LOOSING MOSES ON THE HIGHWAY

LOOSING MOSES ON THE HIGHWAY: "We all stray. We all violate some commandments and do not adequately honor others. We are human. But the commandments bind us together. They work to keep us from revering the false covenants that destroy us. These false covenants have a powerful appeal. They offer a sense of security and empowerment. They tempt us to be God. They tell us the things we want to hear and believe. They appear to make us the center of the universe. They make us feel we belong. But these false covenants, covenants built around exclusive communities of race, gender, class, religion and nation, inevitably carry within them the denigration of other who we exclude. The false covenants divide us. The covenant offered by the commandments, the covenant of life, is the covenant of love. It is a covenant that recognises that all life is sacred and love is the force that makes life together possible." -- Chris Hedges

AN OPEN LETTER: Elected Members of the Sri Lankan Parliament

AN OPEN LETTER: Elected Members of the Sri Lankan Parliament
1 February 2009
From Hannes Siebert

Dear Hon Members,

Looks like the end of the sad and tragic war is in sight. I would
imagine that you are preparing for a process of negotiating a lasting
solution for the country's challenges.

You are well aware of my position that there will be NO "winners" in a
war where so much human destruction took place on both sides of the
divide. Yes, the GOSL would probably defeat the LTTE in the next days
or weeks to come, but you are going to face the same situation that
the US faced after its "victory" in Iraq; what my country, Soth Africa
faced for 40 years every time they thought they defeated the
"terrorists'; what Israel is facing when it used all its power to
destroy and neutralize Hamas. It is NOT about Hamas, or the ANC or the
Sunni's... or the LTTE. Its about the spirit of the human being and
the historical evidence of what happens when we try and eliminate a
"people" or the enemy.

I am concerned for the spirit and well-being of the Sinhalese and
Tamils at this crucial point in time. All sides severely damaged its
own humanity in order to inflict this much damage to the other. My
question is how you are going to liberate and redeem your society
after the war? How are you going to enable healing and reconciliation.
How are you going to face the "dark" truths of the past ... because if
you are not going to face it, many more lives will have to pay the
price for our damaged selves.

I want to sincerely ask you to please consider ending the war as soon
as possible. The Sinhalese Government have shown that they have the
power to destroy the LTTE. Stop now. Let the LTTE leaders and those in
the GOSL that committed war crimes face an international criminal
tribunal and pay for their hate crimes. But save the soul of the
Sinhala nation by not destroying the lives of thousands of ordinary
Tamil people. You have won. Reach out your hand now. Claim the moment
and insist an inclusive Tamil team comes forward and negotiate a
lasting solution under the auspices of India, the US, EU, Norway and
Japan. Create a strong national dialogue process that will not only
provide the space for negotiations, but also facilitate national
healing...

I understand that you do not want ceasefire now when you believe
victory is in sight. Allow me to use a metaphor of myself: When you
finally overpowered me, got me on the ground and are able to kill
me... and you let me live, does that not redeem your own and my
humanity? By letting me live, at that moment, you break the barrier
between us, our humanity connects. This act also allow for a moment of
reconciliation and healing. By killing me, the injustice and act of
destruction keeps the fire alive in my brother who will come back and
try and kill you when he feels strong enough. This is a moment the
country can start the long journey of healing the wounds and redeeming
itself. One of the most powerful instruments we posses as humans, is
the ability to be merciful to our enemy.

The responsibility of every leader at this moment is to restore the
sacredness and dignity of life. Never in history was it EVER too soon
to stop the killing of innocent human beings! If you want to find a
lasting solution that will secure the safety of all people on the
island, you will need to reach out your hand before there are nobody
left to take your hand.

I pray for your strength, wisdom and humility (at a time of victory).

In the honorable name of Peace,
Hannes Siebert
Former facilitator: Sri Lanka One-Text Initiative
Chairman: Peace Appeal Foundation

Talks for the sake of Talks; War for the sake of Peace

SRI LANKA: When Negotiations Fail…
Talks for the sake of Talks; War for the sake of Peace

By Hannes Siebert and Chanya Charles


I. Introduction

Located just a few miles off the coast of India, the island of Sri Lanka is widely recognized for its natural beauty, rich cultural heritage, and the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any predominately Buddhist nation. The country’s virulent civil war, however, is often what captures the attention of international news headlines. Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim ethnic communities have been engaged in a violent internal conflict for more than 30 years. Clashes between the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have led to over 100,000 deaths, more than 200,000 refugees, and up to 600,000 internally displaced persons. Despite repeated attempts at negotiations since 1985, the conflict continues.

