'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Factors for successful peacemaking: Northern Ireland

I am so joyful that it now looks as if the people of Northern Ireland can enjoy a much better, more peaceful future, thanks to the peace agreement announced on March 26 between Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party.

(Also, look at the inspiring, very forward-looking content of the statements made March 26 by both Paisley and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.)

Last October, I was lucky enough to hear Dr. Cathy Gormley-Heenan of the University of Ulster talk about the attributes of leadership that she considered essential to success in resolving complex, very long-running conflicts like that in Northern Ireland.

Gormley-Heenan subsequently published a book on the subject, which I'm eager to see.

Her focus in her presentation last October was primarily on the leadership needed from the primary participants in the peacemaking, not the evidently fairly different qualities required of outside third parties... What stood out most for me from her presentation-- and these are lessons that I think could certainly be applied in the remaining strands of the Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy-- were two main points:

(1) She underlined the need to embrace political inclusiveness in the peacemaking. The sole criteria for inclusion in the process in Northern Ireland, she said, had been (a) willingness to abide by a ceasefire, and (b) the holding of a clear mandate from the electorate.

Note that by these criteria, Hamas could and should have been included in the peace diplomacy, while the government of Israel-- which never abided by any ceasefire toward the Palestinians over the past year-- would not. (H'mmm.) Note, too, that the criteria Gormley-Heenan listed did not include anything, at that first stage of the negotiation, about any requirement to disarm, to subscribe to any particular version of the final outcome, or to issue statements recognizing the other side's "rights" in any regard. And neither did the diplomacy that, 15 years ago, led to the successful resolution of the longstanding inter-group conflict in South Africa require any of these steps up front.

(2) The second point that Gormley-Heenan made that stuck in my mind-- and in the notebook that I have to hand here-- is that the N.I. diplomacy worked when the leaders on each side took as their prime responsibility bringing their own constituency into the peace camp. She noted that on occasion, leaders of one side argued that it was the duty of the other side to take actions to "help" them bring their own supporters into the peace camp-- but that these demands were nearly always resented and divisive.

In the Arab-Israeli arena, how many hundreds of times have we heard demands from Israeli leaders that the Arabs should do things to help bring Israelis into the peace camp? (And how many times, the reverse, too?) In contrast to that, I do like Gormley-Heenan's formulation.

Anyway, I guess we should all go and buy her book to find out her other lessons.

I would add to the above that-- as evidenced in the content of those two leadership statements noted above-- another important attribute for any leader seeking to engage in successful peace diplomacy would be.a commitment to being forward-looking, in terms of being willing to set aside the many grievances, injustices, and hurts from the past and focus on building a better, rights-based order in the future for everyone involved, rather than continuing to harp on endlessly about those past grievances.

Certainly, that was an attribute that the friends at Sant' Egidio stressed when they helped to midwife the 1992 peace agreement that ended 15 years of atrocity-laden civil war in Mozambique. (You can read Chapter 4 of my latest book to find out more about that.)