Peace Processes Are the Preferred Method of Establishing Lasting Peace - Assignment Example

Human history is filled with strife and conflict that has consumed the lives of people all over the globe. Ranging from the early Greek Empire to themodern day, there are traces of conflict based on a number of reasons. Generally when competing interests of differentiated groups collide, there are enhanced chances for violence as a means of dispute resolution. For the earliest parts of recorded human history, violence was generally seen as the only real means for settling conflicts. However, this approach has changed over time to include diplomacy as a means to negotiate and create peace. The move to use peaceful means for dispute resolution was accelerated in large part by the influx of the First and Second World War in the twentieth century. The use of violence failed to accomplish little more than death and destruction on a scale never witnessed before in both of these wars. This paper will attempt to analyse why peace processes have failed to end the violence in conflicts. The scope of the current discussion will remain limited to the twentieth and the twenty first centuries alone in order to develop a stronger argument. The first major visible effort for initiating peace in the twentieth century came through the Treaty of Versailles in the aftermath of the First World War. Some may argue that the Treaty of Versailles was little more than retribution for Germany’s actions in the war. However it must be borne in mind that the statesmen of Europe were mature enough to attempt to deliver lasting peace using the Treaty of Versailles. This maturity stemmed from previous peace building efforts such as the Congress of Vienna that had delivered Europe with peace for nearly a century (King, 2008) (Zamoyski, 2007). The comparison between the Treaty of Versailles and the Congress of Vienna provides an immediately noticeable difference – representation of stakeholders. The Congress of Vienna was highly tolerant of the demands of Talleyrand but there was no such behaviour at the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles. It has also been suggested that the Germans were purposefully kept out of the drafting procedures in order to deliver a harsh blow to the German state under the Treaty. While the Congress of Vienna was tolerant of the French, the Treaty of Versailles was discriminatory to the Germans (Lentin, 1985). This behaviour of the Allied victors through the Treaty of Versailles was enough to instigate German resistance to this understanding of peace. Through the execution of the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies sought to disable the German state in its capacity to be aggressive (Markwell, 2006). However, later events were to prove otherwise as the entire German state was mobilised by the Nazi party to avenge their humiliation in the First World War. It has been suggested that if the Treaty of Versailles had been more just to the Germans, there would have been greater chances for lasting peace on the European mainland and around the globe (Barnett, 2002). The onslaught of the Second World War points to the failure of the Treaty of Versailles as a peace building effort and also leads credence to the belief that peace is not possible without tolerant representation in the peace effort. The idea of proper representation of the involved stakeholders at the peace making table is as valid today as it was decades ago. While certain aspects of the violence after peace building efforts have stayed the same, others have changed altogether. This can largely be attributed to the changes in power structures around the globe following the Second World War in the shape of decolonisation. Rapid decolonisation in the wake of the Second World War led to the creation of newer blocs of power that have been named appropriately as the “Third World” (Tomlinson, 2003). In a similar manner, the blocs of advanced nations became the First World (Wolf-Phillips, 1987). Most of the conflict present in the world after the Second World War can be attributed to the Third World. Evolving power structures of nascent nations meant that ambitious people were quick to take advantage in order to assume power for themselves. The increasing personalisation of politics as well as the assumption of power by military regimes meant that conflict was ripe. The colonised regions were able to survive this long without pervasive conflict because a sustainable system of governance had been in place in the form of a colonial government. As soon as decolonisation occurred, a number of groups were quick to claim power for themselves based on ethnic, racial and religious lines. It must also be kept in mind that conflicts have evolved after the Second World War such that they have become group based conflicts rather than nation based conflicts. In the early twentieth century it was common for nations to go to war while in the latter reaches it has been more common for groups inside nations to go to war. Among other things, this has meant that factions seeking violence for dispute resolution do not have a solid governmental form and thus lack the platforms associated with a stable government (Bannon & Collier, 2003). When put into the perspective of peace processes, this means that these violent groups often do not have the mechanisms associated with themselves to come to the negotiating table. For example, in recent years the Taliban have not come to the negotiating table as a solid singular group but have been negotiated with as differentiated groups that are related to each other. While previously it was simple