By Mairead Maguire
BELFAST, Dec 31 2015 (IPS)

In November 2015 I visited Syria together with an International Peace delegation. This was my third visit to Syria in the last three years. As on previous occasions I was moved by the spirit of resilience and courage of the people of Syria.

Mairead Maguire

In spite of the fact that for the last five years their country has been plunged into war by outside forces the vast majority of the Syrian people continue to go about their daily lives and many have dedicated themselves to working for peace and reconciliation and the unity of their beloved Syria. They struggle to overcome their fear, that Syria will be driven by outside interference and destructive forces within, to suffer the same terrible fate of Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Yemen, and so many other countries.

Many Syrians are traumatized and in shock and ask ‘how did this happen to our country’? Proxy wars are something they thought only happened in other countries, but now Syria too has been turned into a war-ground in the geo-political landscape controlled by the western global elite and their allies in the Middle East.

Many of those we met were quick to tell us Syria is not experiencing civil war but a foreign invasion. To tell us too that this is not a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims who, in the words of the Patriarch Gregorios III Laham ‘Muslims and Christians not only dialogue with each other but their roots are inter-twined with each other as they have lived together over 1436 years without wars, despite disagreements and conflicts…over the years peace and co-existence have outweighed controversy.’ In Syria our delegation saw that Christian and Muslim relationships can be more than mutual tolerance, they can be deeply loving.

During our visit we met hundreds of people, local and national political leaders, government and opposition figures, local and national Muslim and Christian leaders, members of reconciliation committees and internally displaced refugees. We also met numerous people on the streets of town and cities, Sunni Shia, Christian, Alawite, all of whom feel that their voices are ignored and under-represented in the West.

The youth expressed the desire to see a new state which will guarantee equality of citizenship and religious freedom to all religious and ethnic groups, and protection of minorities, and said this was the work of the Syrian people, not outside forces, and could be done peacefully. We met many Syrians who reject all the violence and are working for conflict resolution through negotiation and implementation of a democratic process.

Few Syrians we met were under the illusion that their elected (7O percent) leader President Assad, was perfect yet many admired him and felt he was much preferred to the alternative of the government falling into the hands of the Jihadists fighters, fundamental extremists with ideology that would force the minorities (and moderate Sunnis) to flee Syria (or many to get killed).

This had already been experienced with the exodus of thousands of Syrians, when they fled in fear of being killed or homes destroyed by jihadist foreign fighters, and alleged moderates, trained funded and accommodated by outside forces. In Homs we witnessed the bombed out houses when thousands fled after Syrian rebels attacked Syrian forces from residential areas, and the military responded causing lethal damage to civilians and buildings (the rebel strategy of Human Shields) and they also done the same with cultural sites (cultural shields).

In the old city of Homs we had a meeting with members of the reconciliation committee, which is led by a priest and sheikh. We also visited the grave of a Jesuit priest who was murdered by IS fighters and visited the rebuilt Catholic church, the original of which was burned down. During the meeting by candlelight, because of regular power blackouts, we heard how Christians and Muslims in the town had been instrumental in the rehabilitation of fighters who choose to lay down their arms and accept the Syrian Government’s offer of Amnesty.

They appealed to us to ask the international community to end the war on Syria, and support peace, and it was for our delegation particularly sad and disappointing that that very day the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, (UK), publicity announced his support for the UK vote to bomb Syria! (And subsequently the UK Government, voted for War on Syria). (If the UK/USA/EU, etc., wish to help the Syrian people they can immediately lift the sanctions which are causing great hardship to the Syrian people).

We also visited the Christian Town of Maaloula, where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken and it is one of the oldest Christian towns in the Middle East. We visited the church of St. George and the priest explained how after their church was burned to the ground by western backed rebels, and many Christians killed, the people of Maaloula, carried a table onto the ruins of the church and after praying started to rebuild their church and homes. Sadly also in this place some Muslim neighbours also destroyed Christian neighbours’ homes and this reminded us all of the complexities of the Syrian conflict and the need to teach nonviolence and build peace and reconciliation. It also brought us to a deeper awareness of the plight of not only moderate Sunnis from extremists, but the huge numbers of Christians now fleeing from Middle Eastern countries, and that if the situation is not stabilized in Syria and the Middle East, there will be few Christians in what is called the cradle of civilization and birth of Christianity, and where the followers of the three Abrahamic faiths have lived and worked as brothers and sisters in unity. The Middle East has already witnessed the tragic and virtual disappearance of Judaism, and this tragedy is happening at an alarming rate to the Christians of the Levant.

