What I'm going to be discussing here on the air is the concept of failed diplomacy,
that you just have picked it up for further discussion on one of the books I wrote in 2006,
looking at GEO's role in failed diplomacy or a working peacebuilding conflict in identies and all that.
But if you could also just be a short description in a chapter of this week, was that you published last year.
Does it display on the registration table starting off on East Africa?
Just to give you an idea, be looking at those three countries.
But taking on much more on the Kenyan gun that I'm done.
Sudan is the largest country now.
I'm looking at the work that the NGOs have been doing in the last 20 years and the frustration of a lot of work being done on the grassroots,
but with very little link in the middle and the top level as somewhere.
A lot of our discussion this morning also added to that and the strategic peace
building based court and to see how sustainable Congo's peace process processes be.
But then how do we create a dialogue between the grassroots and the top level?
As you know, the NGO in the last maybe 15 years, I've been engaged to some extent in the work of peace building and especially after the Cold War,
where there was much more of a push for the NGO is to do it not just relief work,
but move on a little bit into development and something that is sustainable.
And then further, they have been pushed now to also get engaged in the peace building work and join the civil society in that process.
And they've been to schools around this particular issue.
The many used to say, you know, End-Use, you just keep to what are supposed to do, development, relief, and that's it.
They shouldn't be engaged in peace building. They maximalists to say no.
They should also be engaged in processes that will sustain the peace processes that are in place in large humanitarian situations.
Big agencies like U.N. ended up being kind of a surrogate state or a state within a state granting
those refugee camps within certain parameters of what they define as humanitarian standards.
And this has led to a lot of friction with the local government that the hosting governments would like to see also.
There've been processes where the governments that have not increased the democratic
space have been marginalised and angels had them to receive a lot of aid,
financial aid that would normally have gone directly through the governments dangers.
In that sense, I've become very important.
And so it is important that we need to trying to link within the field diplomacy, which I'll explain later on what I mean by that,
the links with economic, cultural, political and religious and see how this can at the same time contribute to the peace process.
In Moscow cases, we limit ourselves to the political processes of peacebuilding and ignore the other component that are equally relevant today.
This morning we did listen to the economic aspects of peacebuilding as well.
But we are not dialoguing so much between these four compliments.
Generally,
the NGO Peace Building has particular indicators that the kind of a framework they work within and it's so much in the lines of liberal peace,
an increase of democratic space, establishment of just institutions of governance, equitable distribution and peaceful coexistence.
But in most cases, it's actually number one and two, democracy and participation to a large extent.
And as you would agree, all these issues are very, very complex and it's the complexities.
I'll agree with the drug policy is that we shouldn't be overwhelmed by the
complexities of the of the conflict and the sustained nature of this conflict.
But it is to find a certain humour and creativity of engaging in processes that will contribute,
even if it is only to a minimal process, to a whole process of change.
And as you can see here, you can see that the role of the diaspora, for example,
normally injecting a lot of money and influence the whole peace process or the whole trafficking of drugs and arms in any kind of peace process.
We need to take all this into account, the ideologies that then get invented into this process.
And for a number of African countries, the ideology tend to be formed around identity.
And most of that is ethnic identity. And the process of nation building.
So let's come to feel diplomacy as a concept which some of our colleagues in Belgium came up with this process.
And we did try to apply it in the field, especially in the humanitarian setting.
First of all, called for kind of a multi-dimensional approach.
Wherever you were, you can contribute something to that process, trying to link the processes within the grassroots into the decision makers level.
And I'll give a couple of examples that we'll just give you an idea of how this has worked so far.
It does encourage a lot of work on the grassroots because that is what informs the linkages that we then take up to the top level.
So even though you to it as a field diplomacy, meaning on the track three of the grassroots level,
it is diplomacy amongst many other diplomacies in the sense that it engages the processes of dialogue as well.
