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This Week in Peace #25: March 22

By
Peace News Staff
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The United Nations building in New York, where the US has introduced a draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Photo by Tomas Eidsvold on Unsplash

Welcome back to This Week in Peace, our weekly summary of events in global peacebuilding. 

This week, we discuss ongoing efforts to end the civil war in Sudan, Armenia’s determination to find peace with Azerbaijan, the small but vocal Russian opposition putting themselves at risk to end the war on Ukraine, and a noticeable shift in American policy towards the war in Gaza at the UN. 

US hopes to restart peace talks in Sudan – but faces many obstacles 

The ongoing civil war in Sudan continues, as Sudanese civilians face an ever-escalating humanitarian crisis. Nearly a year since the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began fighting, neither side has found a decisive advantage, millions have been displaced, and the country and capital city of Khartoum remain divided between the two factions. The newly-appointed US envoy, Tom Perrielo, hopes to restart talks at the end of Ramadan, but that will depend on the willingness of the leaders of both factions to participate. Previous talks in Jeddah, moderated by the US and Saudi Arabia, led to an agreement that quickly fell apart. The RSF is the successor of militias notorious for committing crimes against humanity in the Darfur region in the early 2000s, and is backed by the UAE and other regional actors. The army held power for decades during the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir and has also committed numerous crimes against civilians. The influence of Islamist factions mirrors the ideological mix of the Bashir years, and alleged backing from Iran could help escalate the conflict further. Neither side has the interests of the Sudanese people in mind, and it is crucial that the fighting end in order to protect civilians and prevent further atrocities from taking place.

Read our past stories on Sudan here.

Armenia’s PM makes his desire for peace clear 

Past editions of his series have written about efforts to negotiate a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbors who have fought several wars over disputed territory since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Over the past few months, talks have failed to find a final agreement. Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, recently demonstrated his willingness to build peace, and the risks associated with failing to agree on a deal, when he said that Armenia must return disputed territory it has held since the 1990s, in order to prevent another war. The military balance between the two states has shifted decisively in Azerbaijan’s favor in recent years, fueled by energy revenues and Turkish weapons. Russia is either unwilling or unable to protect its supposed ally in Armenia, which has turned to the West in recent years. Many EU member states rely on Azerbaijan to replace Russian gas, and military action against Armenia in 2020 and in the formerly disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2023 were met with a muted international response. A final, formal peace deal would be an important step towards ending a long-running conflict, and Pashinyan’s willingness to make concessions presents the best chance in a generation to make it a reality. 

Read more stories about this issue here. 

Positive changes in US policy on Gaza, but still much work to be done

This week, the US released a draft UN resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, in a significant shift from its past defense of Israel. The draft, which calls for an end to fighting accompanied by the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, marks a departure from previous American policy at the UN, where it has blocked similar resolutions in the past. As the war in Gaza continues, and Israel continues to insist on carrying out what could be a highly destructive attack on Rafah, where over one million Palestinians are sheltering, the US is one of the few international actors that can hypothetically help influence Israel to pause fighting. Negotiations for a ceasefire have collapsed several times in 2024, but hopefully efforts such as this will help to provide extra momentum that can lead to an end to fighting, protection and aid for Palestinian civilians, and the release of remaining hostages. 

We recently began a series with the Alliance for Middle East Peace which focuses on the peacebuilders working to build peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which you can read here.

Russians risk their livelihoods to protest rigged elections 

This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin was reelected with an improbable 87% of the vote in elections that were clearly rigged, and vowed to continue his war in Ukraine. Despite the preordained result and crackdown on free speech, which has seen any anti-war and pro-peace messages criminalized and met with harsh repression, there were numerous acts of resistance and protest, many in support of peace with Ukraine. Across Russia, people protested at the ballot box, spoiling their own ballots, or sometimes dumping ink or burning ones that had already been cast. Many more, including hundreds if not thousands of Russian expats, crowded polling stations at noon on the first day of voting as an act of protest endorsed by prominent opposition leaders, many calling for peace – more common in foreign countries where there was no risk of violence from state security forces. While these acts of protest did little to affect the final result, they are crucial in demonstrating that the Kremlin’s war agenda does not have total popular support. The dire situation in occupied Ukraine – where early voting was accompanied by the presence of soldiers and the implicit threat of violence – illustrates why this is so important. In those territories, illegally annexed by Russia following its invasion, the Ukrainians that remain face the threat of deportation, kidnapping, and torture, a stark illustration of the need to end the war as soon as possible. 