“Democratic” Sri Lanka has a history of popular elections and was one of the first countries in the world to enjoy universal suffrage in 1931. But the inability of the political leadership representing the different ethnic communities to share power equitably led to a series of broken agreements and acute mistrust between the communities. Sri Lanka’s political history chronicles the challenges of protecting minority interests in a parliamentary system in which majority-minority relations are strained by competing ethnic nationalist agendas.

Sri Lanka has earned increasing international attention due to the U.S.-India strategic South Asia partnership, growing trade relations with Iran and China, and the designation of the LTTE as a terrorist organization. Beyond strategic interests, the international community has been heavily involved in attempting to address the war in Sri Lanka. There is a well-resourced international monitoring mission, facilitation support from Norway as a committed international partner, and active engagement by countries like the United States, Japan, India, China, and many European countries.

In addition to international efforts at peacebuilding, Sri Lanka has three peace secretariats, approximately 150 local peace forums, more than 6,000 mediation boards across the country, an active and well-trained civil society, and an elaborately structured and stakeholder-owned negotiations forum, the One-Text Initiative (OTI).

After the breakdown of the formal negotiations (Track 1) brokered by the Norwegian Government in 2003, the One-Text Initiative was established as a confidential dialogue space. The key parties’ hope was to create a stakeholder-owned safety net for the formal negotiations, rebuild confidence between the parties, and jointly generate more realistic options for the parties to consider through a “single text” methodology. Most of the key parties joined – including the LTTE as stakeholder observer. In its first two years it produced more than 89 “consensus” documents despite the absence of formal talks. The confidential dialogue forum continued its work quietly throughout the period of the war since 2006 and provided a safe space for parties to search for solutions and maintain key relationships. Some of its members were imprisoned and others received death threats, but all of them continued confidentially and publicly with their efforts to resolve the national conflict.

Sadly, despite the existence of both national and international peace initiatives, including the OTI, the conflict in Sri Lanka has escalated dramatically since November 2005. As the Sinhalese Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse came to power with a strong nationalist agenda, Tamil demands for independence grew stronger and the willingness to compromise diminished. Violence in Sri Lanka has reached unprecedented levels, with more than 11,000 people killed from 2006 to April 2008.

This chapter examines the One-Text Initiative’s impact on the country’s peace and negotiations process and why the Initiative was unable to prevent the gradual breakdown of the agreed-on ceasefire of 2002. In this contribution by one of the former facilitators and co-founding members of the “One-Text” process in Sri Lanka and the Program Director from the original donor implementing agency, the authors argue that lack of trust between the parties, the non-implementation of agreements, their competing ethnic nationalist agendas, and each group’s unrealistic and unfair expectations and demands of each other, dominated and undermined both the Track 1 negotiations as well as the One-Text process. They suggest that the absence of workable links and mechanisms between the Track 1 and Track 1 ½ (OTI) processes robbed each process of mutual benefits and disabled OTI to act as an effective safety net. The result was that Norway became the dominant story, a substitute for broken relationships and the punch bag of the parties. When negotiations failed at the top, the overall process was left with a symbolic Track 1 ½ (OTI) process in the middle of an unfolding war.

Finally, this chapter explores the mistakes of the past, ways to strengthen the “One-Text” dialogue, and identifies areas that can be addressed to re-build a peace process on the island.

(Contact hannessiebert@gmail.com for full chapter -- available in August 2009

Imperfect Bridges To Peace

National Peace Structures Study: Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Israel/Palestine
Berghof Foundation/ Peace Appeal Fdn: 2006-9

Introduction by Hannes Siebert

Core Elements, Approaches and Trends:

Peace Structures by its nature are vulnerable and imperfect instruments that have the burden of helping a society cross the bridge from war or serious conflict, to a shared space that promises a sustainable or acceptable peace. To the leaders in a process that carries this burden to deliver peace on behalf of the people or the ideals they represent, these structures are temporary symbols of hope. We have seen in both Nepal and Colombia that the structures changed constantly as the needs of the peace process evolves and the working relationships between the parties mature. We have also sadly seen that when the relationships between the stakeholders further erode, in countries such as Sri Lanka, the “peace” instruments become self-serving and destructive to the very process they were suppose to sustain. These instruments are constantly vulnerable to be exploited for power-politics.

