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From the Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Ulrike Pfeil, 16th of March, 2007
A Tübingen institute brings ideas of civilian conflict management to conflict-stricken countries.
Tübingen: Can we build peace in countries which have been plagued by violent conflicts for years and even for centuries? According to the Tübingen Institute for Peace Education, it is always worth trying. For this reason, they decided to go to Sri Lanka.
The Institute’s project focuses on “Peace Counts,” a program by journalists and photographers, who collected and documented exemplary cases which promote peaceful conflict resolution and reconciliation in notorious “hot spots” of the world. The name could be interpreted as “Peace Counts,” the number of peaceful acts, instead of “body counts”, the number of dead in a war. The term also has a second meaning: “Peace Counts” can also be interpreted as “peace is worth it.”
But is it enough for these examples to be shown and worked with in mostly peaceful societies with a good rule-of-law? “We should bring these pictures and reports to the countries where they came from,” said Uli Jäger (Director of the Institute) and others from the Tübingen Institute. This is how the idea of “Peace Counts on Tour” arose – a peace education trip to conflict regions.
The idea was supported by the Programm für zivile Konfliktbearbeitung (zivik), the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the German Auswärtiges Amt. Uli Jäger and Ana Mijic from the Tübingen Peace Education Institute on Corrensstrasse traveled to Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, at the end of February for ten days. They were accompanied by two journalists and a photographer. Mijic was born in Croatia and studied political science. She is also involved in another project, “Vacation from War,” in the former Yugoslavia.
Sri Lanka was chosen as a pilot project because the conflict with the militant Tamil rebels (Tamil Tigers) has recently started again. The Tamil Tigers seek independence of the North. In addition, the Tübingen Institute could build on good local contacts there.
To the two visitors from Tübingen, Sri Lanka seemed to be a country “between heaven and hell.” On the one hand, it was a country of great natural beauty, in which followers of very different religions live together in harmony. On the other hand, there is a “spiral of violence,” which both the rebels and the army under Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa are escalating. The ceasefire agreement of 2002 has not been abided by for a long time. Since Rajapaksa took office at the end of 2005, more than 4000 deaths have been recorded from the civil war.
An exhibit in Colombo which would be a “public event,” workshops about the possibilities of civilian management with “multipliers from non-governmental organizations, with teachers, youth groups, journalists – that sounds like a very mild program considering the violence that is occurring there: in northern Sri Lanka, people are constantly fleeing between rebels and the army; child soldiers are being recruited from both sides; a suicide bomber recently exploded a bus in the South; an anti-terror law which has been reactivated allows arbitrary arrests.
Uli Jäger was touched by the memory of the workshop participants in Colombo who described a series of pictures, which dealt with an aggressive attack: a white delivery vehicle drove by and kidnapped a young boy – either killing him, putting him in prison, or placing him in the army. “That is everyday life there.”
Jäger and Mijic are convinced that the peace trip had an effect: they reached more than 500 people, and there was media coverage. In the workshops, it was clear that people could learn from experiences in other countries – using examples from Northern Ireland, or from the Philippines, where villages established “peace zones.” “Your own understanding of the conflict is broadened.”