CIAO DATE: 05/02

Healing the Wounds: Refugees, Reconstruction and Reconciliation

Ms. Sadako Ogata,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

"Healing the Wounds: What Nature of Wounds?"
Mr. Olara A. Otunnu, President of IPA

Keynote Address: "Development in Conflict"
H. E. Mr. Jan Pronk, Minister for Development Cooperation, Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands

Case Study: The Former Yugoslavia
Chair: H.E. Sir John Weston, KCMG Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United Nations
Panelists: Dr. Susan L. Woodward, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution; Mr. Soren Jessen-Petersen, Special Envoy for the former Yugoslavia, UNHCR; Ambassador Brunson McKinley, Bosnia Humanitarian Coordinator, U.S. Department of State

Case Study: Rwanda
Chair: H.E. Mr. Daudi Ngelautwa Mwakawago, Permanent Representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations
Panelists: H.E. Mr. Jan Pronk, Minister for Development Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands; Mr. Carrol Faubert, UNHCR Former Special Envoy for Rwanda, Director, Regional Bureau for the Americas and the Caribbean, UNHCR; Mr. Iain Guest, Senior Fellow, U.S. Institute for Peace

Reconstruction
Chair: H.E. Dr. Tunguru Huaraka, Permanent Representative of Namibia to the United Nations
Speaker: The Honorable Flora MacDonald, Chair, International Development Research Centre
Commentators: Ambassador Jonathan Moore, Associate, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Mr. Mark Malloch Brown, Vice-President of External Affairs, The World Bank

Reconciliation
Chair: Mr. Alvaro de Soto, Assistant Secretary-General, Department of Political Affairs, United Nations
Speaker: Ms. Elisabeth Rehn, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia
Commentators: Dr. Richard Falk, The Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University; H.E. Mr. Colin Keating, Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations; Mr. William Shawcross, Chairman, Article 19: Centre Against Censorship

Peacebuilding and Demilitarization
Chair: Mr. Lionel Rosenblatt, President, Refugees International
Speaker: Brigadier General Thomas Matthews, Commander of the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, New York
Commentators: Lieutenant General Manfred Eisele, Assistant Secretary-General, Department of Peace-keeping Operations, United Nations; H.E. Dr. James Jonah, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations and Former Chairman, Interim National Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone

Multilateral Action for Sustaining Peace
Chair: Mr. Charles William Maynes, Editor, Foreign Policy
Speaker: H.E. Mr. Hisashi Owada, Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations
Commentators: Dr. David Hamburg, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York; Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Assistant Secretary of State Designate for International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

Closing Statements
Olara A. Otunnu
Sadako Ogata

Today there are over 35 million people uprooted by war, violence and violations of human rights throughout the world. Protection and assistance for these refugees, internally displaced persons, and other victims of conflict cannot simply be limited to establishing camps and providing emergency relief. Durable solutions to their predicament need to be found, healing not only the wounds born of conflict, but also addressing the root causes of conflict that led to their persecution and flight. Such solutions should allow a safe and voluntary return home.

For both the country of origin and the international community, it is a critical challenge to manage the transition from conflict to peace so that refugees can return home. This transition is inherently fragile and fraught with difficulties. It is one thing to achieve a peace agreement, but quite another to enable people to resume a normal, productive life in the aftermath of conflict or humanitarian emergency. The task at hand requires rebuilding communities, reconstructing stable polities — in short, building peace.

In October 1993, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Peace Academy (IPA) held their first joint conference on "Conflict and Humanitarian Action" at Princeton University, which considered the role of humanitarian work during ongoing conflict. Between 30 June and 1 July 1996, UNHCR and IPA convened their second joint conference at Princeton University to build on the insights from their earlier meeting and to advance policy thinking about building peace and rebuilding community after internal conflict. "Healing the Wounds: Refugees, Reconstruction and Reconciliation" examined recent experience in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to sharpen understanding of post-war dynamics and then focused on three interrelated themes: reconstruction, reconciliation, and demilitarization. Over one hundred leading international policy-makers and opinion-formers, including Ambassadors to the United Nations (UN), senior officials of the UN and other inter-governmental organizations, members of the U.S. and other national governments, and senior representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and media gathered at the conference to discuss these issues. The conference agenda was designed to address the full complexity of the transition from conflict to peace and to draw lessons from the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda that could inform the future policy and practice of peacebuilding.

One essential element of peacebuilding is the reconstruction of the economy, governmental institutions and communities. It is vital that development assistance, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a political settlement, demonstrate the dividends of peace. If such assistance is implemented in a politically sensitive manner, it can help to build cooperation between communities that were previously in conflict and create the conditions necessary to allow the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their homes. The establishment of effective governance must help to protect and advance the well-being of the citizenry. This requires an unbiased system of security, mechanisms of judicial recourse, and procedures that facilitate normal economic and social activity. In many post-conflict contexts, this process does not return society to the status quo which gave rise to the conflict but rather creates new institutions that are more democratic, fair and responsive to the concerns of the entire population.

But cultivating long-term stability in post-conflict situations entails more than diplomatic settlement or economic and institutional reconstruction. It also demands attention to those aspects of the institutional, social and even cultural environment that failed to prevent violence in the first place. Reconciliation is thus another critical component of the peacebuilding process. Helping communities that have been at war to build a durable, common peace requires a comprehensive strategy that incorporates a potentially wide range of mechanisms to redress past wrongs, from the judicial to the cultural. Reconciliation also requires stamina, as it is a long-term process, with many intermediate steps involved in rebuilding confidence and restoring accountability.

Another key element of peacebuilding is demilitarization. In cases of civil conflict, entire societies are often mobilized to fight. Mobilization occurs at the expense of normal economic activity, education for children, and healthy civil life, with consequences that are not easily reversed by the simple declaration of cease-fire. Demobilization is also a long-term process. It involves creating viable civilian economic opportunities for armed forces. The international community can significantly facilitate demobilization by sensitively channeling its economic aid. The international community can also help inhibit re-militarization by helping to halt the flow of arms across international borders and check the trade in indiscriminate weapons such as land mines.

"Healing the Wounds" opened with a welcome from Professor John Lewis of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, followed by statements from the co-chairs of the conference, Ms. Sadako Ogata (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and Mr. Olara A. Otunnu (President, International Peace Academy). In succeeding plenary sessions, speakers and participants examined the cases of former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and identified lessons to be learned from international involvement in each society. The case studies served as reference points for the second day's concurrent panel discussions on the issues of reconstruction, reconciliation, and demilitarization. Following these thematic panel discussions, conference participants reconvened in plenary session for a synopsis and discussion of all three issues, led by the respective chairs of the panel sessions. In the final plenary session, participants considered the role of multilateral action to support the fragile process of building and consolidating peace. The final session, capping the conference, provided a valuable opportunity for the conference participants to synthesize the previous days' discussions and assess their respective roles in healing the wounds borne of armed conflict. The conference concluded with brief statements by Ms. Ogata and Mr. Otunnu.

This report represents the co-sponsors' interpretation of the proceedings of the conference. All comments were made by participants in their individual capacities.