But there is hope and Syria is a light to the world as there are many people working for peace and reconciliation, dialogue and negotiations, and this is where the hopes lies and what we can all support by rejecting violence and war in Syria, the Middle East and our world.

(End)

Excerpt:

“We stand for cooperation and partnership – rather than competition – in our relations with Africa and the world” – Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and chair of the African Union Peace and Security Council: Credit: Courtesy of Maite Nkoana-Mashabane

By Maite Nkoana-Mashabane
PRETORIA, Aug 3 2015 (IPS)

The Freedom Charter, which turned 60 this year, envisaged that a free and democratic South Africa would be guided in its relations with the rest of the African continent and the world by a desire to seek “peace and friendship”.

Twenty-one years after the attainment of our freedom and democracy, peace and friendship are still core objectives of our foreign policy.

The African continent remains central to our foreign policy, and this approach forms the basis for our friendship, cooperation and peace efforts all over the world. We stand for cooperation and partnership – rather than competition – in our relations with Africa and the world.

The African Union Summit, held in South Africa in June 2015,  set out measures for the rollout of Agenda 2063 as a continental vision for the “Africa We Want”, an Africa that is united, peaceful, prosperous, and which takes up its rightful place in world affairs.“It is vital that the continent identifies and addresses the root causes of conflicts, with the ultimate aim of achieving sustainable peace and development. Among these, democracy must be deepened to give our people a voice they deserve”

The Summit adopted a 10-year implementation plan for Agenda 2063, a sign that African leaders are committed to giving practical expression and commit their energies, talents and resources towards the realisation of the goals that are contained in Agenda 2063, working in partnership with various stakeholders, including business and other non-governmental sectors.

While there have been remarkable developments in some areas where the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region has experienced political and security challenges, the latest of which is the political and security situation in the Kingdom of Lesotho, there needs to be ongoing political and security engagement within the region.

South Africa will continue to forge closer political, economic and social relations through targeted high-level interactions in Africa.

The realisation of “The Africa We Want” requires peace, be it in the SADC, Great Lakes, the Horn of Africa or in North Africa.

Our continent, especially in East, West and North Africa, is also battling against a spate of dreadful and cowardly acts of terrorism, which we condemn and must be defeated.

We must silence the guns. To this end, the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC), the precursor to the African Standby Force (ASF), has to be operationalised as one of our tools for African solutions to African problems. This is a Force that should evolve into a critical element that helps us stabilise and keep the peace on the continent.

South Africa, in conjunction with ACIRC, will be hosting the AMANI Africa II Field Training Exercise this year to operationalise the African Standby Force. We are pleased to be part of strengthening our continent’s military response mechanisms. This further illustrates the continent’s commitment towards self-reliance and interventions led by African nations.

Under South Africa’s leadership of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) for the month of July 2015, we sought to put critical issues that are at the core of the continent’s efforts to ensure peace and stability at the forefront of the PSC’s agenda, including strengthening the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), which comprise the PSC itself, early warning capacity, peace-making and post-conflict reconstruction and development.

We also brought into the spotlight the issue of peace, justice and reconciliation, which remains a very crucial matter for our continent in promoting nation-building and reconciliation in order to enable societies, especially in post-conflict settings, to heal, reconstruct and develop.

It is vital that the continent identifies and addresses the root causes of conflicts, with the ultimate aim of achieving sustainable peace and development. Among these, democracy must be deepened to give our people a voice they deserve. Our constitutions have to reign supreme to ensure accountability and political certainty.

Some of the fundamentals towards African unity are already in place. Our continental organisations are in existence and functional. What we need, however, is more effectiveness in programme delivery and in finding innovative sources of self-financing for budgetary self-reliance.

