance pressure, (2) can form coalitions and support networks, and (3) are seen as critical organizational resources, this should influence female political career advancement in a positive way. The application of the social contacts perspective to the glass-ceiling phenomenon leads to the prediction that, over time, opportunity for women will improve as more women choose to enter previously male dominated political hierarchies. That is, as general societal values become more favourable regarding the appropriateness of women in political positions, more women will pursue competitive political career paths. As female/male ratios in lower-level political positions increase, women should experience less isolation and social pressure, begin to form coalitions and support networks, and become more acceptable as candidates for key political positions and not as appointees alone. This suggests that, as female representation in lower-level appointee political positions increases, it is just a matter of time before female representation in senior-political positions also will increase. Women and leadership style Although verbal and written evidences exist of supports for women to participate more in politics, a significant counterbalance often works against women: like most organizations in the world, are distinguished by their traditional bureaucratic structures and instrumental leadership conceptions (Amey, 1999; Amey & Twombly, 1993; Twombly & Amey, 1994 ). Instrumentalism is a 30 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 functionalist doctrine stressing rational thoughts and strategic action. Implicitly, people and ideas are often situated as tools for organizational leaders to use in working toward increased efficiency. Instrumentalism as an organizational orientation has been found to be associated more closely with masculine ways of leading than feminine ways (Ferguson, 1984; Gherardi, 1995; Iannello, 1992). Similarly Kanazawa (2005) has noted that men tend to rank financial reward and power positions much higher in their preferences for leadership, and strive for such positions; hence they are the ones who are more likely to succeed in achieving them, whereas “women have better things to do’’ which are less violent and aggressive in nature. Relational organizational constructs seek to include diverse groups, share power, build coalitions, as well as advance individual and community development. Consequently, women who enact more egalitarian or relational styles of leading are likely to face marginality within their organizations and to be marked as "outsiders" (Brown & Geis, 1984; Kanter, 1977; Wahl & Vocante, 1993). As Aisenberg and Harrington (1988) noted in their study of women in the academy, they often become "outsiders in the sacred grove." Osaghea (2001) has also noted that, in Nigerian politics and in the core clandestine political meetings, women are sidelined because of the pre–conceived belief that women cannot keep party secrets. Similarly as shown in past studies the accusation of women as lacking the guts necessary in politics has been linked with the relational use of power whereas men are more likely to embrace instrumental ways (Gilligan, 1982; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986). Moreover, studies suggest that most cultures expect women to use more nurturing behavioural styles (Williams & Best, 1990) and treat them harshly when they do not (Lakoff, 1975; Tannen, 1998). All of these contribute to putting many women outside the political terrain in Nigeria. Findings and Discussion Factors Endangering Women from Politics In the area of politics, respondents were keen in explaining the plight of Nigerian women in past decade, a common response to over two-third of the interviewees shows that their experience can be described as pathetic. Although women make up at least half the electorate in Nigeria, their presence in policy/decision-making positions is very low. A number of factors were mentioned as militating against women’s active and effective participation in politics. Many described these factors, as having their roots in women’s subordinate position in society, include: illiteracy, poverty, low self-esteem, ignorance, lack of confidence in other women, violent and non-conducive political environment (money politics, intimidation and violence), cultural stereotypes, religious barriers, high registration fees (which most women cannot afford), harmful traditional practices among others. For some, the chauvinistic tendencies of male rulers of the land have relegated to the background. . Military incursions into politics were mentioned, emphasizing the fact that, especially during the years when Nigeria was under military rule, women were denied women any meaningful participation in politics: None…I say no single woman was appointed as governor of the many states in the country or a member of the highest policy-making body (the Armed Forces Ruling Council) (Women leader C4C, Lagos). Explaining further, a woman leader in Ikorodu –Lagos noted that the incursion of the military in government has turned out the present crop of politicians who have directly or indirectly looted the 31 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 nation’s treasury, and are now better equipped in terms of economic power which women have not been privileged to gain during that era. This corroborates what Mba (1982:304) said several years ago about the political marginalization of Nigerian women, which is still very much applicable: Nigerian women must come to recognize that politics determines the allocation of all resources in the society, and that their alienation from politics means that their special interest will continue to be neglected. Currently, Nigerian politics are determined by political financiers who are predominantly males. According to - Pinto-Duschinsky (2001) “the use of money or the use of other material resources including women for political activities are usually within the hands of men”. It embodies the sources or means through which political activities are sponsored in a given country. The concept of political finance has two broad connotations: money used for electioneering (campaign funds) and money used for political party expenses (party funds), which has been referred to as rentier politics. Rentier politics in Nigeria has been characterized over the years by the dominance of ‘electoral machines’ controlled by political entrepreneurs comprised largely of wealthy former military officers and their civilian business cronies, usually male. The major political parties in Nigerian politics today are little more than grand agglomerations of the respective electoral ‘machines’ of the leading political financiers. Many Nigerian politicians are ‘sponsored’ by local and regional power brokers cum political entrepreneurs who finance their campaigns for public office. Very rarely are women considered by godfathers and political heavy weight as good ‘materials’ to invest their money on. The ‘sponsorship’ is effectively a business transaction in which the patron recovers the ‘investment’ in the form of public works and procurement contracts, prebendal appointments of cronies to public offices and other forms of prebendal activity by the ‘client’ politician on assuming public office (Obiorah, 2004). In some cases where the patron and client failed to define with sufficient precision, the dimensions of the return on investment or the client balks at delivering per the agreed terms, the fallout has led to mass violence and political destabilization as highlighted by discussants and interviewees in the section below on Anambra and other states. The biological makeup of the female gender has been evoked as a factor hindering women in political participation. Their roles as mothers and wives have also been culturally influenced and predetermined. Expectation thus is for them to be gentle, providing care for their husbands and children. On the other hand a lot of women have come to see themselves as subjects, which must be provided for, or an object of beauty which must be maintained, which must look good all the time. This situation is deeply embedded in the socialisation process of the girl child in Africa were sociocultural values and traditions are widely held. Based on this, the bio-socio factors were evident in most statements from the field as women tend to see these factors as placing them at a disadvantage point: The society frowns at women keeping late at night, most political meetings and gathering usually run into the mid-nights, especially when one is actively involved and wants to vie for a political post. As a mother, with children and husband at home, it is usually not easy. (Woman leader/Island Club, Lagos). For another: 32 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 […]if one wants to go far in politics as a woman, then she must have to trade some of her biological rights, if not all, to compete well with men. (Women leader, LAPO - Oyo). Various highlights and comments from the bio-social points suggest that most women do not want to lose their feminine attributes in terms of roles, shape and beauty. On the other hand, the expectation of women as a moral custodian was also highlighted as a factor checkmating their political ambition. For instance the emphasis on marital responsibility was a criterion for women to be seen as capable for political positions, which goes to say that only married women should seek political offices. Thus for female candidates' marital statuses as a precondition for elective office exerts further pressure on women who have to prove themselves far beyond the men to be accepted. As one interviewee explained: […] the situation is that bad that virtually all political meetings are scheduled at nights… I mean late nights… It seems as if it is deliberate to keep women out of politics. Most times the meetings are far from home and venues are kept secret, you are only told the area where it would be held, which means you should be prepared to hang around a hotel, and most times political meetings are in the hotel conference hall… for a woman you are seen as a prostitute especially when you are not accompanied by your husbands and before you know what is happening there are various allegations here and there, saying that you are now befriending one politicians just because one is into politics, after a careful thought of all these I have decided to relax for a while, I have lost a lot, I was almost losing my family too…. (Female officer, Today’s Woman, Lagos). Due to perceptions that woman’s roles are best expressed in the domestic arena or at most in subservient positions to men, the political terrain in Nigeria is made difficult, particularly for women who not only aspire to leadership positions but also compete with men over these. Thus, findings from this research showed that women meet with stiff gender stereotypes as their political activities and behaviour is put to question. Stigmatisation as prostitutes, as intruders and stereotypes of various labels were pinpointed as major forms of attacks launched on their moral conduct, for which many have suffered damaging rumours that largely discredit their character. Such stereotypes, sociologists and criminologists believe have the potential of causing psychological damages and behavioural changes (Tedrow and Rhoads, 1999; Okunola, 2006), and may also affect marital and familial unions. These, opponents from the same party would likely use to gain advantage over women in politics; a situation most politicians have perfectly strategized. Conversely, the flagrant display of moral misconduct from male politicians does not attract sanctions, in some cases; it is celebrated and generally expected. Such misconducts are not used to gauge the suitability of the male aspirant for public office, thus reflecting separate criteria for men and women. Trends and Patterns in Women’s Electoral Participation over the Last Decade Increases in women’s electoral participation in Nigeria show that more women ever than before are aware of and becoming more interested in politics with specific emphasis on holding positions (being in government). Interestingly, women actively involved in vying for political positions are fewer in number compared to those seeking to enter government by nomination or appointment. However, Nigerian society is in dire need of active women, from the grassroots, vying for elective positions. This will no doubt enrich the democratic process, and Nigerian women are gradually beginning to recognize this need. 33 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 They are also recognizing that the battle to free themselves from the negative traditional and cultural practices that subjugate them should not be left to policy intervention by the rulers of the land, who are predominantly male. Gender power relations are evident in the supportive roles women play in politics as 'mobilisers' of other women (Ikpeme, 2003). The delineation of roles along gender lines is climaxed in 'women's wing' or the creation of 'women leaders' in most political parties, giving credence to the assertion that politics is a 'man's game'. The creating of the women’s wing is a consolation that furthers empowers male politicians. Most women perceive this as pushing them away from mainstream politicking and the decision making process in party politics: A careful look at the political scene will tell us that women’s wing of any political parties are usually headed by wives and siblings of past and active politicians in government (Officers, Food Basket Organization -Ibadan). The consciousness of women at such levels of politicking and their potentials both as leaders in partisan politics and for advancing the cause of the generality of women may be quite limited. Most women interviewed complained that men usually do not give them the chance to express their views in the same political gathering. Particular reference was made to a scenario that ensued between the women’s wing of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Vice Chairman in 2003 in Imo state where the National Women's Leader (PDP) was called a “street woman” by the vice chairman for holding and expressing a contrary opinion (CLO, Officer, Oyo). Recounting some of their experiences, the issue of female candidates being asked to step aside because of the preconceived belief that women contestants would not deliver or succeed in securing the much needed victory for their parties was described as the reason for the incessant replacements with male candidates who most often were also said to have been in the party much earlier than the women. This was common experience as observed and reported in the 1999 and 2003 election years (Kyari, 2003; Jinadu, 2005; Sha, 2005). It was noted that pressures from the party chieftains were heaped on popular and active female politicians to step aside for or handover their victory to their preferred male candidates (Transition Monitoring Group, 2003). Consequently, a good number of NGOs are springing up in different parts of the country to crusade for women’s rights and their involvement in active politics. For instance, among the Igbo women respondents in both Lagos and Oyo, it was noted that the culture and tradition of the Igbo have continued to subjugate the Igbo woman, unlike their counterparts in the West (Yoruba): In terms of the trend in politics in Nigeria, more women in the West have dominated politics compare to those of us from the East, this is because once an Igbo woman gets married she is tied to the whims and caprices of her husband. This is usually not the case among the Yoruba, because their tradition gives more room for female emancipation. Igbo men are too rigid and do not find it funny when their wives aspire too high. However, only few men can tolerate their women venturing into politics. It is also true that they have acquired more education than any other part of the country (Igbo women leader, Clothing line, Dugbe). A female head of Food Basket, one of the NGOs sampled in Oyo, opined that: Our Society is still very much patriarchal, the gospel of female emancipation is working especially in the area of the girl child education; however when it comes to active participation in electioneering the battle is still on. It is in this regard that those of us in the NGOs have intensified our efforts to realise our vision of a society where equality of rights and 34 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 opportunities exist and a world where all women will enjoy their human rights irrespective of inhibiting social cultural values, and traditional beliefs. The work of such NGOs is very crucial. There is the need for them to pull in the same direction – and this is why networking should form an integral part of their activities. There could be the tendency to work at cross purposes in the competition for scarce funding from donor agencies. It was also mentioned that most successful women in politics are those with supportive husbands, those who have become husbands, those without husbands, and those who are through with childbearing, those who have mingled with the military, daughters of past politicians/leaders. Specific names were mentioned, including: Dora Akunyili (supportive husband) Iyabo Obasanjo (divorcee and daughter of the past president), Condoleezza Rice, (single lady), Sara Jubril (widowed), Hillary Clinton (wife of former president). These names were mentioned by the majority of the respondents sampled. It goes a long a way in showing that women are actually in the know about the trend of women participation in politics irrespective of the odds against them: The society is so patriarchal to the extent that if a man dies in politics or electioneering process, he is better honoured than a female in a similar situation. The society will praise him and not her. This to a large extent has discouraged a lot of us from participating in electioneering, in such a case our children are left motherless, who will then cater for them? It is easier for a man to remarry, than for the woman. When it comes to the decision, of participating in politics, all odds must be weighed because the woman has a lot to lose than the man in politics (Shop Owner, Sango, Market, Ibadan). Fear of Crime and Electoral Violence in Nigeria as a Major Factor Keeping Women Out of Politics Politics in Nigeria has been described as a terrain meant for the hardened (Akinola, 2009), and where candidates cannot fund elections themselves without recourse to godfatherism (Soyinka, 2004). Godfatherism involves a patron-client or servant-master relationship which many of the sampled respondents agreed cannot be free of violence, especially in the area of controversies where a candidate fails to comply with earlier agreed negotiations and contracts. Oyo and Anambra states were recalled by over 77 percent of the interviewees: I do not see myself serving two masters, first at home, my husband is there, and to win election, it is expected to have a godfather who can manipulate the election. Elections are not just manipulated, but with conditions: for a lady, it is either to befriend the godfathers, or to share state resources when one gets into power. Despite that, godfathers prefer having a godson to a goddaughter. Politics of godfatherism does not favour women. No women can stand the resultant consequence of not yielding to the godfathers’ demands, as we have seen in Oyo and Anambra states (Female head, Lapo, Ibadan). The scenario highlighted above is still fresh in the case of series of anomalies in Anambra, Edo, Delta and Ekiti and other states where election results were contested at Tribunal and Appeal courts years after elections have been concluded (IFes, 2007). Godfatherism is not a new concept in politics. However, it became popular in Nigerian political space in the 1960’s, and early postindependence leaders became godfathers (Mamah, 2007). The handiwork of godfathers was visible at the return to civil rule in 1979, but military regimes that characterized the 1980’s obstructed its activities. The 1999 civil rule ushered in another form of godfatherism, which reached its climax 35 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 during the wanton destruction of lives and properties that witnessed the violent confrontation between a godfather (Chris Uba) and governor of Anambra state (Chris Ngige; Sunday punch, 2010). This level of violence represents a new dimension to the practice of godfatherism in Nigeria. This has also created a psychological effect on women participation in politics as highlighted above. Other respondents also narrated the issue of having to belong to various occult groups for protection, and oath taking rituals. Conditions most women tend to be afraid of. It is imperative to state here that the degeneration of godfatherism in Nigerian politics today was actually sowed by some of the builders and champion of Nigerian federalism, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe and Ahmadu Bello, who became godfathers after independence. Godfathers are usually lionized, respected, idolized and worshipped. Although people tried to exaggerate their achievements, and their persons were made to look more than ordinary but their brand of godfatherism added value and experience to governance in the past unlike the situation in theis decade (Fawole, 2001; Akinola, 2009). Nigerian political elites, godfathers, and average Nigerians are power-hungry because access to power means access to a lot; hence, it would be analytically incorrect to ascribe avarice only to godfathers. Godfathers, as displayed in Anambra state, can be hostile to people’s interests and extremely violent without respecting government and its institutions. Political power seekers played into the hands of the godfathers because of their own weakness and acute desperation for power. The godsons erroneously believed they could disengage from the godfathers who were always on ‘their neck’, and eventually use state power to gain independence from the godfathers and their political machineries. In Oyo, the strongman of Ibadan politic, late Chief Adedidu felt that governor Ladoja was an ingrate who wanted to wipe out his political hegemony in Ibadan politics, while Ladoja claimed that Adedibu was too greedy to be appeased. In the words of a female respondent: Just imagine if governor Ladoja were to be a woman… she would have been crushed. Moreover, no woman in her right senses would participate in such a heated political drama, no matter how juicy or attractive politics may look (Female discussants at the CLO office, Lagos). The Nigerian styled Patron-Client relationship nearly truncated Nigerian puerile democracy in June 10th, 2003. A self-confessed godfather, Uba employed thugs and Nigerian police to abduct his godson, Chris Ngige, who was the elected governor of Anambra State. Ngige’s sin was his refusal to allow Uba to nominate all political appointees, take the largest share of state’s allocation, and instantly pay him a sum of N2.5 billion; the claimed cost of installing Ngige as governor (Onwumere, 2007). Their loyalists embarked on a battle of ‘iron’ and ‘steel’. The State became a war zone, innocent lives were lost, houses were set ablaze, and Anambra state became ungovernable for weeks. It was not a case of two parties fighting, but a desperate godfather (Uba and his ‘troops’) consuming everything at their reach when it became clear that his investment was gone down the drain. The only solution the federal government proffered was the threat to declare a state of emergency in the state. The dust had nearly settled when the self-professed “strongman of Ibadan politics”, Adedibu formally declared an unconventional war against his godson, Ladoja, governor of Oyo State (The Punch, April 5th, 2007:16). The bone of contention has always been disagreement over allocation of money, political appointments, and the resulting consequences were similar with the Anambra saga. In Ilorin, the ‘institutionalized’ godfather of Kwara State politics, Olusola Saraki confronted his godson, Lawal Mohammed who he installed as the governor of the state in 