Violence Prevention Articles & Essays

It took a long time for the Canadian government to realize that state failure is a problem. State failure is nothing new. There have been many occasions historically where states have failed following on the collapse of empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today most states that are weak or failed or collapsed are so because they are fairly new and they have not had the opportunity to develop effective political, economic and social institutions.

State failure is now in the news largely because it is considered to be a security and not just a developmental issue. To put state failure on the radar screen you have to convince people that their security may be affected. That's not easy to do. We Canadians tend to feel we are isolated from the world's problems. Nevertheless, when our neighbour to the south decides that this is something important, we usually go along with them. Not always. But we have been active with working in partnership with our allies on these issues for the last 10 years on peace support missions, in the Middle East and in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan.

Canada needs to figure out which failed states are of importance to us.. We could say all of them matter, but they matter for different reasons. It is going to take lengthy discussion between academics, NGOs and the policy community to set out a list of priority countries. The Canadian government has already produced a list of countries but there only a few failed states on it among the 50 or so potential candidates.

To be sure, there will always be situations that will require more than just Canadian efforts. On other occasions there will be situations, a relatively small country for example or an island state, where Canada could have a significant impact by taking the lead or even acting on its own. For example, the collapse of Nigeria or North Korea would be overwhelming. Both would produce significant regional problems. For a medium-sized country like Canada, we have to look at our engagement in these kinds of situations in terms of our own effectiveness. Given that we will be part of a team working together, our contribution may amount to less than 5 percent of the total.

It may be that in a situations of lesser salience, Canada could be more effective. There are fewer things to do and the problems may be less overwhelming. So it is not an easy choice. Can we risk ignoring a small country's collapse, knowing that we might be pretty effective in doing something about its problems? For example, in Haiti, the mistake we made in the early 1990s was pulling out too quickly. Had we stayed the course, we would not have seen a recurrence of that country's problems. The lesson there is that in a small country one can be fairly effective, but you do need to stay the course.

Similarly, what we are watching unfold in Sudan right now is a very anxious moment, to say the least, because there is a great deal of hope that the African Union will be able to develop its own conflict prevention and management capacity to address the problems in Sudan and elsewhere on the continent. But what is anxious about it, is that we are not absolutely certain that the outcome will be a positive one. There is partly the obligation to contribute to the African Union's capacity, and Canada is doing that with a fair amount of aid that is being distributed to both Sudan and the African Union. But we have to wait on the "sidelines", while people are being killed. For those who monitor human rights abuses, this is simply not appropriate.

In general terms, there is now an almost unshakable belief that regional organizations should take more of a leading role in addressing security problems including state failure. It is easy to say that NATO is probably the most effective military organization and has experience in dealing with these issues in the past and should take on some role, for example, in Sudan. But what is the long-term sustainability of that process, and how will that be perceived by those within Africa, who historically have experienced outside interference far too often? Unfortunately, the UN has not come out looking very good after many of the recommendations in the High Level Panel were rejected , so there will continue to be increasing support for regional solutions to regional problems.

One could argue that integrating states into global, regional or local institutional frameworks is in itself a preventive measure. However, it may be premature to draw a conclusion as to whether these kinds of conflict prevention mechanisms work. These are long-term efforts, and it is sometimes in the range of 15-20 years before we have any degree of certainty about whether they have been successful. For example, we don't have a precise methodology yet, that would allow us to firmly conclude that shoring up human security in weak states is actually going to lead to long-term prevention. We would like to think it does, and we need to develop tools to allow us to evaluate that impact.

For the Canadian government there is a real challenge ahead. It is difficult to convey the long-term consequences and risks associated with failing to act at the earliest stages. But if the Canadian government is going to talk about state failure in the context of prevention, then we do need to think strategically and we do need to identify both the risks and the rewards of acting in a preventive way. Canadians need to understand that it is in their interest to do so.

David Carment is Professor of International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa and a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. You can access research and interviews of Professor Carment on the issue of State Failure here: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/cip-pic/current_discussions/...

As a young man, I read Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. I was struck with how much the actions of leaders then, as they led their people into bloody conflicts, resembled those of modern heads of state. The obvious conclusion was that in the last 2500 years, man has learned essentially nothing about how to avoid the tendency of groups undertaking to kill each other in a never-ending quest for power and status. The fact that millions of people have been killed by other people, and that the killing persists has never stopped bothering me.