It is evident from looking at the different peace processes, that each conflict and peace process demands its own unique set of mechanisms and structures to meet the needs and address the dynamics of that specific process. Although we try to explore and define trends and common approaches from the experiences in each of these processes, the most important observation is that you cannot transplant models from one country to another. Both the advisors and stakeholders in each of these processes learned the hard way that such assumptions and quick fixes cause problems later in the peace process. It is essential that each process, structure and mechanism is authentic and designed by the stakeholders themselves, or in close collaboration with all stakeholders. Without the buy-in, agreement and ownership of all keys stakeholders of such structures, the mechanisms will inevitably fail – maybe not initially, but eventually. Such failures could lead to the breakdown of an entire process.

Stakeholders facing serious conflicts and process challenges often want to explore models that worked in other countries. Good “models” can be deceptive as we don’t always know how it evolved or the nuances of its context. Sometimes we would be better served learning from our own and other’s failed models. Most cultures in the world have practices, rituals and inherent assets that they drew on for centuries to survive. Building on and strengthening the good cultural assets in societies in conflict, is as important as finding best practice models from relevant international experiences. But the structural models are as important as the design and ownership of the process. Good structures and stakeholder intension can suffer greatly in bad processes, and the reverse is similarly true. It is therefore important to learn from the successes and failures from each process and structural models, and integrate these lessons into future designs.

Generating appropriate structural options for specific processes goes hand-in-hand with adapting or changing such structures to meet the political culture(s) of the stakeholders. The characteristics of the most sustainable processes and structures were ones created through collaborative process design where stakeholders, facilitators and advisors: (1) acknowledged the context and history of each process; (2) compensated and understood the limitations and strengths of the parties to the conflict; (3) accommodated levels of trust and miss-trust between the conflicting parties and their readiness to collaborate; (4) defined how the structures should create an environment and a reasonable possibility for the implementation of agreements – including local ownership and participation in national processes; (5) mobilized people and resources that could sustain the implementation of agreements and functioning of the structures; (6) created joined structures where former enemies could work together and share the responsibility and ownership of their agreements and the implementation thereof; (7) and lastly, recognized communication breakdowns and misunderstandings and found ways to enhance effective communication and collaboration based on the strengths and weaknesses of that specific political culture.

Although the design and composition of these structures differ from country to country, their purpose and roles are generally the same. The structures are created to establish conditions for political normalization and active, inclusive participation in the peace process; set up mechanisms that will protect the negotiations from the ongoing conflict; create joint implementation mechanisms; addressing the worst effects of political conflict at local level; create and maintain mechanisms that will investigate the causes of violence and intimidation, and actively combat the occurrence of violence and intimidation; implement mechanisms to settle differences and resolve conflicts; create a safe and acceptable space for change and more specifically, the negotiations process, and improve local monitoring capacity.

Core Elements of Peace Structures

Based on the 5 case studies (Nepal, Colombia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Israel/Palestine) and the comparative worldwide survey of 15 national peace structures we cover in this study, we identified the following core elements, roles and functions of these structures:
Facilitate Dialogue and Communications between Stakeholders; Coordinate and Administer Negotiations Process; Implementation of Negotiated Agreements; Creating Joint Structures for Monitoring and Implementation; Communicating Peace, Negotiations Process and Managing Media Relations; Securing Peace at Community Level; Monitoring of Agreements and Implementation; Promoting Common Values and Process; Drafting and/or Supporting Agreements and Legislation; Coordinating and managing IDP’s and Conflict Victim’s Resettlement, Compensation and Rehabilitation; Redressing the Past and Investigating the Disappeared…

Debunking the "Big O"

Media Covering Conflict:

Can you separate the journalist as a person from the message that he or she sends? We are hopefully coming out of an era where those who control the media believe a journalist should stand in the no-man's land of objectivity - always standing outside an event, never getting involved, never openly embracing one's own and others' humanity, remaining the passive observer without asserting one's values. 'Holding up a mirror to society' - but showing little understanding of the larger context. I am not sure why the supporters of the 'mirror' argument prefer to ignore the shapes or angles of these mirrors. Working in different media contexts - community, national and international - it is difficult not to observe how the shape of one's mirror affects the content of the message. These shapes are determined by one's worldview, one's understanding of a specific situation/event or conflict, one's capacity to capture the complete picture, one's sense of responsibility towards the people one reports on or for and, very importantly, by the medium one uses - whether it is television, radio, print or the Internet.