1999. He allowed Lawal 36 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 to complete his tenure before replacing him with his own biological son, while his daughter ended up in the federal legislative House (the Senate). The manifestation of godfatherism at its climax in Oyo and Anambra states necessitated people’s fear, including politically-minded females, about such violence undercutting the hard-fought Nigerian democracy. Revealing the widespread belief that Nigerian men see politics as a do or die affair, one respondent remarked that: […] in this country men prepare for election as if there are going to war, all their arsenal are put into place to ensure victory at any cost, even though it involves taking the life of their brothers, wives or other relatives…the slogan is that victory must be ensured (C4C, Lagos) For another: The 2003 election was so tensed that I have sworn never to participate in any voting exercise, talkless of actively participating in election for a particular position. My children are still young. I will not want to fight war that I would not be remembered for…..the money and resources politicians place on ground in last election alone is more than what would have been needed to prosecute a successful war (CLO, Ibadan). This goes to show the murky side of politics and women’s lack of faith in the democratic process in Nigeria. The will of the people cannot find expression and flourish in the face of so much money directed solely at achieving victory. Elective offices become mere commodities to be purchased by the highest bidder, and those who literally invest merely see it as an avenue to make profits. Politics becomes business, and the business of politics becomes merely to divert public funds from the crying needs of the masses for real development in their lives. It also goes to further impoverish women in society, so long women continue to constitute the bulk of the poor in Nigeria (Okunola and Ikuomola, 2010). It is as a result of this imbroglio that most NGOs encourage women to participate in elections, especially in the aspect of vote casting, but also to venture into active politics, albeit with straight warning that it must be with their husbands consent and approval, so that their homes and family are kept intact. As one respondent explained: We have had cases of women being thrown out of their matrimonial home. A particular case of interest presently is that of a particular woman who was sent parking because she went to cast her vote in the last election without her husband’s approval. After that particular incidence, our campaign strategy on women empowerment through political participation was modified, to include husbands’ approval, and advocacy (CLO, Surulere, Lagos.) Being Tough as a Requirement for Women in Politics The issue was raised that, for any woman to venture into Nigerian politics, as in other domains hitherto controlled by men, they must be battle-ready to unseat the dominant group and existing norms. This reduces the number of women willing to participate and ensures that those who do are particularly aggressive. To this effect, Baxter and Lansing (1993) found that women generally have different opinions than men regarding war, peace, child care, the poor, and education; yet, when in 37 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 leadership positions, their behaviour resembles that of their male counterparts. This finding and the evidence that women do, in fact, tend to enact toughness likened to men was widely discussed as important for any woman that would want to succeed in Nigerian politics. According to one respondent: One has to be smarter and tougher than the average woman to be able to withstand the stress and demands of politics, these are characters someone like Dora has over her colleagues, and overtime she has mastered the game, even better than some men. In most cases too, for a woman to become a politician she is expected to have more qualifications, or have made a mark elsewhere before she can be considered. It is a pity that there are few women with such guts and qualifications to venture into politics (LAPO, Ibadan). Toughness has been explained in negative terms by most scholars and researchers who have written on Nigerian politics (Elaigwu, 2005; Akali, et. al., 2006; Akinola, 2009). The interviewees tended to conceive of toughness in terms of being violent as well as withstanding violence, a tolerance of electoral malpractices, and the willingness to bring down any opposition where necessary. In one of the respondent’s remarks she said: “only few women can be found to fit into the expectations and behaviour”. The intimidation and male dominance of the political sphere involves criminal acts of various kinds ranging from psychological torture, bodily harm and threats are often used to scare women out of contestable positions. This, the Sunday Punch, (2010:17) reported as creating fear and sudden withdrawal of female politicians from the local levels where they have hitherto appeared and contributed more in elective positions. A particular case in reference was that of a female serving senator, (Eme, Ekaet), who reported being subjugated to threats during her campaigns. She noted that though she is a wife to the former secretary to the government of the federation , chief Ufot Ekaete, she found her home town agog with a piece of news that her husband was not in support with her aspirations. In her words: “Initially I was afraid because I knew what that meant in politics. So I went to stakeholders and stated my side of the story, in fact my husband publicly had to declared that he supported me, and that is was all blackmail” (P:17). For another respondent: […] violence, scheming, threats, armed robbery attacks by thugs and all sorts of debasement are used as psychological warfare to torture and push us out of the game. Before now it used to be our husbands at home now we are gradually overcoming that, but violence keeps occurring every other day when election period gets nearer, violence erupts during and after elections which lead to loss of lives, properties and corruption of innocent youths as it takes money to involve unemployed youths in perpetuating such acts. Not only that the injustice netted out to us ‘weaker vessels’ are unimaginable. For instance there are women who are not allowed to register, some have their voters cards taken from them or are told who to vote for, and some were prevented from contesting even after successful primaries (Female Market Leader, Tinubu Square, Lagos). These factors exacerbate the exclusion of women from active politics and enhance the disproportionate influence of political entrepreneurs thereby reinforcing their popular disempowerment. 38 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Conclusion This study has shown that, in today’s political atmosphere in Nigeria, women are becoming more sensitive to political issues as well as gradually overcoming the hitherto traditional barriers hindering them from participating in politics. However, the fear of crime and violence netted against politically active women continues to be a serious challenge. This helps to explain the phenomenon of women seeking appointment rather than competing against men for positions. Findings also indicate that a high sense of apathy has developed among female political aspirants. This, if not checked will hinder the struggle for equity, justice and fair play in the quest for female emancipation and democracy in Nigeria. If Nigerian society is able to ensure a free and fair internal democracy among the parties without the involvement of thugs and violence, with financial assistance, encouragement by family members and the society at large, more women will invariably secure positions in subsequent electioneering exercises in Nigeria. At least they have the numerical strength to achieve this. The entire nation waits to see the emergence of female governors, more female senators and members of the House of Representatives as well as other offices both at the federal, state and local levels. It is imperative to state here that a constitutional approach that will stipulate a reasonable, minimum and special security placement for every woman involved in politics at little or no cost at all levels of government irrespective of the positions should be ensured. As this will go a long way in instilling confidence in female politicians which further bring more women into active politics. References Agina-Ude, A. (2003). Strategies for Expanding Female Participation in the 2003 Elections and Beyond. The Nigerian Social Scientist vol.6 no.1, March 2003, pp 3-7 (quotation on p. 4). Akinola, O.A. (2009). Godfatherism and the future of Nigerian democracy. African Journal of Political Science and International Relations Vol. 3 (6), pp. 268-272. Alkali, A. (2004). Federalism and Democratic Governance, in H. A. Saliu (ed.) Nigeria under Democratic Rule (1999-2003). Ibadan: University Press PLC. Vol. 1. Pp. 45-57. Best, S. (2006). Opportunities and Challenges of Institutional Gender Strengthening in African universities: A case of the University of Jos, Nigeria. Paper presented at an international conference on “Change in Climate? Prospects for Gender Equity in Universities”, the Australian Technology Network (ATN) Women's Executive Development Programme (WEXDEV), Adelaide, Australia. Elaigwu, J. I. (2005). Crises and Conflict Management in Nigeria since 1980 in A. M. Yakubu, R. T. Adegboye, C. N. Ubah and B. Dogo (eds.) Crisis and Conflict Management in Nigeria since 1980: Causes and Dimension of Conflict. Kaduna: Nigerian Defense Academy. Vol. 1. Ikpeme, B. (2003). Are Nigerian Women Really in Politics? Women in Public Life Vol. 5 no. 7-9, July-Sept. International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES). (2008). Money and Politics in Nigeria. (ed.) Victor A.O. Adetula. International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES). (2007). A Nigerian Perspective on the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections: Results From Pre-and Post-Election Surveys (August 2007). 39 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Jinadu, L. Adele, (2005). Defining Electoral Mandate in Ibrahim, Jibrin and Egwu Sam (2005) Nigeria Elections 2007: Defending the People's Mandate, Abuja: Global Rights. Kanazawa, S. (2005). Is `Discrimination' Necessary to Explain the Sex Gap in Earnings? Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 26, 269-287 Kanter, R.M. (1977). Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and Responses to Token Women. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 965–90. Konrad, A.M., Winter, S. and Gutek, B. (1992). Diversity in Work Group Sex Composition: Implications for Majority and Minority Members. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 10, 115–40. Kyari, Tijjani (2003). Strategies for Controlling Political Violence and Regulating Campaigns, Jega, A et.al (eds.) Strategies for Curbing Election- Related Political Violence in Nigeria's North-West Zone, Kano: Centre for Democratic Research and Training. Mba, Nina Emma (1982). Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 19001965. California: University of California Institute of International Studies. Obiorah, N. (2004). Political Finance and Democracy In Nigeria Prospects and Strategies for Reform. Centre for Law and Social Action (CLASA) London. Okunola, R.A. (2006). The limits of General Criminal law: A Study of Traditional Institutions in Crime Management in Rural Nigeria. PhD Thesis, University of Ibadan – Nigeria. Okunola, R.A. and Ikuomola, A.D. (2010). Child Labour in Fostering Practices: A Study of Four Areas in Surulere Local Government Area Lagos State. Indian journal of Social Science Research Vol.5(1):107-126. Osaghae, E. (2001). Exiting from the Existing State in Nigeria, In Bekker, S.B., Dodds, M., and Khosa, M, (eds.) Shifting African Identities. Human Sciences Research Council. Pinto-Duschinsky, M. (2001). Handbook on Funding of Parties and Election Campaigns: Overview. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Sha, D. P. (2005) Too Much Politics, Too Little Democracy: Assessing the Quality of Nigerian Democratic Transition Projects. Nigerian Journal of Policy and Strategy Vol. 15, No 1 and 2 December, Kuru: National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies. Sunday Punch, (2010). 2011 Poll: The Hurdles ahead for Women, September 12, Pg. 17. Tedrow, B. and Rhoads, R.A. (1999). A Qualitative Study of Women's Experiences in Community College Leadership Positions. Journal of Community College Review 1999 27: 1-19. Transition Monitoring Group (2003) Do Votes Count? Final Report of the 2003 General Elections in Nigeria, Abuja: TMG. 40 Peace and Reconciliation through Environmental Cooperation: Changing the Image of Japan in China Shunji Cui* Painful historical memories and their resulting animosities are often seen as insurmountable obstacles to peace and reconciliation between China and Japan. But historical memories are not necessarily immutable and can be reshaped and reconstructed through the processes of social interaction. It is possible, therefore, that major obstacles to peace and reconciliation could be overcome if previously mutually negative images could be reconstructed into more positive ones. The development of Sino-Japanese environmental cooperation over the past 30 years or so, especially in the new millennium, provides precisely such an opportunity for reconstruction of images and hence for a significant breakthrough in Sino-Japanese relations. Peace and reconciliation may emerge through the processes of building an environmental security consensus and through the pursuit of cooperation in countering common environmental threats. Over the past few years, a new image of Japan, as a leading environmental nation has begun to emerge and is gaining a measure of acceptance, even in China. This paper employs the sociological concept of collective memories, as well as social constructivist concept collective identity, to examine how Japan’s image has been constructed and reconstructed in China from the post-war era to the present, which is going beyond the natural rivalry or enemy role structure. * Dr Shunji Cui lectures in the Department of Political Science at the College of Public Administration, Zhejiang University, and is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security and Peaceful Development Studies. 41 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Painful historical memories and their resulting animosities are often seen as insurmountable obstacles to peace and reconciliation between China and Japan. But historical memories are not necessarily immutable and can be reshaped and reconstructed through the processes of social interaction. It is possible, therefore, that major obstacles to peace and reconciliation could be overcome if previously mutually negative images could be reconstructed into more positive ones. The development of Sino-Japanese environmental cooperation over the past 30 years or so, especially in the new millennium, provides precisely such an opportunity for reconstruction of images and hence for a significant breakthrough in Sino-Japanese relations. Peace and reconciliation may emerge through the processes of building an environmental security consensus and through the pursuit of cooperation in countering common environmental threats. This chapter examines the processes by which Japan’s image has been constructed and reconstructed in China from the postwar era to 2009. It does so by contrasting Japan’s image as an invader and enemy with that of an environmentally cooperative and responsible great power. To this end, the sociological concept of collective memories – especially the distinction between communicative memory (something that is lived and witnessed) and cultural memory (something that is institutionally shaped and sustained), as well as social constructivist concept of collective identity, are used to identify important changes occurring in Sino-Japanese relations. Collective Memory and the Construction of Identity The importance of ideational factors (such as identities and interests of states) has been increasingly recognized in the field of International Relations in recent years. Yet, the crucial question (and extremely relevant to this study) is whether identities and interests should be taken as given, that is, as fixed objects that remain outside of social space and time, or whether they should be regarded as processes operating within social time and space. Constructivists, such as Alexander Wendt, argue that identities and interests are always changing because actions continually alter perceptions both of Self and Other. Even though Wendt acknowledges that sometimes these perceptions change so slowly that, for practical purposes, they can be treated as “given” and unchanging, the possibility of change, or even fundamental change, remains possible (1999: 36). This possibility matters enormously when seeking to understand the nature of international politics in terms of structural change; and more specifically for capturing the changing nature of Sino-Japanese relations in the new millennium. In this regard, it is useful to explore the concept of collective memory and to understand how it is constructed through social processes – not least because the collective memory plays an important part in constructing states’ identities. This role is particularly crucial to the relationship between China and Japan both in the regional and international contexts. Collective memory is shaped and transmitted by selecting and excluding, by processes of remembering and forgetting, within collective entities such as nation-states or social groups. Thus, it is essential to investigate more thoroughly these exercises of selectivity, to determine how they affect the formation of collective identity, and to explore the consequences for foreign policy orientation. Here, conceptual distinctions between types of memory are useful. Maurice Halbwachs, the founding figure of the study of collective memory, distinguished between social memory and historical memory. According to Halbwachs, social memory refers to memory through experience – in other words, history before it becomes history. Historical memory, on the other hand, is an experience mediated by representations, and hence it is represented memory (Halbwachs, 1992). Similarly, Jan Assmann distinguishes between communicative and cultural memories. He describes communicative memory as something that is lived and witnessed, whereas the cultural memory is an institutionally shaped 42 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 and sustained memory (Assmann, 1995; 2006). Perhaps the most important characteristic of cultural memory (historical memory for Halbwachs) is its “capacity of reconstruction”: True, it is fixed in immovable figures of memory and stores of knowledge, but every contemporary context relates to these differently, sometimes by appropriation, sometimes by criticism, sometimes by preservation or by transformation (Assmann, 1995: 130). In this sense, collective memory is a social construct that, according to Lavabre, can be defined as an interaction between recollections of what has been experienced in common and “memory policies”. These insights are highly relevant to Sino-Japanese relations, where the processes of reconstruction and representation of historical memory have played a major part in the shaping of identities and forming the nature of nationalism in both countries. They have certainly been crucial in shaping China’s approach to Japan. Anti-Japanese Elements in the Construction of Chinese Nationalism In the past – and to some extent today – anti-Japanese elements have played an important part in shaping Chinese nationalism. Here we must consider how nationalism arrived in China and how the representation of historical memory contributed to the construction of Chinese nationalism and national identity. The beginning of nationalism in China can be seen as a response to the Western expansion into East Asia in the 19th century. However, Chinese nationalism was to take a radically different form to the Western version. In the West, although nationalism emerged in opposition to imperialism and colonialism, it also sought to replace dynastic rule with popular sovereignty (Mayall, 1990). Unlike its Western counterpart, however, nationalism in East Asia was not closely associated with ideas of democracy and human rights. In the West, national selfdetermination was more than an end in itself; it was seen as a means of achieving a more democratic society. Ultimately, it would be democracy that would legitimate the new arrangements. In East Asia, however, the struggle against colonialism and for national self-determination was allimportant. Thus, while they exploited the symbols of nationalism in their efforts to dislodge foreign rule, political elites in East Asia paid scant attention to the ethnic or cultural dimensions of selfdetermination. Hence, “decolonisation” and “self-determination” became unproblematic synonyms (Mayall, 2000). These differences had immediate and long-term implications for Sino-Japanese relations. From the start, Chinese nationalism was equated with patriotism; in fact, “Nationalism” is translated as aiguo zhuyi (patriotism), a concept strongly linked with political legitimacy, rather than minzu zhuyi (nationalism). This was clearly revealed when Japan was defeated and withdrew from China at the end of the Second World War. Both the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took on the mantle of patriotism and hence claimed legitimacy on the same grounds. Although neither could claim to be democratic in the “Western” sense of the word, both had fought against the Japanese. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), much care was devoted to the process of state formation. An essential feature of this process was the development of a particular type of patriotic nationalism – seen as vital both to the fostering of national unity and to the consolidation of CCP rule. In this sense, nationalism became a state-led ideology, and was perhaps a natural development of already existing anti-Imperialist memories of World War II. Yet it was still deemed necessary to take steps to promote this nationalism and to give it a distinctive flavour. Here, active representations – such as pedagogical movies and songs with the overriding theme of patriotism – played important role. For example in the early years of the Cultural Revolution, the following movies – didao zhan (Tunnel Warfare), nanzheng beizhan (Fighting North 43 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 and South), and dilei zhan (The war of Landmines) – were very popular and influential. While Fighting North and South was about the Chinese civil war, the other two films were about the war of resistance against Japan. Tunnel Warfare was particularly popular and influential; even today many people in China still know at least the name of the movie and songs from it. Tunnel Warfare presented three simple but compelling images: the Japanese invader; the traitor; and the antiJapanese hero. As a result, the devil image of Japan as invader (Riben guizi) has been widespread and consolidated through first hand experiences of war and through memory policies. Of course, any Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese was to be regarded as a traitor (hanjian). Thus, a negative or even devil image long dominated Chinese perceptions of Japan. From this it was a short step to the conclusion that the two countries were destined to be eternal enemies, or at best, eternal rivals. This negative image has changed substantially since the 1970s, through the processes of Sino-Japanese normalisation and friendship. Nevertheless, from time to time, especially when friction occurred, the ‘invader’ image of Japan re-emerged in China to fuel anti-Japanese sentiment. Since the 1980s, alongside state-led patriotism, a new kind of mass nationalism has begun to appear in China. Indeed, this mass nationalism has been characterised by sentiments even more hostile to the Japanese than is the case with those associated with state-led or elite nationalism. The development of popular nationalism and its accompanying hostility to Japan has not always suited the Chinese government, especially if it resulted in the frustration of initiatives judged by the authorities to be in China’s best interests. There can be no doubt that there are links between the emergence of mass nationalism in China and the introduction of internet in the mid-1990s and the resulting communication revolution. Although the effects of the internet remain controversial, it did provide the ‘ideal’ technology and communication device for the construction and reconstruction of collective memory on the mass scale. In particular, Chinese cyberspace quickly became an effective platform for mobilising nationalism, particularly anti-Japanese nationalism. In the new century, the phrase, wangluo minzu zhuyi (Internet or cyber nationalism) has become a buzzword. The phenomenon has been truly remarkable. As early as 1996, during the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute, dismayed by what they considered to be their government’s “soft” approach to Japan, activists petitioned the Central Military Commission to take decisive action – though they could gather only 257 signatures. Since that time, however, (anti-Japanese) nationalistic websites have proliferated and some have a large following in fast-growing internet community. AntiJapanese websites, such as the Chinese Federation for Defending Diaoyu Island Zhongguo minjian baodiao lianhe hui (established 1996) and Coalition of Patriots Web aiguozhe tongmeng wang (established in 2002), are among the most influential ones. Over the years, tens of millions of online signatures have been gathered in support of anti-Japanese petitions. Thus in 2003, when Japanese companies put in a US$ 12 million bid to participate in the projected Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway, in just ten days the Coalition of Patriots Website gathered 80,000 online signatures to a protest later presented to the Ministry of Railways. The authorities simply could not ignore such manifestations of public opinion. In some respects China remains an authoritarian country, yet recent developments have shown that a phenomenon like the internet can still disseminate information, organise political actions and provide an extremely effective platform for mobilising mass opinion. In fact “antiJapanese” and “patriotism” are useful tools in mobilising mass forces, with the advantage of not appearing to be “anti-government”. Thus, during the April 2005 anti-Japanese protests, among the many slogans shouted by the demonstrators – including “Oppose Japan entering the Security Council!” and “Boycott Japanese goods for a month!” – perhaps the most prominent was aiguo wuzui (“no one can deny that we are patriots”). The same words were spread throughout the 44 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 internet. The message was clear: you cannot suppress us because our actions are patriotic and hence we cannot be guilty of any offence. Thus, although it is still difficult to provide a precise definition of Chinese nationalism at the popular level, it has certainly become a stronger force. Especially since they have acquired new communication technology, nationalist groups have become more assertive and better able to spread information, mobilise public opinion, and organise mass protests. This was vividly demonstrated in April 2005, when large-scale anti-Japanese demonstrations took place in major Chinese cities. In this sense, the emergence of mass nationalism in China complicates Chinese government stance towards Japan. However, alongside the development of anti-Japanese nationalist discourses, there has also been gradual but steady development in environmental cooperation between the two countries. This cooperation has become even more significant in the new millennium. It is beginning to appear that environmental cooperation could be the key to a changed and more benign image of Japan in China. In turn this could be the basis for amelioration of tensions and even the achievement of peace and reconciliation between old enemies. Emerging and Expanding Sino-Japanese Environmental Cooperation A brief overview Sino-Japanese environmental cooperation began in 1977, when the first Japanese environmental delegations visited China. Since then cooperation has been gradually but steadily expanding and deepening. In the 1980s, the main concern was with ecological degradation. There were two important developments in this period. First, in 1988, Japan provided official development assistance (ODA) to China’s environmental projects, in the form of an environment-related yen-loan. Secondly – and also in 1988 – the Japanese Prime Minister, Noboru Takeshita, proposed the establishment of a Sino-Japan Friendship Centre for Environmental Protection (SJC) to his Chinese counterpart, Li Peng. Despite these important initiatives, however, environmental issues remained marginal in the overall context of Sino-Japanese relations. It was in the 1990s that environmental protection emerged as a more important area for bilateral co-operation between China and Japan. Perhaps the most significant step forward was the conclusion of the Agreement on Environmental Protection and Cooperation in March 1994. This agreement symbolised a common willingness and commitment to tackle environmental problems. Since then, many more agreements have been reached and some practical projects implemented. Among those was the formal establishment of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Centre for Environmental Protection in 1996. The Centre was affiliated to the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) of China, and has since become a central body for environment-related policy research, educational activities, and environmental evaluation and analysis. Furthermore, in 1998, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin made an official visit to Tokyo, the two governments signed the Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué on Environmental Cooperation in the 21st Century. Following those agreements and institutional developments, some practical cooperative projects have also been implemented. Perhaps the most notable are the Environmental Development Model City Plan, and the Sino-Japanese Greening Communication Fund (or the Obuchi Fund). The Model City Plan was designed to select model cities for priority implementation of environmental control; Chongqing, Guiyang, and Dalian were selected. The Obuchi Fund, established in 1999, provided support to Japanese NGOs engaged in afforestation and other environmental protection projects in China. In addition to bilateral cooperation, Environment Ministers from China, Japan, and South 45 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Korea have held annual meetings, known as the Tripartite Environmental Ministers Meeting (TEMM), since 1999. After the turn of the century, environmental issues attracted ever more attention, not least because the prospect of global warming made cooperation appear imperative. Issues such as technology transfer, clean development mechanism (CDM), as well as energy conservation were central to the policy dialogue between Tokyo and Beijing. These trends have become even more powerful in the last five years. For instance, in December 2007 the first China-Japan high-level economic dialogue was held in Beijing, in which “environmental protection and energy-saving” emerged as the central issue. Environmental protection now occupies such a special and significant position in the Sino-Japanese cooperation process that it seems possible that common environmental concerns could actually become the driving force behind an overall enhancement of Sino-Japanese relations. Constructing environmental security consensus Why has environmental cooperation emerged as such an important area in Sino-Japanese relations? To answer the question it is important to understand the emerging environmental security consensus between China and Japan. By emerging environmental security consensus, I mean the process by which an environmental issue becomes a security issue. The securitisation theory, one of the main approaches of Copenhagen school approach to security, argues that security is not merely an objective condition or threat; rather, it is an outcome of specific social processes. That is to say, the existence of real threat is not sufficient in itself to construct security practice. Security is a particular type of inter-subjective politics. The crucial point in understanding security is to capture the process whereby an issue becomes a security issue – that is, the process of “securitisation”. In this sense, the study of security centres on security practices as specific forms of social construction and on securitisation as a particular kind of social accomplishment. The key development in Sino-Japanese environmental cooperation is the common experience of “elevating” the significance of environmental problems by constructing them into security threats – even though this process has been gradual. As noted earlier, there was some environmental cooperation between China and Japan as early as in the 1980s. At that time, however, environmental issues remained in the realm of “normalcy”. In other words environmental problems – such as air and water pollution – were just part of general concerns, and cooperation in the environmental area was merely one facet of the interaction between China and Japan. However, from the mid- to late-1990s environmental issues began to be perceived in terms of environmental security. An initial change, obvious in the discourse and language employed in Chinese government statements, was to approach environmental issues from the perspective of national security. At the fourth national environmental protection conference in 1996, President Jiang Zemin formally articulated the phrase “environmental security” and emphasised the importance of controlling overall pollution levels in China. In 1998, the growing importance of environmental issues led the Chinese government to upgrade the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) into the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), that is, from a sub-ministry to ministry. But why was there such a strong tendency to securitise environmental issues at this time? Clearly the most potent factor was the deterioration in ecological and environmental conditions that resulted from rapid economic growth in China. In many ways the opening and modernisation programmes have been astonishingly successful, yet precisely because industrial expansion has been so rapid that there has been a correspondingly rapid increase in environmental challenges. Problems 46 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 that took the best part of a century to reveal themselves in countries that experienced earlier – and slower – industrial revolutions, became inescapable in China after a mere 20-30 years. In the course of the 1980s, China rapidly acquired the role of the new “workshop of the world” and hence, by the 1990s, air, water and soil pollution became increasingly grave concerns. Pollution proved to be no respecter of frontiers. Thus problems of trans-border air pollution – such as yellow dust and sand – were soon effectively securitised by China, Japan and South Korea. The result was establishment of the Tripartite Environmental Ministers Meeting (TEMM) in 1999. The Meeting is held annually and works to promote joint research and appropriate action to combat environmental threats. By the 2000s, more specifically since 2007, there are clear indications of a recognition in the discourses of Sino-Japanese relations that the saliency of environmental issues has reached a critical point: if the two countries do not work together to tackle growing environmental challenges, they will endanger their own survival and even that the planet as a whole. In fact, the repeated and extensive high-level dialogues, the conferences and the readiness to commit resources that might be sufficient to make a real difference are indications of how almost any issue becomes politicised and even securitised. These developments can be understood in a wider context of the global response to climate change. In the league of the world’s major emitters of greenhouse gases (GhGs), China ranks second behind the US (according to some research outcomes, China has already overtaken the US as the world biggest CO2 emitter), and Japan ranks the fifth behind India and Russia. Inevitably, both countries are being pressed to meet GhG emissions limits. The report on the national “11th FiveYear Plan” (2006-2010) for environmental protection (approved by the State Council in November 2007), shows that China’s environmental situation remained grave, and that environmental protection targets of the “10th Five-Year Plan” period had not been met. Meanwhile, Mitsune Yamaguchi (lead author of the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Report and a member of the Japanese government’s climate policy committee) also admitted that although Japan decreased its emissions by 1.3 percent in 2007, it was still below its target (Makino, 2007). When faced with such serious challenges, both Japan and China determined that environmental protection required clear national strategies. In China the crucial year was surely 2007. After several decades of promoting economic growth – with little thought for its environmental consequences – as the best way of protecting national security, the Chinese authorities revealed a new set of priorities. The 17th CCP Congress decided that the costs of unprecedented economic growth could have been too high. Far from strengthening national security, such growth had led to the depletion of resources and the degradation of the environment to such an extent as to constitute a serious threat to national security. In other words, rapid economic growth – if not balanced with measures to ensure sustainability – was actually undermining the very thing it was supposed to be securing. For the first time too, the Congress identified environmental protection as part of China’s vision of a harmonious world. Henceforth, environmental issues ceased to be the exclusive preserve of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and became crucial for the Foreign Ministry and for all aspects of China’s relations with other countries, but especially with Japan. In other words, China could barely mention environmental protection without considering the international dimension and possible cooperation. In the same year, the Japanese government also approved a national strategy entitled “Becoming a Leading Environmental Nation Strategy in the 21st Century – Japan’s Strategy for a Sustainable Society”. Clearly, Japan is determined to shift its earlier emphasis of national technology 47 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 into Environment. The change in Japan is similar, though not quite the same as that in China. Whereas China moved its emphasis from economic growth to environmental protection, Japan reduced its earlier stress on technological innovation. Of course China did not abandon economic growth and Japan did not abandon technological change but both countries now wished to be seen as leading environmental nations. Japan has now identified eight strategies to be given top priority in the next year or so – including international leadership in tackling climate change. Thus, it is the processes of institutionalisation of environmental problems as security threats that have led the two governments into a series of cooperative projects. But what has this cooperation achieved and has it really contributed to the changing image of Japan in China? Environment, ODA, and the changing image of Japan (?) Environmental cooperation must count as one of the most successful areas in Sino-Japanese relations, and providing to others as a good example of effective bilateral environmental cooperation between developed and developing countries. Both countries certainly have incentives and common interests that point to the wisdom of enhanced cooperation in environmental matters. Thus government initiatives and formal agreements between Tokyo and Beijing have been crucial in forwarding the process, yet it is also necessary to stress the role of Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) in effecting and sustaining cooperation in this important area. Japan's ODA to China dates from 1979, seven years after China and Japan established diplomatic relations, and consists of Japanese loan aid or yen loans (yen loans form the major part of the ODA), grant aid, and technical cooperation. In the 1980s, Japan’s ODA to China was mainly targeted at large-scale economic infrastructure projects. However from the 1990s, ODA support was increasingly directed into areas of environmental protection. For instance, the establishment of the Sino-Japan Friendship Centre for Environmental Protection (SJC) in 1996 was much aided by Japan’s ODA; grant aid of 10.499 billion yen covered the cost of the construction of the building as well as providing research equipment. Over the years, Japan also actively implemented technical cooperation (1.997 billion yen) with SJC, including dispatching experts in wide-ranging environmental fields. Strongly backed by Japan, and also affiliated to China’s State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the SJC plays an important role as a comprehensive coordinating body in enhancing environmental cooperation between China and Japan. Japan’s ODA to China peaked in 2000, with 214.4 billion-yen loan aid. Japan devoted about 70 percent of its loan to climate change and environmental issues – such as curbing desertification and soil erosion and promoting afforestation programs – as well as improving public health. With the massive growth of the Chinese economy, the yen loans began to be phased out and ceased in 2008, but Japan continues its technical cooperation with China. Over some thirty years, Japan has lent China a total of about 3.4 trillion yen. With Japanese aid, an environment information network has also been set up across 100 Chinese cities. Moreover, the Environment Model City Project has been operating since 1998 – in which Guiyang, Chongqing, Dalian were selected as model cities, and Japan contributed about 30.7 billion yen loan to the model city programme. Thus, over the years, alongside central governmental cooperation, Sino-Japanese local initiatives in environmental cooperation have been expanding. By 2003, about 193 Chinese cities from 26 provinces were “twinned” with Japanese partners as sister/friendship cities – Dalian / Kitakyushu, Chongqing / Hiroshima, Shanghai / Yokohama, etc. (Ren, 2003). Environmental protection often centres on the city-to-city (C2C) projects. Of course, outcomes have varied but perhaps the most successful case has been cooperation between Dalian and Kitakyushu, especially under the ‘Kitakyushu Initiatives for a Clean Environment’. As a result, Dalian was given a “global 500 environmental city” award by the 48 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 UNEP in 2001, and has won many national awards in landscaping, environment improvement, sanitation, and housing. In addition, Sino-Japanese environmental cooperation has involved extensive exchanges of people. For example, in the area of technical cooperation the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has accepted trainees from China; by FY2003 the total number reached 15,000 trainees. By the same time, the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) had also accepted more than 22,000 trainees and JICA had sent 5,000 experts to China. There are also many young Japanese volunteers working in China. All these initiatives are impressive in themselves but they pose a more fundamental question: to what extent they have led to a changed image of Japan in China and hence to an improved relationship between the two great powers of East Asia? I first attempt to answer the question in the negative sense: has recent environmental cooperation reduced historical tensions and negative images? I then proceed to the more positive dimension, that is: has cooperation actively promoted good relationship between China and Japan? First, in a more negative sense, environmental cooperation between China and Japan certainly has reduced the negative impact on relations caused by earlier – and to some extent – continuing political tensions. Of course, this does not mean that environmental cooperation is immune to the effects of political ups and downs. Sino-Japanese relations experienced a serious deterioration after Koizumi took office in 2001 and began his annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. Coupled with other history issues such as the highly controversial Japanese history textbook, the relationship reached its modern nadir in 2005, when there were strong anti-Japanese demonstrations in major Chinese cities. In March 2006, because of the sharp deterioration in bilateral ties, Japan decided to withhold its authorization of yen loans to China for FY2005. Yet the freeze did not last long, and in early June 2006, while Koizumi was still in Office , Tokyo resumed its loans. Moreover, although there were few significant high-level contacts during the years of icy political relations, the environment remained as a rare and important area where ties and cooperation continued. Japan continued to receive Chinese trainees, as well as sending experts into China. The yen loan of FY 2005, though 10 billion yen less than in the previous fiscal year, still amounted to 74 billion yen and was sufficient to fund a wide range of environmental improvement projects – such as the Yunnan Kunming Water Environmental Improvement Project (up to 12,700 million yen), and the Inner Mongolia Huhehot Atmospheric Environmental Improvement Project (up to 7,400 million yen). The role of environment as an “absorber” in Sino-Japanese relations is succinctly captured by the Chinese leading environment scholar, Haibin Zhang. He argues that over the years, especially when Sino-Japanese relations were under strain, environmental cooperation reduced the shocks and tensions arising in other areas, and kept bilateral relations at a controllable level (Zhang, 2008: 7-11,18). I believe that Zhang is right to point out the “absorber” effect produced by environmental cooperation; I would further argue that more positive impacts of the environment on Sino-Japanese relations should also be considered. This leads to the second point that in a more positive sense, environmental cooperation has provided opportunities for people to meet, to work together, and to know each other better. People-to-people ties are clearly crucial to the improvement of Sino-Japanese relations. Although their potential has not yet been fully developed, their significance is appreciated both by leaders and by the public in both countries. For example, speaking at the Tokyo-Beijing Forum in August 2006, Shinzo Abe the then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary (Prime Minister in September 2006) blamed “misunderstandings” for the current problems in Sino-Japanese relations. At the same Forum, Wang Yi, then Chinese ambassador to Japan, also emphasised the importance of person-to-person contact 49 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 in addition to state-to-state relations. It seems that people from both China and Japan increasingly support this view. In an opinion poll taken in 2009 (supported by China Daily and Genron NPO Japan) about 90 percent of respondents both in China and Japan believed that civil exchanges were either “important” or “relatively important”. In this context, the civil exchanges made in the area of environmental cooperation have proved extremely valuable in assisting greater mutual understanding. Contact with Japanese experts, visits to Japan, or simply understanding how Japan has responded to the environmental challenges that began to appear in the 1950s and 60s have allowed many Chinese to appreciate the magnitude of the Japanese achievement. They have come to admire the striking cleanliness of Japan, the emphasis on recycling and the environmentally friendly behaviour. Returning from a visit to Japan, China’s environmental industry study group reported: Japan’s environmental governance is far ahead of ours, and in many respects, we should learn from them… Visiting Japan also gives us hope, since if the Japanese could devote decades to handling their serious industrial pollution problems and achieve such remarkable results, we should also have confidence to tackle the same challenges facing us today. This is surely a positive image of Japan. More generally Japan’s image in China seems to be improving, although the change is gradual. This trend is reflected in a series of surveys taken annually since 2005 and jointly sponsored by China Daily and Genron NPO Japan. While the 2005 survey revealed that many Chinese had a very negative image of Japan, with more than half (62.9 percent) of the Chinese respondents having a “very bad” or “not very good” impression of Japan, in 2007, the number of Chinese university students who regarded the bilateral relationship as “good” or “fairly good” was 5.3 percentage points higher than previous year, and the increase in Chinese citizens polled was 14.5 percentage points more. This trend continued in 2008 and 2009 – though the number having a “good” impression was still under 50 percent. The changes – from very negative to more positive – were summed up in news reports of the surveys. While the 2005 report was summarised as “China-Japan ties need mending”, in 2007 it became “more Chinese, Japanese positive about bilateral ties”, in 2008 “relationship warming up”, and 2009 “animosity lessens”. There are many reasons behind these changed perceptions of Japan, although they undoubtedly owe much to the concerted efforts of the two governments, including the resumption of top-level visits, as well as to the work of non-government agencies. As a result, bilateral relations have been repaired and improved. Especially in Chinese context, President Hu Jintao’s “warm spring trip” to Japan in May 2008 and, shortly afterwards, Japanese assistance to China at the time of the Wenchuan earthquake, clearly played a major role. At the same time, however, the long-term effort made by Japan through ODA should not be underestimated. For example, on 20 February 2008, when Japan announced the end of its ODA loans to China, the Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekly) published a report, reprinted in the Global Times next day, examining the effects of the ODA loans to China over a period of thirty years. The Global Times also conducted an online survey asking respondents whether they appreciated the 224.8 billion Yuan (3.4 trillion Japanese Yen) aid given by Japan to China. Surprisingly, the article and survey attracted a good deal of attention and many “netizens” responded. Among 4100 respondents, 1856 (45.27%) said that they appreciated the aid, while 2244 (54.73%) said that they did not. Of course, this survey revealed that more than half of the respondents did not appreciate Japan’s ODA to China. It is important to remember, however, that “internet nationalism”, usually directed against Japan, so the result should be considered more positive that it appears to be. Indeed, only a few years ago, it would have been astonishing if a survey had revealed that nearly half of the respondents agreed that Japanese aid had contributed to the development of China. 