Peace agreements … do not in themselves end wars or bring about lasting peace. In most cases, prewar continuities and the war mentality jeopardize the prospects of a consolidated peace and postwar reconciliation. 1 The ending of overt violence via a peace agreement or military victory does not mean the achievement of peace. 2 Rather, the ending of violence or a so-called 'post-conflict' situation provides "a new set of opportunities that can be grasped or thrown away". 3 The international community can play a significant role in either nurturing or undermining this fragile peacebuilding process. The United Nations, individual states and international nongovernment organizations (INGOs), have become increasingly involved in trying to rebuild peaceful societies in the aftermath of violent conflict. The dilemmas currently being faced in Iraq are only the latest in a line of learning experiences in this complex task of post-conflict peacebuilding. In Namibia and Cambodia, for the first time, the UN launched expanded peacekeeping operations which included not only military security but the coordination of elections. In East Timor, the UN mandate broadened even further to include the establishment of a functioning government and society through comprehensive development, law and order, security and governance objectives. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, extensive reconstruction activities have also been pursued, including an emphasis on establishing security, democracy and good governance. In this paper I argue that both justice and reconciliation are fundamentally significant goals that need to be addressed in the design of successful post-conflict peacebuilding processes and mechanisms, especially in the aftermath of genocide. This argument is based on Burton's human needs theory of conflict resolution, Lederach's theories on conflict transformation, and Volkan and Montville's theories of the need to overcome enmities through acknowledgement of chosen traumas and developing shared histories and empathy with the other. 4 These
Post-conflict peacebuilding has been criticised as being too focused on macro-level economic development and institutional reform at the expense of a more people-centred, service-oriented process that promotes the transformation in relationships and life conditions necessary to support a sustainable peace. This article suggests that the essence of peace and the capacity for development at the individual and community level are being lost in the dominant state-centric model of peacebuilding. It also suggests that psychosocial services that address the need for individual and community capacity-building should be seen as an integral part of social services where people are struggling to engage meaningfully in life after experiencing mass violence. Using Rwanda as a case study, it argues for a greater emphasis on psychosocial interventions as part of a more holistic and transformative approach to peacebuilding that promotes resilience, social cohesion and sustainable development.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.