The forerunners look at the Louvain University,
but also we've had other peacebuilders within the East African region that have
tried to link up in this process to see whether it is really workable in a sense.
To borrow again from my old Dreux triangle is that there's a lot of work that goes on on the grassroots.
Just talking to a colleague from South Africa told me that prior to.
The GRC in South Africa and the whole new political process,
there's a lot of work that was going on on the grassroots in trying to bridge the divided societies amongst the black Africans.
And then the white South Africans and other class divisions that emerged.
But this one was thrown out after independence or after the new government came into place.
And the Tiaro see, in a sense, reconciled the nation.
And a lot of work that had been done in the very sophisticated network within the country had been ignored.
And I think even in this morning's session, we need agree that there's very little coordination between the grassroots.
The middle level and the decision makers level.
And a lot of work seem to be between track one and track play and track two here, but very little link into the track at one level.
And so they feel diplomacy is we can actually try to create dialogue processes to make these links,
whether it's just at the beginning of the emergence of conflict itself or at the very peak of this collision or in the post-conflict reconstruction.
These are actually processes that we can engage in. Since I'm talking on South on East Africa, it'd be good to just see where we are.
A number of African nations are actually in transition.
If you're looking at democracy as a model that could work and it's not working quite a number of countries.
We've moved on from populist nationalist presidents in the 60s who have been pushed into
holding elections and hence putting up democratic governments or like in the case of Zimbabwe,
a liberal live liberation at least sees himself as they possibly supposed to be leading the country.
And how ungrateful can you be of not acknowledging me as the possibly liberated you and brought independence for this country?
And it's very hard to get that dialogue out of these presidents who've had military stuff like in Nigeria
that have eventually transformed themselves into some pseudo democracies and others are just struggling,
stagnant democracies. Now, quite a number of these challenges that we are facing right now continue to demonstrate that there has to be a
cross-sector dialogue processes that will help these governments to have kind of a more sustainable peace process.
And it's a process that's not just linked to ending violence,
because we've only about 16 to 17 countries out of 53 in Africa that are either
involved in some form of conflict or the other or emerging out of conflict.
In fact, the countries that are now in conflict within Africa are very few, but quite a number of possible perfect situation.
And those are protracted post-conflict situations, which could again erupt at any time in Sudan.
Just to give you an idea, 22 years of war. We had in 2005 comprehensive peace agreement.
They call it comprehensive because anytime it's meant to be in several stages of incorporation.
And in 2011, we are supposed to decide whether they'll separate with the South, that they're not separated, that they're not.
And just to show you here, besides that, that food war is still a big headache and that will take a very long time.
Resettlement of the refugees and the reason why the 2011 could be bloody is that if you look at this map of Sudan,
what you're seeing there is five, four, five, B, four B, those are that's all of the south southern part of Sudan.
And that's this blocks where we have largely sources of oil.
There's literally nothing there. The north is mostly most mostly Muslim, and that's where the capital is.
And then you you have the south, which has enormous resources, a void.
But the government executed in such a way that all this oil that is coming from the south has to be refined in the north.
So all the refining, everything, they're not it's it's obvious that the north is going to say we want to secede from the not I mean,
they still say we want to secede from there, not because you have all the riches and then not and say there's no way that you're going to do that.
And the North has a bigger military power.
They even have two big, large factories that produce large ammunitions just to sustain the war in northern Uganda.
That conflict has been there again for 21 years, mostly involving child soldiers and claiming the kind of secession gained from there,
not because of the marginalisation that they've experienced for many years. So it's a process again.
We take so many years to really get over it.
As you know, the dialogue between the role of ICC and the local peace building processes is the whole dialogue that we need to be engaging in.
And the previous session that I was in, this was also discussed at length on the transition of justice,
components of it and how we need to create a new narrative that not only that's not only based on legal and political processes,
but also takes into account alternatives to these processes transcending what we consider to be the norm.
