2012–2013 Edition: ISSN 1095-1962
JOURNAL FOR THE
STUDY OF PEACE AND CONFLICT
A Publication of
THE WISCONSIN INSTITUTE
FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict
2012-2013 Edition
ISSN 1095-1962
EDITORS
Lynne M. Woehrle, Ph.D., Mount Mary University
Kathryn Blakeman, M.A., Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
A Publication of
The Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
wiinst@uwsp.edu
www.wisconsin-institute.org
The Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies is an organization of universities, colleges,
and individuals dedicated to promoting an informed understanding of peace, justice, and
conflict and to encouraging students, teachers, academics, and the public to become engaged
global citizens working toward a just peace.
The Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict is the journal of the Wisconsin Institute for Peace
and Conflict Studies, with its office at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 900 Reserve
Street, Stevens Point, WI 54481. Officers are Executive Director John Fields (Edgewood College,
Madison, Wisconsin), Associate Director Eric Yonke (University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point), and
Administrative Director Kathryn Blakeman. The Journal is a refereed journal. To purchase a copy,
send $15 to the Wisconsin Institute at the above address.
CALL FOR PAPERS: The Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict, the peer-reviewed,
multidisciplinary journal of the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, ISSN 10951962, publishes a variety of scholarly articles, essays, teaching notes, and poetry on topics such
as war, peace, global cooperation, domestic violence, and interpersonal conflict resolution;
including questions of military and political security, the global economy, and global
environmental issues. We wish to promote discussion of both strategic and ethical questions
surrounding issues of war, peace, the environment, and justice.
The Wisconsin Institute is committed to a balanced review of diverse perspectives. Submissions
are welcome from all disciplines. Our intended audience includes scholars from a wide range of
interests within the university community and educated members of the larger public. The
format allows the publication of original, previously-unpublished works of sufficient length to
give authors the opportunity to discuss a particular topic in depth. Other forms of creative
writing are invited. Contributors should avoid submissions accessible only to specialists in their
field. The Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict also includes book reviews. Persons
interested in reviewing should contact the editor at wiinst@uwsp.edu. Submissions are normally
due May 1. Please see our website for more details, www.wisconsin-institute.org.
Editorial Advisory Board
Ali R. Abootalebi, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire
David Brooker, Alverno College
Michael A. Ketterhagen, Marian University
Robert Pyne, St. Norbert College
William B. Skelton, professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point
The Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
2012-2013
Member Institutions
Alverno College
Cardinal Stritch University
Carthage College
Edgewood College
Madison College
Marian University
Marquette University
Mount Mary University
Ripon College
St. Norbert College
University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire
University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh
University of Wisconsin–Parkside
University of Wisconsin–Platteville
University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point
University of Wisconsin–Stout
University of Wisconsin–Superior
University of Wisconsin–Whitewater
Executive Council
Ali R. Abootalebi, UW–Eau Claire
Jordan Acker Anderson, Mount Mary University
Geoff Bradshaw, Madison College
David Brooker, Alverno College
Bridget Brown, UW–Milwaukee
Deborah D. Buffton, UW–La Crosse
Jennifer Collins, UW–Stevens Point
Daniel G. Di Domizio, Cardinal Stritch University
Khalil Dokhanchi, UW–Superior
Jacques du Plessis, UW–Milwaukee
Donna Engelmann, Alverno College
John Fields, Edgewood College
James Handley, UW–Stout
Alexandria Innes, Cardinal Stritch University
Paul Jeffries, Ripon College
Patrick Kennelly, Marquette University
Michael A. Ketterhagen, Marian University
Robert Pyne, St. Norbert College
David Reinhart, UW–Whitewater
Neil R. Richardson, UW–Madison
Jeffrey Roberg, Carthage College
David Rowley, UW–Platteville
Jonathan Shailor, UW–Parkside
Maggie Wentzell, Marian University
Lynne Woehrle, Mount Mary University
Eric Yonke, UW–Stevens Point
Table of Contents
Editor’s Introduction……………………..……..………………………………........………. Lynne Woehrle
Papers
Roles and Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards: The Peace Case ………… Patrick Kennelly
1
Nation-building Challenges of the Post-Independence State of Eritrea
and Its Regional Domino Effect …………………………………….. Meressa Tsehaye Gebrewahd
21
Essays
Going Deep: Service-Learning and Human Rights Education ……………….. Christine Wolf
37
At Any Cost: Big Coal Crushes Fragile Communities in Colombia ……….….. Shane Boeder
42
Book reviews
Conflicted Are the Peacemakers:
Israeli and Palestinian Moderates and the Death of Oslo
by Eric N. Budd............................................................................………. Cheri Pomerening
65
U.S. War-culture, Sacrifice and Salvation
by Kelly Denton-Borhaug ………………………………………………….………. Christopher Hrynkow
67
A Whole Which is Greater: Why the Wisconsin “Uprising” Failed
Paul Gilk and David Kast, editors. ………………………………………………. Michael Ketterhagen
69
Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification and the Law
by Tony Milligan …………………………………………………………………………….. Donna Engelmann
71
The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future
by Robert A. Pastor ………………………………………………………………………………. David Brooker
73
Civilians in a World at War: 1914-1918
by Tammy M. Proctor ………………………………………………………………………. Deborah Buffton
75
Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis
Robert J. Schreiter, R. Scott Appleby, and Gerard F. Powers, editors ………… Anna Zaros
77
Tourism in Northeastern Argentina: The Intersection of Human
and Indigenous Rights with the Environment
Penny Seymoure and Jeffrey L. Roberg, editors …………………………………. Elizabeth Skwiot
80
How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War
by Dominic Tierney ………………………………………………………………………………. Wade P. Smith
82
Editor’s Introduction
This edition of the journal includes a group of research papers, essays and book reviews which
show the broad reach and interdisciplinary nature of peace and conflict studies. They also show
the growth of the field in terms of global interests and in methodological approaches to
understanding key questions.
