Hate speech and disinformation on social media are often blamed for the growing divisions in the country, as well as throughout the Niger Delta Region. Peace News spoke to experts and social media influencers in Nigeria to understand the problem better and understand what solutions might work to reduce it.
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Libya: How COVID-19 is impacting peace and conflict
On October 23, 2020, the two main warring factions in Libya signed an agreement for “a permanent ceasefire in all areas of Libya.” The accord followed talks in Geneva under the 5+5 Joint Military Commission, a UN support mission to bring peace to Libya, with the two main warring factions.
One side is the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), an interim government created from a UN-led initiative. The other side is the eastern-based Libya National Army (LNA), led by the commander Khalifa Haftar and supported by countries such as Egypt, the UAE, and Russia. This ceasefire agreement came months after the COVID-19 outbreak and the UN’s call for a global ceasefire during the public health crisis.
As in many countries, the public health crisis has highlighted corruption and fragility in Libya. During much of the pandemic before the ceasefire announcement, violence continued while cases rose. In Sebha, a municipality in the south where thousands of people had been displaced due to fighting, there was an eightfold increase in COVID-19 cases. Many displaced persons are living in overcrowded conditions which allowed for easy spread of the virus. On top of the health crisis, the Libyan economy was also hit by an extensive blockade on oilfields and ports by the LNA. Haftar demanded redistribution of the oil revenues, arguing that much of the money made by the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) was being diverted to mercenaries for the GNA.
The blockade lasted until mid-September and likely cost the country $9.8 billion in lost revenue. It also directly impacted civilian life, worsening electricity and fuel shortages in the country.
According to Peter Maurer, The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on a visit to Libya, “People have little electricity, drinking water, sanitation, or medical care in the middle of a growing pandemic.” Additionally, many daily wage earners and migrants have been hardest hit as income opportunities have disappeared and prices of staple foods have jumped.
The worsening crisis appears to have acted as a stimulus, pushing GNA and LNA leaders towards a ceasefire agreement. According to Dr. Mietek Boduszyński, a scholar with the Middle East Institute, “It is possible that one positive consequence of the pandemic was that it helped motivate the warring sides to sit down at the negotiating table.”
The two sides agreed to return frontline forces to their bases and to the withdrawal of all foreign forces within three months. In a sign of good faith, there has been relative calm leading up to the new round of talks began on November 9 in Tunisia. This dialogue includes a variety of constituencies in Libya, with the participation of Libyan women, youth, and minorities. The forum is ongoing and will hopefully create a framework with a set timeline for national elections.
Although Libya has a history of failed peace initiatives, UN special envoy Stephanie Williams is hopeful and stresses the need for international backing for the success of this ceasefire.
Israel and Palestine: How COVID-19 is impacting peace and conflict
Israel and Palestine stand out among conflict-fragile countries during the COVID-19 outbreak for their high number of deaths per million and their temporary cooperation at the start of the pandemic. Although neither Israel nor Palestine responded publicly to the UN ceasefire call, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lauded Israel and Palestine for their cooperation during the early part of the outbreak. Ultimately, this cooperation struggled to last and was unable to bring either party closer to a peaceful solution.
At the outset of the pandemic, COVID-19 posed both a challenge and an opportunity for the conflict. The virus outbreak occurred while Israel was still unable to form a coalition government and the legitimacy of the Israeli government was in decline. As the virus was rapidly spreading across Israel and Palestine, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted “telephone diplomacy,” leading to a joint fight against the coronavirus. Many hoped this cooperation could ignite continuing negotiations towards establishing a peace solution for the conflict.
This relationship, however, quickly changed in June when Israel announced it would continue annexation plans in the West Bank, which is illegal under international law. In response, the Palestinian Authority made the decision to end cooperation and refuse tax revenue transfers from Israel in an effort to pause Israel’s plans. Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, stated that this breakdown in cooperation would further complicate the response to an escalating COVID crisis.
As Israel moved forward in its plans and the Palestinian Authority rejected options to cooperate, Mladenov said, “this situation could have serious repercussions on the ability to control [the virus’] spread and its impact on people’s lives.”
In August, Israel suspended annexation plans as part of its agreement to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, however, two months later, Israel once again resumed settlement activities. The High Planning Committee set out its largest collective advancements to date on October 14 and 15, advancing 5,000 settlement housing units.
“Settlement-related activities…undermined the prospect of achieving a viable two-State solution in line with UN resolutions,” said Mladenov.
Throughout this, the Palestinian Authority has continued to reject cooperation with Israel.
The economic fallout from the pandemic has particularly impacted the legitimacy and power of the Palestinian Authority. Mladenov stated “the viability of the Palestinian Authority is being severely undermined by an economic and fiscal crisis that has been exacerbated by the Palestinian decision to end civilian and security coordination with Israel.”
Cooperation between Israel and Palestine is necessary for the public health crisis but also crucial to the stability of the Palestinian Authority. Despite these challenges, Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas agreed to hold elections in early 2021—the first in nearly 15 years—moving towards ending over a decade of infighting.
Although the COVID pandemic has not significantly impacted relations between Israel and Palestine, Palestinian President Abbas called for an international conference in 2021 to launch a “genuine peace process”. While Israel has shown limited interest in this initiative, it’s timing lines up with a new US administration which could support and momentum. Furthermore, Israel will continue to attempt regional peace following recent normalization of relation agreement with Bahrain, the UAE, and Sudan.
Iraq: How COVID-19 is impacting peace and conflict
Iraq has been one of the hardest hit countries in the MENA region by the coronavirus. With 213 deaths per million people as of the end of August 2020, Iraq’s death rate is about twice that of the global average. The weakened healthcare system and vulnerable populations created by its conflict against ISIS from 2014-2017 has complicated the Iraqi government’s response to the pandemic. Although ISIS was mostly forced out of its territories in Iraq by the end of 2017, it remains active. The humanitarian, governance, and economic impacts of coronavirus have complicated the ability the Global Coalition against ISIS to respond to the continued attacks by the militant group.
On December 9, 2017, Iraq’s Commander-in-Chief Haider al-Abadi announced the defeat of ISIS within Iraq’s borders. Although ISIS lost 95% of its territory in Iraq, it has remained active and continues to carry out guerilla attacks across Iraq and Syria. During COVID, these small attacks have increased, reflecting a surge that began before the pandemic and a strategy intended to take advantage of the weak COVID response. Belkis Wille, a senior researcher for the Conflict and Crisis Division at Human Rights Watch stated, “While the country has been focused on battling COVID-19, we’ve seen a worrying trend (which was already the case before the pandemic hit), of small scale ISIS attacks.”
Iraqi military officials claim ISIS has doubled down during this crisis and has escalated its attacks from local intimidation to more complex tactics such as IED attacks and ambushes. Wille explains that one factor in the increasing violence is “the government has had less of an ability to address these kinds of attacks since the pandemic.” The most recent quarterly report by the Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the U.S. operation against ISIS, notes how the security environment has changed with COVID-19. The report claims the militant group is taking advantage of the pandemic by filling in the vacuums left by reductions in military forces due to COVID-19, as military personnel on duty have decreased by 50%.
The Iraqi government struggled to handle the pandemic after its first case in the end of February. COVID spread while the government was already responding to mass protests, US-Iran tensions, and declining oil prices. Although the government attempted to impose strict restrictions to slow the spread, enforcement was very difficult. Congregations of religious pilgrims defied these measures, including on March 20 when hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims traveled to a shrine in Baghdad. Emergency funds that were necessary to bolster the weak healthcare infrastructure were already depleted due to plummeting oil prices, requiring the health ministry to seek charitable donations for its COVID response.
The combined threat of COVID and shocks in the oil market are likely to stress food supply chains in Iraq. Food production is already behind the 66% growth in population in the past 20 years and the $40 billion deficit from dropping oil prices complicate the heavily-government-funded agriculture system. Additionally, the UN estimates that there are already 1.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, a population that would likely feel the brunt of the diminishing oil revenues and fiscal deficit. Iraq’s dependence on oil revenues and weakened healthcare structure has prevented a strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In turn, these weaknesses have encouraged ISIS to increase attacks. Although the U.S. report determines that there has not been a “resurgence,” ISIS is attempting to take advantage of vulnerabilities caused by the pandemic to regain some influence in the region. As Iraq continues to struggle in managing the multiple crises of the pandemic, ISIS will continue exploiting the situation and further complicate the Iraqi government’s response.
Central African Republic: How COVID-19 is impacting peace and conflict
COVID-19 reached the Central African Republic with its first case on March 14, 2020, just a month after the first anniversary of the Political Accord for Peace and Reconciliation. Signed in February 2019, the objective of the accord was to “promote dialogue between the Government and armed groups…to put a definitive end to the crisis.” Fourteen armed groups agreed to respecting the legitimacy of the government and disarming while the government agreed to decentralizing and creating a more inclusive governance system.
In UN Secretary-General Guterres’ report on the anniversary of the Accord, he noted that although violence decreased overall, there were still many violations of the agreement. Igor Acko, a CAR analyst with the United States Institute of Peace in Bangui, said “the ceasefire was delightfully violated every day by armed groups since the beginning and with COVID, this trend is continuing.” The lack of good faith from several armed groups and follow-through from the government caused the January 2020 deadline for disarmament to be missed. Although the number of deaths from conflict have decreased by 25% from March-August 2019 compared to the same period in 2020, there have been multiple major incidents, such as attacks on National Election Authority (ANE) agents working to register voters ahead of the presidential election in December.
In 2020, the priorities of the CAR government were to move forward with the Political Accord for Peace and Reconciliation and prepare for the upcoming elections, however, COVID-19 has complicated these processes. The pandemic has “exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.” Although there have been less than 5,000 cases and a relatively small number of deaths, the economic shutdowns to mitigate the virus are heavy burdens on an already fragile society. Prices for imported food increased by 31% and urban transportation costs increased by 67%. These price changes are especially impactful on refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), who make up 25% of the population. Humanitarian aid is a necessary part of creating access to food and healthcare for vulnerable populations in CAR, however, Acko stated that, due to travel restrictions, “doctors and expatriate NGO workers were not able to come to help,” leaving many IDPs and food insecure people without support.
Despite these challenges, many NGOs are attempting to create solutions to the economic impact of COVID-19. For instance, the Youth Education Pack (YEP), funded by Education Cannot Wait and led by the Norwegian Refugees Council, offers vocational training to students in the face of school closures. Similarly, in the face of limited face masks, the World Bank’s Londo Project in CAR produced over two million masks to help people comply with the government’s mask mandate.
Today, the upcoming elections remain the priority in moving forward peacefully towards a fairer and more inclusive democracy in CAR. Secretary Guterres called this a “decisive [period] for the country” and called on all stakeholders to ensure a free and safe election. Earlier during the pandemic, the ruling party attempted to extend the presidential term, arguing the pandemic would prevent a fair election. In June, the constitutional court decided on the case, rejecting the delay and ensuring the election will be held this year. Still, there have been disruptions in voter registration due to the pandemic. As the pandemic and violence continues, it will be crucial for election authorities to ensure the public in CAR are able to fairly participate in the upcoming presidential election.
People Choosing Peace: US virtual race to support youth in conflict zones
A virtual fundraising event this month across the US is aimed at supporting and connecting youth in conflict zones. Play for Peace has launched Level Up: Race for Humanity 2020, from September 1 to September 30, pivoting to meet COVID-19 restrictions.
“After a long summer of staying inside, join Play for Peace for this entirely virtual event that invites participants to get up off the couch to elevate their hearts, minds, and bodies with challenges, activities, and exercises created for individuals and groups of all ages, ending with the big race,” said Sarah Gough, Play for Peace Executive Director.
“Walk, bike, or roll your 2.2K to 20.2K journey, and embrace the new sense of peace within yourself, while inspiring your community and supporting peace around the world.”
Participants can sign up as an individual, create a team, or join an existing team on the Level Up page. Everyone who registers will receive a digital training toolkit, for home or outside, and can opt in to earn electronic badges. Participants of all ages can complete activities individually or with your classroom, friends, and family following physical distancing guidelines.
Egypt heads to Amman, Ramallah to revive peace efforts
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Jordan and the West Bank earlier this month to reiterate Egypt’s rejection of the Israeli plan to annex parts of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank. Egypt believes that the chances of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital… Read more here.
Climate emergency ‘a danger to peace’, UN Security Council hears
“The climate emergency is a danger to peace”, said Miroslav Jenča, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, as he called on peace and security actors to play their role and help speed up implementation of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change.
“The failure to consider the growing impacts of climate change will undermine our efforts at conflict prevention, peacemaking and sustaining peace, and risk trapping vulnerable countries in a vicious cycle of climate disaster and conflict”, he said.
Mr. Jenča briefed the Council at the start of an open video-teleconference debate on climate and security, one of the key themes of this month’s German presidency of the 15-member body.
Noting that the consequences of climate change vary from region to region, he said the fragile or conflict-affected situations around the world are more exposed to – and less able to cope with – the effects of a changing climate.
Peacekeeping link “It is no coincidence that seven of the 10 countries most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change, host a peacekeeping operation or special political mission”, he said.
Differences exists between regions, within regions and within communities, with climate-related security risks impacting women, men, girls and boys in different ways, he said.
In the Pacific, rising sea levels and extreme weather events pose a risk to social cohesion, he said.
In Central Asia, water stress and reduced access to natural resources can contribute to regional tensions.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, climate-driven population displacement could undermine regional stability. And in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, the effects of climate change are already deepening grievances and escalating the risk of conflict – providing fodder for extremist groups.