50 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Conclusion: Peace and reconciliation? What then do these various stories suggest? Has Japan’s image in China changed significantly and can peace and reconciliation be constructed between the two? There can be no doubt that many Chinese now view Japan more positively than in the past and that, in part, this change can be attributed to cooperation in the area of the environment. Of course, the complete transformation is unlikely to come easily or immediately, as the surveys clearly suggest that anti-Japanese sentiment is still strong. This means that once constructed, national stereotypes and images tend to become deeply imbedded in the popular memory and are thus exceptionally durable and resistant to revision. In other words, images derived from past experience can continue to affect current behaviour. As argued earlier, the experience of the Second World War produced a very negative image of Japan in China; Japan was the invader and China the victim. This image has been slow to change and has had lasting implications for China’s own identity as well as for Sino-Japanese relations. Two decades after the beginning of environmental cooperation in the 1980s, antiJapanese sentiments were still strong, especially among Chinese “popular nationalists”. This was vividly expressed in the violent scenes at the 2004 Asian Cup Soccer Final in Beijing, and in the antiJapanese riots of the Spring of 2005. It was clear, therefore, that any attempt to change the discourse or to reconstruct Japan’s image would be extremely difficult. The attempt by some scholars in 2002/3 to bring a “new thinking” to Sino-Japanese relations – based on the idea that China focus more on its future partnership with Japan and less on past injuries – was met with huge antagonism from mass nationalists. Even in academic circles, the new thinking gained only minority support. Indeed, as revealed by the 2009 survey, the historical issue remains one of the major obstacles to the improvement of bilateral relations. However, despite the slow progress and difficulty in changing mutual identifications, it would be wrong to think that identities are totally fixed or impossible to change. As Wendt argues, identities and interests are not fixed, but are processes that need to be socially sustained. In other words, we continue to produce and reproduce conceptions of Self and Other through social interactions. Even when processes are so stable that identities appear to be given, they are always subject to subtle modification (Wendt, 1999: 36). I believe that Wendt is right in taking identity as socially constructed and hence susceptible to change. This proposition has enormous implications for Sino-Japanese relations. In essence, it means that we should never assume difficulties and animosities as permanent or eternal. In other words, reconciliation and peace between China and Japan may be difficult to achieve but they are not impossible. Hence efforts to “deconstruct” and “reconstruct” our mutual images and identities are not doomed from the start. In this sense, the implications of joint efforts to combat major environmental challenges must never be dismissed as trivial. On the contrary, they are significant steps in the process of improving mutual understanding and creating more positive images – no matter how little the improvement. Further, such practices are important, because it is through repeated actions, that states learn and overcome egoistic identities and ultimately to the perception of a ‘security community’. Of course, such a transformation is likely to take longer than commonly expected and there may be set-backs on the way, but the ongoing efforts are important in themselves. Thus, cooperation practices both at the governmental and civil society levels appear crucial to any prospect of genuine reconciliation and the achievement of lasting peace between China and Japan. It is above all the environmental area that provides the essential window of opportunity. 51 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 References Assmann, Jan (1995). ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, New German Critique, 65: 125-133 (translated by John Czaplicka). Assmann, Jan (2006). Religion and Cultural Memory, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press (Translated by Rodney Livingstone). Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver, Jaap de Wilde (1998). Security: A New Framework of Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Cao, Haidong and Huang Xiaowei, ‘30 Years Japan ODA to China’, Nanfang Zhoumo, 20 February 2008, accessed at, http://www.infzm.com/content/7707. Chong, Zi ‘Understanding Key to Sino-Japan Ties’, China Daily, 4 April 2006. Cui, Shunji (2008). Problems of Nationalism and Historical Memory in China’s Relations with Japan, Paper presented at the Asia-Europe Workshop on “Social Memory and its Impact on Global Political Communication”, 8-9 December, Hangzhou, China. Deans, Phil (2007): ‘Diminishing Returns? Prime Minister Koizumi’s Visits to The Yasukuni Shrine in the Context of East Asian Nationalisms’, East Asia, 24(3):269-294. Feng, Zhaokui, ‘Join Hands to Save Nature’, China Daily, 21 June 2010. Gries, Peter Hays (2005). ‘Chinese Nationalism: Challenging the State?’ Current History; Sep 2005; 104(683) 251-256. Guan, Xiaomeng, ‘Survey: Sino-Japan animosity lessens’, China Daily, 26 August 2009. Halbwachs, Maurice (1992). On Collective Memory, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Hughes, Christopher R. (2000). ‘Nationalism in Chinese cyberspace’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 13:2, 195-209. ‘Japan Lifts Freeze on Aid Loans to China’, Xinhua News, 6 June, 2006, http://www.china.org.cn/archive/200606/06/content_1170558.htm. Lavabre, Marie-Claire ‘For a Sociology of Collective Memory’, accessed at http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/en/pres/compress/memoire/lavabre.htm. ‘League Table of Carbon Emitters’, The Independent, 30 November 2009. Ma, Licheng (2002). ‘DuiRi Guanxi Xinsiwei – ZhongRi Minjian Zhiyu’ (New Thinking on Sino-Japanese Relations: Worries of People), Strategy and Management, (6): 41-47. Makino, Catherine (2007). ‘Looking to Play a Key Role in Bali’, Inter Press Service, accessed at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40320. Mayall, James (1990). Nationalism and International Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mayall, James (2000). ‘Nationalism and the International Order: The Asian Experience’, in Leifer, Michael (2000) (ed.) Asian Nationalism, London: Routledge, pp.187-196. 52 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 McDonald, Matt (2008). ‘Securitization and the Construction of Security’, European Journal of International Relations, 14(4): 563–587. ‘Overview of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to China’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/region/e_asia/china/index.html. Ren, Yong (2003). Local Initiatives of Environmental Cooperation in China, Report, NEAC12/6/11, at the ‘12th Northeast Asian Conference on Environmental Cooperation’, 24-26 November 2003, Toyama, Japan. Shi, Yinhong (2003). ‘ZhongRi Jiejin yu “Waijiao Geming”’ (Sino-Japanese Rapprochement and ‘Diplomatic Revolution’) Strategy and Management, (2): 71-75. ‘The National 11th Five-Year Plan for Environmental Protection (2006-2010)’, China Environmental Law, March 5, 2008, accessed at http://www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/thenational-eleventh-five-year-plan-for-environmental-protection.doc. United Nations Development Program (2007). Human Development Report 2007/2008. Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Changing World, New York: United Nations. Wendt, Alexander (1999). Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang, Daqing (2002). ‘Mirror for the Future or the History Card? Understanding the “History Problem”’, in Marie Soderberg (2002) (ed.) Chinese-Japanese Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Complementary and Conflict, London: Routledge pp.10-31. ‘Yaobuyao ganxie Riben gei Zhongguo de 2248 Yi Yuanzhu’ (Should we appreciate Japan for its 224.8 billion Yuan aids to China?’, Online forum, Global Times, http://bbs.huanqiu.com/zongluntianxia/thread181326-1-1.html, (accessed on 1 July 2010). Zhang, Haibin (2008). ‘ZhongRi Guanxi zhongde Huanjing Hezuo: Jianzhenqi haishi Yinqing’ (Environment Cooperation in Sino-Japanese Relations: an Absorber or an Engine), Asia & Africa Review, (2): 7-11,18. ‘Zhongguo Huanjing Chanyejie Riben Kaocha “Yingchun Zhilv”’(China Environment Industry Visiting Japan: a ‘Spring Festival Tour’), YueXiang website, http://www.water111.cn/Article/4894.htm. ‘ZhongRi Huanjing Hezuo Qianjing Guangkuo’ (Prospects for Sino-Japanese Environmental Cooperation), 3 July 2006, Ministry of Environmental Protection, China, http://zhoushengxian.mep.gov.cn/zyhd/200907/t20090708_154317.ht 53 Towards Peace in Colombia: The economic obstacles to a Colombian Peace Process Christopher Thornton and Rainer Gude∗ After an a general history and conflict analysis, including the sources of conflict financing, this paper provides a comparison of previous Colombian peace processes (1984-2004) and finds that more sustainable agreements give greater consideration to the socio-economic grievances which precipitated and continue to sustain the conflict. Suggested mechanisms to apply this finding to future peace processes are discussed, including an anti-kidnapping fund and financial commitments to alternative agricultural development. Moreover, post-conflict economics are considered, and we suggest that if sustainable peace is to be achieved, the Colombian peace process will need to seriously consider the reinsertion of demobilised combatants. While economic factors are emphasized throughout this paper, it is recognized that a successful peace process will involve multiple factors and wider social effort, both domestic and international. ∗ Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. 54 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Since 1982, every Colombian president has sought to engage Colombia's insurgent groups in the hope of achieving a negotiated settlement to the conflict which has ravaged the country for more than 40 years. Only Presidents Virgilio Barco (1986-1990), Cesar Gaviria (1990-1994) and Alvaro Uribe Velez, have achieved comprehensive settlements and subsequent demobilisation. The two principal guerrilla groups, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), remain active and continue to present a credible threat to the Colombian state. Even the ostensibly “demobilised” paramilitary forces of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) still challenge state and human security and jeopardise prospects for any future peace process. Though propaganda from the President's office claims otherwise,1 there is widespread consensus among experts on the Colombian conflict that the guerrillas will never be fully defeated militarily: dialogue offers the only hope for peace in Colombia (Chernick, 2008: 242). President Santos has vacillated between seeming opposing statements about the possibility of peace negotiations,2 but has always maintained that the military was, “breathing down the neck” of the guerrillas (Yefe, 2011). Santos' demands of the guerrillas are extremely strong,3 but how far should the government push before they begin to negotiate? Recent military victories have given him confidence and it could be believed that he would actually prefer a military victory in the line of that achieved in Sri Lanka. However, we believe that the current military weakness of the FARC and the ELN makes this a propitious time for peace negotiations because, as Zartman (2009) notes, power asymmetry creates a beneficial atmosphere for conducting negotiations. As Congressman Ivan Cepeda Castro has suggested, continued military strikes could have negative externalities. “Se corre el riesgo de una mayor fragmentaciòn del conflicto armado y del empleo de métodos y armas que lo degraden aùn màs”4 (Cepeda, 2011). For example, we may partly attribute the conclusion of the Acuerdos de la Uribe to the severe military losses inflicted on the FARC in the 1980s (Metelits, 2010). If the current military situation is to be used to reach a settlement with the FARC and the ELN, the Congressman proposes that Colombia “learn from the past,” that members from all parties must soon sit down “cara a cara”5 with precise time periods, discretion, and the cooperation of all sectors including business and the military (Cepeda, 2011). We fully agree, however to realize such a broad process we believe there is a need to consider the economic factors which have impacted on previous peace processes. As Wennmann et al. (2009) warn, “the achievements at the political level may be jeopardized by the omission of a forward looking perspective on unresolved economic issues during the peace process.” Our paper examines the economic factors which obstruct negotiations with the FARC and the ELN, and how these might be overcome. In this sense, it is both an ambitious and a limited endeavour: other political and military factors are as, if not more, important for the conclusion of a successful process. We also realise that many other actors, from the various guerrilla groups to criminal gangs, populate the complex landscape of the Colombian conflict and cannot be ignored. 1 See http://web.presidencia.gov.co/ 2 In the last month he has said both that “the door to peace is closed,” Yefe, Luis Guillermo Forero, “Alfonso Cano caerà como cayò el Mono Jojoy: Santos,” El Tiempo, February 17, 2011; and that “there is a hand that offers peace if there is true good will,” El Tiempo, “La puerta De La Paz No Està Cerrada,” February 5th, 2011. 3 They include: unilateral releasing of all hostages, laying down of arms, halting with the drug trade. El Tiempo, “La puerta De La Paz No Està Cerrada,” February 5th, 2011. 4 Translation: There is the risk that the conflict and the methods and arms it employs will suffer greater fragmentation and degradation. 5 Translation: face to face. 55 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 As Jim Tull (2001) argues, “Cuando se analizan conflictos complejos la pregunta que hay que hacer no es "¿cuál es la solución?", sino "¿Cuál es el proceso correcto?"”6 But where to look for clues on how to build the right process? Colombia has itself a plethora of past processes to examine, though up till now the lessons learned seem to be reduced to the fact that they tend to be long, costly, and complex. Few have actually taken an analytical look at the past peace processes to determine what insights can be made. Chernick's 2007 Acuerdo Posible, currently only available in Spanish, is the only work which examines all previous processes. We hope our work offers policyrelevant insights for an English-speaking audience. Our paper will consider three ways in which economic issues continue to present obstacles to peace in Colombia: firstly, considering the difficulties presented by the sources of conflict financing; secondly, focusing on the economic grievances of the guerrilla groups and how these might be tackled in an agreement; and finally analysing the way in which the economic aspects of post-conflict reintegration have been managed in previous agreements. These are, of course, all interlinked and permeate into areas outside the strictly delineated field of conflict resolution. However, we believe that if one wants to find the route to sustainable peace in Colombia it is important to attempt to disentangle these factors and give them due consideration, while also recognising that they are embedded within the complex national and international political milieu. Our proposals are designed to cultivate an enabling environment, which can best facilitate the peaceful resolution of the conflict with the FARC and the ELN. Looking at the past has exposed many failures but also some interesting successes. Our most “successful” process was the M19 which included three out of our four variables and actually concluded in with the formation of a political party, a constituent assembly and the rewriting of the constitution.7 An important issue which we do not consider is the question of more than 3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), precipitated by the conflict. For the purpose of this paper we have elected to focus on belligerents. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that a sustainable agreement needs a “re-incorporation of all ex-combatants, victims, and regions most severely affected by the conflict” (Jaramillo, 2007: 94). A Long History of Violence: the Background to the Colombian Conflict Today It is difficult to delineate exactly how far back in history one must look to understand the root causes of tensions in Colombia. Many admit that the modern conflict is tied to historical inequalities dating from Spanish Colonialism. After understanding the scars and divisions that Colonialism left, and the subsequent battle over land-reform issues between large landowners, latifundios, and peasant farmers, campesinos, one has a basis for understanding the Colombian conflict. In the early 20th-century, elite interests were channeled into two political parties: the Conservatives and the Liberals (Jaramillo, 2007). Until 1930, Conservatives controlled the executive branch, but with a Liberal victory came a wave of state centralisation, agrarian reform, and, of course, tremendous tension. These tensions finally erupted in violent clashes8 simply known as La 6 Translation: When analysing complex conflicts the question is not “what is the solution?” but “what is the right process?” 7 Of course the process was not perfect and the M19 political party has since been discredited, which shows that a focus on the “post-conflict” and “post-agreement” may need to be broadened even further than our own framework. 8 The beginning is associated with the assassination of Liberal party member and Populist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitàn. Ibid, p. 88. 56 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Violencia, an extraordinarily savage period from 1948-1966, leaving 200,000 dead (Jaramillo, 2007: 88). Following bipartisan support of a bloodless military coup in 1953 and the signing of a power sharing agreement in 1957, the National Front system emerged (Chernick, 2005). Liberals and Conservatives agreed to alternate the presidency and apportion government positions (Metelits, 2010). The agreement excluded other political parties and was elite-controlled, catalysing a new phase of violence where the state perpetrated massive atrocities against peasant farmers. This led to the creation of left-wing guerrilla groups, initially self-defence organisations, across the country. The FARC emerged from these self-defence organisations in 1966. Formed in 1962, the ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution and derived the majority of its support from students and priests. Like the FARC, it operated in rural areas. In 1979, the M-19 group arose, which also had a student following but was mainly urban (Metelits, 2010). In the 1960s, Colombia experienced an economic boom but the vast majority of the population remained poor. Coffee regions prospered, but no “coffee middle class” emerged, and in 1970 almost two thirds of the rural population lived in “absolute poverty” (Bushnell, 1996: 329). This provided the FARC with public support and, coupled with drug windfalls, allowed it to grow in strength. They then attempted to enter the political arena with their political party, the Uniòn Patriòtica (UP), in the early 1980s. By acknowledging the UP, President Betancur gave the insurgents a “modicum of legitimacy” (Metelits, 2010: 98) and from 1984-1988 the UP successfully rallied political support.9 Following the informally state-sanctioned assassination of over four thousand UP and members of the Partido Comunista Colombiano (PCC) by paramilitary forces, the FARC turned back to seeking a military solution. These right-wing paramilitary groups were formed by latifundios and drug cartels to fight the guerrillas. The assassinations in the 1980s represented the beginning of an uneasy relationship between the paramilitaries and the government, the former being authorised to do the latter's “dirty work.” However, the paramilitaries grew in strength, becoming an autonomous power, paradoxically becoming hostile to the government, whom they claimed to support. These paramilitary forces were eventually united by Carlos Castaño under the banner of AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) in 1997, and brought another actor into the conflict, transforming the insurgency, the government, and the nature of the conflict itself. Kidnapping and Cocaine: Sources of Financing as Obstacles to Peace in Colombia In this section, we will focus on kidnapping and drugs, the two most emblematic and particularly “Colombian” sources of conflict financing. As important sources of financing for the FARC and the ELN, these issues continue to present significant problems which will need to be addressed in a future peace process. Kidnapping has long been practised by insurgent groups in Colombia, the “kidnap capital of the world” (Briggs, 2002). Perhaps more than any other factor, kidnapping has presented a financial obstacle in the Colombian peace processes. As seen in the table of peace processes (below), only seven out of the twenty agreements mention kidnapping, and only one substantively, hence it has not been addressed adequately in the past. For example, the cessation of kidnapping was “the principal sticking point” in the 1992 talks with the FARC and ELN (Lawrence, 1996: 283); President Pastrana ended negotiations with the FARC in 2002 in response to the kidnapping of a Colombian senator (Metelits, 2010); President Uribe refused to accept the 2005 cease-fire proposal of the ELN because it failed to guarantee the cessation of kidnapping (ICG, 2007). Although the practice has declined in recent years it remains an obstacle to peace. The following section will examine why 9 Winning 350 local council seats, 23 deputy positions, 9 seats in the House, and 6 seats in the Senate, in 1986. 