A united, peaceful and prosperous Africa is possible and within reach. And the prevailing environment is conducive for the realisation of the objectives of Agenda 2063.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Mairead Maguire
BELFAST, Jul 13 2015 (IPS)

The year 2015 marked the 62^nd anniversary of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. The temporary ceasefire has never been replaced with a peace treaty and the demilitarised zone (DMZ) continues to divide the country.

The DMZ with its barbed wire, armed soldiers on both sides, and littered with thousands of explosive landmines, is the most militarised border in the world.

Mairead Maguire

Seventy years ago, as the Cold War was brewing,  the United States unilaterally drew the line across the 38^th parallel – with the former Soviet Union’s agreement – dividing an ancient country that had just suffered 35 years of Japanese colonial occupation.

Koreans had no desire to be divided, or decision-making power to stop their country from being divided; now, seven decades later, the conflict on the Korean peninsula threatens peace in the Asia-Pacific region and throughout our world.

One of the greatest tragedies arising out of man-made ‘Cold War’ politics and isolation is the tearing apart of Korean families and their physical separation from each other. In Korean culture, family relations are deeply important and many families have been painfully separated for 70 years.

Although there was a period of reconciliation during the Sunshine Policy years (1998-2007) between the two Korean governments, when some families had the joy of reunion, this has stopped due to a souring of relationships between North and South Korea.

Through sanctions and isolationist policies put in place by the International community, the North Korean people and their economy have also continued to suffer.

While North Korea has come a long way from the 1990s when up to one million died from famine, many people are poor, and feel isolated and marginalised from South Korea and the outside world.“I must admit that before this visit, my first to the North, I never realised how deeply passionate North Koreans are for reunification with the South and how much they want to open the borders so they can welcome their South Korea families to visit and normalise relationships”

As members of the one human family, and in order to show human solidarity and empathise  with our North Korean family, to bring global attention to the ‘forgotten’ Korean war, and to call for an engagement with North Korea and a peace treaty,  a group of international women came together to visit North/South Korea and walk across the DMZ.

On May 22, 2015, International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, thirty women peacemakers from 15 countries made a historic crossing of the two-mile-wide DMZ from North to South Korea.

The delegation included feminist author/activist Gloria Steinem, two Nobel peace laureates,  Leymah Gbowee and myself, coordinator Christine Ahn (whose dream it was  to cross the DMZ) and  long-time peace activists, human rights defenders, spiritual leaders and Korean experts.

During our four-day  visit to North Korea, before crossing the DMZ on May 24, we had the privilege and joy of meeting many North Korean women.

At a peace symposium in Pyongyang, we listened as North Korean women spoke of their horrific experiences of war and division, and listened as some of our delegation shared how they had mobilised to end conflict and build peace in their communities.

We also participated in huge peace walks in Pyongyang and Kaesong, with the participation of many thousands of North Korean women in beautiful traditional Korean costumes. The women carried banners calling for the reunification of families and of Korea, a peace treaty and no war.

The walks were deeply moving, especially in Kaesong where families came out onto their balconies to wave as we passed.

I must admit that before this visit, my first to the North, I never realised how deeply passionate North Koreans are for reunification with the South and how much they want to open the borders so they can welcome their South Korea families to visit and normalise relationships.

North Koreans told us that Korean people are one people. Though they have different political ideologies, they speak the same language, have the same culture, and share a painful history of war and division.

Policies of isolation have not solved any problems and our delegates believe that a new approach of engagement and a peace treaty is necessary.  

Our walk brought renewed attention to the importance of world solidarity in ending the Korean conflict, particularly since the 1953 armistice agreement was signed by North Korea, (South Korea did not sign) China and the United States on behalf of the U.N. Command that included sixteen countries.

It helped highlight the responsibility of the international community, whose governments were complicit in the division of Korea 70 years ago, to support Korea’s peaceful reconciliation and reunification.

The challenges of overcoming Korea’s division became apparent in the complex negotiations over our DMZ crossing between North and South Korea, as well as with the U.N. Command, which has formal jurisdiction over the DMZ.

Although we had hoped to cross at Panmunjom, the ‘Truce Village’ where the armistice was signed, we decided, after both South Korea and the U.N. Command had denied our crossing, that we would take the route agreed by all parties in the spirit of compromise lest our actions further strain already tense North-South relations.

