The damage in southern Lebanon, screenshot from NBC video.
This week, can Israel and Lebanon’s ceasefire hold? A return of South Sudan peace talks after a four-month hiatus. India’s congress prays for peace against anti-Hindu persecution in Bangladesh.
Can Israel and Lebanon’s ceasefire hold?
Last week, Israel and Lebanon finally came to a ceasefire after 14 months of fighting, only for the fighting to resume the next day. After the ceasefire was declared on November 27, Israel carried out an airstrike on November 28, saying in a statement that suspects had breached the conditions of the ceasefire by arriving in vehicles to areas of southern Lebanon.
The ceasefire now remains fragile, with both sides firing at each other. After Hezbollah fired two rockets at Israeli-occupied territory, Israel launched airstrikes across Lebanon’s South on December 2, killing nine. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not report any casualties from the mortar attack against them.
Whitehouse national security spokesperson John Kirby says that “Largely speaking… the ceasefire is holding,” BBC reported. However, Knesset member Israel Katz on December 3 told an IDF division near the Lebanese border, “If we return to war we will act with strength, go deeper,” CNN reported.
A return of South Sudan peace talks after a four-month hiatus
After four months and several delays, South Sudan peace talks are back. The talks between South Sudan’s government and opposition groups resumed in Kenya on November 3, Associated Press reported.
Although the 2018 peace agreement ended a five-year civil war that killed over 400,000 people, talks stalled after South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir sacked the former government delegation to the talks. The newly appointed team which replaced the delegation then was unable to travel to Nairobi on two different occasions.
The opposition groups that participated in the talks this week were not a part of the 2018 agreement. The agreement has still not been fully implemented.
India’s congress prays for peace against Hindu persecution in Bangladesh
India’s congress is praying for peace against the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. On December 5, congress members in Uttar Pradesh held a peace prayer titled ‘Buddhi Shuddhi Path,’ which included a fire ceremony.
The peace prayer was in response to atrocities committed against Hindus in Bangladesh following the country’s recent upheaval. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India amid widespread protests in August. Following Hasina’s resignation, there was a surge in attacks against Hindus, with over 100 Hindus and other minorities reportedly killed since the fall of the previous government.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was chosen by student leaders, the military, and the president, has urged Bangladeshis to avoid violence and work towards national stability. Yunus has said that the attacks are politically motivated, and not religiously motivated. Hindus were viewed as supporting Hasina’s Awami party. However, Hasina has accused Yunus of being part of “genocide” against Hindus and failing to protect religious minorities.
Relations between Indian and Bangladesh have been spiraling, with Yunus accusing India of spreading misinformation about anti-Hindu violence in order to undermine his government.
Cameroon's Rapid Intervention Batallion (B.I.R), screen grab from France 24 video.
The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon has been spiraling since 2016. The conflict emanated from peaceful protests organized by lawyers and teachers in the Anglophone regions in 2016. It has since then transformed into an armed conflict between separatist and government forces. The conflict has led to several deaths, thousands displaced, and many more illegally arrested and detained.
Over time, sexual violence, particularly on young girls, has emerged as a punishment for opposing armed groups or government forces.
Sexual violence, particularly rape, has become a horrifying weapon in the crisis. Over the past six years, women who defy armed groups or government troops, partake in advocacy efforts, violate ghost towns, or resist complying with separative directives, often face cruel sexual attacks as a means of penalization and coercion. In some instances, young girls have been forced to have sex to get through a security check point.
Despite ongoing appeals for a comprehensive dialogue to address the crisis, the situation in the Anglophone regions remains unresolved. The deployment of sexual violence as a weapon persists, wreaking havoc on the lives of women in these areas. The strategic use of rape and other forms of sexual violence in this context is an illustration of the larger breakdown in the rule of law. It also shows how different actors appear to systematically use it as a strategic tool to intimidate and humiliate the civilian population; particularly those demanding justice.
Reports from local humanitarian organizations such as Alliance for Sustainable Development suggest that government forces have also used rape as a form of collective punishment during military raids on villages suspected to be harboring separatist fighters. During these raids, soldiers often target women and girls. In different localities in Bafut in the Northwest region and Mamfe in the southwest region, many cases have been identified which have neither been investigated nor publicly denounced.
Furthermore, separatist fighters have also used sexual violence to punish women suspected of collaborating with government forces or those who refuse to adhere to separatist-imposed boycotts and rules. In some cases, women have been raped or threatened with rape for sending their children to school in defiance of separatists’ instructions.
