Colloquium 2001

Overview
Policy Day
Research Symposium
Panel Discussions
Public Forum
Coalition Building
Media Coverage
Specialty Tracks
Photo Gallery

Overview
The Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace initiative hosted its third annual Colloquium at Harvard University in November 2001. Nearly 40 new delegates from Cambodia, Guatemala, the Philippines, and Rwanda joined 20 returning network members from 12 conflict areas in dialogue with researchers and policymakers and in daily sessions on coalition building and skills development. Members of the Waging network build peace in their communities through their work as investigative journalists, military officers, members of parliament, grassroots organizers, Supreme Court justices, academic researchers, and a variety of other capacities.

return to top

Waging delegate Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel (Philippine Delegate, 2nd from left) discusses models for inclusive security with fellow panelists Sury Pillay (South African Delegate, 3rd from left), Luz Mendez (Guatemalan Delegate, 2nd from right), and UN Under-Secretary General Olara Otunnu (far right) in a conversation moderated by Ambassador Swanee Hunt (far right) during the Policy Day Opening Plenary. Photo by Tom Fitzsimmons

Policy Day
On Policy Day, more than one hundred policy shapers--appointed and elected government officials; representatives from the UN, USAID, National Security Council, and other major international organizations; journalists; and funders--met with Waging delegates to discuss how including women in peace building processes improves the chances of averting or stopping violent conflict and sustaining peace. Small working groups focused on generating policy recommendations that promote women's contributions in strengthening international security. Participants discussed how to use women as a stabilizing force in fragile areas and how to amplify the voices of women peacemakers, identifying obstacles to women's participation in policy creation and implementation.

Following the Policy Day roundtable discussions, Cindy Courville, director of African Affairs at the National Security Council, addressed fellow policy shapers and Waging delegates about the importance of strengthening the Waging network:

I see the diversity in this room that brings us all together...there is a common goal that we must all achieve. But you have to have the passion that I most certainly have felt in this one day. You need to take that back with you and know that you have a network...and build that network so when I'm sitting at that policy table and they say "well, what about women?" I have a list and I can say in Guatemala, and I can say in Rwanda, and in Uganda...I know women.

David Gergen, director of the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership, author, commentator, and Presidential adviser, spoke at the opening plenary about the importance of Waging delegates coming together with the Harvard community:

[Waging network members] are really at the cutting edge, at a time when your work is so necessary. We appreciate your work. We understand that what is needed here is to build bridges [to] people in academia, who can do much of the scholarly work,...and try to see the patterns and try to come up with the theories that can help to formulate and frame the conversation and how we think of progress. But at the same time, we need people from the arena--people who are from the grassroots that are out there working--to come and be with us and let us share together, because you bring insights that we can only begin to barely grasp. It's building these bridges that Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace is all about.

Read more on Policy Day 2001: speaker biographies, working group discussions, and what policymakers said.

return to top

Research Symposium
The third annual Research Symposium included public panels, working group discussions, and delegate workshops. Delegates, practitioners, and academics from a broad range of disciplines came together over the four days to reflect on women's roles in peacemaking and negotiation. The symposium was featured in Waging's first live Web cast.

During the symposium discussion, “Peace Building: How Do Women Make a Difference?”, panelist Sanam Anderlini, former senior policy adviser for International Alert and Waging Policy Commissioner, framed the discussion with these questions:

I think that it would be interesting...to take three issues forward: the strategies we use to get issues onto the table; how we use moderators, how we use the international community, how we work with the people that we have around us...What kind of strategies do we need for that?

The second discussion…should be around the question of implementation...once things have gone into the peace agreement, how do we go about implementing it?

The third thing... is this whole question of when societies are militarized and civil society gets pushed out. How do we link women's voices together? How can we support their efforts when tensions are high?

return to top

Panel Discussion on “Afghanistan in Crisis: How Can Women Wage Peace”
At the panel discussion, “Afghanistan in Crisis: How Can Women Wage Peace,” experts in the field of gender and peace building focused on the need for new actors in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan.

Senior associate for research at the Women and Public Policy Program Rina Amiri shared her perspective as an Afghan peace builder:

I was in Rome two years ago, for the emergency committee with Zahir Shah--with the former king--when we were actually thinking through the mechanisms for putting together a peace assembly once there was the possibility for peace in Afghanistan. There were 77 people and seven of us were women...and we couldn't come together...it was the veiled versus the semi-veiled versus the unveiled politics that emerged...so one of the things that Afghan women--and Afghan people--have to do is develop an overarching identity again: an identity that supercedes the different ethnic groups and the polarization that has been created by different ethnic factions.

Pakistani journalist and Harvard Neiman fellow Owais Aslam Ali added:

[We need] to make sure that the voices of women are heard on a daily basis, on a routine basis, not just on important issues...Their views...need to be heard. This is especially true in societies where there is such a big difference--a polarization--between male and female roles.

return to top

Public Forum on Transitional Justice

The Public Forum on Transitional Justice gave members of the community an opportunity to hear Waging delegates Edna Rodriguez (Guatemala), Santa Sisowath (Cambodia), and Rose Kabuye (Rwanda) discuss new models for transitional justice currently being used in their regions. Harvard faculty members Martha Minow and Robert Rotberg joined the discussion, which was followed by a question and answer period allowing the Harvard community and public to ask the delegates about their strategies and successes.

