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ertical and horizontal conflicts within a country or a state do not always have to be settled through repressive measures, such as deploying military and/or police forces to bring a conflict to order, as they can also be settled through non-armed and non-violent approaches.

US-based Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI), an international non-profit organization promoting peace, has suggested that Indonesia needs to promote conflict resolution through mediation, to better prevent violence erupting.

“The field of mediation and conflict resolution ranges from what we can do between two people in a family to what can happen between nations.” Prabha Sankaranarayan, the president and CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders International, said while addressing a workshop on peace and conflict mediation in Jakarta on Saturday.

Sankaranarayan explained that MBBI, for instance, had helped resolve a past conflict in Liberia, West Africa, that had occurred because of civil war in the country 30 years ago.

At that time, many child soldiers were involved in the war. These former child soldiers were sent to refugee camps after the war and became disillusioned because the only thing they knew was war-related, she said.

To go back to their communities in which they had previously perpetrated violence, these former child soldiers needed the help of mediators to guide them through the process of becoming normal citizens. This process was not an overnight exercise as the organization for months performed their role as mediators.

“Over a period of 18 months, we were working with former child soldiers and improving their abilities to communicate with each other,” she said, adding that besides teaching the children, MBBI also collaborated with the community and ensured that the children would be accepted back into society.

After facilitating mediation, there had been not a single case of violence reoccurring, Sankaranarayan claimed.

Shadia Marhaban, a human rights activist from Aceh, said mediation to resolve conflict was also needed in Indonesia, a country with many different ethnic groups, religions and languages.

“Since I was born I have experienced living in areas of conflict in Aceh,” Shadia said while sharing her experience during the one-day workshop.

Shadia, who was also the only female Indonesian delegate in the 2005 Helsinki peace talks that ended the 30-year conflict between the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), said that many former conflict areas in Indonesia needed the involvement of such mediators.

In Ambon, Maluku, and in Poso, Central Sulawesi, finding peace has been a struggle from intercommunal conflict between Christians and Muslims that erupted between early 1999 to 2002. The conflict was also caused by general political and economic instability in Indonesia during the respective period. The violence finally ended after the signing of the Malino Accords in 2001 and 2002.

Meanwhile in Papua, a series of conflicts have occurred because of a separatist struggle for independence. Tensions between indigenous people and migrants from other provinces in Indonesia are purportedly one root cause to the conflicts, making the region vulnerable to violence.

Seeing as many places in Indonesia are former conflict regions, the role of mediators are truly needed.

Simple things, such as assistance in holding activities together between Muslims and Christians in Maluku, for example, could be a way to maintain social harmony and, thus, diminish the chances of conflict reoccurring, Shadia said.

She said mediators did not need to be lawyers, police officers or other types of professionals. “Anyone can be a mediator as long as they have integrity,” she said. (win)