Peacebuilding from below: the case of

Zimbabwe

Presented by: Sheunesu Hove

Lecture Objectives • Analyse some key aspects related to conceptions of

building peace from below  • Briefly present causes of conflict from the social

perspective • Consider peacebuilding and the social and analyse

some the advantages and limitations of local peacebuilding

• Present a case study of local initiatives on national dialogue, reconciliation and social cohesion justice and healing and discuss its main implications for peacebuilding

• Consider some criticisms of the social in peacebuilding

Building peace from below: the social

Redistribution: disparities between the poor and the wealthy and the

Malfunctioning of distribution mechanisms: welfare entitlements, education, health

Capacity building: access to productive engagement and community development

Mitigation of conflict: people being productively engaged in the society in which they seek to build

In the liberal peace theory literature, the social is referred to as a peacebuilding mechanism. What this actually represents is a negotiation process between a government and its citizens of the social contract (see Mary, 1999; Barash, 2000; Paris, 2004; Richmond, 2005).

The social as insurance against recurrence of conflict

The social does have an impact on avoiding conflict recurrence

Military expenditure does not have much effect on whether or not conflict is going to recur

Total global military expenditure has increased by 49% in real terms since 2000, reaching US$1.5 trillion in 2009 (Stepanova, 2009; Perlo-Freedman et al., 2010).

Post-conflict countries that keep on spending up big on military expenditure are not securing themselves against the conflict re-emerging.

Qualitative analysis of government expenditure in post-conflict environments does point to the fact that the social is a very good insurance policy against conflict recurrence.

What does the social do?There are a number of interpretations about what civil society can do. Some people say civil society help foster political participation; some say it can provide voice to particular interest groups that

might be marginalised; and some say it might in fact be powerful and it provides a way of

them exercising that power over a political process. It doesn't necessarily discriminate in favour of the marginalised

society. Civil society also contains groups and associations that are

actually very powerful within a particular society. Civil society can do a number of different things. Just to give

you an idea, the table shown below was collected by UNESCO and the economic and social Council of United Nations. They have a database now that has a huge number of what they call civil society organisations (CSOs). They include local government, academic institutions, and think tanks and in some cases they include a whole range of organisations. But by far the majority are classified as non-government organisations.

Size of sector (Integrated Civil

Society Organisations, UN-20617

NGOs)

By Region By Field of Activity

Africa 6340

Economic and Social 10582

Asia 4434

Financing for Development 1766

Europe 4395

Gender/Advancement of Women 5508

North America 3841

Population 1842

Oceania 652

Public Administration 1942

Latin America and the Caribbean 2706 Social Development 6625

Not Specified 4936

Statistics 1286

  Sustainable Development 7489

  Peace and Development in Africa 40

  Conflict Resolution in Africa 31

  NEPAD 33

Land Reforms in the 1980s - progress In 1980, 17 million hectares or 42% of Zimbabwe's land, including 75%

of prime land, was owned by white farmers Lancaster Agreement to a willing buyer - willing seller scheme About half of the funding for this program came from foreign donors Zimbabwean government to pay first and then apply for

reimbursement. A quarter of this, or 1300 farms, was acquired by the government in a

period ten years 8 million hectares for resettlement and resettle 162 000 families in the

first five years The most distasteful clause regarded land. The settlement said that in

the first ten years, the Zimbabwean government would only be able to get white-owned land by buying it from willing sellers at market price using hard currency that could then be taken out of the country.

From 1990 to 1997, only 0.8 million more hectares were acquired, and 19 000 more families resettled. Yet the restrictions of Lancaster had been lifted

There are bigger problems in Zimbabwe than land

reform What most black Zimbabweans worry about are

rising prices, unemployment and possible famine, not land.

In a survey by the Helen Suzman Foundation in late 2000, only 6% of them thought that land was the most important issue facing the country.

Inflation was well over 110% in mid-2002, and in 2008 it was 500 000%.

One Zimbabwean dollar was worth sixty-seven US cents in late 1979. In 1999, one US dollar was worth Z$40.

In August 2008, the figure was about Z$7b.

Power, elections and violence• Elections in Zimbabwe are synonymous with

controversy and are increasingly viewed as instruments of political power

• The 1980 elections were marred by violence and intimidation of the electorate by both the Rhodesian Front and Patriotic Front movements

• The 1985 general election took place during the brutal 1982-1987 conflict in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands (known as Gukurahundi)

• During the 1990 elections, the Zimbabwe United Movement (ZUM) party was terrorised left, right and centre, by ZANU-PF, frustrating it’s leadership by arresting them and their supporters

• During the March 1996 presidential elections, three candidates registered to contest the elections. However, two of them withdrew from the elections citing violence, intimidation and unfair electoral rules.