Read more stories about this conflict here.

TINAU’s Language of Solidarity: Community Resilience Amidst Conflict

By
This is Not an Ulpan Staff
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Image Credit: This is Not an Ulpan

On the 6th of October, we hosted our annual TINAU Fall Fair. The event was a space for Palestinian, Israeli, and international artisans to come together with their crafts, representing identity, resistance, and resilience. In attendance were hundreds, including students, staff, and community members, with Hebrew, Arabic, and English being spoken freely and interchangeably. This gathering served as a beacon of hope, depicting a reality where equality and solidarity among individuals in Israel-Palestine are not only conceivable but also within reach.

This is Not an Ulpan (TINAU) is a cooperative Arabic and Hebrew language school in Israel-Palestine, born out of the 2011 Israeli social justice protests. TINAU was founded to be a transformative language school, dedicated to teaching Hebrew and Arabic in a way that challenges existing social structures and promotes understanding between Jews, Palestinians, locals, and newcomers.

Our educational philosophy is grounded in critical pedagogy, emphasizing the importance of students critically engaging with themselves, the complex realities of Israel-Palestine, and their role within these dynamics. We utilize social justice as a guiding principle, making language learning a vehicle for understanding and addressing broader societal issues. At the heart of this educational approach lies the belief that every student is a teacher and every teacher a student. In fostering a collective learning experience, TINAU moves beyond the traditional teacher-student dynamic to create an environment where knowledge is shared, perspectives are exchanged, and diverse voices are heard. 

These values are what embodied our Fall Fair – social justice, community, and linguistic inclusivity. Though the optimism that enveloped our community on October 6th took a devastating blow the next day when we woke up to the horrific massacre on October 7th. Barely given enough time to mourn or comprehend the sheer tragedy of what happened, we were soon faced with further horrors of mass bloodshed and displacement within Gaza. Simultaneously, anti-war voices were immediately suppressed, separate and violent nationalist discourses were bolstered, and political reductionism was amplified at the expense of empathy and solidarity. 

The impact on our student community was profound; the majority of our international students hastily departed the country, while Israeli and Palestinian students found themselves unable to start courses due to severe mental distress and insurmountable obstacles imposed by the harsh reality.

In the first days, our immediate focus was to protect and strengthen our community. To understand the needs of our teachers, we had earnest discussions about their individual situations and what role they saw TINAU playing as a community and an organization with a platform. 

Simultaneously, we organized community calls, holding safe and empathetic spaces for students, teachers, and community members to come together. These calls served as forums where individuals could openly share their experiences, struggles, and emotions, fostering a collective environment that embraced the diversity of identities and experiences within our community. It was a concerted effort to provide support, solidarity, and understanding amid the shared challenges and traumas that unfolded, reinforcing our commitment to maintaining a compassionate and resilient community.

Despite the vehement push back from our surroundings, fueled by desires of vengeance and an inability to empathize with the perceived other, we have remained unwavering in our values and commitment to our mission of using language as a tool in resisting injustice and fostering solidarity among all peoples of this land. TINAU has persevered as a beacon of linguistic inclusivity and remained committed to social justice, reflecting the enduring spirit that inspired its creation.

“This is Not an Ulpan” stands as a testament to the enduring power of education in shaping a just and united future. In the midst of turmoil, we remain unwavering in our mission, reminding us that language can and must be a force for positive change, challenging the status quo, fostering empathy, and building a more just society for all its inhabitants, wherever they live.

How Can Peace Journalism Grow?

By
Peace News Staff
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Photo by Filip Mishevski on Unsplash

Peace journalism aims to provide news from conflict zones focused on peacebuilding and the work of peacebuilders. This is in stark contrast to mainstream news coverage that focuses on violence, the voice of elites, propaganda and victory framing. However, research shows that this type of coverage exacerbates tensions and damages peace processes, even though it dominates conflict news versus peace journalism. So this raises the question – how can peace journalism grow? 

To this end, the Media and Peacebuilding Project (MPP) at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, along with partners the Center for Global Peace Journalism and War Stories, Peace Stories  recently launched a six-part webinar series titled: “How to Grow Peace Journalism”, with experts on peace journalism and related fields from around the world. As one of the few publications focused exclusively on peace journalism, we thought it was important to highlight these events. 

Speakers and attendees included prominent voices from the field, many of whom have contributed to stories by Peace News. 

