Mediating a ceasefire
Stopping the fighting is the first step to building peace in a conflict. Julian Thomas Hottinger is a highly experienced mediator with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. He has provided expert technical assistance to peace negotiations in conflict situations including Sudan, Indonesia and Uganda. Georg Stein is a senior mediation advisor at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, specializing in ceasefire mediation. On 5 July 2019 they addressed the OSCE Meeting of the Group of Friends of Mediation in Vienna. Here they answer questions about the special challenges of mediating a ceasefire.
What sets ceasefire mediation apart from other tasks in the peacebuilding process?
Julian Hottinger: Every ceasefire is different. There is no one size that fits all. At least 148 ceasefires have been signed since 1948, each one is unique, and they are never easy to negotiate. Political agreements are absolutely essential. It is often said that ceasefires are technical agreements, and that is true. But political agreements prevail and they condition the rest.
Terminology is often loaded and has a different meaning for the different parties. Rarely will you find a ceasefire document that actually contains the word “ceasefire”. One of the most important elements of an agreement is a glossary in which meanings of terms are spelled out clearly, even overly so, to avoid confusion. There is no room for creative ambiguity here.
Ceasefires don’t solve a conflict – they are not standalone agreements. They create (generate) a space for the parties to negotiate. When people come for a ceasefire negotiation they are fresh from the battlefield. They need to make the transition to a different logic and different solutions. At first there is no trust.
What has to happen before parties begin talking?
Hottinger: Preparations start long before we sit down at the table – with informal contacts, shuttling between the sides for months, sometimes years. We need to begin by trying to understand the conflict and gaining the trust of the parties. We might be asked to meet people around a conflict, people in the diaspora, different stakeholders, gradually getting to know the deciders. It is important to listen, hinting at what may be possible. Sometimes a conflict is not ripe for negotiations, and it may be important to say that this is the case.
When negotiations do start, what do you try to achieve first?
Hottinger: The first goal is to achieve a preliminary ceasefire – to freeze the situation, to create some form of normality so that talks can take place. The life expectancy of such an agreement is not long, 9 to 36 months, and it can easily fail. It involves difficult negotiations on how forces are going to be separated, on which armaments are going to be controlled and how, on the withdrawal of troops and on how this is going to be monitored and verified.
Initially, statements on the situation will be far from reality – technology like UAVs and information on the types of wounds that are being incurred on the ground can help to give a more realistic picture. Whether or not such a ceasefire will hold depends on the goodwill of the parties. If that is lacking, you are likely to get repeated cycles of ceasefires and breakdowns, and each time achieving a new agreement gets harder.
How does one move from an initial ceasefire to a permanent one?
Georg Stein: Monitoring and verification, as instituted in the preliminary ceasefire agreement, are extremely important during the time when it is being gradually implemented. Monitors are the eyes and ears on the ground and report any incidents that occur. Verification is a separate task – that of qualifying these incidents and, if violations occur, of seeking solutions to prevent them from occurring again. This interim period is a time for building trust, for deploying political or economic confidence-building measures that benefit the society at large. The civilian population must feel that a change is underway in order for a permanent ceasefire to have a chance.
A definitive ceasefire agreement aims at ending the war – at making the transition from a wartime security sector to a peacetime security sector. The agreement will contain a clear timeline on how to move troops, how to disarm, how ex-combatants will move to demobilization, how weapons will be collected and destroyed (or put back into service, depending on the agreement), how monitoring and verification will be conducted. Usually it will also include provisions on larger programmes of disarmament, demobilization and security sector reform. Ceasefire discussions will often run in parallel with discussions on matters like the democratic control of armed forces, on building a peacetime security architecture.
Does the issue of justice play a role in ceasefire mediation?
Hottinger: The question of whether or not amnesties should be offered in a ceasefire mediation has been a key debate, and we have come to a modus vivendi – there can be no general amnesty. An amnesty is of no value if it cannot be upheld – and mostly this is not going to be the case. The parties are generally aware of this. The issue of justice is not something we hide but it is clear that it will be talked about later.