Outlining some actions that Member States can take together, he said that new technologies must be leveraged to strengthen the ability to turn long-term climate foresight, into actionable, near-term analysis.
Mr. Jenča also recommended stronger partnerships that would bring together the efforts already being made by the UN, Member States, regional organizations and others, to identify best practices, strengthen resilience and bolster regional cooperation.
Photo: UNDP Somalia/Said Isse
Peacebuilders on putting the Global Fragility Act into action
The U.S. government (USG) is preparing to unveil a new strategy over the coming months to tackle the underlying causes of fragility and conflict in vulnerable countries around the world. The strategy comes at an important time, just as the United States and other international donors seek to respond to rapidly increasing health, food, and other emergency needs as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. It will be critical that in line with the new strategy, this aid does not inadvertently stoke new tensions, say peacebuilding experts.
Read the full story here and more about the Global Fragility Act here.
Photo: Travis1776
Nelson Mandela on peace, poverty and race
This year’s Nelson Mandela International Day has a particular poignancy. Against a backdrop of protests against racial injustice, and COVID-19 amplifying inequality, his words resonate as much as ever. Through his work as a human rights lawyer, prisoner of conscience, and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa, Mandela has become one of the most recognized peacemakers of our time.
Read the full story here and learn more about Mandela in our video story below.
10 anti-racism quotes to draw strength from
After Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the USA, and throughout the global community, sparked by the death of George Floyd, it became clear that well-meaning platitudes won’t cut it. We take a look at 10 inspirational quotes that go a little further. They alone won’t change the world, but you can draw strength from them while you do.
Photo: Twitter “If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, we can walk together.” – Lilla Watson
Photo: WikiCommons/Rob Mieremet “I am where I am because of the bridges that I crossed. Sojourner Truth was abridge. Harriet Tubman was a bridge. Ida B. Wells was a bridge. Madame C.J.Walker was a bridge. Fannie Lou Hamer was a bridge.” – Oprah Winfrey
Photo: Encyclopedia Britannica “I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.” – Miriam Makeba
Photo: NASA“For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.”- Donald Williams
Photo: WikiCommons/Genevieve“The only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.” – Meghan Markle
Photo: WikiCommons/Associated Press “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Photo: Gorupdebesanez “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” – Eugene Ionesco
“No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.” – Marian Anderson
Photo: Barack Obama Presidential Library “History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama
Photo: WikiCommons/BastienM “If you want peace, work for justice.” – Pope Paul VI
Op-Ed: A just peace is possible
Opinion: Dylan Mathews, CEO of Peace Direct, shares his own experiences, uncomfortable discussions and hopes for the future.
The murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis last week has rightly prompted outrage across the US and in other cities around the world. While the stories of police brutality in the US are all too common, what made this killing particularly horrific in a world desensitized to violence was how routine and deliberate it was.
This was a killing in slow motion, over a period of almost nine minutes. Nine minutes when each of the police officers had ample time to consider whether their actions were appropriate; nine minutes to alter their actions as onlookers begged them to check Floyd’s pulse. Nine minutes to ask themselves whether their use of force was proportionate, while the man they were arresting was handcuffed, unarmed and pinned down face first on the street, with an officer’s knee on his neck.
Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with Floyd’s murder, chose not to change his course of action, and in doing so was signalling to those around him, including his fellow officers and onlookers who were filming him, that George Floyd’s life had absolutely no value; that black lives do not matter. The deeply ingrained racism and injustice that this exposes is itself a form of violence, what we in the peacebuilding world call structural violence.
I hope that you have never experienced the type of racism that many black and other people from minority backgrounds continue to experience in the UK, US and in other parts of the world. As a brown child growing up in an overwhelmingly white community outside of London, I remember stones being thrown at me and being told by adult strangers to ‘f**k off and go back to your own country.’ I remember feeling humiliated, frightened and angry, because the UK was ‘my country’ and because as a child I couldn’t understand why adults would hate me simply because of the color of my skin. Those experiences affected me deeply and have driven me to work for a world where such structural violence no longer exists.
Every person deserves to live free from fear, humiliation and persecution, and to live the life they value. This is what we at Peace Direct strive for in everything we do.
Structural violence is every bit as destructive as armed or physical violence, and it affects many more people. It is the violence of racism and prejudice that leads to high rates of incarceration of people from black and minority backgrounds. It is the violence of poverty and inequality that lead to early deaths and limited life choices. It is the violence of sexism and misogyny that leads to persistently high levels of gender-based violence across the world.
As an international peacebuilding organisation based in the UK and US, we have a responsibility to work actively within our own communities to build a society based on justice, nonviolent transformation of conflict, and human dignity for all. In fact, if there is one lesson that we must all learn from this week’s events is that we all have a responsibility to confront structural violence wherever we see it. To do this we have to take some uncomfortable steps. We have to acknowledge that many of us benefit from a dominant culture that has its roots in our colonial past, in the slave trade and in the exploitation and subjugation of other peoples. This culture, if left unchecked, leads to incidences which we saw in Minneapolis, where a white man can take the life of a black man with impunity. We also have to recognize our own biases and prejudices as these can unintentionally do harm to others. And we have to be active, both in our listening to others and in our actions, so that we do not become bystanders to oppression. I often remind myself that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
So much of our work at Peace Direct focuses on directly supporting local people’s efforts to stop violence and build peace in some of the most volatile parts of the world. But a lot of this work is not on the front lines of what we think of as traditional wars. It’s about undoing systems of injustice and building lasting peace, which inevitably means addressing structural violence. It’s about tackling issues such as women’s rights in Pakistan, or supporting young people to have a voice in community decision making in Mali. And it’s about recognizing and supporting justice and peacebuilding in the US at this time. This work is as urgent as the reintegration of ex-soldiers in DR Congo or the mediation work of local peace committees in Syria. All are required to build a safer and more secure world. Peacebuilding is required in all our local communities.
As the US grapples with deeply embedded systems of racism, the role of local peacebuilders will be more important than ever. In communities across the United States, mediators, faith leaders, human rights advocates, activists, young people, and other local leaders are actively working to de-escalate violence, sustain nonviolent action, support mourning, rebuild relationships, and open pathways for a more just and peaceful future. They are pushing back – nonviolently – against the further militarization of their society and proposing positive, peaceful solutions instead. These local peacebuilders are vital, often unseen and under-supported, in the immediate crisis and the long, difficult work ahead.
Despite the grief and anger we feel, we also remain hopeful that a just peace is possible. Local peacebuilders around the world – and the history of people power and peacebuilding in the US – demonstrate every day that systems of oppression and violence can be overcome. We are reminded again, as Indian author Arundhati Roy has said, that “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.”
Report Released: Peace and security in the Central African Republic
After several failed peace processes, a peace accord was signed in 2019 by the Central African Republic government and 14 armed groups. With the country now preparing for elections in December 2020, this research from Conciliation Resources looks to understand the views of local communities in Bossangoa and the Western Border Zones, in order to inform effective, proactive policy during this crucial period and beyond.
Read the report here.
COVID-19 and Conflict: Violent Extremism
The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the globe is reshaping dynamics in fragile states and conflict zones. In this video, part of USIP’s #COVIDandConflict series, Kateira Aryaeinejad and Bethany McGann examine the pandemic’s impacts on violent extremism: how extremist groups are exploiting the crisis, whether it is impacting recruitment, and how it complicates efforts to counter violent extremism.
Read the transcript here.
UN on Colombia: COVID-19 must not derail peace agreement
The global COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on Colombia, but it cannot be allowed to derail the Latin American nation’s quest for sustainable peace after five decades of conflict, the Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in that country told the Security Council in a video conference meeting in April.
Carlos Ruiz Massieu, who is also the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Colombia, said that the pandemic will impact on the implementation of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace, signed on 24 November 2016 between Bogota and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia‑People’s Army (FARC-EP).
It is encouraging to see Colombians finding creative responses to the crisis and responding positively to calls for unity as authorities at all levels take measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, he said, noting how implementing parties are embracing video technology to continue their work.
However, while the National Liberation Army (ELN) — which is still in negotiations with the Government — has declared a month-long ceasefire for April, clashes involving illegal armed groups are continuing, he said.
“At a time when all efforts must be focused on fighting the pandemic, we urge all illegal armed actors in Colombia to desist from continuing to perpetrate violence upon vulnerable communities, including indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities,” he emphasized.
He told the 15-member council that the international community has a “collective obligation” to ensure progress in implementing the 2016 peace agreement.
“Peace in Colombia cannot and should not be a casualty of this pandemic,” he added, calling for ongoing progress to fully implement the Final Agreement, including on three priorities that the Secretary-General set out in his latest report on the Mission’s work.
Also briefing the council was David Santiago Cano Salazar, youth representative, who said all Colombians who lived through the conflict have suffered from the consequences of violence. Having grown up in Medellín, he said he remembers neighbors who were killed, corpses on TV, the sounds of gun shots and pervasive fear. While the peace agreement fulfilled hopes, he said it also raised expectations that peace would finally take root in rural Colombia.
“We should not need a pandemic to argue for the silencing of weapons,” he said, urging the Council to see COVID-19 as a reminder that “we are stronger when we are united”.
In the ensuing discussion, council members agreed that Colombia must forge ahead with implementing the peace agreement and that violence — particularly in rural areas — must come to a halt.
Broadcasting Peace: Lessons from peacebuilders in DRC
The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is beset by ongoing conflict, violence and political instability, and atrocities – crimes of substantial magnitude that are carried out in a widespread or systematic way – continue to be inflicted on civilians, with devastating repercussions. Despite a change of national government in December 2018, violence has been steadily rising across the eastern provinces, spurred by a lack of government legitimacy, weak state authority, limited access to formal justice mechanisms and cross-border tensions…
Read the full story here.
People Choosing Peace: Nuran (Iraq)
My name is Nuran, and I am 17 years old.
I am from Mosul, but am a displaced resident in Baghdad now. I know how quickly, and easily, you can lose your home and your city and be displaced for reasons beyond your control.
I lived under the rule of ISIS for one year – it was a dark period of my life, but I survived. I developed myself in the field of writing, and I became editor. I published in some magazines and wrote many articles.
When I come to Baghdad I was afraid of the new life I would find, I expected it to be difficult to co-exist with the Sectarianism going on, because of the media broadcasting ideas that displaced people will face terror and intimidation in the hands of the “other”.
When I arrive in Baghdad I was surprised by the kindness and great sympathy for displaced people from the people of Baghdad, and the amount of friends I made.
Now I am very happy, because I realized how wrong my impression was – it was an idea planted by people who do not want good things for this country.
I can tell you honestly: We are one humane society, and we will stay. We will help, and love, each other.
Born in Captivity: Integrating LRA children
Many stories about the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by the infamous Joseph Kony, focus on child soldiers – kidnapped and recruited. However re-integrating children born in captivity, is now presenting a huge hurdle for peace in central Africa.
The LRA, have abducted at least 30,000 people since they began, and women like Florence were forced to marry fighters.
“I think I was abducted in 1997, I stayed in the bush for about two or three years,” Florence told Peace News.
For these women, returning home is an enormous challenge.
Sean Poole, from leading advocacy organization Invisible Children, said that socially, there’s a stigma attached to having spent time in the LRA.
“In central Africa there’s a lack of understanding from many communities of what the LRA truly is,” Mr Poole said.
“One of the more difficult challenges within the LRA context is women who have been forced into what is essentially sexual slavery, and assigned as a – quote-unquote – “wife” to an LRA commander,” he said.
“These women are often time impregnated, and have children in captivity, and in most cases when they escape, they escape with children.”
“They return home with – essentially – kids who are foreign to their own community and are really highly stigmatized because they’re single mothers with children from a rebel commander.”
“It is incredibly challenging, and very devastating to see how that plays out locally.”
While progress has been made in re-integration programs for abductees, and the US and Uganda have announced a withdrawal from the hunt for Joseph Kony on the grounds that the LRA is greatly diminished, children born in captivity are a second generation to suffer the devastating impact of the LRA.
“I think probably the biggest issue lingering issue is children who were born in captivity,” said Timothy Fadgen, an East African expert at World Vision.
Not all communities reject returnees, and there is hope.
“To see that those children are treated fairly, that the mothers are treated fairly – that is an on-going challenge, and it’s something that the community in Uganda is dealing with head-on,” Mr Fadgen said.
“In places where this is working it’s because the local communities are engaged,” said Mr Poole.
“You have to not only support LRA victims that are returning home, but also community members who have suffered trauma at the hands of the LRA, yet were never abducted,” he said.
“Supporting trauma services at the community level drives down stigmatization; it also drives down isolation for individuals and creates more community cohesiveness.”
Can Iraqis Reclaim Baghdad for Peace?
By Qais Qasim
In an infamous park in Baghdad, where killing squads used to dump bodies, one group of residents are building peace with a book, and arts, festival.
A’adhamiya is a Sunni majority neighborhood to the north of Baghdad. It was the site of clashes between Iraqi insurgents and US forces, as well as sectarian tension. Gangs were known to dispose of victims in a local park, Al Akhtall , and the park was nick-named Al Akhtar (The Dangerous) for its violent reputation.
But local residents are re-claiming it for peace. They recently organized a fair for literature, music, and art.
One of the festival’s organizers, Mohammed, said the community is deeply affected by the region’s violent past.
