Dialogue creates relief and a new path forward after Sri Lankan war

Hindu (Tamil) participants discuss their experiences in the war before sharing their concerns with the whole group during a "fishbowl" exercise. Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian participants in the background do the same.

In late February, I returned to Sri Lanka for our third set of inter-faith workshops with our group of 80 Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religious leaders. As previously described, this work is taking place in the Northeast of the country, an area deeply affected by 30 years of civil war. Working with religious leaders provides a politically acceptable way of addressing deep residues of inter-ethnic tension left in the wake of the of the 2009 military victory over the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). While the government proclaims that economic development will solve all problems, the citizens of this area know that much more will be needed to rebuild trust after a war that killed and displaced thousands and left communal relations in tatters.

After Sri Lanka’s civil war and tsunami, raising Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian voices for peace

Christian religious leaders open their intra-faith workshop with Karuna Center.

The beautiful island of Sri Lanka, lying just off the coast of southern India, has endured one of the more brutal wars of the last century, lasting 26 years and claiming 80-100,000 lives. The Sri Lankan government’s military victory in May 2009 brought an end to the violence but left many challenges in its wake, as reports of civilians deaths and human rights abuses abound and the grievances of Tamil and Muslim minorities remain unmet.

In October I travelled to the eastern coastal city of Trincomalee to launch a year-long reconciliation program with 80 Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religious leaders from surrounding areas. It was deeply affected by the war as well as the 2004 tsunami. Repeated flooding has further damaged homes and infrastructure, compounding endemic poverty.

Using conflict resolution to help stop global warming

Karuna Center Associate Eileen Babbitt and I recently co-facilitated the “Green Summit on Carbon Pricing,” a meeting of some 50 environmental leaders and advocates in the U.S. We were asked to apply our experience in conflict resolution to a new area: climate change solutions.

The absence of any means of pricing and/or limiting and taxing carbon emissions means that there is no economic incentive in the U.S. to reduce carbon emissions, the major cause of global warming, which is arguably the greatest threat we face as a global community. There is an ongoing division among environmental advocates over which form of carbon-emissions pricing should be adopted by U.S. legislation and policy. Wide public support will be required to get Congress to act, and little will happen if leading environmentalists are not all pulling in the same direction. Karuna Center was brought in tobegin a process of consensus building among environmental leaders so that they can move forward with greater clarity, unity, and impact.

Through a back channel to common ground

Nepali political leaders at Karuna Center training, Feb. 2011

Paula Green and I just held a videoconference with Nepalese political leaders, together with our colleagues at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. This follows up on a trip I took to Nepal in February to facilitate a training and an intensive retreat. Our role is to support Nepal’s new Constituent Assembly with negotiation and collaborative leadership skills, in the hopes that Nepal can have a constitution by the current deadline of May 2011.

Until recently, we were not able to engage a key element: the Maoists, who hold 38% of seats in the multi-party parliament. This is far and away the largest proportion of any party, but complicated political reasons prevented any of them from participating in Karuna Center initiatives last summer and fall.

Learning from Rwanda’s healing work

This January, I traveled with 12 students to Rwanda for a weeklong field seminar, as part of the Graduate Certificate program that I direct as part of Karuna Center’s relationship with the CONTACT Program at SIT Graduate Institute.  My co-teacher, Adin Thayer, is also a Karuna Center Associate.  The trip connected students with a variety of NGOs and government institutions, many of which Karuna Center has worked with in the past, and allowed us a glimpse of courageous processes of healing and reconciliation among a population that was traumatized by the 1994 genocide no matter their ethnicity.

CONTACT students visit a TIG (Travaux Interet Generale, or “Work in the General Interest”) camp, where those who have confessed to genocide crimes may perform community service instead of serving prison sentences.

One of the more remarkable testimonies we heard was from a young man who joined the Hutu militias in the Congo in the late ’90’s and participated in attacks that included rape and plunder on Rwandan villages. On one of these raids he was severely wounded by Rwandan government soldiers. To his great surprise, rather than being killed, he was treated in a Rwandan hospital and then sent to a demobilization camp. After returning to his village, he decided to participate in a local reconciliation training led by Karuna Center’s long-term partner ProFemme, a national network of women’s organizations. The experience dramatically changed his outlook, and he in turn now co-leads reconciliation trainings together with survivors.

From swords to plowshares: training development officials in post-civil war Nepal

International development officials talk about wanting to “do no harm” when implementing projects in regions recovering from violent conflict. But how do you do good? How can economic development bring people together across bitter divides, promote reconciliation, and contribute to a just peace?

Plowing land in the Nepali countryside (photo taken en route to a Karuna Center training)

These are the questions we have been invited to help answer in Nepal. In December, I traveled back to Kathmandu to provide training to representatives of the Asian Development Bank, their partner funders (DFID, which is the acronym for UK foreign assistance, and the World Bank), and Nepali government officials. These officials are implementing development initiatives ranging from larger infrastructure projects to community development.

We were asked to speak from our experience in political and social peacebuilding in Nepal over the last five years. We shared our understanding of the tremendous challenge of creating a participatory democracy after centuries of monarchy, and the community tensions that exist in such a diverse society following 10 years of civil war. Civil war tears at the very fabric of society, disrupting fundamental social and economic ties. Development projects can either heighten tensions or, if carefully designed, create new possibilities for cooperation and restored relationships.