In a world of accomplishments unimaginable in Thucydides’ day in many other fields, this lack of progress in political science is hard to understand. The amount of resources dedicated to finding new and more destructive ways of killing each other and the things we have built is shocking! While much, much less, the resources devoted to achieving a peaceful world are very large – surely large enough to achieve more than has been accomplished. I find it impossible to believe that man is not capable of reducing the extent to which people organize to kill each other. This thought has been with me for decades, during which my primary attention was directed to other things.

Early in 2001, about the time of my 75^th birthday, I found that I had enough time and money to attempt to try to contribute to ameliorating this sad state of affairs. Against the advice of my wife and close friends, who believed that progress in this field was not possible, I embarked on a mission to see what I could contribute to a reduction of organized violence in the world. I, too, was skeptical about whether one person with limited means could have any real impact on a problem as old as humanity. However, I reasoned that if I did nothing, I certainly would accomplish nothing. So, I plunged into what has been a most interesting and exciting activity.

Prior to 2001, almost the only knowledge I had of political science was what I had gathered from the popular news media. I had never taken a single academic course on the subject. Clearly, if I hoped to make a contribution in this field, I would have to learn something about it.

I immediately started a self-education program. From the beginning, professionals in the field were most helpful. People such as Mary Anderson of Collaborative Action, Kennette Benedict of the McArthur Foundation, Karen Colvard of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Mari FitzDuff of Brandeis University, Necla Tschirgi of the International Peace Academy introduced me to colleagues, invited me to meetings, recommended books, and provided valuable advice. Within 5 years, I had read well over 100 books on the subject, attended many meetings, joined organizations, became acquainted with a great many people in the field, and sponsored different kinds of projects.

My primary vocational back ground was in industrial management. I had been president or chairman of several small corporations and had taught business part time at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and at Northeastern University. I came from a world in which leaders ask themselves each morning, “What can I do today to achieve better results?”

I found that the world of political science is strikingly different. There is an enormous amount written about organized violence, but little that is likely to lead to effective action. Almost all of what I read was either descriptive of what existed, or dealt with what could or should be done, but with no attention whatsoever to what might motivate whom to respond to the recommendations. The more I read, the more I became impatient with the use of the passive voice and the absence of concrete plans to act to prevent violence. The authors seemed not to realize that to influence actual events, they needed to present a plan specifying who was to do what, when and why. They seemed to assume that if they had a good idea, someone, somewhere would read about it and find a way to implement it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often.

My first thought had been that by sponsoring research work on the causes of, and possible cures for, organized violence, I could contribute to reducing organized violence. I did in fact sponsor some research projects. However, while more knowledge is always potentially useful, much of the research I read about seemed to have very little chance of becoming practically useful. For example, I couldn’t see how research into what sort of childhood experiences brutal dictators had had could be applied to reducing organized violence, interesting though it may be. Moreover, I became convinced that in this field, lack of knowledge is not the main problem. It appeared that enough knowledge and skills needed to reduce violence were already available, but that society was not organized to use them effectively. Therefore, I abandoned my thoughts of funding more research, and turned my attention to the challenge of promoting practical actions that could be expected to contribute more directly to reducing violence.

To help identify actions I could take that would offer a reasonable chance of reducing violence, I organized small meetings of leading professionals to discuss what might usefully be done. I sponsored a contest run by Columbia University for papers on practical steps that would reduce violence. My involvement in the research projects already mentioned also contributed to my knowledge of the field, and thus to acquiring some ability to judge what could be effective.

In the late ‘90s, The Carnegie Corporation sponsored a blue ribbon commission on the prevention of deadly conflict. Its Report was excellent, except, like so many others, it didn’t go so far as to present a plan of action. Recently, one of the distinguished commissioners wrote to me that so far as he was aware, the  activity, which had cost millions, had had no real effect “whatever”. For all of the millions it cost, and for all of the talent that went into the work, the project never got down to developing plans of action that would lead to practical results.

In addition to the report, the commission sponsored the writing of a number of books on the subject. Two of them, The Costs of Conflict and The Price of Peace, helped to convince me that prevention is much more cost-effective than dealing with violence after it has erupted, to say nothing of the deaths and suffering caused by war. So I began focusing on the question of how I could contribute to preventing violence.

