Report of the Training on

Understanding Conflict and Building Peace by Systemic Conflict Transformation

Organized by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)

1-6 February 2007, Godavari, Lalitpur

Background

The 12-year long armed insurgency waged by CPN (Maoist) against the state has entered into a peace process. A Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has been signed between the government of Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) and CPN (Maoist) and the process of the management of arms and armies of both sides has started under the aegis of the United Nations. After the completion of this process CPN (Maoist) will join the interim government. An Interim Constitution has been promulgated and a new interim legislature has been formed with the participation of CPN (Maoist). Likewise, preparation for the elections of Constituent Assembly (CA) by mid-June has also begun. But, Nepal has yet to address the conflict residues- refugees, displacements, trauma, fears, hatreds, agonies and feeling of revenge nourished by victims of violent conflict and initiate the process of reconciliation through the provisions of transitional justice and peace dividends. Similarly, the country is recently witnessing a high dynamics of conflict in Tarai (southern part of Nepal) for power, resource, recognition and cultural identity.

The new fault-lines of the conflicts are escalating around the redesigning of the state, republican regime, federalism, proportional election system, party registration, Interim Constitution, ethno-regional autonomy and self-determination, power balance in the interim constitution, etc. Dissatisfied with the current status quo, political minorities, ethnic and indigenous groups and Hindu forces have opened a number fault-line conflicts to alter the new political equation and push the condition of no-war-no-peace into un-peaceful relationships by evoking and provoking historical prejudice, memories, expectation and evaluations. The high political dynamics existing now is opening a new bargaining environment for numerous actors-ethnic, indigenous, Tarai, women, a myriad of excluded political parties, etc which might affect the timing of holding CA elections. The government has recently formed a three-member talk team to start a dialogue to all groups of society including the disadvantaged groups, such as Madhesis, Dalits, Janajatis (ethnic) and women to address their grievances.

The Nepalese media, human rights organizations and civil society groups are trying to promote public communication and achieve the de-escalation of conflict through goodwill rallies, trust building and peace education. Ability to understand the root causes of conflict from different perspectives, undergoing conflict experience, internalizing the roles of various actors of society and presenting those in an impartial manner to the media can play a very important role in increasing the possibility of non-violent communication, confidence building between the rivals and peacefully address the root causes of conflict. The peace communicators can play the role of a watchdog by taking a critical look at the various sides of the conflict including the hidden ones while analyzing the structural causes and effects of a myriad of conflict and helping to generate public opinion and peace action for systemic conflict transformation.

Trainings of peace communicators on conflict reporting, communication and peace education are important to identify and release deep-seated patterns located within the various sub-system of society, weigh various alternatives and adopt multi-track measures to seek their solution. Accordingly, FES since 2003, organized a series of workshops in Kathmandu Valley for Nepalese journalists, trade union leaders, university teachers and NGO activists dealing with communication sections of their organizations. Initiated as conflict communication training to young journalists in November 2003 FES organized more training to them in August 2004, January 2005 and August 2005. In February 2006 FES organized train-the-trainer workshops on "Systemic Conflict Transformation for Peace Communicators" as per the demand from journalists, teachers and other the participants. On February 1-6, 2007 it again organized a training "Understanding Conflict and Building Peace by Systemic Conflict Transformation" to further enrich and deepen the understanding of these approaches among the Nepali media persons.

Objectives:

This course has the following objectives to apply systemic conflict transformation:

• The systemic conflict transformation takes a completely new approach to conflicts in general and provides a deeper understanding of hidden conflict structures and their solutions.
• The systemic conflict transformation integrates established models of communication and conflict mediation.
• The systemic conflict transformation allows every participant to get a clear image of his/her own possibilities for influencing a conflict and where his/her limits are.
• The systemic conflict transformation empowers the participants to use their individual strengths and resources for transforming conflict in their environment, and it enables the participants to respect their limits as well.
• The systemic conflict transformation supports the efficiency of the recently founded non-governmental organisation "Nepal Peace Communication" by clarifying relationship and task structures within the team, by revealing centres of conflict and by showing viable solution paths.
• Documentation of this course procedure in order to evaluate its feasibility in other countries.
• Documentation of this course in order to use the experiences and examples in a special handbook for systemic conflict transformation.

Participants and the Trainers:

There were altogether 24 participants including 11 women. Participants came from the various fields of media, trade union, university and NGOs and represented even marginalized sections of society such as Dalits, ethnic groups, indigenous people, and people from remote areas. One participant could not come due to general strike in the eastern Tarai since 21 days. There were three trainers. Principle trainer was Mr. Joergen Klussmann and Mr. Maro de Carvalhi from Germany. Dev Raj Dahal, Head of FES, Nepal office provided the background knowledge about the conflict and efforts towards peace in Nepal. Dr. Peter Hering, former FES head of Nepal, has also shared his experience in the field of media.

Contents and Methodology

The training began with the introduction of participants and their shifting constellations on the basis of order of birth in the family, personal history, region, religions, ethnicity, etc. It highlighted on the fact that how change in position changes the perception of actors and how actors become members of various systems. It focused on the basic conditions of systemic constellation-balance in reciprocity, belonging to common group, rights of members in the system and hierarchical order. The training exposed the participants to conflict and peace theories, practice of non-violent communication, conflict dynamics of Tarai, ways to transform conflict located at various Tracks. Several conflict simulation exercises were also made including family, NGOs and election management in Nepal. It combined two methodologies-Systemic Conflict Transformation of Berghof Foundation for Peace Support, Berlin and emotional intelligence based systemic constellation of the teachings of Bert Hellinger. Insights were also drawn from other conflict resolution disciplines and theories. The workshop adopted participatory method which enabled the participants to discuss, deliberate and undergo various role experiences in the constellation. Some previous participants who are involved in the trauma and psycho-social counseling were also invited to participate so as to sharpen their knowledge in theoretical and practical works of reconciliation and peace building.

Outcome

Participants found the systemic conflict transformation methodology very significant for the resolution of conflict in Nepal. At the end of the program an open-ended evaluation was carried out about the training. Participants revealed that they are better equipped with the new tools of the training and are empowered to address various types of less complicated conflict situations from interpersonal, family, organization, society to national level of conflict. They have agreed to apply the knowledge they have learned in their professional and public life. Recently, the participants of the training has transformed National Network of Peace Communicators into an NGO called Nepal Society for Peace Building (NSPB) and registered with the government to institutionalize its functions in non-violent communication and peace building activities. Nepal Television has prepared special program and displayed the program on the last day of the training, which covered the background of workshop, interviews of principal trainer, FES head and participants about the utility of systemic constellation in a country like Nepal.

In the evaluation process participants suggested the need to take this methodology to rural areas, involve second-generation of politicians so that they can develop sound leadership capable of thinking systemically, understand the feeling, position and attitude of others, use non-blaming words in public life and contribute to conflict transformation. Some participants revealed that systemic constellation helped them to understand national policy, avoid adopting partisan attitude and showed them the ways to carry out peaceful change in society. One participant in the trade union who attended the training second time revealed that he has already adopted this approach in trade union training. The second training built his confidence in the application of this methodology on a higher level of conflict system. Another participant argued that there should be more focus on emotional dimension so that linkage can be built between knowledge and emotional preparedness for conflict transformation. Participants felt a clear need for additional train-the-trainer programs so that they themselves can provide training afterwards even on the solution of complex conflict system. Some participants argued that their responsibilities towards FES have increased.