The issue begins with two research articles which show the variety of applications of our work
in the field of peace and conflict scholarship. Patrick Kennelly provides an incisive and timely
analysis of non-profit peacemaking organizations and how they organize and utilize their
governing boards. The article provides a helpful overview of how boards can improve function
in the interest of better leadership towards a peaceful society. The second article, by Meressa
Tsehaye, also provides a critical analysis of an existing leadership system and structure. In his
case, Tsehaye turns the analytical eye on nation-building work in post-violence societies. He
investigates the case of Eritrea and how the combined forces of identity, colonialism, and
power-struggle shape the challenges faced by relatively new actors in the global society.
In the essay section, we include two, one on teaching and one on the issue of mountaintopremoval coal mining. These essays turn the lens on questions of social justice and human rights.
Christine Wolf describes her approach to deepening understanding among her students of
human rights issues by encouraging them to identify with the “other.” She helps map how to
use service learning in exploring issues of social justice and social inequality. Shane Boeder’s
essay complements this nicely as it provides a rich description of the social justice issues related
to open-pit mining. The author’s study tours of Columbia and of the Appalachian regions in the
United States provide a wealth of information about the structure and impact of resource
extraction as well as a potentially useful teaching tool for courses in peace and human rights.
We close out this issue with several book reviews. Whether you are interested in human rights,
social justice, local conflicts, teaching peace, case studies of peacebuilding, or analysis of war
systems, the review section this year should engage your attention. The books reviewed take
up the timely and diverse issues of regionalization of governments and economies, military
culture and militarization in society, the impact of tourism on indigenous cultures, failed peace
processes, and Christian theological interpretations and applications of war and peacemaking.
One important aspect of higher education is the pursuit of scholarship both for understanding
and for improving practice. The time spent by our authors to raise up issues and theories and
point out useful resources is greatly appreciated as it makes each of us as readers better
prepared for what the world calls us to do.
This has been a year of editorial transition for the journal. For years Professor William Skelton
has more than competently served in the leadership role for this publication. Under his
guidance the journal was able to provide a space for many scholars to share their expertise in
the diverse and creative disciplines of peace and conflict studies. The executive council of the
Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and the current editorial team are deeply
indebted to Bill for his contributions to strengthening the journal and to carrying this important
tradition forward. We are grateful he has agreed to continue as a member of the editorial
advisory board.
I would like to express gratitude to the contributors, to the referees who read and carefully
evaluated manuscripts, and especially to my colleague on the editorial team, Kathryn
Blakeman. Kathryn made critical contributions to the success of this issue by keeping us on task
and managing the vast majority of the correspondence and formatting, as well as contributing
extensively to the editing required to complete the issue.
Dr. Lynne M. Woehrle, Editor
Professor of Sociology, Mount Mary University
Roles and Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards: The Peace Case

Patrick Kennelly
Abstract
This exploratory study identifies the levels of importance and fulfillment of board roles
and responsibilities by nonprofit peacemaking organization board members and executive
directors. It suggests a three-component framework for understanding board governance. By
employing purposive non-probability sampling, this study used board governance instruments,
developed by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 163-165), to identify a three-component
framework: strategic activities, resource planning, and evaluations for nonprofit organizations
whose mission is peacemaking. It examines the relevance of the framework suggested by Inglis,
Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 161-165) for nonprofit peacemaking organizations. The results
of this study can be used by nonprofit peacemaking organizations to improve their governance
capacity and prompt future research about the governance of nonprofit peacemaking
organizational boards.
Keywords: nonprofit, peacemaking, board governance
For over 100 years many of the leading organizations pursuing nonviolent peacemaking
in the United States have incorporated as nonprofit organizations. These peacemaking
nonprofits have been instrumental in moving forward the conversation to address violence,
war, racism, human rights violations and other societal injustices and challenges (Chatfield
1999, 283). Researchers from a variety of disciplines have examined the development,
organization, and impact of the peace movement, yet there is limited research examining the
role of the nonprofit organization in the peace movement. Additionally, it is unclear how
peacemaking nonprofits incorporate knowledge from non-profit sector research into their
operations. By gathering data regarding actual governance practices from ten major
peacemaking organizations with activities both nationally in the United States and
internationally, this article seeks to begin filling this void.
Building upon the nonprofit literature that identifies numerous roles and functions for
nonprofit board members (Brown and Guo 2010, 539-544; Iecovich 2004, 6-9; Hevsi and
Millstein 2001, 31-44) and research that has explored board member involvement and the
impact on nonprofit organization (Bradshaw, Murray, and Wolpin 1992, 227-248), this case
study examines the structural governance practice of peacemaking organizations. Using
instruments designed by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999), this study gathered empirical
data both on board members perceived and fulfilled activities and functions prescribed in the
literature. Using this data I propose a three-factor framework of strategic activity, operation,

Patrick Kennelly is director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking. His research and teaching focus
on nonviolence, nonprofits, and leadership. He is currently completing his PhD in Peace Studies and Leadership.
patrick.kennelly@mu.edu.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 1-20
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
and evaluation. This framework can serve as a simple, concise way of understanding nonprofit
peacemaking organization board governance. It may also be useful for leaders of peacemaking
nonprofits to use this framework as a tool for crafting board member expectations, sparking
conversations about how boards operate, as well as evaluating and improving board
performance.
Literature Review
Because the study of peace is interdisciplinary, this review intentionally examined
literature from various disciplines to better understand American involvement in violence, the
origins of nonprofits that work for peace, major threads in social movement theory that have
been applied to peacemaking, and the role that boards play in governance and mission
fulfillment.
Dr. King’s claim that the U.S. is the largest purveyor of violence in the world remains
true today. The United States is engaged in unprecedented levels of violence. According to the
Small Arms Report by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva (2007, 39), the
United States has 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, or one weapons for
every ten Americans. The United States is also the largest exporter of firearms and light
weapons, with a track record of exporting weapons to countries with a history of human rights
abuses and weapons misuse (90-107). Domestically, there are over 11,000 homicides (Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, under Gun Violence Crime). The United States has the
world’s highest military expenditures and U.S. military spending accounts for nearly 45% of
world military expenditures (Hellmann 2010, under Security Primer Fact Sheet #7). Americans
are engaged in military violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines,
and Columbia (DeYoung and Jaffe 2010, paragraphs 1-6). Despite the presence of peace
organizations and the claim that nonviolence is widely understood in U.S. mainstream thought
and institutions (Chatfield1999, 298), the current level of violence indicates that nonprofit
peacemaking institutions have not accomplished their mission of building a peaceful society
free of violence.
During every period in their short history, Americans have organized themselves to
pursue peace. The roots of these peacemaking efforts can be traced to a variety of sources:
pacifist religious sects, moral revivalism, free trade liberalism, social reform movements,
democratic nationalism, internationalism, industrial philanthropy, and conservative monarchy
(Cortright 2008, 25). Despite the historical presence of peace societies and local peace
movements, it was not until 1828 that the United States witnessed the formation of American
Peace Society, a national peacemaking organization (28). Throughout the twentieth century
nonprofit peacemaking organizations worked to confront violence and end social injustices
such as war, racism, environmental degradation, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and
other human rights violations (Chatfield 1999, 283-298). Woehrle, Coy, and Maney (2008, 195)
assert that peacemaking organizations contributed to shifting cultural practices, the
development of public discussion on peace issues, and to the demand for accountability in
foreign policy. However, despite these gains the researchers note there is still much work to be
done by the peacemaking organizations in order to create a peaceful culture.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The study of peace has primarily examined peacemaking as a social movement with
social movement theorists focusing on the following three research questions: Why do peace
movements develop? How do peace movements organize secure resources, and thereby
sustain themselves? What are the methods the peace movement utilizes and the reasons for
the movement’s choice of tactics? By attempting to answer these questions, social movement
researchers have been roughly divided into three theoretical perspectives: collective behavior
tradition, resource mobilization, and collective identity. While it is not possible to fully discuss
each of these theories in depth, it is important to recognize that these three themes have been
widely used to explain and understand the peace movement.
Scholars in the collective behavior tradition (Smelser 1962, 8-17; Turner and Killian
1957, 1-19, 307-384) contend that social movements arise from the presence of a group of
people with a grievance and a shared generalized notion of the causes and possible ways to
address the grievance. In this tradition the primary catalyst for the social movement is an
existing grievance and the beliefs of the collective. Critics of the collective behavior tradition
(McCarthy and Zald 1977, 1214-1215; Stallings 1973, 475-478) argue that there is not empirical
support for the claim that discontent, in combination with generalized beliefs, is necessary for
the development of social movements. They highlight that grievances are always present in
society and, in some instances grievances were created to spark social movements. Further,
they pointed that collective beliefs are not always present before the formation of a social
movement.
As an alternative to the collective behavior tradition, McCarthy and Zald (1977, 12131238) suggest that resource mobilization theory might enhance understanding of social
movements. This theory emphasizes that grievance and shared beliefs were not the primary
reasons individuals joined social movements. Instead, the theory suggests that the primary
reason individuals join social movements is because they perceive a benefit from participation
in the movement. Resource mobilization theory further suggests that social movements
develop, thrive, or fail based on the movement’s ability to secure resources. Criticisms of
research mobilization theory (Buechler 1993, 218-232) identify several shortcomings that focus
on the emphasis of rational choices. First, the theory places too much emphasis on individuals
as rational actors motivated by personal gain. Second, it does not accurately account for social
movements that do not have formal organizations established to secure resources. Third, the
theory does not adequately examine the development of collective identities in social
movements.
Hoping to respond to the limitations of resource mobilization theory, researchers
proposed collective identity to explain individual participation in social movements. Collective
identity (Polletta and Jasper 2001, 285-300) centered on the idea that individuals form, relate,
and interact with real, perceived, and constructed communities. Individual interaction with
these communities is influenced by the personal intellectual, moral, and emotional connection
to the collective group. The personal connection to collective group is also shaped by the
context, and people and groups outside of the community, in short, the personal connection
can be shaped by the environment. These collective identities help individuals create
boundaries, distinguish between groups and influence the choices, tactics, and trajectories of
social movements.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Much of the drive to study peacemaking has been driven by students of social
movements who focused on these three categories. Other researchers have called for third
sector scholars to move away from the social movement focus. Hassenfeld and Gidron (2005,
99-109) identified that many social movement organizations are hybrid organizations that
incorporate elements of social movements, civil society and nonprofit sectors. Consequently,
they assert that when analyzing organizations, it is important to consider how research on
these other sectors could enhance understanding of civil society. Given that many of the
current major organizations shaping the American peace movements today are a hybrid of
social movement and nonprofit organizations, it is important to examine elements from the
nonprofit tradition to assist scholars’ understanding of peace organizations.
Because literature about the governance of peacemaking nonprofits is limited, the
literature of a variety of disciplines must be reviewed, specifically nonprofit literature focusing
on governance. According to literature and the law, the nonprofit board is legally responsible
for the nonprofit’s governance (Welytok and Welytok 2007, 117-134; Hyatt and Charney 2005,
1-8; Cargo 1997, 123-129; Eyster 1974, 13-16). Despite this, the literature has not yet fully
developed theories on how nonprofits should accomplish their missions or what factors are
important for mission fulfillment.
In an effort to explore mission accomplishment, researchers have examined the roles of
boards. Some of these studies focused on the types of functions boards perform. In the
literature, the governance functions of the board are referred to as roles and responsibilities.
The literature has identified a variety of roles and responsibilities board members fulfill in order
for a nonprofit to achieve its mission. Brown and Guo (2010, 539-545) state that board
members have thirteen primary roles and responsibilities:
 Fund development
 Strategy and planning
 Financial oversight
 Public relations
 Insurance of board member vitality
 Policy oversight
 Maintenance of a relationship with the executive
 Provision of guidance and expertise to the organization
 Facilitation of grants for the organization
 Generation of community respect
 Being a “working board,”
 Encouragement of board membership
 Becoming knowledgeable about the organization
Iecovich (2004, 6-9) claims that the literature identifies the following roles and
responsibilities that nonprofit boards must fulfill: to set and accomplish the mission of the
organization, policy development, strategic planning, monitoring fiscal matters and fundraising,
monitoring and appraisal of programs and services, management of senior human resources,
maintenance of relationships with the task environment, and self-assessment of the board’s
performance and effectiveness.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Realizing that governance is affected by how roles and responsibilities are executed,
some research focuses on the efficiency of boards and board processes. Bradshaw, Murray, &
Wolpin (1992, 235-248) report that boards perceived as being proactive have an effect on
nonprofit performance. Additionally, they claim that proactive boards tend to have higher
degrees of structure, as demonstrated by the following: formal strategic planning process,
development of a common vision of the organization’s activities, and operating according to
established guidelines for meeting management. They also noted that the more structured
boards have a higher, although more limited, effect on organizational performance, impacting
objective measures such as increasing the budget of the nonprofit and avoiding deficits. Parker
(2007, 931) noted that humor and informality are keys to the development and maintenance of
board relationships. He also noted that the use of structured agendas and managed meetings
impacts the success of the meetings.
