Learning from others in conflict - CAIN

IntroductionIn 2005 Northern Ireland’s largest Loyalist paramilitary organisation, the UlsterDefence Association, engaged in an extensive consultation process with its rankand file. Consensus feeling was that the organisation should play its part intransforming Loyalism and helping to create a more stable and peaceful society.The UDA leadership asked its political advisors, the Ulster Political ResearchGroup (UPRG) to design a process which would facilitate such a development.From this the Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI) emerged 1 , and approacheswere made to government, seeking support for the process they had identified.The UDA/UPRG then requested assistance from a number of individualswho had an established track record in grassroots community work, much of itbridging the ‘sectarian divide’. Jackie Hewitt and Barney McCaughey, Managerand President respectively of the Farset project, were asked if Farset wouldadminister whatever funding was provided for the CTI, and this was agreed. Iwas approached because my Community Think Tanks Project, with its associatedpamphlet series, was seen as an ideal way of engaging UDA members – and,indeed, the wider society – in a challenging and open debate around the pertinentissues involved in such a process of transition. Joe Camplisson, a specialist incommunity development and conflict resolution, who had worked with theUDA leadership from the 1970s, was asked to provide training to the keyworkers who would be employed within the initiative.As part of his approach, Camplisson incorporates interaction with communityactivists from other arenas of conflict. In 1991 he helped establish a communitydevelopment and conflict resolution process in Moldova 2 (which is in conflictwith its breakaway region of Transdniestria). This work attracted the interest ofa group of Israelis and Palestinians 3 who are seeking to implement a conflictresolution process in their own region. Following a request from the UPRG itwas agreed to bring together activists from these two conflicts and UDA membersfor what was hoped would be a productive exchange of views and experiences.What followed was an 8-day ‘International Foundation Workshop’ (involvingover 60 participants) which took place in Belfast between 8–15 October 2006,and this document is an edited account of the proceedings. Unfortunately,Camplisson underwent a triple bypass heart operation two weeks before theconference and could only play the role of occasional observer during the event.Michael Hall, Farset Community Think Tanks Project3