Activists train as peacekeepers

Activists train as peacekeepers

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A peacekeeping force does not necessarily carry guns, wear
bulletproof vests and ride in tanks or armored cars. They simply
need to understand the root of the conflict they are to help
resolve.

That was all that crossed the minds of Ichsan Malik and his
colleagues from the Peace Building Institute (ITP) when they
initiated training for community-based facilitators to prevent
and manage conflicts.

The institute has selected 24 non-governmental organization
workers from seven conflict-prone provinces for training, which
began on Saturday.

"We want to form some sort of civilian peacekeeping forces
that are available to build peace at any time," Ichsan of the
University of Indonesia said.

Learning from the way the government dealt with communal
conflicts in some areas in past years, the institute believes
peace would likely last with the help of facilitators at the
community level.

"The government always acts like a fire brigade, which takes
action after a conflict breaks out. It never thinks of searching
for the root of the conflict in order to prevent it from
recurring," said Ichsan.

The peace process in Maluku and Poso in Central Sulawesi
between 1999 and 2002, which between them left some 7,000 people
dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of others, bore fruit
only after numerous attempts that included peace agreements
between leaders of the warring groups.

Ichsan said the initial reconciliatory attempts failed because
they did not involve the community, where the source of the
conflict usually lies.

The 24 trainees were selected from the provinces of Papua,
Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, East Nusa
Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara.

The training, held in cooperation with the New Zealand Agency
for International Development, will consist of three two-week
classes, with two field training sessions at the participants'
areas of origin in between. The whole training covers eight
months.

"(The participants) will be supervised by our team under a
monitoring system that allows us to observe their programs based
on the lessons given in class," said Ichsan.

Some of the issues to be addressed in the training include
analysis of conflicts and sources of conflicts, building capacity
as peace facilitators, organizing the local community, as well as
understanding basic values of humanity, nonviolence and
pluralism.

"Besides that, we'll try to provide them with knowledge on
advocacy methods and peace campaigns," Ichsan added.

"In the end, we expect the participants to possess good
analytical skills to find possible sources of conflicts and to
come up with a proper diagnosis should a conflict occur," he
said.

The institute plans to hold two more lots of training with 40
more participants from areas considered hotbeds of conflict in
the coming years.