Other research has focused on perceptions of board members and executives’ board
governance. Heimovics and Herman (1990, 68-71) report that the chief executive, rather than
the board, is perceived as responsible for the nonprofit’s successes and failures by both the
board and chief executive.
Preston and Brown (2004, 232-236) examined how levels of commitment impact board
member performance. Their research suggests that the following contribute to a positive role in
effective commitment by board member and executive-perceived participation and
performance by board members:
 A positive correlation between normative commitment executive-perceived
participation of board members and the number of hours donated to the
organization
 A positive relationship between board member self-reported involvement and
executive judgments of participation and value.
Inglis (1997, 170) discovered that perceptions differ by gender. She discovered that
female board members tend to rate roles related to mission and planning and executive
director functions as significantly more important than male board members.
Research examining the fulfillment of nonprofit roles and responsibilities has dealt with
individual contributions and board contributions. Iecovich (2004, 20) claimed that the level of
participation by boards and level of contributions by individual board members varies by
organization. In a study examining whether the roles and responsibilities identified in the
nonprofit literature were applicable to amateur sports organizations, Inglis (1997, 161-175)
proposed a theoretical framework for understanding the roles and responsibilities of amateur
sports organizations. She also found that board members rate the importance of roles and
responsibilities as more important than their ratings of fulfillment of these roles and
responsibilities.
Noting that lists of roles and responsibilities were often too extensive, cumbersome,
and impractical for use by boards, Inglis (1997, 161-175) researched the availability of empirical
support for a theoretical framework based upon the roles and responsibilities identified in the
literature. Using factor analysis with oblimin rotation and Kaiser normalizations, her research
identified a four-part framework to group the roles and responsibilities of the board of amateur
sports organizations as follows: mission, planning, executive director, and community relations.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
To assess the practicality and usefulness of Inglis’ (1997) framework, Inglis, Alexander,
and Weaver (1999, 153-167) developed two instruments to determine if a similar framework
was applicable for community nonprofit boards. Their research identified a three-factor
framework for grouping roles and responsibilities:
 Strategic activities involve planning, collaborating to construct an organizational
mission and vision, assessing the performance of the CEO or executive director
and board, establishing policies so that staff can deliver programs and services,
and expanding into the community to build partnerships and respond to needs.
 Operations involves activities related to strategic planning, fund development,
and advocacy by developing and delivering programs and services, advocating
for the interests of groups, and raising funds for the organization.
 Resource planning involves managing the organization’s financial and human
resources. This includes setting annual budget allocations, hiring senior staff
other than the executive director or chief executive officer, and setting financial
policy.
Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999, 159-166) note a gap exists between what board
members of community organizations rank as important functions versus how the same board
members rank their fulfillment of those functions. Additionally, they claim that this gap
between importance and fulfillment data suggests that the boards of nonprofit organizations
need to reduce the gap so that important functions are fulfilled. They also note the need for
further research about roles and responsibilities. In particular, they call for additional
examination of the “assessment of how important the roles are perceived to be and the degree
to which the roles and responsibilities are being fulfilled” (165).
This study seeks to identify the levels of importance and fulfillment of board roles and
responsibilities in the context of Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 153-167) threecomponent framework: strategic activities, resource planning, and operations for nonprofit
organizations where the mission is peacemaking in order to determine if the three-component
framework is applicable to nonprofit peacemaking organizations.
Methodology
The data reported in this paper is the result of a quantitative study employing purposive
non-probability sampling. Board members and executive directors of nonprofits whose
organizational mission is peacemaking were asked to complete the scale and questionnaire
developed by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999, 160). The researcher selected organizations
that had activities targeted toward peacemaking both nationally in the United States and
internationally. The researcher consulted with a panel of experts to verify the appropriateness
of the selected organization for participation in this study. These experts included two Peace
Studies professors, one Noble Peace Prize nominee; and three individuals who work full-time in
community peace organizations and who have experience in domestic and international
peacemaking. The organizations selected include two organizations that approach peacemaking
through an academic orientation and several organizations that approached peacemaking using
an applied orientation.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Initially, the researcher approached board members and executive directors though email correspondence and phone calls. The researcher explained the purpose of the study and
communicated that study participants will be informed that participation is completely
voluntary, that all responses would be anonymous, that no identification of individual
participants or organizational names would be released and all data would be reported in
aggregate.
After the organization agreed to participate in the study, the researcher distributed the
survey electronically to the executive director and board members. Using Opinio, respondents
were asked to rate on two separate five-point Likert scales the degree of importance of each
role and responsibility and the degree of fulfillment of each role and responsibility. A ‘not
applicable’ response was available for each item. The researcher gathered demographic data on
the operating budget of each nonprofit, the size of the board, number of annual meetings, and
number of years of existence, as well as demographic information of the board members,
including gender, and years of service on the organizations’ boards. A follow-up e-mail was sent
to the executive director and board member of each organization to encourage participation in
the study.
