Nepal
Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative
2009 Activities
April 23 - May 6, 2009 - Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal
Dee Aker, interim director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, led a field mission with a team of facilitators - practitioners and academics - to Nepal to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of army integration challenges and provide two participatory seminars, bringing security sector actors together with political and civil society leaders in focused negotiation training on security issues. Joining Dr. Aker were Maj. Jason Ruedi, assistant professor of naval science at USD; Chris Groth, IPJ graduate intern (USD '06, M.A. in International Relations); Shobha Shrestha, program officer for peace and governance at SAP-Nepal (USD '08, M.A. in Peace and Justice Studies); Laura Taylor, former IPJ Nepal Project senior program officer now working on her doctorate in Peace Studies and Psychology at the University of Notre Dame (USD '05, M.A. in Peace and Justice Studies); and two senior members of CMPartners, a public firm working globally in facilitating and supporting multiparty negotiations in private sectors and in various significant conflict environments, Senior Consultant Gardner Heaten and Founder and Managing Partner Eric Henry.
"Managing Security Differences: Advancing Difficult Security Issue Conversations" took place from April 27 to 28 in Kathmandu. This seminar had 30 participants representing the security sector (from Brig. General and PLA members to police), political parties (Nepali Congress, Nepal Peasant and Workers Party, Nepal Communist Party - both United Marxist Leninist and Maoist) and civil society (NGOs, journalists, business). In addition to Constituent Assembly members assigned from various parties to work on an oversight committee for the integration of former rebels into the army, there were four members of the technical team appointed to advise the government on integration. This "whole community" participation illustrated how a more robust, engaged civil society can identify and promote common interests even when their daily practical roles are quite different. Focusing on conflict prevention, transformation and peacebuilding, the workshop used presentations on post-conflict countries (Burundi, South Africa, Northern Ireland) that are advancing toward democratization and reconciliation, and it provided tools and experience in negotiation against the focused backdrop of army integration and security reform in Nepal to advance the skills and understanding of how to move difficult conversations forward.
"Security and Peace Conversations: Engaging the Whole Community" took place April 29 to 30 in Pokhara. This participatory seminar had a slightly different mix among the participants in that the security sector representatives were primarily from the police and armed police group. It did include PLA representatives, but no high-level army personnel as in the capital. While the overall format of the training was similar to Kathmandu and focused on negotiation skills, the backdrop theme and discussions centered on Community-Oriented Policing (COP). Presentations by Maj. Ruedi and other members of the team provided factual international experiences with COP. A simulation during the training brought this back to a very real Nepali challenge in creating trust and collaboration among community members, political leaders, the police and security and the former PLA combatants.