“This festival could be called a proactive event, to resist – and defeat – violence, and fanatics,” Mohammed said.
“Today, these young activists are trying to show the real image of A’adhamiya,” he said.
Another organizer, Bakker, said all of the workers and performers at the festival had volunteered, and that the books were free for visitors to take.
“It is all about solidarity,” Bakker said.
“Our message, as young people of this neighborhood, is to spread the culture and habits of reading,” said another festival organizer, Ameera.
“Also, to encourage civil spirit inside Baghdad city,” she said.
“We are a contemporary, civilized, society. Our society used to be built out of grudges, revealed after 2003. We need to shine – Baghdad is a beautiful city, filled with signs of love and life. A’adhamiya was denigrated by violence for a certain period of time, but that doesn’t reflect the local population.”
Does Climate Change Increase Conflict?
Today’s wars are often attributed to ethnic conflict or extremism, but environmental factors could also be behind tensions.
South Sudan’s conflict has raised fears of genocide, with over 1.6 million refugees fleeing the country, but the region has also faced increased temperatures and a lack of rainfall. The UN has recently declared the country a famine zone.
It’s not the only conflict zone battling environmental extremes, and growing research suggests there’s a link. Water shortages in Yemen have been blamed for tension there, and severe drought is believed to have contributed to Syria’s war.
One study found that for each 1 standard deviation change in climate – towards warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall – caused the frequency of inter-group conflict to rises by 14%. Last year, another group of scientists showed that climate disasters like heat-waves or droughts enhance the risk of armed conflicts in countries with high ethnic diversity. With the Earth’s temps expected to increase 7.2 deg F (4 deg C) this century, this could pose a serious threat to peace around the world.
Linking climate and conflict is a controversial issue. Some scholars warn that inflating the links between conflict and climate change could be damaging to both areas of study. However, evidence on the ground appears to be increasing.
“The stories we get in America, or in New Zealand, I suppose – tend to have more to do with the melting of the ice caps, to do with climate change,” said Timothy Fadgen, from World Vision.
“One of the biggest things I have found, through review of my reports, has been the disruptions to subsistence farming, caused by droughts,” he said.
“So it’s critical that normal rain patterns exist in order for people to even have enough to grow to eat, never mind to grow to trade.”
For post-conflict communities, scarce resources can also re-ignite fighting.
“If you have a large number of people that are in the process of being re-socialized, from having basically been part of an organization that would go and loot, and rob, and kill to get what it wants – you know, it’s a battle,” Mr Fadgen said.
“When people are extremely poor, and pushed to the brink, things happen that you wish wouldn’t, and we are in a position now to do our best to ensure that it doesn’t happen,” he said.
Top 10: Peacebuilding Quotes
We’ve gathered 10 inspirational quotes to remember, from peacebuilders all over the world:
“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
– Martin Luther King Junior
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
– Nelson Mandela
“Peace in every home, every street, every village, every country – this is my dream.”
– Malala Yousafzai
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
– Albert Einstein
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
– John F. Kennedy
“It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.”
– Andre Gide
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“All we are saying is give peace a chance.”
– John Lennon
“Peace begins with a smile.”
– Mother Teresa
A “Zone of Peace” in Southern Africa: Exploring the Causes of Peace
Op-Ed: Johan Brosché and Kristine Höglund work in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. Here, they discuss their latest project.
Peace research is meant to contribute to the prevention of violence, and to the establishment of sustainable peace. Despite this dual concern, an overwhelming share of peace research addresses the causes of war and violence, rather than the causes of peace. Overall, attention has primarily been on countries that have experienced armed conflict – such as Israel-Palestine, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Colombia and Somalia – while those spared from large-scale violence have been neglected.
In our research we shift the focus from the causes of war to the causes of peace and study a zone of peace in Southern Africa, consisting of Botswana, Malawi and Zambia. These three countries have been spared from civil war since they gained independence half a decade ago, despite being surrounded by seven countries plagued by violent conflicts. The prevailing peace in these three countries are even more surprising since Africa is the world’s most conflict-affected region with one third of all inter- and intra-state conflicts since 1946 taking place on the continent. Our project aims to explain why peace has prevailed in these three countries, despite being part of the world’s most volatile continent and with their neighbors struck by conflict.
In doing so, we strive to generate new insights about the variations of peace and its conditions by seeking answers to previously overlooked questions. By studying the cases where war and violence have been absent, we avoid drawing conclusions that are applicable to only the very violent cases. This approach will also be useful to refine existing theories, since the causes of peace and the causes of war are not mirror images of each other.
Preliminary research from Malawi indicates that four factors are particularly important for understanding Malawi’s relative peace. First, although ethno-religious identities are strong in Malawi, they are less politically salient than in many other countries. Moreover, ethnic communities live in relative isolation, which means that local conflicts tend to play out within, rather than between, communities. Second, Malawi’s political elite has adopted a political culture that preserves status quo and that has served to contain tensions. Third, although poverty motivates protests in Malawi, it has also had a pacifying effect. Fourth, important institutions have served to promote peace: the armed forces have stayed out of politics and religious organizations have been important in bridging political divides at times of crisis.
These insights are important for identifying potential risks that could lead to escalating conflict, but also provide inspiration for how to address and manage conflicts before they turn violent. Further analysis of Botswana and Zambia will complement and nuance our understanding of Southern Africa’s “zone of peace”. We call on fellow researchers – and other concerned actors – to devote more attention to the conditions underpinning peaceful development and peaceful societies, since such understanding is necessary for its achievement.
Photo by Geoff Gallice
Reconciling America
The USA is currently experiencing rhetoric of political violence at a level not seen since the Civil War. Peace-builders are concerned, and warn that this is often a precursor to more widespread physical violence.
So what should we do to avoid political conflict?
Melanie Greenberg, CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, said there are three groups who can effectively help promote peace in the USA.
The first group is political leaders. They can focus more on similarities, and pass bi-partisan legislation.
“I think presidents who talk about what brings us together, and that celebrate the strength that we have being such a diverse community sets the stage then for more bi-partisan kinds of initiative and policy,” Ms Greenberg told Peace News.
Media is the second component to peace-building in America. Reporters and editors can be less sensational, and focus on stories about what unites people.
“Increasingly, people use their media in a bubble,” Ms Greenberg said.
“And I feel like the media in this election were very divisive, because there wasn’t a lot of story-telling of what brings us together, what commonalities there might be between a Hillary Clinton platform and a Trump platform,” she said.
The third group essential for peace-building is citizens.
“We’re seeing such high levels of division right now in our country, and I think it is incumbent on us as citizens, not just to look to our leadership for how we are going to come together,” Ms Greenberg said.
“We have to find ways of finding people who don’t agree with us – and talking with them.”
Land Mines: The Legacy of War
Chaom knows the importance of clearing landmines after conflict. He was 7 months’ old when he lost his leg in an explosion in Cambodia. After the war there his father was employed by The HALO Trust to help clear unexploded mines, and now Chaom grows cassava on cleared land, providing for a son of his own. His country is one of many living in the shadow of war.
Globally, 6,461 people died in 2016 because of mines left over after conflicts.
“The countries which are the most deeply affected are Cambodia, Angola, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan,” said Louise Vaughan from The HALO Trust.
The HALO Trust has destroyed 1.5 million landmines since their inception, and their de-mining training offers employment for people who may not have any other source of income after violence in their region has ended.
“It’s their very local, specialist knowledge, their memories, their technical expertise, and their dedication for ridding their country for their children, for their grandchildren – they have that,” Ms Vaughan said.
“No other person is going to be so invested in wanting a country to be free of land mines than the people who actually live there,” she said.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty to ban mines, in which 80% of countries outlawed antipersonnel mines, but in some conflicts improvised mines are still being used.
“You’ve got new countries that are facing hugely insecure futures due to the proliferation of IEDs [Improvised Explosive Device] in contemporary conflicts – places like Syria, Yemen, and Iraq,” Ms Vaughan said. “I think in the case of Syria, we’re finding that as various areas become liberated, more IDP’s will return, but they will be at risk from this huge IED legacy,” she said.
The biggest problem organisations like The HALO Trust face is sourcing funding. States have agreed on a goal to be land-mine free by 2025, but financial support has dwindled over the last 20 years.
“Now, unless there’s a huge international donor commitment to meeting that deadline, it will simply come and go,” Ms Vaughan said.
Cover Photo: Rodney Evans/AusAID
Can Celebrities Help Bring Peace?
We are used to seeing celebrities raising awareness for crises and conflicts. It’s not just their fans listening to them: George Clooney has addressed the UN, Nicole Kidman has spoken to US Congress, and Ben Affleck has advised the U.S. Secretary of State.
But not everyone is star-struck. Critics argue that celebrities can sometimes do more harm than good, with some going so far as to accuse certain celebrities of creating “humanitainment”.
In areas affected by conflict, celebrities often visit sites as ambassadors or advocates – they may set up charities, represent international organizations, and draw attention to the situation. From afar, they often act as witnesses to a crisis, good-will representatives, fundraisers, and activists.
Regardless of how well-meaning a famous figure may be, there are concerns that celebrity projects may focus on only one angle of a crisis, impose elitist or outside interventions, simplify complex situations, and encourage support only for a short time at a crises worst moment – not before or after.
Dr Ilan Kapoor said celebrities bring their own bias to developing regions, shaping the global public’s understanding.
“I think the media are complicit in this, because the media is constantly looking for quick answers, the spectacular, the glitz and the glam,” Dr Kapoor told OESFE.
“So by using celebrities we tend to get very quick pictures – we tend to look only at the symptoms and not at the broader causes.”
So, how can celebrities get it right?
Dr Alexandra Budabin, from the University of Dayton, said that while celebrity activism is very powerful, celebrities need to do their homework, and take the responsibility of speaking for others very seriously. Supporting local initiatives is one way of doing this.
“The best way to help those groups is to join them in something they are already doing, rather than to impose our ideas,” Dr Kapoor said.
Dr Lisa Richey, from Roskilde University, agrees. She told us: “Celebrities cannot ‘save’ floundering organizations but can bring additional resources to support good work being done.”
Ben Affleck’s work in the DRC is an example of this approach, and the actor often focuses on local organisations, and individuals, when discussing a crisis.
Academy Award-nominated actor Djimon Hounsou is an Oxfam Global Ambassador, and he told us he was impressed with the local response he saw on a trip to Nigeria recently.
“Local communities and organizations are the true first responders and have experience, access, and insights that are invaluable during a crisis and to solve everyday challenges that vulnerable communities face,” Mr Hounsou said.
Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk works with international organisation War Child, and she told us celebrities do have an important role to play. She said authentic understanding and conviction is very important.
“One cannot speak from the heart without being truly exposed to, and educated on, the issues. That’s not allowed,” Ms Kreviazuk said.
Fear vs Empathy: Response to Refugee Crisis
Last year, the UNHCR declared an unprecedented 65.3 million displaced people. Nearly 21.3 million refugees were recorded. Over half were children.
Security fears have seen restrictive refugee and immigrant policies from several countries, and support for political parties pushing such policies. But this hasn’t stopped communities around the world from welcoming refugees, and warning against misinformation.
Companies like Airbnb have offered accommodation for stranded refugees, and Canada has offered support, claiming diversity is a strength.
Suzanne Akhras is the founder of the Syrian Community Network in the USA, and she said resettlement is hard enough, and that fear-mongering makes it worse.
“It worries [Syrian refugees], it upsets them greatly,” Ms Akhras said.
“Because they feel like ‘we escaped this terrible regime, we don’t want to go somewhere else where we are labelled as the extremists, as the terrorists’,” she said.
“They want to go somewhere they can live their life in peace.”
Her organization does cultural sensitivity training, and she believes immigrants have much to offer their new homes.
“It’s going to be a difficult transition, let’s not pretend it’s not hard,” Ms Akrhas said.
“It’s going to be very difficult, but I think in time they will be the ones who will re-invigorate, I think, the economy.
“Certainly in the north side of Chicago there are so many refugees, and right now – in the last ten years – there has been a boom to that part of the city because there’s refugees from all over the world living there. Iraqis, Somalis, Bhutanese, Vietnamese – so that area is very diverse, and doing very well now. You know, all these businesses booming.
“So I think Syrians will come with some innovations, some ideas – and I am sure down the line we will hear of a Hummus brand that was started by a Syrian – a Syrian refugee.”
When it comes to the global refugee crisis, individuals and governments are torn between fear and empathy. However, for peace to flourish, experts say avoiding stereotyping is important, and recognizing refugees as individuals, fleeing war and terror, is crucial.
Cover Photo: Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau welcomes refugees. Courtesy of Government of Canada.
Rare Display: The Art of Peace
We often see art reflecting war but a new exhibition has opened in France: The Art of Peace.
The Petit Palais in Paris is displaying famous icons of peace, with more than 200 original treaties, symbols, and rare objects, on show. Recognizable images sit side-by-side with rare memorabilia in this display of diplomacy.
Picasso’s peace dove is an emblem the world embraced, and the powerful sketch is a draw for historians. Paintings of peace talks highlight major events, such as Adolphe Roehn’s depiction of Napoleon’s meeting with Russian Tsar Alexander I in 1807.
The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended Europe’s Thirty Years’ War, is also on display. More obscure items include a gold-leaf letter from the King of Siam (Thailand) to Napoleon, following a friendship treaty signed with France.
The exhibit highlights origins of peace movements, and the achievements of peace-makers over centuries.
Can Cartoons Build Peace?