Not only do adequate knowledge and skills already exist for addressing successfully the potential for violence, but there is no shortage of other resources needed to get the job done. The amount of money and effort devoted to “the peace movement” is enormous. I have been greatly impressed with the number of highly intelligent, energetic and dedicated professionals that there are in the field. But I was also struck with the disastrous lack of organization that is impeding the achievement of practical results.

Literally thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are devoted to actions addressing one segment or another of what could be an integrated program to prevent violence, including conflict resolution, mediation, education for peace, arms control, security, the reduction of the poverty that can lead to violence, better governance, and others. But there is little coordination of their activities, no setting of priorities, and no integration.

NGOs vigorously compete with each other for funding at the same set of potential donors. Many are committed to a particular approach and refuse to support alternatives. In their competition for funds, they flock to places in the news, places in which violence has already broken out. As a senior official in one large donor organization told me, there is no chance of getting the directors of a foundation to appropriate money to support a long-term project at a place no one ever heard of, where the objective was no noticeable result (no violence).

The obvious sources of potential preventive action would seem to be the UN and the US. Except for the UN peacekeeping activities, which have been initiated only after violence has occurred, neither has been effective in preventing violence. Political considerations and constraints seem to prevent either organization from mobilizing its resources to prevent violence before it has occurred. The world has been appalled as these organizations have failed to act while thousands have been slaughtered in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and many other places.

One approach to prevention has been recommended by a number of professional authors, but, until recently, had never been tried. It involves identifying a vulnerable place well ahead of actual widespread violence, working with local leadership to determine what is required, obtaining the needed help from the most appropriate sources, and continuing the program for however many years are needed to develop a sufficiently stable situation that violence becomes highly unlikely.

One of the groups I had formed, called “The Reducing Political Violence Action Group”, came up with a plan which I proceeded to fund. It was to select an appropriate place to initiate a “test case” to demonstrate what could be achieved using the approach just mentioned to prevent violence. It developed criteria for selecting the place and commissioned Carleton University to gather data and to make recommendations. Based on their work, it selected Guinea-Bissau in West Africa for the project, which we called the “International Peace and Prosperity Project” (IPPP). The country was desperately poor, the government was weak, and violence was widely expected to erupt. It had the advantage of being unknown to most, so that there was almost no activity there by NGOs, so that IPPP could expect its influence to be felt.

Two of the members of the group, whom I had come to know and respect, agreed to lead the project. Ben Hoffman, who had had considerable field experience with The Carter Center, and Michael Lund, an international authority on violence prevention, agreed to lead the project.  Dr. Hoffman is the Project Manager, while Dr. Lund serves as Technical Advisor.

The first visit of the project team to Guinea-Bissau was scheduled for August, 2004.  In the process of arranging for introductions there, we became aware that August was in the middle of the rainy season, and that many of the people we wanted to meet would not be there then, so the trip was postponed until October. Then, shortly before the group was to leave, a group of soldiers mutinied, took the head of the army hostage, and then killed him. We considered canceling the trip, but since more violence did not break out immediately, and people who knew the country thought that it would be safe, the team went anyway, and met no violence. An IPPP team has visited there repeatedly since then.

Originally, we considered establishing a continuing presence in Bissau, the capitol, which I planned to fund. After visiting a couple of times, however, Dr. Hoffman decided that having an IPPP office there would detract from the basic idea of leadership by local people, so we decided not to do so. The IPPP role was to encourage local people to solve their problems themselves, with our acting as a sort of catalyst, and helping to obtain whatever assistance they needed from the best available sources.

The new head of the army, General Tagme, felt that the proper role of the army was to stay out of politics, and instead, to support civilian government. We encouraged him to pursue that policy, and he has done so. We have responded to his request for expert advice by bringing in capable retired senior military officers from other countries, which he has appreciated. In recent months, when violence threatened, he has steadfastly held to his policies, has supported the civilian government, and has helped to maintain the peace.

In April, IPPP arranged a meeting of the heads of most of the civil society organizations of the country to help get a consensus as to how we could be most helpful. At the meeting, the group decided to form a task force, and elected one of the group, a remarkable woman named Macaria Barai, as chairperson. Since an upcoming national election was widely expected to trigger violence, they decided that their first priority would be to work for an orderly, peaceful election. IPPP provided encouragement and modest financial support. The task force drew up a “code of conduct” for the candidates to sign, in which they agreed to refrain from the kinds of words and actions that might provoke violence. It launched a campaign to promote an orderly election, including radio ads, banners, T-shirts, and, of course, enlisting the help of their organizations across the country. It also had the support of the army.

