Indigenous Conflict Resolution Mechanisms PDF

**UNIT 4: INDIGENOUS CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISMS** 4.1. The concepts of peace - The term peace has a variety of meanings in different contexts of usage. What peace is in religion may be different from what it is in philosophy, politics, military, or history. - Peace literally defin...

**UNIT 4: INDIGENOUS CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISMS** 4.1. The concepts of peace - The term peace has a variety of meanings in different contexts of usage. What peace is in religion may be different from what it is in philosophy, politics, military, or history. - Peace literally defined seems to be a tool or means to end war or conflict, or absence of war or violence. However, Peace is not merely the absence of war, even during the time of no war, it does not mean people are at peace and society is peaceful, because problems and hostilities may be still there. It rather refers to the presence of more other good things like justice, order, good government, good relationships, well-being, freedom, respect for human rights, security, etc. - From our daily experience in life and social existence, peace can also be described as a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, especially in personal and group relations. - It is an agreement or treaty between individuals, antagonistic nations, groups, etc., to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism. - It is also defined as the normal freedom from civil turmoil and violence of a community; public order and security and the freedom of the mind from annoyance, disruption, an anxiety, etc. **4.1.1. Types of peace** Peace can be classified as: Internal, external, positive and negative peace A. **Internal peace:** is also called "inner peace" or" peace of mind or soul". - It is a state of calm, and peacefulness of mind that arises due to having no suffering, or mental disturbance such as worry, anxiety, greed, hatred, ill-will, delusion and other debasements. - It is peace within oneself. - Internal peace is regarded as true peace and as a real foundation of peace in society or peace in the world. B. **External peace**: is peace that occurs in society, states, and the world. - It is a normal state of society, countries and the world - a state of peaceful and happy coexistence of people as well as nature. - External peace can be described in different senses such as absence of war, disorder, disturbances, hostility, social injustice, social insecurity, violations of human rights, riots, terrorism, etc. In other words, it is a state of social harmony, social justice, social equality, friendship, public order and security, and respect to human rights. - Generally, internal and external peace are interrelated and interdependent, and support each other. C. **Positive peace and negative peace** I. **Positive Peace**: - Positive peace is a true, lasting, and sustainable peace built on justice for all peoples. - It is the presence of the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. - The concept of positive peace involves the elimination of the root causes of war, violence, and injustice and the conscious attempt to build a society that reflects these commitments. - Efforts to achieve positive peace emphasize: - establishing peace by supporting nonviolent resolution of disputes - establishing social equality and justice, economic equity, ecological balance; - protecting citizens from attack, and meeting basic human needs, - eliminating indirect violence, that shortens the life span of people, sustains unequal life chances, or reduces quality of life for any citizen, - practicing conflict resolution as a foundation for building peaceful interpersonal relationships. II. **Negative Peace**: - Negative peace is defined as a peace without justice. It is a false sense of "peace" that often comes at the cost of justice. - Negative peace is the absence of direct violence or the fear of violence. - In a negative peace situation, it may not see conflict out in the open, but the tension is boiling just beneath the surface because the conflict was never reconciled. - Efforts to achieve negative peace emphasize: - managing interpersonal and organizational conflict in order to control, contain, and reduce actual and potential violence, - reducing the incidence of war by eliminating the extreme dangers of the war system and limiting war through international crisis management, - preventing war through strategic deterrence and arms control. - The concept of negative peace addresses immediate symptoms, the conditions of war, and the use and effects of force and weapons. +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | The differences between negative | | | and positive peace | | +===================================+===================================+ | NEGATIVE PEACE | POSITIVE PEACE | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Absence of: | Presence of: | | | | | - War/direct violence | - Tranquility | | | | | - Conflict of violence | - Harmony, well-being | | | | | - Repression | - Strengthened human bonds | | | | | - Evil | - Shared human values | | | | | | - Shared feelings of humanity | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ **4.2. Impacts of absence of peace** Absence of peace has many consequences to human life and society at large. Whenever conflict is severe, people's peace is negatively impacted. Some of the impacts of absence of peace includes: a. Security impacts: though peace is a desired goal for everyone, absence of peace leads to direct and structural violence and destruction, and structural violence inherent in the exclusion of the poor. In the