Political cartoons are often viewed as entertainment, but could cartoons also be used to build peace?
The power of graphic art has long been recognized.
“If we go all the way back to World War I, the US government took political cartooning so seriously that it established a bureau of cartooning,” said Dr Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
Festival’s like Graphic Brighton look at conflict and resolution in comics, such as cartoonists’ roles in the Arab Spring, and Kate Evan’s depictions of anti-war activist Rosa Luxemburg. Graphic Brighton curator Alex Fitch said war comics play an important role in our culture, and can bring the experience of conflict to readers in a way that text alone cannot. Comic books are being used to connect with youth to warn them of the realities of war, and they can give a voice to minorities in conflict. For example, the influential Maus by Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman, and the story of comic book pioneer Lily Renee in Escape Artist both bring genocide survivor stories to life.
“Graphic novels, especially in recent years, that have dealt with subjects such as the Holocaust or genocide, have increased sensitivity,” said Dr Medoff.
Given that cartoonists are often at the center of controversy, however, is there a danger in war and peace comics?
“Ultimately it’s in the hands of the creator, in other words the cartoon is just the instrument. The cartoonist has the ability to use his or her artistic and cartooning skills for good or bad, Dr Medoff said.
“There’s nothing more important in the world than peace,” he said.
“I would like to hope that comic book creators, artist and writers, can play some small role.”
Bénin: Democracy without Development
Op-ed: Markus Bayer is Ph.D. student and research fellow at the University of Duisburg Essen‘s Chair of International Relations and Development Policy.
We all know places where history was written. The Winter Palace in St Petersburg and the Bastille in Paris where the Russian and the French Revolution were triggered, or the railway wagon in the Forest of Compiègne where the First World War ended. Most of these places have a history of violence.
The Hotel PLM-Alédjo in Cotonou/Bénin has a different story. It is the place where the so-called third wave of democratization hit the African continent. It became the center of a political earthquake that sent shockwaves through the whole continent.
This impact was quite astonishing since the small country, located between Togo and Nigeria, has long been considered the “sick child of Africa”.From its independence in 1960, Bénin was riddled by numerous coups d’états, and today it remains one of the poorest states in Africa. But, from February 19th to 28th 1990 la Conférence Nationale des Forces Vives de la Nation – the Conference of the Living Forces of the Nation – convened in the Hotel Alédjo.
Initially intended as an advisory institution to get necessary reforms on track, the Conference declared itself sovereign and began working on drafting a new democratic constitution and molding the transition to democracy. The conference itself was the consequence of huge waves of protests and strikes, which made the country ungovernable during 1988 and 1990, and eventually enforced le renouveau democratique – the democratic renewal. As a result of the consultations, the first free presidential election was held in 1991, won by Nicéphore Soglo.
Consequently, Bénin’s Mathieux Kérékou became the first president on the African mainland who was defeated at the polls and peacefully resigned. Bénin’s democratic transition was so successful that many countries – like Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia – adopted the concept of a National Conference to preside over the process of negotiating the transition and drafting the constitution, albeit with mixed results.
Since then, Bénin has held six consecutive presidential elections and witnessed another three peaceful democratic turnovers of power. Four peaceful turnovers is quite impressive and remains unequaled in Africa. In comparison, the most consolidated African democracies (South Africa, Namibia and Botswana) have never witnessed a peaceful turnover since their transition.
The people of Bénin are very proud of their role as democratic trailblazer and, as a consequence, feel deeply committed to their constitution. However, Bénin’s democracy has an Achilles heel. Being a low income country, Bénin has not witnessed much economic development since its democratization. Since 1990 the annual growth of the GDP per-capita has been at around 2%, with major setbacks in 2005 and 2010.
The current state of the PLM Hotel Alédjo, the birth place of Bénin’s democracy, metaphorically resembles the current state of democracy in Bénin. After the hotel went bankrupt the place underwent a conversion. People moved into the bungalows where the conference delegates were once housed, and now grow vegetables on the former lawn.
Bénin is an example of democratization without development, a combination that brings some serious problems with it. Communists in Bénin say: “We fought for freedom and bread – we did get freedom, the bread is still missing”.
Even if this lack of economic development is unlikely to undermine the democratic consensus, it represents a severe obstacle for developing it further. So, twenty-six years after the democratic renewal Bénin remains a young and imperfect democracy in its consolidation phase, trapped between democratic principles that bring freedom, and anachronistic systems that secure a living.
The main building of the hotel is now in decay, but it still contains the two most valuable assets for the democracy in Bénin – first, the legacy of a peaceful, consensual transition and second, the physical voters register for the national and presidential election.
We can only speculate what a great democracy Bénin would be if its democratization, rooted in a nonviolent uprising and a national conference, was backed by a solid economic upturn.
Ewan McGregor meets Iraqi Youth: Forced into Fight or Flight
UNICEF Ambassador and Scottish actor Ewan McGregor recently drew attention to the plight of Iraqi youth when he visited the Harsham Displacement Camp in northern Iraq.
The situation for children in Iraq is becoming increasingly desperate. According to the UN, around 3.6 million children – one in five – are at serious risk of death, injury, sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into armed groups.
For youths like 16-year-old Laeth, future choices are limited. Laeth was forced to flee his home in Mosul after his father was killed in conflict, and he now lives with his grandmother in a caravan in the Harsham camp.
“We lived in Mosul and our lives were good,” Laeth said. “Before coming here I used to go to school. Sometimes I would go and say hi to my mother. I used to go out with my friends, we used to have a good time, it was very nice.”
Despite his situation, Laeth has chosen to channel his emotions into music and performance, helping as a volunteer at the camp. It’s not something many youths in Iraq have to opportunity to do. Peace-builders have warned that many Iraqi youth like Laeth face a difficult choice between fight or flight.
A recent report by the International Crisis Group shows that dis-enchanted youth in Iraq have become easy quarry for predators, be they IS, Shiite militias or populists preaching Iraqi nationalism.
The report claims that the youth of Iraq are its greatest asset, and that while the government’s reform capacity may be limited, it must address its youth crisis as its top priority if it is to hold Iraq together.
Findings show that the current vacuum sucks youths into one of three directions: protests (with aspiration to dramatically transform a non-functioning system); fighting groups on either side of a sectarian divide; or migration toward Europe. This counters conventional wisdom that youth of Iraq are being radicalised on a large scale, and suggests that young Iraqis are not radicalised so much as recruited into organisations that provide community and direction, regardless of ideology.
If that is the problem, then what’s the solution?
The International Crisis Group says the solution lies in giving Iraqi youth viable alternatives that can reduce fighting groups’ ability to attract them in the first place.
Fleeing Kony’s LRA: “Invisible Child” reveals
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group perpetuated violence in northern Uganda for almost 20 years. The group was led by the infamous Joseph Kony, target of the global Kony2012 campaign, and areas like Gulu, Kitgum, Dokolo and Lira were hit particularly hard.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group perpetuated violence in northern Uganda for almost 20 years. Rehabilitation programs, medical care, and employment initiatives help with the damage from the war. But for women and children kidnapped by the rebel group, re-entering society is extremely difficult. Nancy* was one of these abductees, and she was brave enough to tell us her story.
Nancy was just 12 years old when she was kidnapped in 2003. She was taken from a village about 25km north of Gulu town, during a night invasion by the LRA.
“There is a boy from my village who joined the rebel group (LRA),” Nancy told Peace News.
“He was asked to write the names of all the girls he knew from the village,” she said.
“Unluckily, my name was first on the list. He wrote a total of eight names, all were girls. We were then invaded in the night, they had torches. Whosoever the boy identified on the list had their hands tied. A lot more people were abducted that night but their interest was girls.”
Nancy said she was forced into military training with the LRA, and spent 2 years as their captive. At one point during her captivity, she said two of her friends tried to escape, but they were recaptured before they got too far. Nancy said she and six other girls were forced to execute the escapees by stoning them to death.
Eventually, Nancy and another friend were able to escape, running away early one morning and hiding in a nearby plantation field. She made it to a military camp, where she spent a month before moving to the Gulu Support the Children Organization for further rehabilitation.
After returning, Nancy said she struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. She would hallucinate about being back in captivity and the stress eventually lead to her dropping out of secondary school. She moved to another town to avoid retribution from the murdered girls’ families.
“My mother did not take me back to the home where I was abducted because life would not be easy for me,” Nancy said.
“At the new home we went to, no one knew me,” she said.
“Sometimes if you talk about this sort of a story, people will judge you differently, others will despise you and others will think of you as a murderer. There are others who had their relatives abducted and never returned and yet I did return. So some people will not be happy about you and could consider you as an accomplice to the rebels and their evil activity yet I never was abducted at will.”
Despite what she has been through, Nancy is still positive and said she forgives her captors.
“On the issue of forgiveness, I forgave them because I never want to judge anyone, you can never know the circumstances under which a person joined the rebel group so I cannot hold any grudge against anyone.”
Nancy has met with former-LRA members and said she hopes for a better future for both victims and former fighters.
“When I see them return, I am glad they will start a brand new life like the way I have tried to restart mine.”
The LRA is still active in areas of Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo where they kidnapped 728 people in the last year alone.
Abby and Kyalu: Rape in the DRC
War is often measured in fatalities, but many more suffer trauma – particularly form rape in conflict. In 2006, during the war in the DRC, over 400,000 women were raped. That’s over 1,000 per day, and the problem still continues.
The impact of sexual violence, on both victims and families, is long-lasting. When Kyalu was raped during the conflict in the DRC, her husband Abby couldn’t bare it.
“When I think about what happened to my family, I always wanted revenge,” Abby told GoodFight Media.
“It’s hard to forget the past, when violence still surrounds you,” Kyalu said.
Separated when they were abducted by rebels, Abby and Kyalu reunited in Goma. Kyalu was pregnant, and she went to her parents to have the child.
“Finding out what they did to my wife was unbearable, I felt powerless,” Abby said.
“It was difficult for him to accept my son who was conceived from rape,” Kyalu said.
“I felt so much frustration, I became violent with everyone around me,” Abby confessed.
Now, with the help of group therapy from the Living Peace Institute, Abby and Kyalu are rebuilding their relationship.
“He started talking to me differently,” Kyalu said.
“The best thing that happened was re-establishing communication with my wife,” Abby said.
Dr Benoit Ruratotoye, Training Director at Living Peace Institute, said victims are only part of the story.
“Historically we have put most of our energy into helping the victim, and it’s very important that we continue that work,” he told GoodFight Media.
“But in order to stop the cycle of violence, we must also focus on the source. And the source is men.”
Living Peace, part of Promundo-US, trains group therapy leaders, helping men break cycles of violence.
“The population must find a way to cure itself, we are fighting culture, and culture is powerful,” Dr Ruratotoye said.
“But I think we are moving in the right direction.”
Cover Photo: Promundo-US
Top 5: Youth Building Peace
Mike Jobbins, SFCG Youth Ambassador to the UN, recently said youth organisations are fed-up with rhetoric about the next generation being just beneficiaries of peace-building projects. He claimed that young people are already strong, and need to be more effectively engaged. “The ways that young people choose to change the world, aren’t going to be shaped by governments,” Mr Jobbins told the UN. “Young people are the last to accept injustice, and because we live in a fundamentally unjust world, it’s by building on the strengths of children and youth that we can channel energies to ultimately address the most serious problems that all of our societies face.” So, what are youth doing for peace? Check out these five youth organizations already making a difference:
- YaLa Young Leaders started in Israel, and is a fast-growing online Middle East peace movement. YaLa provides free citizen journalism training, and gives a voice to over 1 million youth across the MENA region.
- In Lebanon, the International Youth Foundation have created a program called Passport to Success®. It helps people under 24 stay in school and acquire professional skills.
- The clever folks at Peaceful Change Initiative are mapping social peace in Libya. Their Social Peace Index reveals local needs during the political transition that’s happening there.
- African Youth Initiative in Uganda encourages reconciliation, especially in villages affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Radio-talk shows, leadership training and conflict mitigations help victims, survivors, and even former fighters.
- In Pakistan the Youth Development Foundation found the best way they could build peace was encouraging tolerance. Their “I am Karachi” tour engaged with youth in volatile regions, promoting respect for diversity.
DISTURBING THE PEACE: New Film Reveals Hope for Israel/Palestine
Born into conflict, generations of Israeli and Palestinians have taken up arms against each other. But a new film reveals an incredible story of peace-building from the region. Disturbing the Peace follows former enemy combatants: Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters who have joined together to say “enough”.
They formed the bi-partisan group Combatants for Peace, and the film reveals their inspirational journey.
Disturbing the Peace, a film by Reconsider, has already won awards, and acclaim at its New York screening. A Los Angeles premier is set for later this week.
Director and Producer Stephen Apkon said the film is different to most Hollywood cinema because it doesn’t follow a traditional good guy/bad guy plot line.
“We like to see our lives in the way we see our movies, which is to clearly identify who’s the hero and who is the villain,” Mr Apkon told Peace News.
“The challenge of this movie was to make a movie in which there is no ‘villain’ if you will. If there were to be a ‘bad guy’ it would be the narrative itself that we get stuck in.”
Mr Apkon said the messages in the film have resonated with a far wider audience than just in the MENA region.
“You don’t have to look very far to realise we are living in an increasingly polarised world,” he said.
“What happens in that polarisation is the way we look to balance it, is the further somebody goes out on the extreme the further we go out on the opposite extreme. And we end hate with hate, conflict with conflict,” he said.
