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LATIN AMERICA:
Civil Society Has
Role to Play in Conflict
Prevention
Humberto
Márquez
CARACAS, (IPS) - Latin America
and the Caribbean may appear to
be the least conflict-ridden
region in the world today.
Nevertheless, civil society has
a role to play in the prevention
of conflicts, a task that must
not be ignored, according to
academics and representatives of
non-governmental institutions
meeting this week in the
Venezuelan capital.
Civil society ”has a secondary
role with respect to political
actors in the management of a
conflict, once it has broken
out. But it has enormous
potential to contain it, through
early alert systems, and to keep
it from growing, with follow-up
measures,” Argentine expert
Andrés Serbín told IPS.
Serbín is the head of the
Regional Coordinator of Economic
and Social Research (CRIES),
which links some 70
non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) and university institutes
in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
CRIES organised the seminar
”Building Peace in Latin America
and the Caribbean: Lessons
Learnt and Successful
Experiences”, held last Monday
and Tuesday in Caracas.
Although there have been no wars
between nations in this region
since 1995, when Ecuador and
Peru faced off briefly in a
border dispute, ”there is a
tendency towards an increase in
domestic conflicts, over issues
ranging from political
confrontation between state and
guerrillas to drug trafficking,
through social issues like the
struggle for land reform, and
immigration,” he said.
The first conclusion reached by
the gathering was that a
specific, institutionalised
mechanism for civil society to
express its viewpoints on the
prevention of armed conflicts
should be created within the
United Nations Security Council.
According to the experts meeting
in Caracas, the U.N. system
should more closely coordinate
its efforts in conflict
prevention with civil society
groups, in response to a call by
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan for a global action plan
of prevention of conflicts and
the development of a culture of
peace.
Meanwhile, civil society should
decide on what kind of conflict
resolution interventions it will
agree to take part in, since the
U.N. has developed a system of 'á
la carte' interventions in
countries in conflict,” said
Socorro Ramírez, from Colombia's
National University.
Ramírez recalled that in 2001,
the U.N. International
Commission on Intervention and
State Sovereignty, requested by
Canada, coined the concept of
”responsibility to protect”
civilian populations through
preventive, coercive and
military means against a state
that cannot or will not defend
its population, ”in other words,
against a negligent state.”
”That new doctrine is the
relativisation of concepts that
were at the basis of the
creation of the U.N. system,
involving independence,
sovereignty, and the
self-determination of states,”
said Ramírez, and ”it has been
forged in years of debate, after
the euphoria of optimism
surrounding interventions by
peacekeeping forces.”
But U.N. interventions aimed at
protecting the population and
promoting peace ”have not been
accompanied by a strengthening
of multilateralism. Instead, the
U.N. is used on an 'à la carte'
basis by the major powers, and
the emphasis is placed on
humanitarian concerns, as
opposed to political analysis,”
he added.
In the Organisation of American
States (OAS) as well, the most
successful intervention
mechanisms have been ad hoc
initiatives, like the creation
of groups of friendly nations by
the secretary general to deal
with specific conflicts, said
Chilean analyst Paz Milet of the
Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences (FLACSO).
Chilean FLACSO director
Francisco Rojas also spoke of
the need for civil society to
forge a space for participation
”once we have moved from a
state-centric concept of
international relations to a
more global one.”
In Latin America and the
Caribbean, ”it should be
recognised that advances have
been made in the development of
democracy, but there continues
to be a threat posed by
territorial conflicts, the
failure of economic policies,
the fact that we are the region
with the highest violent crime
rate in the world, and the
existence of states that have
been weakened because they have
lost the monopoly on power or
are unable to sustain basic
social pacts,” said Rojas.
Ramírez told IPS that civil
society ”cannot continue to
solely represent standards and
values regarding how the world
should be; it is time to move on
to formulating concrete
proposals.”
Colombian activist Amanda Romero
of the Andean Quaker Service
Committee told IPS that one of
the concrete goals that should
be pursued is to fight for the
implementation of U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1325 on
women, peace and security,
adopted in October 2000, which
represents a gender-based
perspective on the prevention,
handling and resolution of armed
conflicts.
”The use of women as cannon
fodder in the Colombian conflict
is a good example of the
relevance of this issue,” said
Romero.
”Women's bodies are a
battleground in countless ways:
they are recruited by force,
obliged to act as informers,
forced into sexual relations
when they are still girls, and
raped as trophies of war,” she
said.
The goal of civil society,
universities and NGOs should not
be the elimination of all
disagreement, confrontation or
debate, said Serbín, because
differing opinions and opposing
views are a part of life. What
should be sought, instead, is
the resolution of disputes and
conflicts through peaceful and
democratic channels.
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