Moreover, security forces have accused women of aiding separatists by providing food, shelter, or information. These women have been subjected to sexual violence, often conducted in front of family members to create fear and dehumanize them. The fear of sexual violence serves as a significant deterrent for many women who might otherwise engage in activism. This form of punishment serves to reinforce the idea that women must adhere to the societal expectations dictated by the warring factions.
Additionally, female activists and local humanitarian actors working in these regions have not been spared from the violence. Women who are politically engaged or vocal on the situation have been targeted. For instance, women participating in peace activism or advocating for a resolution to the conflict have been subject to harassment, threats, and sexual assault by both separatists and government forces. These practices do not only stifle women’s voices and their agency, but also exacerbate their marginalization in peace-building initiatives.
Impacts of sexual violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis
High Levels of early pregnancies: The increasing rate of sexual and gender-based violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis has led to high levels of early pregnancies in the regions affected. According to Human Rights Watch there is a significant rise in teenage pregnancy rates since 2016. These premature and unwanted pregnancies have consequently contributed to an increased number of school dropouts among young females and adolescents. This alarming trend is anticipated to further aggravate poverty levels in the region in the years to come.
Health Consequences: The surge in unprotected sexual activity has led to a heightened risk of health issues relating to STDs. Many early pregnancies in the conflict affected regions are a result of girls being sexually assaulted by non-state armed groups or government forces. In the absence of a strong social justice system, many young girls are left at the mercy of armed groups and security forces who exploit their vulnerability. The psychological trauma inflicted on these girls, who have given birth to children conceived through rape and face the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases in the process, demands urgent attention and intervention.
Stigmatization of victims: The stigma surrounding sexual violence and mental health issues have deter victims from discussing or reporting their experiences and seeking help. In some situations, family members have discouraged them to do so for fear of stigma or losing custody of the child in future. In Cameroon, researchers at the Nkafu Policy Institute suggests that most victims of sexual and gender-based violence faces mental health challenges and are less likely to recount their experiences in public, hence the risk of developing a major depression or commit suicide.
Possible suggestions
Need for improvement in government responses: Government responsesto sexual violence in the Anglophone crisis has been inadequate despite multiple reports published by rights groups on the issue. Soldiers and security forces accused of rape are rarely held accountable or taken to public courts for justice. Even so, the government has often denied or downplayed the extent of these violations. This lack of accountability perpetuates a culture of silence and fear, where survivors are discouraged from reporting assaults due to the absence of justice. Thus, there is a high need for improvements in government responses to these abuses.
Naming and shaming: Civil society organizations and rights activists should consider developing community-based initiatives for monitoring and addressing cases of sexual and gender-based violence, promoting collective responsibility and action against offenders. These actions could include publicly naming and shaming perpetrators. Additionally, establishing an online public database or registry that lists convicted perpetrators could raise public awareness and deter potential offenders.
Relevo generacional / Generational successors, photo by author.
Since 2014, I have had the privilege of learning from grassroots social leaders at the forefront of building peace in Montes de María, Colombia – one of the territories prioritized by the 2016 peace agreement between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)and the government.
A human rights lawyer who works closely with the Colombian transitional justice tribunal told me in June 2024 that one of the biggest challenges for the Special Jurisdiction for Colombia’s Peace (JEP) was that the peace process was rushed. I have heard grassroots organizers frequently echo the sentiments of this human rights lawyer, admonishing the state for operating with “too much prisa [hurry].”
As an anthropologist who studies the politics of peacebuilding, I was initially puzzled by the widespread critique of “prisa/hurry”. Indeed, sluggish, bureaucratic delays have characterized the postaccord implementation process across rural Colombia. Clearly, when grassroots peacebuilders criticize the state for operating with “too much prisa/hurry,” they are not suggesting that the accords are being implemented rapidly. What claims, then, are campesino peacebuilders making? And what does their approach to “paz sin prisa / peace without hurry” entail?
As I traversed the everyday landscapes of campesino peacebuilding, I began to realize that the call to “slowness” does not negate the pressing needs that animate the collective struggle for peace in Colombia. There is, in fact, a fierce urgency in the campesino call to slow down, take notice, and tend territorial relations of care in the wake of violence. Grassroots peacebuilders do not limit their understanding of time to speed (acceleration and deceleration) or duration (short and long-term frameworks). Instead, slowness is understood as a mode of attention and practice of presence. Slow peace offers a relational framework that locates peacebuilding as a multigenerational, multispecies, and permanent process to cultivate a more just and livable world.
I have identified three lessons for building slow peace.
