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When peace processes fail: Donbas and the Minsk agreements

By
Kristian Åtland
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On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. This unprovoked act of aggression has caused and continues to cause horrific scenes of death and destruction in Europe’s second-largest country. The war has also taken its toll on Russia, militarily as well as politically and economically. Encountering fierce resistance since day one, Russia has taken heavy casualties on the battlefield and will likely continue to do so for as long as the war goes on.

It is important to bear in mind that Ukraine has been at war with Russia for a lot longer than six months, in the Donbas. In April 2014, shortly after the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea, Russia supported an armed uprising in the east Ukrainian counties of Donetsk and Luhansk. This rapidly turned into a vicious war between Russian-backed separatist forces and Ukrainian government forces, causing more than 14,000 casualties in the subsequent eight years.

Since the start of the Donbas war in the spring of 2014, numerous efforts have been made to establish a viable ceasefire and a process toward political normalization. The intensity of the diplomatic efforts to end the war has varied over time, much like the intensity of the fighting itself. Following the signing in September 2014 of a 12-point ceasefire agreement, known as “the Minsk Protocol”, the level of violence gradually subsided, but only temporarily. In January 2015, the forces of the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk embarked on a new offensive. Heavy clashes followed and the number of civilian and military casualties surged. 

Again, the parties were brought to the negotiating table in Belarus. The Minsk summit in February 2015 culminated in the signing of a new package of measures aimed at revitalizing the first Minsk Protocol. The “Minsk II” agreement encompassed 13 articles, many of which were carryovers from the first Minsk agreement – ceasefire, heavy weapons withdrawal, monitoring and verification by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), release and exchange of illegally detained persons, pardon and amnesty for militants, disarmament and pullout of illegal/foreign armed formations, and measures to improve the humanitarian and economic situation in the region. Unlike Minsk I, Minsk II provided specific timeframes for the implementation of many of the agreed-upon measures.

However, as time went by, it became increasingly clear the Minsk agreements would never be implemented, not even partly. I wrote an article about this in Post-Soviet Affairs in January 2020, essentially arguing that the Minsk agreements were bound to fail. In order to get a better understanding of why and how the Minsk process failed, we need to consider factors such as the complex nature of the conflict, the vague and ambiguous language of the agreements, and practical challenges related to the timing and sequencing of the measures listed therein.

The Minsk negotiations were complicated by Ukraine and Russia’s widely diverging views of the conflict’s nature and causes, and of who should or should not be present at the table as parties. The Ukrainian government had, very reluctantly, accepted to conduct direct talks with the leaders of the “people’s republics”. Russia considered itself a third-party “mediator” on a par with Germany and France and was not willing to acknowledge any responsibility for the conflict as such or admit to the presence of Russian troops and arms on Ukrainian soil. Finding a mutually acceptable language under these circumstances was a tremendously difficult task.

The negotiators decided to opt for loose formulations that allowed for more than one interpretation. The Ukrainians saw the agreed-upon withdrawal of “all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries” (article 10 of Minsk II) as a reference to Russian regular troops and paramilitaries. The Russians, for their part, would take this formulation as a reference to Ukrainian government forces and volunteers. The vagueness and ambiguity of the language included in the Minsk agreements impeded and complicated its implementation. 

Another major obstacle concerns the issue of how to sequence the agreed-upon measures. When the Minsk agreements were signed, Russia’s preferred roadmap to peace would start with political measures such as the holding of local elections in the separatist/occupied areas and the adoption of a “special status” law, later to be enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution. Conversely, the Ukrainian side insisted on full implementation of the agreements’ military provisions (ceasefire, withdrawal of illegal forces, exchange of prisoners, and restoration of Ukrainian border control), before implementation of the political measures. Lack of clarity on the order of implementation undoubtedly contributed to the deadlock and ultimately the demise of the agreements.

As for lessons that may be learned from the unsuccessful diplomatic efforts to resolve the Donbas conflict by peaceful means, one of the most striking features of the Minsk process is the apparent tension between the short-term goal of stopping the fighting and the longer-term goal of finding a lasting political settlement. The use of ambiguous language may have served the first purpose, but it may simultaneously have undermined the second by allowing the parties to believe that they were owed things that were, objectively speaking, incompatible.

