Learning to share: Conference on  insider peace builders

Day Three. Thursday, 31 March 2016

Peacemaking involves stopping an ongoing conflict, whereas peacebuilding happens before a conflict starts or once it ends.

1. wikipedia.org

   

According to Dr Norbert Ropers, who has been working with Thailand’s Deep South activists, there are three types of insider peacebuilders:

Type one             identifies fully with the armed resistance movement, but upholds non violence as its principal strategy

Type Two            identifies with state objectives, but disagrees with use of force

Type Three         does not identify with either of the above. But like the previous two, it upholds non-violence as its cardinal principle

UNDP (United Nations Development Program), he reports, says it will support the insider peacebuilders.

The only problem, he says, is that most of the people who are engaged in peacebuilding won’t say they are peacebuilders, but that they are doing “what we can from outside”. Those in the Deep South even don’t even accept the word Peace, but only Just Peace.

Question: Can CSOs be considered peacebuilders?

Yes, some of them, but not all. However, some of the individuals, either from the government or non-government side, can be considered peacebuilders and even insider peacebuilders.

A number of participants in the meantime are not fully convinced, as shown by the following question and remark:

• Is there a need to create a new social identity by calling some people peacebuilders and/or insider peace builders?
• I’m still unsure about the terminology, whether it may serve to be more divisive than adhesive

Another presentation by a lady from Aceh and comments that follow it, at least to me, are also thought provoking:

• Gang rapes are more prevalent in Myanmar than in the other three countries
• Reflections on why governments allow this to happen include:
• ‘Teaching a lesson’ to the resistance movement
• Creating psychological trauma to the victim and her family (some are considered as a disgrace to the family and her community and, as a result, are ostracized)
• It also can create devastating effects on fighters. Learning the sad news can take the fight out of them, which is just what the government wants, which is to break their will to fight
• It is a symbol of conquest, to prove to the enemy of its defeat, an ancient culture still practiced today in some countries

But maybe rapes can also be called acts of terrorism, because they fit neatly with its definition:  “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” (Oxford dictionary)

The day reportedly ends with a roaring dinner party at Eastin Hotel outside the campus. I say ‘reportedly’, because I’m busy meeting an old, old friend elsewhere.