The power of dialogue.'PEACE IS possible--though it isn't easy,' Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Rome-based St Egidio Community stated. Drawing on the community's long and successful involvement with the peace process in Mozambique, Riccardi underlined the importance of non-state actors Non-state actors, in international relations, are actors on the international level which are not states. The admission of non-state actors into international relations theory is inherently a rebuke to the assumptions of realism and other "black box" theories of international , with no means of pressure. 'There is a humble power for peace, rooted in dialogue and in prayer. This weak force is one of the most precious inheritances of the 20th Century.' 'We must never accept war which is the mother of poverty and the expression of evil,' he said. Peace demanded a commitment of many actors, at the level of the state, but also civil society. Sixteen years of civil war in Mozambique led to 1.5 million dead. It took more than two years of negotiations to arrive at a peace accord between the FRELIMO FRELIMO Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Front for Liberation of Mozambique) government and the RENAMO RENAMO Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Mozambique Mozambique National Resistance; political party) guerrilla movement. 'We opened up a space for dialogue through a growing climate of trust,' Riccardi said. Former UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali
Boutros Ghali called the process 'the Italian formula, a mix of governmental activity and NGO NGO abbr. nongovernmental organization Noun 1. NGO - an organization that is not part of the local or state or federal government nongovernmental organization efforts'. Faith could seem weak in the face of the complexity of society and the powers of evil, Riccardi said. 'But believers have a power for peace, founded in the power of dialogue.' |
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