Issue of Today

Conflict Mitigation: Lessons and Challenges

By Jan Öberg
Director, Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) 

Conflict management and prevention are international buzzwords of the post-Cold War era. Several hundred new so-called NGOs have emerged in this field, while older ones have reoriented themselves toward conflict "management." Governments and intergovernmental organizations have been busy setting up units for conflict prevention. Universities have flooded the market with books and reports on how to handle what are often, with gross oversimplification, called domestic and ethnic conflicts.

But: what have we learned about conflict over these last 10 years? Has all this led to a more peaceful world? If not, what are the challenges ahead?

In 1991, when TFF teams started doing fieldwork in all parts of former Yugoslavia, there were only a handful of similar independent, small groups around, and only a tiny fraction of them with a scholarly basis. We had four aims: diagnosing the conflicts, doing mitigation and mediation, peace education and skills training and, back home, serving as an information center to the media, the public and decision-makers who cared to listen.

The Foundation had decided to act like the doctor who jumps from laboratory research and begins to diagnose and treat patients. We explored some almost existential questions: Can our peace research theories be applied in the real world? Can we be of help to those using violence and to those suffering from it? Can we help people and governments see the advantages of nonviolence? Can we stay impartial and attack the problems rather than the people who do bad things to each other when we get closer to the cruelties committed?

Our multidisciplinary team drove into Balkan war zones without number plates, invitation or accreditation, but with bulletproof jackets and quite some knowledge about the region. We negotiated our way through checkpoints on all sides in the local conflicts as well as to the offices of high-level decision-makers. It was "learning by doing."

Refugees experience the effects of conflict firsthand   [(l) - UNHCR/R.Chalasani  (r) - UNHCR]

The main inspiration was Gandhian, our main concept that of mitigation: not for a moment did TFF believe that we, concerned outsiders and visitors, would know what was the best solution for the local parties. We only wanted to listen, facilitate, sow nonviolent ideas and meet face-to-face with all sides and all levels to help them, if possible, find their own solutions. After all, they must live there with the solutions when we foreigners leave. This small-scale, principled intervention was, to put it crudely, the opposite of what government diplomats have practiced in the Balkans and elsewhere ever since.


Lessons Learned

After some 50 missions to conflict regions such as the Balkans, Caucasus and Burundi, we have gathered some experience and learned some lessons. They can be divided into framework conditions and more local, methodological lessons.


Framework Conditions

Essentially, these are not ethnic conflicts. Ethnicity is a psychological lever for war in which, based on real historical injustices and traumas, is used by politico-military elites who ignite and conduct wars for their own power purposes, often in collusion with each other and against their own nation. The root causes and the structures of interlocking conflicts are complex and manifold. One important aspect is socioeconomic deprivation, the feeling of having no future and, thus, seeing war as an opportunity. Single-factor explanations of complex conflicts will lead to conflict-locking and more violence. Westerners seem to see conflicts as rooted only in (evil) individuals. Conflicts are also about structures, situations and collective aspirations and traumas as well as about culturally based perceptions of history. Before people are condemned, we should at least try to understand why they act violently--if only to learn how to prevent violence tomorrow. Whole groups are never guilty of atrocities; individuals are, and they can be found on all sides. The large majority of citizens do not want war, but extremists of various kinds do. They are the only ones who benefit. There are always at least two wars fought simultaneously: that on the ground and that in the media combined with propaganda, psychological warfare and public deception. The two interact but offer surprisingly different images. The international "community" is a euphemism for a handful of Western leaders. They have in no case been neutral, impartial mediators but have consistently, in time and space, been parties to the conflict. Thus: International conflict management has become an integral part of leading countries' interest policies, geostrategic aims and globalization. The influence of intelligence agencies and private mercenary companies in "peace" missions is increasing but virtually unnoticed in the press. It's a myth that, on the one hand, there exist some "primitive" people who fight each other in a region and, on the other hand, a noble international "community" that works altruistically for peace. From both historical and contemporary perspectives, big powers are parties to the conflict and/or use one or more local parties as their proxies. Conflict management has become a vehicle for changes in the international order. For instance, the United Nations has been systematically sidelined while NATO, which lost its raison d'être with the end of the Cold War, was quickly given new "peace" missions.

