A group of ten activists, reporters, representatives of humanitarian organisations and state institutions from Ukraine had an opportunity to get to know the experience of civil society, the media and other stakeholders in peacebuilding and conflict transformation in BiH. We were involved in the preparations and implementation of a two-day training on understanding conflict organised under the auspices of the Peace Academy Foundation. The training was provided for the group from Ukraine during their seven-day visit to BiH. The training team was made up of Randy Puljek-Shank from MA and Adnan Hasanbegović from CNA.
The aim of the training and the entire visit was to raise awareness and understanding of the mechanisms and causes of conflict, violence reduction and changing the perception of the other as an enemy as an incentive for peace.
A brutal escalation of violence had just gripped Ukraine in that period as war broke out in the east with no foreseeable end to the conflict. This, of course, affected the participants, who were all very worried and anxious. The fact that they had come to Sarajevo urged me to work on this training in an attempt to encourage and support them in their efforts to see peacebuilding as a hope and possibility for their country.
Our key dilemma was how to conduct workshops about nonviolent conflict resolution and peacebuilding with participants from a country beset by full-fledged war. However, even though they were worried about the situation back home, they were also interested in the training, and already during the introductory part talked about wanting to hear and understand our experiences from BiH and learn more about actions for peace.
In a way, I was touched by that wish and their evident commitment. Even during experiential exercises on conflict, they accepted the designated roles without visible reservation and honestly exchanged insights and opinions. The analyses and presentations on models of different types of conflict and their transformation were also useful, because there were quite a few questions and dilemmas, often directly related to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
This came to the forefront when we were presenting the political context in BiH where we quickly decided to make room for a discussion of the situation in Ukraine, since this was something the participants naturally referred to. There were statements such as: “Some sort of Dayton agreement would not be good for us, because you see, you have been struggling with it for twenty years,” and “there is no negotiation with terrorists”. There were occasional confrontations in the group about the situation in Ukraine, with similar dynamics to many of our local discussions on the aggressor and the victim, who started it, and who are the righteous, etc. Such times were particularly troubling for me, because I saw good ordinary people start, probably unconsciously, to advocate for war.
But the discussion was useful because it made room for indicating some essential questions such as: if you are in favour of military victory, what does peacebuilding mean to you?
When later in the training we worked on peacebuilding, we had the opportunity for calmer debate about, among other things, what the participants themselves, from their social positions of reporters, politicians and humanitarian workers, could do to bring down the tensions and help the peace process in Ukraine. It was important to hear that they believed in peace and saw a way out, even though justice and truth were hidden behind the noise of tanks and rocket launchers. Anxiety and hope remain, and a host of dramatic issues for their lives.
I had an opportunity to meet a reporter from Kiev who talked about her own dilemmas in reporting about war: how do you stay objective when the information is disturbing and the interpretation of events puts you on one side of the conflict? I also met a humanitarian worker who lives in Luhansk and who had seen enough drama working with refugees to last her more than one lifetime. An officer of the Ukrainian army who had been wounded in combat and is currently running an organisation of war veterans whose number are increasing…
The instantaneous empathy I felt, recognising my own experiences in their stories, helped me understand them, but also reminded me of the profound uncertainty and fear people are subject to in such situations. Although most spoke only Ukrainian and Russian, we could understand each other, sometimes even without translation.
“It’s better to negotiate for 100 years than wage war for 1 day,” said one of the participants in an interview for the local media. He said this was what he had learned in the training.
At the end, they said the training was useful and important and empowering. This was also my impression, despite everything that remained unsaid during the training, and even the few things that were silenced.