And sometimes if we just want to transcend those processes, they want to put in that creative traditional process, for example,
that may overlook the structure of justice, but may much more emphasise the coexistence and a kind of a more sustainable peace process.
And there are pros and cons to this. And to what extent this can be sustainable and what lesson are we passing on to the whole culture of impunity.
But then we need to be engaged in such downloads as well.
If we look at Kenya, also within the East Africa, the post-election crisis did demonstrate to us that you can harvest it.
But if you don't engage in a process of nation building, a nation of 42 ethnic groups,
which is not even large compared to countries like Congo, which of the 300 activity,
two ethnic groups,
and how do all these communities feel that they are part and parcel of of one state or one country that they consider to be their own?
And so for Kenya, what are the post elections demonstrated?
Is that quite a number of issues that were never addressed during the colonial period of the land reform issues than people had been
displaced during that time and the post-colonial with governance system that wasn't accountable to the people and regional marginalisation,
which is very, very systematic.
Whereas the Constitution, that independence and say that, you know, the national resources will be distributed equitably throughout the region.
They did change that section of the Constitution.
To read that on the regions that are have great economic potential will be considered for distribution of resources,
which is eventually then means the cronies of the president and the friends.
Most in GOP building this database to be engaged in this myself, mostly in Sudan, northern Uganda and also in in Kenya.
The second ideal ideals that we're all working with sometimes at the end of the workshop,
you ask yourself, but what have I been doing here for two weeks? Does the whole workshop culture pay us to pay?
D.M. Then we will join you if you're paying less. We'll go to the U.N. that pays better and have better food for the kind of washtubs that they have.
And in a sense, really damaging even the local processes.
If you say local chief, I remember being in southern Sudan and this we're meeting the elders to talk to
them about this whole peace process and what we need to do with the schools.
And he says by my brother, if I don't have peace in my stomach, I kind of want peace in my mind.
If I call for any meeting with the local people here.
They loonie's ask me, will you provide lunch? You provide us with tea.
That's what the angels are doing. And this meeting that would normally have been called for within the communities
had already been undermined by the kind of peace processes that we are engaged in.
And there's a kind of push me to really raise questions on the methodology that we are using within that particular process.
And yet I think it did engage into a lot of grassroots dialogue and peace processes that eventually informed
the second level of the truck to peace building at the grassroots level within the field diplomacy.
We emphasise much more the accompaniment. A certain presence with the people makes a big difference.
Empowerment in a sense that this conflict sometimes and dialogue processes a new language that many local people don't seem to to understand.
And we need to engage them in those processes and those issues of dialogue that are very, very important.
In the previous session that I was in, the transitional justice, again,
just to pick up an example is how when the ICC was introduced, the whole discourse changed.
The dialogue was as though everyone knew what ICC was and the details of of what ICC supposed to be doing.
And we see this as the role of the diaspora, the intellectuals that were brought in to engage in this process.
Advocacy and engagement of civil society as part of this process in the middle level and then the decision makers level to just see
to what extent can we influence the structures by informing the policies that are responsible for this situation on the ground.
And I think at influencing the policies that decision makers level, it is one good value that even the emissions can contribute to.
And it's always amazing how even engaging with the decision makers,
sometimes the level of ignorance on just the implications of some of the decisions that are made.
And they don't really realise what the impact on the ground.
But I think if we begin to dialogue with them into that process, it could lead to some Kenya.
Just to give you again, briefly some examples, as they pop up on some of the work that has been done on the grassroots peace building.
They are truly religious leaders. Large network in northern Uganda that has been engaged with doing grassroots peace building,
but have also been invited in a number of peace processes or peace talks between the organic government and the Lord's Resistance Army,
the Catholic Relief Services in Catholic Peacebuilding Network that Nostradamus had been has been involved in.
Did a lot of grassroots work in trying to look at what some of the best peace building practises and what can we learn.