Results and Discussion
Eleven organizations were invited to participate in the survey and ten organizations
agreed to participate. The executive director or equivalent from each organization was asked to
provide information about the organization. Six organizations provided information about the
organization including number of board meetings and operating budget. Five organizations
provided information about the organization age. This information is presented in Table 1.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Table 1. Organizations Information
If you are the executive director
or equivalent please indicate
the number of board meetings
held each year.
If you are the executive director or
equivalent please indicate the number of
years the nonprofit has been operating.
Years in Existence
# of Board
Meetings
# of
Organizations
# of
Organizations
0-5
1
0
0
6-10
0
1
0
11-25
3
2
0
26-50
1
3
4
76+
1
4
1
Total
5
5+
1
Total
6
If you are the executive director or
equivalent please indicate the nonprofits
operating budget.
Operating Budget
$0-$50,000
# of
Organizations
1
$50,001-$250,00
3
$250,001-$500,000
1
$500,000+
1
Total
6
Of the 104 surveys distributed, 62 surveys were returned. All of the returned surveys
were usable resulting in a response rate of 59%. While a 100% response rate is desirable, the
59% response rate is appropriate for research and is a higher response rate than typically
achieved with the use of surveys of organizational leaders (Baruch and Holton 2008, 11541155).
The sample consisted of executive directors or CEOs or Presidents, executive board
members, and board members or council members or committee members. Demographic
information including gender, position, and years of service in their position was gathered. This
information is presented in Table 2.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Table 2. Respondent Demographics
Please indicate your gender
Please indicate your position
4
Percent
6.5
Female
23
37.1
Male
35
56.5
Total
62
100.0
Gender
No Answer
Frequency
Board Member
or Council
Member or
Committee
Member
Executive Board
Member
Executive
Director or CEO
or President
Total
Frequency
36
Percent
58.1
19
30.6
7
11.3
62
100.0
Please indicate the number of years you have served in
your position
Frequency
Percent
Years
No Answer
1
1.6
0-1
9
14.5
1-2
15
24.2
3
8
12.9
4
2
3.2
5
4
6.5
5+
23
37.1
Total
62
100.0
Factor Analysis
To determine if Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 161-167) three component
framework of strategic activities, resource planning, and operations is applicable to nonprofit
peacemaking organizations, it was necessary to subject the data gathered on the fourteen roles
and responsibilities listed in the instrument to a principal components analysis (PCA) using SPSS
Version 19. Before running the PCA, the appropriateness of the data for factor analysis was
evaluated. The correlation matrix revealed the presence of many coefficients of .3 or higher.
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was .732 for the importance of roles questions. The KaiserMeyer-Olkin value was .682 for the fulfillment of roles questions. Both of these scores
exceeded the recommended value of .6 (Kaiser 1974, 5). Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity for both
sets of questions was .000. This score did not exceed the .05 threshold to infer statistical
significance (Pallant, 2007, 190). These scores support the factorability of the correlation
matrix.
The initial PCA indicated the presence of four components for the importance of roles
and responsibilities questions and the presence of three components for fulfillment of roles and
responsibilities questions with eigenvalues exceeding 1. In both PCAs, the secree plot revealed
a clear break after the third component. After conducting Catell’s secree test, it was decided to
retain three components for further analysis.