Edna Rodriguez (Guatemala), Santa Sisowath (Cambodia), and Rose Kabuye (Rwanda) discuss issues about transitional justice during a public forum at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Martha Minow, professor of law at Harvard Law School, moderated the panel:

Transitional justice is defined by academics as the choices made and quality of justice rendered when new leaders replace authoritarian predecessors. That's not quite it. Transitional justice involves the difficult day-to-day activities, political choices, and struggles to respond to past horrors, past tragedies, mass rapes, mass murders, genocide...the explorations of alternatives to forgetting.

Major Rose Kabuye, the first mayor of Kigali, Rwanda, following the genocide in 1994 and current dhair of the Rwandan chapter of Women as Partners for Peace, spoke about some of the specific challenges Rwandans face in a post-conflict society:

After stopping the genocide we formed a government of national unity under the framework of the Arusha Peace Accords [1994]. It is a government that is inclusive of all the parties that signed the [Lusaka] Accords in 1993 and parties both from the Tutsis and the Hutus. It's organized in the way that the transitional period we are in will last eight years...until 2003. In this period there are important issues to be addressed, and these include the following: unity and reconciliation, justice, human rights, democratization, gender balance, education, poverty, security, HIV/AIDS, and social problems as a result of genocide.

return to top

Coalition-Building Sessions
Delegates attended a series of coalition-building sessions designed to provide them with an opportunity to share their own experiences, peace-building strategies, personal stories, and expertise; as well as the chance to learn from other experts in Conflict Transformation and Mediation, organizational management, transitional justice, media and communications, and community building.

Returning delegate Mary Okumu (Sudan) shared her thoughts on coalition building in a recent interview:

The coalition-building seminars--those are our spaces as women. Some of us still bring pain--the real trauma of war. Some of us have never really mourned our dead. In this space women come together and each tells a story...there was crying...there were moments of feeling uncertain...I had never had an interaction with women from the Philippines, from Colombia. When we relived those moments of trauma, shared them, we cried together. And there was a bonding, and there was a sisterhood...You feel not necessarily happy that it is happening elsewhere, but you feel that you are not alone. That is a very powerful point to begin exploring possibilities.

return to top

Media Coverage
The third annual colloquium garnered unprecedented media coverage from a variety of outlets:

• CNN hosted a live discussion of recent events in Afghanistan featuring Ambassador Swanee Hunt (initiative chair), Terry Greenblatt (delegate, Israel), and Rina Amiri (member from Afghanistan and Women and Public Policy Program Senior Research Associate);
• New England Cable News highlighted the work of Terry Greenblatt in their coverage of the Waging colloquium;
• WBUR's Special Coverage hosted Sury Pillay (delegate, South Africa), Rose Kabuye (delegate, Rwanda) and Rina Amiri in a live conversation about transitional justice in post-conflict societies;
• Ambassador Hunt also joined a conversation on Special Coverage, commenting on women's responses to the war in Afghanistan; and
• Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace was featured in articles, op-eds, and editorials in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and Boston Phoenix, as well as electronic sources such as the Associated Press, Reuters, and Women's Enews.

return to top

Specialty Tracks and Groups
Specialty tracks that relate to peace building--media, the next generation of leaders, and peace education--were developed at previous colloquia in 1999 and 2000. At this year's colloquium, there were specialty tracks for small groups of delegates with specific interests: One focused on transitional justice and another on the media. Each track included seminars and events.

Transitional Justice
Transitional justice--including a variety of legal, governmental, and societal mechanisms--emerges from the challenges post-conflict societies face as they move from violent conflict or authoritarian regimes to more legitimate and democratic systems.

Activities and mechanisms that address issues of transitional justice include:

• Public or official confrontation/condemnation of a former regime
• International tribunals that deal with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity
• Investigation and prosecution of human rights violations
• National "truth commissions"
• National "historical clarification commissions"
• National "reconciliation commissions"
• Community healing trauma counseling for political violence survivors
• Victim/offender mediation

At least one member of each new delegation from Cambodia, Guatemala, the Philippines, and Rwanda had expertise in transitional justice. Other delegates, returning from numerous conflict areas already in the Waging network, related their own experiences with transitional justice.

Media
Recent events continue to confirm the power of the media to shape our understanding of, and response to, conflicts around the world. A thorough understanding of this power and how to use it can greatly increase the impact of delegates' work. The Media Specialty Track offered a variety of media skills-building sessions, including in-depth discussions of the various media tools available to enhance peace building work; how to shape messages for the press; and hands-on training for using video, digital photography, and the Web. These meetings provided time to share and learn new skills from other delegates and trained media professionals.

Each incoming delegation had at least one member with media experience (as a writer, journalist, radio announcer, TV producer, etc.) who was invited to take part in the Media Specialty Group. They, along with other interested and qualified delegates and had the chance to learn how to use a variety of media (film, still photos, online publishing, etc.), investigate the role and power of the media in peace building (including a discussion with Harvard staff and fellows.). Media Specialty Group members were eligible to speak to local, national, and international media about Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace, the colloquium, and their own peace-building work in their home communities.

return to top

return to top