The election was held in June, 2005. Over 85% of the eligible voters turned out. Surprising those who know the situation, the election was a success. Because none of the candidates won a majority, a run-off between the top two vote-getters, held in July, was also orderly. The new president was inaugurated on October 1.

I went with the project team to Guinea-Bissau for the first time in June of 2005. I was impressed both by the ability, cooperation, and determination of the local people and with how little they have to work with. A war in 1998-9 destroyed 80 % of the already tiny economy, so the country is desperately poor. But, if violence can be averted, it appears that there are many opportunities for economic development that can be exploited with relatively little investment. While poverty, corruption, tribalism, and governmental weakness continue to make the situation vulnerable, the stage is now set for the various actors to work together with continuing help from IPPP to build a peaceful and more prosperous country.

Regardless of what transpires in Guinea-Bissau in the future, what I saw on my trip there convinces me that the approach being used there is sound and much more cost-effective than massive inputs of money and people trying to tell local people what to do. It was designed as a demonstration project and the experience there will help others design more effective violence prevention projects in other places. The continuing IPPP story is to be reported and disseminated widely for that purpose. While I am continuing to fund the project alone, it will soon outgrow my ability to do so, so Dr. Hoffman is actively seeking other sources of support. IPPP is so promising that I hope very much that he is successful.

In my reading, I became aware that in many places, local people, faced with the prospect of violence, had found ways, suited to the local situation, to avoid it. Many of these actions involved very little money, and thus were very cost-effective. I contacted the American Friends’ Service Committee (Quaker) and Pax Christi (Roman Catholic) and offered to support such efforts as they could recommend. Through these organizations, I have funded local projects in South America and in Africa. Both organizations are aware of my interest in funding additional projects that they can recommend, based on their knowledge of the local situations and people.

Because lack of integration and cooperation among those working for peace is such a serious problem, I was drawn to the idea of getting a group of international organizations and experts together to plan joint actions they would commit to implement together. I found that the then executive director of the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution, Bill Stuebner, shared my view, so we set about arranging such a meeting. Bill got into contact with the Belfast Local Strategy Partnership, which agreed to share the expense with me, even though the subject was to be violence prevention world-wide, with no special focus on Northern Ireland. By the end of the first three-day meeting held in Belfast in December, 2004, the participants had formed several committees to pursue projects that seemed likely to help in the prevention of inter-group violence. At the next meeting, in May 2005, also in Belfast, the participants decided to form an organization called the International Conflict Prevention Consortium (ICPC) to continue the work. Dan Smith of International Alert and Liam Maskey of Intercomm were elected as co-chairs.

ICPC projects in progress or under consideration include:

• The Consortium is considering how best to collect and to disseminate early warning information from the best sources.
  
• Members are seeking ways to link effective responses to early warnings.
  
• Member organizations are planning a collaborative project to help another fragile state, Guinea, to avoid potential violence.
  
• The Consortium is exploring the possibility of developing a regional West African prevention program.
  
• The Consortium is exploring the possibility of developing a regional West African prevention program, in which IPPP and the collaborative initiative in Guinea may represent the first examples.
  
• Members are seeking donors to fund these initiatives and to promote more collaboration among actors.
  

I am continuing to provide funding to ICPC because it represents so much potential for improving the effectiveness of violence prevention activities.

Still another activity to which I contributed some seed money is very promising. Arguably, the most successful violence prevention program the world has ever seen was the work done by Max van der Stoel as High Commissioner on National Minorities in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He contributed directly to preventing impending violence in the Baltic states, Macedonia, Moldova, and elsewhere. Based on that success, he and his former chief of staff, John Packer, are encouraging other regional multinational organizations to establish similar offices to prevent violence in their regions. I was so impressed with this idea that I and a Japanese friend funded the first two interns in regional organizations to help get the project started.