Justice in the sense of restorative justice, working towards a just society, on the other hand, is something that can very well play an important role in ceasefire mediation. Encouraging the parties to establish a common vision for how their society should look, say in 20 years’ time, is often surprisingly easy. The task then is seeing how, step by step, they can move from where they are now to a realization of that vision. Here it is very helpful to increase the inclusivity of the process, to get the by-in of civil society. This can be done in many ways, for example, in a side process, that then feeds into the main negotiations.
Stein: Coming back to the topic of verification of the ceasefire agreement and dealing with violations that may occur: it is important to see that this is not a matter of dispensing justice, of punishment, but rather a question of what can be done to prevent similar violations from happening again, so that the peace process can move forward. Verification is an opportunity for the sides to work together, to begin building trust. It can be done in various ways, by civil society, the sides, a third party, or by both sides and a third party – what we call ‘three in a jeep”.
What about media strategy: how transparent should mediation be?
Hottinger: Communication – how the negotiations will be talked about – is part of planning a mediation process from the very beginning. It is necessary and vital to think this through, and it has to be agreed with the parties. Typically, the agreement is that the chief mediator is the one who communicates on behalf of the process, while the parties are free to communicate their own points of view. We always work with Chatham House rules – participants are free to report what was talked about, but not who said it. There will of course always be surprises – and the need to adapt accordingly. Leaks and other issues are to be expected at the beginning, but as the talks advance, things tend to calm down.
Stein: When a ceasefire is being implemented, public communication is extremely important. Especially in areas where the civilian population is affected, the public needs to know what is happening, and there needs to be clear information about what the sides are allowed to do and what is prohibited. This is an important part of normalization.
Does a mediator need to be neutral with regard to a conflict?
Hottinger: A mediator can never be neutral. When I mediate I am clear about this: I am Swiss, I have certain cultural, religious values, I belong to a political party. At the same time, I am absolutely impartial – I treat everyone the same. Every mediator has his or her own personal presence, and sometimes one can be the wrong person for the job. It happens, and it has happened to me, that the chemistry just does not work. In such a case, you admit it, you make a change, and another mediator may get good results in the same situation. The important thing is respect – you respect people, and usually they respect you.
What role do you see for women in ceasefire mediation?
Hottinger: Women are often very successful ceasefire mediators. They tend to mediate differently from men, and that can be very useful. Sometimes they may have just the expertise or the approach that is needed on a certain issue.
There are not enough women in mediation. One must remember that 41 per cent of the combatants in Columbia were women. There is also the problem of integrating fighters back into society: this poses special problems for young women.
How do you view the trend towards professionalization of mediation?
Hottinger: Mediation is always teamwork, and you need people with different backgrounds. You may have a senior political figure as chief negotiator, and he or she will have political clout, but will not be expected to enter into the nitty gritty of the mediation work. Negotiations today are extremely complicated requiring expertise in a wide variety of fields, for example in the economic aspects of the oil business.
At the same time there is a need for general mediators – people who can do process design. In the best of cases, while the parties are responsible for the substance of what is being discussed, the mediator holds the reigns of the process. Of course, every time there is a new development, the process needs to be redesigned. So it is more appropriate to speak of process designs – with multiple s’s!
After so many years of mediating experience, what is it that keeps you going?
Hottinger: There are five or six things that are always on a mediator’s mind, day and night: what do we want to do? Who do we need? How are we going to do it? When? How will it be financed? And how is it going to be monitored?
What keeps me going? The fact that there will always be a solution to a conflict. There are no absolutely good or absolutely bad people. Parties involved in a conflict usually have the knowledge needed to conclude an agreement to end it, and also the will.
It is hugely important to see whether there are ways to overcome a conflict – and there almost always are.