tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/peacemaking-16932/articlesPeacemaking – The Conversation2023-10-19T15:06:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2160182023-10-19T15:06:20Z2023-10-19T15:06:20ZMartti Ahtisaari: the Finnish peacemaker who played midwife to Namibian independence<p>Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, died on 16 October at the <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-10-16/statement-attributable-the-spokesperson-for-the-secretary-general-the-death-of-martti-ahtisaari">age of 86</a>. Born in eastern Finland, he was two years old when his family fled from the Russian invasion at the outbreak of the second world war. </p>
<p>A trained school teacher, he moved in 1960 to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/martti-ahtisaari-obituary">Swedish Pakistani Institute in Karachi</a>. In 1965 he joined the Finnish foreign service. His posting as a diplomat in Tanzania <a href="https://finlandabroad.fi/web/tza/current-affairs/-/asset_publisher/h5w4iTUJhNne/content/suurl-c3-a4hetyst-c3-b6-50-vuotta-martti-ja-eeva-ahtisaaren-tervehdys/384951">in 1973</a> was the beginning of lasting bonds to the African continent. Only two years later, he started his commitment to the struggle for self-determination of the Namibian people. </p>
<p>Namibia, then called South West Africa, was under the illegal control of apartheid South Africa. According to the United Nations, it was <a href="https://www.unmultimedia.org/avlibrary/asset/2040/2040311/">“a trust betrayed”</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/understanding-namibia/">Namibia</a> and its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5079769_Conflict_mediation_in_decolonisation_Namibia's_transition_to_independence">decolonisation process</a> have been among my interests as a scholar. Martti Ahtisaari played a crucial role in the United Nations supervised transition to independence, as documented in his biography, aptly titled <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-mediator/">The Mediator</a>.</p>
<p>The government of Namibia awarded him honorary Namibian citizenship after independence. Upon the news of his death he was locally <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/a-light-during-namibias-dark-days/">praised as</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a light during Namibia’s dark days.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Namibia’s President Hage Geingob described him as a friend of the Namibian liberation struggle and a leading peacemaker. Through the United Nations, he “<a href="https://neweralive.na/posts/namibia-mourns-ahtisaari-fondly-remembered-for-impact-on-namibias-journey-to-independence">played a pivotal role in midwifing the birth of a new Namibia</a>”.</p>
<p>Ahtisaari’s work in Namibia was the beginning of a long and successful engagement in international conflict mediation. Many more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/18/martti-ahtisaari-obituary">diplomatic achievements</a> in various parts of the world followed. </p>
<h2>Ahtisaari and Namibia</h2>
<p>Ahtisaari’s involvement in Africa began in 1973 when he was appointed <a href="https://finlandabroad.fi/web/tza/current-affairs/-/asset_publisher/h5w4iTUJhNne/content/suurl-c3-a4hetyst-c3-b6-50-vuotta-martti-ja-eeva-ahtisaaren-tervehdys/384951">Finland’s ambassador to Tanzania</a>. At the time, the anticolonial movements of southern Africa had offices in Dar es Salaam, home to the headquarters of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41394216">African Liberation Committee</a> of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">Organisation of African Unity</a>. </p>
<p>In 1975 he was <a href="https://archives.unam.edu.na/index.php/unin-united-nations-institute-for-namibia">appointed</a> as a <a href="https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/about/people/martti-ahtisaari/">senator to the council</a> of the United Nations Institute for Namibia. The <a href="https://archives.unam.edu.na/index.php/unin-united-nations-institute-for-namibia">institute</a> was established in Lusaka by the <a href="https://africanactivist.msu.edu/organization/210-813-508/#:%7E:text=In%201966%20the%20United%20Nations,United%20Nations%20Council%20for%20Namibia">United Nations Council for Namibia</a>, officially inaugurated in 1976. Its mandate was to prepare for Namibia’s independence by drafting blueprints and training staff. Geingob, at the time representing the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) liberation movement at the United Nations, was appointed <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160803">as its director</a>.</p>
<p>At the <a href="https://nai.uu.se/library/resources/liberation-africa/interviews/ben-amathila.html">behest of Swapo</a>, Ahtisaari was appointed as UN commissioner for Namibia in March 1977 and relocated from Dar es Salaam to New York.</p>
<p>In July 1978 the UN Security Council asked the UN secretary general to appoint a special representative for Namibia to ensure independence of the country through free elections under the supervision of the UN. With support of the US-American diplomat <a href="https://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/member/donald-f-mchenry/">Don McHenry</a>, Ahtisaari was again the choice. As McHenry was quoted in Ahtisaari’s <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-mediator/">biography</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I thought why don’t we kill two birds with one stone. Ahtisaari was clearly sensible to the views of the Africans but he was at the same time very practical and got results. He was, then, the very man for the job.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ahtisaari henceforth wore two hats related to Namibian affairs. His term as commissioner ended in April 1982. In 1987 he was appointed as the UN under-secretary general for administration and management on the condition that he retained his role as special representative for Namibian affairs.</p>
<p>In 1978 UN Security Council <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/namibia-resolution435">Resolution 435</a> was adopted as the blueprint for Namibia’s transition to independence. But it was shelved after being blocked by US under President Ronald Reagan and the UK under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The resolution was finally implemented more than a decade later, after the global realignments following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-30-years-ago-resonated-across-africa-126521">end of the Cold War</a>.</p>
<p>The United Nations Transitional Assistance Group (<a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/untag.htm">Untag</a>) was tasked with implementing Resolution 435 from April 1989 to March 1990. Under Ahtisaari, with Botswana’s UN ambassador <a href="https://www.un.org/osaa/content/former-special-adviser-he-m-legwaila-joseph-legwaila-2006-2007">Joseph Legwaila</a> as his deputy, Untag accomplished the mission.</p>
<p>This was due in large part to the skills and credibility of Ahtisaari. As special representative for Namibia more than a decade before the implementation of Resolution 435, he had gained the trust of a variety of stakeholders. This gave him personal leverage, which he was able to apply in critical situations.</p>
<p>Under Untag supervision, a <a href="https://www.parliament.na/constituent-assembly-1989-1990/">constituent assembly</a> was elected in Namibia in November 1989, <a href="https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=a5fa370c-004f-c92d-0ba3-7b3ca48aab38&groupId=252038">chaired</a> by Geingob. In early 1990 its members adopted the country’s constitution as the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_isn=9565">normative framework</a>. Independence was declared on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45316527">21 March 1990</a>.</p>
<p>Ahtisaari remains publicly remembered locally by a school and streets bearing his name.</p>
<h2>Mediation beyond Namibia</h2>
<p>Ahtisaari’s merits during his international career translated into a successful campaign in domestic politics. Serving his country in government first as foreign minister, he became in 1994 Finland’s president for a six-year term until 2000.</p>
<p>But his heart remained in international conflict mediation. Upon leaving office, he founded the <a href="https://cmi.fi/about-us/">Crisis Management Initiative</a>, an independent non-governmental organisation.</p>
<p>Ahtisaari played an active role in Serbia’s withdrawal from Kosovo in the late 1990s. During the Northern Ireland peace process at the same time, he monitored the Irish Republican Army’s <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41249341.html">disarmament process</a>. In 2005 he was brokering the autonomy for <a href="https://www.c-r.org/accord/aceh-indonesia/delivering-peace-aceh-interview-president-martti-ahtisaari">Aceh province in Indonesia</a>. The same year he was appointed by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan as <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/serbia/secretary-general-appoints-former-president-martti-ahtisaari-finland-special-envoy">special envoy for the future status process for Kosovo</a>.</p>
<p>Among the numerous honorary recognitions of his role in mediating conflicts, South Africa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/order-companions-o.r.-tambo-0">awarded him in 2004</a> the Order of the Companions of Oliver Tambo (Supreme Companion) for</p>
<blockquote>
<p>his outstanding achievement as a diplomat and commitment to the cause of freedom in Africa and peace in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In October 2008 he was <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2008/press-release/">awarded the Nobel Peace Prize</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Explicit reference was made to his role in Namibia’s transition towards independence. Between 2009 and 2018 he was a member of <a href="https://theelders.org/who-we-are">The Elders</a>. Founded in 2007 by Nelson Mandela, this group of independent global leaders works for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet. </p>
<p>As Geingob <a href="https://www.observer24.com.na/geingob-pays-tribute-to-ahtisaari-as-a-friend-and-a-peacemaker/">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>today, we are not only mourning the loss of Ahtisaari, a friend and one of us, but we are also reaffirming the rich legacy of peace and the outstanding international public service of a Nobel peace laureate with an indelible association with Namibia.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of SWAPO since 1974.</span></em></p>Ahtisaari’s role in Namibia was crucial. But he left a major legacy in pursuing peace in various places of conflict in his later life too.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062992023-05-28T08:25:08Z2023-05-28T08:25:08ZWhat makes peace talks successful? The 4 factors that matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528036/original/file-20230524-15-o7zx4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Peace talks that seek to end armed conflicts are underway in several African countries. Because very few conflicts are resolved on the battlefield, negotiations are fundamental. But they often fail. And even when an agreement is concluded, it doesn’t always last. </p>
<p>So what are the factors that lead to successful peace talks? </p>
<p>To start, negotiating peace is complex. If it wasn’t, conflicts would be resolved more quickly and peace would last longer. Recognising this complexity is essential. </p>
<p>Significant expertise has been developed in the field of peace mediation over the past decades. The <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/107-au-mediation-support-unit">African Union</a> and the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/mediation-support">United Nations</a> have set up mediation teams. Several specialised non-governmental organisations have been created, like the South Africa-based organisation <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/work/peacemaking/">Accord</a> and the Switzerland-based <a href="https://hdcentre.org/about/">Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue</a>. </p>
<p>These actors, along with regional powers and other states, often roll out several peace initiatives simultaneously. This can be helpful to deal with the complexity of armed conflicts. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/philipp-kastner/publications/">international law and peace scholar</a>, I have analysed many different peace negotiations and agreements. There have been some great successes in Africa, such as the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/MZ_921004_MozambiqueGeneralPeaceAgreement.pdf">1992 peace agreement</a> that ended the 16-year long civil war in Mozambique. </p>
<p>But there have also been spectacular failures, like in Sierra Leone, where fighting flared up just after the conclusion of a <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SL_990707_LomePeaceAgreement.pdf">comprehensive agreement in 1999</a>. And there are several ongoing conflicts that urgently require a peaceful resolution, for example in <a href="https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/jeddah-agreement-welcomed-but-also-met-with-scepticism-in-sudan">Sudan</a>, the <a href="https://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/HRC/51/59&Lang=E">Central African Republic</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">Democratic Republic of Congo</a>. </p>
<p>Based on my research, I would argue that there are four key factors that make (or break) mediation efforts. These include a sustained commitment from several actors to building peace; serious efforts to develop trust and listen to grievances; an attunement to timing; and an acceptance of peace as a process. </p>
<h2>Building peace</h2>
<p>First, peace has a better chance when war is attacked from several sides. Multiple mediation processes can facilitate the inclusion of different stakeholders, such as civil society actors. This is crucial, precisely because more inclusive processes <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786610256/Conflict-Intervention-and-Transformation-Theory-and-Practice">increase the chances</a> of durable peace. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, it can be problematic when too many actors are involved. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/sudan-the-longer-the-conflict-lasts-the-higher-the-risk-of-a-regional-war-204931">Sudan’s ongoing conflict</a>, this has led to a <a href="https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Third-Party-Mediation-in-Sudan-and-South-Sudan-Digital.pdf">piecemeal approach</a> and to <a href="https://peacerep.org/publication/third-party-mediation-in-sudan-and-south-sudan-longer-term-trends/">unhelpful competition</a> between different regional and international actors who often pursue their own interests. </p>
<p>Second, the organisation or the specific mediator in question must be trusted by the parties. A good example of this is the Catholic Community of Sant-Egidio, which facilitated the <a href="https://www.santegidio.org/pageID/34180/langID/en/Dossier-Mozambique-and-the-Community-of-Sant-Egidio.html">conclusion of the peace agreement</a> in Mozambique. </p>
<p>Building trust and listening to grievances is important. This helps find creative solutions that give guarantees to all the parties and allow them to imagine a common future.</p>
<p>But contrary to ordinary understandings of mediation, peace mediators don’t have to be perfectly neutral and unbiased. Blaise Compaoré, the former president of Burkina Faso, mediated the 2007 negotiations between the government of Côte d’Ivoire and the rebellious Forces Nouvelles, which Compaoré had <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2003-1-page-71.htm">overtly supported</a>. In the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/CI_070304_Accord%20Politique%20de%20Ouagadougou%20%28French%29.pdf">agreement</a> that followed, the parties made Compaoré an arbitrator in the implementation phase. In other words, a mediator can be an insider who has close relationships with one of the parties.</p>
<p>A third factor for successful peace talks is timing. Since negotiations typically take place in the shadow of military gains and losses, it’s often assumed that it only makes sense to start negotiations when both sides believe that they can gain more from negotiating than from fighting. </p>
<p>But waiting for the “ripe moment” to start high-level negotiations is problematic. It can prolong a conflict unnecessarily and lead to extreme suffering. In Sudan – where the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been fighting each other since mid-April 2023 – more than <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/more-than-1-mln-people-displaced-by-sudan-crisis-un-refugee-agency-2023-05-19/">one million people</a> have already been displaced. And in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, a <a href="https://addisstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AU-led-Ethiopia-Peace-Agreement.pdf">ceasefire agreement</a> was concluded in November 2022, but only after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/11/joy-and-grief-as-tigray-reconnects-to-the-world">hundreds of thousands of people</a> had been killed over two years of conflict.</p>
<p>Therefore, peace actors should constantly search for entry points to create opportunities for building peace instead of waiting for the perfect conditions. They can convince the conflict parties that negotiations are not zero-sum games and don’t automatically lead to painful compromises. </p>
<p>Fourth, how “peace” is understood plays a major role. It’s often thought that no fighting means peace, and that an agreement will end violence and suffering almost instantly. This is rarely true. An agreement is only one small step in an often long process.</p>
<p>Moreover, while a ceasefire is always desirable because it means less violence and less suffering, it’s not absolutely necessary to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/peace-talks-ukraine-russias-red-lines-unchanged-2022-03-30/">negotiate substantive issues</a>. Many negotiations, from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bosnian-War">Bosnia</a> to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20319583">Colombia</a>, have been held while fighting continued, and yet a substantive peace agreement was eventually concluded. </p>
<p>And it can be alright to agree to disagree: not everything can or needs to be resolved in the same deal. Some root causes of conflict, like the historical marginalisation of minority groups or of certain regions, can be difficult to tackle. But it’s possible to put in place measures and mechanisms to envisage improvements. </p>
<p>Partial agreements can be a good option, even if this approach obviously takes time. In Senegal, for example, it’s only earlier this year, after decades of conflict and many years of mediation, that one of the factions of the rebellious Mouvement des forces démocratiques de Casamance <a href="https://hdcentre.org/news/une-faction-du-mfdc-signe-la-cessation-des-hostilites-avec-le-gouvernement-du-senegal-et-depose-definitivement-les-armes/">agreed to lay down its weapons</a>. </p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>It’s vital to do more to prevent armed conflicts in the first place. Continuously <a href="https://www.sipri.org/news/2023/world-military-expenditure-reaches-new-record-high-european-spending-surges-0">rising military expenditures</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/">few restrictions</a> on weapons sales mean that weapons are easily available in many places. The international community should, therefore, urgently make more efforts to halt the massive production and circulation of weapons. </p>
<p>And although every conflict has its own dynamics, poverty, global inequalities and exploitation are always significant factors. Tackling these issues isn’t straightforward, but it would help prevent and resolve armed conflicts, and would pay off in the long run. </p>
<p>Peace is a process, and it requires significant commitment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philipp Kastner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An agreement to end conflict is only one small step in an often long process.Philipp Kastner, Senior Lecturer in International Law, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932972022-10-28T04:55:11Z2022-10-28T04:55:11ZShould the West negotiate with Russia? The pros and cons of high-level talks<p>With progressive members of the US Congress recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/biden-ukraine-liberals/">calling</a> for a resumption of direct talks between the West and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s a good time to consider how such talks could look and what might be gained – or lost. </p>
<p>As Russia’s military losses mount in Ukraine, the rhetoric surrounding Russia’s war is increasingly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-nuclear-risk-1d0f1e40cff3a92c662c57f274ce0e25">apocalyptic</a>. Few in Ukraine are calling for talks, and US President Joe Biden has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/biden-ukraine-liberals/">indicated</a> he will respect Ukraine’s wishes.</p>
<p>Yet could direct talks between top Russian and Western leaders help to avoid disaster?</p>
<p>During the Cold War – a time now often compared to the present point in history – Soviet and Western antagonists managed to hold several successful dialogues on matters including nuclear de-escalation. Cold War examples suggest that not merely “talks”, but “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/26083">summits</a>” – symbolising high-level dialogues between equals – may help to initiate a rhetorical reset.</p>
<p>What are the arguments for and against such high-level talks?</p>
<h2>The critics</h2>
<p>The potential downsides of talking are clear. Some commentators have argued that talking would reward Putin for his nuclear <a href="https://twitter.com/matthew_sussex/status/1584814878811832322">brinkmanship</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, there’s no question that, besides talking, there must be other strong forms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-increasing-support-for-ukraine-is-critical-to-australias-security-as-a-middle-power-191947">response to the invasion</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1577898307640246272"}"></div></p>
<p>Another argument assumes Putin’s ultimate aim is to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/world/europe/putin-russia-ukraine-troops.html">incorporate Ukraine into the Russian nation</a>, and short of that, any talks will inevitably fail.</p>
<p>Still others simply think it’s morally unacceptable to talk with aggressors. </p>
<p>This isn’t a new debate. Leaders have often grappled with whether to talk with enemies, even if they abhor their enemies’ actions. </p>
<p>For instance, similar questions, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300192360/a-single-roll-of-the-dice/">focusing on Iran</a> at the time, featured in the campaign between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008.</p>
<p>This time around, Western leaders from Biden in the US, to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/finnish-prime-minister-sanna-marin-video-explains-vladimir-putin-possible-ukraine-exit-1750014">Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland</a>, have adopted McCain’s harder line. </p>
<h2>The case for talks</h2>
<p>Those who would call for talks might ask, however, if it’s realistic to expect wars to end by simply waiting for the initial aggressor to admit they were wrong.</p>
<p>Of course, another option is to wait for the war to run its course on the ground. But despite its setbacks, Russia’s resources for sustaining the war are nowhere near fully depleted. </p>
<p>Choosing not to talk with the other side is understandable. When a war is vicious and unjust, it must be called out.</p>
<p>But what if, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130319092642/http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf">by expressing our moral disapproval</a> by choosing not to talk, the war we disapprove of paradoxically lasts longer? What if the consequences are many more deaths?</p>
<p>Is it right simply to blame the other side for the extra deaths? Or do we bear some obligation to talk in a bid to foreshorten the war, even if we didn’t cause it?</p>
<h2>Status grievance as a root of war</h2>
<p>Previous wars have often been explained in part by status grievance – the historical humiliation of a group, leading to a <a href="http://johnbraithwaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Thinking-About-the-Structural-Context-of-International-Dispute-Resolution.pdf">score to settle</a>. Of course, the grievances may be wholly misguided. And status grievance shouldn’t be a legitimate cause for war. </p>
<p>Yet whether we think it’s legitimate or not, status grievance is in fact a contributing cause of war. We might ask Russia why it can’t simply accept its diminished post-Cold War position. But it may be no use. Status grievance cannot in most cases be wished away or defeated by rational argument. To those it animates, status grievance feels as real and rational as any other cause for war. </p>
<p>Russia’s rationale for attacking Ukraine seems to be a paradigm case of status grievance. On the Ukrainian side is a struggle against conquest, a struggle for sovereignty, and a struggle for democratic and liberal values – each clearly worth fighting for.</p>
<p>Yet on the other side is a settling of scores on a wider scale. In his speech addressing Russia’s efforts to <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/30/ukraine-war-russia-illegally-annexes-four-regions-in-east-ukraine">annex four eastern provinces in Ukraine</a>, Putin’s focus was not on Ukraine, but on a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/30/russia-ukraine-war-putins-annexation-speech-what-did-he-say">catalogue of misdeeds of a West bloc too powerful to be trusted</a>. He cited the Western record of colonising, enslaving and weakening other peoples and powers. He didn’t turn a similarly critical gaze onto Russia itself.</p>
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<h2>What would a summit look like?</h2>
<p>At the moment, a range of academics and politicians are hoping for a summit, although only a few are willing to say so out loud and risk <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-congress-progressives-withdraw-letter-urging-negotiations-end-ukraine-war-2022-10-25/">blowback</a>. </p>
<p>If a summit did take place, it could perhaps include Russia and other leading global powers as the main parties. The United Nations or a neutral government might play host.</p>
<p>But what would the parties talk about? Many wars have underlying causes based in <a href="https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0zMkprKg0KDMwYPSSS0nNyUxKLUosySxLVShITUxOVShKTUstSs1LKc0tBgB4yhC2&q=deliberative+peace+referendums&oq=deliberative+peace+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j46i39j0i390l4.3461j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">clashes of values</a>. Without addressing these, we may struggle to end even the most horrifying wars. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">Northern Ireland</a>, for instance, the 1998 peace agreement formally adopted values such as “mutual respect” and “equality”. </p>
<p>It may cost nothing for the sides in the current war to hear each other out about values. For instance, there’s no harm in Western powers recognising their adversary’s equal worth. We can readily respect Russia’s historical scientific and cultural accomplishments.</p>
<p>At any summit, the signing of a treaty would be ideal, but it isn’t necessary. A merely informal statement of mutual respect between the historical blocs could be pursued, with the aim of defraying some of the underlying forces sustaining the war.</p>
<p>Russia seems to crave acknowledgement of its high status as a global power, and as an accomplished people. That is not a hard concession for the West to make. Yet it may offer Putin a face-saving way to begin de-escalating.</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-end-heres-how-peace-negotiations-have-worked-in-past-wars-180778">How can Russia's invasion of Ukraine end? Here's how peace negotiations have worked in past wars</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Summit ground rules would need to be stipulated. These could include discussion based on reciprocity: for example, listening by each side to the values and grievances of the other. </p>
<p>Finally, there could be no substantive preconditions – no requirement that, before a summit could take place, one side first acknowledge the errors of its ways. We’d need to be far more realistic. Peacemaking always involves two or more parties to a conflict that, though they view each other’s causes as illegitimate, proceed to talk anyway. </p>
<p>Sooner or later, summit talks may take place. Perhaps the only question is when. Leaders in the West, representing people deeply disturbed by Russia’s invasion, may not be ready. As the Congressional progressives found out, there are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-congress-progressives-withdraw-letter-urging-negotiations-end-ukraine-war-2022-10-25/">political risks</a> to even floating the idea. </p>
<p>The arguments for a summit are at least as clear as those against, however. With careful design, and a little luck, a summit could conceivably reset the discourse around a war that is currently stuck in cycles of escalation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ron Levy has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>There are political risks to even floating the idea. But a summit could conceivably reset the discourse around a war currently stuck dangerously in cycles of escalation.Ron Levy, Associate professor, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1903972022-09-15T19:00:19Z2022-09-15T19:00:19ZWe asked Ukrainians living on the front lines what was an acceptable peace – here’s what they told us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484722/original/file-20220914-8999-q5p409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C32%2C5455%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Residents in Poltava, Ukraine, survey the damage from a Russian attack.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainians-clear-debris-and-search-for-usable-material-news-photo/1240419188?adppopup=true">Dogukan Keskinkilic/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ukraine’s recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/13/ukraine-reclaim-control-of-kharkiv-and-towns-seized-at-onset-of-russian-invasion">counteroffensive success</a> against Russian troops in the Kharkiv region has raised hopes that a <a href="https://theconversation.com/kharkiv-offensive-has-shown-the-west-that-ukraine-can-win-190501">larger rollback of occupying troops</a> is at hand. But this remains a daunting task: Russia continues to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/ukraine-six-months-invasion">occupy roughly one-fifth</a> of the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it unilaterally incorporated into the Russian Federation in 2014.</p>