One of the reasons I have chosen the projects that I am funding is that unlike many other initiatives, these are likely to “do no harm”, to use the title of Mary Anderson’s book. In many cases, gifts intended to provide humanitarian aid have been diverted either to line the pockets of corrupt politicians or, worse still, to fund violence. When large quantities of food are shipped into a country, prices sometimes fall so low that local farmers abandon their farms, no longer able to make a living. When large organizations come into a poor country, they hire many of the ablest of the local people, denuding government and the economy of their most important resource. Foreign aid can support a whole new “industry”, thus providing local governments and business people an incentive to prolong the problems that occasioned the influx of so much money. The book “The Road to Hell” and others I have read present many actual case studies of the harm done by many well-meaning projects. More modest initiatives, led by responsible local people, can avoid such unintended consequences.

My venture into a world with which I was hardly aware until 5 years ago has been interesting, exciting, and rewarding. In the beginning, I couldn’t believe that one individual with a limited budget could have any real impact in an effort in which man has made so little progress over the centuries. However, as I got better acquainted with the field and the people in it, I became convinced that the effort I was making could produce a worthwhile result. The demonstration project in Guinea-Bissau promises to encourage others to pursue a more effective approach to helping fragile countries avert disaster and rebuild. ICPC, with its new leadership, is pursuing initiatives which have the potential to make an important improvement in violence prevention activities. Similarly, the effort to establish violence prevention offices in regional multinational organizations will save many lives even if only partially as successful as the one in OSCE.

At a meeting in New York, I happened to meet one of the “Indigenous Guards” I had helped to fund in Colombia through AFSC. Hearing directly from him what they had been doing to protect themselves, successfully and non-violently, also helped to make me feel that the effort was worth all I have put into it. It is now clearer to me than in the beginning why I am funding violence prevention activities.

It is no longer “still the same old story”. Recent studies have produced convincing data indicating that the number and intensity of violent situations has declined sharply since the early ‘90s. Clearly, this at least partially reflects preventive actions that have been taken, including some of those mentioned above. This gives me hope that in fact, man can reduce the extent to which groups of people set about savaging their fellow men. It gives me hope that what I have been doing is not foolish, but that it can actually contribute to saving lives and suffering of fellow human beings. What could be more exciting and satisfying?

Milt Lauenstein
October 22, 2005
 

Recently, Martin Griffiths has written an excellent paper on UN mediation, stressing the importance of the maverick qualities that are inherent, in his estimation, in effective mediators*. As someone who has mediated at the Track I level, working to reach and implement peace accords, I agree with Griffiths. Low-powered, neutral mediation and a lack of creativity and drive will not get the job done. And I have now come to recognize the importance of these maverick qualities as they apply to the prevention of violence in the first place. Indeed, there is a need for the “peace guerilla” in violence prevention.

What is a “peace guerilla”? And why are they needed? Let me explain.

With private funding from Mr. Milt Lauenstein, a number of senior practitioners in conflict resolution and peacebuilding have been working to prevent armed violence in Guinea-Bissau. This small West African country was selected by Dr. David Carment and colleagues at Carleton University, Ottawa, as a country in which we could demonstrate the strengths (and weaknesses) of a prevention initiative that applies lessons learned and best practices. Guinea-Bissau would be a “test case” for prevention that is early, holistic, vertically and horizontally integrated, and sustained; but especially, our effort would identify local leadership and we would work primarily as a catalyst to identify needs and mobilize resources on the basis of sound analysis of the forms and causes of violence.

Nine months into a dynamic, new violence prevention intervention, a team of five of us recently visited Guinea-Bissau on the eve of its highly contested, potentially violent presidential election. Mr. Lauenstein came along to see what we were doing with his investment in prevention, and the professionals involved on this mission were Dr. Michael Lund (USA), retired Brigadier Vere Hayes (UK), Mr. Jeff Mapendere (USA), and myself. We were accompanied by a two-person documentary film crew that had begun some months earlier to follow my work in peacebuilding, with a particular focus on reconciliation.

Just prior to lift-off from Canada to France, where all seven of us would meet en route to Dakar and then Bissau, I was struggling with how we could describe to the film crew what we were actually doing in Guinea-Bissau. What made it different or even unique as a violence prevention initiative? What was our goal? What was our modus operandi?”

Now, the original model we had adopted, based on a solid review of lessons learned and guided by Michael Lund, was to engage all the key stakeholders in a facilitated joint diagnostic of the conflicts in the country and to jointly design a plan to prevent violence and build sustainable peace. This approach in itself was not new, perhaps, as there is a strong history of efforts at multi-stakeholder, multi-issue consensus building; and a good number of peacebuilding efforts have been trying to improve the coordination of action.