absence of peace, people are denied the right to participate. This can be a system within the structure of the government that oppresses others using police or the judiciary in order to keep the rest of the members from rising above them. This, in the end, creates a painful relationship between the government and the members of the society who are denied the right to participate. This creates a chain of violent conflict, because each one wants to be on the top and payback what the others did to them. This is why, in any society, there are always factions of those who gang up to have power, and the group who has the power does not want to leave it to others. b. Creates continuous social and political disharmony: absence of peace results not only in immediate devastation, but long-term erosion of social cohesions and unity. People who live within uncertain situations develop a feeling of helplessness and enmity both at individual, group and community levels. Such kinds of attitudes and behaviors can destroy national unity, cohesion, reconciliation, solidarity and consciousness and put in place suspicion, hatred and subsequent creation of in groups against out-groups, accusations and counter-accusations in a series of noises. The lack of participation in the government structures leads conflicts to escalate to bloody feud, to civil war, disrupting the stability and physical integrity of the community and exposing the community to internal factionalism. c. Failure to accommodate cultural diversity: when there is no peace, cultural diversity will be at risk. Various ethnic, tribal or cultural groups get in to competition for power and resource control. The struggle for power and resource domination results in all political leaders and the governments officials tending to be more tribal than national in structure, with inter-tribal oppression becoming common practice. This in effect creates more societal tension and turmoil. Most of the present day protracted internal conflicts create antagonism between groups where each ethnic grouping turns against another. d. Undermine socio-economic developments: it is clear that sustainable social and economic development will not be achieved if peace is absent. During violent conflict, competing forces divert resources from health, education, investment and other social services to military expenditure. The absence of peace increases people with violence experiences, the accumulation of weapons is subsequently used for violent crimes, the long-term impact of traumatic experiences, social stress, erosion of trust and emergence of social prejudice and injustice. If there is no peace, trading, farming, fishing, investment, and other economic activities will decline because communication between peoples or groups decline, fear of confiscation of properties, fear of insecurity, and imposed barriers to movements of goods and services will reign. Inability of people to fulfill basic needs of themselves and their family forces them to be displaced and seek migration to other areas. This in turn results in social alienation, and social fragmentation in countries suffer from absence of peace. In addition, conflicts tend to complicate economic structures of countries and people, lowering revenue by destroying parts of the tax base of the government and income of people while raising military expenditures, shifting resources away from social and economic spending. e. Grave human rights violations: absence of peace leads to weak government institutions that are ill-equipped to deal with uncertainties and power struggles between competing groups and to protect human rights. Women and children often suffer from the consequences of absence of peace (conflict) as they face high risk of becoming victims of sexual and gender-based violence, abuses, and displacement. More generally, people in the conflict affected countries are deprived of their rights to live in dignity and their opportunities to develop. They are more likely to be impoverished, unable to attend school, and denied access to health services and other public services. 4.3. The notion of peace building What do you think about peace building? 4.3.1. Defining peace building Simply stopping fighting does not mean putting a permanent end to violence. Persistent work to find creative solutions to conflict is needed to build sustainable peace. Once conflicts arises, the next step is how do resolve it and how to bring a long-lasting peace by addressing the core problems so that societies will not return to destructive violence. - Peace building is a long-term process of ensuring peace through encouraging conflicting parties to talk to each other and bringing them together to discuss the issues and understand the views of others, and repairing their broken relationships. - It focuses on the long-term support and establishment of viable political, socio- economic and cultural institutions capable of addressing the root causes of conflict and creating the necessary conditions for sustained peace and stability. Peace building strives to transform the social institutions and the discourse that reproduce the culture of violence and structural violence through rebuilding fractured social bonds and alter people's expectations of themselves and others. - Peace building activities seeks to promote the integration of competing or alienated groups within main stream society, through providing equitable access to political decision-making, social networks, economic resources and information that can be implemented in all phases of conflict. - Successful peace building activities seek to create an environment that helps people to resolve their differences peacefully and lay foundations to prevent future violence, to create self- sustaining, and durable peace. It also reconciles opponents, prevents from restarting, creates rule of law mechanisms, increases tolerance and promotes coexistence, protects human rights, improves socio-economic development, reforms justice and security institutions, promotes a culture of justice, truth and reconciliation, and addresses underlying structural and societal issues. 