<p>Victory, not peace, is the priority for Ukraine’s leadership, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declaring Ukraine will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/07/politics/volodymyr-zelensky-interview-cnntv/index.html">not give up any of its territories to end the war</a>. But a time will come when peace will have to be made. And any agreement will need to be accepted not only by the leaders but by the Ukrainian people if it is to hold. As such, it is important to know what terms of settlement are acceptable – and perhaps more importantly, unacceptable – to ordinary Ukrainians, especially those living in front-line areas or displaced by Russia’s invasion.</p>
<p>To understand what an acceptable peace looks like to significantly war-affected Ukrainians, we <a href="https://criticalgeopolitics.com/the-costs-of-peace/">organized a face-to-face survey</a> of over 1,800 Ukrainians. The <a href="https://kiis.com.ua/">Kyiv International Institute of Sociology</a> administered the survey for us in July 2022. Around half of respondents were local residents in three Ukrainian-controlled towns close to active front-line fighting: Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Poltava. The other half comprised people internally displaced by the war who were sheltering in these towns.</p>
<p>Here are three key takeaways from the survey:</p>
<h2>1. Having a strong state that can defend territory is a top priority</h2>
<p>Our survey asked respondents an open question about what their goals were for Ukraine after the war, with the responses organized by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology into categories unseen by respondents.</p>
<p>More than half indicated that creating a peaceful and prosperous state was a top priority. Many saw the means to achieve this through military strength, with a third stating that having Ukraine emerge as a strong state with a large military that could defend its territory was their postwar aspiration for their country.</p>
<p>Slightly fewer mentioned Ukraine being a sovereign state able to make its own independent decisions as important, while 28.3% included Ukraine having full control over all its territories among their responses. More than a quarter mentioned having a state free of corruption as an important goal.</p>
<p><iframe id="WFcO8" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WFcO8/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Existing government policy aspirations attracted some support. Around 1 in 5 mentioned Ukraine becoming a member of the European Union, though only 13.1% mentioned NATO membership.</p>
<p>Even Ukraine being a democratic state fell lower down as a priority, with just 14.1% mentioning it as a top goal.</p>
<p>Our survey suggests that peace, state strength and territorial integrity rather than geopolitical status or democracy are on the minds of front-line Ukrainians today.</p>
<h2>2. Ukrainians reject concessions on self-determination, territory</h2>
<p>We also presented a series of potential war outcomes to respondents and asked them whether they found these acceptable if it meant peace. Most of these scenarios generated strong feelings, with the category “absolutely not acceptable” the most frequently used.</p>
<p><iframe id="Ek8Xt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Ek8Xt/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The scenario most vehemently rejected by respondents is one in which Ukraine loses its right to determine its future in return for an end of hostilities. Yet opinion is less emphatic when it comes to the hypothetical ending of Ukraine’s aspirations of joining Western organizations. An outcome where Ukraine ends its quest for NATO membership in return for peace is absolutely unacceptable to 46% of respondents. The figure for giving up on European Union membership is 55.9%. These figures are still high, of course.</p>
<p>And while we found solid majorities rejecting territorial concessions in return for peace, the front-line Ukrainians we surveyed were less vehement when it came to concessions over Crimea than the Donbas, with 58.4% and 67% of respondents finding it “absolutely unacceptable” to concede the regions, respectively.</p>
<p>When presented with hypothetical deals in which Russia offers financial compensation or a formal apology but keeps seized Ukrainian lands, more than 80% of respondents said that such an outcome was “absolutely unacceptable.”</p>
<p>In a different question, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that most Ukrainians see their national territory as sacred.</p>
<h2>3. When it comes to negotiations, the messenger matters</h2>
<p>As well as asking front-line Ukrainians what is acceptable or not acceptable in any peace settlement, we also wanted to see if their support for negotiations would be affected by who was advocating it.</p>
<p>So we ran an experiment to test the power of different potential endorsers of negotiations toward a complete ceasefire in the war.</p>
<p>The survey participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group was simply asked, “How much do you support negotiations with Russia on a complete ceasefire in this war?”</p>
<p>The second group was asked the same, but also exposed to a made-up statement in which Zelenskyy stressed the importance of negotiations to prevent further soldier and civilian deaths. A third group was shown a similar endorsement, but this time it came from the leaders of the EU and the U.S.</p>
<p>The group not shown any endorsement backed negotiations by 46%. This jumped to 54% support among respondents who were shown the fictional endorsement by Zelenskyy. Interestingly, there was a small decrease in the support of ceasefire negotiations – down to 42% – when the messengers were leaders of the EU and the U.S. </p>
<p>The results suggest that the support of the Ukrainian leadership for a ceasefire negotiation is much more important than international pressure. Indeed, our survey indicates that Western leaders publicly pushing negotiations might induce a backfire effect. </p>
<h2>Taking on the voice of front-line Ukrainians</h2>
<p>Although not nationally representative – our survey focused on those displaced by war and close to active front lines – the views presented by respondents provide insight into what is important and currently unacceptable to war-afflicted Ukrainians. Those <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-most-people-refuse-to-compromise-on-territory-but-willingness-to-make-peace-depends-on-their-war-experiences-new-survey-185147">more distant from the front lines</a> and without direct experience of displacement may have even more emphatic views.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s leadership is in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zelenskyy-no-point-in-ceasefire-until-russia-smashed-in-face-2022-7">no mood to talk peace</a> with Russia at the moment. But negotiations will be needed at some point. Paying close attention to the views of ordinary Ukrainians is vital, for any proposed peace settlement requires their general consent to have a chance of taking hold and enduring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard Toal receives research funding from the USA National Science Foundation, the Norwegian Research Council and ZOiS (Centre for East European and International Studies, Berlin). He is affiliated with the University Consortium, an inter-regional training program for outstanding students from the US, Europe, and Russia, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karina V. Korostelina receives funding from USA National Science Foundation, US Department of State, US Department of Education, USAID, Open internet society, Spencer foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthur foundation, Fulbright, IREX, INTAS, and Council of Europe. </span></em></p>An overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are not willing to negotiate over the territorial integrity of the country, even if it means peace.Gerard Toal, Professor of Government and International Affairs, Virginia TechKarina Korostelina, Professor and Director of the Program on Prevention of Mass Violence, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1885342022-08-11T09:54:02Z2022-08-11T09:54:02ZMarikana massacre: South Africa needs to build a society that’s decent and doesn’t humiliate people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478528/original/file-20220810-24-9clt4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of people gather on the small hill were some of the Marikana miners were shot by police in 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPAS/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 16 August mine workers, activists and no doubt a few politicians will gather on the now <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Small-Koppie-Marikana-Massacre/dp/1611862760">infamous rock outcrop</a> near the former Lonmin Platinum mine in Marikana, North West province, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/german/latestnews/archive/oneyearafterthemarikanamassacre.html">Marikana massacre</a>. This was the most lethal use of force by the South African police since the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto uprising</a> against the then apartheid regime. At least 138 people died <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-epochal-1976-uprisings-shouldnt-be-reduced-to-a-symbolic-ritual-185073">in three days</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, the Marikana massacre was so brutal that it has been likened to the 1960 <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-08-14-marikana-the-unfolding-of-a-never-ending-tragedy/">Sharpeville Massacre</a>, where apartheid police shot unarmed civilians in their backs as they fled, killing 69. They were protesting against <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994">identity documents</a> that black people were forced to carry, restricting their movement. </p>
<p>Between 12 and 16 August 2012 a total of 47 people died. Among them were 34 miners from the Lonmin Platinum mine shot by police. Another 10, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">including two policemen and two mine security guards</a>, were killed by protesting mineworkers. Three others died after the strike had ended. In addition, 78 miners were injured. Most of them were shot with R5 military style assault rifles by police officers and security officers from the Lonmin Mine.</p>
<p>This year, the commemoration of the event coincides with my <a href="https://blogs.sun.ac.za/inaugural-lectures/event/prof-dion-forster-2/">professorial inaugural lecture</a> at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University. How does my work as a public theologian and ethicist link with violence and the unnecessary loss of life that took place in Marikana?</p>
<p>It transpired as I was conducting some research for my inaugural lecture. I came across a detail in interviews with the striking miners that I had not seen before. Central to the mineworkers’ demands was an appeal to <em>decency</em>.</p>
<p>I wish to take my cue from the philosopher <a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/avishai-margalit">Avishai Margalit</a>, who, in his book <a href="https://amzn.to/3PciSIT">The Decent Society</a>, asserts that (p.1)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a decent society is one whose institutions do not humiliate people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He argues that it is the confronting of societal evil that brings us to a politics of decency.</p>
<p>Based on my research into the massacre and its aftermath, I believe that the urgent task in South Africa is to learn to live more “decently in an indecent society” – and never to forget Marikana.</p>
<h2>What is decency?</h2>
<p>The tradition of the <a href="https://blogs.sun.ac.za/inaugural-lectures/">professorial inaugural lecture</a> is that when one is promoted to full professor one should have something to “profess”. Having spent years reading, listening, reflecting, teaching and writing, one would have a body of work, and perhaps even a few ideas, to share.</p>
<p>I really struggled to discern what to say. After all, what would be fitting, responsible, or proper, for a white male ethicist to “profess” in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2022? My struggle deepened as I reflected on the indecent, and racist, act of a white student <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2022-05-19-the-urine-affair-race-reflections-through-the-stellenbosch-incident/">urinating</a> on the belongings of a black student at the university. He has since been <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/07/21/stellenbosch-university-expels-theuns-du-toit-over-urinating-incident">expelled</a>.</p>
<p>When the university set the date of my lecture for 16 August 2022, I realised that it coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre. I had <a href="https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i1.1665">previously written</a> about the massacre and its iconic leader, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mgcineni-noki">Mgcineni Noki</a>.</p>
<p>That article argued that religious people and faith communities must once again take up the struggle for justice in South Africa as a primary concern. Moreover, two of my PhD students, Jayson Gribble and Jaco Botha, had <a href="https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928480532/06">conducted research</a> on the Marikana massacre. So I was relatively familiar with this painful event in the country’s history. However, as I was reading interviews with the miners I came across something that I had not seen before. It shook me.</p>
<p>In her <a href="https://amzn.to/3zLZpsA">book</a> Marikana: Voices from South Africa’s Mining Massacre, <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/members/prof-kate-formerly-peter-alexander/">Kate Alexander</a> records (p. 25) that the striking miners</p>
<blockquote>
<p>wanted their employer, Lonmin, to listen to their case for a <em>decent wage</em>. But this threatened a system of labour relations that had boosted profits for Lonmin, and had protected the privileges of the dominant union, the National Union of Mineworkers. It was decided to deploy ‘maximum force’ against the workers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many South Africans have become accustomed to the phrase a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2016.1154671">living wage</a>”, as used in labour relations. It refers to a minimum income that allows workers to subsist. It’s a brutal society in which people would settle for mere living as an acceptable standard. </p>
<p>At Marikana, the workers were clear: they were advocating not only for a “living wage”; they were holding their employer to a higher standard. They wanted a “decent wage”, and they hoped that the rights accorded to them in a democratic South Africa would protect them in their cause.</p>
<p>They wanted to secure a standard of living that could deconstruct the historical indecencies of migrant labour, the separation of families, living in poverty and being humiliated and dehumanised by rich and powerful people and institutions. To them that amounted to <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/marikana-miners-strike-better-wages-2012">at least R12,500</a> (US$758 at today’s exchange rate) a month.</p>
<p>Let us pause for a moment to reflect on this word: “decent”. </p>
<p>What might it mean in the South African context? What might it mean on the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre?</p>
<p>Decency for the victims of the Marikana massacre was about more than just meeting their bare needs for survival. Yet, while they were striking for decency, their employer, and the nation, enacted the most violent of institutional humiliations upon them. They were killed in an indecent manner. To date there have still <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/marikana-massacre-children-of-miners-killed-still-waiting-for-justice-to-be-served-eight-years-on-20200813">not been any prosecutions</a> of the police and security officers who killed the miners.</p>
<p>Sadly, South Africa and South Africans seem to be slipping ever more deeply into indecency, as shown by the recent <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/brutal-gang-rape-shocks-south-africa-/6682434.html">gang rape of eight women</a> in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg. </p>
<p>The country has one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-is-endemic-in-south-africa-why-the-anc-government-keeps-missing-the-mark-188235">highest rates</a> of rape and gender-based violence in the world.</p>
<h2>In search of saints</h2>
<p>The American novelist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2778055.Kurt_Vonnegut_Jr_">Kurt Vonnegut</a> was once asked how he made sense of living through one of the most difficult and violent times in that country’s history. The 1970s saw the peak of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War">Vietnam war</a>, <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1971/demo/p60-77.html#:%7E:text=In%201970%2C%20about%2025.5%20million,level%20were%20roughly%20the%20same.">rising poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality#:%7E:text=Beginning%20in%20the%201970s%2C%20economic,top%20continued%20to%20grow%20strongly.">increasing economic inequality</a>, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/richard-nixon-committed-far-greater-crimes-than-the-watergate-break-in-1.1433510">political corruption</a> under President Richard Nixon, and the deepening of American racial injustice. <a href="https://amzn.to/3BRUjhe">He replied</a> (p. viii),</p>
<blockquote>
<p>what made living almost worthwhile for me were the saints I met. They could be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If someone were to ask me the same question, I would have to say that I am looking for some ordinary “saints”. In fact, I do see them from time to time. They are people behaving decently amid the indecencies of society. </p>
<p>They are <a href="https://giftofthegivers.org/hunger-alleviation/food-parcels/36513/">feeding</a> the hungry, advocating for <a href="https://berthafoundation.org/activists/">justice</a>, <a href="https://www.ijr.org.za/2022/07/18/women-peace-and-security/">working</a> for <a href="https://avreq.sun.ac.za/people/ms-ayanda-nyoka/">peace</a>, and holding the powerful <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/state-capture-culprits-have-blood-on-their-hands-says-cape-town-church-20220415">to account</a>. </p>
<p>South Africa needs more people, and collectives, who are committed to living decently, whose commitment is to undo the systemic humiliation caused by the nation’s political and economic institutions, which is shamefully overlooked by its citizens. This is an urgent task.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dion Forster receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p>The country urgently needs more people who are committed to living decently to undo the systemic humiliation caused by political and economic institutions.Dion Forster, Full Professor of Ethics and Head of Department, Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1825222022-05-10T13:55:38Z2022-05-10T13:55:38ZKiir and Machar: insights into South Sudan’s strongmen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461556/original/file-20220505-19-ego7xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (right) and his deputy Riek Machar shake hands in Addis Ababa to signify a peace deal in September, 2018.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Salva Kiir and Riek Machar loom large over South Sudan’s recent history. And they will keep holding the future of the young nation in their hands to a large extent.</p>
<p>So who are they? And what are the roots of their rivalry?</p>
<p>Kiir is the 70-year-old president of South Sudan, a nation of 11 million. Machar, a year younger, is his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/18/south-sudan-opposition-leader-riek-machar-drc-democratic-republic-congo">on-and-off vice-president</a>. The two men have been pivotal figures in negotiating and agreeing, disagreeing and breaking peace agreements over most of South Sudan’s first decade as an independent nation. </p>
<p>Their attitudes, behaviour and actions have shaped the country’s unwieldy road towards and away from democracy, peace and development, and national unity. To understand South Sudan’s contemporary and future political development, security and national unity, it’s important to take a closer look at these two towering political leaders.</p>
<h2>From rebel fighters to political kingpins</h2>
<p>Both Kiir and and Machar spent their formative years in the first and second South Sudanese civil war between South Sudanese rebel movements and the Sudanese armed forces and pro-government militias. These wars were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23017651?seq=1">fought between 1955 and 1972</a>, and <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/sudan-2nd-civil-war-darfur/">1983 and 2005</a>.</p>
<p>Kiir belongs to the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/s-c-acaps_country_profile_southsudan_august2015.pdf">Dinka</a>, the largest ethnic group in South Sudan. He was an officer and second in charge in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the main rebel movement and army in South Sudan. He led several successful military offensives against the Sudanese government, for instance capturing large parts of Western Equatoria from Sudanese control. </p>
<p>His military leadership made him popular within the military wings of the movement and he held a strong vision of an independent South Sudan. His vision, however, was in stark contrast to the late John Garang de Mabior, the charismatic SPLM leader who <a href="https://sudantribune.com/article23287/">envisioned a united Sudan</a> where South Sudanese had equal political and economic rights along North Sudanese. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/sc8306.doc.htm">peace agreement</a> between the government of Sudan and the SPLM was eventually signed in 2005, paving the way to South Sudan’s independence. Garang became Vice-President of Sudan and president of the transitional government of South Sudan. </p>
<p>Tragically, Garang <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/8/1/sudans-garang-dies-in-copter-crash">died in a helicopter crash due to a pilot error</a> in 2005. Kiir took over the SPLM leadership as well as Garang’s position as Vice-President of Sudan, and became the president of South Sudan. After a landslide referendum in 2011, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2011.593364?scroll=top&needAccess=true">South Sudanese were granted independence</a>.</p>
<p>Kiir is generally known for his calm, mild tempered, and rather emotionless public appearances. But even during his years as subordinate to Garang he had a thirst for formal authority and power which he has expanded with stamina within the SPLM and South Sudanese state institutions over the past decades.</p>
<p>Machar belongs to the second-largest ethnic group in South Sudan, the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/s-c-acaps_country_profile_southsudan_august2015.pdf">Nuer</a>. He was a regional commander under Garang’s leadership in the SPLM during the 1980s. Like Kiir, he disagreed with Garang’s objectives, preferring an independent South Sudan. He also complained about <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/08/south-sudan-child-soldiers-riek-machar/">Garang’s authoritarian leadership</a>. After the 2005 peace agreement and Garang’s death, Machar became the Vice-President of South Sudan. </p>
<h2>The genesis of violent rivalry</h2>
<p>Frustrated with and opposed to Garang’s leadership of the South Sudanese resistance, Machar and members of other tribes formed an opposition rebel movement to the main rebel group SPLM in 1991. This they called the SPLM-Nasir faction. </p>
<p>Machar and his Nasir faction fought for South Sudanese independence. But at the same time they received financial and military support from the military government in Khartoum, the main opposition of the SPLM. Relying on a <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781847011510/the-root-causes-of-sudans-civil-wars/">divide-and-conquer strategy</a>, Khartoum used Machar and his troops to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/16/south-sudan-ethnic-targeting-widespread-killings">turn against the SPLM rebels</a> including Garang and Kiir. </p>
<p>During one known <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/4/23/south-sudans-massacre-among-many">massacre</a> in the town of Bor, Nasir troops killed thousands of civilians belonging to the ethnic Dinka, Kiir’s tribe. The result were reprisal attacks. Divisions within South Sudan became not only increasingly violent but were also increasingly ethnic in character. </p>
<p>The legacy of this ethnic violence remains largely unresolved and unaddressed. It continues to be a source of latent distrust and suspicion that’s exploited by political rhetoric and manipulation.</p>
<p>Since 2013 South Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war that is essentially a conflict between Kiir’s Dinka-dominated troops and Machar’s Nuer-dominated troops. Both Kiir and Machar are concerned about their own political future, their own security and that of their families and allies and ethnic kin. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://unmiss.unmissions.org/">United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)</a> has the mandate to support the implementation of several peace agreements as well as to protect civilians. It has a large presence: more than 14,000 military personnel, 1,500 police and at least 2,000 civilian staff. Nevertheless, it has often been <a href="https://theglobalobservatory.org/2019/12/impact-un-mission-south-sudan-complicated-by-dilemmas-of-protection/">perceived</a> as doing too little too late to protect civilians. </p>
<h2>The Dinka and the Nuer</h2>
<p>Ideologically, Kiir and Machar do not seem to be that far apart. They have both always seen South Sudan’s future as that of an independent nation. The difficulty lies in agreeing on how to organise, distribute and cooperate within a nation that consists of dozens of ethnic groups and sub-tribes, different livelihoods, and cultural links across neighbouring countries. </p>
<p>It is clear, although they would never admit it, that the two men see themselves and their ethnic communities as the main heirs of the nation, and that they each hold a legitimate claim to leadership. These claims are nurtured through the relative population share of both groups and their role in the war with Sudan, largely due to their settlement areas along the South Sudan-Sudan border.</p>
<p>The Dinka are the largest ethnic group in South Sudan, representing around 35% of the population. The Nuer are the second largest with around 16%. Other groups represent much <a href="https://reliefweb.int/map/sudan/distribution-ethnic-groups-southern-sudan-24-dec-2009">smaller shares</a>.</p>
<h2>What legacy?</h2>
<p>In recent years, foreign aid has been cut back to humanitarian assistance, foreign investment has stalled due to insecurity, prices for everyday goods have skyrocketed due to reduced agricultural activities and increased import reliance. </p>
<p>These are just some of the things that make life for ordinary citizens in South Sudan harder than it already has been for most of their lives. At the end of the day, the question for Kiir and Machar is what legacy both want to be remembered for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182522/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlo Koos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kiir and Machar have been pivotal figures in most of South Sudan’s short history as an independent nation.Carlo Koos, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of BergenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803922022-04-14T12:16:27Z2022-04-14T12:16:27ZWhy do peace talks fail? A negotiation expert answers 5 questions about the slim chances for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458011/original/file-20220413-15-vagmgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=196%2C177%2C6034%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Peace activists demonstrate outside the European Commission building on March 22, 2022, in Brussels.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/avaaz-activists-and-young-ukrainians-demonstrate-with-a-giant-peace-picture-id1239422620?s=2048x2048">Thierry Monasse/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ukraine and Russia have held intermittent peace talks since the end of February 2022, just days after Russia first launched a war. </p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin squashed hope of an imminent peace deal on April 12 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-flies-into-russian-far-east-ukraine-talks-with-belarusian-leader-2022-04-12/">when he said that the talks</a> “have again returned to a dead-end situation for us.”</p>
<p>Ukraine maintains that the discussions are still <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/12/russia-putin-belarus-lukashenko-ukraine-war/">“taking place,”</a> even as the “negotiations are extremely difficult,” according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.</p>
<p>Russia’s continued attacks on the Ukrainian <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-state-of-the-union-address-zelenskyy-biden-kyiv-7cc069b80178629a60f4f2d166348d45">port city of Mariupol</a>, as well as the mass murder of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/eu-leaders-condemn-killing-of-unarmed-civilians-in-bucha-and-kyiv">civilians in Bucha</a>, make it hard to hold peace talks.</p>
<p>But as former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-09-15-9309150118-story.html">once said</a>, “You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.”</p>
<p>Peace talks are always a complex mix of strategic calculation and human emotion. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sandiego.edu/news/biography.php?profile_id=2091">my 20 years of experience</a> working on peace-building programs and researching peace and conflict, I’ve learned that it’s important to pay attention to both factors to understand why talks may – or may not – succeed. </p>