We cannot escape the fact that the BIG O (objectivity) is always influenced by ongoing subjective decisions - decisions of what issues are important, who to interview, who NOT to interview, what facts to include in a story or to exclude, what quote to use, how we create the context of the story, our language, the pictures we use - all very subjective choices. It is within this context that media coverage of conflict takes on a very different shape for me, and cries out for a re-look at our conventional attitudes towards and reporting of conflicts. Working in numerous conflicts on the continent over the last ten years, it has become very clear that we, the media, impact on conflict whether we intend to or not. We impact in spite of ourselves.

A critical factor of this impact is our own perceived role and where we stand in a conflict. Michel Warschawski, a veteran journalist and media activist in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, uses the powerful metaphor of the border - the line of deepest conflict between two peoples, but also their greatest opportunity for reconciliation and relationship. He suggests that the journalist stand on this borderline of conflict - where the conflict is most intense. He also argues that we journalists can never stand outside a conflict and not be affected by it; nor can we claim that we don't want to influence the conflict ( i.e. Òwe want to be objectiveÓ). This passive form of journalism also impacts on conflicts or policy making, whether or not we admit it.

We need to better understand our impact, and make better use of it. From our experience in and reporting on the South African communities of Crossroads and Thokoza, as well as conflicts in Sri Lanka, Burundi, Angola, Liberia and the Middle East, it is clear that our roles as communicators, reporters or filmmakers in conflict change, as the anatomy of the conflict changes. Just three short observations:

As almost all of these conflicts indicated, the media becomes the only medium of communication between warring/conflicting parties in the absence of formal or informal negotiations processes. We become the messenger between people who are unwilling to enter dialogue or meet with one another. We communicate the parties' hatred, anger, fears and frustrations to each other - a dangerous enterprise unless, as we have tried to do, one uses this phase not just to vent emotions, but also to break down stereotypes, decode 'hate-speech', generate options to violent conflict and reflect the ordinary person's desire and need for peace.

During the second phase of conflict - the negotiations process - the media becomes a channel for opinion and information sharing between the negotiators and their constituencies. Mediators and power-brokers often underestimate the value of communicating the process of negotiations to the constituencies involved. This often causes great frustration for the journalist. But more importantly, securing a free flow of accurate and constructive information at this stage can help ensure sustainable agreements and prevent leaders from manipulating such negotiations to secure their own power and position.

In the post-agreement phase of conflicts the media forms a critical part of monitoring such agreements - our conventional watchdog role - and provides a forum for ongoing dialogue. We also become a critical tool to help ensure long-term accountability from leaders to the people.

The paradigm shift suggested here entails re-visiting media stereotypes and assumptions about our traditional roles (which may not be so homogenised as we think, if we look at media in different societies). It also suggests that, as journalists, we are ultimately accountable to our sources - the media subjects and consumers - within the context of universally accepted human rights and social democratic values.

Hannes Siebert is Director of the Media Peace Centre and Executive Producer at Ubuntu TV and Film Productions, Cape Town.

hope and foolishness

...hope can be a memory of the future...

The heart of fools produces foolishness....He who guards his mouth preserves his life, But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction. -- Proverbs.

Israel's security

‎"The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns... in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected." Archbishop Tutu to Haaretz

Pascal

Pascal: ‘No one is strong unless he or she bears within their character antitheses strongly marked." It is in the tension between virtues – that strength is to be found.

Lamentations

 ‎...it is good to wait quietly... sit alone in silence... face in the dust—there may yet be hope. Offer cheek to one who would strike, and let him be filled with disgrace. (Lamentations)

Creative spaces...

 ‎"To live between memory and potentiality is to live permanently in a creative space ... with the unexpected... the womb of constructive change... the birthplace of the past that lies before us." -- John Paul Lederach in The Moral Imagination

Gandhi

In memory of Gandhi: "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." AND the one we all know: "... be the change you want to see in the world."

cloud computing

With the global war of the "cloud computing" tycoons we are entering the final Orwelian era of allowing our collective identities to live on the "server farms" of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo ...

Consensus

In divided societies, descisions by consensus and national unity are more sustainable nation-building values than power-centered majoritarianism.

On allies as facilitators/mediators

To achieve a just, fair and sustainable outcomes for all parties in negotiations, the facilitators' role include holding parties accountable to current & past agreements and just laws. "Allies" should avoid being the principle facilitators (as far as possible), but rather be active sponsors, guarantors and witnesses to talks.

Clint Eastwood observations...