But our approach would try to overcome the shortcomings of other efforts, along these lines: we would not offer a particular service and get caught in the “mandate trap” that so many other NGOs and UN agencies do; we would not prescribe but elicit solutions; we would not establish a country office but support local actors to take leadership; we would not focus on one sector, or even on those sectors commonly associated with peace and development, while ignoring others, especially the security sector and elite actors whose machinations were whip lashing the country from violent pillar to violent post; and we would advocate for peace, lobbying at the regional and international levels in New York , Washington and wherever needed. The idea was to be active across all sectors, facilitating horizontal integration; and to likewise be active from the community level through local NGOs to the executive offices of the World Bank and other relevant institutions, seeking vertical integration.

But, as with so many best intentions and theoretically sound designs, reality on the ground dictated modification. And these modifications would be needed immediately.

The head of the armed forces had been assassinated in October, 2004, just prior to our first “scouting mission’ to the country to confirm Dr. Carment’s selection of Guinea-Bissau. And with that assassination and the upcoming presidential election, we had to move to a crisis management mode rather than have the audacity to try to impose our joint diagnostic multi-stakeholder process on the country. People who knew Guinea-Bissau, external actors from UN agencies and donor embassies, scholars inside and outside the country, and the people in the country had been quick to tell us exactly what was needed. There was an urgent need for security sector reform, for dealing with an economic crisis and long-term development, for improving governance, and supporting the growth of an active civil society. But most importantly, there was a need to stabilize the country. Politicians were mobilizing discontent and inter-ethnic hostilities. Mass violence was possible.

Indeed, the army had a practice of being deeply immersed in politics, with a history of coup d’etats, assassinations, and a full-scale war in 1998. We were told that doing things to keep the army out of politics and building what someone called a “contre pouvior” (a mobilized, influential civil society) to those with guns - were immediate priorities.

Guinea-Bissau was on the verge of erupting or imploding and our lessons-learned, inspired approach to violence prevention would not apply. If we were unable to respond to these needs, if we had insisted that our original model was the only way to proceed, if we have been constrained by the nature of our mandate and the funding we had, we would have had to go home.

We decided otherwise. It was apparent that we needed to be responsive, dexterous, and deliver concrete actions or services in the now clearly defined immediate areas of need: the role of the armed forces in Guinea-Bissau and the role of civil society.

This “emergency room” diagnostic, which also recognized how critical to peace the machinations of political elites were, plunged us into a set of actions that were strategically-informed, but carried out in a way that surely must have confused some of the other members of the peacebuilding community, including the INGOs and UN actors already on the ground. And while we had named our project the International Peace and Prosperity Project to demonstrate that we had indeed listened and knew that both economic development and conventional peacebuilding were required, we focused mostly in this critical period on the peace agenda. And we resisted being stereotyped as a provider of a singular program or service.

We also had the good fortune to meet Ms. Macaria Barai and her colleagues in the nascent nongovernmental sector in Guinea-Bissau. We had found local leadership that managed to be sufficiently nonpartisan in a very politicized country and we chose to work with and through them.

What did we do? How was it different? And how did the term “Peace Guerilla” come to describe us?

First, we forged a relationship with the newly installed head of the armed forces, General Tagme, especially because he was talking publicly about the need for reconciliation of factions within the armed forces. This was powerful language in a country wracked by a pattern of attack and revenge. While we were not inclined to be a granting body in the usual sense, and because we did not have large sums of money to issue as grants in any case, we were able to direct small amounts of money to the military in very short order to do simple things that might persuade otherwise discontented soldiers that remaining loyal to Tagme and acting professionally, staying out of politics this time, was worth it. And when we convened a meeting of some fourteen representatives of civil society around the issue of “reconciliation” and they were moved to form a Task Force that would mobilize the citizenry around a fair and free presidential election, we could offer a small grant that would give them the resources to get started immediately. We were not encumbered with a bureaucratic process of reviewing grant applications, and we were able to direct small amounts of money to strategically identified areas on a “just in time” basis. We hoped, of course, and we lobbied that the UN and country donors would eventually come through on long-term funding that would make structural change possible.

We also mobilized at the regional and international level, writing letters on behalf of Guinea-Bissau, trying to get it on the radar screen of agencies and institutions whose engagement was necessary. We wrote and disemminated professional papers that quickly introduced Guinea-Bissau, clarified the issues and needs, and invited action. We wrote letters to the editors of newspapers to mobilize resources for the election. We commissioned a body of international legal scholars to write a neutral option about a controversial matter bearing on the election and before the Supreme Court in Guinea-Bissau. And we invited local leaders to travel abroad to tell others about their country and to request assistance.