<p>The Conversation asked me to respond to the following questions about peace talks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A row of men men in suits stand on either side of a table in a formal looking room, with Ukrainian and Russian flags on the table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457980/original/file-20220413-10273-xe9cl1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russia and Ukraine held a round of face-to-face peace talks, which ultimately failed, in Turkey in March 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/fresh-round-of-facetoface-peace-talks-between-russia-and-ukraine-is-picture-id1239611995?s=2048x2048">Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How often do peace talks fail, and why?</h2>
<p>Most of the time.</p>
<p>Between 1946 and 2005, only 39 of 288 conflicts, or 13.5%, ended in a peace agreement, according to a research initiative at the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25654559?seq=1">University of Uppsala in Sweden</a>. The others ended in victory for one side, or an end to fighting without a peace agreement or a victory.</p>
<p>But even when warring parties fail to reach a peace agreement, talks can reduce civilian casualties through temporary cease-fires or the establishment of <a href="https://theconversation.com/humanitarian-corridors-could-help-civilians-safely-leave-ukraine-but-russia-has-a-history-of-not-respecting-these-pathways-178840">humanitarian corridors</a> to deliver supplies or evacuate civilians. </p>
<p>There is also evidence that even <a href="https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/08/10/even-failed-peace-agreements-save-lives/">failed peace agreements reduce the intensity of future conflict</a>.</p>
<h2>How useful can peace talks be when warring parties are still fighting?</h2>
<p>Very.</p>
<p>Peace talks can create a foundation for an eventual agreement to end conflict. They can also reduce harm to communities. </p>
<p>In my experience, cease-fire negotiations are often undertaken during a spike in violence. This violence can give impetus to reduce fighting in the future.</p>
<p>If warring parties agree to a cease-fire, and stick to that agreement, casualties on both sides can be avoided. They can also create an initial foundation of trust that can ease the way to more difficult negotiations.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://mediationsupportnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Confidence-building-measures.pdf">Nuba Mountains cease-fire agreement in Sudan</a>, for instance, is credited with helping to build trust that allowed broader, and more meaningful, north-south peace talks to take place, starting in 2002.</p>
<p>Narrow agreements that help end violence and save lives may also be achievable. During the 2008-2009 Gaza war, for instance, while there was no agreement for a cease-fire, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-oks-gaza-humanitarian-corridor/">Israel did open a humanitarian</a> corridor to allow lifesaving aid to be delivered to civilians. </p>
<p>Crucially, peace talks during war are not something warring parties do as an alternative to fighting. It is a strategy, used alongside fighting, to achieve one’s goals.</p>
<h2>What are the greatest problems faced in peace talks?</h2>
<p>There are many.</p>
<p>The biggest challenge to peace talks is conflict-related violence, and the anger and mistrust it creates between different warring parties. Negotiators must sit across from those they believe have killed their sons and daughters. </p>
<p>Violence in the Ukraine war has been pervasive and widespread, affecting soldiers and civilians alike. In Ukraine, more than <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/04/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-11-april-2022">1,842 civilians have been killed by Russian forces</a>, according to U.N. estimates. The actual number of dead civilians is <a href="https://theconversation.com/reliable-death-tolls-from-the-ukraine-war-are-hard-to-come-by-the-result-of-undercounts-and-manipulation-179905">likely far higher</a>. </p>
<p>This means that there must be compelling, strategic reasons to negotiate. </p>
<p>More often than not, however, one side believes it is winning and doesn’t have an incentive to negotiate. In Afghanistan, for instance, the Taliban pulled out of <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-will-withdraw-from-war-in-afghanistan-by-911-anniversary">peace talks in 2021</a> as they were making significant military gains and the United States had announced it would withdraw troops.</p>
<h2>What brings negotiators to the peace table?</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/TimingofPeaceInitiatives_Zartman2001.pdf">stalemate that hurts both sides</a> can bring different parties to the table. </p>
<p>Both sides realize they are being harmed by the status quo but also know that they cannot defeat the other side militarily. Negotiations are then a logical way forward. </p>
<p>Once at the table, the negotiators, often supported by neutral mediators, work to arrive at some version of a solution whereby they both feel they have won something. A core goal is to craft agreements that create a kind of mutual gain.</p>
<p>Negotiators must not only reach an agreement but also sell that agreement to a community that is angry, traumatized and grieving. </p>
<p>This is just one reason that it’s important to include all kinds of people, including women, community organizers and different ethnic leaders, in peace talks. Their inclusion means that public acceptance of the peace deal grows as the negotiations proceed. </p>
<p>But the most common model – as in the case of Ukraine and Russian talks – is still for a few elite men to negotiate an agreement, and only then do they try to sell it to key constituencies back home. Authoritarians even need support for peace agreements, even if is just from the military to avoid a coup. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men in blue suits stand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457985/original/file-20220413-16-8myj79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, center, is one of the people attending Ukraine-Russia peace talks who reportedly were poisoned by the Russian government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/russian-businessman-roman-abramovich-attends-the-peace-talks-between-picture-id1239590124?s=2048x2048">Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Can you count on good faith from other participants during peace talks?</h2>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Peace negotiators need to build some kind of working relationship just to organize peace talks. These relationships, though, do not guarantee those at peace talks will negotiate in good faith. In South Sudan, for instance, peace negotiators were accused of participating just so they could stay for weeks at a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2014/0118/Luxury-and-farce-but-no-progress-at-South-Sudan-peace-talks">time in luxury hotels</a>. </p>
<p>In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad was often accused of engaging in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20160203-syria-peace-talks-pause-aleppo-battle-opposition-un-assad">peace talks</a> as a public relations strategy, or to allow his military to regroup before their next attack on civilians. </p>
<p>Good-faith negotiations happen only when it is in the best interests of the parties to reach an agreement.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Russia, meanwhile, has been <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/report-peace-negotiators-for-ukraine-russia-suffer-from-suspected-poisoning-/6505207.html">accused of poisoning</a> two senior Ukrainian peace negotiators, as well as Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, during a round of talks concerning the Ukraine war in March.</p>
<p>This violence violates old <a href="https://www.c-r.org/accord/legitimacy-and-peace-processes/introduction-legitimacy-and-peace-processes/legitimacy-and">diplomatic customs</a> that guide peace talks, including that peace envoys will remain safe.</p>
<p>Russia’s alleged violation of these customs will make it all the more difficult for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to reach a successful outcome. The talks will likely be long and arduous and require smaller, confidence-building steps before the war will end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Blum receives funding from the United States Department of Justice. He is affiliated with the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego. </span></em></p>Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of failed peace talks. Understanding the challenges to successful peace talks helps illuminate the struggle for peace in Eastern Europe.Andrew Blum, Executive Director and Professor of Practice at Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Kroc School, University of San DiegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1807782022-04-14T03:32:33Z2022-04-14T03:32:33ZHow can Russia’s invasion of Ukraine end? Here’s how peace negotiations have worked in past wars<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to be resolved on the battlefield. An end to the bloodshed and destruction of Ukraine can be negotiated, but such negotiations need to be mediated carefully. </p>
<p>So far, all attempts have been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-flies-into-russian-far-east-ukraine-talks-with-belarusian-leader-2022-04-12/">unsuccessful</a>. As have been calls on Putin to end the war, from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-germanys-scholz-urges-putin-to-end-hostilities/a-61018687">Western heads of state</a> to the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-renews-calls-to-end-war-ukraine-russia/">pope</a>.</p>
<p>Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, is currently <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/turkey-plays-dance-go-betweens-ukraine-war">acting as a mediator</a> between Russia and Ukraine. Such a situation, where a separate country or politician assumes the role of go-between, has worked to bring some past wars to an end.</p>
<p>But politicians aren’t always the best mediators.</p>
<p>Negotiations can be facilitated more actively, and ideally international experts on peace mediation should be involved as quickly as possible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putin-is-staking-his-political-future-on-victory-in-ukraine-and-has-little-incentive-to-make-peace-179236">Putin is staking his political future on victory in Ukraine – and has little incentive to make peace</a>
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<h2>Peace mediation has become a profession</h2>
<p>There have been many developments in the field of peace mediation over the past decades. The <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/mediation-support">United Nations</a>, the <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/107-au-mediation-support-unit">African Union</a> and other international organisations have set up mediation teams.</p>
<p>Several specialised non-governmental organisations have also been created, like the Geneva-based <a href="https://www.hdcentre.org/">Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue</a> and the Helsinki-based <a href="https://cmi.fi/">Crisis Management Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>Peace mediation is developing into a <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2783314">professional activity</a>. There have even been initiatives to adopt a <a href="https://ifit-transitions.org/peace-treaty-initiative/">new international treaty</a> to create a stronger framework and more guidance for peace negotiators. </p>
<p>Mediators are called in when a conflict is too complex for the parties to resolve by themselves, as in family disputes for instance. Trying to end wars is, obviously, very complex and requires certain expertise. </p>
<p>The problem in the Russia-Ukraine context is all these experienced organisations would be dismissed as “pro-Western” by Moscow. The same is true for states like <a href="https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home/foreign-policy/human-rights/peace/switzerland-s-good-offices/facilitation-and-mediation.html">Switzerland</a> and the <a href="https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/94740">Nordic states</a>, which have a long tradition as mediators. </p>
<p>Therefore, the current Russia-Ukraine talks are taking the form of classical diplomacy negotiations between states mediated by politicians. Professional peace mediators aren’t involved.</p>
<h2>Politicians as mediators?</h2>
<p>Peace mediators don’t necessarily have to be perfectly neutral and unbiased. Close relationships with one or both conflict parties may actually help.</p>
<p>Indeed Erdoğan has <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-turkeys-unique-role-in-peace-negotiations-180265">high stakes</a> in this conflict. This doesn’t automatically disqualify him as a mediator.</p>
<p>Consider the role the United States, historically a strong supporter of Israel, played in brokering the 1993 Oslo Agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.</p>
<p>Another example is the role Blaise Compaoré, the former president of Burkina Faso, played in the 2007 negotiations leading to a peace agreement between the government of the Ivory Coast and the rebellious “New Forces”, which Compaoré overtly supported.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1509209683105660930"}"></div></p>
<p>Being able to influence and, to some extent, compel the conflict parties to negotiate can also help. A prime example is the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.</p>
<p>Here, the US had some leverage over the parties, which allowed the chief mediator, Richard Holbrooke, to adopt the “<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9902/holbrooke/index.html">Big Bang approach</a>” in which all parties are locked in a room – in this case the Wright-Patterson air force base in Dayton – until they reach an agreement. </p>
<p>But Russia is too powerful for that.</p>
<p>This is also why the Austrian chancellor’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/11/austrian-chancellor-to-tell-putin-he-has-lost-the-war-morally">trip to Moscow this week</a> seems rather hopeless and possibly counterproductive at this stage. Chancellor Nehammer <a href="https://twitter.com/karlnehammer/status/1513193093784297476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1513193093784297476%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Flive%2F2022%2Fapr%2F11%2Frussia-ukraine-war-latest-austrian-chancellor-to-meet-putin-ukraine-prepares-for-fresh-onslaught-in-east-live%3Fpage%3Dwith%3Ablock-6253927d8f0887d7b40d7d5bblock-6253927d8f0887d7b40d7d5b">seems to think</a> he can negotiate humanitarian corridors and a ceasefire. </p>
<p>But Putin will be able to use the visit to show Russians he isn’t that isolated in Europe (even if Austria is hardly a heavyweight). So while attempts to mediate are always laudable, they need to be planned carefully. </p>
<p>Fundamentally, politicians aren’t necessarily the best mediators, although they often see themselves as such, and Erdoğan is relatively well placed. </p>
<h2>Peace mediation experts should be involved</h2>
<p>International, professional experts on peace mediation could and should be involved in the Russia-Ukraine talks, whether formally or informally. Most peace agreements have been facilitated by third parties in some way.</p>
<p>For instance, the <a href="https://igad.int/">Intergovernmental Authority on Development</a>, a regional organisation, mediated the negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan, with the contribution of other organisations and experts. This led to the adoption of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which ended a longstanding war. </p>
<p>Also, while a ceasefire is desirable, it isn’t absolutely necessary to make progress on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/peace-talks-ukraine-russias-red-lines-unchanged-2022-03-30/">substantive issues</a>, such as the status of the Donbas and Crimea. Many negotiations, from Bosnia to Colombia, have been held <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20319583">while the fighting continued</a>. So even if there’s no ceasefire, the parties can still agree on other issues.</p>
<p>And it can be OK to agree to disagree. Not everything needs to be resolved right now in a comprehensive package deal. Some issues can be resolved later. Peace is a process.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-recap-is-peace-possible-180458">Ukraine Recap: is peace possible?</a>
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<p>To be clear, engaging in negotiations doesn’t imply excusing Russia’s aggression or the perpetration of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas">war crimes</a>. And atrocities against civilians, as revealed by the recently discovered corpses in Bucha, could <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/russia-ukraine-peace-talks.html">further decrease the chances for successful talks</a>.</p>
<p>No indictments or arrest warrants against political and military leaders, including Putin, have been issued in the context of Ukraine so far. But with the situation before the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/ukraine">International Criminal Court</a>, this could change. While it will be difficult to execute such warrants, they’re likely to affect negotiations.</p>
<p>It’s crucial to explore every option to end this war right now by envisaging a scenario that allows both sides to avoid feeling humiliated. Using professional peace mediators would help. But of course they can’t be imposed on Putin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philipp Kastner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Politicians aren’t necessarily the best mediators. International experts on peace mediation should be involved.Philipp Kastner, Senior Lecturer in International Law, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1811012022-04-13T13:51:09Z2022-04-13T13:51:09ZRussia’s war in Ukraine: how South Africa blew its chance as a credible mediator<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457907/original/file-20220413-24-ko2adv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russia's indiscriminate war in Ukraine has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Sergey Dolzhenko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has been roundly <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/18/south-africa-ukraine-russia-putin-ramaphosa-war-diplomacy-negotiation/">criticised</a> for its decision to abstain from voting on three UN General Assembly <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-countries-showed-disunity-in-un-votes-on-russia-south-africas-role-was-pivotal-180799">resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/unga-resolution-against-ukraine-invasion-full-text">first resolution, on 2 March</a>, demanded that Russia immediately stop its aggression and withdraw its troops. The <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/ga12411.doc.htm">second</a> on 24 March demanded full humanitarian access and protection of civilians and humanitarian personnel in Ukraine. The <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115782">third</a> on 7 April called for Russia to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council because of its gross and systematic violation and abuse of human rights.</p>
<p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/newsletters/desk-president%2C-7-march-2022">defence</a> is that international criticism and economic pressure against Russia may succeed in ending hostilities, but will not result in lasting peace. Long-term peace will be only be achieved through dialogue and negotiations.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa grounds this stance in South Africa’s negotiated settlement <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/negotiations-and-transition">in the early 1990s</a>. This ensured a relatively peaceful transition from the dark days of apartheid to the bright light of a <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/EducationPubs/how-our-democracy-works.pdf">constitutional democracy</a>. </p>
<p>During the transition Ramaphosa himself was an immensely impressive negotiator for the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC), the leading liberation movement. But his position on a negotiated settlement for Ukraine is apolitical, ignoring the necessity for sustained pressure to compel conflict parties to engage in negotiations. Without this pressure, Russia will continue with its <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-crimes-tracker-b39137c3a96eef06f4ba1793fd694542">merciless military attacks</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-fresh-warning-that-africa-needs-to-be-vigilant-against-russias-destabilising-influence-178785">Ukraine war: fresh warning that Africa needs to be vigilant against Russia's destabilising influence</a>
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<p>As an international mediation scholar and practitioner based at the <a href="https://kroc.nd.edu/">Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies</a>, I argue that South Africa’s stance is counter-productive if it wants to contribute to a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Ukraine. </p>
<h2>Pressure supports negotiations</h2>
<p>When conflict parties are locked in hostilities, they are intent on defeating their adversary. They are not interested in ending the conflict through negotiations, which inevitably entail compromises. The critical political and strategic question confronting the international community is this: what steps can be taken to convince the parties to agree to serious negotiations? </p>
<p>South Africa’s history provides an answer to this question: a combination of sustained <a href="http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp796.pdf">international sanctions</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">domestic mass resistance</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1960-1994-armed-struggle-and-popular-resistance">armed struggle – the Soviet-backed armed struggle of the ANC</a> eventually forced the minority regime to the negotiating table. Pressure is thus not the opposite of negotiations. Rather, it is a vital means for kick-starting serious negotiations.</p>
<p>Ukraine and Russia have not reached the point of serious negotiations. They remain locked in a military struggle, with Russia believing it can still make gains through the use of force. It is far-fetched to imagine that President Vladimir Putin will respond positively to mere <a href="https://www.gov.za/st/node/812866">exhortations</a> to settle the conflict peacefully. Only a combination of Ukrainian resistance and intense international pressure will change his cost-benefit calculation away from fighting and towards negotiations.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sanctions-against-russia-will-affect-arms-sales-to-africa-the-risks-and-opportunities-180038">Sanctions against Russia will affect arms sales to Africa: the risks and opportunities</a>
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<p>Ramaphosa also opposes criticising Russia on the grounds that South Africa’s neutral stance will place it in a stronger position to help mediate an end to the conflict. The benefit of neutrality, he <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/ramaphosa-defends-south-africa-s-neutral-stance-on-russia-s-war">says</a>, “is that we can talk to both sides”.</p>
<p>Here, too, Ramaphosa is mistaken. International mediators cannot be neutral regarding international law. They are bound by – and are expected to promote - the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter">UN Charter</a>, which prohibits states from using force other than in self-defence or as authorised by the UN Security Council. Mediators must also respect and promote the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/echo/what/humanitarian-aid/international-humanitarian-law_en#:%7E:text=International%20humanitarian%20law%20(IHL)%20is,humanitarian%20aid%20in%20armed%20conflict">international humanitarian law</a>. These instruments are upheld in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/unga-resolution-against-ukraine-invasion-full-text">first</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-general-assembly-adopts-ukraine-aid-resolution-criticizes-russia-2022-03-24/">second</a> UN resolutions on Ukraine, which South Africa declined to endorse. </p>
<h2>South Africa seen as biased</h2>
<p>While international mediators cannot be neutral, they must endeavour to be impartial. This means they must mediate in a manner that is fair to all the conflict parties. Like a referee in a sports match, they should not exhibit bias against or in favour of any side. Their job is to assist the parties reach agreements that the parties themselves deem satisfactory. The only caveat is that the agreements must be consistent with international law.</p>
<p>In reality, Pretoria is not perceived as impartial. It refers to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine as a “<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/newsletters/desk-president%2C-7-march-2022">military operation</a>”, which is Putin’s euphemism for whitewashing his act of aggression. Siding with Putin in this way will undoubtedly cause Ukrainian <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/president/biografiya">President Volodymyr Zelenskyy</a> to be sceptical about South Africa’s possible involvement as a mediator.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-nuclear-power-exports-will-they-stand-the-strain-of-the-war-in-ukraine-178250">Russia's nuclear power exports: will they stand the strain of the war in Ukraine?</a>
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<p>When the General Assembly debated the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-general-assembly-adopts-ukraine-aid-resolution-criticizes-russia-2022-03-24/">second UN resolution</a>, South Africa proposed <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114632">an alternative resolution</a> that focused on the humanitarian dimensions of the conflict and ignored Russia’s ongoing responsibility for the crisis. The proposed resolution, which <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114632">failed to garner sufficient votes</a>, did not even mention Russia.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Russia supported this approach. Ukraine, on the other hand, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114632">denounced it</a>. According to the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, focusing exclusively on humanitarian issues was </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114632">(like having a) child dying in your arms and instead of administering to him the proper medicine, you opt for a placebo</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The most prominent mediator to date has been Turkey. At the end of March direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/29/no-handshake-as-ukraine-russia-envoys-meet-for-peace-talks">took place in Istanbul</a>. Yet Turkey, unlike South Africa, has not refrained from <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/8/russia-suspended-from-un-human-rights-body-how-countries-voted">voting to support the UN resolutions condemning Russia</a>. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/newsletters/desk-president%2C-7-march-2022">complains</a> that the UN resolution of 2 March did not make an adequate call to resolve the conflict by peaceful means. But the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/unga-resolution-against-ukraine-invasion-full-text">resolution</a> is actually very clear on this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(It) urges the immediate peaceful resolution of the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine through political dialogue, negotiations, mediation and other peaceful means.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>South Africa has squandered its potential to play a constructive mediation role in the Ukraine crisis. Instead of drawing on the lessons of its own negotiated settlement and its rich history of peacemaking in Africa, it has adopted a position that amounts to appeasing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurie Nathan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Instead of drawing on the lessons of its own negotiated settlement and its rich history of peace-making in Africa, Pretoria chose to appease Russia.Laurie Nathan, Professor of the Practice of Mediation, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1615492021-05-27T16:42:38Z2021-05-27T16:42:38ZRegional military intervention in Mozambique is a bad idea. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403140/original/file-20210527-21-mrjc1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Displaced people arrive in Pemba, Mozambique, after fleeing Palma following a brutal attack by Islamist insurgents in March.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Wessels/AFF via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The heads of state of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have endorsed plans to deploy troops to Mozambique to help it fight <a href="https://www.sadc.int/news-events/news/communique-extraordinary-summit-sadc-heads-state-and-government/">extremists in the Cabo Delgado province in the north of the country</a>. Regional leaders also urged members states to continue working with humanitarian agencies to continue providing humanitarian support.</p>
<p>The insurgency, led by an Islamist group known as the Sunnar (popularly known locally as Al-Shabaab), has destabilised the region <a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambiques-own-version-of-boko-haram-is-tightening-its-deadly-grip-98087">since October 2017</a>. Its strength has grown tremendously since last year. In October <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53756692">it made a daring raid</a> on one of the major towns in the north, Mocimbao da Praia. And then in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-mozambique-insurgency-pemba-idUSKBN2BS0R4">March this year</a> it targeted foreign contract workers, including South Africans.</p>
<p>This rang alarm bells in the region.</p>
<p>But is an intervention by the regional body a good idea? And will it help?</p>
<p>Past experiences suggest it’s not. And that it won’t help. </p>
<p>I suggest that the SADC does not have a remarkable record of military interventions in civil conflicts in the region. It would therefore be misguided to attempt an intervention without adequate understanding of the political dynamics at play in northern Mozambique. </p>
<p>Interventions that are hastily prepared by military leaders without deep contextual knowledge of the drivers of conflict are not likely to end well.</p>