First, slow peace is a multigenerational process
In August 2016, I interviewed Jorge, a campesino [small farmer] leader, in his palm-thatched home. Jorge did not begin his life history with the war. Instead, he recounted the ancestral history of the territory, emphasizing how nonviolent resistance and solidarity led to the formation of campesino communities across Montes de María as people sought refuge from enslavement and colonization. He closed our interview with a song he had composed. The war formed neither the opening nor closing stanza. Instead, Jorge sang about the multigenerational “campesino struggle” to “defend life and the right to life.”
Archives of resistance, photo by author with Jorge Pérez (permission granted)
Hours later, I learned that the Colombian government and the FARC-EP had reached a peace deal. With no internet or electricity, the historic announcement did not reach Jorge’s house. Jorge’s intimate recollections set against the distant and inaccessible backdrop of the government’s declaration of peace reflect the paradox of proximity that grassroots leaders face.
Popular depictions of Montes de María, limited only to violence, erase the long histories of campesino organizing. A multigenerational lens challenges linear accounts that locate peace as something that comes after a negotiated agreement. Grafting their work into a wider struggle, campesino peacebuilders articulate an understanding of peace as an active, social process. In giving primacy to everyday life, slowing down widens the lens and focuses the frame of peacebuilding on the historical and material conditions that peace demands.
“The earth suffered, too,” Jocabeth, a young campesina organizer reflected, detailing her experience of war. The violence of forced displacement disrupted multispecies relations of care, forged through the daily labor of caretaking forest and soil life in Jocabeth’s community. The violent severing of humans from these ecological relations resulted in the death of the avocado forest, upending the social, economic, and ecological sustenance of her community. For Jocabeth, place-based peacebuilding practices that regenerate multispecies relations are vital for peace.
As part of an intergenerational social movement, Jocabeth has worked with the Youth Peace Provokers to combine traditional ecological knowledge, reforestation, and agroecology with peace advocacy, nonviolent direct action, and community organizing. Here, slow peace cultivates moral dispositions attuned to the existence of the nearly imperceptible processes of life that persist amid violence – what I call an ethics of attention. As Ricardo Esquivia, the director of the local organization Sembrandopaz reflected, “the work of the base (grassroots) is to see, feel, and grow the tree held within the seed – to be so close to the ground that you can feel the grass grow.”
Youth Peace Provokers March for Peace 2016, photo by author.
Third, slow peace invests in social movements
Finally, slow peace demands a shift from technical projects to social movements. Campesinos cite the “clash in times” between their community processes and external peace interventions as one of the most difficult challenges they must overcome. Technocratic interventions that rely on measurable outcomes and helicopter interactions designed to meet donor demands reduce peace to paper. In contrast, slow peace situates peacebuilding as an ongoing political process that prioritizes sustained proximity.
For example, the Regional Space for Peacebuilding in Montes de María – a broad-based coalition that brings representatives from Afrodescendant, Indigenous, Campesino, youth, women, and LGBTQIA+ movements together – facilitates a sustained, monthly dialogue between these diverse grassroots peace organizations. The coalition has also convened unlikely encounters between community members and generals, paramilitary commanders, FARC representatives, and multinational corporations. These “improbable dialogues” have resulted in the formation of farming cooperatives between former combatants and victims, the return of dispossessed land, and formal apologies. The Regional Space’s approach to sustained dialogue demonstrates how a temporal shift from technical projects to community organizing deepens processes of social repair. The multigenerational, place-based, and permanent commitment to peacebuilding through sustained dialogue – exemplified in the work of the Regional Space – also allows grassroots organizations to build collective power desde la base – from the ground up.
In Montes de María, there is a traditional saying: “Slow down, because there is hurry.” Slowness emerges through an immersion into everyday life where the seeds of peace are continuously cultivated, cared for, and nurtured. “Slow peace” does not offer a prescriptive blueprint. However, reflecting on the relational practices, modes of attention, and quality of presence that shape peoples’ experiences of time, relations, and power is vital for cultivating sustainable peace – with lessons for peacebuilders globally.
US President Joe Biden announces ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, screenshot from BBC video.
This week, a ceasefire begins for Israel and Lebanon, only for fighting to resume. Bishops cry out for peace in Haiti. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda take a step forward in the peace process.
A ceasefire begins for Israel and Lebanon, only for fighting to resume
A 60-day ceasefire took hold between Israel’s military and the Lebanese Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah on November 27, only for fighting to resume the next day. The ceasefire initially allowed thousands of displaced residents of southern Lebanon to return to their homes, although the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) warned residents not to go towards villages that it had evacuated, or towards its forces in the area.
However, Israel carried out another airstrike on November 28, saying in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire. The IDF opened fire toward them.” While Lebanese state-run media said that it was civilians who were wounded, Israel said that the wounded were suspects who had violated the ceasefire’s terms.
