Successful Post-conflict Reconstruction: Drawing on and Investing in Those with no “Exit Strategy,” the Men and (Especially) the Women of the Local Population
Remarks to the Annual International Forum at the Caen Memorial
by Ambassador Harriet Babbitt
October 10, 2024

I am delighted to have been invited across the Atlantic to participate in this important program.

After World War II, Europe showed the world that the key to success in post-conflict reconstruction is a peace where different peoples embrace a common destiny and affirm the same truths—that ethnic and religious hatred are unacceptable, that human rights are universal, and that differences are a source of strength, not weakness.

Today I’ve been asked to share with you some ideas about successful post-conflict reconstruction.

I want to start by paying tribute to Sergio Vieira de Mello, a friend whose loss in the bombing of the United Nations Baghdad headquarters was an incalculable loss to those of us working on post-conflict reconstruction. Sergio had the wit and the experience and the charm to manage issues great and small—from the difficulty of working with an occupying power in Iraq to the exquisitely complicated issues of what I will call here “transitions within tradition.” We will miss him and we will stumble more than we should without his vision.

By “transitions within tradition” I mean how do we in the international community tailor our interventions to take advantage of those local stakeholders and local traditions that will enhance the process of transition to a stable, participatory post-conflict society.

When I was in government we spent enormous amounts of time discussing “exit strategies,” by which we meant designing military interventions so that we could identify the timing and mechanisms for entry into a conflict and the timing and mechanisms for bringing the troops home. Those were useful exercises that forced military and civilian planners in the international community to work together. Who would provide troops going in? Who would provide “lift” to get troops in place? Who would provide the peacekeepers to stay behind? Who would pay? And who could come home when?

Those of us who focused on post-conflict reconstruction talked about exit strategies from country X to move scarce resources to more urgent country Y.

Some, but not enough, attention was paid to those with no exit strategy, the men (and especially women) of the post-conflict country.

The local community, which cannot leave, has no exit strategy. It ultimately has the greatest need to build a sustainable peace. But too often the international community has looked only to former combatants and those in traditional positions of power, and not to all the assets in the community.

The broad objectives of reconstruction are frequently in conflict with entrenched cultural and religious tradition. Investments in those religious and cultural elements of society that ARE supportive of reconciliation and a more open and democratic society, particularly women, are often overlooked. The key is working quickly and deliberately to identify and support indigenous assets whose views and efforts reinforce liberal, democratic social values.

For example, much has been written about the hostility of Islam to democracy on one hand and to the participation of women on the other.

With respect to Islam, fundamentalist mullahs are not Islam, just as xenophobic American preachers are not Christianity. Mainstream Muslims fear the influence of fundamentalism in their world, just as mainstream Christians do in theirs. If we permit the least open, most conservative elements of religious communities to define the debate, we are permitting them to orchestrate the loss of millions who depend on us. This is particularly true if we allow them to disenfranchise the more than 50 percent of post-conflict societies that is female.

In addition to those who worry that Islam is not hospitable to democracy, there are those who say the true clash of civilizations is eros, not demos. In other words, that it is traditional societies’ insistence that women submit to a culturally conservative role that separates liberal, western democracies from the troubled spots on the globe where sustainable peace must be built.

To them I say, cultures change. It is our job to identify and support those elements that point post-conflict societies to a future as part of an open global community respectful of the rights and dignity of all.

We’ve done it before. When General Douglas MacArthur, in effect, issued an edict in post WWII Japan giving women the right to vote, he was counseled against doing it since it would fly in the face of millennia of Japanese tradition. He said that he supposed it would, but that he didn’t think Japanese men would complain any more loudly than American men had when American women got suffrage in 1920. And they didn’t. The reality is that women didn’t attain the right to vote in most historically Protestant societies until about 1920 and in much of Roman Catholic Europe until after World War II. Societies change and so do their attitudes about women.

In fostering change, we in the international community have both carrots and sticks at our disposal. MacArthur had a very large post-victory stick, but it’s useful to remember how important carrots have been in recent years.

Peace and progress in the Balkans has been greatly facilitated by the aspirations of countries in the Balkans to promptly join the European Union. When some barely-reformed Balkan leader needs encouragement to do the right thing, a minister from one of the EU member countries flies into his Balkan capitol to remind that leader that a retrograde policy will harm his country’s prospects for accession. We should look aggressively for those kinds of carrots in every post-conflict environment in which we work.

I’m currently involved with “Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace,” an organization of women peace builders who have worked, often across conflict lines, to build peace at various stages of conflict. Despite having much to offer, the women are often marginalized in post-conflict proceedings.

At the grassroots level, the work of Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace member Visaka Dharmadasa, in Sri Lanka is an example where women have found a way across seemingly intractable conflict lines. Dharmadasa’s work began with the disappearance of her son, a soldier for the government. She realized that she and the mothers of insurgent Tamil Tiger soldiers missing in action shared the same need to know the fate of their sons.

To raise awareness about the importance of combatant identification tags and adherence to international laws on the treatment of prisoners of war, she published a booklet in English, Sinhala, and Tamil. She organized a “mothers of Sri Lanka” petition, getting 100,000 signatures calling on both the government and the LTTE to end the war. She brought together influential civil society leaders from across conflict lines to discuss core issues in a dialogue process that runs parallel to the official peace talks. After having creatively and bravely brought warring sides together during the conflict, the Dharmadasas of the world should be IN the formal peace processes, not marginalized in parallel processes. They are powerful forces for change and should be utilized.

In April, Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace brought 25 Iraqi women to Washington to work on a set of recommendations for winning the peace in Iraq. One of the women, an engineer, Nasreen Sideek Barwari, formerly the Kurdish minister for Development, is now the Iraqi Minster for Public works. We recently hosted a member of the Interim Governing Council, a Sunni Turkoman, Songul Chapouk. Mrs. Chapouk is a beautifully educated, articulate Iraqi dedicated to a modern, unified, participatory post-conflict Iraq. But these are two of too few women in the process. Winning the peace in Iraq will mean insisting that the talents and contributions of Iraqi men and women be called upon and respected.

Let me end with an example of where UN leadership worked brilliantly to bring women into the process. As the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello went far beyond rhetoric to action. He made sure the transitional Consultative Council was 38 percent women and that the women’s platform for action was converted into a policy and implementation document. When it was time for elections, as SRSG [Special Representative for the Secretary-General] he offered incentives to political parties to include women on their party lists by giving additional broadcast time, if the additional time was used for women candidates. The UN offered training to prepare women from a traditional East Timor society to run for office.

The SRSG’s determined commitment and awareness raising produced a remarkable 27 percent return of women to the East Timor Constituent Assembly, one of the highest not only in the Asia-Pacific, but in the world. East Timor is having a more successful transition by utilizing the skills of its women.

We can work to include women for a variety of reasons: because, as more than half the population, they deserve to be represented. Or because they are victimized in conflict and should be compensated. Or because otherwise their rights will be bargained away in the negotiation process.

My argument for including women is a different one. The success of post-conflict reconstruction depends most on those who care the most: those with no exit strategy. Including women marginalizes those who are invested in dividing societies on ethnic, religious, and national lines. The presence of women in positions of power is a signal of change and post conflict stability.

Including women is the smart thing to do and we in the international community can help do it.

Thank you very much.

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