In Seoul, we met with some opposition. Although we did not meet with any heads of state or endorse any political or economic system, maintaining a neutral stance throughout, it was apparent that divisions within South Korea itself were manifested in some of the ideologically divided forms of reception and reactions that we witnessed.

We recognise that our international women’s peace walk is only a beginning and we will continue our focus on increasing civilian exchanges and women’s leadership, highlighting the obligation of all parties involved to decrease militarisation and move towards a peace treaty.

We therefore urge increased engagement at every level – civil, economic, cultural, academic and governmental – and especially citizen-to-citizen diplomacy in peacebuilding, as an alternative to full military conflict, which is not an option. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Scene in north Bougainville. Searching for the missing following a civil war has been identified as a priority for reconciliation and development in the region. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, Dec 21 2014 (IPS)

Thirteen years after the peace agreement which ended a decade-long civil war in Bougainville, an autonomous island region of 300,000 people located east of the Papua New Guinean (PNG) mainland in the southwest Pacific Islands, trauma and grief continue to affect families and communities where the fate of the many missing remains unresolved.

The Autonomous Bougainville Government, identifying this as a barrier to progressing post-conflict reconciliation and development, introduced a policy in September to begin helping families answer questions and find closure.“Most perpetrators will not admit to being responsible [for the fate of the missing] unless assured there is reconciliation after remains have been recovered and identified." -- Nick Peniai

“This is very important for reconciliation,” Nick Peniai, head of the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s Department of Peace and Reconciliation, told IPS.

“Most perpetrators will not admit to being responsible [for the fate of the missing] unless assured there is reconciliation after remains have been recovered and identified” and “reconstruction will become meaningful to families after they have reunited with their loved ones.”

Patricia Tapakau, a community leader in the vicinity of the Panguna mine, agreed, saying that the new policy received her full support.

There is no accurate data about the human loss which occurred during hostilities between the PNG military and indigenous militia groups involved in a local uprising in 1989 that succeeded in shutting down the Panguna copper mine, formerly operated by the Australian company, Bougainville Copper Ltd.  But some estimates of the death toll run as high as 20,000.

The mine, a major revenue earner at the time for the PNG government, was at the centre of local grievances about loss of customary land, environmental devastation and increasing inequality. The conflict continued following a government blockade of the islands in 1990 until a permanent ceasefire in 1998.

Today many families on the islands continue to search for their missing loved ones, reports the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The endless uncertainty about their fate is keeping the memory and suffering of the war alive in communities and inhibiting people’s confidence in a better future.

“We need reconciliation from one end of the island to the other….we need to restore the relationship with the bodies that have rotted in the jungle by bringing them back to their villages and giving them dignity by doing a proper burial,” a community leader from Guava village near the mine was quoted in a report by Jubilee Australia.

But, according to Peniai, it has only recently become feasible to publicly address this sensitive issue.

“It could not have been possible to get information on missing persons soon after the brokering of peace 13 years ago due to fear for the lives of those with the information, and the same on the part of those who were responsible for the killings in the event of being exposed.  The families of missing people were also not attempting to investigate for the same reason of fear,” he explained.

Conditions are more conducive to this occurring now, Peniai believes, with people willing to freely discuss the issue and some improvements to the law enforcement sector, which is supporting public confidence.

The United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance supports international human rights laws that place an obligation on warring parties, including governments, military forces and armed groups, to take all possible measures to search for and return missing persons, or their remains, to next of kin.

In Bougainville, the new policy will address the humanitarian needs of affected communities, but exclude bringing perpetrators to justice and claims for compensation.  Implementation will include seeking information about victims’ whereabouts, identifying burial sites, exhumation and forensic identification of remains before their return to relatives for burial.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be on hand to assist the Bougainville Government and its partners with advice and expert support as the policy is rolled out.

Families of those who have disappeared “may have psycho-social needs which require medical attention, even years later, this is an important need in Bougainville,” Gauthier Lefèvre, Head of Mission for the ICRC in Papua New Guinea, told IPS.

“Many may also have difficulties making ends meet economically or be in a vulnerable position within society due to absence of their usual support networks.”