<h2>Mixed legacy of intervention</h2>
<p>SADC interventions in internal conflicts in its neighbourhood haven’t worked out well. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://wis.orasecom.org/content/study/UNDP-GEF/NAP-SAP/Documents/References/tda.nap.sap/SA-%20Lesotho%201998.pdf">1998</a> Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe took the lead on behalf of the regional body to restore order and constitutional legality in Lesotho. The haste in which the SADC conceived the operation guaranteed that it would not produce clear outcomes. South African troops <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-09-19-mandela-and-military-force-its-use-is-determined-by-the-situation/">lost their lives</a> and SADC troops had to withdraw in ignominy. </p>
<p>The SADC has since had to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-efforts-to-stabilise-lesotho-have-failed-less-intervention-may-be-more-effective-137499">continually intervene</a> as a peacemaker in the fractious terrain of Lesotho politics.</p>
<p>The other major experience in intervention was through the <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/ipi_e_pub_un_intervention_brigade_rev.pdf">Force Intervention Brigade</a> composed of Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa. This was put together to defeat the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/11/5/qa-who-are-dr-congos-m23-rebels">M23 Movement</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2013. It was deployed under a United Nations Security Council <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2013/sc10964.doc.htm">resolution</a> to assist the United Nations <a href="https://monusco.unmissions.org/en">Mission</a> for the Stabilisation of the DRC. </p>
<p>Initially, the Force Intervention Brigade made a difference. It <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20131105-drc-congo-m23-rebels-announce-end-of-rebellion-insurgency">routed the M23</a> and contributed to a return to some form of stability. But the militia menace in the region has continued unabated, raising questions about the long term <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/democratic-republic-congo/b150-averting-proxy-wars-eastern-dr-congo-and-great-lakes">efficacy of the brigade’s work.</a>. </p>
<p>The brigade remains in place, though countries contributing troops have lost enthusiasm for managing the multiple problems in the region.</p>
<h2>Lessons learnt from past forays</h2>
<p>What can we learn from these military experiences to inform the envisaged Mozambique intervention? </p>
<p>First, military interventions in complex internal conflicts are fraught with profound obstacles. The biggest are inadequate knowledge about the parties to the conflict and what drives the conflict, and uncertainties about the outcomes. </p>
<p>In Mozambique, the insurgents have grown because of preexisting grievances. This includes the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Policy-Brief-The-rise-and-root-causes-of-Islamic-insurgency-in-Mozambique-1.pdf">political marginalisation</a> of the largely poor and rural Muslim-dominated region. This has coincided with the discovery of one of the world’s largest natural gas deposits, which has <a href="https://theconversation.com/offshore-gas-finds-offered-major-promise-for-mozambique-what-went-wrong-158079">attracted French, Italian and American companies</a>.</p>
<p>The rich gas finds have turned Mozambique into a typical resource-cursed nation, where natural resource abundance in marginalised communities predictably <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125773/ARI172-2010_DiJohn_Resource_Course_Theory_Evidence_Africa_LatinAmerica.pdf">fuels dissent and rebellion</a>. </p>
<p>Second, it is dangerous for regional actors to pick a fight with a group they believe they can easily subdue. The insurgents started low level guerrilla attacks targeted at government installations and gradually <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2020.1789271?journalCode=rjea20;%20https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/growing-insurgency-mozambique-poses-danger-southern-africa;https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56411157">escalated</a> to widespread massacre of civilians and the acquisition of territory. </p>
<p>This escalation, in part, follows the government’s response to the crisis. Rather than engaging with the communities on stemming the crisis, the immediate response was to <a href="https://sofrep.com/news/wagner-group-russian-mercenaries-still-foundering-in-africa/">hire Russian mercenaries</a> to fight the rebellion. </p>
<p>But the rebels launched a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/scorched-earth-policy">scorched-earth</a> counteroffensive that led to the <a href="https://globalriskinsights.com/2021/02/too-many-mercenaries-in-mozambique/">defeat and withdrawal</a> of the mercenaries. The consequences were obvious: militarising the conflict inflamed local passions and expanded the recruitment of people into the rebellion. </p>
<p>The deployment of the mercenaries also showed the government wasn’t confident in the capabilities of its own security forces. </p>
<h2>Intervention in a quagmire</h2>
<p>The SADC is now being asked to intervene in a conflict that it has neither resources nor the political will to manage. When the body bags begin to come home, there will be tremendous pressure on SADC forces to withdraw.</p>
<p>Rather than the folly of an intervention, the region should be encouraging the Mozambican state to address the grievances of the communities in Cabo Delgado. </p>
<p>Throughout Africa, military approaches to grievances over resources have often ended in disaster. For many years, the discovery of oil in South Sudan encouraged the government in Khartoum to militarise a conflict that was, at heart, <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/nexus-between-oil-and-conflict-south-sudan/">about self-determination and dignity for Southerners</a>. South Sudan did attain independence in 2011, but after tremendous loss of lives. </p>
<p>Similarly, a low-level insurgency in Angola’s Cabinda oil-rich region has persisted because of Luanda’s <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/fr/node/213484">indifference to the plight of the local population</a>.</p>
<p>Since the early 2000s, Nigerian governments have learnt to use political approaches in meeting the demands of the Niger Delta oil-producing communities. In a conflict that has festered for decades, the minorities in the region have <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/towards-ending-conflict-and-insecurity-niger-delta-region">contested the exploitation of oil resources</a> by multinational companies, in collaboration with the federal government, to the detriment of their livelihoods and welfare.</p>
<p>Mozambique can learn from these and many other experiences. </p>
<h2>What’s needed</h2>
<p>It took years for the Mozambican government to address the need to decentralise power and resources to the provinces. This had been a long-standing demand by the former rebel movement, Renamo.</p>
<p>But Frelimo, the dominant ruling party, continued to depend on a heavily centralised form of governance where provinces were mere outposts of the central government. Alternative actors and voices were prevented from participation in major decisions. </p>
<p>In the negotiations to resolve the resumption of the Renamo insurgency in 2013, Renamo prioritised decentralisation. Frelimo reluctantly gave in to this demand. But <a href="https://constitutionnet.org/news/conflict-and-decentralization-mozambique-challenges-implementation">implementation has remained sluggish</a>.</p>
<p>The resource curse is not inevitable. Many countries have avoided it through prudent natural resource governance and improving the access of local communities to the resources generated in their communities. </p>
<p>Botswana is an example. It has used creative institutions and political will to <a href="https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/could_oil_shine_like_diamonds_-_how_botswana_avoided_the_resource_curse_and_its_implications_for_a_new_libya.pdf">manage its mineral wealth</a>. Ghana has also put in place robust mechanisms to ensure that its oil resources are used <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghana-has-tried-to-be-responsible-with-its-oil-wealth-this-is-how-136887">for the common good and not to enrich elites</a>.</p>
<p>It should not take decades for the government to build credible and transparent natural resource governance institutions that meet the yearnings of impoverished communities in Cabo Delgado. </p>
<p>The SADC’s military intervention will only embolden die-hards in Frelimo who are reluctant to find peaceful and political solutions to the crisis. And the intervention will postpone a problem that is not going to go way any time soon. </p>
<p><em>Updated opening paragraph to reflect latest developments.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilbert M. Khadiagala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Southern African Development Community does not have a remarkable record of military interventions in civil conflicts in the region.Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1504782020-11-25T14:37:00Z2020-11-25T14:37:00ZHow values, interests and power must shape South Africa’s foreign policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371069/original/file-20201124-23-1j9w6n3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the G20 recently. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 crisis is one of many indicators that we live in dangerous and uncertain times. Others include the international community’s struggle to respond to technological and climate change, demographic shifts, growing poverty and inequality as well as increased global insecurity. </p>
<p>The global governance arrangements for managing these changes are no longer fit for purpose. Take the decision making procedures in the <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/">UN Security Council</a> and the International Monetary Fund <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/index.htm">(IMF)</a>. They don’t account for the growing importance of developing countries. Nor do they meaningfully accommodate non-state actors such as transnational corporations and civil society groups. </p>
<p>These changes are pushing countries to reassess how they use foreign policy to serve their national interests. A recently published book, <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/edited-collections/values-interests-and-power-south-african-foreign-policy-in-uncertain-times"><em>Values, Interest and Power: South African Foreign Policy in Uncertain Times</em></a>, contributes to such a reassessment in South Africa. The book was co-edited by foreign relations expert Elizabeth Sidiropoulos and me.</p>
<p>In the book, a group of senior and junior South African authors offer suggestions on how the country can formulate and implement a foreign policy that responds to a changing global world. </p>
<p>We maintain that foreign policy making should be guided by the national interest. The South African <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> provides important guidance on this. This is because it’s a product of the country’s history, politics and culture. It expresses its values and aspirations.</p>
<p>On foreign policy, it allocates responsibilities and authority among the different branches of government. It also instructs relevant government authorities to base their foreign policy on the values expressed in the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-02.pdf">bill of rights</a>.</p>
<p>Subject to these constraints, policy makers are free to determine foreign policy priorities according to their view of the country’s economic, geo-strategic, political, cultural, environmental and security interests.</p>
<h2>Recommendation</h2>
<p>The book concludes with some recommendations for South Africa’s foreign policy makers. </p>
<p>First, foreign policy should:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>contribute to implementing the domestic economic and social transformation agenda,</p></li>
<li><p>be consistent with the values and governance arrangements set out in the constitution,</p></li>
<li><p>position South Africa to be a norm entrepreneur in global affairs. This means pursuing creative and principled solutions to global issues, </p></li>
<li><p>advocate reforms to global governance arrangements so that they become more responsive to the concerns of the global South. And become more accountable.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Secondly, we recommend changing the way which foreign policy is designed. The Presidency should establish an inter-agency coordinating council that can formulate a coherent and effective foreign policy. The <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/department/index.html">Department of International Relations and Cooperation</a> should then lead implementation.</p>
<p>Our third recommendation is that Parliament and the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-09.pdf">Chapter 9 institutions</a> should play a role in foreign policy making. These institutions support the country’s constitutional democracy. For example, the <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/">Human Rights Commission</a> could issue an annual report assessing how effectively the government has used international relations to advance human rights at home. </p>
<p>In addition, there should be an annual meeting with these bodies to discuss the government’s foreign policy objectives for the year ahead. This could be run by the executive through the Presidency or the foreign relations department.</p>
<p>Fourthly, we recommend that a concerted effort be made to ensure that foreign service staff have the technical and language skills to deal with the expanding range of issues facing the country on the global arena. Equally important, they should also understand the links between domestic social and economic transformation and foreign policy. </p>
<h2>Top of mind topics</h2>
<p>We also make recommendations on specific topics. </p>
<p><strong>Economic development and cooperation:</strong> South Africa needs to pay attention to its trade and economic relations, particularly in Africa. For example, the new <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-africas-free-trade-area-offers-so-much-promise-93827">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> should open important trading and job creating opportunities. It will also help develop regional value chains. </p>
<p>We recommend that the government, business, labour and other stakeholders develop an integrated strategy to take advantage of these opportunities.</p>
<p><strong>Climate change:</strong> The country has played an important leadership role in the global <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/donorfunded/unfccc">United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change</a> negotiations.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1203&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1203&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370292/original/file-20201119-15-qrhl1w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1203&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To continue playing this role credibly, it should reduce the inconsistencies between its domestic and global climate change related policies. In particular, it needs to stress in both arenas the important relationship between climate change and social justice.</p>
<p><strong>Peace and security:</strong> South Africa should draw lessons from its experiences in African peacemaking about how it can help African regional bodies end conflicts.</p>
<p>We also recommend that the country develops a maritime strategy. This is important for two reasons. First, South Africa is bounded by two major oceans. Its exclusive economic zone is bigger than its land mass. Second, external actors are becoming increasingly interested in the Indian Ocean. They see it as part of a bigger maritime space stretching from the Pacific to the east coast of Africa. Without such a strategy, it will be difficult for the country to protect its interests.</p>
<p><strong>The multilateral system:</strong> Middle sized powers like South Africa need a reformed multilateral system. It should, therefore, continue to be engaged in the debates on reforming it. </p>
<p>Given resource constraints, it needs to focus on institutions where reform is feasible. These include the World Trade Organisation, the IMF and the World Bank. Reforms should focus on creating greater voice for underrepresented countries, and more public accountability and transparency. </p>
<p>South Africa should also use its platform in global forums like the <a href="https://g20.org/en/about/Pages/whatis.aspx">G20</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/brics-brazil-russia-india-china-south-africa-1">BRICS</a> to promote issues of concern to Africa, and to foster greater inter-regional cooperation.</p>
<h2>Need for coherence</h2>
<p>A foreign policy that looks incoherent – or is merely reactive – can have both reputational and material costs. We hope this book contributes to improving the gains the country can make from its international relations.</p>
<p><em>Elizabeth Sidiropolous, CEO, South African Institute of International Affairs, contributed to this article</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Bradlow's SARCHI chair is funded by the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>While South Africa should pay careful attention to all its existing trade and economic relations, particular attention should go to its intra-African economic relations.Danny Bradlow, SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1481212020-11-24T15:02:00Z2020-11-24T15:02:00ZMbeki and Obasanjo: case studies in the use of soft power in Africa’s interests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364785/original/file-20201021-23-7ijop4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki share a light moment at a meeting of the G8 and developing nations in Tokyo in 2000.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Michel Euler</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of soft power has been part of the parlance of international relations for <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1148580?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">three decades</a>. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00358533.2020.1819629?journalCode=ctrt20">Soft power</a> actors use non-coercive and persuasive means to achieve their objectives. Attraction rather than force is their preferred language.</p>
<p>The application of soft power remains focused on states because of their primacy in international politics. But, the increasing influence of non-state actors dictates a need to review this approach. Non-state actors on the international stage include international organisations, NGOs, multinational corporations, terrorist groups and individuals. </p>
<p>It is against this backdrop that I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00358533.2020.1819629?journalCode=ctrt20">studied</a> the power of attraction of non-state actors. I focused on the soft power credentials of former African presidents – <a href="https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/people/olusegun-obasanjo/">Olusegun Obasanjo</a> (Nigeria, 1999-2007) and <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> (South Africa, 1999-2008). </p>
<p>The two have made important contributions to the continent this century through promoting peace, democracy, pan-Africanism and regional integration.</p>
<p>The study captures the essence of their soft power. It also engages how it has rubbed off on their respective countries – during and after their presidencies. </p>
<p>I examined Obasanjo’s and Mbeki’s traits, ideas and policies. In particular I focused on their contribution to pan-Africanism and the idea of the <a href="http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">African Renaissance</a>. I argue that they successfully used their soft power and international clout to make significant contributions in Africa and beyond.</p>
<h2>Obasanjo as a soft power president</h2>
<p>After Obasanjo’s civilian administration ended in 2007, he attracted widespread criticism within Nigeria. This is perhaps best captured by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka’s description of him as a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt81pgm">master of hypocrisy</a>”.</p>
<p>But, this underplays some of his accomplishments. The period between 1976 and 1979 when he was the military head of state is <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Nigeria_s_External_Relations_and_Foreign.html?id=ImN0AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">lauded by some</a> as the most dynamic era of Nigeria’s foreign policy. And during his civilian administration (1999–2007) Nigeria was catapulted from a pariah state (due to gross human right abuses by successive military regimes) to a significant regional and, to a lesser extent, global player. </p>
<p>Thanks to Obasanjo’s idiosyncratic soft power, Nigeria, once neglected in global affairs, witnessed an influx of high profile visits, including US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Its voice was better heard in such bodies as the <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/">Commonwealth</a>, <a href="https://www.g77.org/">Group of 77</a> and the <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/foreign/Multilateral/inter/nam.htm">Non-Aligned Movement</a>. </p>
<p>Obasanjo was notable for his courage and decisiveness, particularly when it came to colonialism and, later, apartheid. His toughness on these issues, and his promotion of regional integration, had remarkable success. </p>
<p>A foreign policy that embraces genuine promotion of democracy and peacemaking generates <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=x5Q5DgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=soft+power&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje2-zgiLvsAhX_SxUIHZ7aBt4Q6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=soft%20power&f=false">soft power</a>. </p>
<p>Obasanjo enhanced his, and by extension Nigeria’s soft power through his successful peacemaking and promotion of democracy. The former, in places such as Liberia and Sierra Leone. The latter, in São Tomé and Príncipe, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire.</p>
<p>In Liberia, he was instrumental in ending the war. Obasanjo also facilitated the resignation of President Charles Taylor who was granted asylum in Nigeria. He played an active role in the transition to democratic rule that ushered in President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533952.2018.1492833?journalCode=rsdy20">in 2006</a>.</p>
<p>In São Tomé and Príncipe, Obasanjo ensured the reinstatement of President Fradique de Menezes following a military coup <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533952.2018.1492833?journalCode=rsdy20">in 2003</a>.</p>
<p>His reformist ideas, set out in the <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/foreign/Multilateral/africa/cssdca.htm">Memorandum of Understanding</a> of the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa, was adopted by the African Union summit in 2002. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589000600769926">memorandum</a> has four cornerstones. These are security, stability, development and cooperation as prerequisites for good governance on which African states would be measured. </p>
<p>It is thus clear that Obasanjo’s towering personality and international stature have enabled Nigeria to shape African institutions. He is thus a wielder of soft power.</p>
<p>Since leaving office, Obasanjo has continued to exhibit this soft power through conflict mediation and humanitarian interventions, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2008–2009) and Côte d'Ivoire (2011). </p>
<p>But, a number of shortfalls blot his soft power credentials. These include his unilateral decisions and apparent disdain for the rule of law <a href="https://journals.co.za/content/aa_afren/5/1/EJC10288">while in power</a>.</p>
<h2>Mbeki’s legacy</h2>
<p>Mbeki was influenced by some of Africa’s great political minds, as well as pan-African thinkers, during his years in exile in the UK. </p>
<p>For example, while studying at Sussex University in England in the mid-1960s, he engaged the ideas of pan-Africanist luminaries <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aime-Cesaire">Aimé Cesaire</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fanon-and-the-politics-of-truth-and-lying-in-a-colonial-society-102594">Frantz Fanon</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-Senghor">Leopold Senghor</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-E-B-Du-Bois">W.E.B. Du Bois</a>. Arguably, all these individuals influenced Mbeki’s views as seen in his pursuit of pan-Africanism and African Renaissance. </p>
<p>Mbeki has often been labelled an “African intellectual” and “African <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2017.1414396">philosopher king</a>”. There is no gainsaying that his administration had the most impact of any post-apartheid government in international affairs – even more so than <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>. </p>
<p>This was evident in his push for South-South solidarity and reform of old international institutions such as the <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/">UN Security Council</a>. The African Union, despite its weaknesses, provided the platform for him to promote peace and security in Africa.</p>
<p>Exercising his soft power attribute (persuasion), Mbeki used shuttle diplomacy to garner the support of other African states, the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/group-eight-g8-industrialized-nations#:%7E:text=The%20Group%20of%20Eight%20(G8)%20refers%20to%20the%20group%20of,security%2C%20energy%2C%20and%20terrorism.">Group of Eight</a> and the <a href="https://asean.org/">Association of Southeast Asian States</a> to establish the <a href="https://www.nepad.org/">New Partnership for Africa’s Development</a> and the <a href="https://www.aprm-au.org/">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. He was noted as a major peacemaker on the continent. This is best shown by his administration’s peacemaking and peacekeeping in Burundi, the DRC and Sudan.</p>
<p>Mbeki was often called upon to mediate and find lasting solutions to conflict in Africa. In 2004, the African Union asked that he proffer a political solution to the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire. He was actively involved in mediation to end conflicts in Comoros, Rwanda, Sudan, Eswatini and Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>Some of the interventions turned out to be a mere plastering of wounds as countries such as the DRC and Sudan remained fragile. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Mbeki facilitated the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/drc-lusaka-agreement99">Lusaka ceasefire agreement</a> and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/burundi_arusha-peace-and-reconciliation-agreement-for-burundi.pdf">Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement</a>. The accords aimed to end the DRC and Burundi’s conflicts, respectively.</p>
<p>Indeed, the calls for Mbeki’s mediation reflect recognition of his idiosyncratic soft power.</p>
<p>Mbeki’s administration demonstrated remarkable commitment to provide aid to Africa. The African Renaissance Fund was established in 2000 to disburse aid to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10220460802636158">fellow African states</a>. This offered an alternative to Western aid laced with debilitating conditions.</p>
<p>Mbeki continued to play a significant role after his presidency. He was appointed chair of the African Union’s efforts to bring peace to <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/progress-report-of-the-african-union-high-level-implementation-panel-for-sudan-and-south-sudan">Sudan and South Sudan</a> in 2009. This culminated in South Sudan’s independence in 2011.</p>
<p>The most significant factors that undermined his credibility were his <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40175024?seq=1">quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.25159/0256-8845/3094">HIV/AIDS denialism</a>. </p>
<p>Due to their soft power resources, Obasanjo and Mbeki made their mark on pan-Africanism and conflict resolution in Africa. Their ideas remain deeply ingrained in the African Union.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oluwaseun Tella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former presidents Obasanjo and Mbeki have arguably made the most important contribution to Africa in the 21st Century by promoting peace, democracy, regional integration and pan-Africanism.Oluwaseun Tella, Director, The Future of Diplomacy at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1395672020-06-30T14:06:00Z2020-06-30T14:06:00ZWhy the African Union has failed to ‘silence the guns’. And some solutions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343988/original/file-20200625-33524-1mjaun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A soldier from Niger patrols near the border with Nigeria. Porous borders with Nigeria and Mali are hotbeds for Jihadists and marauding local militias.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Giles Clark/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Seven years ago African leaders committed themselves to working towards an end to armed conflict. As they marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the African Union they swore to ensure lasting peace on the continent. They <a href="https://dppa.un.org/en/un-support-to-au-initiative-silencing-guns-africa">pledged</a> not to bequeath the burden of conflicts to the next generation of Africans.</p>
<p>The pledge was followed by the <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/au-retreat-to-elaborate-a-roadmap-on-practical-steps-to-silence-the-guns-in-africa-by-2020-concludes-in-lusaka-zambia">adoption</a> in 2016 of the <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/au-retreat-to-elaborate-a-roadmap-on-practical-steps-to-silence-the-guns-in-africa-by-2020-concludes-in-lusaka-zambia">Lusaka Road Map</a> to end conflict by 2020. The document outlined <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/N-Instruments/2018-AU-Silencing-the-Guns-Roadmap-ENG.pdf">54 practical steps</a> that needed to be taken. They focused on political, economic, social, environmental and legal issues. They ranged from adequately funding the <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/82-african-standby-force-asf-amani-africa-1">African Standby Force</a> for deployment, to stopping rebels or insurgents and their backers from accessing weapons. Other steps included fighting human trafficking, corruption and illicit financial flows.</p>
