Published on the
website of the
Churches' Commission
on Mission (www.ccom.org.uk)
“Searching for Peace”
Southeast Asia and the Pacific Workshop, Manila, June 4-6, 2002
For the purpose of this
workshop it might be interesting to compare the cases of Bougainville and the
Solomon Islands, Bougainville in my view being a success story of post conflict
peace building so far, whereas in the case of the Solomon Islands (SI) a lot of
mistakes have been made. In terms of „lessons learned“, a comparison of these
two cases leads me to stress the following five factors, which seem to be of
major importance for successful peace building:
The first one is time. One
has to keep in mind that different concepts of time, depending on cultural
contexts, are of major significance for peace building processes. Traditional
time regimes differ from modern western time regimes. „Unmelanesian haste“ is
no good for peace building.
The Bougainville peace
process was and is framed in a long-term perspective. In the SI it was thought
that quick solutions could be possible or had to be strived for. (John Roughan
of SIDT (Solomon Islands Development Trust) in a very recent article points to
the fact that in SI history since independence „quick, easy fix has been a clear
governance pattern“, that the political class of that country tends to resort
„to the quick, easy solution“ to deep structural problems, again and again
looking for „the quick, easy answer to
difficult problems“ - with the result of failing again and again.) The first
rounds of talks and negotiations between the parties in the Bougainville
conflict in New Zealand in 1997/98 used to take weeks; the New Zealand hosts did not dictate a time table, they
provided for a lot of free time, so that there was enough time for the
representatives of the parties to adjust, to warm up so to speak, to spend time
with each other without the duress of a tight time schedule. This proved to be
very important for overcoming the tense atmosphere which almost naturally prevails
when people start talking to each other who have been at war with each other
for years. Not so in the SI case: The Australian hosts to the Townsville peace
talks in October 2000 dictated a very tight time table to the conflict parties:
They were supposed to have come to a settlement within three days, this was „generously“ extended to
six days during the talks.
In Bougainville no time
frame was given regarding weapons disposal; at the beginning there was only
general agreement that there should be a phased weapons disposal by the
Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA; the secessionist guerilla) and the
Resistance Forces (anti-BRA Bougainvilleans fighting the secessionists
alongside the military forces of the central government of Papua New Guinea) and
a phased wihtdrawal of PNGDF (Papua New Guinea Defence Forces, the military of
the government) from the island. All sides refrained from using their weapons
and even from showing them in public after first a truce (in October 1997) and
then a cease fire (in April 1998) had come into effect. However, it was only
after the peace process had stabilised that more concrete plans for weapons
disposal were worked out, and the process of real weapons disposal only started
in December 2001, that is four years after cessation of armed conflict, and the process is still
going on and no definite dates for completion have been set. The process is in
three stages: in the first stage weapons are to be locked away locally in containers
under the control of local commanders; in the second stage weapons are put
together in more central containers under a double-key regime: one key held by
a local commander, one key held by a UN representative; in the third stage “the
final state of the weapons” has to be decided. No dates have been set as to when the stages have to be
accomplished; this depends on the local circumstances. Most areas at present
are in stage one, several areas in stage two already. In contrast to this
lengthy process, in the SI case the TPA (Townsville Peace Agreement) stipulated
that weapons disposal should take place within thirty days. Of course, that deadline was not met, and the time
frame for weapons disposal had to be extended again and again, thus making any
deadline untrustworthy. At present the new SI government has set another – as
they say: final – deadline, namely the end of May. I guess that this deadline
has been passed as all the others before with the bulk of the high-powered
weapons stolen during the coup days of June 2000 still at large and in the
hands of the militants and criminal elements (although it must be added that a
few days ago police officers who had joined the MEF militia (Malaita Eagle
Force) in June 2000 surrendered a substantial amount of weapons late in May).
Summarising this point, we
have to be aware that the Bougainville peace process has meanwhile lasted for
five years already, with more than twenty rounds of high level negotiations,
and the Bougainville Peace Agreement of August 2001 envisages another 10 to 15
years of a transitional period until a final settlement shall be achieved via a
referendum on the future political status of Bougainville, during this
transitional period Bougainville is granted substantial autonomy – short of
independence. Peace building in Bougainville was and is very much process-focussed, not so much
outcome-focussed, and this seems to be important for positive outcomes. By
contrast, in the SI case, quick results were strived for, process-orientation
was neglected – with rather negative results so far.