The humanitarian organisation supports similar efforts to reconcile families in other post-conflict zones, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iran and Iraq.  It emphasises these measures are vital to helping people overcome anger and mistrust. If unaddressed, this burden can be passed on to a younger generation who are at risk of inheriting a sense of humiliation and injustice.

The Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency, a local non-governmental organisation, claims that unaddressed trauma has been a direct factor in high levels of alcohol and domestic abuse and violence against women, including rape, on the islands since the end of the ‘Bougainville crisis.’

During the three months of April, July and August 2010 alone, local police received reports of 84 sexual offences, 261 cases of domestic violence and 16 of child abuse.

Returning the remains of loved ones “is unfinished business on the road to healing, forgiveness, rehabilitation and reconstruction of whole communities” in the autonomous region, claims the OHCHR.

It “will bring closure and even psychological healing to families of missing persons and in some cases resolve legal issues linked to landownership and inheritance,” Lefèvre said.  He added that such efforts “certainly have an impact on human and social development in post-conflict zones.”

Peniai believes there will be benefits for human development “in the sense of establishing national unity, as a truly reconciled society is likely to be more stable.”

The peace process in Bougainville since 2001 has been assisted by the United Nations and international aid donors, but the autonomous region still faces immense development challenges. Life expectancy is 59 years and the under-five mortality rate is 74 per 1,000 live births, compared to the global average of 46, reports the National Research Institute.

In Central Bougainville, where the conflict originated, 56 percent of people do not have access to safe drinking water and 95 percent lack access to sanitation, according to World Vision.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Sri Lankan youth feel that a conservative older generation is hampering national reconciliation. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, May 21 2014 (IPS)

It has been five years since Sri Lanka’s brutal three-decades-long civil conflict came to an end in May 2009, but for the country’s youth, true national reconciliation is still a long way off.

They blame a lack of understanding, and the older generation’s unwillingness to compromise, for on-going divisions in this country where years of ethnic strife created a culture of discord that was not defeated on the battlefield.

Youth activists and government officials have voiced a unanimous appeal to Sri Lanka’s national leaders to listen to the roughly five million citizens between the ages of 15 and 25 who will determine the country’s future.

If these young people are marginalised, a lasting peace will be impossible, they say.

Milinda Rajapaksha, working director at the National Youth Services Council, told IPS his organisation has been coordinating youth programmes across the country, which have made clear that young people from different ethnic backgrounds are willing to work together.

The Council is the largest government organisation of its kind working exclusively with young people. With chapters all over the island, it has already conducted some 20 nationwide programmes aimed at reconciliation.

“Understanding, collaboration and cooperation between young people is the only solution for fully achieved reconciliation,” Rajapaksha said.

Given that thousands of young people fought in the war – either as soldiers for the Sinhala-majority Sri Lankan government or as forced conscripts of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – it is crucial that youth build bridges across their embattled and bloody history.

Another factor to keep in mind, according to Ramzi Zain Deen, national director of the advocacy body Sri Lanka Unites, is that the country’s population pyramid is becoming top-heavy.

“In Sri Lanka we are experiencing an aging population. There’ll be more people over 40 years of age in the next 10 to 15 years, including myself, which means there’ll be more people who [are] resistant to change,” Deen told IPS.

As of 2011, 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population was over 60 years of age; the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that by 2025 the elderly will account for 20 percent of the population.

Although youth and adolescents comprise a higher portion of the population – roughly 26 percent – their lack of access to political power means they are reliant on the older generation to disseminate their views.

But far from feeling confident that they are in safe hands, many of the country’s young people say they are not even being listened to, much less represented as indispensible players in their nation’s future.

Leaving behind the baggage

Pradeep Dharmalingam is a young man hailing from the country’s northern province, which, until 2009, was under the control of the LTTE. Every week, the 20-year-old makes the 360-km journey from Jaffna to the capital Colombo.

But no matter where he is, he told IPS, he feels great reluctance on the part of the older generation to embrace change. Questions like the devolution of power to local provinces, for instance – particularly to the majority-Tamil northern and eastern regions – are highly loaded issues, with the older generation reluctant to let go of its staid ideas regarding the political future of the country.

