Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace ... - Swisspeace

Mediation in African Peace Processes: Carefully Comparing Apples and Oranges
zations, NGOs) and experts from all over the
world. So despite the idea of African mediators
for African conflicts being manifested by the chief
mediator, most peace processes were shaped by
international politicians and experts and were also
heavily financed by the West, e.g. the EU. This
support seems extremely helpful and welcome in
most cases, yet there may be times where it also
leads to the external actors trying to impose their
vision on the issues at hand. It is still unclear, for
example, how the ICC shapes peace processes,
and how its involvement interacts with traditional
African approaches to conciliatory justice. The international
community (and small countries like
Switzerland or Norway) should therefore continue
or expand their support of peace processes
by seconding experts to the chief mediator and
financing such processes. They should, however,
familiarize themselves well with the case, be prepared
for a long-term commitment, and work in
a culturally sensitive manner.
Third, the coordination efforts of third-party actors
are essential: Numerous actors, including state, regional,
and international organizations, personalities,
and NGOs, are needed to deal with the diverse
topics, multiple actors, and changing phases
of a peace process. There have been cases, however,
where third parties were duplicating efforts
or distracting from the main process. Thus,
greater efforts at third-party coordination constitute
a sine qua non. The participation of “Groups
of Friends” in a peace process is one possible way
of doing this, while another approach is to
strengthen the role of a clear chief mediator who
coordinates the various other mediators.
Fourth, mediators are never neutral, yet they need to
work in an even-handed, non-judgmental manner
to be effective: Effective mediators are often directly
interested in the conflict outcome and often
have closer ties to one party than the other.
Third parties have to be accepted by the conflict
parties, or else the third party will – by definition
– not be able to serve as a mediator. This acceptance,
however, is not necessarily based on the
third party being neutral. For mediators to be
able to help the conflict parties “accept ourselves
and the real problems”, they need to work with
the various parties in an even-handed manner,
without condemning them. For once one condemns
other individuals, they are no longer open
to dialog and change. This non-condemning approach
does not mean that perpetrators of human
rights violations or even war crimes should not be
tried and judged, but it is not the role of the mediator
to do this. The role of the mediator is
rather to build into the process a system within
which these crimes can be investigated and dealt
with further down the road. Here, civil society actors
play an important role: They alone can decide
what kind of pardon and punishment for
past crimes their society requires in order to build
a just and peaceful future.
Fifth, self-interest and humanitarian motivations
are drivers for mediation: The mediators in the
cases we examined often had a stake in the outcome
of the conflict, such as regional stability and
preventing conflict spill-over. This is especially
true for the regional states supporting the process.
It is ok for a neighboring state to have a political
agenda of its own. Such an agenda only becomes
detrimental to the peace process if the state
strongly favors one side over the other. States far
away from a crisis zone support peace processes
based on humanitarian considerations, but also
out of self-interest. For in an increasingly interdependent,
world, wars that are geographically far
away nevertheless have global impacts, e.g., forced
migration, organized crime, or terrorism. Supporting
peace and security on the other side of
the globe helps to make peace and security sustainable
at home.
Sixth, tough, directive approaches are often needed.
However, they may also fail, calling again for more
facilitative, non-directive approaches. The magic is
in the right mix: A mediator may start with lowpowered,
non-directive mediation, and when this
fails, he or she will adopt a more directive, tough
approach. However, the inverse was also illustrated
by our study: The tough, directive mediation
approach failed in some cases, calling for a
shift to a non-directive approach that was then
successful. Most processes go through different
phases, calling on different combinations of facilitative
and directive mediation.
Seventh, inclusive processes are rare and not necessarily
always the best approach; rather, exclusive and
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