Week: Mediation Perspectives

Mediation Perspectives is a periodic blog entry that’s provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors. Each entry is designed to highlight the utility of mediation approaches in dealing with violent political conflicts. To keep up to date with the Mediation Support Team, you can sign up to their newsletter here.

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Mediation Perspectives: Reframing the Ukraine Crisis

Poroshenko, Merkel and Putin at the 70th annual D-Day commemoration. Image: www.kremlin.ru/Wikimedia

“They say the next big thing is here,
that the revolution’s near,
but to me it seems quite clear
that it’s all just a little bit of history repeating”

Shirley Bassey ~ “History Repeating”

The board game Risk: The Game of Global Domination is an extreme representation of geopolitical power dynamics. It pits players against each other on a simplified map of the world controlled by soldiers, cannons and cavalry. Although simplified and exaggerated, Risk is a crude model of thousands of years of international history: the rise and fall of empires, shifting balances of power, alliances, betrayals and perhaps the most disturbing factor – that the widespread death and destruction controlled by the ‘players’ is portrayed as a normal and inevitable part of geopolitics.

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Mediation Perspectives: the Need for a New Syrian Narrative

A Syrian man runs for cover during heavy fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government forces in Aleppo, on December 3, 2012. Image: Freedom House/Flickr

The conflict in Syria is entering its fifth year, and the Syrian suffering continues. In the last week it was reported that the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) had attacked the Khabur region in the northeast of the country, kidnapped more than two hundred Assyrian Christians, including women and children, destroyed churches and provoked a mass exodus from these communities.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres,  the Syrian situation is “the most dramatic humanitarian crisis the world has faced in a very long time.” Syrians are now the largest refugee population under UNHCR’s mandate. Further, more than 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced persons (IDPs). Together, refugees and IDPs account for 40 per cent of the country’s pre-conflict population, and at least half of that number is children.

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Mediation Perspectives: Dealing with Organized Crime

Image: flickr/Diogenes

For a variety of reasons, many of today’s armed conflicts exist at the intersection between politics and economics.  As part of this phenomenon, organized criminal activity in armed conflict is increasing rapidly and poses many challenges for policymakers. In this context, an important question is whether there is space for mediation in resolving conflicts in which organized criminal activity plays a significant role.

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Mediation Perspectives: What is Mediation?

Pictured here are US Secretary of State John Kerry and Swiss Federation Council President Didier Burkhalter at the Geneva II conference on Syria. Image: Wikimedia

On 25 November 2014, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with various German mediation support NGOs, organized a conference on peace mediation. The aims of the conference were to explore the role that Germany can play in this field and to raise the country’s profile as a conflict mediator. As part of the discussion, one of the working groups focused on the types of human resources and institutional structures needed for effective mediation and mediation support. In this context, the first question to arise was “what is mediation?” Indeed, only once this question is answered can the relevant resources and institutions be assembled to effectively provide the desired forms of ‘mediation.’ This implies that the first step for organizations seeking to expand their role as mediators is to be clear about what exactly they have in mind.

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Humanitarian Issues Regional Stability CSS Blog

Mediation Perspectives: Time to Build Bridges between Tribes in South Sudan

Image: European Commission/flickr

When, a decade ago, the independence of South Sudan became a serious option, it was politically correct to foster great illusions about its future. However, as Sudan itself was considered to be a failed state, there was a risk that simply dividing the country might create two failed states. In addition, a glance at the modern history of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda reveals a pattern from which South Sudan could hardly expect to escape.  In each of these countries, when victorious rebel armies took full political control, they established authoritarian regimes that remain in power decades later.

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