Second, the factor inclusiveness and participation: In
Bougainville a very broad process was organised, trying to include all
stakeholders at all levels of society. Not so in the Solomons. In the case of
Bougainville, talks and negotiations in Burnham, Christchurch and so on were
each attended by hundreds of
Bougainvilleans, not only by the political and military leadership of the
warring sides. This broad participation gauranteed the commitment, stability
and implementation of agreements reached. For instance, truce and ceasefire
agreements were not only signed by the top political and military
representatives of the conflicting parties, but also by the local commanders of
the BRA and the Resistance Forces as well as by representatives of civil society
and by traditional authorities, e.g. church leaders and village elders. This
made the agreements more binding and easier to implement. (Even an intransigent
faction of the BRA, re-named Me’ekamui Defence Force, which has not taken an
active part in the peace process so far, has at no time disturbed the process
and tacitly adheres to the cease-fire). For in a situation where the war is
somewhat „blurred at the edges“ – as was the case in Bougainville (and as it is in many Third World wars) –
agreements made only between the „top brass“ are of doubtful value, because
formal political and military leaders often have no factual control over
„their“ fighting units. By putting their signatures to the agreements the lower
ranking commanders had more of a stake in them and felt a greater obligation to
observe them, and, likewise, the representatives of both modern and traditional
civil institutions in society took on a
shared responsibility for keeping the truce and the ceasefire and stabilising
the situation. Even more, the presence of
members of civil society and traditional authorities was of utmost
importance for the success of the negotiations. They in a way constituted a
„third party“ in addition to the conflicting parties, reflecting the feelings
of the grassroots, expressing the war-weariness and longing for peace. This
„third Party“ consisted of representatives of modern civil society – NGO’s,
especially church groups and women’s groups – and representatives of customary social structures – elders and chiefs,
whose authority was recognised by the
conflicting parties or whose opinions could not be ignored if the negotiators
were not to work in isolation from the people at the grassroots. Of special
importance was the involvement of women.
On account of the matrilineal organisation of most of the traditional
communities on Bougainville women have a strong social position, at least in
the context of village or clan, which stems mainly from their control of the
central resource, land. Although women were mainly active in peace building at
a local level and in the background, there were also women representatives
attending all the decisive high-level rounds of talks and negotiations in the
starting phase of the peace building process. They were given the chance to
speak out strongly for peace. The male political and military leaders of the
conflicting parties found themselves compelled to welcome and support women’s
peace initiatives and to get them involved in the process on an equal footing.
By contrast, in the SI case,
only the leaders of the conflicting
parties came together in Townsville to negotiate an agreement, in Townsville
not one single woman and not one representative of civil society was present.
Neither NGOs nor churches nor women’s groups were included in the negotiations
leading to the TPA; the TPA was merely presented to them afterwards and they
wre expected to nod their heads to it. Moreover, the TPA assumed that the
parties to the conflict were strong cohesive entities, represented by a small number
of leaders, with a clear chain of command and therefore able to implement the
requirements of the agreement – which they were not (just as they would not
have been able to in Bougainville).
Furthermore, inBougainville
there were manifold peace processes at the grassroots level, building peace
“village to village” so to speak. The peace process at the top was combined
with those peace processes at the bottom. In the SI, the process was confined
to the top. However, building peace at the grassroots level is of utmost
importance for stabilising the situation in cases like Bougainville or the SI.
Wars of the Bougainville and SI type are characterised by the fact that they
are very much fought on village to village or clan to clan level. In
Bougainville for instance it was not only “the” Bougainvilleans against the PNG
government and its forces, BRA against PNGDF, but it was also BRA against
fellow Bougainvilleans of the Resistance, and at times even BRA against BRA or
Resistance against Resistance or BRA units or Resistance units changing sides.
This was so, because traditional conflicts between different tribes or clans,
who affiliated themselves with either the BRA or the Resistance, became “minor
wars”which were also fought under the umbrella of the “big” secessionist war,
which contributed to the “blurring” of the war’s boundaries. This means that
fighting was in a way highly personalised. The parties at war with each other
were not anonymous mass armies but rather small units whose members all too
often knew each other personally, as members of a particular tribe, clan or
family. The course of the war followed the logic of “pay back”: revenge had to
be taken for losses of the own side by violent attacks on the tribe or the
family whose members had caused the own losses. A vicious circle of violence
was the consequence. That circle could only be broken by peace building at the grassroots level.
And here it is that factor
number three comes on the scene. Let me call it the factor of traditional or customary conflict
resolution and peace building resources and mechanisms. Post conflict peace
building on B was and is to a high degree characterised by the use of customary
means. In the SI case this dimension is lacking or was even distorted.
