Peace for the Americas

By Johan Galtung Reprint | | Print |

PUEBLA, Mexico, Oct 16 2012 (IPS) - In trying to bring peace to conflict-ridden parts of the world, it is important to distinguish between negative peace – ceasefires and the absence of violence in general – and positive peace – cooperation for mutual and equal benefit, emotional harmony, reconciliation of past traumas, and the capacity to resolve future conflicts peacefully, nonviolently, with empathy and creativity, instead of forcing those with serious grievances to lay down their arms and reintegrate into civilian life.

For lasting peace, it is necessary to understand and remove underlying grievances.

A “both-and” approach should not be ruled out: for example, both growth and distribution as goals of that other big United Nations concern: development. The common strategy of encouraging one and then the other is not effective: what tends to happen is a ceasefire first and then nothing, or growth first and then nothing, presumably waiting for the right time for the next step. But that “right time” has a tendency not to come for two simple reasons: for those high up, violence is the problem, whereas the grievances are problems for those at the bottom. Moreover, those at the top seek growth, not distribution, which is a concern for those below.

These are existential, not philosophical, problems for countries like Mexico and Colombia with massive levels of violence within, partly due to drug trafficking. The traditional approach is to use police, military, and paramilitary forces to uproot the violence by killing and fighting. If that does not work, they try to negotiate a ceasefire. But the underlying causes have a tendency to reproduce the violence, with democracies pushing the problem onto the next administration, and dictatorships becoming even more brutal.

We do ourselves a major disservice by pursuing only negative peace, curing symptoms but not the disease.

Let us look at five concrete cases in the Americas of both negative and positive peace: Malvinas-Falklands, Cuba, drugs/arms flows, flagrant inequality, and U.S. intervention in/micro-management of Latin America and the Caribbean. There will be no lasting negative peace without positive peace.

Malvinas-Falklands exploded in 1982 as a war by the South against the North, something new at the time. It was won by Great Britain. Has this brought peace? Not at all, and it has not solved the underlying conflict. There is an obvious solution: the formula used in Hong Kong-Macau, where on Jul. 1, 1997, one flag came down, another went up, one garrison moved out, another moved in, and the rest remained the same. The sovereignty of the Malvinas obviously belongs to Argentina, for historical and geographical reasons. But the people’s wishes must be respected.

Cuba was excluded from the Organisation of American States (OAS) for not holding multi-party elections though the same was true of other Latin American countries that were allowed to join. Cuba should be made a member right away, also in honour of its being the first country to challenge the giant to the North with a leader who survived 10 U.S. presidents, most of them highly forgettable.

The trafficking of people and drugs in return for arms and money is a complex situation, but there are two promising approaches. First, narcotraffic has to be reduced from both sides, supply and demand, with each doing its best to improve the situation and agreeing on a process for mutual or, better yet, joint certification of the results. Second, the magnitude of the problem should be reduced by legalising marijuana, which is a minor issue compared to the biggest health problems in the U.S.: tobacco and alcohol, both legal. Alcohol was once prohibited with disastrous consequences: violence, gangsterism, and mafias. These disappeared with legalisation; alcoholism did not, but neither did it increase.

Underlying all of this, of course, is flagrant inequality, injustice, and exploitation. The best approach is to lift those at the bottom by providing microcredits to small companies providing basic necessities ­ above all food, clean water, health, and education ­ for the most needy and employing them so they can lift themselves up without threatening the rich. The key impediment is not technical; it is feasible to achieve this within five to 10 years. However, those high up fear that the poor “will treat us the way we treated them”. This fear has to be alleviated: those now at the bottom simply want equal opportunity and dignity.

The above can be achieved with the right approach, like using student volunteers to teach reading and writing, or training barefoot nurses to treat the most common diseases while providing helicopters to take the seriously ill to hospitals.

Then there are the inter-American dimensions, the 100 or so U.S. military interventions in the region and the ongoing emergence of the United States of Latin America and the Caribbean, which is as natural as the independence of the colonies on the Atlantic seaboard formalised with a famous declaration in 1776 and a U.S. constitution in 1787.

How would a mature U.S. react? “Welcome, brothers in the South! We know what this is about and will not repeat the stupidity of London, fighting 35 years to prevent our independence. We are no George III. How can we meet, in equity and harmony, to soothe our traumas and solve our conflicts?”

A mature Latin American answer: turn the OAS into a forum which will not accept vetoes from the North against an almost united South but is ready for dialogue, on the Malvinas, Cuba, drugs/arms, and misery ­ problems the body will approach in its own way, with open minds.

And one more step: how about a MEXUSCAN, a North America of three countries, revising the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to increase equality, with Mexico as a bridge to South America with open borders, no fences, and flows in both directions of people and legitimate goods and services. Positive peace for the Americas in our lifetime. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

*Johan Galtung, a professor of Peace Studies, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University.