Berghof Foundation: 50 years of conflict transformation

Sri Lanka 2001–2008
Supporting
inclusive
peacebuilding
efforts on
different tracks
While the 1990s witnessed a significant number of
successful peace accords and an emerging optimism
about the realisation and diffusion of a ‘liberal peace’
doctrine, the developments in Sri Lanka gave little
cause for hope. After a failed attempt at peace
talks with the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) under President
Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka disintegrated into
the third phase of a brutal civil war that raged across
the island’s north and east. It was fuelled by anti-Tamil
pogroms, suicide attacks by the LTTE, excessive use
of landmines, the recruitment of underage minors
and the inability of the two dominant Sinhala parties
to find a reasonable compromise on power-sharing.
At the end of the decade, the LTTE had
achieved a powerful military position and declared
a unilateral ceasefire. The ceasefire was later
reciprocated by the government, opening the space
for capacity- and confidence-building activities
that would ultimately pave the way for meaningful
negotiations between the warring parties.
This was the context when the Berghof
Foundation became active in Sri Lanka in 2001 at
the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka and
with support from the Swiss Department of Foreign
Affairs and the German Development Ministry.
The overarching goal was to strengthen local
peacebuilding capacities and create spaces for
dialogue to improve relations and trust among the
warring parties and its constituencies.
Designed as a comprehensive intervention
on different levels, the Berghof Foundation’s
engagement particularly focused on developing
opportunities for dialogue and problem-solving, on
building the capacities of conflict parties and civil
society, and on promoting multiple futures for a
peaceful Sri Lanka through constitutional and state
reform and power-sharing.
In order to foster a more informed peace
process, we introduced state-of-the-art negotiation
and mediation practices to representatives from
both conflict parties and shared knowledge from
other peace processes. High-level politicians and
experts from Northern Ireland and South Africa
who had played a key role in the negotiations
and transformation processes in their countries
provided key insights and lessons learned. They
explained why they had changed their attitudes
towards a compromise and how this had helped
transform the conflict and change their country
for the better. To implement these activities on
the ground, we established the Resource Network
for Conflict Studies and Transformation Sri Lanka
(RNCST), our first formal office outside Germany.
With around 20 staff members, most of whom were
locally hired, the RNCST provided a safe space for
both conflict parties to explore their interest and
readiness to engage in dialogue with each other. The
aim was to increase empathy and overcome mutual
mistrust after decades of war and hostility, and to
develop ideas and ultimately a roadmap for a future
peace process.
Unfortunately, our operations ended abruptly
when hostilities resumed in 2008 and when the
visas of key Berghof personnel were not extended.
Over the course of its engagement in Sri Lanka,
the Berghof Foundation contributed to a range of
new initiatives and ideas that aimed to address the
protracted conflict and supported more than 200
projects and established a network of civil society
organisations and individuals in support of peace
work that endured long after the programme ended.
The Berghof Foundation was also instrumental
in the establishment of a peace secretariat for
Muslims, a neglected minority in Sri Lanka that was
not represented at the peace table at that time. Our
work with the Sri Lankan and Tamil diasporas on
development and peace was commended by many
international scholars for its pioneering character at
the nexus of diaspora and conflict transformation.
Most notably, however, we succeeded in creating
inclusive dialogue spaces in an otherwise exclusive,
polarised and ethnicised context.
70
Colombo, Sri Lanka in the early 1990s.
Photo: Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) by qwesy qwesy / Panoramio
71