to negotiate with governments because of diplomatic frameworks and mechanisms, it has become far more difficult now. This state of affairs means that certain actors will always be left out of the peace process no matter how meticulously the stakeholders are identified. Again quoting the Afghan example, the Americans and their allies are negotiating with Taliban inside Afghanistan only although the Pakistani Taliban needs to be taken on board as well. Consequently any peace that is derived using this peace process is bound to fail as the involved stakeholders do not represent the entire violent domain (Bercovitch & Jackson, 2009). Failure of the peace process in this form is neither new nor limited to Afghanistan. Instead, this mode of failure of the peace process and the ensuing violence has been visible throughout the twentieth century across the globe. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has failed time and again because the relevant stakeholders were not all kept on board. The Oslo peace process for example failed to account for the undertones in the Palestinian movement that later emerged as Hamas. Similarly the more radical Zionist groups were also kept out of the negotiating process fearing a stall of the peace process (Roy, 2011). Another example emerges from Rwanda where ethnic genocide was imminent before 1995 but little could be done to mitigate the disaster. Again, the relevant stakeholders involved in the Rwandan peace process were people who had no real roots in the Rwandan countryside where the massacre reached unmatched scales. Consequently the initiated peace process failed to establish any real peace and eventually culminated in genocide (Jone, 2001). It has also been indicated that every peace process has certain “spoilers”. These spoilers can be seen as entities who have an agenda for war and conflict to serve their political, social, economic or other agendas. Peace process efforts are sabotaged using an escalation of violence or increasing the barbarism involved in such violence. Much of the peace process efforts in the West African domain have failed to achieve any real results because the spoilers are given enough leverage to derail the entire process. Additionally it is possible for these spoilers to blackmail the entire peace process in order to claim control of government such as in the case of the Ivory Coast. The start of a rebellion in 2002 in Ivory Coast meant that the government was being opposed by armed groups from within the country as well as by certain warlords outside the country. Subsequent peace deals failed to live up to expectations as prominent opposition leaders were murdered and spoilers were able to take over the government’s end of the peace process. Government troops and efforts were mobilised in order to seize the opportunity to decimate the opposition through a proclamation of defending the nation’s borders (Ajdehi, 2008). This version of events can be superimposed on many other small African nations such as Congo, Senegal, Liberia and the like. The peace processes in these domains are upset by spoilers who seize these opportunities to achieve their own agendas. One of the more striking aspects of such peace process failures is the fact that these spoilers are generally under little international pressure until things are well out of hand already. Within the case of Ivory Coast, the international community took a lot of time to determine that President Gbagbo was responsible for derailing the peace process on purpose to achieve political aims (Hamer, 2009). This leads to another reason for the failure of peace processes – limited involvement of the international community to deal with localised conflicts. As indicated before, the nature of group conflict has assumed new dimensions in modern times. Conflicts have assumed more of a localised nature than ever before. This indicates that recent conflicts are often created within the domains of a government that has de jure recognition in the international community. Consequently, international actors are slow and often reluctant to act in these conflicts because their involvement is seen as foreign interference. Even when the international community shows its involvement, the nature of the involvement is more or less temporary and serves more as eyewash than as a sustainable solution. The resulting peace processes that are brokered using these means are often temporal in nature and fail to hold out against the determined efforts of more aggressive elements in the conflict zone. Perhaps one of the most resounding examples of failure on the part of the international community has been Somalia. The removal of Siad Barre’s government in the early nineties meant that Somalia plunged into civil war leaving millions destitute and suffering. The peace process initiated by the African Union and other key international players was not able to bridge the differences between rival warring factions. Consequently troops had to be deployed to Somalia in order to establish peace and this can be seen as a primary peace keeping effort. The troops stationed inside Somalia were asked among other duties to reduce the amount of arms available to warlords. In pursuing such efforts, the United Nations troops were attacked by Abu Farrah Aideed’s men inflicting heavy causalities and leading to the Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu (Hoehne & Luling, 2010). Unfortunately faced with the heavy causalities the international community chose to forego its support for the Somali people. Subsequently the peace keeping mission in Somalia was withdrawn which in turn led to an escalation