“What we’re talking about is how do we move toward each other? How do we hold multiple narratives at one time? By doing that with respect and honour for each of those experiences it allows for new narratives to emerge.”
For an EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW of the film click here.
LIFE AS A REFUGEE: Inside Ugandan Camps
Imagine if 1 million people were suddenly displaced because of a war. How would you house them?
This is the problem the world faces today from the 3-year-old civil war in South Sudan, but this is not just a statistic – it’s the reality faced by many individuals and families, whose lives have been turned upside down.
In September 2016, Peace News visited UNHCR refugee camps in Arua, Uganda, near the border of South Sudan, and spoke to people who had fled the fighting.
Manas Lokudu worked in Yei, selling mobile phones, before the violence in his town escalated
“The biggest panic came when my brother got shot,” Mr Lokudu said from Ocea/Rhino Camp.
“He and others were preparing a village bridge along South Sudan-DRC road, around Mitika area,” he said.
“There was a scuffle between the SPLA-IO and the SPLA around the area. But upon their return, the SPLA started shooting randomly at civilians. It is the government force (SPLA) that shot my brother, right at his house.
“At that moment I took him to town in Yei…there was no one in Yei in all clinics to attend to him! All doctors were scattered…everyone went to their villages, others had left for Uganda. I realised my brother’s condition was not good. I tried my best to get him out into Uganda.”
Mr Lokudu and his brother made it to Uganda, and are recovering, but they lost everything when they crossed the border.
“”When I came to Uganda I didn’t carry any money on me,” Mr Lokudu said.
“I didn’t even bring any item of my business. All that is left in the house. Not even any money that I had at home. The money that I had deposited in the bank is still there. There is no way I can go back to collect it. Here is the problem why I can’t go. You know, once you are out of [South] Sudan to another country, and you stay away for four or five days…upon return you are considered to be a rebel. Immediately you are picked up [by government security forces] to be killed or to be imprisoned, just like that!”
His story is like so many others, and while refugee camps offer some safety life there is still hard.
Mother-of-five Dusman Ronah left Yei with her children and said she is grateful to Uganda, and the UNHCR. Ms Ronah is in Ariwa village/Rhino Camp and said she is worried about her family’s future.
“In the level of education…I completed ordinary secondary level of education, since 2011, and the knowledge that I [have] is going,” Ms Ronah said.
“If they can at least bring something for us, who have gone a step forward, it would be better than us wasting our education for nothing” she said.
“Like for me, I want my children to go to school.”
Sitima from Ocea/Rhino Camp said water is a big issue for refugees in the camps.
“When you get here [to collect water] at 6 am, you wait long, and actually get to return at 8pm, but sometimes…at 9 pm,” she said.
The UNHCR, and its partners, told Peace News they are trying to find additional sources in the water-stressed area.
Juma Denis Daniel was a social worker in Yei before he fled, and he is worried about family and friends left behind.
“You don’t know what’s happening in your own country, about the network, and there are people there – there are a lot of people there – they are friends, they are people that you work with, and I still don’t know if they are dead or if they have taken refuge,” Mr Daniel said from Ariwa village/Rhino Camp.
Of 1 million refugees from South Sudan, 400,000 have fled to Uganda, and 56,000 are in the Rhino Settlement in Arua. Thirty-five thousand have arrived in the last 3 months.
Can Sport Help Build Peace?
With so much of the world tuning into the Olympics in Rio, we wanted to know, can sport be used to build peace?
The town of Pinga in the DRC has been the site of horrific violence, with rebel groups and government forces clashing there as part of the country’s ongoing civil war. So it’s no surprise that tension remains between the main groups in the small town in North Kivu.
When global organisation Search for Common Ground (SFCG) got to Pinga, the relationship between Nyanga and Hunde communities there was at breaking point.
“They were no longer talking to each other, they refused to speak to each other, go to the same central locations, community locations, they refused to have any sort of contact with each other,” SFCG sports organizer Rigobert Luhinzo told Peace News.
Opening a direct dialogue about the conflict wasn’t really an option for the ethnic groups in Pinga – so instead, SFCG a soccer match.
“So it was a first step toward bringing people together, to have some sort of communication, even though it wasn’t necessarily about conflict, it was about social cohesion – that was the initial communication and message.”
With teams made up of half of one group, and half of another, communities that are otherwise in conflict, can begin to communicate, rely on and work with each other in a very real and concrete example. Mr Luhinzo said this game, and sport in a wider sense, has a major role to play in de-escalating tension, and are an easy and inexpensive way of breaking down barriers.
“It’s probably helpful in any environment,” said SFCG DRC National Co-ordinator Kevin Osborne.
“But in environments that are in conflict, we find this to be one of the only way to get people to come together.”
Sport has been emerging as a powerful peace-building tool for some time, for example, did you know that a ping pong tournament in 1971 is credited with breaking the diplomatic ice between the United States and China, leading to the restoration of full diplomatic relations? But sport has really gained traction as a peace-building tool in the last few years.
At an International Forum on Sport, Peace and Development, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said it was a powerful tool.
“Sport has become a world language, a common denominator that breaks down all the walls, all the barriers,” he said.
Africa on the Ball is another organisation that realizes the value of sport, and the ability it has to bring divided communities together. Co-founder Andrew Jenkin says he saw an incredible example of this through his work at a school in Tanzania. Social divides were very obvious there, especially between Asian and African students.
“I think that’s the really important thing, it doesn’t matter what background you’re from, social class, status within society, with football the rules are the same for each side and you’re working together on the same team,” Mr Jenkin said.
“I think that’s a really key message, and because anyone can play sport anywhere around the world it can be a really important mechanism for bringing people together.”
Reconciliation in Rwanda
When we hear about Rwanda we are often reminded of the horrific genocide that occurred there in 1994, claiming the lives of nearly 800,000 people.
But what we don’t hear about Rwanda is the incredible progress made along the path to reconciliation and recovery.
Since the genocide that saw the mass murder of the Tutsi population at the hands of a Hutu government, the country has been grappling with reconciliation. The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has instituted a broad social engineering project designed to “never again” allow the scourge of genocide to “take root in the hearts and minds” of Rwandans.
National and local courts (called Gacaca courts) held trails of those accused of genocide crimes and a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission was established in 1999. The commission oversees peace education, trauma counselling, research into causes of the conflict, and training of local leaders.
“I used to cry when I heard the stories, and I didn’t think it was possible to forgive the people who killed my family,” genocide survivor Marie Mukagasana told Trócaire.
“They talked to us and slowly we were able to stop crying, and talk about the past,” Ms Mukagasana said.
“We felt strong enough to get some training, and after the training things changed. When we met we started to talk, to say ‘hello, how are you?'”
One of the areas in which the reconciliation process has shown strength is in a gender-inclusive approach.
Rwanda is now one of the few countries in the world that meets the goal of having a 30 percent female quota in parliament. Nearly 64 percent of members of its lower house of Parliament are women, far exceeding countries like the USA and Australia.
But according to some observers, the Rwandan reconciliation presents difficulties as an essentially “top-down” approach. Rwanda’s self-stated success in reconciling Hutu and Tutsi communities results from a centralized approach, and victims reconcile in spaces shaped by an official narrative of history.
With this kind of program there isn’t much room for diversity – the concept of “one Rwanda” may overlook different accounts of the genocide. Academics like Susan Thomson warn that there needs to be a more individual, grass-roots approach.
“We have a situation in Rwanda where elites tend to put forward ideas that are quite at odds with how regular people live their lives, and this is not new perse under the RPF, it’s something that has deep historical roots,” Dr Thomson told Peace News.
“If I were to make a suggestion it would be to allow trust to emanate from the government for the people, in the hopes that overtime there would be space for healing, space for dialogue, space for conversation,” she said.
Cover Photo by Trócaire.
Why did Colombia Reject Peace Deal?
A historic peace agreement was reached this week between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP, offering an end to the longest-running armed conflict in the Americas, but the accord was rejected by the Colombian people.
A national vote saw the peace agreement rejected by a narrow margin. The pre-count reported the “no” vote at 50.22 percent, ahead of the “yes” vote at 49.77, from 99 percent of the polling stations, according to Colombia’s election authority.
Voters turned to social media to explain their reasons for voting down the peace accord. Many argued that they supported peace in Colombia, but that the terms of the agreement were too lenient on the rebels involved. Voters like Jorge Eduardo Arango were angered by comments that Colombia had voted ‘against peace’.
“Saying that No vote is against peace is like saying that Si vote is against justice. Both inappropriate,” Mr Eduardo Arango said.
Another voter explained “We didn’t vote no to peace. If it were that simple, everyone would vote for yes. We voted no to corruption and injustice.”
Many also voiced their disappointment with the result. Bogotá resident and reporter Mayra Báez Jimeno tweeted: “I keep seeing the data of the vote from the towns that HAVE lived war. They are all up 80% yes. I feel like we failed them.”
The war between the Colombian government and the rebel group FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army or Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia) has raged for 52 years, spanning several generations.
Approximately 16.9% of the population in Colombia are direct victims of the war, and between 1958 and 2013 an estimated 220,000 people died (177,307 civilians and 40,787 fighters). More than five million civilians were forced from their homes between 1985 and 2012 – the world’s second largest population of IDPs. The negotiations that eventually led to the peace agreement began in 2012, and took a pain-staking four years to complete.
The peace accord was signed on Monday, September 26th, in Cartagena, by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño (known as Timochenko). The success of the accord hinged on how the state choose to address the needs of people affected by the civil war, and the deal divided voters (only a 40 percent turnout) almost evenly. The ballot was heavily shaped by politics in the country. President Santos campaigned for the accord’s approval, while his main political rival, former president Álvaro Uribe, campaigned against it. Uribe, and other critics claim the deal favors FARC leaders, pointing to guerrilla warfare tactics FARC used in the conflict.
Chief negotiator for the Colombian government, Humberto de la Calle, said that the accord was the best possible, although it required compromise from all parties.
“Surely the accord we’ve achieved isn’t a perfect accord,” he said. “We all probably would have wanted something more. We here at the table would have wanted something more. But the accord achieved here is the viable accord, the best possible accord.”
Under the peace accord, the FARC would have transitioned to a political party, and be given a limited number of non-voting representatives in Congress. Rebel commanders would eventually be allowed to run for office (as full representatives) if they were cleared of any criminal charges and war crimes. The FARC promised to demobilize and disarm its 7,000 fighters, monitored by the United Nations, within 180 days. A smaller ELN rebel group is still active in the country, as are right-wing paramilitary groups.
The European Union had announced they would suspend the FARC from their list of terrorist organizations, and representatives from the US said the status of FARC would be reviewed by the US State Department.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Cartagena for the signing of the peace accord earlier in the week, and met with victims of the conflict. He said that Colombia had many challenges ahead, but that the peace accord marked the beginning of many opportunities.
“Peace is hard work,” he said. “Anybody can pick up a gun, blow things up, hurt other people, but it doesn’t take you anywhere. What life is really all about is trying to build community and trying to help make life better for everybody around you.”
“Think of the violence that has taken so many lives and held Colombia back from growing, developing, and becoming a country that lives in peace and stability every single day.”
What is Peace Journalism?
Have you noticed that news media often cover war and violence, but rarely peace and reconciliations?
“Very rarely do I see things which I think are balanced,” Peace Process Consultant Paul Clifford said in the film Peace Journalism in the Philippines.
“The media unfortunately, in many instances, I think have got sucked into this notion that it’s all about the war on terror,” he said.
But a new style of conflict reporting is emerging. Peace Journalism is a way of reporting war in a way that aims to balance sensationalist stories.
Dr Johan Galtung founded the field of Peace Studies, and has been working on Peace Journalism since 1960. It is now taught, and practiced, world-wide. He said Peace Journalism is a way of “counter-acting” mainstream media.
“Above all,” he told Peace News, “telling the positive stories.”
The field is about approaching war-reporting with peace in mind, according to leading figures like Dr Jake Lynch from the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
“There are many different ways of reporting conflicts,” Dr Lynch told WACC Global.
“What we say is that in some cases you can report them in such a way as to create opportunities for societies at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict.”
Dr Julia Hoffmann told UPeace that journalists do have an impact on conflict, and that cannot be ignored.
“Journalists are party to the conflicts they cover – whether they want to [be] or not,” she said.
Peace Journalism is not always easy. Dr Annabel McGoldrick, from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, admitted it can time-consuming.
“Reaching people in remote areas and hearing what they have to say is, by definition difficult,” she said in her film with Dr Lynch, Peace Journalism in the Philippines.
“It can’t be done every time something happens.”
But it is possible.
Dr Steven Youngblood, director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism, said that the style of reporting isn’t just relevant to reporting on direct violence, and can be applied to any form of conflict. Peace Journalism can even be used to cover domestic politics, including elections.
His advice for applying Peace Journalism closer to home?
“Don’t just report about polls and surveys – and this is a big problem with American media, who particularly in this election cycle (with Donald Trump) have become obsessed with polls and so on,” he said.
“We wouldn’t suggest that you don’t report polls and surveys, but that when you over-report them as a consequence you end up under-reporting issues that really matter to the public.”
Peace Journalism means less sensation, and more context, so citizens can understand the bigger picture and make informed decisions.
Can Theater Help Resolve Conflict?
While much of the world’s focus on conflict is on the most violent stages and the immediate peace negotiations necessary to stop war, there is very little attention paid to preventing violent conflicts before they start and making sure conflicts that have ended do not start again.
One powerful way peace-builders are promoting non-violence and re-uniting divided groups is through theater.
In South Sudan, international organisation Search for Common Ground is using participatory theater to diffuse tensions between groups in refugee camps.
The beauty of participatory theater is that the issues dealt with come from the communities watching, and are very relevant for the audience.
“In this type of theater you speak to audiences and learn about the problems that exist within a community,” said Search for Common Ground actor Micheal Franco Ladu Wani.
“Then you put it into a form of drama and present it as a subject to the audience, allowing them to provide solutions, instead of bringing your own solutions to them,” he said.
In Yemen, theater has been a useful tool on the ground, despite horrific conditions. Entrenched violence, and the direct impact on children in particular, is a major concern in Yemen, with one English teacher from Sana’a saying that the “school environment and community as a whole are overwhelmed with violence”.
However puppet shows and games have proven to be effective in addressing the social norms of violence in schools, and encourage children to look for non-violent solutions in their everyday encounters.
“We are working in education, working with community dialogue, working with awareness raising and on child protection, working with youth, trying to maintain that social cohesion, trying to focus people’s energy at a local level, at a very local level,” said Search for Common Ground country director Shoqi A. Maktary.
“In such an environment, where people hear the aeroplanes circling around their heads, and they still go to school, they still have fun in the school and learn something – that means a lot,” he said.
Footage courtesy of Search for Common Ground.
Immigration: What Do We Get Wrong?
Britain’s vote to leave the EU inflamed the global debate about immigration and refugees. The aftermath of Brexit saw an outburst of anti-immigration sentiment, with reports of hate crime in the UK increasing 57%.
This fear, and often hatred, of immigrants is not unique to the UK. In Australia violence has broken out between anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters and in the US, Austria, and a number of other countries, anti-immigration rhetoric has propelled political leaders and parties.
However, research shows that many of the reasons cited by opponents to immigration are often misguided. Leading UK researcher Bobby Duffy discovered that when it comes to immigration – we often get our facts wrong.
His studies show that immigration numbers are half of what people believe they actually are, and that our public perception of immigrants as mainly refugees and asylum seekers is incorrect – it’s actually a small percentage of immigrants.
“It’s quite common that people think immigration is double the scale that it actually is,” Mr Duffy said. “That’s not just a British phenomenon, you see the same thing in most developed Western countries, and lots of other countries too as people overestimate the proportions of the population that they make up.”
Other mis-perceptions include the kind of immigrants that make up the population – it’s not all refugees and asylum seekers.
“People think that is the most common, and the largest proportion of immigration, when actually it’s the smallest, compared to people who immigrate for work or study or for family.”
Yet another misunderstanding is what immigrants bring to an economy. Anti-immigration supports often cite job competition, but it’s not the full picture. “At some level, immigrants will increase job competition in the economy and in other parts of the economy they will be creating jobs,” Mr Duffy said. “The reality, from an economic perspective, is that immigration probably is a net benefit, almost certainly a net benefit to the economy at an aggregate level.”
And fears that immigrants bring more crime? It turns out that’s untrue too. Dr Walter Ewing from the American Immigration Council says immigrants are actually less likely to be criminals than native-born citizens. He says criminal accusations of immigrants are sadly, not a new thing for America.
“Unfortunately, this is a hundred year old tendency to demonize and scape-goat immigrants for the nation’s problems,” Dr Ewing said. “People were saying this about Italian immigrants when they first arrived, and then you find the exact same rhetoric being used about Mexican immigrants today.”
“I actually went and looked at some of the speeches from the 1890’s in Congress about the Italians coming in – the fear was that they were criminals, that they would never learn English, that they would steal our jobs…You could just substitute in Mexican or Salvadorian and it’s the exact same rhetoric.”
But changing people’s views of immigration is not just about clearing up the facts, researchers warn it’s a much more emotional, and local, response to that.
“It’s much easier to demonize someone you’ve never talked to, or about whose lives you don’t know. So I think it’s just as important to spread the human side of the immigrant experience, as well as the facts and figures.”
Hope may also lie with a younger generation.
“Looking to the future, it’s a very different view among millennials, on average,” Mr Duffy said. “We have half the levels of concern about immigration among millennials in Britain, twice the level of trust in the European Union, twice the likelihood to vote to remain in the European Union, it’s just a much more open, and international, outlook among that generation.”
“It seems from the data that we have a cohort coming through that will be, on balance, more open – less worried about diversity, less worried about the threats of diversity, than the current balance of the population.”
Storytelling: Peace-building or Problematic?
In 2012, the world learned about Joseph Kony and the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, through the Kony 2012 campaign. But many years before this Betty Bigombe showed incredible bravery when she ventured into the jungle to negotiate with the group.
It was 1992, and she was a government minister in Uganda, negotiating with warlords known for their violent guerrilla tactics and child abductions. Realizing the value of meeting face-to-face, Ms Bigombe was able to open up a dialogue with the rebels and she went on to become a lead negotiator in Uganda’s ongoing peace process.
“I made up my mind, I was going to do everything possible, to reach out to the war lords, and talk to them,” Ms Bigombe told the United States Institute of Peace.
“To talk them into a peaceful solution,” she said. “I was determined, because I felt that if meeting with the rebels could bring peace – could save lives – it was worthwhile making the commitment.”
Many hold up Ms Bigombe’s success getting the rebels to the negotiating table as an example of the power of words in war, and Tara Sonenshine from George Washington University believes that Ms Bigombe’s storytelling skills were an important mechanism to engage with the rebels.
“Ultimately she was able to knock down walls and ultimately reach consensus with very violent people,” Ms Sonenshine said.
Ms Sonenshine argues that stories are an integral part of any approach to peace-building. “I think that without a story, you don’t have any grasp of the human dimension of war and peace,” she said.
Individuals sharing their experiences of war can be a useful way for communities to begin the healing process post-conflict. If people get an opportunity to tell their story to those who were their enemies in war, it can also be a key way to bring about reconciliation.
By discussing what happened, trying to view events from the other side’s perspective, and ideally creating a common narrative, the chances of past grievances fuelling future violence can be reduced.
“It’s a way for community grief, community cleansing, for community expulsion of hatred, and for confrontation and moving forward in building a post-conflict society,” Ms Sonenshine said.
But storytelling as a peace-building tool has drawn criticism, mainly over concerns for whose story is being told and remembered, and whose is absent. Ms Sonenshine says this is an important aspect to be wary of, but that is doesn’t negate the benefit.
“The only down-side, I think, is when stories themselves are not inclusive of all dimensions of a community,” she said. “So I think we have to be open to telling not just two sides of the story, but the many sides of a story. And the down-side is that in missing a piece we may miss the whole, but that’s not a reason not to tell the story, it’s more encouragement to tell all the stories.”
Interview with Betty Bigombe conducted by USIP
Cover photo: Christian Katsuva Kamate/ICRC
10 Young Leaders Building Peace
So often we see angry young people in conflict, here are 10 who are peace-building:
Emma Watson, UK
Actress Emma Watson became a UN Ambassador for Goodwill at the age of 24. When her speech for the HeforShe campaign went viral her passion for women’s rights resonated with advocates around the world.
Victor Ochan, Uganda
Victor grew up surrounded by conflict in the Lira district in northern Uganda, but he chose to be a peace activist. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and is a UN Global Goals Ambassador. His organization, the African Youth Initiative Network (Ayinet), helps thousands of victims of the Ugandan civil war get treatment and overcome the traumas of the war.
Nino Nanitashvili, Georgia
Nino has dedicated her career to peacebuilding and development through evolving technologies. She founded the first technology-oriented professional community in Georgia and directs a project that brings Georgian and Abkhazian youth together through online games.
Chris Eigeland, Australia
Chris is the Australian youth representative to the UN, founder of The Schoolbag initiative, and director of Global Voices – a not-for-profit providing pathways for young Australians to contribute to international diplomacy.
Omang Agarwal, India
Omang is the Asia Representative for the Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network. He founded Youth for Peace International and is a big believer in peace through education.
Khalida Brohi, Pakistan
Khalida is the founder of Sughar Women (now Sughar Empowerment Foundation), a nonprofit empowering women in 23 villages across Pakistan. Through a six-month course with Sughar, women gain business skills and graduates get small loans to start businesses and help connecting to markets.
Ahmad Shakib Mohsanyar, Afghanistan
Ahmad wants to counter the narrative that youth need to leave Afghanistan to improve their lives. He founded a social media campaign titled “Afghanistan Needs You”, which strives to make Afghanistan a better place for young people.
Esra’a Al Shafei, Bahrain
Esra’a is an advocate for freedom of speech and civil rights. She founded Mideast Youth, an online forum that amplifies the voices of dissent in the Middle East and North Africa, to promote social justice.
Basel Almadhoun, Palestinian Territories
Basel believes debates can change people’s ways of thinking, so he organises debates in Gaza. He received wide-spread media attention for his work organizing TEDx talks in Gaza to bring dialogue to a wider audience.
Malala Yousafzai and Shiza Shahid, Pakistan
You have no doubt heard of Malala, the young woman shot by the Taliban who went on to found The Malala Fund, but you also need to know about the fund’s co-founder and CEO Shiza. She has been beside Malala through it all, and is a driving force behind the fund’s good works. All around the world, youth like these are working for peace right now to build a better future. Don’t give up on them.
Can Video Games Build Peace?
We know that video games are great entertainment…but can they also help build peace?
Today, forty-four percent of the world’s Internet population play games online, and the industry is experiencing rapid growth in many conflict zones around the world.
In the Middle East, where many of the world’s conflicts are centred, sixty-five percent of mobile Internet users have games on their devices, making it the game industry’s fastest growing region.
Ever played PeaceMaker? In this exciting game, players become the head-of-state in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to try to achieve a resolution. We spoke with Eric Brown from Impact Games (the company behind PeaceMaker) and he said gaming provides many benefits to the peace-building community.
“One story from very early on,” Eric said, “was when we had one group playing it and when they started having a discussion about the real issues they were saying things like ‘Well, when I was the Palestinian president, this is what I did’ and things like that.”
“So, in terms of all those things people like to talk about in games – empowering and making them feel like they are learning through experience, and having that opportunity to explore – they were all really good things to see,” he said.
Also working across conflict divides is Games for Peace, which brings Jewish and Arab youth in Israel together to interact in digital spaces like Minecraft and Team Fortress 2.
Peace Park is another skill-building game where players have to restore peace in a communal park by understanding visitors’ interests. The designers behind this game said they were wary of trying to balance overall goals with a genuinely interesting game.
Nino Nanitashvili from Elva Community Engagement told us that during the development of Peace Park, they actively involved the gaming community to help us design the levels.
Other examples in this emerging space are Peace Superheroes and Search for Common Ground’s Battle for Humanity, which is soon to be released. These games aim to challenge enemy images, shift audience attitudes and encourage positive social behaviours such as civic engagement, conflict management, and tolerance.
Op-ed: Humanitarians and Civilians at Risk: Why Peacebuilders and the World Should Care
Op-ed: Melanie Greenberg is the CEO and President of Alliance for Peacebuilding.
Arguing that the world is currently witnessing the highest level of human suffering since the Second World War, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul on May 23 in order to take action. Participants from 173 Member States, including 55 Heads of State and Government, pledged to undertake concrete steps to prevent conflict and enhance the protection of civilians in armed conflict. According to a robust body of International Humanitarian Law, including the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, civilians and noncombatants are to be protected, and the means and methods of warfare restricted. These are bedrock principles of international law, and are considered the most sacrosanct rules protecting innocent civilians during times of war.
The Summit saw a renewed commitment to these principles of International Humanitarian Law, with promises to prevent atrocities, hold violators accountable, assure access for aid to those in need, and incorporate locals, women and youth into local development, outreach and aid projects.
While these commitments provide momentum for positive change, it is still a blatant fact that “countless examples of violations,” remain, according to the ICRC. Military forces in a range of current conflicts have displayed a callous disregard for International Humanitarian Law, increasingly making civilians illegal targets in a broad range of settings – from bombing hospitals, to using illegal weapons like cluster bombs on civilians, and killing aid workers. In Syria, civilians have been routinely targeted, as exemplified by the recent bombing of a hospital in Aleppo that killed 27 people, including children and doctors. According to the Aid Workers Security Database, Afghanistan is the most dangerous place in the world for NGOs, with aid workers and journalists being killed at an alarming rate, and impunity for the killers. The US and other government forces have repeatedly– mistakenly or intentionally – attacked humanitarian sites; examples include the US bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October 2015 and the Israeli bombing of UNRWA shelters in Gaza.
By failing to denounce and prevent these acts, world leaders send the message that this violence against humanitarian workers and civilians is acceptable. The World Humanitarian Summit provided an important opportunity for governments to rededicate themselves to the norms of civilian protection and International Humanitarian Law. Though there is still a lack of official censure for clear violations of International Humanitarian Law, this Summit made possible a more hopeful vision for civilian protection on a greater scale moving forward. At the Summit, world leaders addressed war’s toll on civilians and humanitarian workers. The Summit concluded with over 1,500 commitments, ranging from a Grand Bargain about localizing aid funding to increasing the quality of education and helping the most at-risk states handle future development consequences of climate change. The Alliance for Peacebuilding calls on the US and all governments to recognize protecting civilians and aid workers as a priority now and live up to their commitments. The current level of human suffering requires us to live up to the standards that the world put in place after WWII when we said, “never again.” These are not quaint relics of a simpler time – these laws are powerful forces for stopping cycles of violence, and preventing untold misery for innocent civilians. We must not only denounce violations of humanitarian law, but just as importantly, the US should take measures to ensure respect for International Humanitarian Law, including teaching these principles to our armed forces, publicizing the importance of these laws for the general public, and enacting and enforcing clear and effective punishment for violations. If we let these laws continue to wither, they will become obsolete and useless. We must hold officials and organizations accountable for the commitments they made at the Summit, lest they fade into mere rhetoric.
