Searching for Peace.

A lot of different approaches have been used to try and establish peace in various parts of the world, but most are temporary at best. Still, the quest for a quieter planet continues

Power. Justice. Revenge. These are among the issues that provoke war between nations, or between people within one nation. When two opposing groups within a country can't agree, then letting them govern themselves independently is one means of trying to arrive at peace. It's called partition, and it is a mixed blessing.

Cyprus has been trying to sort this type of arrangement out for more than two decades. The island nation in the eastern Mediterranean is home to two main groups of people. Cypriots of Greek origin account for 78% of the population, while Turkish Cypriots make up 18% of the people. The current crisis started in 1974 when Turkish troops marched into the northern end of the island: Turkey wanted to protect the minority Turks from the violence which had taken place, on both the Turkish and Greek sides, on the island for a generation. The Turks never left and they want Cyprus to become a confederation of two independent states. The Greek Cypriots to the south, and the rest of the world, do not recognize the small self-appointed Turkish republic, and diplomats have been trying to stitch together the divided island for years. Their efforts have brought little but failed negotiations.

Power sharing is another option. Instead of letting part of a country break away, minorities can be given a share of the power at a local or national level. But sharing is a cooperative venture, and cooperation doesn't come easily to sworn enemies.

Power sharing is proving to be a very difficult bird to get off the ground in Northern Ireland, for example, where three decades of violence has led to 3,600 deaths. The origins of the conflict go back several hundred years. Some people say its roots are buried deep in the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. However, the English desire to control Ireland is a more recent and likely cause. In the 17th century, England shipped over Scottish and English farmers who simply displaced the native Irish from some of the best lands. These transplanted farmers were Protestant and their invasion began the division that characterizes Northern Ireland today.

The minority Catholics have long protested that they are discriminated against by the Protestant majority (57% of the population) in the North. The two groups also have very different views on how Northern Ireland should be governed: the Catholics want a united Ireland run by the Irish, the Protestants support the British administration.

In the Catholic struggle to force the British out of Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army made a name for itself as "the most tenacious, ruthless, and professional terrorist organization in the world," as an editorial in The Economist described it in 1994. On the Protestant side, the Ulster Defence Force has committed many atrocities of its own.

For years, the scene has swung from peace talks to bombings, from hope to despair. Establishing trust among people who have been motivated by hatred and vengeance for generations is no easy task. Hopes for a long-term peace were raised in May 1998. The people of Northern Ireland voted 71% in favour of a peace agreement that includes a power-sharing arrangement between Protestants and Catholics.

One of the key issues that repeatedly thwarts peace efforts is the predominantly Protestant, pro-British Unionist Party's insistence that the Catholic Irish Republican Army disarm itself, and the IRA's refusal to do so. As recently as November 1999 there appeared to be some cause for optimism when Northern Ireland's Assembly met to nominate Catholic and Protestant ministers to its first regional government in 25 years. More good news was that the Ulster Unionist Party, the major Protestant political group, had agreed to allow the power-sharing executive to be formed before the IRA actually handed over any guns. By December 1999, newspapers around the world reported that Northern Ireland had taken a historic turn toward peace, as a power-sharing cabinet of Protestants and Roman Catholics took the reigns of government and the IRA moved another step closer to disarmament.

The executive appointed was like no other form of democratic government anywhere in the world - a coalition government of four different parties, two primarily Protestant and two primarily Catholic. The idea was to have both sides serve in a 12-member cabinet together, even though some of them remain arch enemies. There have been several stumbles since, but, so far, the peace seems to be holding.

Powerful countries away from the battle scenes often try to quell violence around the world by halting arms shipments and cutting economic ties. These embargoes or sanctions, as they are called, often have mixed results.

One of the biggest problems with sanctions and embargoes is that there is usually a way around them. There is a huge underground market where weapons can be bought by anyone with the cash. All other commodities can be smuggled across borders at night. Unless you station a soldier every two metres along a country's border, material gets through. Even with such tight security, a bribe might persuade guards to look the other way as a truck-load of bazookas passes by.

Canada recently urged the United Nations to start keeping track of sanctions it imposes on rogue governments and rebel groups. Although the UN uses sanctions routinely to enforce international law, there is no comprehensive monitoring of whether or not they work. Canada has proposed a UN Sanctions Monitoring Office, which would investigate violations of sanctions including flight bans, arms embargoes, or trade restrictions in goods used to finance wars, such as diamonds. Sanctions such as these are in place on three continents but they are continually violated. Canada suggested the new department would be filled with trade, finance, and military experts working to expose sanctions violators. It would also send teams of experts to conduct field investigations in areas where sanctions have been imposed. (This doesn't always work though. In the Middle East, for example, there are sanctions against Iraq, but the country has refused to allow entry of a monitoring team.)