Given the generally pro-Russian terms of the Minsk agreements, it is tempting to ask how Kyiv could agree to them in the first place. The answer to this question seems to be that Ukraine in February 2015 had no good alternatives to a negotiated political settlement. The most realistic alternative at that point in time would have been a large-scale war with what appeared to be a militarily superior counterpart. Since then, Ukraine has undertaken a comprehensive military modernization, with the support of Western partners. This may have had an impact on Ukraine’s willingness to compromise and make territorial concessions to Russia.

Today, six months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the prospects of a “Minsk-type” settlement appear more remote than ever. First, the idea of trading territory for peace enjoys little or no support in Ukraine. Second, the failure of the Minsk process has rendered many Ukrainians skeptical about French- and German-led diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. And third, the Ukrainian military has been able to stall many of Russia’s territorial advances and mount successful counterattacks on a number of fronts.

While continuing to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself, the West should continue to put pressure on Russia to end the war. The West is not in a position to tell Ukraine when and how to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Russia, or on what terms. This decision rests entirely with the Ukrainian people and its leaders. But Ukraine’s Western partners should stand ready to facilitate negotiations if and when Ukraine determines the time is right.

Rerouting Europe-bound refugees to the Global South ignores their human rights

By
Mathias Hatleskog Tjønn and Ayse Bala Akal
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On 10 September 2019, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), African Union and Rwandan government signed an agreement to transfer and host European-bound African refugees that were held at detention centres in Libya to emergency detention centres in Rwanda. Under this agreement, the parties pledged to facilitate the relocation of up to 500 people at any given time. Although both praised and criticized by the international community, this EU – Rwanda cooperation mechanism (Emergency Transit Mechanism Rwanda) might be indicative of a precarious trend of “externalization”, which is an effort to push the global migration crisis away from European borders and consequently out of public consciousness. Critics also argue that this is a violation of the refugees human rights. 

The current humanitarian tragedy taking place in Libya is partially caused by the 2017 Valletta Memorandum between Italy and Libya (renewed in 2020), supported and in part financed by the EU. This agreement facilitates the interception of migrant boats by the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG), with the end goal of keeping refugees from reaching Europe. According to the recent UNHCR figures, so far this year, a total of 25,823 refugees have been intercepted during their journey to cross the Mediterranean Sea by the LCG under this EU-funded scheme. The intercepted refugees were transferred to detention centres in Libya which are notoriously plagued by egregious human rights violations, the extent of which continues to be revealed by numerous UNHCR, NGO, and watchdog reports. Despite the current fragile ceasefire, Libya has been at civil war since 2011 and is by no means a safe disembarkation port for refugees, as evidenced by a 2019 airstrike that resulted in the death of scores of migrants in a Tripoli detention centre. A UN OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) report as recent as 12 October 2021, has reinstated the precarious conditions of refugees in Libya as they continue to be “criminalized solely for their migration status, routinely detained in abhorrent conditions, and are frequently subjected to torture.”

At first glance, the cooperation scheme between Rwanda and the EU may appear and operate as a path of instant relief and protection for a handful of evacuees who have been stuck in limbo along with approximately 42,000 other refugees and asylum seekers registered in the country. However, there is reason to believe that this new scheme might be emblematic of the proliferation of a wider EU policy. 

This trend, which is commonly described as “externalization” within the literature, is constituted by policies aiming to shift the responsibility of protecting refugees to third countries, most often, to countries in the Global South and/or non-EU countries.  It is already possible to see the formation of such policies within other European countries, blueprints of which were provided by Australia`s highly controversial third country detention regime known as the Pacific Solution. In June 2021, the Danish Parliament passed a bill enabling the government to transfer asylum seekers to detention centres in third countries.In the UK, the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was announced on 16 April, with the goal of transporting  so-called “irregular” UK migrant arrivals to Rwanda for asylum processing and resettlement. However, after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) the first flight was grounded, leaving the future of the UK-Rwanda partnership unclear. 

During a 2019 visit to the Rwanda emergency centre, the Norwegian Minister of Justice and Immigration Jøran Kallmyr reiterated Norway`s commitment to aiding Rwanda in solving “African problems on African soil”, severely mislabeling the tragedy taking place in the Mediterranean as an “African problem.” 

It is highly troubling to see the proliferation of this rhetoric under the guise of cooperation agreements that can shift into a wider covert externalization policy, providing a stepping stone that will enable Europe to push this humanitarian tragedy “out of sight and out of mind.” There are potentially dire consequences to externalizing European migration policies. Aside from violations of fundamental human rights such as the right to seek asylum, the accountability for such violations will also be outsourced to third countries and consequently muddied and diminished. The unequal burdening of these third countries will therefore only exasperate the egregious human rights violations already taking place. Instead, the EU and European countries would do well in rather engaging in investment, peacebuilding and diplomacy, to try to ameliorate the conflict and instability that often is at the root of migrants leaving their countries of origin in the first place.