9
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
In order to compare the results from this study to Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999,
159-167) a three-component solution was forced for the importance of roles and
responsibilities questions. Table 3 provides the factors, items, their loadings, coefficients,
variance, and eigenvalues. The results of the PCAs revealed that each of the roles and
responsibilities identified by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999, 159-167) could be arranged
in empirically supported and conceptually meaningful groups. This grouping supports the claim
that these fourteen roles and responsibilities are relevant for nonprofit peacemaking boards to
consider.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Table 3 Factor Matrices for Board Roles and Responsibilities
Developing and assessing long-range plans and overall strategy
for the organization
Setting financial policy
Setting annual budget allocations
Developing collaborations and partnerships
Ensuring a mission and vision for the organization
Hiring senior paid staff (other than the executive director/CEO)
Responding to community needs
Setting policy from which the paid staff and program volunteers
can deliver the programs and services
Raising funds for the organization
Developing specific programs and services
Ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing
Advocating for the interests of certain groups or persons the
organization serves
Evaluation of the executive director/CEO's performance
Delivering specific programs and service
Eigenvalues
Factor 1 Operations**
Factor 2 Evaluations**
Factor 3 Strategic
Activities **
Communalities***
0.445
0.599
0.528
0.414
0.45
0.69
0.357
0.619
0.769
0.612
0.626
0.387
Importance Fulfillment Importance Fulfillment Importance Fulfillment Importance Fulfillment
0.577
0.257
0.288
0.696
0.532
0.691
0.376
0.564
0.659
-0.772
-0.647
-0.629
-0.317
-0.795
0.815
0.545
0.471
0.762
0.736
-0.304
-0.265
0.217
0.637
0.779
0.582
0.499
0.343
0.164
-0.657
0.682
0.415
0.573
0.431
0.62
0.841
-0.015
0.007
0.082
0.47
-0.107
0.476
-0.08
-0.345
-0.217
-0.514
0.7
0.774
0.769
0.274
0.445
0.181
0.192
0.137
0.164
0.164
0.106
0.795
-0.424
-0.156
0.258
0.403
1.387
0.247
0.628
0.805
0.711
-0.222
0.682
0.194
-0.138
-0.118
1.295
9.907
0.714
0.87
0.773
0.138
0.463
0.507
0.336
0.277
0.613
0.097
-0.565
0.857
2.426
9.248
0.449
0.433
0.823
0.086
0.22
0.85
-0.188
2.395
17.32
0.214
0.373
0.308
0.65
0.009
0.655
0.55
0.239
4.837
17.109
0.637
-0.127
0.83
4.517
34.5
Percentage Variance
32.263
*Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a. 3 components extracted
**Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Rotation Method: Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization.
***Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
11
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The roles and responsibilities associated with the first factor focus on operations.
Operations contains nine roles and responsibilities that deal with the fiscal and internal
operations of nonprofits. Four of the roles and responsibilities are the same as the four roles
and responsibilities that Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999, 163) identified as operations.
These roles and responsibilities are: raising funds for the organization, developing and
delivering specific programs and services, and advocating for the interests of certain groups or
persons the organization serves. The remaining five roles and responsibilities are: setting
financial policy, setting annual budget allocations, hiring senior paid staff other than the
executive director or CEO, setting policy from which the paid staff and program volunteers can
deliver the programs and services, and responding to community needs. This categorization of
operations seems appropriate for these nine roles and responsibilities because it is consistent
with Inglis, Alexander, & Weaver’s (1999, 163) definition of operations as internally focused and
pertaining to the roles and responsibilities associated with task of advocating, planning, and
fundraising.
The roles and responsibilities associated with the second factor focus on evaluation. This
factor contains two roles and responsibilities that focus on monitoring the performance of
nonprofit leadership. These factors are an ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing,
and evaluation of the executive director/CEO's performance. It seems appropriate that board
members would perceive these roles as important given their legal and moral responsibility for
the nonprofit’s operation. The evaluation factors reflect the emphasis in the literature that
board members should strive to ensure that good governance and leadership exist for the
organization (Hyatt & Charney 2005, 1-8).
The roles and responsibilities associated with the third factor focus on strategic
activities. The operations contain three roles and responsibilities. These are developing and
assessing long-range plans and overall strategy for the organization, developing collaborations
and partnerships, and ensuring a mission and vision for the organization. The grouping of
strategic activities reflects the emphasis in the literature on board member's responsibility for
the mission of the nonprofit and its long-term well-being (Iecovich, 2004, 6-9; Brown and Guo
2010, 540). Although developing collaborations and partnerships did not have the high
empirical rankings of the other two factors, it seems appropriately grouped under strategic
activities given the emphasis in the literature of board members serving as community
connectors and boundary expanders (Brown and Guo 2010, 542). The categorical grouping of
these activities is consistent with Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 163) identification of
strategic activities being future and externally focused.
Descriptive Statistics and the Roles
In order to determine the rankings of importance and fulfillment of board roles and
responsibilities, both means and standard deviations for each of the fourteen roles were
calculated and are presented in Table 4.
Using the rating developed by Inglis, Alexander, and Weavers (1999, 159-161), a 4.00 or
higher on a five point scale indicated a high ranking, eight roles and responsibilities were rated
as high in importance to participants: ensuring a mission and vision for the organization (mean
= 4.72), developing and assessing long-range plans and overall strategy for the organization
12
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
(mean = 4.45), setting financial policy (mean = 4.33), evaluation of the executive director/CEO’s
performance (mean = 4.29), setting annual budget allocations (mean = 4.24), setting policy
from which the paid staff and program volunteers can deliver the programs and services (mean
= 4.17), responding to community needs (mean = 4.11) and raising funds for the organization
(mean = 4.09). It is of note that both this study and that by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver
(1999, 160) found the roles and responsibilities to be of high importance.
Six roles and responsibilities were ranked between 3.00 to 3.99 range on the five point
scale, a ranking Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999) identified as indicating moderate
importance: ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing (mean= 3.98), developing
collaborations and partnerships (mean = 3.86), advocating for the interests of certain groups or
persons the organization serves (mean = 3.73), developing specific programs and services
(mean = 3.31), hiring senior paid staff (other than the executive director/CEO) (mean = 3.07),
delivering specific programs and services (mean = 3.02).