<p>At the time of the declaration, Africa had disproportionately high levels of conflict. State and non-state actors in Africa waged about 630 armed conflicts between <a href="https://ucdp.uu.se/">1990 and 2015</a>. Conflicts orchestrated by non-state actors accounted for over 75% of conflicts globally. </p>
<p>The efforts to ‘silence the guns’ has been singularly ineffective. Since the pledge was signed conflict in Africa has <a href="https://www.prio.org/utility/DownloadFile.ashx?id=1888&type=publicationfile">increased</a>.</p>
<p>One reason for the failure is that the 2020 goal was too ambitious given the number of conflicts on the continent. The second reason is that many are internal, arising from the grievances citizens have with their governments. This internal dynamic appears to have been ignored from the outset. </p>
<p>To make some headway the African Union needs to recognise this, and design solutions to conflicts that are informed by the need to protect human rights. The continental body should be empowered to act against any party that violates core values centred on human dignity.</p>
<h2>Theatre of conflict</h2>
<p>Prominent conflicts by non-state actors include the <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/the-local-face-of-jihadism-in-northern-mali/">Tuareg separatist</a> and jihadist insurgencies in Mali, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/organisations/boko-haram.html">Boko Haram</a> in Northern Nigeria, <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/burkina-faso/burkina-fasos-alarming-escalation-jihadist-violence">jihadist and militia</a> insurgencies in Burkina Faso, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/organisations/al-shabab.html">al-Shabaab</a> in Somalia, and the <a href="https://institute.global/policy/ethno-religious-violence-central-african-republic">ethnic war</a> in the Central African Republic. </p>
<p>The most notable civil wars are those in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/war-in-libya-how-did-it-start-what-happens-next">Libya</a>, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-south-sudan">South Sudan</a> and the one waged by Anglophone Ambazonia <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2020/02/06/Cameroon-elections-anglophone-separatist-insurgency-Ambazonia">separatists</a> in Cameroon.</p>
<p>Most conflicts are generally centred on these areas: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/sahel---the-worlds-most-neglected-and-conflict-ridden-region/index.html">Sahel region</a>, including Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and Eritrea</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://plan-international.org/emergencies/lake-chad-crisis">Lake Chad area</a>, including Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://items.ssrc.org/category/crisis-in-the-horn-of-africa/">Horn of Africa</a>, including Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya, and </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/conflict-great-lakes-region/">Great Lakes region</a>, notably Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Though domestic, most of these conflicts tend to be <a href="https://www.routledge.com/African-Borders-Conflict-Regional-and-Continental-Integration-1st-Edition/Moyo-Changwe-Nshimbi/p/book/9780367174835">cross-border in form</a>. They threaten interstate and regional stability. For example, al-Shabaab in Somalia exploits <a href="https://www.foreignbrief.com/security-terrorism/al-shabaab-in-kenya-cross-border-attacks-and-recruitment/">porous borders</a> to carry out deadly attacks in Kenya.</p>
<p>Most of Africa’s conflicts are also increasingly characterised by violent extremism. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52532741">emerging conflict</a> in the Cabo Delgado Province in Mozambique falls into this category. </p>
<h2>Perennial conflict, elusive peace</h2>
<p>The African Union has put a great deal of emphasis on <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">promoting peace, security, and stability in Africa</a>, including in its <a href="https://au.int/Agenda2063/popular_version">Agenda 2063</a> adopted in 2015. </p>
<p>But peace and security continue to elude the continent. Some conflicts have been raging for decades. These include fighting in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-western-sahara-remains-one-of-africas-most-divisive-political-issues-114373">Western Sahara</a>, conflict in the Maghreb region involving the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2016.1208280">Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb</a>, the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/book/fighting-for-peace-somalia-history-and-analysis-the-african-union-mission-amisom-2007-2017">Somali civil war</a>, and the <a href="http://congoresearchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Inside-the-ADF-Rebellion-14Nov18.pdf">Allied Democratic Forces</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361730429X">Lord’s Resistance Army</a> insurgencies in Uganda and the DRC. </p>
<p>Eighteen years ago the African Union changed its <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">Constitutive Act</a>, allowing it to intervene in the internal affairs of member states. Nevertheless, it’s been reluctant to do so. For example, it is conspicuously absent while bloody conflict escalated in <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon">Cameroon</a> and <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya">Libya</a>.</p>
<p>There has been one notable exception: the organisation’s refusal to countenance the coup in Sudan, and <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-854th-meeting-of-the-peace-and-security-council-on-the-situation-in-the-sudan">suspending</a> the country’s membership in June 2019. This should be the norm. </p>
<p>But this highlighted the AU’s double standards. It tacitly countenanced the coups in Egypt in 2013 and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/african-union-wrong-zimbabwe-171204125847859.html">Zimbabwe</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>Although it did <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-protests-africa/african-union-suspends-egypt-idUSBRE9640EP20130705">suspend</a> Egypt after the coup led by Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, it subsequently restored its membership in 2014, and went on to make President El-Sisi its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/egypt-sisi-takes-head-african-union-190210140131428.html">rotational chairman</a> in 2019. This went against its own <a href="https://archives.au.int/bitstream/handle/123456789/1143/Assembly%20AU%20Dec%20269%20%28XIV%29%20_E.PDF?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">rule</a> that bans coup leaders from occupying political office. </p>
<p>The organisation never suspended Zimbabwe over the coup that ended Robert Mugabe’s despotic presidency. Neither did it speak out against <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42053753">General Constantino Chiwenga</a>, the coup leader, becoming the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/zimbabwe-coup-general-appointed-vice-president/a-41918031">vice-president</a>.</p>
<p>Another example of failure has been in Libya, where the AU has been seen to be wringing its hands while deadly conflict escalates and external actors make it their war theatre. These include <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-libya/turkey-signs-maritime-boundaries-deal-with-libya-amid-exploration-row-idUSKBN1Y213I">Turkey</a>, Egypt, Russia and United Arab Emirates. </p>
<p>The presence of foreign military forces on the continent is of concern beyond the Libyan conflict. The increasing number has been <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-601th-meeting-of-the-au-peace-and-security-council-on-early-warning-and-horizon-scanning">recognised</a> by the the African Union Peace and Security Council as a problem.</p>
<p>The numbers are going up via bilateral agreements between African states and foreign governments. </p>
<p>African countries gain economically from hosting foreign military bases. Djibouti, for example, earns about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/world/africa/us-djibouti-chinese-naval-base.html">$63 million annually</a> from the US and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-parting-the-red-sea-why-the-chinese-and-us-armies-are-fortifying/">$20 million annually</a> from China by leasing parts of its territory for their military bases. It also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000203971605100107">hosts</a> British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish military bases. </p>
<p>The foreign actors establish themselves in Africa to protect their <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79S01091A000300050001-3.pdf">economic interests</a> and for <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90018134?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">strategic reasons</a>. Djibouti, for instance, is strategically close to the Middle East and the Red Sea.</p>
<h2>Credible solutions</h2>
<p>The African Union should revisit its Constitutive Act to address principles that limit its ability to intervene in conflicts in member states’ territories. This will set the stage for crafting robust legislation, policies, institutions and mechanisms for long-term stability in such countries.</p>
<p>Following that, the organisation should work through regional economic communities and people at grassroots to end conflict. Its eight <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/recs">recognised regions</a> should emulate the successes of the <a href="https://www.ecowas.int/member-states/">Economic Community of West African States</a>.</p>
<p>The regional bloc occasionally gives early warnings of brewing conflicts in member states. It has also provided military support and helped reform the security sector in <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137280794">Sierra Leone</a>, The Gambia and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/civil-war-and-democracy-in-west-africa-9780857720740/">Liberia</a>. It has also helped with post-conflict reconstruction in these countries.</p>
<p>Notably, its military intervention in The Gambia <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-west-africa-built-the-muscle-to-rout-dictators-and-keep-the-peace-71688">forced the despotic Yahya Jammeh to vacate office</a> in early 2017, after losing the presidential elections. </p>
<p>Ordinary people can also provide vital information to early warning systems. It’s thus imperative to set up long-term, people-centred, innovative and inclusive measures to promote peace. Such bottom-up solutions, based on intimate knowledge of local areas, are key to success.</p>
<p>Finally, the issue of foreign military forces on the continent. Here the African Union has no control over their growing presence because they come through bilateral agreements between member states and foreign powers. Nevertheless, the African Union should work through its regional organisations to play a role in these decisions. </p>
<p>There’s a precedent: the Southern African Development Community under the chairmanship of late Zambian President <a href="https://ndupress.ndu.edu/portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-49.pdf">Levy Mwanawasa</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-usa-africom/u-s-africa-command-aid-crusader-or-meddling-giant-idUSL3030068820070930">opposed</a> the establishment of an American base in the region. Southern Africa went on to establish its own regional military <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/zambia-mwanawasa-launch-of-the-sadc-brigade-17082007-2007-08-17">brigade</a> instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Changwe Nshimbi receives funding from the European Commission (Erasmus+), Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation (DST/NRF, South Africa), The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES). </span></em></p>Leaders’ efforts to end conflict have been ineffective. Working through regional economic communities might be part of a better approach.Chris Changwe Nshimbi, Director & Research Fellow, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1385602020-05-28T13:47:57Z2020-05-28T13:47:57ZSouth Africa’s military is not suited for the fight against COVID-19. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337597/original/file-20200526-106832-1qqg3yk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African soldiers enforcing the COVID-19 lockdown in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The South African National Defence Force is not suited for internal deployment, particularly where it must fight <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-africas-response-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-23-apr-2020">“an invisible enemy”</a> such as the coronavirus. Its conduct while enforcing the COVID-19 lockdown has brought this reality to the fore.</p>
<p>The military has been trained and equipped for precisely the opposite of what President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked of it – to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc1AVwB8H28">save lives</a>. Its purpose is to <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/chp11.html">defend the country and its people</a> against physical, external enemies – by killing such enemies if need be.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702436.2018.1455506">mismatch</a> between defence policy and practice is fundamental to understanding the circumstances around the death of <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-has-moved-centre-stage-in-lockdown-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters-139045">Collins Khosa</a>, allegedly at the hands of the army and police during a COVID-19 lockdown patrol.</p>
<p>Military affairs expert, Professor Lindy Heinecken, captures this issue in her book, <a href="https://juta.co.za/catalogue/south-africas-post-apartheid-military_25860/reviews/add/">South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Military:
Lost in Transition and Transformation</a>. </p>
<p>Chapter 3, on the South African military’s involvement in peace missions, is particularly relevant to understanding its lack of readiness to help contain COVID-19. She highlights the difficulties the military has in executing “secondary tasks”, when it’s “structured, trained, (and) funded” for warfare.</p>
<p>My argument that the South African military is not up to the task of fighting COVID-19 draws from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10246029.2019.1650787?src=recsys">research</a> on its internal deployment and my own continuing research on the democratic nature of South Africa’s civil-military relations. </p>
<p>I have gained additional insights on the social and cultural impediments to nurturing the necessary <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africas-plans-to-militarise-humanitarian-work-are-misguided-53391">humanitarian element</a> in the military from focusing on civil-military relations over the past decade. </p>
<p>What are the reasons for the military’s unpreparedness? This question can be answered by giving attention to South Africa’s political and military leadership, the education and training offered to the military, and how it’s been financed. </p>
<h2>Leadership</h2>
<p>The responsibility for preparing any military to fight an unconventional <a href="https://www.ufs.ac.za/docs/default-source/coronavirus-covid-19-sars-cov-2/brief-7-covid19.pdf?sfvrsn=a0979721_2">security threat</a> in a constitutional democracy ultimately rests with the country’s political and military leaders.</p>
<p>Over the past 26 years, these leaders have failed to prepare the military for secondary roles such <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19445571.2016.1419717?needAccess=true">peace missions</a>, let alone to a fight a virus. </p>
<p>They have failed to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2019/02/01/the-leaders-role-in-culture-design-and-management/#7656975c3a79">create the kind of culture</a> that allows for the alignment of what the military does and its strategic intent. South Africa’s political leaders have purposed the military largely for conventional roles, yet they deploy it mostly for unconventional tasks such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392206.2018.1520798?src=recsys">peacekeeping</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">fighting crime</a>, and against COVID-19. </p>
<p>According to Heinecken this disconnect sits at </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the heart of the challenges the military started to face in the post-apartheid era (<a href="https://juta.co.za/catalogue/south-africas-post-apartheid-military_25860/reviews/add/">p. 26</a>).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Education and training</h2>
<p>Education is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamcraig/2018/09/05/the-role-leadership-has-in-company-culture/#2589208116b6">another tool</a> for transforming organisational culture, so that an organisation is better prepared to perform its role. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337594/original/file-20200526-106866-1pz7wxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the military ahead of its COVID-19 deployment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was appropriate that the defence force <a href="https://www.amazon.com/South-Africas-Post-Apartheid-Military-Transformation/dp/3030337332">launched</a> a civic education programme in 1997. This was three years after the first democratic elections in the country. </p>
<p>It followed the amalgamation of the then South African Defence Force, the mainstay of apartheid rule, with the military forces of the nominally independent <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“homelands”</a> and those of the <a href="https://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/212">liberation movements</a>.</p>
<p>The purpose of the civic education programme was to establish compliance among members of the new defence force “with the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/South-Africas-Post-Apartheid-Military-Transformation/dp/3030337332">new democratic vision of the government (and society)”</a>. Then deputy minister of defence, Ronnie Kasrils, <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1997/9703/s970327b.htm">proclaimed</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everyone in the SA National Defence Force, from troops to the top brass, will go back to school.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My own experience of <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/Mamphela_Ramphele/mamphela-ramphele-we-need-civic-education-programmes-to-end-the-violence-20190924">civic education</a> at the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/the-sandfs-base-of-shame-1567543">Oudtshoorn Infantry School</a> in 2010, and reports on the conduct of South African soldiers on <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-06-24-sa-soldiers-worst-sex-offenders-on-un-missions/">peace missions</a> and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-11-22-00-sandf-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-exposed/">at home</a>, both prior to and during COVID-19, point to
<a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/2414/">the failure of the military’s civic education programme</a> to adequately inculcate respect for human rights and dignity in the military.</p>
<p>In short, the education and training of South Africa’s soldiers over the past 26 years have not properly prepared them for secondary roles, such as peacekeeping or fighting new security threats like <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-south-africas-neglected-military-faces-mission-impossible-133250">COVID-19</a>.</p>
<p>It’s no surprise, therefore, that William Gumede, of the <a href="https://democracyworks.org.za/author/william/">Democracy Works Foundation</a>, a southern African non-profit company focused on the development of democracy, has <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/covid19/covid19-news/latest/complaints-against-sandf.html">called for</a> the military’s training curriculum to be overhauled,
“to make it more human rights based”.</p>
<h2>Finance</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-18-s-african-army-chief-fires-warning-shots-over-budget-cuts/">Military leaders</a> can only execute their mandate, which includes education and training, to the extent that they have the necessary resources. </p>
<p>Over the years the military budget has been cut. In addition, <a href="https://theconversation.com/money-has-little-to-do-with-why-south-africas-military-is-failing-to-do-its-job-81216">almost 80%</a> of the budget is spent on personnel. This has prompted criticism that the country’s military has become <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-01-30-the-sandfs-real-challenge-its-become-a-welfare-not-a-warfare-agency/">“a welfare and not a warfare agency”</a>.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In truth, nothing could have fully prepared any of the world’s militaries for managing the COVID-19 pandemic. But, had South Africa’s political and military leaders done a better job of stewarding the country’s military resource over the past 26 years, it would be better prepared for the challenge.</p>
<p>Political leaders, in consultation with defence leaders and civil society, must engage in realistic discussion about what the military’s primary purpose should be. They may well decide to make secondary tasks the new “primary role”. They should then align its education and training with that role.</p>
<p>Whatever direction they choose will cost money. But, given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mini-budget-underscores-bad-state-of-south-africas-economy-126137">parlous state of South Africa’s economy</a>, even prior to COVID-19, it’s unlikely the military budget will increase for a long time. This calls for the budget to be spent prudently, in line with the military’s core mandate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Bailie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s post-apartheid leaders have failed to properly prepare the military for secondary roles such as peacekeeping, let alone to a fight a virus.Craig Bailie, Lecturer in Political Science (Mil), Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1294672020-01-27T14:06:46Z2020-01-27T14:06:46ZChina’s approach to peace in Africa is different. How and why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310287/original/file-20200115-134772-ydyekf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese soldiers and police serve in eight UN peace missions in Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>China has steadily increased its participation in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in Africa since its <a href="https://www.cips-cepi.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/30YearsofChinesePeacekeeping-FINAL-Jan23-1.pdf">first mission in 1989</a>, when the UN monitored the independence of Namibia <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/untag.htm">from South Africa</a>. Its funding and personnel have both grown.</p>
<p>In 2019 China contributed $7 billion to UN peacekeeping, which accounted for 15.22% of the global peacekeeping budget. This was up from <a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201909/26/WS5d8bfa01a310cf3e3556d7f3.html">10.28% in 2018</a> and makes it the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/china">second largest financial contributor</a> after the US. Of the 14 current UN peacekeeping missions, seven are in Africa, which absorbs about <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/gaab4328.doc.htm">two thirds of the budget</a>.</p>
<p>China has 2,458 military and police personnel serving in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/china,%20namely%20South%20Sudan,%20Mali,%20Lebanon,%20Darfur,%20DRC,%20Western%20Sahara,%20Middle%20East%20and%20Cyprus">eight missions around the globe</a>. This is far more than the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors">combined contribution of personnel</a> by the other four permanent members on the UN Security Council – Russia, the US, France and Britain. </p>
<p>Since 1989, over 40,000 Chinese peacekeepers have served on 24 UN missions, mainly in Africa. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Chinese-Peace-in-Africa-From-Peacekeeper-to-Peacemaker-1st-Edition/Kuo/p/book/9780367024437">book</a>, Chinese Peace: From Peacekeeper to Peacemaker, I argue that a Chinese model of participating in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/what-is-peacekeeping">peacekeeping</a>, <a href="https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/">peace-building</a> and <a href="https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/peacemaking">peacemaking</a> differs fundamentally from that of Western nations.</p>
<p>Whereas the “liberal peace” model draws on Western experiences of democracy and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14678800600933480?src=recsys">free-market economic policies</a>, the Chinese model draws from traditional Chinese political philosophy and its domestic developmental experiences of the past 40 years.</p>
<h2>Chinese model</h2>
<p>What then is the China model for peace in Africa? How does Beijing understand African insecurity and how ought African countries to engage with Beijing? </p>
<p>Since China joined the UN in 1971 (displacing Taiwan), it has adopted a multilateral and non-confrontational approach. As a permanent member on the UN Security Council, it has won respect from African countries for championing issues of the South. For example, former South African president Thabo Mbeki called on China and Russia to veto Western sponsored UN sanctions on Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-crisis-un/russia-and-china-veto-u-n-zimbabwe-sanctions-idUSN0917887320080712">in 1998</a>.</p>
<p>The Chinese peace model prioritises societal stability and economic development over political reforms and individual rights. The recipe for economic growth is for the government to kickstart it by revitalising infrastructure. </p>
<p>The model rests on three pillars:</p>
<ul>
<li>Respect for sovereignty: noninterference in internal affairs of other nations is the foundation of Chinese foreign policy, and can be seen in all <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/ceza/eng/zghfz/zfgx/t165330.htm">official documents</a>. There are two primary reasons for this. </li>
</ul>
<p>First, China suffered Western and Japanese invasions in the 19th and 20th centuries. It also had treaty ports imposed on it, such as Shanghai and Hong Kong. China still sees the colonial invasions and loss of territory as the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/10/how-humiliation-drove-modern-chinese-history/280878/">“century of humiliation”</a>. </p>
<p>Second, Beijing is sensitive to outside interference in its internal affairs, especially in its peripheries such as Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan. It guards against peacekeeping becoming a tool for regime change. </p>
<ul>
<li>Political stability and <em>guojia liyi</em> (national interest) supersede individual and group interests. Political stability is central to China’s own <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/Chinareform/index.htm">“reform and opening up”</a> – the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/protect-the-party-chinas-growing-influence-in-the-developing-world/">course</a> Deng Xiaoping set for China after Communist Mao Zedong’s death in September 1976. </li>
</ul>
<p>There have been significant economic reforms in China over the past 40 years, but no fundamental political reforms. </p>
<ul>
<li>State-directed infrastructure economic development. Chinese participation in the <a href="https://unmil.unmissions.org/">UN mission in Liberia </a>, a large scale comprehensive peace-building mission that started in 2003, best depicts the Chinese model. The mission’s poverty reduction strategy is the blueprint for the post-conflict reconstruction of Liberia. </li>
</ul>
<p>The blueprint has <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2008/cr08219.pdf">four parts</a>: infrastructure rehabilitation; economic revitalisation; peace and security; and strengthening governance and the rule of law. China helped fund the infrastructure and economic revitalisation part of the strategy, but not its <a href="http://acetforafrica.org/acet/wp-content/uploads/publications/2016/09/Looking-East-Liberia-China-case-study-August-20101.pdf">rule of law projects</a>. </p>
<p>While Western discourse criticises China for <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/14/asia/china-human-rights-watch-scli-intl-hnk/index.html">disregarding human rights</a>, China points to its poverty alleviation record. It argues that improving the welfare of the majority is more important than protecting the civil liberties of minorities. And, whereas the West hails elections as a sign of progress, China highlights the violence and the policy discontinuity that often accompany them.</p>
<h2>Philosophical considerations</h2>
<p>There are two fundamental issues that Beijing needs to address when it engages in peace missions in Africa. The first is that it does not have a tradition of peace and conflict studies, and its intelligence comes mostly from its embassies and news agencies. </p>
<p>This means it doesn’t fully understand the internal dynamics of African countries, and its views are skewed towards favouring incumbent African governments, irrespective of their track records. It has sometimes aligned itself with despotic leaders on the continent.</p>
<p>Secondly, whereas the West is guided by human rights, democracy and Christian values in its approach to peace operations in Africa, China is at a loss, relying simply on adopting a pragmatic approach. But pragmatism may not be enough going forward as Africa looks to China to provide leadership in development, peace and security. </p>
<p>There is vibrant debate among Chinese scholars about the alternative values China brings in its conduct of world affairs. My notion of the three pillars is only a small piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p>Chinese academics <a href="http://en.cfau.edu.cn/art/2018/5/9/art_2685_65819.html">Yaqing Qin</a> and <a href="https://carnegietsinghua.org/experts/625">Xuetong Yan</a> are the two most prominent figures in Chinese international relations theory. Both draw on <a href="https://uri.org/kids/world-religions/confucianism">Confucianism</a>, an indigenous Chinese philosophical system that emphasises social harmony. Qin argues that societal harmony is the goal of a government, and this is achieved when members of a polity have the correct reciprocal relationships. Yan draws on the concept of Ren (benevolence), where it is the leaders’ duty to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cjip/article/11/1/1/4844055?searchresult=1">care for their people</a>.</p>
