Stories
National culture of peace programmes
Missions for the culture of peace
The failure of the culture of peace programme
Brothers for Peace
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In 1993-1994, as the UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme was launched, the most important culture of peace process in the world was going on in South Africa.
As part of the National Peace Accord in South Africa, a broad set of regional and local peace committees were established throughout the country, uniting representatives from political organizations, trade unions, business, churches, police and security forces to resolve disputes at local and regional levels. It directly engaged people in conflict management on a grass roots level throughout the country. At their peak, there were 11 regional committees and over one hundred local peace committees, with an annual budget of almost $12 million which enabled the hiring of full time staff for regional offices.
At that time I made a new friend, Reg Austin, who had been in charge of the United Nations supervision of the South African elections. He described the peace process to me as an important historical development. Never before had a revolution been kept peaceful by involving the entire population in conflict resolution committees at a local level.
But what would happen when the new South African government was elected? First of all, it would not have any funding to continue the peace process. And second, even it it had money, it would not have been appropriate because the power of the peace committees came from their neutrality.
We thought that the moment had come to obtain international funding to keep the peace committees operating. Not only could it help develop a new nation founded in conflict resolution procedures, but also it could serve as a model for other countries.
I knew the director of the new UNESCO office in South Africa because he was from Mozambique where I had already been working on a culture of peace, and he and I agreed that I should come to South Africa to prepare a funding request for the UNESCO member states and international organizations in order to keep the peace committees in operation.
But here is where the "crabs" intervened. My boss, who was beginning to be jealous of my work, decided to go to South Africa himself and deny my mission request. And what did he do in South Africa? He visited old friends, went to jazz concerts and refused to consider the proposal of supporting the peace process. He was my boss in a hierarchical system. There was nothing I could do except go over his head which would have led to disastrous results (as I knew from my other experiences in the organization).
Although the peace committees were disbanded, there was another development which came after them and retained the same spirit: the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
In preparing the draft of the Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace for the UN General Assembly, I included the following paragraph (number 85): "A systematic programme of research needs to be undertaken on the experiences of national truth and reconciliation commissions which have been established following armed conflicts, often in the context of national peace accords. Drawing lessons from these and other institutional initiatives which treat social justice as a means to reconciliation, new initiatives and institutions may be developed."
But the "crabs" intervened again. The European Union, afraid at the time that there might be a TRC demanded for their brutal and arbitrary intervention in Kosovo, insisted that this paragraph be stripped from the final version.
"Crabs" are not confined to the UN. When I went in Durban, South Africa, in June 1998 for the meetings of the International Peace Research Organization, I discovered to my amazement that the South African organizer of the conference, an ambitious, self-proclaimed "specialist" on conflict resolution, had not scheduled any session or discussion about the TRC. Having tried other means to get it on the agenda, working with Ann Goodman Adelson, I found a young South African whose organization was involved with the Commission, made my own hand-lettered signs and organized a very successful session about its work. And on the last day, being on a plenary panel for the meetings, I took advantage of my time on the podium to talk about the importance of the TRC.
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Stages
1982-1986
American Peace Movement
1986-1992
Seville and Peoples Peace Appeal
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme