RECONCILIATION
Only a few wars ever hit the news headlines or become the subject of public debate, while most armed conflicts barely cause even a ripple in the media surface. On occasions these conflicts end in authentic genocides in which the international community intervenes too late. Rwanda and Sudan are tragic examples of this delay and lack of interest.
War worsens destitution and cruelly burdens the countries affected by it, more often than not developing regions in which war and poverty form a devastating vicious circle.
War is also the situation in which human rights are most seriously infringed: murders, mutilations, disappearances, displacements, rapes, the use of girls and boys as soldiers... In the war everyday people become enemies, reified, with their humanity wrenched from them.
There are still currently more than thirty armed conflicts in the world, mostly in Africa, which barely get more than the briefest coverage in the news. The international community has to put more energy and means into helping to end these conflicts and increase its efforts to foster peace processes in which the warring parties can redirect their differences through non-violent channels, and, if possible, solve them once and for all.
Like the mines strewn during the war, the end of a conflict leaves many lasting marks, perhaps the worst and the most difficult to overcome of which is the hatred accumulated over the years, a factor threatening to keep the confrontation alive in future generations. The most important and most difficult task following a war is, therefore, reconciliation. This means not only recovering from the wounds opened during the conflict, but also from the reasons that caused it: it is a question of building a future in which the situation leading to the confrontation is no longer possible. It is therefore essential to recognise and repair the pain suffered by the victims, and achieve a collective undertaking to assume channels of debate and frameworks of coexistence that don’t infringe the rights of the “opponent”. If the truth be said, the ultimate consequence of true reconciliation is that of no longer considering the other person as an enemy: it is a question, finally, of considering him or her as a fellow citizen based on a common framework of rights and responsibilities.
Since the early 90s in the 20th century, the number of armed conflicts has decreased. This has led to the launching of several peace processes, the ultimate consequence of which would, ideally, be reconciliation. According to figures released by the School of the Culture of Peace, 2006 ended with over thirty peace negotiations underway.
Solving a conflict is an arduous task requiring continuous effort over a long period of time. Also necessary is a high degree of political undertaking to overcome the many difficulties of an always complex process. Mistrust between the parties, ceasefire breakdowns, or differences regarding the subjects to be discussed are some of the obstacles faced by any conflict-solving process. Of the thirty conflicts currently involved in peace talks, half have taken from one to ten years to start negotiating, while the other half has taken over sixteen years.
But the road to reconciliation, for its part, is at the end of the day the longest and most complicated of them all, impossible to achieve without the implication of the affected community itself. All efforts made by the institutions and civilian society must be directed at helping to succeed in achieving this task.