“In Colombo I see one end of the spectrum, where people talk about development and money, and nothing else; in Jaffna the only thing I hear is talk about political change.

“There is no middle ground,” he complained, “no one from our parents’ generation telling us how we can break down the divisions within our country,” Dharmalingam, a member of the ethnic Tamil minority, added.

His friend and classmate in a Colombo-based computer programme, Anil Dassanayake, told IPS the older generation must stop “pointing accusing fingers and let go of the past.”

The 21-year-old Dassanayake acknowledged that young people couldn’t fully understand what it must have been like to live through a war that claimed an estimated 100,000 lives over three decades.

“It must have been terrible,” he said, “but we have to try our best to come together as a nation.”

One of the obstacles, says Deen, is that the older generation sees reconciliation and development as separate issues, whereas young people view them as parallel movements, working in tandem.

“It is important for everyone in this country to understand the concept of harmonious living,” he stressed. “That’s why we are working with the younger crowd [who] recognise that peace and harmony correlate highly with the development of this country.”

Deen’s fears find echo in the post-war development initiatives that have permeated Sri Lanka’s former war zones in the north and east.

Here, a young Tamil man named Benislos Thushan tells IPS, mega development projects have failed to improve the lives of the local population, possibly due to lingering racial discrimination against the Tamil minority.

“There are big highways [being built] and other projects in the works, but people in the province are still poor, still looking for jobs,” he said.

The government claims it has spent close to four billion dollars on large infrastructure development schemes in the northern province alone, but available data show that unemployment rates in the north are double the national average of four percent.

Officials in the province say that many graduates and other educated youth in the region remain unemployed, or seek jobs below their qualifications outside the province.

“There are no management jobs here,” Sivalingam Sathyaseelan, secretary to the provincial ministry of education, told IPS. “The only available employment falls in the category of day-labour. Most of the youth want something better than that.”

(END)

After ten years of working towards peace and reconciliation in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, following a five-year civil conflict known as the ‘Tensions’ (1998-2003) which left 30,000 people displaced and hundreds unaccounted for, people now go about their daily lives in improved freedom and personal security. But below the surface, untreated post-conflict trauma continues to impact many individuals and communities.

Robert (name changed) is sitting under a tree, his hands clenched together, as though in pain. He speaks of atrocities witnessed during the ‘Tensions’ more than a decade ago.

“There is pain in my heart when I remember men with high-powered guns coming into the community at night and grabbing a young child, dragging him away from his parents,” he recounted. Robert still hears the child, who was never seen again, screaming for his parents.

The Solomon Islands is an ethnically and culturally diverse nation comprising more than 900 islands located east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Fiji. The economic downturn and rising unemployment in the late 1990s and crime contributed to escalating grievances by the indigenous Gwales of the main island Guadalcanal against large numbers of migrants from Malaita, a heavily populated island 100km to the east.

In 1998 the Gwale-led Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) began evicting Malaitan settlers, alleging they were encroaching on land, resources and jobs on Guadalcanal. Armed warfare followed when the Malaita Eagle Force, formed in defence, began to retaliate.  Despite a peace agreement brokered by Australia in 2000, violence continued until the arrival of the peacekeeping Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) at the request of the government in 2003.

Today state infrastructure and services that were destroyed or damaged are slowly being restored, but healing minds will take much longer.

“There are people whose lives are haunted, they roam around town, they are silent; they are traumatised. They don’t want to participate in any form of development,” Reuben Lilo, director of Peace and Reconciliation at the Ministry of National Unity, Peace and Reconciliation told IPS.

There are no available statistics on the extent of post-conflict trauma in the Solomon Islands. However, a social impact assessment by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in 2004 revealed that 75 percent of female and 73 percent of male respondents suffered personal trauma as a result of experiencing rape, death of relatives, threats and intimidation, destruction of homes and villages and being held at gunpoint.

Jack Kaota, a clinical mental health consultant at the National Psychiatric Unit in Auki, Malaita Province, told IPS that he had seen an increase in numbers of young people, especially since 2000, afflicted with substance abuse, and there was a connection with the legacy of the conflict.