The first webinar focused on research into peace journalism, beginning with Professor Jake Lynch of the University of Sydney. He spoke about a paradox: peace journalism is motivated “largely by attempts to mobilize and liberate journalistic agency” on an individual level. This fails to address the systemic factors that drive the need for peace journalism in the first place. 

Lynch discussed a study where respondents around the world were shown news about conflict in a television format in both a “war journalism” and “peace journalism” context, which found that the version focused more on peace had positive impacts, including increasing feelings of hope. Lynch discussed the need to ensure that the benefits of peace journalism training last well beyond the trainings themselves.A study of articles in this publication found that stories focused on people, and those in local outlets, were more positively received by audiences.

Meagan Doll, a research fellow at the Center for Journalism, Media and Democracy at the University of Washington, spoke next. A former journalist, the bulk of her work deals with perceptions of news, conflict reporting, and media trust. Doll focused on audience perceptions of peace journalism, how it shapes journalistic practices, and what interdisciplinary success looks like. She found that peace journalism is viewed as more balanced and credible, can shape how conflict is seen, and its consumers tend to be more “hopeful and empathetic”. 

Doll discussed how journalists may have different perceptions of peace journalism depending on their own professional context. The profession would benefit from more case studies of successful practices, and many journalists generally tend to be open to peace journalism. Finally, she discussed the benefits that could result if peace journalism principles were applied systematically across a number of disciplines and industries. 

The final speaker was Ayesha Jehangir, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s Centre for Media Transition. She spoke about blind spots in peace journalism, beginning with a discussion on peace journalism as a deliberative practice. She spoke about how peace journalism reflects an open, democratic, deliberative process that can challenge “hegemonic” media practices. She then moved to speaking about the blind spots present in peace journalism, where there is often a focus on “rescuing” victims and an immediate solution, and not on the behavior of the interests driving the conflict. 

Jehangir spoke about  “victim-centric” and “perpetrator-centric” cosmopolitanism in peace journalism. The first focuses on finding an immediate solution to suffering, including military intervention or removal from the “place of suffering”. Perpetrator-centric cosmopolitanism reclaims “victimhood” and juxtaposes victims with the perpetrators of violence, with a focus on accountability and changing the behaviors that caused suffering in the first place, and aims to create a reflective and deliberative environment. 

The second webinar featured practitioners in the field of peace journalism. The first speaker, Vanessa Bassil, founded the Media Association for Peace, the first NGO to focus on peace journalism in Lebanon and the wider Middle East. As part of the first generation in Lebanon since the end of the civil war, she believes the media can play a role in sustaining peace in the country. She has led multiple workshops, trainings, and conferences through MAP, along with programs specifically designed to engage youth. Bassil spoke about the challenges and opportunities brought on by institutionalizing peace journalism. Legal status has raised the profile of MAP and peace journalism in Lebanon, provided structure, and opened the door to grants and international donors. MAP now offers internship and volunteer programs, which engage Lebanese youth and promote peace journalism. There are challenges, but Bassil believes these are far outweighed by the positive impacts of the work. 

The funding and attention MAP has received, and the way they have been able to convey this into effective work on the ground, demonstrates the growth potential of peace journalism. MAP has helped to train a new generation of peace journalists, and not just in Lebanon – Bassil mentioned a training for Yemeni journalists undertaken in partnership with UNESCO. As MAP demonstrates, the absence of peace journalism does not mean that there is no audience. One of the keys to growing peace journalism worldwide is the diversity of organizations engaging in the practice, and MAP serves as a prominent example of how new groups can quickly grow and begin doing meaningful work. 

Up next was a duo from War Stories Peace Stories, a peace journalism NGO based in the US. Jamil Simon, the group’s founder, spoke about how he believes that peacebuilding and the media are currently stuck in a negative cycle. The lack of reporting on peacebuilding efforts leads to a lack of awareness, impacting the resources and support given to peacebuilding initiatives, continuing the cycle. Simon wants the media to focus on peacebuilding, giving it visibility as a solution to conflicts. This would bring more support and resources, allowing for more support for peacebuilding. 

Simon discussed the upcoming Making Peace Visible International Symposium in 2025, in Washington, D.C., which will include a story competition in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center and awards for stories raising the visibility of peace. He laid out three main goals for the organization: to engage editors and journalists who cover peacebuilding, sponsor projects telling stories about peacebuilding, and sponsor the journalists working on those projects.