57 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 kidnapping became such a pervasive practice in Colombia, how previous agreements have approached the subject and the way in which future agreements might overcome this obstacle. Initially, the FARC only engaged in isolated instances of kidnapping against targets considered ideologically legitimate: representatives of the state, police and military (Metelits, 2010). However, the economic potential of this source of financing was soon evident. Evidently, large scale indiscriminate kidnapping, known as Pesca Milagrosa,10 served to further isolate the FARC and other guerrilla groups from their mainstream left-wing support base. Public opposition has been mobilised to exert pressure on the guerrillas to cease kidnapping: this includes the hugely successful, in numbers if not in results, “million voices against the FARC” protest movement. The importance of kidnapping as a source of financing steadily increased throughout the 1990s. It was estimated to be the third most important source of income for the FARC and the ELN, behind drug-trafficking and extortion, during this period. According to official figures from the Departamento Administrivo de Securidad, it brought in approximately US$1.5 billion between 1991 and 1999 (PCN, 2001). According to Suarez (2000: 584), in the year 2000, the FARC derived 8% of its funds from kidnapping and the ELN, 28%. The motivation behind the vast majority of kidnappings is economic. The governmental organisation Conase estimated that at least 64% of kidnappings in 1999 were economically-motivated. In reality, the figures are probably much higher, given that the motivation behind approximately 14% of kidnappings was “unknown” and all “ideological” kidnappings potentially serve a dual economic function as well (PCN, 2001). Since 2000, the number of annual kidnappings has steadily decreased from the height of 3572 to only 242 in 2008 (FPL, 2008).11 However, this decrease does not correspond to a concomitant decrease in the importance of kidnapping as an issue in any peace process: as kidnapping incites public opprobrium, it is a grave obstacle to negotiations. The decline in kidnapping does, however, make it a more financially manageable problem. The guerrillas have never denied kidnapping, but instead justify it as a necessary means to continue their armed struggle. One ELN combatant is quoted as stating that, “If the middle classes were to wish to finance our revolution we would stop taking hostages” (PCN, 2001). The FARC have adopted a similar position. As they are unable to exploit the same methods of financing utilised by the Colombian state, they suggest that kidnapping for economic reasons is justified. Appropriating a state-like discourse, the FARC conceptualise kidnapping as a punishment in response to a failure to respect Ley 002, which imposes a “peace tax” on all persons and companies with assets over one million US dollars.12 Kidnapping is an important source of financing to the guerrilla movements; not a military tactic. In previous peace processes, the guerrillas and Colombian governments have approached the issue of kidnapping from radically different perspectives: the guerrillas perceive the issue as primarily economic, while the majority of Colombian governments have conceptualised the problem as a humanitarian issue (ICG, 2007). For example, in the 1984 Acuerdos de la Uribe between the 10 Translation: miraculous fishing. 11 Please note that this refers to the numbers of kidnapping, not the numbers of people held, which are significantly larger. Fundación País Libre. 2008 “Estadísticas Secuestro Generales Enero de 1996 – Mayo 2008” 12 In a response to demands to cease kidnapping, led by Senator Piedad Cordoba, the FARC responded; Translation: “How should we finance a confrontation like the one in Colombia? How does the state do it, for example? Through general taxes, war taxes, the contributions of transnational corporations... In the spirit of minimizing the impact on non-combatants, the FARC issued Taxation Law 002, which charges a peace tax from those persons or companies whose assets exceed one million dollars and ultimately only provides for resource retention.” See Secretariado del Estado Mayor Central de las FARC-EP. 2008. “Response to Senator Piedad Cordoba and Colombianos Por La Paz,” 17th December 2008. 58 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Betancur administration and the FARC, the latter agreed to cease kidnapping in return for an agreement that the government would endeavour to improve the education, health and employment levels of all Colombians.13 Similarly, the Uribe administration has haltingly pursued “Acuerdos Humanitarios”, seeking the exchange of prisoners, with the FARC.14 These efforts are doomed to failure because they fail to recognise and address the centrality of kidnapping to the continued financing of the guerrilla movements. If the guerrillas, as governments have demanded, cease kidnapping during the course of peace negotiations they will be progressively economically, and therefore militarily, weakened over the long course of negotiations. This reduces their bargaining power at the negotiating table and is from their point of view strategically nonsensical. How can we reconcile these divergent positions? The July 1998 Acuerdo de la Puerto del Cielo, a product of negotiations between the National Committee for Peace15 and the ELN, provides one viable model for addressing the issue of kidnapping in the context of the peace process. The ELN agreed to end the practice of kidnapping in article 9 of El Acuerdo de la Puerta del Cielo, if they were provided with sufficient funds to maintain their military capacity.16 This provision recognises that the ELN could not countenance the attenuation of their military capabilities during peace negotiations but suggests that kidnapping could be replaced by other sources of financing, such as an anti-kidnapping fund. El Tiempo reported that they reiterated this offer in 2006, demanding $US 40 million to cease kidnapping during a ceasefire. As the number of kidnappings has decreased, we may postulate that the guerrillas would now accept a smaller amount to cease this practice. Reached in the final days of Samper's presidency, the agreement failed to gain popular traction for a number of reasons. Priorities shifted following Pastrana's election, who came into office with a clearly articulated strategy for peace (Civico, 2010). His strategy was centred around engaging with the FARC, not with the ELN. Furthermore, we may postulate a priori that Pastrana would not want to be perceived as simply finishing the work of another.17 Finally, there is perceived to be a certain perversity in paying people to refrain from acts which are prohibited in any case: some Colombians argue that this is “rewarding evil” or sends the dangerous message that, “el Estado paga para intentar convencer al que comete crímenes de que no los cometa.”18 The inevitable public opposition to this mechanism could be circumvented, if it was part of an initially confidential process and then supported by a president, not marred by accusations of pacifism or corruption, who could demonstrate positive results.19 13 See Acuerdos de la Uribe, 1984, particularly Art 2 and Art 8. 14 President Uribe asked Senator Piedad Cordoba and President Hugo Chavez to act as mediators, later terminating their mandate and accusing Cordoba of “treason” for being “too close” to the FARC. Escarguel, Olivier, 2009. “Chavez Uribe y las FARC,” El Tiempo, January 5th, 2009. 15 These were representatives of Civil Society. It is important to note that the government of Colombia was not a party to this agreement. 16 Art 9. Acuerdo de la Puerta del Cielo.Translation: “The ELN agrees to cease the retention or the withdrawal of liberty from persons for financial purposes, if sufficient resources are made available through other means to the ELN so that- until the culmination of the peace process with this organisation- they will not be weakened strategically.” 17 Especially since Samper's reputation was marred by the discovery that his campaign had been partly financed by the Cali drug cartel. See Pécaut, Daniel. 2008 Les FARC, une Guérilla sans fins? (Lignes de Repères, Paris) p.47 18 Translation: The state will pay to try to convince criminals not to commit crimes. 19 This would admittedly be difficult to reconcile with current Santos rhetoric. 59 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Political conditions prevented this concept from being realised, however the idea has periodically resurfaced. Influential voices in Colombian society have expressed their tacit support for the establishment of an “anti-kidnapping fund”: The Roman Catholic Bishop Jaime Prieto of Barrancabermeja announced in September 2000 that he was in favour of such a fund, and even the presidential peace envoy Camilo Gomez stated that his government might consider such a fund if the rebels stopped kidnapping for ransom and agreed to a cease-fire (PCN, 2001). Later in his term, Pastrana also began to consider the creation of an anti-kidnapping fund during negotiations with the ELN, after European governments quietly voiced their support for such a measure (Shultz-Kraft, 2010). In October 2006, Uribe again advanced this concept, but was greeted with the press response that his proposal was “escandalosa.” The creation of “peace” funds to support rebel groups during peace processes has been successful in the past. In Colombia, the CRS and, in El Salvador, the FMLN were financed during the course of negotiations. Both of these negotiations led to comprehensive settlements and the demobilisation of the armed group. In Mozambique, Dhlakama, leader of RENAMO, was paid $300,000 monthly from a UN trust fund in order to ensure his continued participation in the peace process.20 However, despite these previous successes, many commentators remain sceptical about the efficacy of an “anti-kidnapping fund” (Guaqueta, 2003). This valid concern could be addressed provided that the fund was established within the context of a ceasefire.21 Moreover, once trust was established between the parties, payment could be provided in return for other services: for example, Frédéric Massé of El Tiempo advocated financing the ELN to conduct de-mining activities, under the condition that they refrain from the practice of kidnapping (2006). However, the FARC and ELN, who perceive mines as their best available defence, would not agree to de-mine before significant advances had already been made in the peace process.22 The understandable queasiness of governments regarding financing an insurgent group may need to be overcome if kidnapping is to stop being an obstacle to peace. We suggest that the Government of Colombia reconsider the issue of kidnapping from an economic perspective and accept the strategic impossibility of a unilateral cessation of kidnapping during peace negotiations. The government should establish an anti-kidnapping fund, initially offering unilateral funding but eventually “paying” the guerrillas for vital services such as de-mining, as advocated by Massé. Another source of conflict financing comes from involvement in the illicit drug trade. The issue of the drug trade is mentioned in eight out of twenty peace agreements, though it has never been dealt with substantively. The Coca export boom of the 1980s offered the guerrillas a lucrative 20 As the UN Special Representative to Mozambique suggested: “The relatively small amount of money needed for the trust fund was the insurance everything else would work.” See Greenhill, Kelly M. and Major, Solomon. 2006. “The Perils of Profiling: Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace Accords.” International Security (Vol. 31, No. 3) p.26 21 Or also in the form of humanitarian agreements such as that of the organisation Colombianos y Colombianas por la paz. Congressman Cepeda argues that their agreements have actually helped “humanise” the conflict and not only helped the application of humanitarian law, but have also brought peace closer. See Cepeda, Ivàn Castro, “Està Cerca El Fin Del Secuestro? Contesta Ivàn Cepeda,” El Tiempo, February 12th, 2011. 22 In a confidential communication with the authors, one diplomat stated, “It is an excellent idea, especially if the guerrillas would accept it, but I doubt they will.” In a telephone interview, a former FARC commander said that “mines are the best defence the guerrillas have, they will be reluctant to give it up.” 60 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 source of financing.23 While the ELN largely resisted becoming involved in the trade in illicit narcotics (ICG, 2007), the FARC seized upon this opportunity and were consequently able to finance a massive expansion of troops and activities. The FARC also initially displayed an ambivalent attitude towards coca-production. Research in Caquetá region suggests that the FARC initially attempted to prohibit coca-production by farmers. However, coca provided farmers with a lucrative crop and they strongly pushed the FARC to permit its cultivation. Faced with local pressure, the FARC elected to “tax” the drug-traffickers, rather than alienate their local constituency (Chernick, 2005). The FARC institutionalised the taxing of coca-production at its 1982 and 1984 conventions (Guaqueta, 2003). This decision had important consequences for peace negotiations. The following section will examine these consequences and how they might be addressed. With additional finances from the drug trade, the FARC were able to finance a massive increase in troops, improved equipment and a geographical expansion; between 1982 and 1998 the FARC increased from approximately 10,000 fighters to almost 17,000, and increased their number of “fronts” six-fold to over 60 (Pécaut, 2008). Suarez (2000) estimates that 48% of the FARC's finances in 1999 came from involvement in drug-trafficking and Civico (2010) purports that this percentage has probably increased as Uribe's “democratic security” policy pushed the FARC to seek greater financial resources to match the government's military capacity. Thus, drugs allowed the FARC to force the government to seriously consider their demands, counter the threat presented by the military, and continue the conflict. However, this involvement has undermined their political legitimacy and facilitated their characterisation as criminals or “terrorists” (ICG, 2009). The US “war on terrorism,” has contributed to this perception: terms like “narco-terrorism” were introduced to describe the FARC, AUC, and the ELN, who were added to “the Clinton list.”24 These labels changed the bargaining dynamics, and the war itself: it is one thing to deal with rebel groups, and quite another to deal with a “terrorist organisation.” Even if this labelling exercise began as anti-guerrilla propaganda, this renders it more politically-sensitive for the government to engage in peace negotiations with this group and to grant them political and other concessions (Guaquete, 2003). This characterisation is largely unfounded: a 2002 US DEA report insists that, “There is no credible evidence that the FARC as an institution has evolved into a drug-trafficking organization” (Chernick, 2009). Sanin supports this contention, highlighting that, with the FARC, Collier's greed hypothesis does not hold. The FARC do not pay their combatants and demand life-long commitment. Consequently, there are few possibilities in the FARC for personal enrichment. As Civico (2010) notes, “Marulanda died poor in the jungle.” Comparatively, this makes the FARC a bad choice for the Homo Economicos: the paramilitaries, and the drug cartels, offer far more lucrative opportunities (Sanin, 2003). Involvement in the drug trade has led to FARC being unfairly characterised as a purely criminal enterprise. A more nuanced approach recognises that, “For the FARC, drug dealing is a practical way of surviving and assuring the peasantry has a cash crop.”25 US Anti-Narcotics Policy has profoundly affected the peace processes with the FARC. Plan Colombia, a US financed anti-narcotics project, clearly favoured combating coca production through military means. Although Pastrana initially characterised Plan Colombia as the “Marshall Plan for the coca-producing regions”, envisaging alternative agricultural development projects in cooperation 23 It is however important to remember that official US figures suggest that “only 10% of the US$ 77 billion cocaine market is repatriated, whereas the remainder is recycled in the international financial system.” See Douma, P.S. 2003 The Political Economy of Internal Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of Angola, Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. (Clingendael, The Hague) p.89. 24 All three groups were named “Specially designated Narcotics traffickers,” or as they say in Colombia, “on the Clinton List.”: http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/narco/narco.shtml 25 Former Diplomat involved in the Pastrana Negotiations, Confidential Email communication, 21st May 2010. 61 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 with the FARC, this aspect never fully materialised (Arnson, 2001). Instead, this support came in the form of military aid and training: 80% of US financial assistance to Colombia was destined for the security forces, with only 20% going towards development (Isacson & Poe, 2001). Between 2000 and 2008 the US provided US$ 4.9 billion in military and technical assistance to Colombia (Douma, 2003). Furthermore, Nasi notes that Plan Colombia targeted neither the drug cartels nor the paramilitaries, who have admitted that 70% of their financing comes from illicit narcotics. Instead, it focused on destroying FARC strongholds in Colombia's southern provinces. US military support convinced many within the Colombia right-wing and the military that it was possible to defeat the guerrillas militarily and attenuated support for dialogue: “'Plan Colombia' and the subsequent 'war on terrorism' created a political atmosphere internationally that did not favour a peaceful negotiation of the internal conflict in Colombia.”26 Furthermore, US requests for the extradition of guerrillas on drug-trafficking charges will complicate the conduct of any future peace negotiations.27 Even after billions of dollars spent in counter-narcotics, cocaine still enters the US market regularly, the price has remained constant, and plenty of money is coming into Colombia to finance the continuation of the conflict: “the overall results of Plan Colombia in reducing drugtrafficking are meagre” (Kryzanek, 2008; ICG, 2009). In this case, does dialogue offer a viable alternative? The FARC have been consistent in their negotiating position regarding illicit narcotics. In previous negotiations, the FARC have agreed that coca-production should be eliminated in a postconflict Colombia, as a central part of the agrarian reform agenda which they advocate. For example, in the 1999 Agenda Común por el Cambio Hacia una Nueva Colombia, in Art 3.3 the FARC agree to discuss, the “Recuperaciòn y distribuciòn de la tierra adquirida a través del narcotràfico o renriquecimiento ilìcito.”28 In 1993, the FARC stated that: [The] production, marketing, and use of drugs and hallucinogens...[is] a serious problem that cannot be treated using a military approach and called for a commitment to reduce demand from the major powers [the United States] that are the main source of the world's demand for drugs (Chernick, 2009: 86). As early as 1984, in the Acuerdo de prolongacion de la tregua, the FARC condemned the practice of drug-trafficking, in principle. Marulanda was supposedly aware of the corrupting effect of drugtrafficking and was concerned that this might lead the FARC to lose their ideological roots.29 How then do the FARC justify their continued involvement in the drugs trade? The FARC's conditions for the cessation of the cultivation of illicit drugs are clearly articulated in the statements from their March 2000 plenum meeting and the 2001 Acuerdo de Los Pozos. The FARC states that peasants have resorted to the production of illicit narcotics due to the economic policies of the developed world, which deny them access to markets for other goods (Chernick, 2009). They reiterate that they are not opposed to the project of eradicating illicit drugs, and substituting them for other agricultural produce, provided that the consent of the producers is 26 Douma, P.S. 2003 The Political Economy of Internal Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of Angola, Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. p.29 27 Guaqueta, Alexandra. 2003 “The Colombian Conflict: Political and Economic Dimensions.” p. 81 28 Translation: “the recuperation and distribution of land acquired through narco-trafficking or illicit cultivation.” 29 Schultze-Kraft, Markus. Director of the Latin America Unit of ICG. Telephone Interview Thursday 20th May 2010. 