• The 2000 parliamentary elections and 2002 presidential elections were held amid chaotic and violent farm invasions by ZANU-PF supporters led by war veterans.

• The 29 March 2008 elections did not produce a clear presidential winner necessitating a run-off election on June 27 2008. The period leading to the run-off election was marred by violence, intimidation and disappearances of perceived political opponents, rendering the election illegitimate.

•

Implications for peacebuilding

• It is widely recognized that violence in general stalls development and political violence has significant repercussions on society, both in economic and social terms.

• For more than two decades, political violence emanating from disputed elections has systematically affected citizens’ lives in Zimbabwe. Currently, there are about two and half million Zimbabweans in the Diaspora as a direct or indirect effect of the politically-motivated violence.

• The country suffers and will continue to suffer from brain drain for decades to come.

• This has already affected many sectors of the economy as the politically-motivated violence has been the driving force behind forced migration of skilled and professional people.

• Unfortunately, the authorities seem to be preoccupied with their own personal interests that they have not bothered to put in place a program to encourage those in the Diaspora to invest back home.

• May be this could be self-defeating for the ruling elite as they have shown no respect for property rights through the violent farm invasions that killed the backbone of the economy, agriculture.

Local Initiatives :The Global Political Agreement (GPA)

• Negotiations led by Southern African Development Community started as early as 2005.

• South Africa was appointed mediator• The GPA was signed on 15 September 2008 and

guaranteed by SADC and AU in February 2009.• The GPA is a transitional document that contains a

reform agenda• It has not be fully implemented as parties are involved

in political and ideological squabbles.• There is now a draft constitution after three years of

intense negotiations between the main political parties• The next elections are expected in June 2013

The Importance of Inclusive Peacebuilding Approaches

• Most communities in Zimbabwe are convinced that the GPA is for the political elite and at the grassroots they perceive ZANU-PF as the ruling party.

• The GPA does not provide for grassroots based programs to deal with issues of localised and personalised violence as experienced by communities and it becomes difficult for communities to find entry points.

• As elite led process, the GPA fails to accommodate the traditional and cultural rituals necessary to reconcile people and heal their wounds according to their local beliefs and practices.

• Communities not happy with the GPA play spoilers’ role to derail the process as they feel and believe that the process is not in their best interest.

Challenges to overcome • There is lack of ownership and sense of

responsibility by the communities who believe they were excluded in process leading to the GPA.

• There is lack of information on the letter and spirit of the GPA to the local communities.

• There is confusion about the GPA exacerbated by the continuous political rhetoric and propaganda by political parties.

Importance of the social in peacebuilding

• The first one relates to those people who would argue that peacebuilding is not fundamentally about state building; it is really about relationships between people. Unless you can have non-violent relationships between people, no amount of state building will actually solve the problems of conflict. John Paul Lederach (1997) is probably the best exponent of this kind of normative evaluation of the role of civil society in peacebuilding. Others include Thania Paffenholz, (2010).

• The second argument of principle support for the engagement of civil society is that any of the institutions of peacebuilding are only valid in so far as their legitimacy is rooted in grassroots level support. There are people who would argue that where you have illiberal peace, the lack of connection between governments and the people will ultimately cause crises of legitimacy for those regimes. Regimes like those of Lebanon, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, just to name a few, ultimately can't sustain an illiberal peace structure without having the legitimation of a grassroots level and that's where civil society comes in.

• The third argument about civil society engagement in peacebuilding says that there is a specific capacity that civil society can deliver to defuse inter-communal conflict. In other words, such an argument comes from people like Joseph Bock and Mary Anderson (1999) who argue that the delivery of aid and the operations of civil society can actually play a very critical role in getting people to think beyond their communal identity and reaching out to embrace other forms of identity and inclusiveness. The assumption is that if aid is delivered in the right kind of way with the right kind of structures, it can actually support and strengthen the interconnections between people rather than keeping them as separate groups and that this is going to be conducive to peace.

Limitations and challenges • Quite often civil society organisations can be exclusive

rather than inclusive. A classic example that is usual given in the literature is Sri Lanka where all of the non-governmental organisations are very strictly organised along ethnic lines. There used to be separate non-governmental organisations dealing with the Sinhalese population and separate non-governmental organisations dealing with the Tamil population. These are non-governmental organisations that may have affiliations to large international non-governmental organisations. Nevertheless they would still accept it that that's the way in which it is going to operate in a country like Sri Lanka.