<h2>Alternative view</h2>
<p>China’s infrastructure-led approach offers an alternative to the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292753/the-white-mans-burden-by-william-easterly/">mainstream Western model</a> for development and peace in Africa.</p>
<p>France is reviewing its <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2155804/chinas-investment-west-africa-challenges-france">relationships with African countries</a> and the US has arguably lost its <a href="https://www.clingendael.org/publication/how-us-lost-chinas-growing-foothold-africa">dominant position in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>This paves the way for China to play an even more prominent role in African peace and security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven C Y Kuo previously received funding from National Research Foundation (South Africa).</span></em></p>The Chinese model of peace differs fundamentally from that pursued by western nations.Steven C Y Kuo, Research Associate, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1298232020-01-20T13:53:31Z2020-01-20T13:53:31ZUN peacekeeping is stymied by serious contradictions. They need to be resolved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310268/original/file-20200115-134789-6gqdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN/Isaac Billy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For three decades, UN peace operations have been falling into the same traps because stakeholders don’t want to tackle some of the contradictions confronting peacekeeping. Professor Paul D. Williams from George Washington University recently called this the UN Security Council’s <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ia/iiz199/5612943">“peacekeeping trilemma”</a>. This refers to the fact that peacekeeping missions have to meet multidimensional mandates and minimise casualties while working with increasingly tight budgets.</p>
<p>Williams argued that these factors have </p>
<blockquote>
<p>constrained the design of peacekeeping operations and set them up for failure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unless member states try to solve these contradictions, the UN will not be fit for purpose in the future. Even if the <a href="https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/peace-operations-review-2019">trend</a> towards smaller missions and a spectrum of peace operations continues, it still has five big, multidimensional missions in <a href="https://unmiss.unmissions.org/">South Sudan</a>, <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minusma">Mali</a>, the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minusca">Central African Republic</a>, <a href="https://unamid.unmissions.org/about-unamid-0">Darfur in Sudan</a>, and the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/monusco">Democratic Republic of Congo</a> to manage and conclude for the next two to four years. </p>
<p>Then there’s the prospect that a member state might ask the secretariat to prepare for another multidimensional deployment in West Africa or in the Middle East. </p>
<p>To move forward, therefore, the UN must solve some of the contradictions, in terms of capacity, ambitions and finances, that tend to entangle peace operations. As the director of the International Peace Institute’s Centre on Peace Operations, Jake Sherman, <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2018/09/action-for-peacekeeping-will-political-consensus-lead-to-change-in-practice">explains</a>, there is a </p>
<blockquote>
<p>growing dissonance between the Security Council’s expectations and what peacekeeping operations can realistically achieve.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Constraints</h2>
<p>As I have <a href="http://peaceoperationsreview.org/thematic-essays/can-we-make-un-peacekeeping-great-again/">highlighted</a> previously, peacekeeping has always been done on the cheap. For example, when in 1993 UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali requested 8,000 troops to protect the safe areas of Bosnia, the Security Council provided only 3,000. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/how-we-are-funded">peacekeeping budget</a> represents just 0.3% of the world’s military expenditure. Yet the question of whether the resources given to peacekeeping are enough has never been seriously put on the table. As a result, operations are underfunded for their missions. </p>
<p>They accordingly face severe and continuous gaps in terms of capacity and material such as armoured vehicles, helicopters, engineers, transport, signals, aviation and medical personnel.</p>
<p>Such gaps would be intolerable to any other military deployment. The <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minusma">mission in Mali</a>, in particular, which was created to stabilise the main populated areas of the northern part of the country and to support the implementation of the <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2017/06/lessons-from-inter-malian-peace-agreement">Algiers Agreement</a>, has been facing <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/uniformed-capability-requirements-un-peacekeeping_may-2019.pdf">numerous gaps</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the Security Council has asked that it protect civilians in both the north and the centre of the country. This without significant increases to its budget and troops, overstretching it even more. </p>
<p>The achievements of UN missions are judged as if they have the resources to implement their mandates. This consistent lack of resources has an immediate impact on peacekeepers’ ability to protect themselves and local populations.</p>
<p>It also contradicts the wish of member states for UN operations to be more robust. (These are the same states that want to reduce the peacekeeping budget and contribute sparingly to peace operations, chiefly Western countries.) </p>
<p>Indeed, the push towards the “militarisation” of peacekeeping, embodied in the 2018 <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/improving_security_of_united_nations_peacekeepers_report.pdf">report</a> of General Carlos dos Santos Cruz, the former Force Commander of the UN’s operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti, contradicts decisions to cut peacekeeping budgets. This in turn constrains the <a href="https://www.challengesforum.org/paper/policy-brief-20192-improving-the-military-effectiveness-and-proficiency-of-peacekeeping-operations-a-new-goal-for-a4p/">call</a> to strengthen UN military structures and capacities. </p>
<p>As Professor Lise Howard from Georgetown University <a href="https://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/blog/give-peacekeeping-a-chance">underlines</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All current multidimensional missions are mandated to use force to protect civilians, but they are not designed or equipped to use force effectively.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Using force brings a whole new set of challenges. The biggest is the ability of peacekeeping operations to cope with the consequences of using it. Peacekeepers aren’t equipped, prepared, or sufficiently supported politically to assume that responsibility. </p>
<p>In such conditions, all troop-contributing countries logically tend to prioritise the safety of their soldiers. </p>
<p>These contradictions have an impact on the daily lives of peacekeepers. They affect the level of fatalities, the number of personnel suffering from post-traumatic disorders, the management and coherence of a mission, the way the mandate is interpreted, and the morale of the personnel.</p>
<p>When personnel lack proper care, consideration and motivation, it affects the efficiency of their operations. These gaps also have an <a href="http://theglobalobservatory.org/2019/09/twenty-years-on-time-for-accountability-system-protection-civilians/">impact</a> on the relationships between the various stakeholders of peace operations.</p>
<h2>Towards effective partnerships</h2>
<p>In future, the UN will have to enhance its partnerships with regional organisations, coalitions of the willing or bilateral actors if it wants to improve the effectiveness of peacekeeping. But the partners will need to let it be the main coordinator of such efforts, and give it the means to do so. </p>
<p>That will require giving away a bit of their own visibility, and being more willing to share information. Indeed, everybody calls for a coordinated approach to crisis or conflict management, but nobody wishes to be coordinated. This leaves the UN with little leverage in undertaking its task.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2019/11/partners-and-competitors-forces-operating-in-parallel-to-un-peace-operations">vision</a> of partnership in which each actor understands its role in a larger political project is more likely to share the burden of peacekeeping more equitably.</p>
<p><em>This article is a shortened version of the one published in December 2019 for the NYU Center on International Cooperation’s Peace Operations <a href="https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/peace-operations-review-2019">Review 2019</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Novosseloff is a non-resident senior fellow at the International Peace Institute and at the NYU Center for Cooperation. She is also an independent consultant on UN issues.</span></em></p>Unless member states try to solve the contradictions in expectations, UN peacekeeping will not be fit for purpose in the future.Alexandra Novosseloff, Chercheure-associée au Centre Thucydide, Université Paris-Panthéon-AssasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297962020-01-16T13:40:18Z2020-01-16T13:40:18ZHow the UN’s more nimble approach can contribute to peace and security<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309913/original/file-20200114-151880-1r9y4vr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwandan soldiers line up to receive their UN peacekeeping medals for their work in Juba, South Sudan in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United Nations’ peace operations are changing. This is true of a range of operations, from special political missions and peacebuilding offices to multidimensional peace efforts.</p>
<p>This reflects the fact that the <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/">UN Security Council</a> has always adapted to new forms of conflict and to new security environments, expanding the notion of security in its resolutions. As a result, peacekeeping has adapted to suit the purpose and methods of its time. </p>
<p>Until the end of the 1980s, peacekeeping was mainly a tool to help end interstate conflicts. These included the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unefi.htm">Suez crisis</a>, the conflict between <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unipom.htm">India and Pakistan</a> and that between Israel and Syria over the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/undof">Golan heights</a>. The exceptions were civil wars in the <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/onuc.htm">Congo</a> and <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unifil">Lebanon</a>.</p>
<p>Since then, UN peacekeeping has become mainly an imperfect tool to help solve intrastate conflicts like those in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/Unavem2/Unavem2.htm">Angola</a>, <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unosomi.htm">Somalia</a>, <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/untac.htm">Cambodia</a> and elsewhere. Exceptions have been the conflicts between <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unmee/index.html">Ethiopia and Eritrea</a> in 2000 and the civil unrest in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minustah">Haiti</a> in 2004.</p>
<p>Peace operations are now becoming entangled in conflicts with regional and transnational dimensions. These very often involve a proliferation of armed groups (both rebel and criminal). Many are in conflict with the host countries. As a result, the relationship between peacekeepers and host states has been more complicated. Many don’t see an interest in complying with the mandate of the UN, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo under former <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20180926-Congo-Joseph-Kabila-UN-withdraw-troops-elections">president Joseph Kabila</a>, or in <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/un-peace-operation-mali-troubled-yet-needed-mission">Mali</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, peace operations have become, more than ever before, playgrounds for the political interests of China, France, Russia and the US, whether allied with regional actors or not. Some of the operations have become bases for creating new spheres of influence or strengthening existing ones, like in Central Africa and Mali. </p>
<p>This power struggle is not helping peace operations deliver on their various complex mandates. </p>
<h2>New direction</h2>
<p>For a few years now, UN peace operations have stood at a crossroads. Do they continue with expensive missions with little peace to keep, but which provide much-needed confidence and security in the world’s most difficult contexts? Or do they opt for less ambitious and more achievable objectives, which would place more responsibility on other actors (national, regional, parallel forces) to shore up basic security in trying to find a path to peace?</p>
<p>In 2019, peace operations seem to have taken the second path, shifting away from large, multidimensional, “conflict management” operations. The reasons for this shift include political and budgetary pressures – the kind of investments member states and the Security Council are willing to make – as well as structural reforms. </p>
<p>The number of personnel deployed in UN peacekeeping has slowly been decreasing. In April 2015 the UN was responsible for 107,800 soldiers and police officers worldwide. It now has only 83,669 uniformed personnel deployed. Four missions have been closed – <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2018/06/un-operation-in-cote-divoire">Côte d’Ivoire</a>, <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2018/12/liberias-peacekeeping-transition">Liberia</a> and two in <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/2018/12/planning-for-end-of-un-peacekeeping-in-haiti">Haiti</a>).</p>
<p>Despite this, the UN is today the second largest single deployer of troops in the world after the United States.</p>
<p>Divisions within the Security Council have also affected the delivery of mandates, and have weakened the relationships between various missions and their host states. As pointed out by <a href="https://www.ipinst.org/by/arthur-boutellis">Arthur Boutellis</a>, a senior advisor at the International Peace Institute, in a recent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-019-00274-2">paper</a>, a number of peacekeeping missions did not enjoy unanimously supported mandates. And cracks have started to occur among the United States, the United Kingdom and France, all permanent members of the Security Council, on some missions.</p>
<h2>Adaptability</h2>
<p>UN bodies should recalibrate peacekeeping operations to accord with the level of investment member states are willing to provide. This would, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, help </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/secretary-generals-remarks-to-security-council-high-level-debate-collective-action-to-improve-un">to refocus peacekeeping with realistic expectations</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This means that multidimensional peacekeeping seems to be behind us as it has become too expensive for the UN. It contradicts the push for dramatic financial cuts to make peacekeeping more nimble. </p>
<p>The political missions that are likely to take over from the multidimensional missions in <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unamid">Darfur</a> in Sudan, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-ready-for-peacekeepers-to-leave-by-2022-127729">Democratic Republic of Congo</a>, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/audio/2017/12/640461">Haiti</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/sc13887.doc.htm">in Hodeida, Yemen</a> all show the wide array of tools the UN has at its disposal, and the spectrum its conflict resolution and conflict management is covering.</p>
<p>As pointed out by a recent United Nations University <a href="https://cpr.unu.edu/conflict-prevention-in-the-sahel-emerging-practice-across-the-un.html">report</a>, another example is the task force established in Burkina Faso by the UN resident coordinator, the UN country team and the UN Office in Western Africa and the Sahel to reinforce conflict prevention and peacebuilding capacities in key areas. It is supported by the UN’s <a href="https://news.un.org/en/tags/peace-building-fund">Peace-building Fund</a>. This example shows another innovative way the UN can work.</p>
<p>Such an approach is yet more proof of the adaptability of the UN system. As was the effort in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to deal with the <a href="https://ebolaresponse.un.org/un-mission-ebola-emergency-response-unmeer">Ebola pandemic</a> in 2014–2015 – the UN’s first emergency health mission. Another is the strengthened coordination established in the <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/crises/cod/en/">Beni region of the DRC</a> with the World Health Organisation in May 2019. </p>
<p>This breadth of tools and this spectrum of crisis resolution and management is an asset that makes the UN unique. It enables a truly global approach in dealing with crises and conflicts. The more the UN is able to use these tools and the systems attached to them, the more flexible it will be in adapting to evolving challenges. </p>
<p>The transitions in Haiti and Darfur, and the evolving situation in Burkina Faso, will serve as a reality check for the new secretariat’s nimble approach to maintaining international peace and security.</p>
<p><em>This article is a shortened version of the one published in December 2019 for the NYU Center on International Cooperation’s Peace Operations <a href="https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/peace-operations-review-2019">Review 2019</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Novosseloff is a non resident senior fellow at the International Peace Institute and at the NYU Center for Cooperation. She is also an independent consultant on UN issues.</span></em></p>The number of personnel deployed in UN peacekeeping has slowly been decreasing.Alexandra Novosseloff, Chercheure-associée au Centre Thucydide, Université Paris-Panthéon-AssasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1076752018-12-02T09:44:27Z2018-12-02T09:44:27ZTaking Africa’s democratic temperature as a dozen countries prepare for polls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247701/original/file-20181128-32180-15epy30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elections, and observer processes are a big priority in Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/6124051652/in/photolist-akancs-8mSagA-an1fUo-cL6KV5-Thx7Mf-9Z4FLs-8mRHm3-fjNXKj-6pqC1Q-7TECcV-7TECci-bU3m84-6h8Vwe-bo9sEL-6pqDGN-eF6DxB-4RuJch-9JG8Yy-52Tnxd-6he2Fj-ayfYsU-5m3orW-9JDiYp-yUF2J3-8muuvR-8mP4va-5kY7Ma-aGQLMe-eFKQnc-aDbz5M-8qKc2R-7TECbM-9JDkWM-9FMELA-6pkkLf-nekXcc-9XzUDt-mhtT8X-5HdCsH-eF5XEp-6hfvuc-6j6JjX-9vQJrY-p7MRfr-aWdBRB-7THSNG-6hfQfP-fa865-9p5LqF-dni4cx">UN Photo/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than a <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/calendar2019.php">dozen national elections</a> will be held across Africa next year. All 55 members of the African Union (AU) are obligated to hold regular and ostensibly democratic elections. They must also invite teams of AU election observers to publicly monitor, assess and <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-democracy-elections-and-governance">report the results</a>. </p>
<p>Is all this electoral activity helping to entrench democracy as the foundation for national and regional security, development and integration? Or have elections become the means for demagogues to grab power – or, more typically, for powerful elites and authoritarian rulers to entrench themselves? </p>
<p>Democratic theory prescribes credible elections as a necessary, but insufficient means, to consolidate real democracy. Real democracy typically abets peace and security. National circumstances vary. But three additional conditions are also vital. They are freedom of expression, the right of assembly, and an independent nonpartisan judiciary to resolve disputes and ensure the rule of law predominates. </p>
<p>Most deadly conflicts in Africa occur within – not between – <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1900/RR1904/RAND_RR1904.pdf">sovereign states</a>. Recognising this, the AU has made observing and assessing democratic elections an <a href="http://www.achpr.org/instruments/guide-elections/">integral part</a> of its operations. This often happens alongside observers from regional economic communities.</p>
<p>As observations improve, so do opportunities to gauge whether electoral violence and other severe human rights abuses threaten regional peace and security. </p>
<p>In mid-November, there were three important developments at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. These promise to improve Africa’s long-term prospects for collective self-reliance and democratic peace. And this will happen regionally, nationally and locally. </p>
<p>The first was a streamlining of the continental body’s operations. The second was a move to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of member countries. The third was a renewed commitment to improve the depth, duration, and diligence of African election observation missions. </p>
<h2>Three Changes</h2>
<p>President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been the chair of the AU this year. He has driven a set of administrative and financial reforms to improve its <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/35132-doc-ext-assembly-2xiannex_-_administrative_reform_roadmap_e.pdf">efficiency and effectiveness</a>.</p>
<p>Headline reforms include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Reducing the number of AU Commission portfolios, </p></li>
<li><p>Introducing merit-based hiring and promotion procedures, and </p></li>
<li><p>Reducing dependence on foreign donors. This has been achieved by revising the scale of member state contributions and penalties for nonpayment. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The key structural reform will be combining the portfolios of Political Affairs and Peace and Security. This makes sense strategically. It will ensure that the lion’s share of AU resources supports both urgent peacemaking needs and creates conditions conducive to developing politically capable states. Failures on either front could jeopardise the AU’s strategic plan for the <a href="http://archive.au.int/assets/images/agenda2063.pdf">socio-economic transformation of the continent</a>.</p>
<p>Two other developments complement these shifts.</p>
<p>One is the Assembly’s decision to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20181118/11th-extraordinary-summit-summary-key-decisions">key governance areas on the continent</a>. This promises substantial improvements in the role and functioning of the <a href="https://www.aprm-au.org/">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. The mechanism was established in 2003. It aims to encourage member states to critically and regularly assess their progress in governance and socio-economic development. </p>
<p>After much initial excitement, the mechanism devolved into a largely technical and widely ignored exercise. Its governing Forum of Heads of State sought to infuse it with greater political clout and relevance in 2016. It mandated its new director, Professor Eddy Maloka, to produce an Africa-wide comparative assessment of governance challenges facing AU member states. </p>
<p>This will be presented to the next regular AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/oped/comment/The-key-outcomes-of-the-African-Union-Summit/434750-4648608-sdx3oaz/index.html">February 2019</a>. </p>
<p>The final change involves beefing up election monitoring. Ten years ago the AU entered into a formal partnership with the <a href="https://eisa.org.za/">Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa</a>. The parties agreed on 16 November to seek ways to extend and improve the partnership. </p>
<p>The institute is based in Johannesburg. It boasts an all-African staff from more than a dozen nations. It has helped AU missions on several fronts. This has included the training and application of:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a common set of observation principles and democratic election standards, and </p></li>
<li><p>more comprehensive, rapid and technologically advanced tools and training of AU observers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The partnership has also helped the AU to acquire a leadership role among domestic and international election observer groups pursuing greater electoral transparency and accountability. This is true even within Africa’s most troubled states. </p>
<h2>Is democracy dying?</h2>
<p>These efforts would seem to run counter to the question “Is Democracy Dying?”, which has become a preoccupation in the era of US President Donald Trump. African politics, too, are vulnerable to demagoguery, debauchery and divisiveness. More notable is the proliferation of progressive forces at all levels of African politics. They are exposing and combating corruption and other egregious abuses of power. </p>
<p>Progress is slow, erratic, and dangerous for democracy advocates and activists to pursue. Yet in a year when <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018">Freedom House’s latest global survey</a> concludes democracy is in decline, Africa may well be bucking the trend. </p>
<p>The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s 2018 <a href="http://mo.ibrahim.foundation/iiag/">Index of African Governance</a> found that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…governance on our continent, on average, is slowly improving … approximately three out of four African citizens live in a country where governance has improved over the last ten years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite Africa’s many problems, it continues to sustain a wide variety of democratic experiments. Extensive surveys by <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/">Afrobarometer</a>, the non-partisan research network, show the majority of Africa’s citizens still prefer democracy to the alternative. This is a reality the African Union increasingly recognises and is attempting to support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau serves on the EISA Board without compensation and in that capacity was a member of the team that met with AU officials on 16 November 2018. </span></em></p>Surveys shows that the majority of Africans prefer democracy, despite its flaws, to the alternatives.John J Stremlau, Visiting Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/957302018-04-29T19:59:16Z2018-04-29T19:59:16ZNorth Korea wants to a strike a deal – is Trump the right man for the job?<p>After a fearful year of brinksmanship, the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-korean-peace-process-is-underway-but-it-still-depends-on-the-us-and-china-94327">summit</a> between South Korean president Moon Jae-In and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un was a beautiful moment of hope. The two leaders stepped back and forth over the Military Demarcation Line between their two countries and shared Korean cold noodles brought specially from a famed Pyongyang restaurant. They planted a tree and fed it water from two rivers, North Korea’s Taedong and South Korea’s Han. </p>
<p>Given the number of nuclear tests and missile launches the north has conducted since the last summit between two Korean leaders, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/koreas.summit/">all the way back in 2007</a>, the spectacle of Moon and Kim smiling as they crossed their shared border has sent a wave of relief around the world. It seems Moon Jae-In’s gamble of inviting North Korea to the winter Olympics has paid off in spades.</p>
<p>Everyone has now returned safely home, but the near euphoria is still palpable. With reports that Kim apparently told his southern counterpart that giving up his nuclear weapons is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">very much on the table</a>, many are staring to hail this as a new era in inter-Korean relations. Some appear to already believe that the technically-still-underway Korean War is just about over – and Donald Trump in particular is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-43895428">already claiming credit</a>. </p>
<p>The idea that Trump is solely responsible for this breakthrough is, of course, preposterous. If anyone deserves primary credit it’s Moon, who staked his political career on engaging the North Koreans during the Olympics. But soon, Trump will have a chance to show his mettle, as his administration is busy <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-might-come-of-a-donald-trump-meeting-with-kim-jong-un-93149">preparing its own summit</a> with the North Korean leader. </p>
<p>It’s certainly too early to nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. But if his administration does somehow manage to normalise relations on the Korean peninsula, it will be important to ask why he has apparently succeeded where many others – including Nobel Peace Prize laureates <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34277960">Barack Obama</a>, the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/nobel-peace-prize">International Atomic Energy Agency</a>, and former South Korean president <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2000/press.html">Kim Dae-jung</a> – have floundered. Unfortunately for Trump’s self-esteem, top of the list of reasons must be not his own geopolitical nous, but circumstance.</p>
<h2>Right place, right time</h2>
<p>It’s undeniable that throughout 2017, the Trump administration was heavily involved in pressing for extensive sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. Those sanctions focused on blocking most of the north’s conventional trade links, a move which had not previously been attempted in earnest. But the reality is that the Trump administration inherited a political situation that was, as renowned conflict professor <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2008/12/20/ripeness-the-importance-of-timing-in-negotiation-and-conflict-resolution/">I William Zartmann</a> would say, “ripe”. </p>
