The international community’s efforts for peace, security, and stability must be based on current international law, the UN Charter, and UN Security Council resolutions. The UN is a key actor in efforts to deal with threats to peace and security, but smaller actors also have an important contribution to make to the promotion of peace in different parts of the world.
Most of today’s armed conflicts are internal, i.e. the parties fight within the borders of a given country, although the consequences of these conflicts usually extend far beyond national borders. Armed internal conflicts often cause widespread human suffering and human rights violations, extensive economic damage, massive movements of refugees, and the internal displacement of persons. Internal conflicts are often a threat to regional stability, and may in some cases also threaten global stability and development.
Internal armed conflicts of a political nature must be resolved by political means. Norwegian peace and reconciliation efforts are therefore an important contribution to development in countries marked by unrest and destruction. Peace and reconciliation efforts in different parts of the world are also an important factor in international stability.
Norway has been asked on several occasions to serve as a facilitator for peace negotiations between warring parties, and has in certain cases agreed to take on this difficult and challenging task. In the current peace process in Sri Lanka, for example, Norwegian facilitators have assisted the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to negotiate a ceasefire, and have assisted in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement. This important work continues.
Another example is the peace process in Southern Sudan, where Norway was an active supporter of the peace efforts led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional cooperation organisation. Together with the UK and the US, Norway helped to ensure that the peace process had sufficient international support. This was important, as it put those seeking a peaceful solution into the driving seat.
Norway has previously also played central roles in peace processes in the Middle East and Guatemala, such as in the Oslo process that resulted in the 1993 peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Today, Norway is actively promoting the implementation of the Roadmap for Peace, including through its responsibility for the activities of donor countries in the region.
The peace process in Guatemala resulted in the signing of a peace agreement in Oslo in 1996. The important work required to implement the agreement is continuing.
In most cases, Norway plays a low-profile role as a supporter of peace and reconciliation efforts by others, including the UN, regional organisations, other countries, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It is important that the international community speaks with one voice, and the coordination of efforts is therefore essential. In most cases, it will be most effective for major actors, such as the UN, to lead coordinated efforts. Furthermore, regional actors have to take responsibility for and ownership of peace processes within their regions, although in many cases the ability of regional actors to drive peace processes forward is completely dependent on various forms of external support, including financial contributions.
No two conflicts are alike, and peace and reconciliation processes pose a wide variety of challenges. The role of facilitator must therefore be tailored to each specific situation, on the basis of a close dialogue with the parties to the conflict. However, certain elements are common to all of Norway’s peace and reconciliation efforts:
• As a small country, Norway cannot force the parties to accept any particular solution. In its role as impartial facilitator, Norway is completely dependent on the parties’ full acceptance of its role, and on their genuine wish for peace.
• Norway is able to play a facilitating role in various peace processes because, as a small country, it has no interest in the conflicts other than to contribute to a peaceful resolution.
• Norway’s efforts in peace and reconciliation processes often have their roots in the activities of Norwegian NGOs in conflict areas. Church networks, humanitarian organisations, research institutions, and trade unions often have extensive knowledge of and contacts in the affected areas, and the Norwegian authorities have thus been able to build on the knowledge and networks built up by NGOs. Norwegian NGOs have helped to prepare the ground for negotiations, and have played an especially important role in the phases during which trust has needed to be built between the parties.
• Through its extensive development assistance and other forms of cooperation, Norway has increasingly come into contact with conflicts in various parts of the world. This has meant that Norway has on a number of occasions been in a position to provide active support for peace and reconciliation processes. Norway is generally regarded as an impartial and effective actor, with a contribution to make.
• Every single conflict requires thorough knowledge and analysis. Building good relations with both parties is absolutely essential, as are patience and long-term planning. Norway recognises that conflict resolution requires a long-term perspective, thorough knowledge of the situation, and continual, coordinated effort.
Norway’s contributions to peace processes can be divided into three main categories: i) support for negotiations between the warring parties; ii) support for monitoring mechanisms, to ensure that negotiated commitments are fulfilled; and iii) support for rapid reconstruction measures that benefit the population of war-torn areas.
Norway’s current peace efforts in such countries as Sri Lanka and Sudan focus on such measures. It is important to support the parties’ efforts at political level to negotiate solutions, but it is even more important that the solutions are implemented rapidly. Experience has shown that monitoring mechanisms are very useful in this respect, and Norway is making an active contribution to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, which is supervising the ceasefire signed in March 2002.
Norway has also sought to ensure the coordination of donor countries’ efforts to support the Sri Lankan peace process. Coordination is important for generating international support for peace processes, and helps to prevent development assistance fuelling competition and conflict between parties. It also demonstrates to those affected by war that peace is the only viable solution.
It is important that peace is consolidated through greater security and access to social services, and through economic activity and development, since this enables the marginalisation of forces that would take advantage of chaotic conditions and lack of governance. The conflicts in Sudan and Sri Lanka both stretch back over 20 years, but the peace processes in which Norway is currently taking part offer hope for lasting peace. In spite of the challenges, solutions can be found to even the most difficult conflicts, if the parties to the conflict and the international community join forces and pull in the same direction.
The effort to secure international peace and security is a task that concerns everyone. Individual countries cannot simply leave it to the UN to find solutions to armed conflicts that do not directly concern them. All countries must work for international peace and security, especially in cases where the UN and the Security Council are not able to solve the problem on their own. At the same time, conflicts in distant countries increasingly have a direct effect on domestic security, for example through increased flows of refugees, organised crime, and growing terrorism.
By the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs