The Conflict Chronicle

CASE HISTORIES

Self-Rule in India

Early in the struggle for self-rule in India, the leaders of the independence movement met with their colonial rulers to discuss their demands. Gandhi surprised the gathering by stating simply that it was time for the British to leave India. An incredulous governor exclaimed that surely Gandhi didn't expect the British to just walk out. But that was precisely what Gandhi did expect. He explained that 100,000 Englishmen could not rule 350,000,000 Indians if the Indians stopped cooperating with the scheme. Despite violence by the British, the independence movement did not respond with violence. The Indian people could easily have used force to overpower their out-numbered rulers. It was expected they would do so when provoked. But they didn't. They choose the unexpected as the more effective strategy for gaining self-rule. They choose wisely and provided many subsequent liberation movements with the quintessential model for achieving democratic self-rule without violence. Richard Attenborough's magnificent movie Gandhi is an inspirational account of Gandhi's struggles and triumphs.

A Tale of Two Endings - the Two World Wars

The U.S. entered World War I as “the War to End all Wars. Instead, the war ended with the Treaty of Versailles, a flawed agreement imposed on Germany by the victors to ensure that Germany would never again be able to threaten its neighbors. A weak German government accepted the terms to prevent the certain destruction of Germany by the allies. The treaty dictated loss of territories, reparation payments, demilitarized zones and German disarmament. These terms did not sit well with the German people and helped create the climate for the rise of Hitler and World War II.

When World War II ended, the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities in the occupied countries would have justified the harshest terms of surrender on a post-war Germany. However, the Allies did the unexpected – through the U.S. sponsored Marshall Plan, they invested in a massive rebuilding effort that assured that each European nation would prosper equally in a peace and participate equally in a collective security arrangement under NATO.

The contrasting consequences of these two endings could not be more instructive.

Costa Rica becomes a Force for Peace without an Army

Costa Rica is a small Central American country that plunged into a civil war in 1948 after an election fiasco. Jose Maria Figueres Ferrer ("Don Pepe"), a coffee grower, engineer, economist and a philosopher, led the Revolutionary Army and emerged victorious. He made many visionary reforms – suffrage for women, full citizenship to blacks, presidential term limits and an independent Electoral Tribunal to oversee future elections. His most consequential reform was unexpected – he dismissed his own army and adopted of a new constitution that permanently abolished the army.

The abolition of the army enabled the state to dedicate more resources to education and health, and made it stand apart from the other Central American nations, which have been besieged by coups d'etat, dictatorships, military rulers, and civil wars.

Costa Rica’s pacifism was put to the test in 1986, a time of great regional discord. The civil war in neighboring Nicaragua had spilled into Costa Rica as both the Sandanistas and the Contras had set up military bases in the northern area of Costa Rica. Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez was elected President of Costa Rica with the promise to do something about the situation. Much to the chagrin of the U.S. government, Arias expelled the combatants and enforced the nation’s official proclamation of neutrality. His vision of a Central America free from war, strife and repression, widely known as the Arias Peace Plan, culminated a year later in the Esquipulas II Accords that ended the civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. On August 7, 1987, all five Central American Presidents met in Guatemala to sign these accords. For his efforts, Dr. Arias was awarded the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize. See a speech by Dr. Arias “Peace and Justice in the New Century”

Egypt & Israel Peace – One Surprise Leads to Another

From 1948 to 1973, Egypt invaded Israel four times and Israel defeated Egypt four times. Israel conquered the vast Sinai Desert in the 1967 Six Day War and occupied it for the next 13 years, developing oil fields, roads and settlements. Israel also built military warning systems, airfields and bases in the Sinai to preserve Israeli security against any further aggression from Egypt.

In November 1977, President Anwar al-Sadat surprised the world by announcing that he was ready to go to Israel for the sake of peace. He made his historic visit to Israel, addressed the Knesset and made a direct appeal for peace. The next month, Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin made his first visit to Egypt and a peace process started that culminated in the September, 1978 Camp David Accords. An Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty was signed in March, 1979.

The terms of the treaty are unprecedented and were certainly unexpected. Egypt had been an aggressor against Israel four times and had lost four times. Israel was the country that had been attacked four times and had won four times, and the attacked country returned to the aggressor everything the aggressor had lost. Israel agreed to return sovereignty over the Sinai to Egypt because Egypt agreed to turn the Sinai into a vast demilitarized buffer zone to protect Israel. Once Egypt had been made whole, it could agree to peace and to recognize Israel and establish diplomatic relations. However, Egypt paid a price - Arab states cut diplomatic ties with Egypt, the Arab League headquarters was moved from Cairo to Tunis and Arab financial aid to Egypt was cut off.

Each side made significant contributions to secure an otherwise improbable peace. For their courage and leadership, Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Without President Jimmy Carter’s perseverance, the Camp David Accords would not have happened and he received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his peacemaking at Camp David and after his Presidency.

The End of Apartheid in South Africa

From 1948, 20% of South Africa’s population was white and imposed a system called apartheid on the other 80%. In the inevitable struggle for equality and inclusion, the white minority government practiced brutal repression. The white community feared and expected that the non-whites would eventually overrun the country, take all their property and drive the non-white population out of the country. This is the scenario that has played out in other African countries and could very well have occurred in South Africa. But it didn’t. In 1990, the government did something unexpected: they agreed to dismantle apartheid and replace it with a non-racial democracy. Four years later, in the first non-racial elections, non-whites won 60% of the votes. In most democracies, that would be an overwhelming majority and enough for an all non-white government. But that is not what happened. The African National Congress party (“ANC”) had agreed to something that was also unexpected. In a new constitution, they agreed that power would be shared equitably with the white minority in a Government of National Unity. The story of the two leaders who received the Nobel Peace Prize for this extraordinary transition to peace is told in the video Mandela and De Klerk.