• Often the criticisms are that civil society is not a kind of homogenous global civil society. There are lots and lots of civil societies and so the civil society literature tends to homogenise civil society and that's a dangerous tendency. Also there are people who point out that civil society can be bad civil society (Chambers and Kopstein, 2001). The Ku Klux Klan is as much a part of civil society as a civil rights movement. Therefore civil society can mobilise people for purposes that are not peace conducive, just as much as it can mobilise forces for peace. A kind of normative assumption that civil society is always going to be good and in some sense is preferred to government is naïve.

• The other criticism which I find a bit more theoretical says that civil society organisations can often be what is called bonding social capital rather than bridging social capital. There are two aspects to that; one of those is that bonding social capital is that form of social capital which gives people a sense of identity and a sense of solidarity. For example if you belong to a particular football club, that gives you a form of bonding social capital and it gives you a sense of identity with that particular group and a sense of solidarity. But it may not be bridging social capital. It might mean that when you go to a soccer game your main interest is to beat the opponent team. It is not actually a bridging form of social capital; it is a bonding form of social capital.

• Bridging social capital is that social capital that enables people to move from a particular group to extend out their networks. So bridging social capital is about extending networks rather than bonding networks. In the literature the argument is that you actually have to think about what kind of social networks are being constituted by particular kinds of groups; that you might have groups that are more likely to be bonding social capital; and that might in fact not contribute extending peaceful relations to other kinds groups. That is not to say that you should never have groups that are constituted as bonding social capital. But it is to say that you need to understand the subtleties of social capital building.

• Another criticism of course is that civil society can be captured by local elites. Often what happens in particular conflict situations or particular peacebuilding situations is that non-governmental organisations will go in with a particular program on, which may have as part of its objective the development of community engagement and community participation. But what they will find is that local elites operate as a kind of gate-keeping to the community. And so they are dealing with those local elites and they buy themselves, sometimes and often unwittingly, into these forms of vertical social capital. They might have started off with an ideological intention to broaden social capital, but they find themselves in a situation where they are actually contributing to the growth of vertical social capital (Fuest, 2010). That is an example of how vertical and horizontal social capital can work differently.

• Another criticism is that a lot of these ideas of civil society can be artificially imposed by external Western actors; and when we take them into peacebuilding situations in conflict zones, we are taking ideas based on highly individualistic notions of what constitute civil society. These ideas tend to be based on the assumption that every individual has the capacity and the right to choose to belong to a number of voluntary associations. We don't tend to look at civil society in terms of what are the rules and regulations that govern kinship structures; what are the rules and regulations that govern participation; are young people actually allowed to participate in certain types of organisations; do they have to reach a certain stage of initiation into adulthood in order to be able to do that?

• The argument is that we bring a particular set of usually individualistic assumptions into civil society. That argument can be extended by some of the writers like David Chandler (2010), Vivienne Jabri (2010) and others. They argue that what is really happening with the literature on civil society and peacebuilding is that we are actually importing a kind of Foucaultian governmentality into the peacebuilding effort. In other words, we are seeking to normalise social relations according to principles of pastoral care and self-governing restraint. That is very much based on Western liberal notions of how people behave. Chandler’s article is basically looking at kind of ways and theories about the civilising mission. But part of his argument is that what we are doing in this discourse is actually introducing these principles of the conduct of governmentality and the conduct of persons.

• Another criticism is that in practice, while a lot of NGOs talk about having relationship building and civil society as part of their mandate, in practice they are torn between that which can be quite a lengthy process of deliberation and community engagement; they are torn between that and the imperatives of actually getting the job done; and often since their funding is usually dependent on annual reviews, getting the job done gets a higher priority. The kind of civil society building that might have taken place is actually put on one side.

Conclusion

• Peacebuilding activities have to be planned and executed with the participation of all the stakeholders.

• They must be integrated and grounded in the local culture and values, which form the moral fibre of the society that binds all.

• Inclusive peacebuilding approaches should be premised upon a functional governance system, fair justice system, inclusive political processes, employment opportunities, non-partisan media, cohesive social policy, and professional state security apparatus.

• Unfortunately for Zimbabwe, the continued anarchic situation in Zimbabwe has defied the existence of the GPA mainly due to the fact that this agreement was a result of a flawed process, an exclusive domain of the political elite and had no resonance whatsoever to the wishes and aspirations of the people.

Discussion questions • How can we overcome some of the challenges

that the social faces in peacebuilding? • In what ways can the interplay between the local

and the international be promoted in order to achieve sustainable peace?

• How can we mitigate the tension between the local and the state in peacebuilding processes?