62 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 first obtained. Pastrana even claims that Marulanda explicitly told him that the FARC wished to eradicate coca, if financing was forthcoming.30 Unfortunately, negotiations on the subject of crop substitution between the FARC and representatives of the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) were cancelled following the killing of three North Americans in March 1999 by a group allegedly affiliated to the FARC (Gamboa, 2001). This led to the withdrawal of U.S support for the project, which had tacitly advanced following negotiations in late-1998 between the FARC and U.S State Department representative Peter Romero (Gamboa, 2001). The resurrection of negotiations on this track could provide a path for development cooperation. The FARC initially demonstrated resistance to the cultivation of illicit narcotics in the regions they controlled. Popular opposition compelled them to accept this practice and harness it as a financing mechanism. This involvement has led to a de-legitimisation of the FARC and their political agenda, but it seems unlikely that the FARC have transformed from a politically-motivated insurgent group into a criminal drug-trafficking organisation. Consequently, an approach based on alternative agricultural development and agrarian reform, within the context of peace negotiations, is far more likely to produce positive results than the military approach adopted thus far. For a substantive peace agreement to be reached, we believe that an economic framework must be created in which the issues of narco-trafficking and kidnapping can be addressed. As one former FARC commander told us, “un cese de fuego para empezar la paz necesita afrontar la droga y el secuestro. Si ustedes encuentran una manera acceptable de pagar por eso, bienvenga!”31 Though we may not have found the perfect solution, we feel this framework represents a movement in the right direction. From Greed to Grievance: Socioeconomic issues in the negotiations. As Chernick (2005) reminds us, “Resources are a factor; they are not the factor” (182). He asserts that approaches to resolving the conflict in Colombia which focus solely on conflict financing are doomed to failure: “In Colombia, the long history of this protracted conflict suggests that other sources of financing are readily available and that the armed actors would adjust. A settlement, then, must be based on addressing the other dimensions of the conflict” (105). The other dimensions to which Chernick refers are socio-economic inequalities and long-term political grievances. Many other commentators have supported this contention (Cardenas, 2003; Guaqueta, 2003). On this aspect past agreements have paid more attention mentioning it eleven times, however only once substantively. Collier's assertion that “the motivation of conflict is unimportant; what matters is whether the organization can sustain itself financially” (2000: 203) is too narrow, and incongruent with the fact insurgent groups have displayed remarkable adaptability and resilience in overcoming financial obstacles, as well as the large body of literature that confirms the importance of multiple factors in contributing to internal conflict, from personal enrichment to aggregate psychological conditions. Even in cases where an armed group is defeated or demobilises, for example, underlying motivations have important implications for the post-conflict stability. Peace negotiators have long been aware that simply addressing the demands of an armed group for political influence or financial security in 30 In an interview Pastrana said that, “Marulanda said to me: Give me the money and I will eradicate them. Give me ten years and I will eradicate them or we can do it together. Let's look for a pilot municipality and do a pilot program.” See La Semana, 1999. Interview with Andres Pastrana “Creo en la palabra de Tirofijo.” January 25th 1999. 31 Translation: “A Cease-fire that could start the peace process will need to confront the issue of drugs and kidnapping. If you find an acceptable way to “pay” for that, than please do!” 63 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 the post-conflict society, without addressing the circumstances which precipitated the conflict, will not result in long-term peace; if the underlying conditions remain and alternative channels for addressing grievances are not provided, other armed movements will emerge (Soliman, 2004). Consequently, we argue that socio-economic grievances must be tackled in a broad manner during the peace process in order to induce the guerrillas to demobilise and to avoid the emergence of new ideologically-motivated armed groups. Successive Colombian governments have argued that the quality of life for all Colombians has improved since the emergence of the guerrilla movements, pointing to the almost consistent economic growth since the 1940s and the robustness of Colombian democracy (Metelits, 2010). Moreover, national poverty reduced by approximately 8% between 1999 and 2005 (CEPAL, 2009). However, this narrative plasters over the cracks which remain within Colombian society. National poverty remained at 46.8% in 2005 and extreme poverty stood at 25.6% in rural areas (CEPAL, 2009). Colombia has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the Western hemisphere. Whether there is a direct correlation between poverty and inequality, and support for the guerrillas is difficult to ascertain, but several broad trends suggest themselves. Nasi (2009) notes, for example, that rebel organisations grew during the agricultural crisis in the 1990s, with combatants mainly coming from the worst affected group: rural peasant farmers. This agricultural crisis “was partly related to mistakes in the government's economic liberalization policies and exposure to competition by foreign-subsidized agricultural products” (Guaqueta, 2003: 80). This type of policy contributed to the prolongation of the conflict, support for the guerrillas and led many farmers to elect to grow coca, which is more lucrative. Nasi (2009) concludes that, “This suggests that grievance still plays a significant role in the expansion of insurgency” (61). As is well-known, unlike the AUC, which possessed no discernible social ideology besides maintaining the status quo,32 the ELN and the FARC have an explicit and expressed Marxist ideology. A FARC document, summarising their economic ideology states: Development and economic modernization of the country shall be paired to social justice...The economic policy shall be primarily focused on broadening the internal market, a self-sufficiency of food supply, permanently fostering production and the promotion of small, middle and large private industry, micro-companies and an economy with solidarity (quoted in Cardenas, 2003: 277). The ELN espouse a similar ideology, although they place a greater emphasis upon the management of Colombia's natural resources, opposing privatisation and foreign exploitation (Guaqueta, 2003). The recent and relatively successful attempts to kill or capture the FARC's leadership and the natural death of Manuel Marulanda, the FARC's founder, in 2008 may diminish the importance of this Marxist ideology and some even suggest that, “over time, the FARC could look less like an insurgency and more like an organized criminal group” (Metelits, 2010: 199). However, Marulanda's replacement Alfonso Cano is clearly committed to the FARC's ideology and has demonstrated control over the organisation, which remains remarkably cohesive despite severe military pressure (ICG, 2009). Previous negotiations between the government and armed groups have proceeded down two distinct tracks. Either negotiations consider the political agendas of the parties and attempt to answer questions regarding socio-economic issues, or the negotiations focus exclusively on ceasefire, disarmament and reintegration. As Nasi (2009) notes, success seems to result only from the 32 Chernick describes them as “neither insurgents nor belligerents – they arose 'in defense' of the State and are the state's responsibility,” Acuerdo Posible, p. 30. 64 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 second, narrower, approach: “Whenever the government and the rebel group have attempted to redress the root causes of the Colombian armed conflict, they have failed to reach peace accords” (60). The peace agreement with M-19, signed in March 1990, does not attempt to outline planned reforms or measures to address underlying grievances. Instead, Article 1 propounds the need for constitutional reform and institutional legitimacy and advocates for the holding of a plebiscite, referendum or the convening of a constituent assembly. Article 3 is the only article which addresses development issues, but even this is treated in a characteristically obtuse manner.33 These provisions are not focused on addressing socio-economic problems but in outlining the framework in which they will be addressed and the form that M-19's engagement will assume. The agreement with the EPL also recasts the Ejercito Popular de Liberacion as a political party: Esperanza, Paz y Liberdad and provides a framework of governmental support for the promotion of the new party (Articles 1, 2, and 3). This agreement is somewhat more detailed in its development provisions, outlined in Article 10, but leaves provisions to be determined by the bilateral “Comisiòn de Superaciòn de la Violencia”, established in Article 9. The emphasis in these agreements is clearly on facilitating participation in the existing democratic institutions, rather than providing detailed reforms. Similarly, Article 1 of the Acuerdo Final Entre El Gobierno Nacional Y El Partido Revolucionario De Los Trabajadores (PRT) guarantees the PRT a permanent voice in the Constituent Assembly, which was tasked with redrafting the constitution, without the right to vote, while articles 2, 3, and 4 outline the transition of the PRT into a political party. This agreement was reached after only six months of negotiations; this expediency resulted from the decision to relegate more contentious decisions regarding the specificity of reforms to the Constituent Assembly and other institutions. This is one of the obvious advantages of the narrow agenda. The 1984 Acuerdo de La Prolongacion de la Tregua, between the government and the FARC pursued a similar model. In Article 6, the FARC agreed to pursue its objectives through mainstream political means and in Article 7 the government authorised the creation of the FARC's political party: La Unión Patriótica (UP). The UP had considerable success in rallying political support during the 1980s: in 1986, for example, the UP won 350 local council seats, 23 deputy positions, 9 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate (Metelits, 2010). However, as mentioned above, UP members were targets of widespread violence by drug-traffickers and paramilitaries with government complicity. As Metelits concludes, “The annihilation of the UP signaled that the political door had been shut tight against the FARC” (2010: 99). This suspicion of the political route to change has been further bolstered by the relative failure of former armed groups to gain a foothold in Colombian politics. For example, M-19 fared poorly in the 1994 election, losing all of the ten parliamentary seats it gained in 1991 and receiving less than 2% of the vote for its presidential candidate. The downward trajectory of the EPL, which never became a political force at the national level, matched that of M-19 at the local level (Chernick, 1999). Convincing the FARC to re-enter mainstream politics will be difficult. Unless their military position changes dramatically and defeat looks immanent, FARC will never accept a narrow agenda for peace negotiations (Chernick, 2009). The ELN would also strongly resist the narrow approach (ICG, 2007). Although the narrow approach is not a viable option for negotiations with the FARC and the ELN, neither is the broad approach adopted by Gaviria and Pastrana. The dangers of a broad agenda are easily seen from a brief overview of the issues considered during the Pastrana negotiations with the FARC: “... after elaborating on the agenda, the two sides chose to begin with the issue of 33Translation: “The National Fund for Peace, foreseen in the Political Pact, is destined to organise activities and programs for the public good in regions where the demobilised guerrillas have had influence, will be financed by the Government, private enterprises, and international foundations willing to support it.” 65 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 economic reforms, and, specifically, employment policies. They spent the next three and a half years on this issue” (Chernick, 2009: 76). The government’s unemployment policies are an emotive subject in Colombia where unemployment stood at 17.3% in the year 2000, the highest rate in Latin America (CEPAL, 2009). By insisting on beginning with this issue, the FARC intimated that it was not serious about reaching an agreement but was merely looking to buy time and criticise the government.34 The weakness of the Pastrana administration allowed this issue to stall the process for over three years. It is important to disentangle the essential socio-economic elements which need to be addressed in a peace process, from issues which are purposefully raised to justify the continuation of the violence or are more suited for exploration in a post-conflict forum. Chernick (2009) notes that the core demands and negotiating position of the FARC have been remarkably consistent over time, concluding that, “At a minimum the broad agenda would include addressing agrarian reform and rural development, including the issue of illicit crops...and establishing broad framework agreements on social policy and natural resources” (78). According one former FARC Commander interviewed by the authors, the issue of land reform is the central issue for the FARC, although this is disputed by other guerrillas. Natural resources and energy policy are a major issue for the ELN and would need to be tackled in any peace process. For example, the ELN vociferously expressed its opposition to the privatisation of Ecopetrol, the then-state-owned oil company (ICG, 2007). A limited agenda should ensure that the negotiations are no longer interminable struggles over trivial issues, while guaranteeing that the guerrilla's core demands are not relegated to history if they are politically side-lined in a post-conflict Colombia. We recognise that the FARC's agenda, and the ELN's, is not “revolutionary, socialist, maximalist, or intransigent” but is, in fact, “more or less within the scope of much of the contemporary left in present-day Latin America” (Chernick, 2009: 67, 94). The reader must bear this in mind when noting that the measures we propose, and believe the FARC and ELN might accept, do not seem like the radical demands of left-wing guerrillas. We do not disagree with the sentiment that, “the FARC has no capacity to be a development organisation” (Schultze-Kraft, 2010), but we believe that there is tentative evidence to suggest a link between investment in development and the achievement of a sustainable peace agreement. For example, although the Plan Nacional de Rehabilitación (PNR) was created as a national development organisation under Betancur, it remained relatively inactive (Jaramillo, 2007). This lack of commitment may have contributed to Betancur's failure to reach any lasting agreement. Conversely, “The PNR, abandoned and left without funds after its creation by Betancur, was put back on the drawing board and then implemented, given ample resources, and elevated to the top of the government's agenda by Barco” (Jaramillo, 2007:100). This may have laid the foundation for his and Gaviria's successful negotiations. The government and the guerrilla groups should provisionally agree on a joint vision for economic development and land reform in the conflict regions and open a parallel development track to negotiations. Admittedly, this would be resisted by landowners and rich investors. Economic growth and land reform are closely interlinked. Due to unequal land ownership, economic growth has led to the widening of inequality in Latin America, rather than widespread economic development (Deininger, 2003). Deininger contends that, “Where extreme inequality in land distribution and underutilisation of vast tracts of productive land co-exist with deep rural poverty, a case for redistributive measures to increase access to land by the poor can be made, both politically and from an economic perspective” (2003: xl). These conditions exist in Colombia but, as Isacson and Poe note, “Colombia is the only major Latin American nation where large landholders 34 Confirmed by our interview with former FARC commander. 24th May 2010. 66 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 have avoided significant land reform” (3). The Colombian Land Reform Agency, INCODER (formerly INCORA) is widely criticised for inefficiency, and must be reformed if the claims of the guerrillas are to be credibly denied. The government should take measures to halt “reverse land reform”, the process by which investors buy land held by displaced farmers for low prices, and improve redistributive measures. This could be assisted by informing displaced farmers of their right to have loans renegotiated and protecting them from intimidation by the “goons” of large landowners (Isacson & Poe, 2009). Wennmann suggests that development assistance “can be used to ensure compliance with a peace process”, if structured properly (2010: 4). However, he admits that there are difficulties as, “development assistance to governments or [non-state actors] NSAs that have been involved in major atrocities can be rejected on moral grounds, even if their demobilisation and reintegration is often a political priority” (4). This is certainly an issue in the Colombian context. The government must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the Pastrana administration in establishing the Zona de Despeje, or demilitarized zone, during the 1998-2002 negotiations with the FARC. The Zona de Despeje attracted massive investment from NGOs and the international community (Guaqueta 2003). However, the refusal of the FARC to allow international verification to confirm that the area was not being utilised for drug-trafficking, which should be a precondition in the future, undermined trust between the parties and the peace process as a whole. This development track ended up presenting more of an obstacle in the negotiations than a channel, as the opinion of the Colombian public and the US administration turned against Pastrana and the peace process. These mistakes must not be repeated. Any future peace process will have to address the socio-economic grievances which precipitated the conflict and continue to drive support for the FARC and the ELN. It is unlikely that the tactic of delaying in-depth treatment and focusing on channelling grievances into a political avenue will be favourably received by the guerrillas due to the negative experiences of the past. Neither should the adoption of a broad agenda be tolerated by the government, as this would only result in negotiations without end. Instead, the government should immediately address questions concerning rural development, land reform and natural resources, preferably as part of a parallel track to negotiations, and agree to a limited negotiation agenda, including these items. Crime is a Growth Industry: Addressing the Reinsertion of Demobilised Combatants Reinsertion, of course, encompasses many legal, moral, and psychological issues that cannot be ignored: it is not simply about giving the people who used to carry guns in the jungle jobs in cities. Instrumental to the reinsertion process, as various commentators have noted, is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and measures to ensure the safety of demobilised combatants Chernick, 2008).35 While taking this into account, this section will only focus on the more explicitly economic aspects of this post-conflict phase: mainly related to the reinsertion of demobilised combatants. Ten out of twenty agreements mention this aspect, and half substantively, however, it still remains vague what the state would hypothetically do with future potentially demobilised rebels. The treatment of the issue of reinsertion in the peace process is central to fostering reconciliation and is critical in preventing a relapse into armed conflict (Lederach, 1997). Reinsertion 35 The infamous annihilation of the UP members is the most well-known historical example but, El Tiempo reported that, among the ranks of the demobilised AUC, 1862 demobilised fighters have asked the state for protection and 1622 reinserted fighters have been killed. The OAS also found that 52% of the demobilised combatants they interviewed in prison had been victims of threats or had been attacked. El Tiempo, 2010 “Unos dos mil reinsertados le piden al Gobierno màs seguridad por amenazas y atentados,” May 10th 2010. 67 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 attempts to bring those who were outside, and in fact undermined, the legal structure back into this framework by creating an economic and legal space for them. We will analyse how reinsertion has been historically dealt with in the Colombian context: its costs, conditions, problems, the different treatment it has received in different agreements, and differences between the treatment of rebel groups and paramilitaries. As Morgenstein (2008: 2) states, “an essential component of any postconflict stabilization program is the permanent dismantlement of armed groups and their fruitful absorption into civilian society.” This is our definition of reinsertion. In Colombia, reinsertion programmes were often detailed only after a peace agreement was reached. The focus was placed on cease-fire and negotiation; not what followed. For example, in Article 7 of the 1984, Acuerdos de la Uribe, it was stated that FARC members could benefit from the Law 35 (1982) for reinsertion under the National Rehabilitation plan. No further details were given, and a programme for reinsertion was never created. This cursory treatment of reinsertion may partially explain why demobilisation was not achieved following this agreement. Another obvious example noted above is the agreement between the government and the M-19, which sought to reincorporate former fighters into the political fabric by transforming them into a political group. However, it did not offer a very detailed reintegration process. Nonetheless, some of the signed peace agreements which have successfully demobilised armed groups have had sophisticated reinsertion programs. The agreement with the CRS was the first to comprehensively outline a plan for reinsertion. It relabelled demobilised fighters, “promoters of peace.” Ostensibly, in return for these services, they were provided healthcare for two years and psychological support for 18 months, as well as a financial package, which included 170,000 pesos a month ($US 85), for the period of one year .36 They were also offered training in order to re-enter the job market and allowed to benefit from Decree 1934 (1992), which established the “Programa de dotacion de Tierras para miembros de Grupos Desmovilizados,”37 under which they were given small allotments of land for cultivation. The agreement with the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT) was even more comprehensive. It created the “Plan de Reconciliaciòn en la Paz,”38 which transformed the PRT into a political party and created a five point reinsertion plan including: subsistence payments, healthcare, education, preparation for work, and complementary projects (e.g. sports and cultural activities).39 This became the model adopted in later agreements, for example with the Ejèrcito Popular de Liberaciòn. The government acknowledged that it could not realise this type of elaborate reinsertion programme without financial assistance from other actors and in later agreements sought contributions from the international and business communities. In the 1991 agreement with the EPL, the parties directly invite, in article VII.3, the private sector and business community to support them. This element will need to play an important role in any future peace negotiation, as discussed below. One of the last agreements that the government successfully concluded with a guerrilla group was with MIR-COAR, an insurgent group from the city of Medellìn. 40 In this agreement, the government agreed to provide 300,000 pesos ($US 150) a month for 12 months, in return for the services of demobilised fighters, designated as “builders of peace.” The government also agreed to finance development projects to give work to MIR-COAR fighters. Furthermore, it agreed to provide 36 Article 4.9 of Corriente de la Renovacion Socialista Agreement 37 Translation: Programme for the endowment of land to members of demobilised groups 38 Translation: Plan of Reconciliation in Peace. 39 Article X, Agreement with Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores. 40 Movimiento Independiente Revolucionario-Comandos Armados. (Independent Revolutionary MovementArmed Commanders), subsequently changed its name to Movimiento de Integraciòn Regional (Movement for Regional Integration). 