Andrea Muraskin then spoke about the strategies WSPS uses to grow the audience of their podcast, Making Peace Visible, is focused broadly on how the media covers peace and conflict, and is hosted by Simon. The general format includes interviews with journalists, peacebuilders, and researchers in related fields. She discussed a number of different tactics used to grow their audience, along with some specific projects, including one focused on Colombia after the landmark peace deal with the FARC. One common theme was the effectiveness of partnering with other organizations – a tactic that has been successful for Peace News as well. The peacebuilding community is large but the connections between groups are often under-utilized, partnerships have the potential to combine audiences and raise the profile of both organizations. From our own experience, partnerships directly drive engagement, whether as simple as reposting a link to a story or as involved as our ongoing project with the Alliance for Middle East Peace. 

The final speaker was Professor Steven Youngblood, moderator of the first webinar, founding director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University, and currently a Fulbright Scholar in Moldova. Youngblood spoke about the importance of bridge-building reporting. He spoke about a project in Turkey where young storytellers, Syrian refugees and Turks, created boundary crossing video projects examining  refugee issues from different perspectives. Younblood also discussed another bridge building project run with the East West Center in Honolulu. It brought together journalists from India and Pakistan. Journalists were paired up in bi-national teams to jointly produce stories offering a unique perspective. 

In a video, some of the participants in this project spoke about its value and the progress they believed it had brought. Youngblood mentioned similar projects in Uganda and Moldova, working across the “border” with Transnistria. In his closing remarks, he offered his own theory on how to grow peace journalism: through compelling, impactful, and thoughtful journalism.  The webinar series will continue each Wednesday until April 3, 2024, with upcoming webinars featured here and recordings of the past sessions can be found here.

Environmental defenders work to maintain the peacebuilding role of nature in Northern Uganda

By
Maria Andrea Nardi
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Image credit: Alobo Shalom

In recent years, there has been a ‘crackdown’ against environmental defenders across Uganda. Journalists, students, farmers, and rural dwellers are defending the natural environment, protesting and mobilizing against unfair treatment and forced displacements brought by fossil fuel infrastructures, agribusiness, hydropower, or carbon offsetting. This has pitted authorities and large-scale capital against environmental defenders who are seeking to protect the natural environment against profit-driven corporations that seek to expand the resource extraction frontier into new geographical areas. In this context, and fifteen years after the end of the armed conflict in Northern Uganda, we question whether peace can be sustainable in this region of the country. 

To fully comprehend current disputes over land or the defence of the natural environment, it is necessary to observe how nature is integrated into peacebuilding and development policies. This is because there is often a narrow understanding on how local communities integrate the natural environment in their everyday life. Three issues stand out in relation to the contributions nature can make to foster  sustainable peace and development in Northern Uganda beyond its role in income generation by resource exploitation. The natural environment is relevant for peace because it works as a (a) semiotic system, (b) public space, and (c) reconciliation means.

Nature as semiotic system

In Northern Uganda, once people left internal displaced camps and returned home after the war, evidence shows that tensions amongst families and clans arose due to decreasing access to land. One of the reasons for this relates to transformations in the natural environment, as the features in the landscape that used to serve as markers for territorial formations were removed.

The natural environment functions as a semiotic system, where elements like rivers, hills, and trees carry significant meanings for local communities. These features guide people in navigating their surroundings and staking claims to ownership. For instance, a mango tree at a crossroad or a stone by a pond may serve as markers to find one’s way home. In the absence of formal demarcation systems, customary tenure becomes crucial, and maintaining peace between families and communities often relying on these symbolic landscape markers.

Nature as a public space

In Uganda, trees in villages are important spaces for reunions. They provide shelter from the sun, people stay under their shade to cool down, to chat, to play, to read, to teach or study, and to discuss the future of the local community. Some tree species are even deemed sacred, and some, due to their size, shape, or location, are worshipped (such as the Nakayima tree in central Uganda).

Public space under a tree might serve as an arena for political participation, empowerment, social cohesion, and for community healing and reconciliation. For ecological and political reasons, ‘nature’ in villages and urban areas is highly relevant, as shown by the work currently done by environmental organisations in Northern Uganda. 

Nature as a means for reconciliation

The Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation signed in 2007 by the Government of Uganda and the Lord Resistance Army specified traditional rituals performed by local ethnic groups “to reconcile parties formally in conflict, after full accountability”. Mato Oput is one of such rituals: a reconciliation ceremony that takes place after someone is killed from a friendly clan. The name refers to the drinking of oput, a bitter drink prepared with smashed roots of the Oput tree and drunk at the pick of the ceremony. For some, “there is perhaps no single tree more vital in the great work of healing from the brutal civil war that has raged throughout Acholiland for over twenty years.” 

For the performance of this ceremony, which is the culmination of a long process of mediation, parts of the Oput trees and other natural elements are needed. The natural environment is necessary for local accountability and reconciliation, for healing and sustaining peace. Environmental defenders and cultural leaders are currently concerned about the alarming rate of logging of oput trees in Northern Uganda. 

Environmental defenders as peacebuilders

A narrow understanding and utilisation of nature that restricts people’s possibilities to relate to each other and their environment might exacerbate conflicts, either by marginalising certain knowledge or destroying the material base for peoples’ socio-ecological relationships.

Therefore, there is an urgency to revise what valorisations of nature are integrated into current peacebuilding and development policies in Uganda, and to support environmental defenders who are advocating for the inclusion of local understandings of nature in development strategies.

This Week in Peace #24: March 15, 2024

By
Peace News Staff
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Former Haitian PM Ariel Henry, who resigned this week. Image credit: Voice of America

Welcome back to This Week in Peace, our weekly summary of events in global peacebuilding. 

This week, we discuss positive developments in Bosnia, recent Turkish foreign policy moves and their implications for regional peace, and the ongoing crisis in Haiti. 

Despite challenges, Bosnia hopes for a better future

During and after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnia & Herzegovina was the scene of some of the worst atrocities seen in post-World War II Europe, until the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The nation still faces numerous challenges, including emigration and tension due to its unique government structure. However, this week saw a positive step forward. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, announced that the Commission officially recommends opening EU membership talks with Bosnia. While she did mention that the country is not currently fully aligned with the EU’s standards for members, and the bid for membership must be approved by the current members of the bloc, this is an important step forward towards further peace and European integration for Bosnia. Despite tensions with the pro-Russia leader of the Serb political entity within the country, Bosnia’s recovery is a victory for peace, considering how just three decades ago it was left devastated by civil war and widespread ethnic cleansing. EU membership would help to cement that recovery, and bring the benefits of membership in a bloc whose primary goal is to maintain peace among its members. EU membership would strengthen Bosnia’s democracy and economy, and help to ensure that peace lasts in the Balkans. 

Turkey’s uneven peace agenda 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to try to present himself as a peacemaker – as long as it’s within Turkey’s interests. This week, he offered to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, while hosting Zelensky. Erdogan has maintained ties with both states since Russia’s invasion, unlike the vast majority of its NATO allies. While he presented Turkey as a peacebuilder on the international stage, his foreign and defense ministers visited Iraq to discuss future cross-border offensives against Kurdish militants, including the PKK (recognized as a terrorist group by the US, Turkey, and other states). Turkey has previously launched attacks against Kurdish groups in Syria, and renewed military action could further destabilize the region and harm civilians.

He has also been a strong rhetorical supporter of the Palestinian cause, calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and the protection of civilians. At the same time, Turkey continues to occupy Northern Cyprus, and is the only nation which recognized the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”, which splits the island between the southern Greek-speaking majority and the Turkish minority. The UN Special Representative for Cyprus warned that a peace deal is more urgent than ever as the partition enters its 50th year. The Turkish-backed north has taken a hard line on negotiations, rejecting any solution other than full partition into separate states. There is some hope that a recent positive trend in relations between Turkey and Greece could translate into action on resolving the Cyprus issue, but this has yet to materialize. 

Click here for past PNN stories on Turkey and Cyprus. 

Haitian PM resigns with an uncertain outlook for peace

The chaos in Haiti has continued, despite the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Beginning last week, powerful and well-armed gangs have taken effective control of the capital of Port-au-Prince, displacing thousands and dangerously escalating violence. The country has been in a prolonged political crisis since the assassination of President Jovonel Moïse in 2021, Henry was unelected and unpopular, and the country no longer has any legitimate elected government. Following months of threats and political tension, the country’s most powerful gangs called for Henry’s resignation while he was out of the country, threatening a “civil war” if he refused to step down. The most powerful gangs, the most prominent led by former police officer Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, claim to be fighting on behalf of the Haitian people but are best known for indiscriminate violence and brutality. A transitional council has been set up to name interim leaders, but it is unclear whether the gangs will end the violence or accept the new leader. Kenya has postponed plans to lead a multinational peacekeeping force, which further threatens long-term peace in Haiti. The international community can play an important role in working for peace in Haiti, but must avoid the many mistakes of the past. 
We recently published an op-ed about the importance of trust to peacebuilding and humanitarian work in Haiti, which you can find here.

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