Local and Methodological Lessons

The independent, professional conflict mitigator will, in all likelihood, be critical of what government agencies do in these regions. Speaking out may mean loss of funding from governments as well as mainstream media marginalization. Not speaking out may mean that one ends up being near- and not non-governmental and becomes complicit in government-induced structural, direct or cultural violence. We must listen to all sides and suppress our own sympathies and antipathies. It is essential to respect equally all sides' perceptions and suffering. It is much more important to have dialogues and be constructive than to moralize and criticize. A prime minister will not listen to your peace ideas if you start with attacks on him or his government's policies. No conflict has only two parties, and each party has conflicting groups inside it. Black and white images are gross simplifications. One must be open with all sides. Tell A that you dialogued with his enemies last week--but do not tell A who said what on the other side. Don't accept payment or privileges from any party, including Western conflict "managers." Don't get involved unless you are ready and able to stay committed for quite some time. Visiting a conflict region for a few hours or days shows contempt for people's suffering; come back repeatedly and build trust. Always identify the peace and reconciliation traditions and actors that can be found in any society. While the media and governments focus on warlords, build alliances with the "peace lords," with local groups and, in particular, with women and youth. Read all about the place, its culture, people and history before you go--then forget it and listen with an open heart when you do your fact-finding. Do not try to get credit for being the one that gets the parties to the negotiation table; it is much more important to help build trust and positive images of the future behind the scenes. Do not expect to see big or quick results from your work. Be happy if a few participants in your seminar decide to take some new steps or a decision-maker takes a serious interest in your proposal. Remember that it takes one minute to cut down a 100-year-old tree with a chain saw. Working for peace by, for and with people is the slowest process of all, while war is swift and dramatic and attracts attention. When you work for violence prevention and nonviolent conflict resolution, the locals are not your only target group. You and your organization are tiny parts of a huge civilizational counterflow, in a world still programmed for all kinds of violence. Thus, it is imperative that you think, speak and act as a peace worker, according to Gandhi's advice that "we must be the change we wish to see." Criticize any actor, including your own government, who uses violence when other means are clearly available. It is a myth that there is just or "good" violence that combats unjust and "evil" violence.

The Challenges Ahead

I believe that new field-oriented peace and conflict research efforts must emerge. Academic peace research has now quite successfully institutionalized itself as university departments and state-related and/or -financed institutes. The price has been an overall deradicalization compared with the 1960s--1980s. Constructive research into the causes of peace and the potentials of nonviolence has, little by little, given way to quite mainstream themes and values. Funding structures decide more than the researcher wants to admit.

Peace education and down-to-earth training cannot be overemphasized. Imagine that every child, youth, diplomat, journalist and decision-maker would receive at least a one-week course in the basics of conflict diagnosis, conflict psychology, resolution and mediation. Imagine that citizens would learn as much about handling conflicts and peace as we learn about computers or practice before we obtain a driving license. We need peace academies, peace ministries. We need peace and conflict journalism and not only war reporting. We need entertainment, history books and manuals related to nonviolence.

The world needs much more research into the deeply human aspects of conflicts, into existential questions such as: Why do human beings continue to use violence when it leads to so little good compared with the vast potential of nonviolence? How shall we understand violent deeds and violent doers?

But, for such research and education, there is available only a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars allocated worldwide to war-related research. NATO's core budget just for administration is 47 times that of the whole OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) budget, while its member countries spend approximately $430 billion on defense, 215,000 times the OSCE budget.


Cross-Civilizational Dialogue

If peace and genuine conflict resolution rose on the agendas of parliaments and researchers as well as in public education and democratic debate around the world, we would witness an era of revolutionary change. We would finally see a world in which peace with peaceful means became the norm, the basic value of civilization and international relations, a sign of strength and statesmanship.

I recently spent a couple of months traveling in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and the Buddha in India while also working with exiled Tibetan youth in Dharamsala. Something that before had been only vaguely felt became clear to me.

After 10 years as a peace worker in conflict zones, I have learned that the West needs assistance from other civilizations and that its cultural paradigm cannot be the leader on behalf of the rest. Globalization must imply also a confluence of philosophies, methods and skills from many cultures and intellectual as well as spiritual schools.

Thus, we need more intercultural dialogues and cross-civilizational teams in peace research and in the world's conflict zones. The West may be good at Grand Peace, peace from above based on treaties, foreign intervention and material dimensions--in short, external peace. But Western conflict management seems to lack competence in Small Peace, peace from below, domestic "peace lord" intervention and the spiritual dimensions, in short inner peace, reconciliation, forgiveness and other forms of healing.

Those of us who believe in such inter-cultural conflict mitigation and peace must work to build alliances, new networks and experiment together and get out there in the field and see what works and what does not. 

TFF is proud to be associated with what we believe is a pioneer tradition, being small, independent of governments, voluntary and nonprofit, based on nonviolence and, above all, people-oriented.

A gathering of all principled nonviolent, voluntary and nonprofit organizations in a multicultural network, with a capacity to get to conflict regions swiftly and do effective violence prevention, would be a formidable force for peace.

This should go hand in hand with multidisciplinary research and educational efforts which embody the values of the future rather than the past. I believe we can be the change we wish to see.

We at TFF want to express our sincere gratitude to the SGI for the support TFF has received from 1996 to 2001. Those who want to know more, please contact TFF@transnational.org or visit www.transnational.org.

Jan Öberg was director of the Lund University Peace Research Institute and secretary-general of the Danish Peace Foundation prior to co-founding TFF.

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