The ceasefire came after 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with US president Joe Biden saying that it aims to permanently end hostilities. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called the ceasefire the “first ray of hope” after the “darkness of the past few months,” as quoted in The Guardian.
According to a US senior administration official, Israeli forces must withdraw from Lebanon within 60 days, and Hezbollah forces are expected to retreat 25 from the Israel-Lebanon border, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, Biden says that he will again push for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. Biden said on X, “Over the coming days, the United States will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and an end to the war without Hamas in power.”
Bishops cry out for peace in Haiti
Amidst Haiti’s gang violence crisis, Bishops in the country are crying out for peace. The Haitian Catholic Bishops’ Conference released a statement urging people in powerful positions to bring safety back to Haiti.
The statement said that there is “no real peace in the country,” and that Toussaint Louverture International Airport is closed, “cutting off Haiti from the rest of the world,” as quoted by the organization Aid to the Church in Need.
The statement went on to call for the government, civil society members, and actors on all sides, whether armed or unarmed, to realize that the problem of violence must be resolved.
Last week, a UN official called for funding for the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti to be converted into a UN peacekeeping operation. Armed gangs have gained more and more territory, now controlling an estimated 85 percent of Port-au-Prince, he said. The humanitarian situation is “severe,” and 20,000 people fled gang violence in four days this month, he added. In September, the total number of people internally displaced in Haiti had been 700,000. To learn more, read here.
DRC and Rwanda take a step forward in the peace process
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are taking a step forward in the peace process. The two countries signed a document crucial to advancing the peace process in DRC’s conflicted eastern region on November 25, with Angola’s mediation. A statement by Angola’s foreign ministry said the document aims to set terms by which Rwandan forces will disengage from the DRC.
This news comes after last month, DRC’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner accused Rwanda of creating barriers to peace talks with M23 rebels. Wagner said Congo had drawn up a plan for its side of the deal, but accused Rwanda of offering only a promise of withdrawal “with no guarantees or concrete details,” Reuters reported.
Both M23 rebels and Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have committed grave war crimes and violations of international law, including unlawful killings and sexual violence. DRC’s crisis has left over 7 million people internally displaced, accounting for 10 percent of the world’s internally displaced people (IDPs). This follows a number of failed peace efforts between the DRC government and M23 rebels. To learn more about the human suffering caused by this crisis, click here.
Zimbabwe during the 2018 elections, screenshot from SABC News video.
Prior to 2013, youth in Zimbabwe were often employed as the foot soldiers of senior politicians and political parties in order to weaken their competitors through voter intimidation and politically motivated violence.
Furthermore, many youth feel marginalized and believe that the dominant political parties are not interested in including them in the decision making and agenda-setting processes. The perception in the political sphere paints youth as naïve and too young and inexperienced. Youth, from this angle, are taken for granted and only viewed as supporters without any real input.
Over the last three general Zimbabwe elections, however, youth participation has changed and become more constructive. Youth have campaigned for peaceful elections, while participating in new and innovative ways. In particular, youth have partnered with civil society organisations and churches and used social media platforms to promote youth-oriented messages, sharing voter information to mobilize other youth, especially in urban areas. This has gone a long way towards contributing to the generally peaceful environment experienced in recent elections.
The increased participation and mobilization of youth has led to significant interest in elections, with 76% of those between 18-35 registered to vote in 2023, and 78% intending to vote, according to an Afrobarometer survey. With Zimbabwe’s youth currently constituting 67.7% of the country’s entire population, the prominence of their participation in electoral processes cannot be underestimated. Though the youth’s underrepresentation in parliament is still an issue, considering their large demographic representation, it is worth noting that there were improvements in the 2023 election when 35 young people were elected to the National Assembly, making up 12.5% of the allocation. This improvement was largely a result of a newly introduced youth quota. This is because out of the 35 youth legislators, 17 were openly elected while 10 and eight went through the youth and women’s quotas respectively. Before that, only five out of 260 parliamentarians were youth, representing 1.92% of the total.
Despite these recent successes, the youth continue facing several impediments encumbering them from fruitfully participating in electoral processes, with far-reaching negative implications for peace. This includes marginalisation, lack of resources, and a restrictive and harsh political environment. The more the youth remain without a voice in decision-making processes, the more they are alienated, exploited, and vulnerable to commit violence.
In this regard, Zimbabwean youth can work to build peace by not only turning out to vote in large numbers, but also effectively participating as candidates and taking action to prevent or respond to electoral violence. When the youth successfully participate in electoral processes beyond simply turning out to vote, the decision-making processes become inclusive, resulting in political parties’ election programmes, policy formulation, and implementation processes reflecting the needs and aspirations of young people.
