The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

In 1961, the destruction of the Tutsi was openly broached for the first
time; nonetheless, this development was not noticed internationally.
Only starting in 1991 did the international community register the fact
that a serious and dangerous conflict was developing. Initially, France
sent troops to Rwanda to protect its own citizens, before the UN sent a
peace-keeping mission and later, during the period of the genocide a
peace-enforcement mission. The dramatic failure of French and international
military missions can be highlighted by two facts: the French
troops and the UN peace-keeping troops watched the genocide proceed
without intervening. They failed dramatically. And the UN peace-enforcement
troops were seen as a party to the conflict – and were thus like -
wise condemned to failure.
The case of Rwanda therefore raises the fundamental question of how
the possibility of various population groups living together in the same
country can be made possible without repeatedly falling victim to the
ideology of the superiority of one group over the other.
Rwanda has since 2000 begun to address the trauma of the genocide.
The very strong presence of women in dealing with the trauma, and
overall in the political rebuilding process of the country, is a sign of hope
that a true process of reconciliation may take place in future. But in the
adjoining areas, hatred continues to smoulder, especially through the
participation of Hutu militias in the Congolese War.
The Middle East
The war between Israel and its neighbours, and the struggle for the right
of a Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel, have become a permanent
part of global politics, with increasingly severe outbreaks of violence.
The conflict did not in any way begin with Resolution 181 of the UN in
1947, which provided a plan for the division of the territory of Palestine
between a Jewish and an Arab state. Throughout the history of this area,
from the mythological – and historically poorly attested – accounts of
the Bible, through the expulsion of the Jewish population (likewise not
attested) by the Romans in 73 and 135 CE, the conquest of Jerusalem
in 638 CE by the Caliph and the construction of the Dome of the Rock
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