Women Waging Peace
Special to PeaceTalk by Bronwen Morrison
Across the globe, women continue to play a vital but often unrecognized role
in preventing violent conflict, stopping war, and creating the conditions
for sustainable peace in fragile regions. For the past three years, the
Women Waging Peace initiative has helped bring women out of isolation and
into active participation in peace processes. The Women and Public Policy
Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government hosted
the fourth annual Women Waging Peace Colloquium November 2-8, 2002. The
program provided an opportunity for women peace builders to share their
successes and challenges with each others and with policymakers,
journalists, and academics.
The focus of this year's Colloquium was promoting the inclusion of women in
official and unofficial peace processes. Women selected to attend have been
involved in a formal peace process or would be excellent candidates to take
part in formal peace processes in the foreseeable future. Experts from a
variety of institutions, including Harvard University and the United States
Institute of Peace, engaged the participants in intensive discussions,
training sessions, and simulated negotiations. They brought a wealth of
expertise in civil society, academic research, local community organizing,
and government.
A vital aspect of the Colloquium is facilitating relationships between
members of the Waging network and policy shapers. In panel discussions and
public forums, the women interacted with high-level officials in the policy
arena. The culmination of the Colloquium was an all-day policy meeting on
November 8 that brought an estimated 100 policy shapers and decision-makers
to the Kennedy School to join the women peace builders in roundtable
discussions. This collaboration gave women activists direct access to
policymakers and provided fresh perspectives on the enormous potential that
women offer as agents of change in the area of international security.
In one of the discussions, "Between Vengeance and Forgiveness," delegates
spoke about forgiveness, vengeance, and coexistence in their regions of
conflict. Eileen Babbitt worked with the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees in Bosnia and Rwanda. The Assistant Professor of International
Politics at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy noted
that she was impressed by the difficulty of rebuilding a community in the
aftermath of extreme violence. Through personal accounts, delegates
reflected on the need for forgiveness and justice to achieve a viable peace.
They also addressed the value of coexistence in the absence of peace.
Delegates from Armenia, Burundi, Eritrea, India, Israel, Kosovo, the
Palestinian community, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, and Sri Lanka
discussed forgiveness and vengeance in relationship to peace in their
conflict areas. The delegates from Sri Lanka spoke about forgiveness as
starting from a point of agreement, not from each side stating their
concerns. Vjosa Dobruna, from Kosovo, addressed the need to acknowledge
wrongdoing. She also said that forgiveness is individual and cannot be
rushed by external forces. Aloisea Inyumba talked about using traditional
forms of resolving conflict when existing laws do not provide justice. Her
past work includes having Hutu women take in and care for Tutsi children in
Rwanda after the genocide. A delegate from South Africa, Pumla
Godobo-Madikizela, said that perpetrators of violence must reach out to
victims. The burden lies with the perpetrator to show remorse, not with the
victim to forgive.
On the issue of coexistence, women from Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia,
Kenya, and Northern Ireland spoke about groups of people, led by women,
attempting to establish coexistence in ongoing conflict. Through either
traditional processes or modern-day laws, these groups are beginning to see
their enemies as human through mutual communication and understanding. One
participant, Atema Eclai of Kenya, stated that once opposing groups have had
a chance to discuss their grievances, they can move on to rebuilding their
communities.
Gender and Disarmament
The keynote address, on Gender and Disarmament, was delivered by Jayantha
Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs at the United
Nations. Following is a brief summary of her remarks.
Extraordinary events have been taking place at the United Nations - events
that should be of great interest to all who care about gender equality,
disarmament, and the surprisingly close relationship that exists between
them.
In September, 2000, the Millennium Assembly of the UN adopted the Millennium
Declaration, which identified freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance,
respect for nature, and shared responsibility as the six "fundamental values
to be essential to international relations in the twenty-first century.
According to this Declaration, "Men and women have the right to live their
lives and raise their children in dignity, free from hunger and from the
fear of violence, oppression or injustice."
These leaders, however, addressed another issue that appears in the Charter,
namely the need for progress on disarmament and, as Article 26 puts it, the
duty to promote the "least diversion for armaments of the world's human and
economic resources." The Declaration attached "special significance" to the
elimination of all weapons of mass destruction - particularly nuclear
weapons - the ending of the illicit trafficking in small arms and light
weapons, and new efforts to achieve the elimination of all anti-personnel
landmines. It also called for efforts to strengthen respect for the rule of
law in international relations and, specifically, for compliance with arms
control and disarmament treaties as well as human rights and humanitarian
laws.
Some may ask, is there a real connection between gender equality and
disarmament? There certainly is, for the right to coexist as equals goes
hand in hand with the fundamental right to life - a right that is
jeopardized by the very existence of weapons of mass destruction and by the
use of other weaponry known to produce large numbers of civilian casualties.
A month later, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, which
encouraged all those who are involved in planning for disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration to consider the different needs of female
and male ex-combatants and to take into account the needs of their
dependents. The adoption of this resolution followed a remarkable statement
earlier that year by the President of the Security Council, on the occasion
of International Women's Day, indicating that "members of the Security
Council recognize that peace is inextricably linked with equality between
women and men."
What women do is extremely important in the field of international peace and
security, and their efforts will in particular have tremendous effects on
the future of some of the world's most deadly weaponry. Women vote, they
organize, they network even across national borders, they donate, they
investigate, they publish, they win elections and they write laws. In short,
they have the capacity to do all that is needed to convert the goals of
disarmament and arms control into concrete realities.
Bronwen Morrison is a Management Associate for Creative Associates International (CAII), based in Washington, D.C. Currently, she direct CAII transitional democratization programs in Latin America and Central Asia
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