 ‎"There is so much transmission and very little reception. You watch [TV]... they are not listening. Very few let a person finish their thought. They just want to stomp down... like stepping on a bug before it bites you... Quit trying to force everything down everybody's throat." - Clint Eastwood

Another surprise from him was this one: "... I do believe in a soul. Sometimes I think what it must have been like to be the first to circle around the moon and then come out from behind it and see the earth down there. Must have been some kind of [soul discovery] moment."

Every human has four endownments...

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... AND the power to choose, to respond, to change. - Stephen Covey (from ADR Notes)

Wine

 ‎"Touchstone describes a conflict and its resolution through dialogue, by asking the creative question, what if. He sums up with: Your If is the only peacemaker, much virtue in if. That whole uncertain world of “if” is where the [peacemaker] works. As long as one can keep coming up with another “What if” the dialogue co...ntinues to evolve until a resolution emerges." - James Wine

Xmas

 ‎"Perfect love drives out fear"... the Gift of Chrismas calls to move out of our safe religious ghettos, end bitter culture wars; and share our human journeys to the beat of Martin Luther King's "different drum".

Forgetting...

 Forget and forgive the failures of the past and walk forward in the present to meet what is ahead...

why trust?

‎...why trust when you can worry? Worry is like carrying a load of feathers on your head that feels like lead...

simulating truth...

‎...insincerity and unconscious hypocrisy can be the tributes we pay to truth and goodness... when we fail goodness and truth we often simulate them... (EWJ)

Emerson

‎"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child ...or a redeemed social condition; to k...now even one life has breathed easier because you have lived... ". Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty

 ‎'Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.’... a focus on the essential ... the simple and profound... those things that gives life meaning and make life beautiful....

Tulsidas

 ‘The Impersonal lays no hold on my heart.’ The Impersonal is too cold and unresponsive. The principles of living become power only as they are embodied in a person, and in a person who is not immune to the sufferings and woes that plague the human condition. - Tulsidas

when bullies parade as peacemakers...

 It’s not about negotiations or peace for the powerful. It’s about their own strategic interests and how to pacify those that threaten their interests. ‎...what makes us human is our capacity to not let satifying our own interest, rob other of theirs... and their humanity, dignity and capacity to survive in the same measure than us...

freedom

- no one is freer than a person with no moral beliefs... Surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions - franzen in freedom

- ‎...there is something beyond freedom that people need: work, love, belief in something, commitment to something. Freedom is not enough...its what you give it up for that matters - franzen, latest novel freedom

Unjust wars

History repeating itself? No unjust war has ever resolved anything. Feed your neighbor a snake and he will eventually poison your bread. You can destroy posessions, parts of or full bodies, but you can NEVER destroy the heart and soul of the human being that God created.

Tutu

Some of Tutu's best quotes: I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of human rights - January 1985

Facilitation becomes illegal

 “...arguments that would deny... protection to the peaceful teaching of international
human rights law on the ground that a little knowledge about the international legal system is too dangerous a thing; than an opponent’s subsequent willingness to negotiate might be faked...? What might be said of these claims by those who live, as we do, in a Nation committed to the resolution of disputes through ‘deliberative forces.’” -- Justice Breyer, US Supreme Court, dissenting comment on the court's ruling against our joint challenge of a U.S. law that bars supporting peace negotiations, facilitation and calling for human rights where US-listed (they term "terrorist") are involved.

Becoming like the enemy...

One of our biggest traps when facing an abusive enemy, is the contruct of our perception of that enemy -- how to avoid not becoming like the enemy. This liberating truth is always striking and so against our nature: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you wi...ll heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

winning

If we only want to win, there will always be loosers and how would that change anything. How will that bring peace or justice or empathy.

Pain and Fairness

Pain and suffering is God's megaphone... - CS Lewis

‎"Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person will ever die young." - the Blue Man

Servant's Charter

Servant's Charter: "Serve with endurance, hard work, sacrifice, understanding, patience and kindness; in sincere love; in truthful speech; with justice in one and forgiveness in the other hand; through bad and good report; known, yet regarded as unknown; sorrowful about other's suffering, yet always rejoicing in our sh...ared humanity and hope; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything."

 Hi Michael, the master should first be come servants... and the peculiar ones could consider poetry, filmmaking, preaching, writing, protesting... and making life's journey worth travelling for both masters and servants... those are the ones that could keep searching, reflecting and asking questions to ensure the rest never get stuck in their safe boxes...

Rewards

 ‎"We tend to reward those who can create the illusion of having it all together by holding them up as examples of good people..., while the REAL ones' integrity compels them not to deny their struggles." - EDJ

Chaos