In the 10 years since the end of the Cold War, the UN has introduced sanctions against 12 regimes, compared with only two in the first 45 years of its existence.

Sanctions against Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe), introduced in 1966, and South Africa in 1977, were aimed at ending white-minority rule in those countries, but they took years to have any effect. Similar measures have been disappointing elsewhere. In Iraq, Haiti, and Yugoslavia, sanctions didn't prevent military intervention. And, UN sanctions have done little to stem violence in some African countries. Still, some diplomats think that improving the effectiveness of sanctions offers the best long-term hope of developing respect for international law without brutal military action.

Canada joined the UN Security Council in January 1999, and took control of a committee overseeing sanctions against the Angolan rebel group UNITA (a Portuguese acronym standing for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). UNITA had ignored sanctions for years and used diamonds mined in its territories to buy arms on the international black market. Canada helped establish a monitoring panel to tighten the UNITA sanctions, and a similar panel to try to enforce sanctions against rebels in Sierra Leone. Not everyone thinks the panels will accomplish much, but Canada's paper suggesting the process be formalized under the UN Sanctions Monitoring Office states: "It is imperative that sanctions monitoring be undertaken more systematically and widely if the credibility of the sanctions instrument is to be restored."

On sanctions in general former Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy said they are likely to succeed only if they are integrated into a broader UN Security Council strategy of conflict prevention and resolution. In a speech in April 2000 to the Council, he said: "This means ensuring that all the terms of a sanctions regime not only be clear, but clearly linked to a process of negotiation.

"The aim of sanctions should be to change the behaviour of wrongdoers, to deprive them of the wherewithal to wage war and to brutalize the innocent and, in the process, to avoid harming the very people the sanctions aim to help ... Targeted sanctions should be combined creatively with targeted incentives. Foreign assistance, concessionary loans and credits, debt relief, technology transfers, trade benefits, and security assurances are all carrots that might complement the stick of sanctions in directly influencing behaviour or encouraging those most likely to support change ... Sanctions are far from enforcement on the cheap. But, compared to the costs of other measures, like military intervention or the long-term costs in terms of human suffering of inaction, the price may not be so high ..."

Another Canadian politician had other ideas. Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau suggested beefing up the constitutional rights of the individual, giving people the tools and the power to grow and prosper within an existing nation. That's what we've tried in Canada through multiculturalism, bilingualism, and our Charter of Rights -- making a broader definition of the community rather than a narrower one. Whether it works will be debated for decades.

Mr. Trudeau believed that nationalism was dangerous, that nations built on a common language, religion or ethnic background are, by nature, intolerant.

In 1962 he wrote: "To insist that a particular nationality must have complete sovereign power is to pursue a self-destructive end."

As Marcus Gee wrote in the Globe and Mail in October 2000, "Since Mr. Trudeau left office in 1984, we have seen Yugoslavia break up, Rwanda explode, and Sri Lanka tear itself apart. Last year's (1999) bloodshed in Kosovo, and in East Timor, was over ethnic nationalism."

Believing in individual rights, Mr. Trudeau also frowned on giving any group special status, seeing it as an inevitable source of friction. When South Africa ended white rule in 1994, it thought about giving special status for whites and minority black and coloured groups, but decided to have a rights-based constitution under which everyone was equal. It seems to be working.

As Mr. Gee wrote, "We live in a mongrel world. People everywhere live jumbled together, Hindu beside Muslim, Serb next to Croat, Tamil up against Sinhalese. If every group that considers itself a people strives to become a nation, the horrors of Yugoslavia will look quaint.

"The point is not that people should live together. The point is that they have to ..."

But, if opposing groups decide they have to fight, perhaps disarming them would bring peace. That isn't as simple as it sounds. Trying to control arms seems an impossible task. As The New York Times reported in September 1999, American intelligence analysts said Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were racing to build new biological, chemical, nuclear weapons, or long-range missiles. The United Nations gave up its efforts to monitor Iraq's terror-weapons programs when the country continually refused to cooperate with inspectors. At the same time, India and Pakistan were "menacing each other with nuclear-tipped missiles."

The United States is not really interested in getting rid of its nuclear weapons. Analysts argue that if the U.S. loses its huge nuclear advantage over the rest of the world others would be tempted to build up their own atomic powers.