So, as the film crew began to prepare itself to document these actions and human stories in Guinea-Bissau, I was pressed to explain who we were and what we were doing. I thought about how our efforts were always informed by moment-to-moment conflict analysis, by a deep probing of violence and the role of power in Guinea-Bissau, about the immediacy and dexterity of our actions, about our moving across sectors horizontally and within sectors, vertically, to encourage integration of effort. It struck me that we were “peace guerillas”. Like guerilla warriors we tried to “hit” strategically identified “targets”. We were mobile, we were light on our feet, administratively and physically, we were active through collaborators and we were focused on one objective: that we would prevent mass violence.

So I told the film crew we were “peace guerillas”. The label seemed to fit. The film crew has adopted it as the working title of their film. And like Martin Griffiths, I have come to recognize that we must embrace the qualities and modus operandi of both the “maverick mediator” and the “peace guerilla” if we are to be effective in achieving our ultimate goal: peace.

But there are downsides.

The downside to acting as a “peace guerilla” is running the risk of being misperceived by others, foreshortening the full response that is needed to prevent violence. The “peace guerilla” may be seen as impulsive, reactive, and his or her commitment to long-term violence prevention and peacebuilding “processes” could be misunderstood. A “peace guerilla” is obviously working outside the normal cycle of donor funding and peacebuilding programming. This can make other needed partners in violence prevention uneasy as the “guerilla” is seen moving quickly, appearing here and there, possibly even messing up the tidy world of larger organizations and systems.

The “peace guerilla” may not be seen as acting in a disciplined way. The analysis of need and the identification of required accomplishments needed now to stabilize a violent situation, to build the basis for further, deeper prevention work, may not be as obvious or as urgent to others as it is the “peace guerilla”. This can give others pause, and even a reason to dismiss this type of “maverick” activity.

While working hard to forge and mobilize partnerships, and wanting to achieve short –to- intermediate goals so that long-term sustainable peace may be built, the “peace guerilla” may be reluctantly accepted by other actors in the peacebuilding community but only on a short-term basis.

The “guerrilla’s” refusal to stake out territory, to be seen to offer a singular service or to have a conventional “model” of operating, can make others uncertain of the professionalism and predictability of the “guerilla”, thereby reducing the ease with which others might engage with the “guerrilla”.

There is also the simple fact that an effective “peace guerilla” may cause jealously and resentment in others who, because of who they are and what they do, cannot achieve what the guerrilla does.

Being aware of these “downsides”, however, should not discourage appropriate people at appropriate times from taking on the role of a “peace guerilla”. Strategically-informed, quickly executed actions that mobilize needed resources to achieve stability and build the basis for locally owned long-term violence prevention programming is absolutely necessary in potentially volatile situations.

Antidotes to being misperceived, misused or mistreated are necessary. Ultimately, both local actors, whether government officials, the military or civil society as well as other providers of peacebuilding services must trust the “peace guerilla”.

Some ways in which the “peace guerilla” can neutralize potential downsides, build trust, and achieve maximum value include:

• Having funding and administrative arrangements that allow maximum executive decision-making and flexible operating procedures;
• Demonstrating professional competence in conflict analysis and violence prevention;
• Having no stake in self- or corporate promotion;
• Being an active listener and adjusting priorities and responses to what those who know are saying is needed;
• Being sufficiently transparent to all key stakeholders;
• Putting resources in and providing tangible support to local leadership disposed to nonviolent, practical actions;
• Being comfortable and competent in working in all relevant sectors, including security;
• Being seen to act across sectors, facilitating integration of effort, and vertically within sectors, supporting practical immediate activities at the community and international levels;
• Demonstrating a broad repertoire of competencies and actions, from facilitation to mediation, to violence prevention advocacy, to having the technical know-how of lobbying for action; and
• Remaining engaged.


Ben Hoffman, Ph.D.,
Director,
International Peace and Prosperity Project
2005

* Talking Peace in a Time of Terror: United Nations Mediation and Collective Security By Martin Griffiths, March 2005, available for download here: http://www.hdcentre.org/datastore/shaping%20opinion/Talki...