of violence. The withdrawal of troops by the international community signals the lack of commitment for hotbeds of violence such as Somalia. The peace process in Somalia suffered heavily as a result of the international community’s disenchantment. Armed groups such as those led by Abu Farrah Aideed assumed massive portions of Somalia and initiated their own personal regimes (Lewis, 2002). This example clearly delineates that any peace process that lacks the will and commitment of the international community is bound to result in a resurgence of violence alone. In contrast to Somalia, there is the example of Iraq. The presence of international troops in Iraq and their actions against local warlords were highly vital to demilitarising Iraq. The massive military operations in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities led to a dramatic reduction in arms. The reduction of arms was thus critical to reducing violence in Iraq. It cannot be stated that Iraq is at total peace with itself at the current moment but the situation has improved since the fall of the Saddam Husain regime (Shadid, 2005). It must also be mentioned that the number of causalities experienced by foreign troops station in Iraq decreased after the pervasive demilitarisation efforts (Glass, 2004). There is a high probability that if a similar strategy had been pursued in Somalia, the results would have been entirely different from the situation on ground in Somalia right now. Thus, the backing and involvement of international actors is essential to ensuring the sustainability of any peace process. This fact manifested itself once again during the recent campaign in Libya against the former military dictator Muammar Kaddafi. The pro-government armed forces and foreign mercenaries were deployed by Kaddafi in order to quell the rebellion against his regime. The declaration of a de facto government in Ben Ghazi and their appeal for international help allowed foreign actors to play their part. The joint US and NATO armed force that was created to deal with the Libyan crisis was able to dissuade Kaddafi from inflicting large civilian losses (Shimatsu, 2011). It could be argued that these peace keeping efforts were able to circumvent large amounts of violence. Here it must again be kept in mind that the determined efforts of the international community were vital to establishing the overall peace arrangement in Libya. The examples provided above provide clear evidence that any peace process will work well with international players looking to protect it. Given the critical nature of this reason, it must also be seen why international players would want to develop stakes in a peace process to take it to success. As far as the case of Iraq and Libya goes, the international domain realises that both countries have oil reserves for the world to utilise. However, Somalia has little to offer the world as it is a largely agricultural country and there is little dearth of agricultural produce in international markets. In contrast, oil is in short supply around the world leading to inflated prices. The supply of oil from Iraq and Libya could be expected to deflate prices more. This in itself is the greatest stake that the international community had in either Iraq or Libya. Hence, the sustained peace processes initiated in either Libya or Iraq were able to continue unabated because both countries had something to offer to the international community. This also indicates that international involvement in either country was more or less of an investment by the involved countries to take advantage of the oil reserves. Therefore, it could be safely concluded that peace processes are unable to end violence when the involved actors have nothing to offer to the mediators and peace makers. Based on the arguments presented above, it has become clear that peace processes are the preferred method of establishing lasting peace around the world. This trend has gained wide acceptance around the globe following the Second World War. The success of the peace process initiated to end violence depends on a number of complex social, economic and political factors. It cannot be said that all peace processes are able to achieve sustainable peace and it can neither be said that all peace processes are failures. However, the peace processes that tend to fail are limited by some common factors. Primarily the biggest reason for failures of peace processes is the inadequate identification and representation of stakeholders. Issues are also made more complicated by changed and changing power structures around the globe. Previously conflicts were limited to national scales but of late these conflicts have assumed more localised scales. This in turn has led to greater problems in banding together the involved stakeholders. The problem of spoilers in the peace process is obvious to the failure of peace processes. Moreover, limited international support and commitment also leads to drastic chances for failure of any peace process. References Ajdehi, L., 2008. Cote DIvoire--Africa: Two Battles To Win. 1st ed. Outskirts Press. Bannon, I. & Collier, P., 2003. Natural resources and violent conflict: Options and actions. Washington, D. C.: The World Bank. Barnett, C., 2002. The Collapse of British Power. London: Pan. Bercovitch, J. & Jackson, R., 2009. Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-first Century: Principles, Methods, and Approaches. 1st ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Glass, C., 2004. The Northern Front: A Wartime Diary. London: Saqi Books. Hamer, M.C.-d., 2009. 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