The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

To date, the women’s initiatives are what has built the peace dividends.
The strategy of Asha Haji Elmi and her group is of extraordinary significance.
With the formation of the Sixth Clan, the women have rooted
themselves in the traditions of Somalia. At issue here is not the destruction
of traditional power structures, but rather their expansion to
include respect for women as partners.
The conclusion which Shukria Dini’s draws is first of all that it is important
to build the peace-building process on the basis of the inner
strengths of Somalia, and not from the outside; and second, that the international
community can help where productive approaches for civil
development in Somalia itself can be realized: infrastructure, education,
health, protection for small peasants and nomads in the drought, building
of administrative structures, and nation-building. These are the issues
that must continue to be discussed.
The Case of Rwanda
In Rwanda, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa always lived together as brothers
prior to colonization. Certainly, there were power struggles at court,
but when it came to defending the territorial integrity, the whole population
rallied without distinction. Every adult male went to the front
to defend the integrity of the country. Everything started with the
colonial ideology, which spawned the ideology of genocide against
the Tutsi. (Yolande Mukagasana, Report, p. 161)
Rwanda is not a state created by the colonial powers, but rather has a
long history as an independent kingdom. The population consists of
three groups, the Twa, the Hutu and Tutsi. In her report on the history
of the country, Yolande Mukagasana writes: “In Rwanda, the groups
Hutu, Tutsi and Twa never existed as ethnic groups. The ethnic groups
were created by the imagination of the colonizers. Tutsi, Hutu and Twa
were socio-economic classes.” (Report, p. 154).
The first colonial power in Rwanda was Germany, followed after the
First World War by Belgium. Yolanda Mukagasana describes the process
of ethnization and separation of the population groups in Rwanda by the
Belgian colonial authority in stages: “In Rwanda, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa
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