Director's Column
ICAR's Fifteenth Anniversary: 1982-1997
The fifteenth anniversary of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution offers an excellent opportunity to reflect back on the major issues on the global agenda in 1982 and what has happened to the world and to the Institute in the interim.
Between 1982 and 1997 ICAR became a highly respected international leader in the newly expanding academic field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Its curriculum is now emulated by programs worldwide and its graduates are in high demand. ICAR receives requests from around the globe to help design and implement processes that will aid in the resolution of deep-rooted and intractable conflicts. The Institute's teaching, research and practice program has evolved, in a delicate counterpoint, in the context of major national and international crises.
In 1982, as the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution began to establish itself, the world was racked by a number of conflicts, many of which, not yet finally resolved, continue to generate a malign influence over national and global affairs.
In Israel, Menachem Begin, Prime Minister in 1982, ordered the invasion of Lebanon and told his Knesset that the West Bank which he labeled Judea and Samaria "would belong to the Jewish people for all generations." Israeli forces moved into the Christian sector of Beirut, bombing the Muslim-dominated Western part of the city for most of the summer of 1982. While the Israeli Army succeeded in driving more than 11,000 Palestinian fighters out of Lebanon, they also established a political atmosphere that made possible the Sabra and Shatila UN Refugee Camp massacres and the creation of a malign cycle for the ensuing peace processes. Despite the heady optimism generated by the more recent Oslo initiatives, those 1982 events continue to cast a deep shadow over Israeli-Palestinian relations. They have obstructed the long-term transformation of hostile relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Paradoxically, the invasion of Lebanon and expulsion of the PLO generated additional insecurity for Israel and made the possibility of a permanent land settlement for the Palestinians more difficult.
Over the years the Institute has grappled with the elusive quest for a compassionate peace in the Middle East and in the last two years has been engaged in a collaborative partnership with Palestinian scholars at the University of Bethlehem to develop conflict resolution programs within the university and the community. Thus, an opportunity exists in Palestine for the Institute and others to help all parties move toward a more stable peace in the region.
1982 was also the year when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher restored her flagging political popularity by dispatching a task force of more than 100 British naval vessels to repel the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands. This "last hurrah" of empire was an anachronistic show of force against Argentinean President Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, described by the British as "a tinpot dictator." The battle for the Falkland/Malvinas Islands lasted seventy-four days and resulted in the loss of 255 British and up to 1,000 Argentinean lives.
Although Britain's war succeeded in removing the Argentinean troops from the islands, it did not result in any solution of the underlying conflict over sovereign right to the territory. After the invasion, current ICAR faculty member Chris Mitchell and former ICAR faculty member John Burton were involved in a series of second-track initiatives aimed at restoring civil relations between Argentina and Britain. Although in the short term these discussions did not succeed, the problems they identified as requiring a solution remain on the active agenda, which demonstrates that even when force seems to work, it normally leaves a range of unresolved issues to address at a later stage.
In 1982 another major war erupted in the Middle East when Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian Army invaded Iraq to capture Basra and counter the 1980 Iraqi invasion of its territory. This invasion aimed to overthrow President Saddam Hussein and create an Iraqi Islamic Republic modeled on Iran's. It aroused widespread concern about challenges to "moderate" Arab states from militant Islam. Again, the more peaceful processes of conflict resolution were ignored as land battles since World War II, killing thousands on each side.
The legacy of this conflict and its Gulf War sequel continues to exert a negative influence over inter-Arab relations and Israeli-Palestinian peace processes and remains an issue which must be addressed if there is to be any chance of a lasting peace in the Middle East. Although these conflicts are complex, the Institute (with more resources and an expanded faculty) has the experience to help diagnose and design processes that may advance post-conflict peace agreements, peace building, and reconciliation in that part of the world.
When ICAR was established the Soviet Union was still in existence; President Brezhnev had died and been succeeded by President Andropov who in turn was replaced by President Chernenko who three years later, was replaced by Mikhael Gorbachev. Thus the Institute's significant expansion coincided with the ending of the Cold War and the unraveling of the Soviet empire. Since 1989 ICAR faculty and many of its students have been involved with the conflicts that have emerged out of the transition from a command Communist economy to capitalism. Several faculty have worked on the development of new security architecture in Europe and Asia and on the evolution of conflict resolution and confidence-building measures within the OSCE and the ASEAN Regional Forums in South East and East Asia.
ICAR faculty have helped develop conflict resolution programs in partnership with universities in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and, most recently, the Republic of Georgia. These programs are a direct response to the expansion of the diverse irredentist identity conflicts which accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union. In all these efforts the Institute has tried to play a role that is analytic, neutral, and useful to the key players in the region. In January 1997 the Institute facilitated an interactive problem solving workshop between Georgian and Abkhazian Parliamentarians as part of an effort to try to prevent the resurgence of civil war in Georgia.
What has become apparent over the years since 1982 is that conflicts, such as those in the former Yugoslavia, in Cambodia, or in Afghanistan, do not resolve themselves. Unless facilitated transformational processes take place, these conflicts mutate and continue to wreak havoc on citizens. In Afghanistan, for example, following the Soviet Union's withdrawal in 1988, diverse militia fought for dominance. The supremacy of the Taliban has now resulted in the radical reassertion of Sharia law in Afghanistan, which is generating a quite different set of conflicts for Afghanis and their regional neighbors.
While it is impossible for the Institute to be involved with every conflict that materializes, where conflicts interlock, as they do in the Middle East or in Central Asia, it is important that faculty and students are informed enough to make positive analytical and critical contributions when called upon to do so. The Institute has observed the evolution of many national, regional, and global conflicts since 1982. Those outlined above were of direct interest and engaged both faculty and students in analyzing the situations and in designing specific "small scale" interventions. In others, such as those brokered by United States Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker in relation to the Angolan, Cuban, and South African conflicts, the Institute was on the sidelines keeping a watching brief.
Whether the Institute has taken an active and direct role or not in the diverse national and global conflicts of the past fifteen years, it has been challenged and changed by each one. Each victim of a violent conflict or war diminishes us all as human beings. Each of these conflicts, and there are many others the American invasion of Panama, the Chinese destruction of the democracy movement in Tien An Min Square, the nightmares of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Nagorno-Karabakh and the wholesale slaughter in Burundi, Rwanda, and now Zaire (to name a few) forces us to question whether our theories are adequate to confront the magnitude of the world's current calamities.
The Institute and the field are challenged over the coming years to ask if our academic curricula and our intervention and conflict system designs are adequate to the tasks of pre-empting, managing, and eliminating violent conflict. There are some more general questions to be addressed as well. How do we ensure that human beings gain control over their limbic systems, the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala where aggression is catalyzed, so that they may respond to problems in an ethically informed and principled fashion? How do we ensure that our theories and practice are adequate to resolve conflict nonviolently? How do we evaluate and refashion our work to ensure that ICAR's next fifteen years is as progressive as the last? Finally, how do we all ensure that the 21st century will be one of maturity, wisdom, and the ascendence of civil society rather than one of continuing barbarism?
Kevin P. Clements, Ph.D.
Director