|
 |
Home >
Peace Processes >
Conferences >
Conference IV
|
Conference IV:
Peace Processes Compared: Europe & South Asia
|
|
The fourth conference was held by our partner Dublin City University,
and combined presentations on India-Pakistan, Afghanistan and the
Irish peace process with briefings by cross-border institutions in
Ireland, and the UK government’s Northern Ireland Office in Belfast.
|
|
 |
|
|
Former Governor Ved Marwah; Praveen Swami, journalist;
Program Director Radha Kumar; Ajai Shukla, journalist
|
|
|
This conference focused on two broad themes:
|
|
| |
• |
|
The detail of making a peace process work, by looking at the
UK-Ireland mechanisms to establish a durable partnership, and
the UK-Ireland-Northern Ireland negotiations that led to a
political resolution involving demarcation and implementation
of steps towards full
decommissioning, police and administrative reforms;
|
|
| |
• |
|
Regional roles in helping develop a lasting peace, for example,
the EU role in regard to Northern Ireland, the Basque separatists,
or the Italian Alpe Adige,
and the Indian role in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
|
|
|
|
The conference was combined with field trips to Dublin and Belfast
with the aim to acquire detailed information on cross-border
mechanisms, development and monitoring councils, and police
reforms.
|
|
|
The broad conclusions of the conference were:
|
|
| |
|
|
Though the Northern Ireland and Kashmir peace processes are different in
significant ways, there are important lessons to be learned, such as:
|
|
| |
|
|
Cross-border or joint management institutions do contribute greatly
to stabilizing conflicts on the ground; indeed they help to
positively transform the potential for peace.
|
|
| |
|
|
The cross-border institutions that have worked best are
those promoting tourism; trade has not worked as well.
|
|
| |
|
|
When the concerned governments are involved in negotiations for
peace, then the time has come for militant groups and their
nationalist supporters to renounce violence as a means of
struggle.
|
|
| |
|
|
Implementation of a peace agreement entails at least as
much hard work as the negotiations towards the peace agreement;
especially so when the peace agreement is based on self-rule,
power-sharing and devolution.
|
|
| |
|
|
In the post-conflict phase reintegration can gradually impact
towns but progress in villages is much slower.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