As peacebuilders, we need to substantively champion International Humanitarian Law, making the case that by ignoring these laws, we not only extend human suffering to levels unseen since WWII, but we also ensure continuing cycles of violence.
Cover Photo: Arnold Felfer/UN
Is the World Becoming More Dangerous?
Rising death tolls in Syria, brutal massacres in Sudan, horrific sexual violence in the DRC, these are all news headlines we are familiar with. Reports from conflict zones paint a grim picture and you could be forgiven for thinking that our world is a worse place to live in than ever before. But is the world really become more dangerous and deadly?
The truth is no, it’s not.
Professor Joshua Goldstein wrote the book Winning the War on War, and he believes peace in the 21st century is possible.
“If you look at what’s happened to war, just over the course of my lifetime, it’s been dramatic that we have fewer wars, smaller wars and we have better tools for dealing with conflicts without resort to war,” Professor Goldstein said.
“We have made a lot of progress already, and I am not one to say ‘this is my plan for world peace’, and, ‘everybody’s going to be in harmony with each other and all our problems will disappear’, but I am one to say that we have made a lot of progress in managing conflicts, learning how to reduce the size, and number, and location and spread of wars,” he explained. “If we keep that going, if we learn what’s working, we could reduce that close to zero. Maybe we will never have 100% peaceful world, but we could get to 95%, 98% – that would be great.”
Professor Steven Pinker has also been following the trends and he agrees that we are making progress. His research shows that while the world has had rough few recent years, overall battle-related deaths in armed conflicts are trending downwards. “Not only have the numbers come way, way down, since the 1990s, but whole categories of war seem to be either gone or obsolescent. Wars between two great powers, wars between rich countries, wars in Western Europe – the kind of wars that were omnipresent through human history for hundreds and hundreds of years, all of a sudden went to zero.” So, what has to continue to keep war on the decline? Researchers suggest several key factors:
- Continue an increase in human security (that means reducing poverty and supporting development)
- Increasing women’s engagement in economic and political life internationally, and
- Confronting beliefs that legitimize violence as a tool of conflict resolution
Professor Pinker says this last factor is key. “The ideal that human flourishing is the greatest good has to crowd out other ideologies,” he said. “Religious ideologies, nationalist ideologies, dreams of national or ethnic glory, rectifying past injustices, all the kinds of motives that have lead countries to expand their territory, expand their ideology and to justify it by thinking ‘well, this is more important than whether people get killed in their 20s or live to a ripe old age’.” Interviews: Courtesy of One Earth Future
8-year-old Shares War Horror with Orlando Bloom
In 2014 war broke out in the Ukraine, resulting in nearly 8,000 deaths so far, and 2.5 million people displaced. Eight-year-old Maxim lost his father to sniper fire in the war-torn region of eastern Ukraine. His family was forced to flee their home in Luhansk, and move to Slovyansk two years ago.
When actor Orlando Bloom visited the region recently as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, Maxim’s mother told him that her son is still scared of loud noises, and has to go to therapy.
“When the conflict was at its peak. We were hiding and of course my son saw and heard everything as the artillery was right near our house,” she said. “When we came here for a long time he was afraid of thunder, elevators or a trolly bus.”
Maxim is one of 300,000 children who are in immediate need of assistance to continue their education in the region. Since the conflict broke out more than 2 years ago, more than 230,000 children have been forced from their homes and one in five schools in the region have been damaged or destroyed. Bloom visited classrooms hit by shells just three kilometers from the front-line of the conflict to raise awareness of the global education crisis facing children in emergencies like this one.
New findings show that nearly a quarter of the world’s school-aged children – 462 million – now live in countries affected by crisis. In Syria more than 6000 schools are out of use, in North-East Nigeria and Cameroon more than 1,800 schools have been shut due to the crisis there and in the Central African Republic a quarter of schools are not functioning. UNICEF have launched a new program called Education Cannot Wait, to provide continuing education for children like Maxim in emergency situations.
“Education changes lives in emergencies,” said Josephine Bourne, UNICEF’s Global Chief of Education. “Going to school keeps children safe from abuses like trafficking and recruitment into armed groups and is a vital investment in children’s futures and in the future of their communities,” he said. “Education is providing children in eastern Ukraine with the building blocks to rebuild their lives in a safe and supportive environment.”
Cover Photo © UNICEF/Georgiev
Can Iraq Reconcile?: Lessons from a Rooftop Classroom
In a crowded Baghdad neighborhood, one Iraqi teacher is providing free education for families fleeing conflict.
Qussay Kamel is teaching free lessons for families who have fled ISIS-controlled areas. Public schools won’t take students who have relocated to the district, to discourage resettlement.
More than 25 students now attend and because classes have no indoor space, Mr Kamel teaches on rooftops.
“”It’s the only thing I can offer, to help children, the children of poor families, the children of war victims, the children of immigrants, and fleeing families who cannot afford a private teacher for their own children,” Mr Kamel told Peace News.
“Or those whose parents have had basically no education at all – their parents cannot help them with mathematics or English,” he said.
Despite Qussay being Shi’ite, in an increasingly sectarian country, he doesn’t discriminate, and most of his students are Sunni.
“He is helping us with reading, comprehension, writing, and even manners – how to behave in the presence of others. He always reminds us that we are just like his own children,” Retaj, a student, said.
“He is teaching us mathematics – in a mathematics examination I got 82 of 100. My family are grateful to him,” said Aysha, another student.
“He is doing his best. He helped us avoid the extra cost of private teachers – as a family who has fled we cannot afford this. Also, he pays attention to the children as if they were his own,” said Amal, a mother of one of the students.
This Week in Peace #132: June 19
This week, UN commits to helping 60,000 displaced South Sudanese by December 31. German and South African experts will help Thailand and Cambodia with arbitration. Civilians face dangers moving in Sudan.
UN Commits to Helping 60,000 Displaced South Sudanese by December 31
On January 15, the UN committed to reducing the number of displaced South Sudanese people by December 31, 2026, and supporting “their stable integration into communities.” The UN’s joint communique on the plan involves the government’s and UN’s assistance in the following areas: land and housing security; basic services and infrastructure development; peacebuilding, safety, and security; coordination and data; and resource mobilization and transparency.
The “land and housing security” point involves the government ensuring the provision of land and housing support for relocation, return, and settlement initiatives.
The communique noted that there were around 2.7 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 3 million returnees by the end of 2025.
South Sudan’s conflict is between the military, which is loyal to Kiir, and insurgents believed to be allied with the suspended vice-president Riek Machar. Fighting between government and opposition forces continues to kill and injure civilians in several states, with 169 people killed and 4,000 displaced in the Abiemnhom area of Unity state on March 1.
German and South African Experts Will Help Thailand and Cambodia with Arbitration
German and South African experts will help Thailand and Cambodia with a UN-backed conciliation process to resolve the maritime dispute between the two countries, Thai foreign minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said on June 16.
Cambodia initiated the compulsory conciliation process in early June after Thailand unilaterally withdrew from the 2001 memorandum of understanding that had provided a framework for negotiations on overlapping maritime claims in the Gulf of Thailand.
Cambodia’s government said it “welcomes the Thai Government’s announcement that it has decided to participate in the conciliation process.”
The dispute is over around 10,000 square miles of sea in the Gulf of Thailand, known as the Overlapping Claims Area, which is estimated to hold nearly 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and large quantities of oil, worth about $300 billion.
Adding to tensions between the two countries is the conflict that broke out along the border in July 2025, which came to a ceasefire in December 2025.
Civilians Face Dangers Moving in Sudan
In Sudan, moving from one place to another has become dangerous to civilians. On June 15, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan reported that both sides in the conflict—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with allied groups—are stopping civilians at checkpoints and accusing them of supporting opposing forces, detaining them without legal process.
Those targeted include journalists, humanitarian workers, traders, community leaders, and other civilians trying to reach safer areas or maintain livelihoods, the Mission said.
The Mission warned that extortions linked to these arbitrary arrests are compounding the country’s humanitarian crisis, citing cases when families were told to pay large sums to secure the release of detained relatives. Some reportedly faced demands equivalent to around US$40,000, an impossible amount of money for families already caught in conflict.
Meanwhile, the Mission noted that at least 70 individuals, including humanitarian workers, were arrested in El Geneina during May 2026 and have not been heard from since.
The Mission called for renewed international efforts to ensure accountability.
Keywords: peace, South Sudan, Thailand, Cambodia, Sudan, humanitarian, maritime, MOU, refugees, displaced, IDPs, conflict, conflict resolution, peace journalism
Israeli and Palestinian Groups Fight to Save Two-State Solution at Paris Meeting
What was the meeting in Paris with Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups about? What is the two-state solution? Can the two-state solution be saved? What are Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups doing for peace? Will there be peace between Israelis and Palestinians? What is settler violence? How are settlements impacting the possibility of a two-state solution?
Israeli and Palestinian groups are fighting to save the two-state solution. Several Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups gathered in Paris on June 12, 2026 to plead to the international community not to abandon the two-state solution. The meeting came ahead of a G7 summit in France.
The meeting included foreign ministers and officials from many countries. It was held on the one-year anniversary of the U.N.-backed New York Declaration, which established a path toward Palestinian statehood and prompted around 12 countries to recognize a Palestinian state, including France, Britain, and Canada.
The groups at the meeting urged that “the window of opportunity” was closing. The event concluded with an eight-point action plan urging a permanent ceasefire, a halt to settlements, reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, governance reforms, and stronger international support for civil society.
The action plan noted that “The region continues to fracture. Gaza is devastated, Israel remains under threat. Settler terrorism, settlement expansion, and de facto annexation and threats to the Palestinian Authority continue to undermine the viability of a future Palestinian state.”
French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot stressed France’s support for the two-state solution, adding that “this year could be decisive.”
The meeting came after, on June 9, 2026, Britain, Canada, France and Norway announced new sanctions against Israeli networks involved in financing, enabling and carrying out violence in the West Bank. This was after Australia and New Zealand had announced sanctions the previous week.
Britain, Canada, France, Norway, and Australia said the steps aimed to “hold extremist settlers accountable for the horrific levels of settler violence against Palestinian civilians.”
In September 2025, France, Britain, Canada and several other countries recognized a Palestinian state, defying long-held norms for Western countries. However, hopes for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine have been dimming for decades, largely due to Israel’s settlement expansion, as well as continued violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to brutally attack Palestinians, in some instances depopulating entire villages. On June 11, the UN said that settler attacks have hit record levels and surpassed 1,000 this year. Settlements also use Palestinian resources including land and water.
Meanwhile, progress on Palestinian self rule in Gaza and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza have been delayed, with each side blaming the other for not taking the steps listed in US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan. On June 7, 2026, Palestinian factions met in Cairo to discuss the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire. A source familiar with the talks told Times of Israel that the implementation of the plan would advance, regardless of Hamas trying to avoid disarmament.
On April 16, 2026 the left wing pro-Israel group J Street published an assessment of the Gaza ceasefire, six months after it was announced on October 10, 2025. J Street noted that the plan has “largely stalled on all its promises beyond the initial pause in fighting, hostage exchange, and surge in humanitarian aid.” Since the ceasefire was announced, the assessment reported, over 700 Palestinians and four Israelis had been killed in Gaza.
The assessment added that although Gaza’s humanitarian situation has improved significantly, it remains dire. Seventy-seven percent of the population still faces acute food insecurity, and severe shortages in medical supplies, fuel, and shelter materials persist, largely due to Israeli restrictions on items classified as “dual-use,” including temporary shelters.
Despite setbacks at the political level, grassroots peace initiatives are still fighting for peace. Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations are working to save the possibility of peace amidst increasingly dire conditions in the decades-long conflict.
Keywords: Israel, Palestine, civil society, peace updates, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, settler violence, Gaza, Paris, two-state solution
How Tourism is Helping Build Peace Along the U.S.-Mexico Border
Can tourism build peace? How is tourism helping build peace on the U.S.-Mexico border? How does conservation relate to building peace on the U.S.-Mexico border?
When many people think about the U.S.-Mexico border, they picture walls, immigration debates, and political conflict. Every month, U.S Border Patrol apprehends thousands of people at the U.S-Mexico border, with 8,268 apprehended in March 2026. There are also tensions surrounding the 1944 Water Treaty, with Mexico struggling to maintain its water deliveries. Yet in one remote corner of the border, a different story is unfolding—one centered on cooperation, conservation, and community relationships.
In the Big Bend-Río Bravo region, where Texas meets the Mexican states of Coahuila and Chihuahua, residents, tourism operators, conservationists, and park managers are quietly building connections across the international boundary. Their efforts show how tourism can become an unexpected tool for peacebuilding.
Our recent research explored how these cross-border relationships develop and what they mean for the future of the region. Through interviews with tourism and conservation stakeholders on both sides of the border, we found that tourism is doing much more than bringing visitors to the area. It is creating opportunities for dialogue, trust, and cooperation around shared environmental resources.