68 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 technical assistance and training, peace education, high school, university, and elementary education, as well as technical training. Lastly, the government even committed 80,000,000 pesos (about $US 40,000) to help find housing for ex-fighters in the city of Medellìn. In any future projects that the government undertook, it committed to include MIR COAR members, as well a broader community representation.41 Finally, the broadest and most controversial reintegration project that the government has undertaken has been with the paramilitaries. In Article 2 of the agreement of Santa Fe de Rialto, the AUC agreed to “gradually” demobilise. Although still beset by legal problems, as the United States continues to demand extraditions even after having taken custody of some of AUC's main commanders, including Salvatore Mancuso, the Ley de Justicia y Paz,42 created out of this process, was able to demobilise over 31,000 fighters and take in over 18,000 weapons from 1996-2006 (Caramés, 2009). This elaborate reinsertion programme is conducted over 18 months from the time ex-fighters settle in new areas. The programme is run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice through its Programme for Reincorporation into Civilian Life, and is operated through the Reference and Opportunity Centers (CROs). The basic programme structure includes, “help in reaching the settlement location, a personal subsistence allowance of $US155 per month for 18 months (US$ 2,790 in total), a supplement of US$ 45 to return to their communities, ethical and academic assistance, legal and psychological support and advice regarding the job market” (Caramés, 2009). In order to receive their monthly payments, the demobilised fighters need to partake in rehabilitation activities over the course of the 18 months. Despite impressive statistics, the question remains as to whether or not this demobilisation was a success. Accounts abound of new paramilitary groups forming, and evidence presented in El Tiempo (2010) suggest that formerly demobilised fighters have found “employment” with gangs and drug-traffickers having been recruited for their “combat” experience. Citing the Organisation of American States (OAS), who are responsible for verifying the reinsertion programme, Fisas and Caremés state that, “at least 4,000 demobilised paramilitaries have returned to their criminal activities” (Fisas & Caramés, 2009). This was confirmed by a statement made by AUC leader, Salvatore Mancuso in February 2007, who said that the paramilitaries were reorganising under the title of “Aguilas Negras”43 and already had 5,000 fighters. Nuevo Arco Iris calculated in 2008 that, “if we sum up the demobilized paramilitaries that have joined an armed group again, the ones that did not demobilize and the new groups that have appeared, we have, again, 10,200 combatants, spread in 102 groups that have 21 different names and presence in 246 municipalities” (Valencia, 2008). These numbers make it difficult to claim the AUC demobilisation to be “complete”; let alone “successful.” Unlike the earlier agreements with the guerrillas, the conditions for the AUC demobilisation do not appear in the respective peace agreements, but in “statutes and bills subject to democratic debate by Congress, reviewed by the Constitutional Court and regulated by the executive” (Jaramillo, Giha &Torres, 2009: 22). This means that results of negotiations with the AUC were, “significantly modified in such a way that even today there is no certainty as to the terms of the DDR process in Colombia, nor as to whether the paramilitaries will comply with conditions they did not agree to” (Jaramillo, Giha &Torres, 2009: 12). This perhaps accounts for the significant levels of recidivism under this system: levels of “buy-in” are a priori lower for conditions which are imposed rather than reached in a consultative process and this may have negative impacts on sustainability. 41 Article VI. 1, Acuerdo con el Movimiento Independiente Revolucionario-Comandos Armados 42 Translation: Justice and Peace Law 43 Translation: Black Eagles. 69 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Chernick (2008) agrees that the AUC reinsertion program is ambiguous. This poses a problem as it is the latest and broadest reinsertion program and is likely to be proposed as a model for the FARC and the ELN. It seems unlikely that either will agree to a process which leaves the future of their combatants and leaders uncertain, to be decided by democratic fiat. There have been various critics of the idea of simply duplicating the Justice and Peace Law with the guerrillas. According to Aldo Civico, trying to transpose this model onto the ELN clearly contributed to the failure of talks with this group.44 Another obvious obstacle to the success of a reintegration programme is cost. It costs large amounts of money to subsidise demobilised fighters, their healthcare, to pay for rehabilitation programmes, education, psychological care, job training, and subsequently guarantee certain levels of security. Although exact figures are difficult to calculate, which compounds the problem, some sources have estimated the budget for the AUC demobilisation from 2003-2006 at around $300 million.45 As of February 2009, the program managed by the office of the High Counsellor for Reinsertion (ACR) covered 50,000 ex-paramilitaries and insurgents, but its long-term financial sustainability may be at risk due to the increasing numbers of ex-FARC and ex-ELN fighters, who are already 35% of the total (ICG, 2009).46 With its current budget, the government's reinsertion programme would not be able to cope with the mass demobilisation of the FARC and the ELN. Related to this issue is the fact that if subsidies are not enough, or the rehabilitation is not thorough enough, then demobilised fighters are easy targets for recruitment: “Defection and demobilisation numbers depend to a large extent on the government's ability to make good on the incentives it promises to former combatants” (Morganstein, 2008). Their “work experience” is greatly appreciated by other “employers”: drug-traffickers, gangs, or New Illegal Armed Groups (NIAGs). OAS research conducted in the prisons of Bellavista, La Picota and Valledupar has also found that reasons to re-mobilise, "no son por inconformismo con los programas de Gobierno sino a las dificultades en su proceso de reintegración.”47 El Tiempo reported that more than half had taken up arms again due to lack of money. Morgenstein (2008) notes that the 358,000 Colombian Pesos (US $160) monthly stipend for demobilised combatants, is “barely enough for one person to survive a month and certainly not enough to support a family.” If the programme remains underfunded there is a serious risk that large-scale remobilisation could occur. This problem may be compounded by the government's strategy of attempting to “fracture” the FARC into smaller units. It is assumed that these units would be easier to demobilise, however, should this succeed, “it entails the serious risk of driving the resulting splinter groups not into a DDR program but into closer forms of cooperation with powerful organised criminal groups or NIAGs” (ICG, 2009). Given the economic burden imposed by providing demobilised combatants with monthly stipends, we hypothesise that greater consideration should be given to projects which allow the combatants to become productive members of society. Morgenstein (2008) suggests that there has been a chronic lack of support for government programmes like Centers for References and 44 Translation of full quote: “The Colombian government tried to repeat the scheme used for the AUC: demobilisation, reintegration, and social and political life, but it is impossible to adapt that formula to the insurgency.” 45 “In total, the government put 677.8 billion pesos ($302.6 million) into DDR from 2003 to 2006, amounting to an average $9,567.10 per collectively demobilized person.” See Caramés, A. 2009. “Colombia (AUC, 20032008)”, in A. Caramés and E. Sanz, DDR 2009. Analysis of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Programmes in the World during 2008. (Bella-terra: School for a Culture of Peace), p. 53. 46 The ACR's office budget is 180,000 million Colombian pesos (about $78.3million) per year between 2008 and 2010. The international community contributes 4 per cent. 47 Translation: “it is not because they do not want to conform to government programs, but because of problems with their reintegration.” 70 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Opportunities (CROs), El Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA),48 El Sistema de Acompañamiento, Monitoreo y Evaluaciòn (SAME),49 and the Productive Projects for Peace (PPP). He also notes that “offering the demobilised a viable economic future demands that they have proper educational, psychological, and financial support” (2008:10). Certainly, the active involvement of the business community is key, because demobilised soldiers are still regarded with a certain stigma and are consequently almost unemployable. However, “The involvement of the private sector in an employment strategy was completely neglected in the 1990s” (Jaramillo, Giha & Torres, 2009: 20). This historical neglect will need to be overcome in any future peace processes. As Morgenstein (2008: 14) concludes, “To ensure long-term success, reintegration programs require the successful collaboration of the business community to maximize job opportunities for ex-combatants.” The government must play a greater role in creating short to mid-term employment for the recently demobilised through PPPs, if remobilisation is to be prevented without massive expense. In the 1980s, the peace processes of Betancur and Barco did not always have a detailed plan for reinsertion, but under Gaviria a detailed approach to reinsertion was adopted, even considering the educational and psychological needs of demobilised fighters. Perhaps, partly as a result of this the agreements reached during his administration have been relatively sustainable, as indicated in our table (Appendix 1). However, he did not have to contend with large numbers of combatants. As noted above, Pastrana's efforts got waylaid by other issues before being able to elaborate a reinsertion plan, and Uribe's dealings with the AUC, though demobilising many, have left an unsatisfying reinsertion model. Thus, though there have been some successes in the terms of reinsertion, a model that could apply to the current situation with the guerrillas is not clearly available. Our proposal for reinsertion is founded on three pillars: firstly, the conditions must be outlined in the peace agreement to ensure “buy-in”; secondly there must be significant investment by the government in both stipends and education and training programmes; and finally active involvement from the private-sector is needed to provide employment opportunities for demobilised combatants. After six decades of violence and twenty-five years of failed peace processes, it is no surprise that all sides have difficulty imagining how reinsertion, let alone peace, can be achieved (Azcarate, 2003). Failed reinsertion is indeed very dangerous as it reinforces the idea that the violence is inevitable. A new peace agreement and process cannot afford to ignore, or relegate “future” problems to be dealt with “later.” Both the past and present have proven this path to be unsustainable. Of course, it will take time, and most certainly money, but as Lederach (1997: 78) says, “We cannot respond with quick fixes to situations of protracted conflict. We must think about the healing of people and the rebuilding of the web of their relationships in terms relative to those that it took to create the hatred and violence that has divided them.” What is needed in Colombia is a structure that will allow this process to begin. Conclusion: Economic aspects as one piece of the puzzle This paper hopes to demonstrate the importance of considering economic issues in peace processes, as previous research has tended to focus exclusively on conflict financing. We sought to advance an “economic” perspective of peace processes, creating a parallax by which the true depth of the conflict can be appreciated. Each aspect, if successfully dealt with can serve as a confidence building measure. As Chernick (2008: 101) notes: “Los processos de paz no deben depender sòlo de la voluntad polìtica. Deben estructurarse para calmar las preocupaciones y crear dinàmicas que 48 49 Translation: the National Learning Service Translation: the System for Tracking, Monitoring, and Evaluation 71 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 cambien las percepciones y las tàcticas de cada parte combatiente.”50 We cannot engineer political will but, by explicating the economic obstacles to a future peace process and offering some suggestions on how to resolve these issues, we hope that a more conducive environment can be created for peace in Colombia. Firstly, we have the firm conviction that the obstacles presented by the sources of conflict financing can be overcome, through mechanisms such as an anti-kidnapping fund and financial commitment to alternative agricultural development. Secondly, we stress the necessity of addressing the economic grievances which precipitated the conflict. This will not only facilitate negotiations but generally improve the quality of life for millions of Colombians. Finally, we suggest that if sustainable peace is to be achieved, the Colombian peace process will need to seriously consider the reinsertion of demobilised combatants and clearly outline the details of this reinsertion programme in any future peace agreement with the FARC or the ELN. Our table illustrates that no process included all the economic issues which we deem pivotal, but many of the more sustainable agreements incorporated some of our suggestions. More study is needed however. The issues explored above are highly interlinked. By way of illustration, it seems evident that the elimination of the drug trade, considered in the first section, will require land reform and rural development projects, issues central to the second section, which could incorporate demobilised combatants, as described in the third section of the paper. Furthermore, we realise that many of the issues highlighted breach the conceptual barriers which typically demarcate the boundaries of conflict resolution. However, we believe that a peace agreement must ultimately be embedded in a society-wide push for a culture of peace, thus many subjects must be broached during the peace process. As the former spokesperson for the ELN, Francisco Galàn has stated, the various “violences” in Colombia have become entangled. He proposes four “agreements” to promote this broader culture of peace: 1) Un acuerdo mundial con paìses afectados 2) Un acuerdo entre estado (que tiene que ser legitimo) y la sociedad 3) Una oferta que saque los violentos de la violencia necessita la seguridad y respecta la dignidad 4) La promoción de una cultura de paz atravès la educación.51 We believe that his panoptic view would demand a peace process with a robust economic framework and could be integrated with our own findings. The peace process needed in Colombia cannot be understood as a discrete part of the government's political agenda: it is embedded in the broader national and international context. Consequently, the enabling environment called for, demands the reform of economic, foreign and defence policies, as well as a reconsideration of the relationship between public and private sectors. This also brings us close to the overarching ERICAapproach (La estrategia de resoluciòn integral del conflicto armado) advocated by Markus SchultzeKraft (2009). However, the important difference in our approach to that of Galàn and Schultze-Kraft is that we do not believe that these reforms preclude peace negotiations. On the contrary, these reforms should be integrated into the peace processes with the FARC and the ELN. 50 Translation: The peace process cannot depend only on political will. They need to be structured so that they address fears and create the dynamics that can change perceptions and the tactics of each side. 51 Translation: “1) Global agreement with affected countries 2) Agreement between the state (which must be legitimate) and society 3) An opportunity to help the violent exit violence requires security and respect for dignity 4) The promotion of a culture of peace through education. 72 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 If the past has taught us anything, it is that a small number of guerrillas can keep an insurgency going, and that military means alone will not solve this conflict. Sooner or later dialogue must begin again. Hopefully the next (last?) time we will have learned our lessons. APPENDIX 1 Table 1.0: Comparison of the Peace Processes We wanted to look at the past peace processes through the lens of our explanatory variables. The agreements are ordered chronologically and then classified: some are final agreements, while others are either provisional, preparatory or simply agendas. We then determined whether our explanatory variables are present and to what degree they are treated, varying from No, Cursory, to Substantive or Delayed (which meant that it was mentioned but as something to be dealt with in another forum). Where these variables are present we cite the relevant articles. We wished to determine whether the presence of our variables affect the sustainability of the agreements. The “Sustainability Grade” is made up of three other variables each graded from 02, and an extra point for agreements that engaged armed groups that were larger than 2,000 fighters: giving a maximum grade of 7. We award an additional point for agreements with the largest groups because demobilising these groups would have the greatest impact. These variables are: the length of the cease-fire (0 points if no cease-fire was part of the agreement, 1 point for 3 years or less, and 2 for more than 3 years); the channelling of grievances politically (1 point for the creation of a political party or inclusion in a constituent assembly, 2 points for both, 0 for neither), and the percentage of fighters demobilised (0 points for 0-20%, 1 point 21-80%, 2 points for 81-100%). The breakdown of the Sustainability Grade for each agreement is not present on the table because of space constraints and to enhance readability. As an example, our highest rated agreement was the M-19 accord, which gained 6 points. It lasted for more than 3 years, (2 points); created both a political party and allowed the group to participate in a constituent assembly, (2 points) and demobilised all of the M-19 fighters. (2 points) However, since M-19 were less than 2,000 fighters they did not received the extra point gained by agreements including the FARC, ELN, EPL and AUC. This remains a limited analysis as even an agreement that considers many issues may not score highly because it is not a final agreement, producing demobilisation. We tentatively suggest that having more of our explanatory variables present leads to greater sustainability in final agreements. However, no past agreement has dealt with all of them together. Legend: *= Multiple Articles; ** = implicitly; *** = References previous agreement; ° = Never Ratified by ELN Command. 73 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Categorizations Date Armed Group Title 1984 ACUERDOS DE LA URIBE ACUERDO DE 1984 PROLONGACION DE LA TREGUA 1991 FINAL PEACE ACCORD M19 (Santo Domingo, Cauca) PARTIDO REVOLUCIONARIO DE LOS TRABAJADORES 1991 ACUERDO DE CRAVO NORTE ACUERDO FINAL GOBIERNO 1991 NACIONAL-EJÈRCITO POPULAR DE LIBERACION Govt. FARC-EP Betancur No FARC-EP Betancur No Simon Bolivar, 1984 ACUERDO DE CRAVO NORTE Antonio Nariño 1990 Economic Variables Third Party M19 Type EG Curs. No Cease fire Art. 8.b, x c, f Curs. Curs. Provisional Art. 1 Art. 4 No Betancur No Barco Yes Provisional Final PRT Gaviria No Final CGSB Gaviria No Agenda No x Gaviria Yes CON EL ARMADO Gaviria Yes Final ACUERDOS ENTRE LOS Ernesto 1992 COMANDOS ERNESTO ROJAS Y Rojas EL GOBIERNO NACIONAL Gaviria Yes Final CRS Gaviria No Final ELN Samper Yes Draft ° Yes Final 1994 CORRIENTE DE RENOVACION SOCIALISTA 1998 DECLARACION DE VIANA No Samper 1998 ACUERDO DE LA PUERTA DEL CIELO Delegates of Civil Yes Society ELN AGENDA COMÙN POR EL 1999 CAMBIO HACIA UNA NUEVA FARC-EP Pastrana COLOMBIA No Agenda ACUERDO DE SAN FARC-EP Pastrana FRANCISCO DE LA SOMBRA No Provisional No Provisional 2001 x Art. 8 ACUERDO POR COLOMBIA EL GOBIERNO 2001 ENTRE COLOMBIANO Y EL ELN FARC-EP Pastrana Pastrana Yes ACUERDO DE CRONOGRAMA EL FARC-EP Pastrana 2002 DE CONSENSO PARA FUTURO DEL PROCESO DE PAZ Yes 2002 ACUERDO DE SANTA FE DE RALITO 2004 ACUERDO DE FATIMA ELN AUC AUC Uribe Uribe Yes Yes No x No x x No x No Del. No No x No x Art. 20 x No x Art. 7.17.4 Art. 3 x Chptr 4* Subs. No Subs. Art. 6.16.8 Subs. No Art. 10 x Curs. No ** Art 3 Art. 9 x Art.6 No Del. No Art. 1 x x Art. 8 Curs.* Curs. No * Art. Art. 6 x 10 No No No Curs. Provisional Art. 4 x x x Art. 6 iii Curs. Del. Curs. No *** Provisional Art. Art. 2 Art. 2 x 10 Art.12 No Curs. No Del. Provisional x Art. 7 x Art. 2 Final x Curs. No Art. 6 x f 6 5 1 Reinsertion IDP= Internally Displaced People Curs. = Cursory Subs. = 4 No Substantive Del. = 5 Delayed No x 4 No x 2 x 1 No x 5 Del. Art. 3 Art. 5 No No Kidnapping R= No x Del. x x Drugs K= 0 No Art. 3.aj, Art. 7.1 - 7.6 Del. x x EG= Economic Grievances D= 3 No x x x x Art. 10, Art. A, B, C 7.6 x 3 No Curs. Curs. No x Subs. Subs. x x x Subs. No No Art. 8 No x Subs. No Chptr 1* x Art. 2 x x Art. 9. a No No 2001 ACUERDO DE LOS POZOS x Curs. No Del. Provisional No Grade No Curs. x x No x x Art. 2 IDP No Curs. No No No ACUERDO CON MOVIMIENTO MIRINDEPENDIENTE REVOLUCIONAROCOAR COMMANDOS ARMADOS Art. 4 Curs. No 1998 Curs. No Art. 6 Final MAQL Art. 2 Art. 7 Art. 7 Art. 10 R Curs. Curs. Del. No Del. ACUERDO FINAL 1991 MOVIMIENTO QUENTÌN LAME x K Del. No EPL D Sustainability Del. Art.1c Art. 13 1 No x 3 No x 3 No x 3 No x 1 No x 3 No x 4 No x 5 74 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 References Books, Articles and Papers Arnson, Cynthia J., 2001, “The Peace Process in Colombia and US Policy,” prepared for the conference on “Democracy, Human Rights, and Peace in Colombia,” University of Notre Dame March 26-27, 2001. Retrieved Online at: http://peacemaker.unlb.org/index1.php Azcarate, Camilo. 2003 “Why did the Colombian Peace Process Fail?” The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution. (Vol. 5, No. 1) pp.57-65 Bushnell, David, 1996 Colombia una naciòn a pesar di sì misma: de los tiempos precolombinos a nuestros dìas. (University of California Press, Bogotà) Original title, “The making of Modern Colombia. A Nation in Spite of Itself.” Boudon, Lawrence. 1996. “Guerrillas and the State: The Role of the State in the Colombian Peace Process” Journal of Latin American Studies (Vol. 28) pp. 279-297 Briggs, Rachel. 2002 “Prime Numbers: Hostage, Inc.” Foreign Policy 1st July 2002. Caramés, A..2009 “Colombia (AUC, 2003-2008)”, in A. Caramés and E. Sanz, 2009. Analysis of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Programmes in the World during 2008. (School for a Culture of Peace, Bella-terra) Cardenas, Maria Cristina. 2003. “Colombia's Peace Process: The Continuous Search for Peace”, Florida Journal of International Law (Vol. 15) pp.273-297 CIP (Center for International Policy). 2010. “Plan Colombia: A victory for “Reverse Land Reform” 1st April 2010. Retrieved online at: http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1451 Chernick, Marc. 2009. “The FARC at the Negotiating Table” in Bouvier, Virginia M. (Ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (United States Institute of Peace, Washington) -2008. Acuerdo Posible: Soluciòn negociada al conflicto armado Colombiano, (Ediciones Aurora, Bogotà) -2005 “Economic Resources and Internal Armed Conflict: Lessons from the Colombian Case”, in Cynthia Arnson and William Zartman (eds.) Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed and Greed (Washington D.C.: Hopkins University Press) -1999. “Negotiating Peace amid Multiple Forms of Violence: The Protracted Search for a Settlement to the Armed Conflicts in Colombia” in Arnson, Cynthia J. (Ed.) Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America. (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington) Collier, Paul, 2000. Economic causes of civil conflict and their implications for policy. (Washington, DC World Bank) Davis, Mike. 2009. “Why should Mediators consider the Economic Dimensions of Conflicts?” Background Paper: The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. July 2009. (Geneva: The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue) Douma, P.S. 2003 The Political Economy of Internal Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of Angola, Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. (Clingendael, The Hague) Deininger, Klaus. 2003 Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction: A World Bank Policy Research Report (Oxford University Press, New York) 75 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Fisas, Vinçenc, and Albert Caramés, 2009, Escola de Pau report on Reinsertion in Colombia, Retrieved online at: http://escolapau.uab.cat/english/programas/ddr.php FIP (Fundaciòn Ideas para la Paz). 2009. “El acuerdo militar entre Colombia y los Estados Unidos: una apuesta stratégica,” Siguiendo el conflicto: hechos y anàlisis, nùmero 57. Gamboa, Miguel. 2001. “Democratic Discourse and the Conflict in Colombia” Latin American Perspectives (Vol. 28, No. 1) pp.93-109. Garcia, Victoria. 2002. “In the Spotlight: United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)” The Center For Defense Information Issue Brief. Retrieved online at: http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/auc-pr.cfm Greenhill, Kelly M. and Major, Solomon. 2006. “The Perils of Profiling: Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace Accords.” International Security (Vol. 31, No. 3) p.7-40. Guaqueta, Alexandra. 2003 “The Colombian Conflict: Political and Economic Dimensions.” in Ballentine, Karen and Sherman, Jack. (Eds.) The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance. (Lynne Rienner, Colorado) Isacson, Adam and Poe, Abigail. 2009 “After Plan Colombia: Evaluating 'Integrated Action', the next-phase of US Assistance.” International Policy Report. (Center for International Policy) Retrieved online at: http://justf.org/content/after-plan-colombia. ICG (International Crisis Group). 2009. “Uribe's possible third term and conflict resolution in Colombia,” Latin American Report No.31. -2009. “Ending Colombia's FARC Conflict: Dealing the Right Card.” Latin America Report No. 30 -2007. “Colombia: Moving Forward with the ELN?” Latin America Briefing No 16. Jaramillo, Daniel Garcia-Peña. 2007 “Colombia: In Search of a New Model for Conflict Resolution.” in Peace, Democracy and Human Rights in Colombia (Notre Dame Press, Indiana.) Jaramillo, Sergio; Giha, Yaneth and Torres, Paula. 2009 “Transitional Justice and DDR: The Case of Colombia,” Research Brief: June 2009 (International Center for Transitional Justice, New York) retrieved online at: http://www.ictj.org/static/Publications/Giha_Torres_Jaramillo_DDR_Colombia_ResearchBrief_RB_2009. pdf Kryzanek, Michael J. 2008. U.S.- Latin American Relations (Praeger Publishers, Westport Connecticut) Lederach, John Paul. 1997. Building Peace: sustainable reconciliation in divided societies, (United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC) Metelits, Claire. 2010. Inside Insurgency: Violence, Civilians, and Revolutionary Group Behaviour. (New York University Press, New York) Morgenstein, Jonathan. 2008. “Consolidating Disarmament: Lessons from Colombia's Reintegration Program for Demobilized Paramilitaries,” United States Institute of Peace Special Report 217. Retreived online at: http://www.usip.org/resources/consolidating-disarmament-lessons-colombia-s-reintegration-programdemobilized-paramilitar. Nasi, Carlo. 2009. “Colombia's Peace Processes, 1982-2002: Conditions, Strategies and Outcomes.” in Bouvier, Virginia M. (Ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (United States Institute of Peace, 76 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Washington) PCN. 2001. The Kidnap Industry in Colombia: Our Business? (Pax Christi Netherlands, Utrecht) Pécaut, Daniel. 2008. Les FARC, une Guérilla sans fins? (Lignes de Repères, Paris) Rubio, Mauricio. 2004 “Kidnapping and Armed Conflict in Colombia.” Paper Presented at the PRIO Workshop “Techniques of Violence in Civil War.” Retrieved online at: http://uniset.ca/terr/art/colombiakidnapping.pdf Sanin, Francisco G. 2003. “Criminal Rebels? A Discussion of War and Criminality from the Colombian Experience.” Crisis States Program Working Paper No.27 (London School of Economics, London) Schultze-Kraft, Markus. 2009.“La estrategia de resoluciòn integral del conflicto armado: y la construcciòn del poder y del orden en Colombia,” Boletìn de Coyuntura, August-December 2009 No. 18 Solimano, Andrés. 2004. "Political Violence and Economic Development in Latin America," Macroeconomia del Desarrollo Series. No.30. (United Nation Economic Commission for Latin American and the Carribean, Santiago.) Retreived online at: http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/4/20394/lcl2194i.pdf Suarez, Afredo Rangel. 2000. “Parasites and Predators: Guerrillas and the Insurrection Economy of Colombia” Journal of International Affairs (Vol.53, No. 2) pp.577-602 Valencia, Leon. 2009. “The ELN's Halting Moves towards Peace” in Bouvier, Virginia M. (Ed.), Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (United States Institute of Peace, Washington) Wennmann, Achim. 2010. “Guidelines for Mediators: Development Assistance,” CCDP Issue Brief 2, February 2010. -2009 “Socio-economic Inequalities and Peace in Nepal” CCDP Working Paper 2 (CCDP, Geneva) -2007. Money Matters: Economic Dimensions of Peace Mediation. PSIS Occasional Paper Number 4. (PSIS, Geneva) Wennmann, Achim; and Krause, Jana 2009. “Managing the Economic Dimensions of Peace Processes: Resource Wealth, Autonomy, and Peace in Aceh,” CCDP Working Paper 3 (CCDP, Geneva) Zartman, 2009. “Conflict Resolution and Negotiation.” in Bercovitch, Jacob; Kremenyuk, Victor; and Zartman, William.(Eds) The Sage Handbook of Conflict Resolution. (Sage Publications, London.) Statistical Information FPL (Fundación País Libre). 2008 “Estadísticas Secuestro Generales Enero de 1996 – Mayo 2008”. Retreived online at: http://www.redepaz.org.co/IMG/pdf/Estadisticas_Generales_del_secuestro_en_Colombia.pdf CEPAL (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean). 2009. Statistical Yearbook for Latin American and the Caribbean. Retrieved online at: http://websie.eclac.cl/anuario_estadistico/anuario_2009/pdf/Anuario_2009.pdf Newspaper Articles, Published Letters and Interviews by others th El Tiempo. 2011 “'Empresa que pague extorsiòn a FARC se va del Paìs', advierte Santos,”March 10 , 2011, retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/santos-advierte-que-empresa-que-le-pague-a-laguerrilla-se-va-del-pais_8996002-4 77 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 th - 2011 “La puerta De La Paz No Està Cerrada,” February 5 , 2011, retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-8827547 - 2010 “Unos dos mil reinsertados le piden al Gobierno màs seguridad por amenazas y atentados,” May 10th, 2010, retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/justicia/unos-dos-mil-reinsertados-lepiden-al-gobierno-mas-seguridad-por-amenazas-y-atentados_7700959-1 - 2008. "Millones marcharon contra las FARC," February 3 rd, 2008 retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3943495 -2006. “Gobierno Se ofrece a buscar plata para que el ELN deje de secuestrar” 13th October, 2006. Retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-2237267 th -2006. “Uribe Ofrece Pagar a ELN Si No Sequestro.” 13 October 2006. retreived online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-2237252 Cepeda, Ivàn Castro. 2011 “Està Cerca El Fin Del Secuestro? Contesta Ivàn Cepeda,” El Tiempo, February 12th, 2011, retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-8850845 Escarguel, Olivier. 2009 “Chavez Uribe y las FARC,” El Tiempo, January 5th, 2009. Retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-4743349 th La Semana, 1999. Interview with Andres Pastrana.“Creo en la palabra de tirofijo,” January 25 1999 retrieved online at: http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/creo-palabra-tirofijo/35398.aspx Massé, Frédéric. 2006. “Financiar El Desminado”, El Tiempo. 28th October 2006 retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-2252756 Secretariado del Estado Mayor Central de las FARC-EP. 2008. “Response to Senator Piedad Cordoba and th Colombianos Por La Paz,” 17 December 2008. Retrieved online at : http://www.piedadcordoba.net/piedadparalapaz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2907&m ode=thread&order=0&thold=0 Tull, Jim. 2001. “Negociar ante todo,” La Semana, October 22, 2001. Retrieved online at: http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/negociar-ante-todo/20713.aspx Valencia, Leon. 2008. “The Situation of the War,” originally published in Cambio magazine December 5th, 2008. Retrieved online at: http://www.nuevoarcoiris.org.co/sac/?q=node/269 Vidal, Margarita. 2009. Interview of Aldo Civico “Colombia necesita un nuevo pacto polìtico,” El Paìs (Cali), th December 27 , 2009. Yefe, Luis Guillermo Forero. 2011 “Alfonso Cano caerà como cayò el Mono Jojoy: Santos,” El Tiempo, February 17, 2011, retrieved online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/ARTICULO-WEBNEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-8872541.html Peace agreements All Peace Agreements are retrieved Online at: http://peacemaker.unlb.org/index1.php Acuerdo de Cravo Norte, 15/05/1991 Acuerdo de Cronograma de Consenso Para El Futuro del Processo de Paz, 20/01//2002 Acuerdo De La Puerta Del Cielo, 15/07/1998 78 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 Acuerdo De Los Pozos, 09/02/2001 Acuerdo De Prolongacion De La Tregua, 02/03/1986 Acuerdo De San Franciso De La Sombra Para Concretar Y Consolidar El Proceso De Paz, 05/10/2001 Acuerdo de Santa Fe de Ralito Para Contribuir a la Paz de Colombia, 15/07/2003 Acuerdo entre la Comision de Paz, Diàlogo y Verificaciòn y los Destacamentos Simòn Bolìvar Y Antonio Nariño Del Ejército de Liberaciòn Nacional, ELN, 20/07/1986 Acuerdo Entre Los Comandos Ernesto Rojas Y El Gobierno Nacional, 20/03/1992 Acuerdo Final Entre El Gobierno Nacional y el Movimiento Armado Quintìn Lame, 07/02/2002 Acuerdos De La Uribe, 28/03/1984 Agenda Comùn Por El Cambio Hacia Una Nueva Colombia, 06/05/1999 Declaraciòn de Viana, 09/02/1998 Interviews th Civico, Aldo, Director of Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, Interview, 17 May 2010 Geneva. Former FARC Commander. Telephone Interview. 24th May 2010. Galàn, Francisco, Former Spokeperson for the ELN, Telephone interview May 30th, 2010. Schultze-Kraft, Markus. Director, International Crisis Group. Latin America Unit. Telephone Interview 20 th May 2010. 79 Civilization: The West and the Rest Reviewed by Nubia Nieto∗ Ferguson, N. (2011). Civilization: The West and the Rest. London, Allen Lane-Penguin Books, 402p. Civilization: The West and the Rest is an excellent book analysing the rise of Western dominance over the past five centuries. Ferguson argues that Western civilization developed six killer applications that “the Rest” lacked: 1) competition, 2) science, 3) property rights, 4) medicine, 5) consumer society, and 6) work ethic. Interestingly, Niall Ferguson, who is a professor of history at Harvard University and the London School of Economics, does not emphasize “The triumph of the West” so much as the weakness of the Rest, which, he argues, made it relatively easy for the West to consolidate its power and continue to dominate, even after 500 years. Ferguson, who is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, takes readers on an extraordinary journey through the history of empires, pointing out significant weaknesses and strengths in some of the most important civilisations around the world – from China to the Muslim World, from the Incas in South America to the Manhattan in New York, and from Namibia in Africa to the National Assembly in France. The author of more than eleven books, dozens of articles and many television documentary series’ such as Empire, American Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, and most recently, Civilization, asks the question of whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six killer applications, which underpin Western dominance. If so, Ferguson warns, Western ascendancy may be coming to an end. As one may expect, “the West” is not treated as a geographical expression in the book, so much as a set of norms, behaviours, and institutions with borders that are blurred in the extreme. In this framework, Ferguson identifies the six complex elements mentioned above, all of which involve institutions, ideas, and behaviours that have resulted in Western supremacy. Ferguson explores each his six “applications” in detail. First of all, he analyses competition in the framework of the Chinese empire. He points out that in the 15th century, China was the most advanced civilisation in the world, while European civilisation was comparatively insignificant. The river Yangzi was a complex waterway that linked Nanjing to Beijing more than 500 miles to the north, while European rivers were comparatively underused. Chinese civilization was also the technological innovation centre, with printing, paper, paper money, wallpaper, toilet paper, chemical insecticide, the fishing reel, matches, the magnetic compass, playing cards, toothbrushes, and many other advances to its credit. However, Ferguson argues, there was a lack of competition in China, enforced by a monolithic empire which stifled colonial expansion and economic innovation. On the contrary, in Europe, competition was a part of life. Europe itself was politically fragmented and within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing entities. This competition allowed for a decentralization of both political and economic life, which created the launch-pad for both nation-states and capitalism, and encouraged Europeans to seek opportunities in distant lands. For Ferguson, the second killer application is science, described as a way of studying, understanding, and ultimately changing the natural world, which gave the West, among other things, a major military advantage in terms of improvements in weaponry. As described in the book, ∗ Nubia Nieto is a journalist and researcher, she holds a Ph.D. in Geopolitics from the Sorbonne University Panthéon I- Paris, France. 80 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 the 16th and 17th centuries were the age of science in Europe, with an extraordinary number of breakthroughs in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology, putting the West far ahead of the Rest. Ferguson examines the role of European science in relation to the decline of the Muslim world after 1683, particularly, with the departure of the Ottoman army from Vienna. In that time, the Muslim World was the most powerful civilization on Earth, boasting great advances in mathematics, algebra, astronomy, and chemistry. Nevertheless, according to Ferguson, the descent of the Muslim Empire was triggered not only for a severe fiscal crisis, high corruption, bribery, favouritism, religious conflicts and deterioration in administrative standards, but also for the limitation of science. Religion overshadowed science, giving Europe a huge advantage, particularly in military terms. Ferguson understands “property rights”, the third Western advantage, as the use of law as a means of protecting private owners and peacefully resolving disputes between them, which formed the basis for the most stable form of representative government. To make his point in this section, Ferguson veers away from “the Rest” and compares the arrival of Spanish conquerors to South America and the English settlers in North America in the 17th century. He concludes that the success of English domination in the U.S can be traced to their conception of property rights inherited from the theories of John Locke. South America, by contrast, implemented a feudal system based on the concentration of lands in the hands of a tiny elite, an arrangement which continues to drive conflict in this region based on inequalities in land distribution and a corresponding lack of democracy. To this day, the Latin American elite have largely maintained control over political power and property rights, resulting in authoritarianism and the extreme concentration of wealth. The forth killer application is medicine, described as a branch of science that allowed for a major improvement in health and life expectancy. According to Ferguson, the development of Medicine improved quality of life, life expectancy, and productivity in European societies, as well their colonies. The fifth of the “killer apps” analysed by Ferguson is consumer society, which is understood as a mode of material living in which the production and purchase of clothing and other consumer goods play a central economic role, and without which the Industrial Revolution would have been unsustainable. For Ferguson, consumer society created a huge demand for more, better, and cheaper goods, from cotton garments to enhanced technologies of production. Ferguson underlines that consumer society was key in the supremacy of West vis-à-vis the Rest, as it enticed the whole world to embrace an entire culture of consumption, encompassing clothing, music and movies, soft drinks and fast food. This consumer society carries with a subtle message. It is about freedom. The right to dress, drink or eat whatever that you want. It is also about democracy and capitalism. This is a reflection of belonging to the West. According to Ferguson, the sixth killer application is work ethic, described as a moral framework and mode of activity derivable from, among other sources, Protestant Christianity, which provided a measure of stability and duty to balance the dynamic and potentially unstable values created by competition and consumer society. Ferguson argues that Protestantism was essential to develop capitalism, as adherents devoted themselves to work as a purpose of life, contributing then to reinforce the supremacy of the West. 81 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 While the U.S. and other colonies have inherited this doctrine, however, China and other Asian countries have long embraced the “love of hard work”, even as this ethic declines in the West. According to Ferguson, the Western package still seems to offer human societies the best available set of economic, social, and political institutions, the ones most likely to unleash the individual human creativity capable of solving the problems the twenty-first century world faces. Ferguson argues that, over the past half-millennium, no civilization has done a better job of finding and educating the geniuses that lurk in the margins of the distribution of talent in any human society. The big question is whether or not the West is still able to recognize the value of that package. Ferguson, who is also adviser of the British education secretary, concludes that the real threat is posed not by the rise of China, Islam or C02 emissions, but by the loss of faith in the civilization that Westerners inherited from their ancestors. Today, he argues, as then, the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by the historical ignorance that has long been part of Western civilization. 82 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict (5th ed) Reviewed by Jephias Mapuva* Green, L.C (2005). The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict (5th ed), Manchester University, London. As the book’s title “The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict” implies, its coverage broadly hovers around issues of human rights, focusing particularly on those that are violated in situations of war or those which should be upheld by warring factions. In the book, the authors bring to the fore recent developments affecting the law of armed conflict globally. Among these developments are treaties dealing with the use of specialized weapons of war such as lasers and anti-personnel mines, both of which are a threat to humanity. In the interim, the International Court of Justice has been symphonized into the furore of arms of mass destruction by being called upon to render an advisory opinion concerning the use (and abuse) of nuclear weapons by those countries that have them. One of the salient points raised in the book is the vital role played by international tribunals that “help to create a jurisprudence on the criminality of breaches of the law with a process for enforcing that law” (pxvi). The book also clarifies the role of the law as it affects non-international armed conflicts, paying special attention to the manner in which the International Criminal Court advocates for the continued creation of ad hoc tribunals that are usually established in the aftermath of a conflict. The book further makes recommendations on the ways of enforcing the law in conflict zones and legal modalities of bringing the perpetrators to book. The book is divided into 21sections, each playing a complementary role towards a holistic, highly informative, educative, and authoritative book on conflict management and resolution from a legal perspective. Some of the important issues raised in the book include ‘the legality of war and the law of armed conflict” (section 1), which defines “war”, and discussed how war can be criminalized both from the perspectives of Napoleon, the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations. Section 2 explores the sources and history of the law of armed conflicts with emphasis being put on human suffering. Section 3 offers a philosophically-based assessment of the issue by explaining armed conflict from a classical standpoint. Section 6, dealing with “Lawful Combatants”, delves into the contemporary law of armed conflict. Another area of note in the book is the section on “prisoners of war” (section10). Prisoners of war and their exchange have been an area which has hit international headlines in recent years as a precursor to the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts. Under this section, the authors offer a detailed synopsis of how prisoners of war should be treated according to international law. Also discussed is the establishment of Truth Commissions as an attempt to create national healing between former foes, and the role of civil society more generally. The roles and allegiances of civilian populations are often controversial, and this contentious issue is dealt with at length in sections 14, 15, and 16. In sections 18, 19, 20, and 21, the authors adopt a thematic approach, focusing on the postconflict period, which is usually characterized by assessments of war damages, breaches of law, and the role of intervention institutions like the United Nations in sustaining the ceasefire or peace agreement thereof. The last few chapters provide a post-mortem of the effects of armed conflicts, not only on the civilian population, but on those perceived to have breached certain provisions during the armed conflict, usually the warring factions. However, what seems to be the most visible weakness of the book is the fact that it draws most of its precedence from the remote past, leaving aside more vivid examples of armed conflicts which readers would be more acquainted with, or with more recent international treaties and * Jephias Mapuva is PhD student in the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape. 83 Peace and Conflict Review Spring 2011 protocols that practitioners and casual readers would most likely identify with more than, say the League of Nations or archaic personalities like Napoleon. Interdisciplinary in nature, the contribution of this book will be especially appreciated by legal practitioners, those aspiring to join the legal profession, students of international and human rights law, scholars and practitioners of public international law, employees of international humanitarian organizations, and all those involved with conflict resolution and management. Written in simple and accessible language, the book nevertheless provides great intellectual authority, and is highly recommended for scholars and practitioners alike. 84