Women start taking their places at the peace table

July 14, 2000

UNITED NATIONS (ANS) — For millions of women worldwide, the very idea of
making political or economic decisions is a cultural taboo. But in matters
of war and peace, where death does not discriminate by gender, a shift is
beginning in the tradition that women spend their lives treading softly in
their homes and villages while the broader work of governance and
negotiation is left to men.

In Cambodia, Guatemala, Burundi and the Middle East, women are succeeding in
a drive to participate in peace and reconstruction talks in unprecedented
numbers. And their voices help ensure that fledgling governments have an
opportunity from the outset to be more democratic and responsive to the
priorities of all their citizens, by insisting that women’s rights be
integrated into new constitutions and legal systems.

Many women’s groups and human rights activists say they view the increasing
requests for women to formally participate in rebuilding societies after war
as a critical stepping-stone toward building greater equality between the
sexes overall.

It’s not surprising that more women are becoming involved in an official
capacity to rebuild their societies and communities after war, said Dr.
Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women,
the agency coordinating women’s participation in peace efforts in Burundi
and the Middle East. During armed conflicts, while men go off to fight,
women often become the heads of households and the leaders and decision
makers in their communities, she said.

When soldiers return, however, women’s newly acquired status is often
threatened by the pressures to return to traditional roles. Collaborating as
partners in peace and reconstruction efforts helps to ensure that the gains
women have made will be retained and even strengthened, she said.

“Historically, women’s absence from peace-negotiating tables has resulted in
damaging setbacks in development and economic recovery,” Heyzer said during
a recent interview at the United Nations in New York. “At Dayton, Arusha
(Tanzania) and Colombia, it has predominantly been male leaders of fighting
parties negotiating an end to war and laying the foundations for peace. But
the process of rebuilding a society emerging from war requires equal
contributions from women and men.”

Last month, a high-level women’s team from the United Nations was asked to
join chief negotiator and former South African president Nelson Mandela in
peace talks in Burundi. Another team departed to the Middle East to take
part in a joint Israeli-Palestinian project aimed at formulating and
integrating a parallel women’s peace plan into ongoing negotiations there.

In Burundi, a nation in east-central Africa that borders Rwanda and
Tanzania, the U.N. women’s team advised Mandela, 12 peace facilitators and
19 political parties about the importance of building gender equality into a
new society. The team’s role was to ensure that women’s perspectives were
reflected in such issues as land rights, repatriation, the right to serve in
public office, resettlement and reintegration of refugees, judicial and
electoral systems, and constitutional and land reform.

As a result of those meetings, each of the 19 political parties has
committed to ensuring women’s full participation in implementing the peace
accords by appointing two female representatives from each party and
convening, with the U.N., a women’s peace conference at the end of July.

Case studies

Mu Sochua’s rise to power illustrates how a presence in government and
peacemaking can help guarantee basic human rights for women.

Sochua, the head of the Cambodian Ministry of Women’s and Veteran’s Affairs
since 1998, lived in exile for 18 years and spent six years working as a
U.N. relief worker on the Thai border. She returned to Cambodia in 1991 and
established an organization called Khemara, a nongovernmental organization
dedicated to advancing women’s leadership through social, economic and
political means. In 1995 she was appointed special adviser on women’s
affairs to the Cambodian prime minister.

As Cambodia prepares for its first democratic elections in 30 years, Sochua
is working hard to increase safety for women and girls. Part of her strategy
is to place strong pressure on male police officers, prosecutors and judges
to punish crimes of violence against women. Another is to personally invite
rural women to run for elected office and voice their political opinions.

“If you don’t have the power, you can try all you want, but the change will
be slow,” she said during a talk at the United Nations in June.

As in Cambodia, Burundi has suffered ethnic and political violence for the
last three decades, linked to fighting between two main ethnic groups, the
dominant Tutsis and the minority Hutus. The current peace negotiations began
in July 1998, led by former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, under the
auspices of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundaton. Today the talks are headed by
Mandela and a team of 12 conflict resolution experts from Africa.

Emilliene Minani, chairwoman of the Burundi Women Refugees Network, is one
of seven women granted permanent observer status by her government. When
formal negotiations first began in 1998, Minani and her colleagues were
prohibited from even entering the room where male leaders were meeting.

Denied entry but determined to be heard, the women proceeded to lobby for
gender equality through more informal tactics. Minani and her colleagues
intercepted political party leaders in the hallways of government buildings,
strongly urging them to consider and integrate women’s perspectives and
needs into formal peace plans. Now that the 19 political parties have agreed
to bring 38 new women into the formal peace talks, Minani realizes that her
hard work has paid off.

“Burundi women have continously demanded inclusion in the peace talks,” said
Minani. “We have been jointly fighting for our right to be included,
irrespective of our ethnicity, political affiliations and geographic
diversities. We, as women, want to make sure that the rights of all
Burundian women are protected in all aspects of political, social and
economic spheres.”

Luz Mendez’s experience with the peace process in Guatemala is almost
opposite from Minani’s. In her country, women were invited to participate,
and she

became active in the reconstruction process in her country when civil war
ended there in the mid-1990s. Today she is the general coordinator for the
National Union of Guatemalan Women, a national organization working to
ensure equality for women and girls in labor rights, political
representation and economic equality.

She said she believes that developments in Burundi and the Middle East
represent a major victory for women and establish a new trend that will
yield positive results for both men and women.

“I believe that (these kind of opportunities) respond to the demand from
women worldwide to have greater visibility in peace processes,” Mendez said.
“It is also an important step forward for the United Nations and will
increase its contribution to peace negotiations.”

Breaking down barriers And now there are female faces around the peace table. Through a project
funded by the Dutch government, Palestinian and Israeli women are now
formulating their own criteria for establishing and sustaining peace in the
region. A U.N. women’s team joined them in Jerusalem last month.

The project goal, according to Heyzer at the U.N., is to find points of
intersection among the women that can then be formulated into a viable and
parallel peace plan.

“The Palestinian and Israeli women have already gone a long way toward
formulating a common vision of peace,” said Heyzer, who has been asked to
assist the group. “On the Palestinian side, facilitators are working with
women experiencing varying political, social and economic hardships as a
result of occupation. It was quite remarkable to come across women living in
refugee camps who were willing to lend their support for a joint peace
initiative.”

On the Israeli side, she said the Dutch initiative seeks to give equal voice
and weight to three major sectors of Israeli society: Israeli Palestinian
women, Jewish Mizrachi women who are born in or originate from Arab
countries, and Jewish Ashkenazi women of European ancestry.

“The premise is that viable peace can only be achieved if women from all
these communities are mobilized to support a peace process that includes
gender equality,” she said.

This article is copyrighted by The American News Service. Permission is
granted to republish, reproduce or transmit American News Service articles
under two conditions: (1) you are a media subscriber to The American News
Service and (2) the material must be clearly identified by the words “The
American News Service.” ANS appreciates receiving tear sheets, tapes or
videotapes of any article or program produced as a result of this material.