Unveiling Women as Pillars of Peace Peace Building in ...

Based on the realisation that clashes had poisoned relationships beginning at the household
and extended family levels, the family was the first unit of concern. In over half of the families
affected, violence perpetrated by members of the same family caused internal displacement. The
picture was more dismal in situations of inter-ethnic marriages. More than 80 percent of such
families experienced a breakdown of marriage with spouses or children displaced in opposite
directions. Peace building required understanding this dynamic and focussing on the family before
extending to the wider society. Peace facilitators made calls for calm, forgiveness, and
reconciliation, at the family level. Using public meetings and the Church, peace teams called for
forgiveness, reconciliation and encouraged family reunions.
Beyond the family, peace workers sought to re-establish trust among groups such as the
women, youth, and political leaders. Their programme focussed on understanding the people’s
concerns. They sought to identify the concerns, perceptions and strengths of each group, and
establish how this information could complement the peace effort. The peace team engaged in
extensive consultations with displaced persons, the perpetrators of violence, and the host
communities. They attempted to avoid stifling the concerns of any group and allowing any
particular section of the communities, to dominate. .
The consultation processes identified the roles and nature of participation of various
population groups during the clashes. As Tecla explained, this was done in a slow but systematic
process:
We first spoke to the IDPs in camps. They referred us to those who
had chased them away. We then went to the other community and we
were referred to the elders. The elders then referred us to the youth
saying that although they had been involved, they no longer had
control over the violence. The youth were in control.
Communities were then grouped into four categories based on how they would participate.
Youth, women, elders, and politicians became target groups for designated peace activities.
Inviting the Youth to Make Peace
The youth were a critical group because they are reservoirs of violence. During the
conflicts, they formed gangs of warriors that perpetrated violence. Most felt bitter, rejected,
misused and betrayed by the architects of the violence. The words of one young member of a
marauding gang capture this mood:
Everybody now looks at us with the eyes that shout murderers,
murderers, but we were not the ones who planned these things
[conflicts]. Some people urged us to get involved. In fact, they
threatened some of us, so we had to get involved to save ourselves.
But now everyone else has got off the hook and everybody blames
only the youths... 11
Increasing unemployment maintained this population as reservoirs of violence and their
potential to unleash it in the future. Initiation of sustainable peace therefore depended heavily on
eliciting the support of the youth. This realisation encouraged peace builders to reach out to the
youth and bring them into the fold of peace building. They used two methods to embrace the youth.
First, peace workers sought out the opinion leaders among the youth in all communities. Tecla
called them “the critical yeast.” They helped peace workers gain access to their peers. One of
them was a young teacher whom Tecla describes as committed to help in the resumption of normal
40