Top 10 Most Peaceful Countries (2022)

By
John Simms and Tia Savarese
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Global Peace Index (GPI) is a report produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) which measures the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. Here’s a top 10 countdown of the world’s most peaceful countries according to the 2022 GPI report.

Land Reform and Peacebuilding in Côte d’Ivoire: Strange Bedfellows?

By
Matthew Mitchell
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Côte d'Ivoire, Tortiya: Panning for gold. Miners often have to wade in stagnent water for hours to clean and sift gravel in search of diamonds and gold. Photo credit: Sandra Coburn

Land reform can be a complex, costly and conflictual process in countries throughout the Global South. The land reform process itself can be varied and involve a range of initiatives such as colonization programs on public lands, land registration, the consolidation of fragmented holdings, improvements to tenancy, and land taxation and redistribution. Though often seen as critical for promoting economic development, land reform is a deeply political process. Considering the symbolic and material significance of land to the hundreds of millions of rural inhabitants in the Global South, the stakes involved in agrarian reform are often high and the process is sometimes politically explosive. As the case of Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa reveals, land reform can indeed contribute to both fueling and resolving violent conflict.

The politics around land reform are particularly notable in the context of post-conflict societies. Faced with the pressure to deal with the root causes of conflict, many peacebuilding campaigns must navigate the challenges of tackling land reform in a politically volatile environment. This can require a delicate balancing act. While the failure to resolve the land-related sources of a conflict can contribute to prolonging tensions and prevent the bridging of societal divides, aggressive attempts to promote agrarian reform can fan the flames of unresolved conflicts. This is precisely the case in countries like Rwanda and South Sudan, which have both attempted to implement land reforms in the wake of brutal episodes of violent conflict.

Despite the relative dearth of research on the land reform-peacebuilding nexus, there is evidence that land reform can indeed be a potential remedy for unrest. Through the implementation of comprehensive and wide-reaching reforms, land reform can dampen subsequent conflict in conflict-wracked regions. As a recent study on late twentieth-century conflict in Peru concludes, areas that experienced more intense land reforms experienced less conflict. Finally, quantitative work reveals that the inclusion of land reform provisions in post-war peace processes has been shown to dramatically reduce the likelihood of renewed conflict. 

Yet research simultaneously reveals that the road to conflict can also be paved with good (land reform) intentions. For example, when reforms only target a limited number of groups this can lead to open protests and even fuel insurgencies given the antagonism this can engender between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The decline in peasants’ earnings and the prospect of a surge of landlessness can breed disgruntled populations and fuel socialist revolutions and violent rebellions. Finally, land reforms have been used in partisan and starkly redistributive ways, which has generated heated debates around citizenship and belonging in many communities. This raises the question: how should land reform be approached in politically divided post-conflict contexts characterized by a state of fragile peace?

Côte d’Ivoire, Tortiya: Rehabilitated diamond mines turned into vegetable gardens for the local women’s cooperative. Photo credit: Sandra Coburn

In a recent study, I consider this question by examining the case of Côte d’Ivoire. Once a beacon of economic and political stability, Côte d’Ivoire descended into violent conflict in the early 2000s. Following a ten-year period of ‘neither war nor peace’, a post-electoral crisis in 2010-2011 led to the death of over 3,000 people and the displacement of thousands. 

Although land grievances have been widely recognized as a major contributing cause of the protracted conflict, the Ivorian government and international actors such as the United Nations largely sidestepped the question of land reform in the early years of the post-conflict period. As my research argues, the case of Côte d’Ivoire highlights a central feature of the land reform-peacebuilding paradox: while the failure to address the agrarian dimensions of longstanding conflict undermines prospects for long-term peace, the privileging of land reform in the wake of the post-electoral violence may have threatened the fragile peace and wider attempts to promote peacebuilding.

How, then, might diverse stakeholders navigate the potential minefield of land reform in their attempts to promote peacebuilding? While drawing upon the case of Côte d’Ivoire, I provide four recommendations for improving the prospects for peace through land reform.

First, relevant actors must strive to promote greater public awareness about existing land laws and proposed land reforms. Education campaigns, for example, can go a long way to preventing spoilers from mobilizing land grievances for divisive purposes and ultimately undermining peacebuilding efforts. This has already been flagged as a key strategy for implementing existing land law and improving future land policies in Côte d’Ivoire.