Health professionals are particularly concerned about the long-term emotional impact of exposure to extreme violence in those who were children during the ‘Tensions’ and are now entering young adulthood. According to the Ministry of Health, up to 80 percent of those suffering from mental illness in the Solomon Islands are aged 20-30 years with issues for this age group including depression, substance abuse and suicide.

In 2008 the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM) established the Commission on Justice, Reconciliation and Peace to address a number of conflict-related issues, including trauma, and to provide counselling.

“Many people don’t know what post-traumatic stress is about"
“Our position is that healing comes first before reconciliation,” Reverend Graham Mark, secretary of ACOM Commission in Honiara said. “There is also post-traumatic stress which continues to accumulate. It is important that we always monitor and also revisit places that we have already worked in.”

The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which began hearings in 2010, has aimed to allow people’s stories of suffering to be heard, to promote accountability for human rights violations and restore dignity to victims.

For many women it was an opportunity to speak out in a supportive context. Sexual violence towards women increased during the conflict, but many have remained silent due to potential social repercussions. The Women’s Submission to the TRC acknowledged the “strong negative cultural stigma and taboos attached to violations such as rape,” but advocated that “the nation should talk about the past to ensure that healing takes place for all parties whether they are survivors, victims or perpetrators.”

But there are vulnerable individuals who remain unable to participate in the national mission for truth and healing.

“For the reasons that there is some presence of arms still with some people in communities and that somebody who is the perpetrator to them is just living next to their home or their village, they can’t come forward,” Lilo said, acknowledging that these places, especially in rural areas, required more government support.

For others, personal anguish continues because the fate of loved ones who disappeared is unknown and their remains have not been returned.

The final report of the TRC was delivered to the government in February last year and is still waiting to be passed through cabinet before public release.

According to Reverend Mark, reconciliation had occurred in communities where there was acceptance and restoration of relationships and communal activities. However, provincial leaders have made it clear to the Ministry of National Unity that there remains a huge need for trauma counselling centres across the country.

“Many people don’t know what post-traumatic stress is about,” Kaota emphasised. “They have the experience of trauma, but they don’t know what it is. When we go out and talk about post-traumatic stress in communities, people suddenly realise they need help.

“Counselling services need to reach out more and create awareness. Then people will come forward and talk about their feelings,” he said.

Irina Grigoryan, director of a kindergarten in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR), does not want to lose another generation to war. Credit: Enzo Mangini/IPS

By Enzo Mangini
STEPANAKERT (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Caucasus), Apr 12 2013 (IPS)

Sixty-year-old Irina Grigoryan’s voice is drowned out by the merry noise of 230 children waiting for their lunch. Director of kindergarten N3, located in Stepanakert, capital of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR) deep in the Caucasus, Grigoryan smiles tolerantly at the din.

But the poster hanging on the wall behind her desk – picturing a single dove flying above the words “Give peace a chance” – suggests that all is not well in this misty, mountainous city of 50,000 people, 2,400 kilometres south of Moscow.

In fact, NKR, nestled between Azerbaijan and Armenia, is in the middle of a long-forgotten war.

Two communities, Armenians and Azeris, who lived side by side for many years, are now wrenched apart.
When the USSR was still alive, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region, but in 1936 the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin handed it over to Azerbaijan, sparking calls for autonomy by the primarily Armenian population.

At the end of the 1980s, amidst the rubble of the crumbling Soviet Union, opposition to Azeri rule grew more vocal, and Stepanakert saw mass demonstrations of citizens demanding that they be allowed to join the Soviet republic of Armenia.

At the end of 1991, the population of 191,000, 75 percent of which was Armenian, proclaimed an independent Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR) – a month later, in January 1992, Baku sent in its troops to quell the secessionist movement.

Today, the two countries remain officially at war, with 150,000 NKR citizens living in a political limbo.

For those who survived the conflict, the precarious situation is a source of daily stress and anxiety, and though nearly 20 years have passed since the declaration of a ceasefire, citizens continue to live under the shadow of war.

“During the war I was teaching at a local gymnasium, and I saw 80 percent of my male students die in the fighting,” Grigoryan tells IPS.

“I do not want this to happen again –that’s why here, in our kindergarten, we do not speak about the war and we do not teach hatred to our pupils,” she says.

