David Rose , Jakarta
As someone who spent all of my childhood and most of my adult life living in Northern Ireland during the secessionist conflict that we call the "Troubles", the recently released International Crisis Group report -- Pre-Election Anxieties in Aceh -- was frankly, not surprising.
In fact, were the authors to go back to their report and replace "Aceh" with "Northern Ireland" it would accurately reflect the issues that undermined confidence in the period immediately after the signing of our peace accord in 1998. Yet ten years later the peace process goes on, our new democratic institutions whilst not yet permanent, feel secure and significantly progress is finally being made to confront the many social issues arising from the conflict. The key question is what lessons have been learnt?
Before discussing lessons learnt from the Northern Ireland peace process, I would like to make clear that this writer works on the principal of "Shared Experience." In workshops, I appraise the Northern Ireland experience as a means to illustrating the dynamics at play during our peace process.
Whilst I believe that common understanding exists amongst those who have experienced conflict, I do not believe it is possible for an outsider to direct parties to successful outcomes. Rather establishing common ground through the sharing of experiences allows peace builders an opportunity to explore another situation and adapt the lessons learnt to build a strategic approach appropriate to their circumstance. In this way, the parties to the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding may be able to adapt and devise strategies to overcome their own problems.
So what are those key lessons from Northern Ireland?
The first is to realize that the peace process never ends; it merely throws up new and different problems. When I look back on the period running up to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, I am embarrassed at my naivety. At that time I believed an accord would in itself be the solution to our situation. In truth, the day the deal was signed, a whole new set of challenges emerged:
o The political and militant opposition to the deal emerged and constantly sought to undermine it. I attended more funerals in the period after the accord than I did before. All were people killed through internal feuding.
o Many former militants had no work skills to make a living in the post-conflict economy. They turned to crime and as a result seriously undermined the population's sense of well being.
o The challenge of implementation of what was written in the deal became increasingly difficult as a serious lack of trust continued to exist between all parties.
o People's expectations of a quick turn around in their economic fortunes were soon proved to be unrealistically high and as a result they became increasingly disillusioned.
All these problems still exist to a greater or lesser extent, what we have learnt is that they are not reasons to bring the whole process to a halt.
The second is never lose faith in the process. Even in the euphoria of 1998, I never seriously believed that the militant groups would ever cease to exist in a paramilitary form.
A decade later, the two principal groups, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force have both voluntarily ceased to exist as "military" entities. This change happened because it became politically unsustainable for both groups to exist.
As the causes of conflict were addressed, the two organizations were faced with a choice -- continue and potentially mutate into mafia-type gangs or depart the stage on their own terms. Both chose the latter as it was the will of the majority of their members. It took over a decade from the ceasefires to reach this point and for most of that time many thought the ill-discipline and criminal activity of some former militants would destroy the whole process. In the end, staying the course delivered because it was the process that created the dynamic.
The third lesson is always being honest. Every conflict is a mass of human stories, each one as legitimate as the other. Peace builders must always seek to empathize with those who having survived years of conflict now have to overcome the challenges of peace, particularly:
o The traumatized victims,
o The families mourning the loss of loved ones,
o The newly unemployed combatants,
o The political and community leaders struggling to lead people through the most painful of transformations, and
o Those who feel they have lost.
All have legitimate issues to overcome and none should be dismissed. In truth, there are no ready answers to these issues. In Northern Ireland, we are coming to terms with the fact that whilst offer as much support as is possible, we cannot solve every problem for every person and this writer believes the best any society can do is admit that truth They won't love you for it, but people do respect honesty.
The fourth lesson is to recognize that "Peace" is an ill-defined situation that will never truly be reached. For a decade, I believed that Northern Ireland might eventually reach a point where all our problems were resolved and the peace process could be complete. Eventually, I realized that this would never happen because even the most successful societies have problems. And those of us who work to build "Peace" should remember that.
There will always be crime and criminals. There will always be political division, and there will always be economic winners and losers. A healthy society recognizes these truths and seeks to manage them through well-supported civil policing, robust democratic institutions, and adequate support for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. In Northern Ireland, we have made significant progress towards the healthy outcome and thus can claim to have reached a level of "Peace".
Though the parties to the 2005 MOU should recognize the need to find strategies to address the problems highlighted in the ICG report, no one should be surprised at how slow and difficult progress has been. As former prisoner and UVF leader Gusty Spence told the small group of prisoners who would go on to initiate the "Northern Ireland Peace Strategy" within the Loyalist constituency, a peace process is "a marathon not a sprint."
The writer is a professional consultant, trainer and advisor specializing conflict transformation, who has worked on National Democratic Institute programs across the world, most notably in West Bank/Gaza and Aceh.
Source www.thejakartapost.com
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