A Border Defined by Nature
Unlike many parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Big Bend-Río Bravo region is dominated by mountains, deserts, canyons, and protected natural areas. The Rio Grande (known in Mexico as the Río Bravo) forms the international boundary. The region contains a network of national parks, protected areas, and wildlife habitats on both sides of the river. Wildlife regularly crosses the border. Black bears, birds, and other species do not recognize political boundaries. Rivers, ecosystems, and landscapes are shared resources that require cooperation if they are to be protected. These shared natural resources provide the foundation for tourism. Visitors come to hike, raft, observe wildlife, experience local culture, and enjoy some of the most remote landscapes in North America. Because nature itself crosses the border, many residents see cooperation as a practical necessity rather than a political choice.
Tourism Creates Shared Interests
One of the strongest themes that emerged from our research was the widespread enthusiasm for collaboration. Residents on both sides of the border recognized that tourism creates economic opportunities while encouraging environmental protection. Many communities in the region depend heavily on visitors who come to experience the area’s unique landscapes and culture. For example, residents of the Mexican village of Boquillas del Carmen benefit directly from visitors who cross the border from Big Bend National Park. Tourism supports guides, restaurant owners, transportation providers, artisans, and families throughout the community. But tourism’s value extends beyond economics. Stakeholders repeatedly described how tourism creates reasons for people from different backgrounds to communicate and solve problems together. Park managers, conservation groups, business owners, and community leaders often share the same goal: maintaining healthy natural resources that visitors want to experience. This shared interest creates opportunities for cooperation even when larger political relationships may be strained.
Building Relationships Around a Campfire
Perhaps the most striking example of peacebuilding in the region comes from a practice known as “down-river seminars.” These multi-day river trips bring together tourism operators, conservation professionals, park staff, and other stakeholders from both countries. Participants spend several days rafting together through the canyons of the Rio Grande. The trips are not formal diplomatic meetings, which would require a lengthy bureaucratic process to obtain all the necessary travel and visa approvals. Instead, these down-river seminars are opportunities for stakeholders to talk as neighbors and colleagues as they engage in what is considered a legally acceptable and permissible border activity that does not require a passport or tourist visa: river tourism.
During these seminars, participants discuss challenges such as visitor management, environmental protection, river access, and conservation. Conversations happen around campfires rather than conference tables. Several interviewees explained that these informal gatherings often accomplish more than traditional meetings because participants leave behind official titles and institutional barriers. The result is relationship-building based on trust, shared experiences, and mutual respect. These relationships often become the foundation for future cooperation.
Solving Problems Together
Peacebuilding is not always about resolving major conflicts. Often, it involves finding practical ways to address shared challenges. The Big Bend-Río Bravo region faces many such challenges. Water shortages, tourism seasonality, infrastructure limitations, wildlife management, and economic development all require ongoing cooperation. Stakeholders described numerous examples of collaborative problem-solving.
Tourism operators and government agencies have worked together to develop policies that allow river recreation while respecting border regulations. Conservation organizations collaborate across the border to protect wildlife habitat. Community leaders advocate for improvements that can benefit residents while preserving natural resources. In many cases, the solutions are informal and locally driven. Rather than waiting for national governments to create large-scale agreements, people in the region often focus on what they can accomplish through personal relationships and community partnerships. This bottom-up approach was one of the most important findings of our research.
The Importance of Trust
Many participants emphasized that successful cooperation depends on trust. In a remote region where protected areas, private lands, tourism businesses, and local communities overlap, formal rules alone are not enough. Personal relationships play a critical role. Landowners, tourism operators, conservation agencies, and community leaders often rely on years of trust-building to coordinate activities and manage resources effectively. These relationships help people navigate differences and work toward common goals. Peacebuilding scholars frequently identify trust as a key ingredient for long-term cooperation. The experiences of stakeholders in the Big Bend-Río Bravo region strongly support this idea.
Challenges Remain
The region still faces significant obstacles. Economic inequalities, political tensions, border regulations, limited infrastructure, and environmental pressures all create challenges for tourism and conservation efforts. Many communities on the Mexican side have fewer tourism opportunities and less access to infrastructure than neighboring areas in the United States. Water scarcity continues to create concerns throughout the region. Border crossing procedures can also complicate collaboration. Despite these difficulties, stakeholders generally expressed optimism about the future. Rather than focusing exclusively on barriers, many participants emphasized opportunities for expanding tourism, strengthening partnerships, and improving access to shared natural resources.
Peacebuilding Through Everyday Cooperation
One of the most important lessons from this research is that peacebuilding often happens through ordinary activities. People do not need formal peace treaties to build peace. When tourism operators work together across a border, when conservationists coordinate wildlife protection efforts, when community members host visitors from another country, and when stakeholders gather to solve shared problems, they are helping create conditions that support peaceful relationships. These efforts may not receive international headlines. They may not involve national leaders or major diplomatic initiatives. Yet they contribute to something equally important: building trust, understanding, and cooperation between communities.
The Big Bend-Río Bravo region reminds us that peacebuilding is not only something that happens in government offices. It can also emerge along rivers, in protected areas, around campfires, and through the everyday work of people who share a landscape and a desire for a better future.
Keywords: US-Mexico border, US, United States, Mexico, border, border patrol, ICE,
This Week in Peace #131: June 12
This week, African Union (AU) holds meeting to review Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peace mediation. South Sudanese youth lead “Hear Us Now, Act Now” campaign for peace. Hopes for peace drift further away as Pakistan strikes Afghanistan.
African Union Holds Meeting to Review DRC Peace Mediation
On June 7, the African Union (AU) held a meeting in Lome, Togo, to review peace mediation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The two-day meeting gathered key stakeholders in the AU-led facilitation process, MedAfrica reported.
This development follows another meeting in Lome held in January. The June 7 meeting revolved around implementing previous recommendations, and obstacles to the peace process in conflicted areas of DRC.
Attendees stressed the importance of continued collective action by African countries, the AU, and international partners, to achieve peace and reconciliation.
After the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is urging an immediate ceasefire in the country’s conflict-devastated eastern region. Despite being under government control, insecurity is worsening in eastern DRC’s Ituri province, with the UN humanitarian office reporting nearly 1 million displaced in the province.
South Sudanese Youth Lead ‘Hear Us Now, Act Now’ Campaign for Peace
Amidst an uptick in violence, South Sudanese youth are leading a new UN initiative called “Hear Us Now, Act Now for a Peaceful World.” The initiative aims to amplify the voices of young people on issues impacting them and their communities including conflict, limited access to education, economic opportunities, and leadership roles. The initiative has now spread to most of South Sudan’s states.
Thousands attended the initiative’s launch event in Wau, including authorities, chiefs, women, media, artists, forces, civil society, and religious figures. Several South Sudanese musicians performed at the event. Stakeholders, including South Sudanese elites, warmly welcomed the initiative.
Progress has stalled on implementing South Sudan’s 2018 Revitalized Agreement. The agreement includes five key points, which are: security-sector reform; the formation of unified forces; disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; arms and ammunition management; and efforts to address conflict-related sexual violence.
A global outcry is taking place now that South Sudan’s president unilaterally made changes to the agreementl. On May 19, the embassies of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the United States released a joint statement urging South Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit immediately return to dialogue.
Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan Amidst International Peace Efforts
Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Afghanistan on June 10, causing hopes for peace to drift further away. Afghan spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said 13 people, including 11 children, one woman, and an elderly man, were killed, Associated Press reported.
Pakistan said it targeted militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to recent attacks inside Pakistan, and that it killed 26 militants.
This development comes after other countries have tried to negotiate peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In April, the two countries confirmed they were holding talks in Urumqi, China, in an attempt to secure a ceasefire.
Pakistan accuses the Taliban in Afghanistan of harboring militants who attack Pakistan. Meanwhile, Afghan officials claim that that Pakistan harbours hostile groups and does not respect its sovereignty, RTL Today reports. The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Afghanistan posted on X on April 7 that the conflict had displaced 94,000 people.
Keywords: DRC, Congo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Sudan, peace, ceasefire, efforts, African Union, AU, conflict, conflict resolution
Cross-Border History Education and Peacebuilding: Lessons from Bosnia, India, Pakistan, and Beyond
History education helps to shape how students understand the past, but also shapes how they relate to others in the present. Textbooks and educational materials influence which groups are seen as victims, heroes, or perpetrators in contexts of war and conflict. In societies recovering from violence, the stories taught in classrooms can deepen divisions, or contribute to reconciliation and peacebuilding.
For this reason, collaborative cross-border history education initiatives have gained increasing attention. In these projects, educators and historians from countries connected by conflict work together to develop teaching materials about their shared histories. Because historical events are often interpreted differently across borders, these initiatives aim to include multiple perspectives and encourage dialogue, rather than reinforcing nationalist narratives.
Creating such educational resources is not easy. We spoke with 14 experts involved in cross-border history education projects across the world, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, and India and Pakistan. Their experiences reveal both the challenges and the potential of creating educational materials that support peace.
Politics and Government Influence, and Challenging nationalist narratives
One of the strongest influences on cross-border history projects is the political climate, as governments control history education. In many countries, school history focuses heavily on celebrating the nation-state and promoting exclusive national identities. In cross-border projects, history educators often seek to undo this “us versus them” thinking among students by exposing students to multiple interpretations of historical events.
Though some governments can support cross-border projects, many governments do not see the value of perspectives that question official narratives, and will hinder or even ban educational materials. An expert from Bosnia and Herzegovina explained that a resource their team had created was “forbidden to use because we did not receive permission for the content from the pedagogical authority.” Naturally, this led to frustration within the development team. Currently, history education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is very sensitive and full of conflict, especially around the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebenica.
The Emotional Challenge of Collaboration
Many of the educators involved in these projects shared goals that motivated them: transforming history education. However, creating educational materials about conflict and violence is emotionally demanding work. Experts spoke openly about the personal toll of engaging deeply with traumatic histories. One expert reflected that difficult topics “require a lot. It kind of drains you out emotionally. You go deeply into that. When I was working on war topics, to be honest, I was depressed for months.”
Successful collaboration requires openness to different perspectives and a willingness to listen. However, in contexts of recent conflict, disagreements can be personal, and painful. Despite these challenges, many participants emphasized that dialogue itself was valuable. The process of working together across divides often became an act of peacebuilding in its own right.
The Importance of Support Networks
Because cross-border peace education work can be politically sensitive and emotionally exhausting, support systems are essential. Financial and institutional support often determined whether projects could continue. In some cases, governments provided funding and backing. In many others, non-governmental organizations played a crucial role. Organizations such as EuroClio offered financial assistance and conceptual guidance, training, and international networks that helped sustain collaboration.
Language also emerged as a major challenge. Some teams shared a common language, while others relied heavily on translation throughout the project. In the India–Pakistan initiative Partitioned Histories, English became the main working language because it was widely spoken by participants. However, English can have negative associations, as it is “a gift from our colonisers,” and the legacy of colonialism was part of the conflict that the project team was working to undo.
Even when translation was available, agreeing on terminology was often difficult. Words connected to borders, conflict, or identity carried sensitive political meanings, and terms with small differences in meaning could create significant disagreements.
At this moment history education is under pressure in India and Pakistan due ongoing border conflicts between the countries directly connected with their colonial pasts. In both countries history education is still heavily shaped by nationalism and tells widely different stories about the past with biases against the so-called other. Showing the need for cross-border peacebuilding.
Finding Common Ground
Despite the obstacles, experts identified several approaches that helped overcome differences. One important strategy was focusing on the experiences of ordinary people rather than political or military leaders. Everyday experiences of conflict, migration, loss, and survival were often easier for participants and students to empathise with. As one expert explained, these are stories that connect, not divide.
Many projects also adopted what participants described as a “soft approach” to controversial topics. Rather than attempting to resolve the most contested issues immediately, they focused first on changing teaching methods and encouraging dialogue. One developer explained: “Our mission was not to solve recent history. Our mission was to train teachers in a different way of teaching, and slowly to come to the difficult topics”. This “soft approach” also applied to visual textbook content. Borders and territorial disputes could often provoke disagreement, so project teams developed creative compromises, such as using different names in different editions or adjusting map legends, to avoid inflaming tensions.
Peace Education as a Long-Term Process
When it comes to implementation and the use of materials in different countries, the situation is often challenging. Most developers we spoke with described this as a major pain point, as the materials they invested significant time and effort into creating are rarely used in practice. In some cases, governments may ban the resources, but even when this is not the case, they are still not frequently adopted. Teachers often prefer to follow the official curriculum and experience time pressure, leaving little room to incorporate new materials. The developers therefore recommend creating single lessons or smaller activities that can be integrated more easily, rather than developing entire books that require a great deal of time and energy to produce.
Yet even when projects face political obstacles, their influence can spread beyond borders. Participants noted how peace education initiatives often inspire one another. The Israeli–Palestinian cross-border project, for example, drew inspiration from earlier cooperation between France and Germany after the Second World War. In turn, projects between India and Pakistan were influenced by the Israeli–Palestinian experience. These connections demonstrate how peacebuilding efforts in education can resonate internationally.
The experiences of these cross-border initiatives show that peace-oriented history education is not about erasing disagreement or creating a single shared narrative. Instead, it is about creating space for dialogue, empathy, and critical reflection. These projects demonstrate that cooperation across borders is possible. By encouraging students and teachers to engage with multiple perspectives and human experiences, cross-border history education can contribute to building cultures of peace.
Keywords: cross-border, history, history education, peacebuilding, lessons, Bosnia, India, Pakistan