But though she does not speak of her memories, they are still fresh in her mind.

With vivid clarity she recalls the 1992 siege of Stepanakert, when Azeri Grad rocket launchers positioned in the hills in the nearby town of Shushi rained missiles down on NKR’s capital every day.

Civilians, quick to learn the rhythms of war, soon discovered that it took soldiers 18 minutes to reload a Grad battery and would use those intervals to move around the city, or steal brief moments of normalcy.

“I remember the mothers and fathers of the children you hear in the next room playing 18-minute-long football matches (during the siege),” Grigoryan says.

She is also active with the Public Diplomacy Institute, a local organisation that works to build bridges between Armenian NGOs and former Azeri inhabitants of NKR who were forced to flee to Azerbaijan in their tens of thousands during the war.

Lamenting that “two communities, Armenians and Azeris, who lived side by side for many years” are now wrenched apart, she hopes to build ties between them, through direct dialogue among people and peace activists on both sides.

Part of Grigoryan’s work entails “explaining” to her fellow countrymen that if they want peace, they must be prepared to make sacrifices, including territorial and political concessions to Azeris, like giving up the buffer zone beyond the NKR border and allowing Azeri refugees to return.

“We do not want to lose another generation to war,” she added, referring to the skirmishes that constantly erupt along the ceasefire line, and threats issued periodically from the government in Baku, which suggest that conflict is not far off.

Until 2009, Grigoryan’s cross-border diplomacy between NGOs and peace activists received some support form the international community, including a series of meetings in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and in Moscow, facilitated by the UK-based NGO International Alert.

But then everything slowed down, and the negotiations taking place under the auspices of the Minsk Group, a diplomatic initiative co-chaired by the U.S., Russia and France to mediate between the governments on either side of the Line of Contact, or ceasefire line, reached a stalemate.

Geopolitics hinder chances for peace

Though it boasts everything from a parliament to a ministry of foreign affairs, located just a few paces away from Grigoryan’s kindergarten, NKR has not been recognised at the international level.

Soldiers in the trenches of the 1994 ceasefire line after the Armenian-Azeri war over Nagorno-Kharabakh. Credit: Enzo Mangini/IPS

Azerbaijan does not have any direct contact with NKR, leaving all negotiations to Armenia, which it has labeled the “occupying force” in the region.

NKR Foreign Minister Karen Mirzoyan says he is “ready to sit at the table with my Azeri colleagues, but the problem is that they are not ready to sit with a member of the NKR government.”

Mirzoyan was appointed several months ago, when the July 2012 elections gave the incumbent president Bako Saghosyan a second term, with 64 percent of the vote.

“We received a clear mandate from our citizens,” Mirzoyan tells IPS: “They want to be free and independent and I am ready to make any concession that is consequent with this goal.”

But what this means on a practical level is far from clear.

NKR authorities blame the Azeri government, led by President Ilham Aliyev, of running an anti-Armenian campaign at the international level and of silencing dissenting voices in its own country.

Experts point to numerous incidents that support this claim, including the case of journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in Azerbaijan for his investigations on the Khojaly massacre, which cast doubt on the official Azeri version of the events. Faullayev was eventually pardoned in May 2011.

Experts like Richard Giragosian, head of the Regional Studies Centre, an independent think-tank for the southern Caucasus, believe there is a “desperate need for bold and creative political confidence building measures”, such as a universal withdrawal of Armenian troops from some stretches of the buffer zone.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan are stuck in a political stalemate that is hurting both countries,” he told IPS. “This could fuel instability in a region that is essential for the energy security of other countries, like Turkey, but also of Western Europe.”

Two major pipelines, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyahn and the Baku-Tiblisi-Supsa, plus the Baku-Tiblisi-Erzurum gas line, pass a few miles away from the NKR border.

Experts fear there could be severe ripple effects if the international community allows the issue to rot.

“Over the years, NKR’s independence has become an issue of national pride and national identity for Armenians and Azeris, thus making it all the more difficult to make concessions to the other side,” Giragosian says.

He believes strong players like Russia – which has sturdy relations with, and military bases in, both countries – ought to play a more prominent mediator role.