As I just explained, the war
on Bougainville was not only a modern secessionist war between the central
government and the secessionists, but rather a complex mixture of a modern war
and, at certain times, in certain areas and to a certain extent, traditional
mini-wars between clans and other traditional entities. These were waged at
least partly according to traditional rules. Therefore the war or the wars had
to be ended and reconciliation between the former warring parties to be brought
about also according to both traditional rules and modern regulations. For
ending the war and building peace, negotiations and agreement between political
and military leaders were not sufficient; those at the grassroots had also to
meet in order to achieve reconciliation. For this there were customary rules and rituals, used and
practised in many places all over Bougainville during the transition process
from war to peace. At the core of
traditional peace building is accepting responsibility, reconciliation,
restoration of justice and thus social harmony, mostly via compensation for damage done and wrongs committed. Only in that way
the mindset of pay pack can be broken down and sustainable peace achieved. This
involves a complicated and often long process of negotiation, in which
authorised leaders of the parties involved – big men – lay down the conditions
for the peace agreement and the form and amount of compensation. Such a process
is then finalised by holding a formal peace
ceremony, which includes symbolic activities such as breaking spears and
arrows, chewing betelnut together, singing and dancing and feasting together
etc. Since the end of the war on Bougainville many such peace processes and
peace ceremonies haven taken place between enemy villages and clans all over
the island, and they have substantially helped to stabilise the cease-fire.
They were also supported and strengthened by including Christian elements in them. The great majority of the B
population are strict believers. The churches have been of great importance for
the process of reconciliation. In many cases grassroots peace processes were
set in motion by the particularly active involvement of church people.
In the SI developments were
different. Of course, traditional forms of conflict resolution and peace
building also do exist in the SI and they could be of importance there, too.
However, in recent times they have been massively distorted and therefore been
discredited. This is especially the case with the custom of compensation: In
the traditional context compensation is directly negotiated between the parties
directly involved in a conflict and handed over by the parties, in order to
restore justice and settle the conflict and reconcile the conflicting parties.
However, in the SI case, the central government, as a third party, paid out
compensation to both parties. This is a grave hindrance to the parties
accepting the binding nature of the conflict resolution, and a hindrance to
actual reconciliation. This is even more so as “compensation” in this case only
means simply payments of money to the
members and leaders of the militias. In the end, the government tried in
this way to keep the combatants quiet by paying them, thus rewarding them for
their illegal and inhumane activities during the war; this had nothing more to do with compensation in the traditional sense.
Cynics formulated it this way: the only branch of business flourishing on the
SI at present is the compensation business. Genuine peace building according to
traditional customs has by contrast hardly taken place yet in the SI case.
Fourth, the importance of reconciliation cannot be overestimated.
The Bougainville case clearly demonstrates the importance of psycho-social, not
to say: spiritual dimensions of peace building. Enlightened western politicians
and researchers, development agencies and humanitarian NGO’s have a tendency to concentrate on material
reconstruction and rehabilitation. They tend to think that reparing roads and
bridges, kick-starting the economy, re-activating schools and teachers, nurses
and health posts after times of war is what is needed for post conflict peace
building. That is true of course, roads have to be repaired and schools have to
be re-opened. However, this is by far not enough. Peace building – as the
Bougainville case amply shows – is a long, complicated and painful
psychological and spiritual healing and reconciliatory process. True
reconciliation again is not a quick fix. It comprises developing a shared
understanding of the history of the conflict (why things went wrong and what
has happened, who did what), searching for the truth, the confession of
wrongdoing and the restoration of justice, compensation, reconciliation,
overcoming of hatred and mistrust, trauma counselling. To achieve this, the
combination of traditional and christian spirituality played an important role
in Bougainville. And even today, more than five years after the cessation of
violent conflict, the Bougainville society is still far from having
accomplished reconciliation. For instance, the question of how to deal with
serious human rights violations and crimes committed during the war has not yet
been clarified (torture, murder, rape etc.), justice has not yet been fully
restored, in many places victims and perpetrators have not yet gone through the
process of confession, retribution and
reconciliation. However, whereas people on B have come already a long way along
that thorny road of reconciliation, the journey has hardly started on the SI
yet. Again, in the SI the quick fix – approach seems to be prevalent. So far
murder, torture and other serious abuses of human rights committed by all sides
during the war have neither been investigated or expiated. Nonetheless, the TPA
stipulates an (almost) unconditional amnesty for all actors: immunity from prosecution
in return for handing over the weapons, thus ignoring the issues of
accountability and justice. The government of the day has reaffirmed this
notion. This can lead to even the most serious human rights abuses not being
expiated. And that can permanently damage the relationship between perpetrators
and victims (or their relatives) and even be a new source of revengeful
violence even more so as customary forms of compensation and reconciliation are
not applied. In the SI there is a tendency to buy peace at the cost of justice,
but this will not work in the long run. There can only be lasting peace when it
is based on justice. Only when the truth is revealed and those who did wrong
admit their faults and can be held accountable for it and apologize to those
who were wronged is it possible for forgiveness and reconciliation to follow.