In April 2000, Russia ratified the START-2 nuclear-disarmament agreement to reduce nuclear warheads to about 3,500 for both Russia and the United States. That has led the way to talks about making even deeper cuts: Russia wants to cut nuclear arsenals by another 57%, to 1,500 strategic missile warheads in each country.

Russia has a very practical reason for wanting more cuts: it can't afford an arsenal of between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads, which is the lowest level the U.S. wants to establish. Some observers say that 1,000 to 1,500 weapons would be ample to scare off any would-be attacker. In the words of an article in The Economist that number would ensure "that retaliation would be swift, sure, and utterly devastating."

Meanwhile, the U.S. is eager to build a missile-defence system to protect itself against potential attacks by what it calls "rogue states," such as Iraq and North Korea. Moscow doesn't like this idea at all, fearing it would upset the nuclear balance between Russia and the United States and damage Moscow's national security. But analysts say deeper cuts in weapons - beyond START-3 - might help Russia feel easier about America's plans for modest missile defences.

All these measures would be moves in the direction to a safer world. However, there seems no sure way of escaping the reality of a warring mentality among some humans.

FACT FILE

In December 1999, the United States had about 2,500 missile-mounted nuclear warheads on high alert, and the Russians had about 2,000 such warheads: the weapons, which can all be fired in about 15 minutes, would reach their targets in about half an hour.

In 1999, 80% of Americans wanted the U.S. Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which the Senate rejected), and nearly as many were in favour of the complete abolition of all nuclear weapons.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. Some experts think trade incentives could work better than sanctions. Those who believe this argue that sanctions cause hardships for both sender and recipient, and that they haven't been very successful anyway; trade incentives benefit both sides. Instead of saying, we'll take away our products or resources if you don't improve your human rights or develop a more democratic system, for example, those in favour of incentives say it's better to offer bonuses for achieving certain specific objectives. Another plus is that while sanctions tend to lead to black markets designed to work around trade restrictions, incentives don't open the door to these market pressures: instead, they encourage more international trade and cooperation which, in theory, contributes to the long-term prospects for peace. Explore this idea and decide whether incentives would really be any more successful than sanctions.

2. War Resisters' International is based on the declaration made by each member: "War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war." Find out more about the group and what it does.

3. The Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping Centre was established by the Canadian government in 1994 to support and enhance the Canadian contribution to international peace, security, and stability. Invite an official from the Centre to talk to the class/school about its mission and programs.

Websites

War Resisters' International
http://www.gn.apc.org/
warresisters

The Lester B. Pearson
Peacekeeping Centre
http://www.ciss.ca/ppc.htm

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Trying to find peace through war seems a contradiction but it has been the approach in dealing with a number of war-torn countries, including Panama, Grenada, Iraq, and rump Yugoslavia.

In the case of Iraq, there has been a continuing presence of UN weapons inspectors and frequent bombing of supposed military targets, but the country is no more peaceful because of these initiatives. Besides, weapons of mass destruction can be concealed from the most astute inspectors: the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a research group based in Washington, compiled a list of unaccounted for weapons in Iraq. The 1998 list includes various poison gases - at least 3.5 tonnes of VX nerve gas and about 545 tonnes of ingredients for VX gas, up to 2,700 tonnes of other poison gas agents and 3,600 tonnes of ingredients for making them, 107,500 casings for chemical arms, tens of thousands of filled and empty chemical munitions. Among the germ warfare agents missing were at least 157 aerial bombs filled with germ agents, at least 25 missile warheads containing germ agents (anthrax, aflotoxin, and botulinum), and lists of ingredients for germ agents. On the nuclear front, components for three to four implosion-type nuclear weapons, which lacked only uranium fuel, were missing, as were design drawings for components along with scores of technical reports explaining how to process uranium to weapons grade. A number of ballistic missiles were unaccounted for too: they include seven locally produced ballistic missiles, two operational missiles that Iraq imported and components for missile guidance, up to 150 tonnes of material for missile production, liquid fuel for long-range missiles, and up to 50 Scud-type missile warheads, along with drawings showing how to put together a Scud missile.

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Organizers of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in August 2000 said: "The real question to pose ... is what religious leaders can do to foster peaceful existence among Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, among Christians and Muslims in Indonesia, among Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, among Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, among Hindus, Christians, and Muslims in India, and in the United States to end crimes of hate."

Several hundred of the world's top religious leaders who attended the summit meeting hoped to create a permanent United Nations advisory committee to help combat international conflicts that involve religion.