In The Field

One after another, the women told their stories: the stigma, the repeated questioning by officials, the police anti-terrorism units following them. The women had become civic activists after losing their sons or husbands to the lure of violent extremism. They said they just wanted to make sure no one else suffered the same pain. But all the authorities could see was the relative of an extremist.

On a cool Friday morning in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, the conference room is silent for the first time in days. Expert presentations on disarmament and security sector reform, followed by lively debates, had filled the room since Wednesday afternoon. Now, only the air conditioning hums as a diverse group of mid- and-senior level officials and civic leaders—gathered by the U.S. Institute of Peace—pore over findings from citizen consultations held in communities around the country. They are men and women, Muslims and Christians. Their positions in ministries and civil society groups in the capital, Bangui, make them part of the political elite, a class that has historically governed the country without input from its constituents. Now, after decades of violence and instability, that’s beginning to change.

(cont’d from Part 1 and Part 2)
At the center of some of the world’s most violent conflict zones, a cadre of civic leaders and scholars are defying cynicism and fatalism to achieve what few believe possible: facilitating sustainable negotiated agreements that forestall cycles of violence, allow people who’ve fled violence in their communities to return home, and establish new terms for peaceful cooperation.

(cont’d from Part 1)
Zoughbi Zoughbi, an expert in mediation from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, likes to tell a story that reflects traditions in the region. It’s about a local man who gets angry because someone has taken his watch. An offer of compensation, even twice the value of the timepiece, won’t suffice, writes Zoughbi, a member of a U.S. Institute of Peace conflict resolution program in the Middle East and North Africa, in a handbook published by his non-profit organization. The victim, Zoughbi explains, “wants to know why you took his watch and did not respect his property.” If the victim finds out, for example, that the thief took the watch to feed 10 starving children at home, “he will give you his second watch.”

In the midst of Tunisia’s fragile transition, angry standoffs emerge frequently, echoes of the tensions that triggered the Arab Spring five years ago. As the informal economy mushrooms, for example, the police—reared under authoritarian rule—regularly crack down on street vendors selling everything from clothes to food to appliances. One such incident flared in 2014, and the risk of violence was palpable. It was just the kind of scenario that called for the skills of someone like Tarek Lamouchi.

While the mass bloodshed of Syria’s civil war so far has spared many Kurdish and Arab farming villages in Syria’s far northeast, the war has exacerbated communal tensions there. So recently, 14 religious, tribal and civic leaders from one locality traveled to neighboring Iraq for talks to ease those tensions and prevent an outbreak of violence.

The road to leadership for Imrana, a Nigerian activist, began on a bus in the country’s north, when Boko Haram militants came aboard and picked out passengers to haul into the bush. That was when the 23-year-old resolved he had to do something about his country’s bloodshed. Today, an organization he founded seeks to curb the violence that often surrounds Nigerian elections.

(cont’d from Part I)
It was December 2014. USIP and its partner organizations in Iraq had recognized a June 2014 massacre at a military base near the northern city of Tikrit as a flashpoint of tension that could accelerate into a cycle of revenge killing. Predominantly Shia tribes from Iraq’s south, where many of the victims were from, had accused Sunni tribes around the base, known as Camp Speicher, of supporting, even joining in the massacre. But careful conflict resolution might prevent a further downward spiral. The intervention team set to work.

In a plain-as-beige conference room at Baghdad’s Babylon Hotel, the anger flared among the 16 robed Iraqi tribal leaders. The men, after all, carried into the room the outrage and fear from one of the country’s deadliest atrocities in recent years – the execution-style slaying in June 2014 of an estimated 1,700 young Iraqi air force cadets and soldiers at a base known as Camp Speicher. The accusations flew across the conference table – that tribes in the area supported the rampage by the self-styled “Islamic State” extremist group, and even joined in the killings. At one point, one of the highest-ranking sheikhs charged up out of his seat to leave the room. It was clear that others would follow.

Even as Iraq’s Kurdish region copes with a flood of displaced Iraqis fleeing the “Islamic State” extremist group, some Kurds continue to pursue a long-planned constitution of their own. How these two very different challenges are met will help define the future of the semi-autonomous area. PeaceTech Lab is equipping civic groups and authorities with the tech savvy they need to fortify both kinds of campaigns.