The SI society will have to follow this painful path in order to achieve
sustainable peace.
And the fifth factor is that
external assistance matters. It can
have a positive impact – if it is modest and well tuned, adapted.
Just let me hint at two or
three points: In the Bougainville case New
Zealand played an important positive
part initiating the peace process. It offered Quiet Diplomacy and Good
Services, it acted as a facilitator.
All conflict parties had trust in the NZ side, NZ abstained from putting
pressure on either side and acted very sensitively. It was only because NZ
offered logistic assistance, hosted the initial rounds of talks and
negotiations and offered an open and warm atmosphere to participants that the
peace process got off the ground. Compared to that caring attitude, Australian behaviour in the SI case has
to be criticised as impatient and
pressing. Furthermore, United
Nations engagement and presence on the ground in Bougainville had a
positive impact. Although rather small (not more than half a dozen persons) the
symbolic value of that mission (demonstrating the UN’s and the wider
international community’s interest in the B issue) as well as ist contribution
to conceptualising and implementing the weapons disposal process should not be underestimated. The engagement is long-term, which is good,
and the personnel on the ground proved to be patient, sensitive and committed.
In the SI the UN did not play a role, and attempts to involve them were only
carried out half-heartedly, whereas in the Bougainville case, the BRA pressed for UN engagement very
earnestly, and later also the other parties realised the value of having the UN
involved.
The
international TMG/PMG (Truce
Monitoring Group/Peace Monitoring Group) on Bougainville behaved in a genuinely
impartial manner so that it soon won the trust of all sides; co-operation with
the conflict parties runs smoothly, and in many places cordial relations with
villagers and elders have been established. The make-up of the international
TMG/PMG active in Bougainville deserves special attention: In contrast to the
mainstream tendency of having so-called robust peace-keeping mandates and
interventions, the TMG/PMG was/is an
unarmed unit, comprised of both military and civilian personnel, men and
women, stemming from Australia, NZ, Fiji and Vanuatu. Of major importance
is the participation of women. Thus the women on the ground in Bougainville got
“natural” counterparts so to speak, and this is a precondition for external
assistance especially in matrilineally organised societies as those on
Bougainville. Furthermore, the participation of personnel from Fiji and Vanuatu was important because of the common Melanesian cultural background.
(By the way, it is also worth noting that NZ deliberately sent predominantly
peace monitors of Maori origin).Fijians and Ni-Vanuatu had obviously an
advantage over other PMG members because of their cultural affinity to the
Bougainvilleans. Thus, cultural diversity was a strength of the PMG. – The IPMT (International Peace Monitoring
Team) in the SI by contrast initially only was made up of men from Australia
and NZ (and this is the case today; though at times also Tongans, Ni-Vanuatu
and Cook Islanders served with the IPTM, about 11 of them women).
In the meantime a
considerable number of foreign development agencies, international NGO’s and UN
institutions are active both in Bougainville and SI, trying to assist in
reconstruction and peace building. One almost gets the impression of “too
much”: too much money, too much outside interference, too much of external
concepts and foreign ideas. There is the imminent danger of suppressing local indigenous initiatives and
of paternalistic attitudes. Especially the Australian side seems not to be free
from this kind of attitudes. Contrary to that, external assistance really should be confined to selected niches,
fields of work in which external expertise actually can make a difference and
is deliberately asked for, e.g. psycho-social care/trauma counselling,
demilitarization and re-integration of young ex-combatants, security sector
reform (a must in the SI), monitoring of elections, small credit schemes.
However, it must not be forgotten that peace never ever can be brought in from
outside but has to be achieved by those directly involved in the conflict.
To summarize: Why is it that
Bougainville is a “success story” of post-conflict peace building? It seems to
me that two “lessons learned” have been of special importance: one - the linking
of the peace process from above with peace processes from below, and – two
- the combination of traditional
customary and modern civil styles and
methods of conflict resolution. One lesson learned from Bougainville that
seems to be applicable to other cases in the so-called developing world is just
this: do not underestimate the importance of traditional methods of conflict
prevention, resolution and peace building. However, this emphasis on
traditional local skills does not mean that outside modern actors cannot also
make their contribution to peace building, or are not obliged to do so. And
this is where the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, International Alert
and the like come in.
Dr.
Volker Böge works at the Institute for Development and Peace at Duisburg
University (Institut für Entwicklung und Frieden, Universität Duisburg)
From 1984-90 he was a German
MP for the Green Party.
His research emphases are:
Ecology and violent conflict; Non-violent conflict resolution