And took three cases of the Great Lakes in Burundi, Mindanao,
in the Philippines and Colombia, and and try to see how all this work that is being done.
What what can we learn from this process? And for me,
what I can say that I learnt from that process is that the work that is being done on the grassroots needs
to be articulated very well in a language that can then bridge us into the middle level and the top level,
the decision makers. I think that's really crucial. And the good thing is that even the academicians were involved in this process so
that they learn from the grassroots and then articulate that in a different language
that helps to kind of work as a bridge of all the good work that is being done on the
ground and eventually come up with positive policies that can inform the process.
I think that to me was a big contribution that ought to continue as a process.
Another one I was engaged in this one directly when I used to work with Jesuit
Refugee Service and Jesuit Service works in about 60 countries in the world.
And the model that we adopted was I was working with refugees from Rwanda, but only just after the genocide.
And we we couldn't speak out on some of the abuses that were going on in the refugee camps,
either by the government or by the network of criminal networks within the refugee
camps to able to document and report some of the cases to Human Rights Watch,
to Amnesty International. And we'll invite them to come and carry out their own investigation, then publicise and, you know,
name and shame the government or then engage in the whole process of trying to change those kind of situations.
And one simple success also that we had was we.
But the U.N. was cutting down a lot on its budget, as you know, sometimes in the mid 90s.
And that meant that the World Food Programme also had to cut down into its own budget.
And the consequence of that was that the food distribution in the camps were beginning to affect the health, especially of the children.
We are having high mortality rates and we had to confront the World Food Programme, as you know.
This situation needs to be addressed and we don't even have nothing out someplace in the dispensaries.
And they say, well, we have our budget has been cut down and there's no way that, you know,
we just have to live within the limits and say, what are your main sponsors, the European Union.
So we linked up with our colleagues in Brussels to lobby the European Union parliament and see whether that situation could be changed.
And it meant, you know, back and forth diplomacy between our colleagues in Brussels.
And eventually that was revised and the situation was restored.
And the other project that we are now working on following this model of diplomacy is trying to monitor
the mining contracting in Congo and also the oil distribution process in Chad and those mining contracts.
First is that to the group in Kinshasa to lobby the government to revise those contacts and thank.
Now, 42 contacts were stopped and revised last year.
But at the same time, with another team in in Brussels trying to lobby the.
The parliament, so that if there are fair contracts, I'm better working conditions,
especially in eastern Congo where the war had been going on for a long time,
and some of these mining companies that directly or indirectly involved in that process.
Yes. Thank you. The other one is some of the NGO in Sudan have been reporting human rights abuses and trying to link this up with the EU,
which is the African Union office in Addis or the other on a more local level within Kenya is where the religious leaders started the whole new
political process and say that we are not going to go with the government pushing us to have a new constitution only discussed within the group,
within the parliament. We want the people to be involved in a constitution making process.
And the religious leaders started a parallel process that was so much threatening to the government that
the government had to dissolve its own constitutional reform process and join with religious leaders.
So that was one good way of just pushing the government towards that.
And so just to end the subsid here, we need really a credible presence in the grassroots in order to to push for change.
But to a great extent, also, we need to be a bit intrusive at the decision makers level and see how we can,
you know, force ourselves into the dialogue and into the process.
And now with the credit crunch, what impact will this have on aid that's been given to all these countries?
What we impact will it have on post-conflict reconstruction and the U.N. troops and all that?
And so the bridging component of this, I think, is crucial.
And it's really important for us that we are, Bridgers, of these processes and that's why we are engaging ourselves into this.
What you're trying to establish is kind of the social justice.
The sticks seem to account, the various levels of interaction that are important for all of us.
Just a quick critique of that process.
And is that also we tend to rely a bit too much on the liberal peace approach and emphasise on democratisation, marketisation and liberal economies.
But I think we need to engage into an alternative policy and not so much rely on the Liberal Party support.
Thank you very much.