Second, land reforms must be simplified, and revised land policies rendered financially feasible for local populations. Whereas costly and complex land policies can thwart progress in the governance of land, affordable and minimally bureaucratic land tenure policies that are user-friendly are more likely to generate positive outcomes. The World Bank-funded project to improve and implement land reform in Côte d’Ivoire could indeed help to simplify and reduce the financial burden associated with proposed reforms. 

Third, despite the seeming urgency to push for land reform, this process should not be done in a hasty manner. Instead, stakeholders need to balance the urgency of reforms with financial, temporal, and political constraints. In short, land reform may be navigated better over la longue durée than overnight. While time will tell if agrarian reforms will increase or decrease political stability and peace in Côte d’Ivoire, elites cannot sidestep the land question indefinitely.

Finally, for meaningful reconciliation and sustainable peacebuilding to occur, the reform process must be inclusive, involve diverse representation, and solicit widespread consultation and debate. As one expert notes in regards to the reform process in Côte d’Ivoire, “any changes to the Rural Land Law should be made through an inclusive popular consultation process.” While there is a clear role here for the state, affected local populations must also play a prominent role in driving the reform agenda and process. By truly recognizing the agency and wisdom of local populations, actors may just avoid the potential minefield of land reform in the peacebuilding process. 

Global peacefulness declines in 2022

By
Tia Savarese
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Global peace deteriorated by 3% in the last year according to the 2022 Global Peace Index (GPI), marking the lowest level of peace since the inception of the index in 2008. 

The GPI was developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), an independent non-profit think tank. The index measures 163 countries and covers 99.7% of the world’s population. It utilizes 23 indicators that measure areas of safety and security, ongoing domestic and international conflict, and militarization. Of these 23 indicators, 13 deteriorated and only 10 improved in 2022. This data reveals the impacts of the recent war in Ukraine and countries’ efforts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 2022 Index was recorded in March, obtaining data from just after one month of the war in Ukraine. This data had significant impacts on the index’s findings. Russia and Eurasia found the largest regional deterioration in peace, followed by North America. The largest deteriorations in the 23 indicators were found in areas of political instability and terror, refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), and relations with neighboring countries. According to Michael Collins, executive director of the IEP, these results can be attributed to an overall global deterioration of measures of resilience, increases in corruption and political fractionalization, in addition to the impacts of the war in Ukraine. 

According to the report, the current war in Ukraine has “already triggered fundamental changes in defense postures and policies, supply chains, and food security.” NATO countries pledged to increase defense spending, international sanctions pressured exports and consequently impacted food insecurity in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, and changing utilization of social media and intelligence are changing warfare. 

Other major trends noted in the 2022 report include increased violent demonstrations and rising inequality. Of all the index’s indicators, violent demonstrations marked the largest deterioration since 2008, having worsened by 49% in the past 14 years. On the other hand, indicators including “terrorism impact, nuclear and heavy weapons, deaths from internal conflict, military expenditure, incarceration rates, and perceptions of criminality” found substantial improvements. Militarization is the only GPI measurement that has improved in the past decade, with a declining record of military spending and nuclear and heavy weapons around the globe, although this measurement is set to deteriorate following the war in Ukraine.

At a recent discussion organized by the Alliance for Peacebuilding to mark the release of the 2022 report, a number of experts gathered to share their insights.

Michael Collins from IEP pointed out that there is a correlation between the level of terrorism and large-scale conflict. He recommends the United States reconsider its involvement in conflict zones, based on previous U.S. involvement and large-scale counterterrorism efforts in countries such as Afghanistan. “Counterterrorism efforts… its effects are very temporary. These broader efforts to counter violent extremism, more sustainable ones, more holistic ones, more community-driven ones… are our key to success in that particular area.”

Prabha Sankaranarayan, CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders, agreed with this point. “We have to get our heads out of militaristic security sector spending and the idea that if you want peace, prepare for war. We have got to give up these old axioms because we have to shift into 21st-century peacebuilding practices.”

Mike Jobbins from Search for Common Ground added that if the U.S. invested “half of 1% of its defense budget” it could be used for supporting local peacebuilding measures and increasing communal agency.  He argued that the U.S. should “adopt a more holistic approach to what drives security and who is a security actor.”

Although this year’s results are pessimistic, peace experts maintain the importance of remaining optimistic about the GPI indicators that actually did improve, and for future opportunities for peacebuilding.

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