<p>Sometimes called “hurting stalemate”, a “ripe moment” in a conflict comes when the suffering and costs faced by one or both sides force open a window of opportunity. This is what has happened on the Korean peninsula. For all the nuclear breakthroughs, the north’s economy has very little room to breathe thanks to the sanctions. </p>
<p>South Korea and Japan are now facing a North Korea that is equipped with a broadly credible nuclear deterrent and Trump’s mixed messages towards them have confused their once dependable security relationships with the US. It is at just these sort of moments that breakthroughs in seemingly intractable conflicts are often made.</p>
<p>North Korea is seen very differently today than it was in the aftermath of the Cold War. Back then, it was a famine-stricken country apparently on the verge of collapse, supposedly led by an irrational tyrant, and probably bluffing about its nuclear machinations. For all those reasons, talking to it wasn’t a priority. Instead, patience was needed. In the case of the Obama administration, this principle was revived and taken to the extreme as a policy of “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/strategic-patience-has-become-strategic-passivity/">strategic patience</a>”. And if stopping the north from going nuclear was the intention, that approach backfired spectacularly – Pyongyang was ultimately simply not interested in dropping its guns just to get to a negotiating table. </p>
<p>Only now, after a programme of tests that got it admitted to the world’s exclusive nuclear club, is North Korea ready to talk openly with the US about a dramatic change of course. So what kind of talks will these be?</p>
<h2>Just another deal</h2>
<p>In his own telling, Trump is a man who likes to talk and make deals – almost regardless of who is on the other side of the table. That said, judging by his first year or so in office, he is less interested in making new deals than in leaving or threatening to leave existing ones, notably the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-trump-kills-nafta-remedies-for-canada-and-mexico-91129">North American Free Trade Agreement</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">Iranian nuclear deal</a>. </p>
<p>But a deal is not enough – what is needed is confidence building, a far more complex task. It demands clear communication lines between all sides as all the actors remove their threat mechanisms and replace them with new connections that ultimately become more important. For that to happen, Trump and his allies will have to accept the fact that, by virtue of its nuclear know-how, North Korea is no longer weak. It will not accept anything that will force it to disarm first.</p>
<p>Making deals with the North Koreans is in fact relatively easy, and many have been struck before. Among them are the 1953 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10165796">Korean Armistice</a>; the 1972 <a href="http://www2.law.columbia.edu/course_00S_L9436_001/North%20Korea%20materials/74js-en.htm">North-South Joint Statement</a>, which set out principles for reunification; the 1994 <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uss-1994-deal-with-north-korea-failed-and-what-trump-can-learn-from-it-80578">Agreed Framework</a>, which provided a complex mechanism to manage the north’s nuclear energy needs; the 2000 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/791691.stm">North-South Joint Declaration</a>, which sought to end the armistice; the 2007 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/791691.stm">Inter-Korean Eight-Point Agreement</a>, calling for new peace talks; and the 2012 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-usa-leap/insight-obamas-north-korean-leap-of-faith-falls-short-idUSBRE82T06T20120330">Leap Day</a> agreement with the US, where Pyongyang agreed to stop its missile and nuclear tests.</p>
<p>That the list of deals is this long proves that adding yet another entry won’t in itself mean much. Trump needs to offer the north, not just a friendly handshake, but concrete measures and guarantees – and those will have to go well beyond what we’ve seen in the last week. </p>
<p>Turning off the speakers that blast propaganda across the border from both sides is a nice gesture, while reopening a telephone hotline between the two Koreas is useful – and sending Mike Pompeo (now Trump’s secretary of state) to Pyongyang paved the way for further discussion. But none of these steps has cost any of the parties anything substantial. More importantly, the north has not publicly promised to unconditionally renounce its nuclear weapons programme – it has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">offered to dismantle the programme</a>, but only if the US promises never to invade it. </p>
<p>Even if a concrete deal of some kind is struck, the test will be whether, once it is done, the US can project the confidence and stability needed for all parties to actually fulfil their commitments. And that would demand the Trump administration exercise clear, stable leadership of a calibre it has yet to muster on any front.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump has always traded on his image as a master dealmaker – but many deals have been done with North Korea before.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731582017-02-17T11:47:27Z2017-02-17T11:47:27ZCyprus talks keep failing – maybe it’s time to try something a little different<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157166/original/image-20170216-12972-1v1z7xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=85%2C198%2C2854%2C1769&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/simiant/149983838/in/photolist-efGYf-dr9KaZ-pp4jym-e5ZXro-v5Fvt-qbTB1s-dr9MGz-dr9LDF-dr9Ups-greYd9-8ccBPW-dr9XDd-GMVUp-dr9TPE-gqY3fE-gr5xLm-qbSTgd-gA9qDq-dr9UAA-fC39xG-dr9MQn-dr9Nb4-FXGnH-dr9MKz-dr9U8S-efHgb-ajK8PX-gr6ckR-dr9MuB-dr9XJm-gqYabo-gr6aNk-gA9SRf-gqZa7W-FXV7r-dr9Xo7-dr9JtF-cWDch-okMiX3-dr9Kfx-v5FPq-dr9UMJ-gA9FxR-fBM1AM-dr9Mqi-gr6Kkv-v5FEa-dr9VCY-7BV2q7-dr9Jit">Nathan Williams</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Negotiations on settling the international dispute over Cyprus have hit a wall – yet again. For months, the latest round of reunification talks have been touted as a real chance to finally seal a deal, even though people close to the discussions repeatedly reported that very little had been agreed.</p>
<p>In January, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/q-a-the-cyprus-reunification-talks-71035">high-level conference</a> in Geneva engaged Greece, Turkey and the UK as guarantor powers, but those discussions lasted less than a day because there was so little on which to build. The Cypriot leaders returned to the island with the promise to continue their efforts, but there has been a palpable deflation of public interest.</p>
<p>When the Republic of Cyprus parliament recently passed a proposal by neo-Nazi party ELAM to commemorate in schools the 1950 Greek Cypriot plebiscite for union with Greece, the Turkish Cypriot <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_47_-14-february-2017_-press-release-regarding-the-decision-by-the-greek-cypriot-parliament-to-introduce-a-commemoration-in-schools-of-the-1950-plebiscite-on-_enosis_.en.mfa">reaction</a> was swift and uniformly negative. It was little surprise that tensions erupted at the negotiating table, with each side claiming the other walked away. Those Cypriots who had clung to hope even after Geneva are lamenting on social media that the “hardliners” have won, as the two sides are pushed farther apart by extreme positions in their own communities.</p>
<p>The irony is that until this disagreement, the two current Cypriot leaders had been lauded in local and international media as the most willing to compromise for years. They seemed to be the leaders most committed to peace.</p>
<h2>All or nothing means nothing</h2>
<p>I warned <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/04/27/the-victory-of-mustafa-akinci-in-northern-cyprus-gives-hope-to-turkish-cypriots-of-a-better-future/">more than a year ago</a> against believing Mustafa Akıncı’s election as Turkish Cypriot leader represented a done deal for reunification. What Akıncı and Greek Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades discovered at the negotiating table is what so many before them have learned: that “all or nothing” solutions tend to produce nothing.</p>
<p>Over the years, the United Nations and world leaders have spent countless hours and untold amounts of money coaxing and advising Cypriot leaders, believing the only solution to the Cyprus division would be a comprehensive one. They’ve shuttled the Cypriots to retreats in Switzerland, and made flying visits to the island to show support. And in all these talks, great attention has been paid to the goodwill – or otherwise – of the leaders. The idea seems to be that if they can merrily eat and drink together, a plan will magically materialise that will comprehensively resolve all the problems of security, guarantees, territory, property and political equality.</p>
<p>For a couple of decades, Cypriots have been told that each round of negotiations is “the last chance”. This time it may very well be true. At least, it may very well be the last chance for a comprehensive solution, but that does not mean it has to be the last chance for a negotiated settlement.</p>
<p>It’s time to abandon the fetish of the comprehensive solution – an idea that has acquired almost mystical qualities as the one and only way to resolve the Cyprus divide. Instead, it is time to think about how to negotiate a step-by-step solution, one that will give a roadmap for a peace that is transformative and sustainable.</p>
<h2>A dated vision</h2>
<p>The fixation on a comprehensive solution perhaps made sense when the ceasefire line dividing the island was closed and Cypriots from each side were unable to encounter each other on the island. But the easing of movement restrictions in 2003 produced transformations that were political, social – even psychological. People began to interact and learn, or relearn, each others’ languages. A bi-communal civil society initiative brought together families of missing people to demand information about their loved ones. A bi-communal heritage committee has restored churches and mosques on both sides of the island. <a href="http://www.maronitesofcyprus.com/cgibin/hweb3e95.html">Maronite Cypriots</a> began to return to their villages in the north. These transformations, while slow, have shifted the ground of the conflict, even as the format envisioned for resolving it has remained the same.</p>
<p>It is time to learn from this momentum of transformation and to envision <a href="http://tesev.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Negotiating_The_Cyprus_Problems_EN.pdf">concrete steps</a> that can be taken tomorrow, and the next day, to further transform the island and lead it closer to peace.</p>
<p>The opening of the closed city of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25496729">Varosha</a> in the north of the island and the creation of institutions that support political and economic cooperation and interdependence are two such steps. Acceleration of mechanisms to return or compensate people for the loss of their property would be another. Some may be unilateral steps, such as opening closed Maronite villages in the island’s north to allow resettlement. Others may be negotiated steps, such as exchanging information about and immediately compensating the owners of those properties that have been irrevocably developed or expropriated for public works, such as airports and hospitals. Indeed, there is much to be done, step by step, in ways that allow Cypriots to control the incremental changes that are already transforming their lives.</p>
<p>Until now, anything that is not a comprehensive solution has been seen as a “confidence-building measure” – an ad-hoc attempt to create an environment for peace. But these steps don’t have to be ad-hoc. They may be an integral part of a step-by-step plan with the larger goal of integrating the two sides of the island and creating forms of social and economic interdependence that will make political unification inevitable.</p>
<p>It is time to move beyond the fetish of the comprehensive solution and negotiate concrete steps that will transform Cyprus in ways that will sustain the hope we are now in danger of losing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Bryant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Another ‘last chance’ has been missed. But while talks disintegrate, islanders are just getting on with peace in practice.Rebecca Bryant, Associate Professorial Research Fellow, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/654372016-11-25T13:02:14Z2016-11-25T13:02:14ZCan Colombia’s new peace agreement hold all parties to account?<p>After a first peace agreement was <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-colombia-voted-no-to-peace-with-farc-66416">rejected in a plebiscite</a>, the Colombian government has signed a <a href="https://www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co/sites/default/files/12-1479102292.11-1479102292.2016nuevoacuerdofinal-1479102292.pdf">revised agreement</a> with the FARC, a radical left-wing guerrilla group that has fought against the state for five decades. It is now for the Colombian parliament to decide whether to endorse it.</p>
<p>Many issues were fiercely debated in the run-up to the referendum and then again in the negotiations between the government and the leaders of the no campaign in its aftermath. But one aspect of the agreement has received quite a bit of (<a href="http://colombiareports.com/coca-cola-facing-terrorism-support-charges-colombia/">sometimes somewhat misguided</a>) attention: the way it would affect so-called “third party actors”.</p>
<p>These include <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Corporate-Accountability-in-the-Context-of-Transitional-Justice/Michalowski/p/book/9780415524902">corporations</a>, landowners, and politicians who did not take up arms, but who nonetheless participated in international crimes during the conflict – funding armed groups, for example, or providing them with other support to carry out massacres or <a href="http://www.verdadabierta.com/lucha-por-la-tierra/5543-a-la-carcel-16-empresarios-de-palma-de-choco">forcibly displace people</a>.</p>
<p>The question of how to deal with third party actors has been an issue since 2005, when Colombia began a process of transition with the <a href="http://www.fiscalia.gov.co/jyp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ley_975_de_2005.pdf">Justice and Peace Law</a>, a process that mainly benefited paramilitary groups. Under this system, <a href="http://www.verdadabierta.com/otros-negocios-criminales/6265-asi-investigan-a-financiadores-del-paramilitarismo">important information</a> has come to light showing that these third party actors were heavily involved in the armed conflict. Under the peace agreement, third party actors, like CEOs (but not corporations) or politicians, can be brought to justice. In Colombia it is not possible to prosecute legal entities as such.</p>
<h2>Learning from the past</h2>
<p>The measures adopted under the 2005 law were only extended to paramilitaries who demobilised and fully confessed their crimes. <a href="http://www.anuariocdh.uchile.cl/index.php/ADH/article/viewFile/37498/39175">Third parties</a> whose involvement they mentioned were not under the jurisdiction of the Justice and Peace System, but that of Colombia’s ordinary criminal courts. </p>
<p>On paper, that means corporate and other actors who have participated in crimes committed by paramilitaries could receive much harsher punishments than those received by paramilitaries under the jurisdiction of the Justice and Peace System. But in reality, impunity has prevailed, given the lack of effective prosecutions under the ordinary criminal justice system.</p>
<p>This could be about to change. Assuming it is implemented, the agreement creates transitional justice mechanisms that apply to everybody who directly or indirectly took part in the conflict, not just armed combatants. The new <a href="http://www.essex.ac.uk/tjn/documents/Leafleft%20ETJN%20Dejusticia.pdf">Special Jurisdiction for Peace</a> will have jurisdiction also over third party actors, though only if their involvement reaches the threshold of “active or determinative participation” in the most serious international crimes. </p>
<p>If these actors fully engage with the process, admitting their involvement and contributing to reparations, they will receive diminished punishment. The agreement proposes five to eight years of “effective deprivation of liberty”, which can take different forms – helping to remove landmines, for example, or building infrastructure. They will not be imprisoned. </p>
<p>But if they disclose the truth late in the process, they could face five to eight years in prison; if they do not contribute to justice and are found guilty, they could be imprisoned for up to 20 years.</p>
<h2>Accountability for all</h2>
<p>What makes this possible is that under the agreement, third party actors will fall under the remit of the new transitional justice mechanisms, rather than being dealt with by the ordinary criminal justice system. This provides an incentive to engage with the new process, and avoids the problems of the <a href="http://cja.org/where-we-work/colombia/related-resources/colombia-the-justice-and-peace-law/">Justice and Peace process</a>, that did not include them within its jurisdiction.</p>
<p>Getting third parties involved in the work of transitional justice mechanisms is hugely important. Victims deserve to know the full truth of what happened during the conflict, including who was involved in international crimes and how. They are also entitled to reparations from all those who were responsible for the harm they suffered. Holding third parties to account increases the likelihood that they will contribute to redressing the harm they have caused.</p>
<p>Some in Colombia, including some of those behind the no campaign, have called this a <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/fiscal-nestor-humberto-martinez-explica-situacion-de-empresarios-involucrados-conflicto-armado-y-la-lista/492266">witch-hunt</a>, but that’s wide of the mark. The whole point is to encourage them to engage and secure <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/acuerdos-de-paz-con-las-farc-alcance-del-punto-de-justicia-en-el-sector-privado/491996">accountability</a>. That is a major step in the right direction. At the centre of the agreement is the imperative to hold those responsible for the most serious crimes to account – and that will apply to third party actors, too. </p>
<p>To be sure, there are powerful third parties who would rather not be involved, and a lot will depend on whether the government can sustain the political will to enforce the terms of the agreement against all relevant third party actors. But the negotiators have found a nuanced approach. Once parliament approves the agreement, the victims of some of the war’s most heinous crimes will be able to seek the justice, truth and reparation they have been denied for decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clara Sandoval and Sabine Michalowski have bee providing advice to the Ministry of Justice (Transitional Justice Unit) on various issues related to justice and reparation within the peace process.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabine Michalowski receives funding from the International Organisation for Migration and ESRC. </span></em></p>Colombia’s deal with the FARC means third parties implicated in international crimes could at last face justice.Clara Sandoval, Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Director of the Essex Transitional Justice Network, University of EssexSabine Michalowski, Professor of Law, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/666892016-10-07T20:22:14Z2016-10-07T20:22:14ZSantos got the Nobel Prize for not giving up on peace – here’s why all Colombians won<p>Only days after the people of Colombia voted to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/03/colombia-just-voted-no-on-its-referendum-for-peace-heres-why-and-what-it-means/">reject</a> a historic peace deal he spent years negotiating, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37585188">received the Nobel Peace Prize</a> for his efforts to end the country’s decades-long war with the FARC guerrilla movement. </p>
<p>The no vote came a week after the government and the FARC had signed a peace deal, and after they had declared a bilateral ceasefire and the end of all hostilities at the end of August. Nevertheless, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has given Santos and his fellow negotiators a vote of confidence – one that they have earned through years of dogged and determined work.</p>
<p>Santos became president in 2010 after serving as defence minister under his presidential predecessor Alvaro Uribe. Those years were marked by a hardline military approach against the FARC, whom Uribe labelled as “narco-terrorists” that had to be defeated militarily. Previous peace talks had <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1752015.stm">failed</a> and had left many Colombians feeling betrayed by the FARC. </p>
<p>Uribe’s hawkish policy weakened the FARC considerably, including by killing some of the group’s leadership figures, and it made urban areas safer. But it also pushed the conflict towards the country’s peripheries and <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/02/the-margins-at-the-centre-of-the-farcs-future.html">across its borders</a>, contributing to huge refugee flows and a humanitarian crisis that went largely unnoticed in many of Bogota’s comfortable government offices. </p>
<p>This era was also overshadowed by severe human rights abuses committed by members of the armed forces, including the “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-32280039">false positives</a>” scandal, in which peasants were killed and then dressed up as guerrilla fighters to artificially inflate the body count.</p>
<p>The Uribe administration had stuck to the line that the FARC were narco-terrorists, not insurgents, and that they therefore should never be talked to. At some points they had <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2011/05/armed_conflict_colombia">denied the existence of an armed conflict</a> altogether. But when Santos was elected president in 2010, the government changed course, accepting that it <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Researching-Terrorism-Peace-and-Conflict-Studies-Interaction-Synthesis/Tellidis-Toros/p/book/9781138018174">needed to engage the FARC in dialogue</a>. </p>
<p>In 2012, I was <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2015/06/field-intuitive">carrying out fieldwork</a> at the Colombia-Venezuela border, one of the country’s most war-torn regions, when peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC were publicly announced. At that time, the displaced people, ex-combatants, military officials, indigenous leaders and other local people I spoke to greeted the news with deep scepticism. </p>
<p>On the ground, it was easy to see why. While the world applauded the start of formal talks, the FARC actually intensified its armed attacks, perhaps to ensure that it would enter the negotiations in a position of strength. The upshot was that even as the talks began, some of Colombia’s marginalised communities were even more vulnerable to violence than before. </p>
<h2>Balancing act</h2>
<p>When the peace accord was rejected in the October 2 plebiscite, Santos accepted the result and reached out to the opposition – in particular to Uribe – to bring them to the negotiating table and discuss how the accord can be made tolerable for all Colombians. He affirmed that he would remain committed to peace until his last day in office. </p>
<p>Already steps have been taken to try and preserve order. The government and the FARC have now agreed to <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/colombia-president-santos-extends-farc-ceasefire-resurrect-peace-deal-506231?rm=eu">extend the ceasefire</a> until at least October 31. Together with the UN, they are currently discussing how the FARC’s planned demobilisation process and the <a href="http://colombiapeace.org/">mechanisms to verify it</a> can be adjusted to the situation after the no vote.</p>
<p>One of the no campaign’s principal arguments was that the deal as signed offers FARC members legal impunity. However, it does include <a href="http://www.altocomisionadoparalapaz.gov.co/herramientas/Documents/summary-of-colombias-peace-agreement.pdf">sophisticated transitional justice mechanisms</a>, according to which those involved in atrocious crimes will be held accountable for their deeds, including through prison sentences. Finding new terms with which the FARC’s leadership agree will be tricky to say the least. </p>
<p>Then there are the country’s other armed groups. Colombia’s armed forces support the government’s efforts for peace. Contrary to previous years, today’s Colombian Head of the Army described his troops as <a href="https://twitter.com/COMANDANTE_EJC/status/784404340475854848">“architects of peace”</a>. Yet while guaranteeing the ceasefire with the FARC, they have to continue military operations against other violent groups such as the ELN. As long as the FARC’s fighters aren’t concentrated in what were supposed to be demobilisation zones, this is a difficult task. A minor mistake could <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-momentous-peace-deal-with-the-farc-so-what-next-for-colombia-64452">easily spark an escalation</a>. </p>
<p>One might think that the Nobel committee’s decision to award Santos the prize makes this situation more explosive by fueling resentments among those who rejected the peace deal. The country had already become deeply polarised during the run-up to the plebiscite; in the aftermath of the no vote, it’s only getting worse. However, the committee decided not to extend the prize to the FARC’s leader, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36610281">Timoschenko</a>, which many had speculated they might; a wise decision in such a tense context.</p>
<p>Overall, the prize could serve as a catalyst for a more unifying peace process. In what could be considered a conciliatory gesture, even Uribe congratulated Santos and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/nobel-peace-prize-colombian-president-juan-manuel-santos-says-award-should-inspire-people-to-cement-a7350626.html">expressed his hope</a> that it might provide an impetus to find a new accord that all parties can accept. </p>
<p>For those who voted for the deal – now mired in frustration, anger and despair – the Nobel committee’s gesture offers sorely needed encouragement. As a friend from crisis-ridden Norte de Santander said to me, people might now be re-energised to continue to “sow peace”.</p>
<p>The prize might also encourage FARC members to adhere to the peace process instead of abandoning it. Amid the uncertainty around whether the deal’s provisions were really coming into effect, there was a heightened risk for them to cut and run, joining criminal groups, forming their own new gangs, or joining up with dissident elements such as the FARC’s <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/situation-report/colombia-farc-section-says-it-will-not-demobilize?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article">Front 1</a>. These risks remain, but that the peace efforts have now been internationally recognised may give them new hope for a better life as civilians.</p>
<h2>The work goes on</h2>
<p>The prize will embolden the Colombian government to continue efforts not only with the FARC, which remains committed to achieving peace through dialogue instead of weapons, but also with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37505149">ELN</a>. </p>
<p>The ELN and the government have announced the beginning of formal peace talks too, but as of now this group still controls vast areas of Colombian territory where the state is barely present, if at all. When I asked locals in the war-torn department of Arauca earlier this year what they thought about the peace process, they replied that nothing would really change for them since they live under the ELN’s rule.</p>
<p>The award might also help reduce the impact of many other armed groups that operate in Colombia. Before the plebiscite, violent right-wing and criminal groups had already started to fill the <a href="https://theconversation.com/colombias-deal-with-the-farc-could-bring-peace-or-create-a-power-vacuum-48130">power vacuums</a> left by the FARC, and they were taking advantage of the uncertainty to impose their own rules. They may be less able to intimidate vulnerable communities with violent threats and instead face more <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pech.12184/abstract">non-violent resistance</a> from a civil society reassured by the prize’s moral significance. </p>
<p>But above all, the prize puts Colombia and its leaders under more external moral pressure than ever before. The world will be watching Santos and his successors closely, making it even more important that a peace deal is not only achieved on paper but actually implemented. This includes not only demobilising the FARC, but bringing <a href="http://www.stabilityjournal.org/articles/10.5334/sta.er/">basic services, education and economic opportunities</a> to <a href="http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/materials/publications/15409/securing-peace-in-the-borderlands-colombia.pdf">Colombia’s marginalised regions</a>. Otherwise, new grievances will draw the country back into war. </p>
<p>Through this Nobel Peace Prize award, not only Santos, but all Colombians have won a place in history. After all, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15423166.2015.1082437?journalCode=rjpd20">peacebuilders across the country</a> have been fighting for the end of war for decades – long before Santos took up his presidency. And hopefully, the weight of history will be a constant reminder to strive for truly sustainable peace. </p>
<p>Future generations should not remember the award as a cynical comment on a failed peace. As the Nobel Committee pointed out and as Santos accepted, the prize should indeed be a tribute to the struggle to end the modern world’s longest civil war – and an encouragement to those who hope for a lasting consensus among Colombia’s divided people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annette Idler receives funding from the University of Oxford’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA)
Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) 2016 top-up scheme.</span></em></p>The voters may have said no to the deal struck with the FARC, but Juan Manuel Santos and his fellow negotiators intend to keep going.Annette Idler, Director of Studies, Changing Character of War Programme, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664672016-10-05T18:16:21Z2016-10-05T18:16:21ZWhat displaced Colombians living abroad think about the peace efforts<p>The peace deal between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group was rejected by less than a <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21708156-no-one-wants-return-war-voters-have-blocked-path-peace-saving-colombias-peace?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/2016103n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/email&etear=dailydispatch">0.5 percent margin</a> in a referendum on Oct. 2.</p>
<p>This outcome shocked the world and defied the expectations of most external observers. The signed agreement to end the violence seemed all but complete, so its rejection by referendum makes the future of peace efforts uncertain. </p>
<p>The Colombian conflict has cost more than <a href="http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/informes2013/bastaYa/basta-ya-colombia-memorias-de-guerra-y-dignidad-2016.pdf">220,000 lives</a> over half a century, and has forced seven million people to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/colombias-war-has-displaced-7-million-with-peace-will-they-go-home/2016/09/05/538df3c6-6eb8-11e6-993f-73c693a89820_story.html">flee their homes</a>. Colombia is the leading <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/556725e69.html">source of refugees</a> in Latin America and has the <a href="http://www.elpais.com.co/elpais/colombia/noticias/colombia-pais-con-mayor-numero-desplazados-internos-onu">most internally displaced people</a> in the world, surpassing Syria in 2015.</p>
<p>As a conflict resolution professor in the U.S. and director of a <a href="http://www.cemproc.org">peacebuilding NGO</a> in Ecuador, I have conducted dozens of interviews and hundreds of surveys with Colombian refugees in six provinces of Ecuador over more than a decade. This research provides a useful context for analyzing the effects of the Colombian peace process and the rejection of the current deal on neighboring countries and the region. </p>
<p>Elevating the voices of those in Colombia and abroad who have been most affected by the conflict could help the rest of the population in Colombia to relate to their suffering, and internalize the cost of continued war. </p>
<h2>Rejection of the peace deal</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-colombia-voted-no-to-peace-with-farc-66416">Several factors</a> led to the <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/plebiscito-por-la-paz-diez-argumentos-con-los-que-gano-el-no/496484">failure of the peace deal</a>. <a href="http://www.usip.org/publications/2016/10/03/qa-colombians-narrowly-reject-peace-deal#.V_RoBxFcJTM.facebook">Key reasons</a> included government overconfidence, low turnout and, especially, anger at the perception that FARC was gaining impunity and costly benefits after years of violence. <a href="http://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2016/06/26/juan-manuel-santos-entre-el-historico-acuerdo-de-paz-y-su-imagen-por-el-suelo/">President Juan Manuel Santos</a> was the main proponent of the peace process, but many ordinary Colombians felt he was ignoring or silencing their concerns. His <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/encuesta-gallup-mayo-2016/16582461">popularity sagged</a>.</p>
<p>The popular ex-president, Alvaro Uribe, was a vocal <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-biggest-obstacle-to-peace-in-colombia-may-not-be-farc-but-an-ex-president/2016/07/06/09834850-3d79-11e6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_story.html">opponent</a> whose conservative followers demanded greater punishment for the FARC. Both presidents represent major ideological blocs in a polarized country – “yes” and “no” became politicized camps.</p>
<p>The right wing was not the only source of skepticism. Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/09/27/colombia-peace-deals-promise-and-flaws">criticized</a> the deal’s amnesty for government forces who committed human rights abuses. Many victims, civil society groups and displaced Colombians complained about being left out of the negotiations, although “yes” won in nearly <a href="http://plebiscito.registraduria.gov.co/99PL/DPL88330ZZZZZZZZZZZZ_L1.htm">all countries</a> where Colombian migrants voted from abroad.</p>
<p>Some were skeptical that the signed agreement would lead to a reduction in the violence in the short and medium term. They argued that elements of the FARC might splinter upon demobilization and <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/el-riesgo-de-farc-se-vuelvan-bacrim-articulo-423122">join criminal bands or cross borders</a> to neighboring countries, rather than accept the terms of the peace deal.</p>
<h2>Voices of Colombians abroad</h2>
<p>Only <a href="http://plebiscito.registraduria.gov.co/99PL/DPLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ_L1.htm">37 percent</a> of eligible voters in Colombia – and 12 percent of eligible Colombians living in <a href="http://plebiscito.registraduria.gov.co/99PL/DPL88330ZZZZZZZZZZZZ_L1.htm">other countries</a> – cast a vote in Sunday’s referendum. This suggests that many felt disenchanted with a process that was far removed from their own needs and interests.</p>
<p>Jorge, a Colombian refugee living in Venezuela, told me last month, “Those of us who are refugees and asylum seekers displaced across borders were absolutely invisible in the peace process by both the Colombian government and the insurgency.” </p>
<p>Earlier this year, I spoke with a woman named María, a member of the <a href="http://www.forointernacionalvictimas.com/">International Forum of Colombian Victims</a>. This group is composed of Colombian refugees and other victims who have fled to other countries, and it advocates for a just peace in Colombia. María fled the violence and has been living in Ecuador for several years.</p>
<p>She said illegal paramilitary groups had already started <a href="http://congresodelospueblos.org/comunicados-congreso-de-los-pueblos/item/958-accion-urgente-asesinado-lider-del-congreso-de-los-pueblos-en-el-centro-del-cesar.html">targeting</a> civil society leaders in Colombia for assassination, especially indigenous leaders. They have done so in the past in <a href="http://www.un.org/spanish/News/story.asp?NewsID=16740#.V_PzS_krKUk">Ecuador</a>, which means that even in crossing the border, activists’ lives can be in danger. </p>
<p>This raises concerns that civil society activists might be targeted while the peace process is ongoing, and even if an agreement is signed. Some victims and displaced people fear that <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/otras-ciudades/amenazas-a-lideres-indigenas-en-cauca-y-valle/16603321">advocating</a> for alternatives to militarization and for a more just economic model can have deadly consequences. Maria said, “We are not willing to accept with silence and indifference those who think that we can build peace with the same strategies with which we waged war.” </p>
<p>She pointed out that advocacy and <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt5hh13f">coordination</a> of allied <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/fragilestates/balyk-pugh.html">networks across borders</a>, including the International Forum of Colombian Victims, is key. Together, they can pressure negotiators to work toward genuine peace and justice that includes protections for victims and other excluded Colombians, including those living abroad. Otherwise, excluded groups will not feel they have a stake in the deal, or may even join spoilers in rejecting it.</p>
<h2>Engaging displaced Colombians</h2>
<p>In a striking pattern, the regions that were <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/plebiscito-por-la-paz-victimas-del-conflicto-votaron-por-el-si/496571">hardest hit</a> by the war registered the highest percentages in favor of the peace deal. These included rural areas in the coast and jungle, as well as Colombians <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/proceso-de-paz/resultados-plebiscito-en-el-exterior/16716619">voting from abroad</a> because they had to flee their homes. </p>
<p>The “no” vote was <a href="http://plebiscito.registraduria.gov.co/99PL/DPLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ_L1.htm">highest</a> in the urban and central regions that had been relatively more insulated from the violence. </p>
<p>I believe these groups need to hear more from each other.</p>
<p>Greater <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/latest/2016/4/570cf4706/unhcr-include-refugees-displaced-colombia-peace-talks.html">inclusion of victims and excluded groups</a> in the negotiations and public discourse would not only widen the base of the population with a stake in the conflict, but would also help to humanize the costs of continued war. </p>
<p>Cecilia, a Colombian researcher in Quito who is now an Ecuadorian citizen, told me last month after the peace deal was announced: “We don’t build peace only by signing agreements. It is something that we have to work for every day, in our closest relationships.” </p>
<p>Including victims of all of the armed groups might help break the ideological polarization and define a new narrative that <a href="http://caracol.com.co/emisora/2016/10/03/cartagena/1475517266_047376.html">everyone has suffered loss</a> and some level of forgiveness is a necessary price for ending the suffering.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/crq.21184/full">own research</a> focuses on Colombia’s forced migrants <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/fragilestates/balyk-pugh.html">living in Ecuador</a>, of whom more than <a href="http://www.acnur.org/donde-trabaja/america/ecuador/">170,000</a> have requested asylum since 2000. My surveys of more than 600 Colombians living in six Ecuadorian provinces show that only <a href="https://www.academia.edu/22767750/Redes_de_Migrantes_y_Refugiados_en_Ecuador_Un_Estudio_De_Quito_Lago_Agrio_y_Esmeraldas">9 percent</a> see themselves returning to Colombia within the next five years. This number has not changed much since 2013 as the political negotiations progressed. </p>
<p>Major economic and security investments are needed to create conditions that reassure Colombians abroad that it is safe to come home. A voluntary right to return is also important. Many Colombians have made a new life for themselves abroad, and are worried about being forced to return to a country they no longer consider <a href="http://www.flacsoandes.org/sima/images/FLACSO_InternetN2.pdf">home</a>. </p>
<p>As Jorge, the refugee in Venezuela, said, “My heart has been in Colombia and my feet are in Venezuela. The hard part is wanting to return and knowing that is not possible for now. But if I went back [to Colombia] tomorrow, I would feel like a stranger in my own land.” </p>
<h2>A regional perspective going forward</h2>
<p>Colombia’s neighbors are weary of the burden of refugees and cross-border security incursions caused by the conflict. Playing a constructive role in supporting renewed peace efforts could be in their interest. </p>
<p>Ecuador, which is the <a href="http://www.acnur.org/fileadmin/Documentos/RefugiadosAmericas/Ecuador/EN/UNHCR_in_Ecuador_-_April_2011.pdf?view=1">largest recipient</a> of refugees in Latin America, offered earlier this year to <a href="http://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/mundo/9/ecuador-sera-la-sede-de-las-negociaciones-entre-gobierno-de-colombia-y-el-eln">host negotiations</a> between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army, the other major leftist guerrilla group. Virginia Bouvier, a Colombia expert at the United States Institute of Peace, <a href="https://www.usip.org/olivebranch/2016/09/09/colombian-rebels-government-start-push-moves-ahead-of-vote">cautions</a> that any agreement would remain an “incomplete peace” as long as the ELN remains mobilized for fighting. A peace process that includes them at the same table would better reflect the range of interests in play.</p>
<p>The United States can also play an active role to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on all sides in Colombia to continue the peace process. Since 2009, the U.S. has given over US$9 billion <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IN10454.pdf">to Colombia</a>, much of which funded military equipment and training. Now, President Obama proposed $450 million for <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/who-pays-for-peace-in-colombia/">“Peace Colombia,”</a> the post-accord implementation of peace initiatives. The failure of the peace deal makes the future of this proposal uncertain.</p>
<p>Ex-President Uribe in particular benefited enormously from the <a href="http://www.flacsoandes.org/internacional/publi_acade/colombia/05tickner_arlene_b_y_rodrigo_pardo.pdf">U.S. military assistance</a>, and the United States could apply international pressure to hold him to his promise to continue working toward peace after the rejection of the current deal.</p>
<p>The referendum rejecting the deal was a setback for peace, but it creates an opportunity to address the problems of the first deal, especially if FARC and the government remain committed to keep working together and include more voices. If Colombia hopes to revive the peace process, it needs to engage a more representative range of political interests so they have a stake in the success of the outcome. </p>
<p>I believe this should include those who are affected by the conflict but have not had their voices heard. It should also invite external actors, including Ecuador and the United States, to apply leverage, provide resources and help coordinate a regional strategy to find solutions to the transnational aspects of the conflict that cross borders. </p>
<p><em>The names of interviewees have been changed for their safety.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey D. Pugh has received funding from the Fulbright Commission.
He is the director of the Center for Mediation, Peace, and Resolution of Conflict (CEMPROC), based in Quito-Ecuador</span></em></p>Few Colombians who have been displaced by violence voted on the peace deal from abroad. An expert in conflict resolution explains why their voices must be part of the peace process.Jeffrey D. Pugh, Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution, UMass BostonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659232016-09-25T01:53:36Z2016-09-25T01:53:36ZWill Colombia’s peace deal get the people’s vote?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139045/original/image-20160923-29902-14cjkdr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Imprisoned members of FARC at the camp where they will ratify a peace deal with the government.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/John Vizcaino</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Sept. 26, 2016, the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) are expected to sign a formal agreement to end 50 years of conflict. </p>
<p>More than <a href="http://rni.unidadvictimas.gov.co/RUV">eight million Colombians</a> have been displaced from their homes or harmed by the violence in the course of the long war. The public, however, still needs to endorse the agreement in a yes-or-no <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/08/25/colombia-president-rushing-plebiscite-on-deal-with-rebels.html">vote</a> to be held on Oct. 2. </p>
<p>If the public votes yes, then the Congress will need to quickly pass legislation for the <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/nelson-camilo-s-nchez/post-conflict-in-colombia-18-amnesty-and-pardon-in-peace-pro">limited amnesty </a> outlined in the agreement. The Constitutional Court will need to review the legislation to ensure it complies with international human rights law and national law. The FARC will demobilize to special zones with international monitoring, and the government will begin to implement the multifaceted agreement including land, drug policy and electoral reforms.</p>
<p>If the public votes no, then the outcome is uncertain. The Constitutional Court <a href="http://colombiapeace.org/2016/08/16/explaining-colombias-peace-plebiscite/">ruled</a> that the public vote is binding only on the executive branch. In other words, if Colombians vote no, the president could not implement or renegotiate the agreement. However, the Congress could try to restart negotiations or pass laws to implement parts of the existing agreement. </p>
<p>Most observers agree, however, that without the legitimacy of the public’s support, the agreement reached after four years of negotiations would likely die. </p>
<p>Public opinion polls indicate <a href="http://www.semana.com/nacion/galeria/plebiscito-por-la-paz-en-las-encuestas-el-si-va-ganando/493335">growing support</a> for the agreement among likely voters, but uncertainty about <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/paz/11-dias-del-plebiscito-paz-el-si-sigue-siendo-mayoria-articulo-655892">voter turnout</a> and deep concerns about specific aspects. The public wants peace, but are not united on how to get it. Many disagree with the compromises that would allow guerrillas who committed human rights crimes to avoid serving jail time, and to eventually run for political office. </p>
<h2>Appropriate punishments</h2>
<p>The basic outlines of the <a href="http://farc-epeace.org/peace-process/agreements/agreements/item/939-agreement-victims">deal</a> include the right of former guerrillas to run for political office, and amnesty for crimes committed during the course of the conflict that are connected to political rebellion. Drug crimes may become eligible for amnesty if they were committed to finance the rebellion, but not for personal profit, or if the proceeds were sent to foreign bank accounts. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, sanctions will be imposed for grave human rights crimes defined in <a href="http://www.ijrcenter.org/international-humanitarian-law/">international humanitarian law</a> like sexual crimes, kidnapping, torture, forced displacement and extrajudicial killing. These crimes will be processed under the new “Special Jurisdiction for Peace” tribunal that the peace accords would establish. </p>
<p>Combatants on both sides, FARC and state security forces, who are guilty of grave human rights crimes and decide to confess the truth, pay reparations and acknowledge responsibility would be eligible for a reduced sentence of no more than eight years. The guerrillas would not be in traditional prisons, but would have restricted liberty in designated geographic areas and required to perform community labor to repair damages to victims. Those who do not comply with these conditions would face a special court, and prison sentences up to 20 years.</p>
<p>The FARC would have six seats in Congress with voice, but no vote, until the next elections in 2018. From 2018 to 2026 they would have a guaranteed minimum of five seats in the House and in the Senate for which they will run candidates.</p>
<p>The accords also established a Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition to uncover the causes of abuses and document atrocities. </p>
<h2>The debate</h2>
<p>Critics of the agreement include the popular former president, Alvaro Uribe, and international human rights organizations like <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/21/human-rights-watch-analysis-colombia-farc-agreement">Human Rights Watch</a>. They argue that human rights violators would enjoy impunity. They also say Colombia would not be adhering to the international treaty it signed in 2002 – the <a href="http://legal.un.org/icc/index.html">Rome Statutes</a> obligating punishment for war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Political opponents also fear that the FARC could gain political power and take Colombia down a socialist path. They advocate voting no, and the reopening of negotiations to achieve stiffer punishment.</p>
<p>Proponents include several political parties who are allied with the current president Juan Manuel Santos, his administration and leading <a href="http://colombia2020.elespectador.com/pais/la-justicia-internacional-no-exige-pena-de-prision-gustavo-gallon">Colombian human rights organizations</a>. They argue that the agreement does indeed establish accountability for human rights violators, and point to a supportive <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int//Pages/item.aspx?name=160901-otp-stat-colombia">public letter</a> from the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Moreover, there is little guarantee that a new, harsher agreement could be negotiated with a guerrilla force that is not vanquished by military force, but rather is negotiating an end to a conflict. </p>
<p>The innovative nature of this alternative – restorative justice – they argue, is that it focuses on the victims by requiring restitution and labor such as removing land mines from or reconstructing destroyed villages, rather than simply putting perpetrators in prison. </p>
<p>At the same time, it attempts to bring armed combatants back into society. That may help avoid what has happened in the past – in both Colombia and elsewhere – when former combatants were unable to find new job skills or build homes and returned to organized violence.</p>
<p>Participating in politics is a key objective of the FARC – they are laying down arms to pursue their political objectives through peaceful, democratic means. As the government’s lead negotiator, <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/proceso-de-paz/jefes-de-farc-haran-politica-dice-humberto-de-la-calle/16630581">Humberto DelaCalle, said</a>, “it is advantageous to Colombia that the FARC, instead of attacking the civilian population, would be present in representative organizations, and would participate in politics without weapons.”</p>
<h2>New standards</h2>
<p>The agreement is precedent-setting in several ways. </p>
<p>It will be the first negotiated end to a civil conflict in the world under the new international standards of the 2002 Rome Statutes to hold accountable armed combatants who commit grave human rights abuses.</p>
<p>It will also be the first peace process to have included <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28822683">victims</a> at the negotiating table. </p>
<p>In another innovation, it extends the special justice system to other sectors of the society beyond the FARC, such as civilian sponsors and financiers of paramilitary forces, as well as the government’s security forces. </p>
<p>Finally, it will be the first end to a civil war that does not rely primarily on amnesty for all sides, but instead provides new forms of restorative justice. This is a compromise effort to reach peace while also holding perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable, and I believe could serve as a model for the world.</p>
<h2>Convincing the public</h2>
<p>Will the agreement be accepted by a <a href="http://www.as-coa.org/articles/colombia-update-facing-public-opinion-farc-peace-talks">skeptical Colombian public</a> that routinely favors jail time and opposes future political office for FARC members? </p>
<p>The campaign for the referendum has been intense, but <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/ryan-e-carlin-jennifer-l-mccoy-jelena-subotic/paying-for-human-rights-violations-pe">research</a> by our Georgia State University team indicates that educating the public about the specifics can increase support, and will be essential to gain popular legitimacy and ensure a sustainable peace.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/28/pitfalls-abound-in-colombia-farc-peace-talks/">survey</a> of more than 3,000 Colombian citizens showed that those who voted against President Santos and his peace platform in the last election, or those who abstained from voting at all, could be persuaded to support the peace process and specific transitional justice proposals. </p>
<p>Our research also shows that efforts to educate the public could boost the popular legitimacy of the peace process. Specifically, respondents who said they most understood the negotiations were also more likely to support the talks. </p>
<p>Yet, in a <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/paz/11-dias-del-plebiscito-paz-el-si-sigue-siendo-mayoria-articulo-655892">Sept. 20 poll</a>, only 7 percent said they know the details of the agreement. Public education on all the elements of the peace deal will thus be crucial to gaining popular legitimacy of the proposal, which is essential if the peace is to become durable and sustainable. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This piece updates <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-peace-deal-in-colombia-be-a-model-for-other-conflicts-48564">Could the peace deal in Colombia be a model for other conflicts?</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Lynn McCoy has received funding from NSF and USAID for research referenced in this article.</span></em></p>The peace deal in Colombia is not only a welcome surprise after 50 years of war, it’s also groundbreaking. If Colombians vote in favor, it could offer hope for other countries in conflict.Jennifer Lynn McCoy, Distinguished University Professor of Political Science, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/640822016-09-16T13:48:36Z2016-09-16T13:48:36ZAs Colombia prepares to vote for peace with FARC, a former president says no<p>A date with destiny is bearing down on the people of Colombia, who will soon vote on whether to accept a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-momentous-peace-deal-with-the-farc-so-what-next-for-colombia-64452">historic peace deal</a> struck between the government of President <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/16/war-drugs-colombia-un-new-approach">Juan Manuel Santos</a> and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The agreement will formally end a 52-year war that has claimed <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/25/americas/colombia-farc-peace-deal-explainer/">an estimated 220,000 lives</a> (most of them civilian), seen thousands kidnapped, and made millions more refugees in their own country. </p>
<p>To help secure peace and start the healing process, various public figures have publicly forgiven FARC insurgents for kidnapping or murdering members of their families. Ángela María Giraldo was among victims invited to attend the Cuba-brokered peace talks in August 2014 in Havana, where she came face to face with the man responsible for the abduction and subsequent killing of 11 Colombian MPs, including her brother Francisco Javier, in 2007. </p>
<p>As she put it in an <a href="http://www.elpais.com.co/elpais/judicial/noticias/por-paz-vale-pena-perdonar-angela-giraldo-victima-farc">interview</a>: “It was difficult but I was prepared to put the past behind for the sake of a real prospect of peace.”</p>
<p>Given the war’s terrible cost, a Yes vote in the hope of a lasting peace might sound like a foregone conclusion. But even with the negotiations done, the hard work is far from over. </p>
<p>Much depends on Santos’ predecessor, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3214685.stm">Álvaro Uribe</a>, who is spearheading the vociferous campaign to veto the agreement. Noted for the hard line he took against the FARC while in office, and for his conviction that the conflict demanded a military solution, Uribe appears far less willing than many of his political colleagues to forgive the FARC for its past crimes – not least the assassination of his own father in Antioquia in June 1983, for which the rebels have repeatedly <a href="http://colombiareports.com/we-did-not-kill-uribes-father-farc/">denied responsibility</a>.</p>
<p>But Uribe’s bitter opposition isn’t just a personal grudge, and his Centro Democrático party is backing his campaign. He and they consider the deal a “surrender” to the FARC, and they’ve been mobilising popular support to block it. Uribe has the backing of several influential political figures, who have vowed to continue with their campaign even if Colombians vote Yes.</p>
<h2>No, no, no</h2>
<p>Among the main bones of contention for Uribe and his followers is the decision to grant impunity to FARC guerrillas, particularly commanders behind atrocities such as massacres and those responsible for the systematic recruitment of child soldiers.</p>
<p>But the government is at pains to point out that, unlike certain other countries’ historic peace accords, which granted insurgents and militants blanket amnesties, the Colombian agreement draws a clear distinction: guerrillas who confess fully to past crimes may receive reduced sentences or benefit from non-custodial measures, but those who do not will face prison terms of up to 20 years.</p>
<p>A second major sticking point for Uribe and co. is the decision to allow FARC leaders and members to participate in mainstream politics. They are horrified at the prospect of FARC stalwarts – especially the group’s current commander-in-chief Rodrigo Londoño Echeverry, better known as <a href="http://colombiareports.com/timochenko-making-peace-political-force/">Timochenko</a> – taking elected positions with official, public responsibilities.</p>
<p>But even if they agree in essence with Uribe’s main complaints, more than a few Colombians are suspicious about the true motives behind his opposition. They attribute his repeated attempts to sabotage the process to his well-known rivalry with Santos, who served as his defence minister until 2009, and who succeeded him as president when he was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8539784.stm">legally blocked from standing for a third term</a>.</p>
<p>Uribe is also thought to be secretly furious at the prospect that Santos could win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the world’s longest-running conflict. That would overshadow Uribe’s own vital contribution to peace: weakening the FARC militarily to the point that it had little option but to come to the negotiating table.</p>
<p>The October 2 referendum will therefore determine not only Colombia’s future, but also Uribe’s. If the country votes Yes, his political fate will be sealed. </p>
<p>No-one underestimates his influence – not least Santos, who has made a last-ditch effort to get Uribe to publicly endorse the process, or at least keep his opposition private.</p>
<p>While he and many others have advised Uribe to cement his reputation as a statesman by not standing in the way of a Yes vote, his opposition appears too firmly entrenched to waver from his current position. It’s all summed up in his campaign’s rather baffling, counter-intuitive slogan: “Say Yes to Peace by saying No in the Referendum.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl McLaughlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After 52 years fighting the FARC, Colombia is about to vote on a comprehensive peace deal. But not everyone wants in.Karl McLaughlin, Senior Lecturer in Spanish, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.