4.4. Indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms 4.4.1 Defining indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms Indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms are grass roots and community-based mechanisms of solving conflicts arising within or between individuals, groups and communities according to their customary set of practices that are present in all communities. They are age-long and ancient set of practices and part of social systems which play important role in the reconciliation, maintenance and improvement of societal relationships. The mechanisms are deep-rooted and contained in the custom, culture and traditions of the society. 4.4.2. Features of indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms Although indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms differ from society to society, region to region, and culture to culture, there are certain features that indigenous institutions share in common. These are: A. Context specific: one of the features of indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms is that each indigenous institution has its own distinct structure of resolution which dictates how various forms of conflict should be resolved. Indigenous conflict resolution approaches vary considerably from society to society, from region to region, from community to community. There are as many different indigenous approaches to conflict resolution as there are different societies and communities with a specific history, a specific culture and specific custom. There is no one single and general principle and procedure of "indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms". Rather, indigenous conflict resolution approaches are always context specific. B. Voluntary and consensual proceedings: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms generally require voluntary participation of both conflicting parties and reaching agreement to abide by the outcomes. Indigenous institutions do not have the kind of coercive mechanism as does the formal or modern system, and rely on social pressure and exclusion from the community to deal with non compliance. C. Locally circumscribed constituency: indigenous conflict resolution institutions operate locally, that is, they resolve conflicts within particular group and often within specifically circumscribed geographic locations, often within a community of people who know each other and live within close proximity. However, in few cases there exist institutions that cut across boundaries and have the capacity to resolve inter-ethnic and inter-clan conflicts. D. Accepted and flexible norms, rules and values: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms generally deliver justice in accordance with norms, rules and values that are generally known and accepted by societies. However, the rules and evidences are often flexible and can be adapted to particular cases and circumstances. E. Group-based responsibility: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms often consider that responsibility for the harm rests, not with the individual but with the broader social grouping, often the family or clan. The kins are involved in ensuring that the offender among their midst complies with the verdict and where compensation is required may be expected to contribute. F. Negotiation and compromise: indigenous conflict resolution systems generally involve negotiation between the conflicting parties to try and resolve the case amicably. This usually involves both parties accepting some measure of responsibility for the dispute and agreeing to the decision. Rather than one party being viewed as the winner and the other as the loser, both parties stand to benefit from reconciliation. G. Dynamism and responsiveness to change: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms are not static but evolve over generations to their current status, and can respond to changes in views and values. Many have evolved in recent times and changed over the past periods to become more formalized in response to interactions with the formal systems and regional, national or international pressures. H. Restoration and maintenance of peaceful co-existence: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms aim to restore peace and harmony between the conflicting party members, neighbors, clans or local groups so that the former accuser can continue to live together in frequent interaction. I. Forgiveness and compensation: indigenous conflict resolution institutions often require the loser or wrongdoer to ask forgiveness and/ or pay compensation, rather than imposing physical punishment or imprisonment. Compensation is often paid by one individual, family or clan to another in the form of restorative penalty that enables parties to be reconciled. J. Public participation: indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms are usually held in public and often allow participation by those attending it. Rather than being imposed, the outcome is negotiated and discussions may continue till the decision is agreed upon by all present. The outcome needs to be consequential and requires public approval to enable decisions to be backed by community sanctions of exclusion if required.