Five of the roles and responsibilities that received high ratings of importance received
moderate rates of fulfillment: developing and assessing long-range plans and overall strategy
for the organization (mean = 3.86), setting annual budget allocations (mean = 3.84), evaluation
of the executive director/CEO’s performance (mean = 3.82), setting financial policy (mean =
3.57), responding to community needs (mean = 3.67). This suggests that these are roles and
responsibilities that board members and executive directors are attempting to fulfill but may
need additional education or support in order to fulfill.
Five of the roles and responsibilities that received moderate ratings of importance also
received moderate ratings of fulfillment: developing collaborations and partnerships (mean =
3.54), setting policy from which the paid staff and program volunteers can deliver the programs
and services (mean = 3.24), ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing (mean = 3.19),
advocating for the interests of certain groups or persons the organization serves (mean = 3.18),
delivering specific programs and services (mean = 3.00). This data suggest the boards of
peacemaking organizations and executive directors believe they are satisfactorily completing
these roles and responsibilities.
13
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Table 4. Descriptive Statistics for Board Roles and Responsibilities: Importance and Fulfillment
Mean
Pair 1
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
setting financial policy.
4.33
.893
.118
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are setting
financial policy.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
ensuring a mission and vision for the organization.
3.70
1.224
.162
4.72
.521
.067
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
ensuring a mission and vision for the organization.
4.25
.907
.116
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
developing and assessing long-range plans and overall strategy for the organization
4.45
.730
.096
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
developing and assessing long-range plans and overall strategy for the organization.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
responding to community needs
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
responding to community needs.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
evaluating the executive director/CEO's performance
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
conducting evaluation of the executive director/CEO's performance.
3.86
1.067
.140
4.11
.965
.131
3.67
.952
.130
4.29
.866
.124
3.82
1.364
.195
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
developing collaborations and partnerships.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
developing collaborations and partnerships.
3.86
.862
.115
3.54
1.111
.149
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
setting policy from which the paid staff and program volunteers can deliver the programs and services.
4.17
.841
.114
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are setting
policy from which the paid staff and program volunteers can deliver the programs and services.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
conducting ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
engaged in ongoing evaluation of how well the board is doing.
3.57
1.207
.164
3.98
1.017
.134
3.19
1.344
.176
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
setting annual budget allocations.
4.24
.947
.135
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are setting
annual budget allocations.
3.84
.943
.135
Pair 10 Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
raising funds for the organization.
4.09
1.061
.146
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are raising
funds for the organization.
Pair 11 Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
advocating for the interests of certain groups or persons the organization serves.
2.98
1.278
.176
3.73
1.065
.160
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
advocating for the interests of certain groups or persons the organization serves.
3.18
.922
.139
Pair 12 Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
developing specific programs and services.
3.31
1.271
.173
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
developing specific programs and services.
Pair 13 Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
delivering specific programs and service.
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are
delivering specific programs and service.
Pair 14 Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, for the importance of
hiring senior paid staff (other than the executive director/CEO).
Please indicate your level of agreement, as it pertains to your position in the organization, that you are involved
in the hiring senior paid staff (other than the executive director/CEO).
2.96
1.273
.173
3.02
1.498
.204
3.00
1.374
.187
3.07
1.387
.212
2.49
1.420
.217
Pair 2
Pair 3
Pair 4
Pair 5
Pair 6
Pair 7
Pair 8
Pair 9
14
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Four roles and responsibilities identified of moderate importance received mean fulfillment
rankings below 3.0 suggesting that board members are not fulfilling these roles. These roles
and responsibilities are raising funds for the organization (mean = 2.98), developing specific
programs and services (mean = 2.96), hiring senior paid staff (other than the executive
director/CEO) (mean=2.49). This suggests that board members may not fully understand how to
fulfill the roles and responsibilities that received moderate importance rankings or these roles
and responsibilities may be neglected. These are roles and responsibilities on which peace
organizations may need to focus to improve the capacity of the board members and executive
directors to fulfill each.
In order to determine whether a statistical difference existed between the ratings of
importance and fulfillment for the roles and responsibilities a paired sample t-test was
conducted. These results are presented in Table 5. With the exception of delivering specific
programs and service, the t-test revealed that there was empirical support to claim that for
every role and responsibility, there was a significant difference between the board member or
executive directors rating of importance and the board members rating of fulfillment of that
role and responsibility. This test supports Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver’s (1999, 160) claim that
nonprofit organizations need to be more attuned to fulfilling these roles and responsibilities.
This study supports the roles and responsibilities prescribed in the literature as an
appropriate framework for understanding board roles and responsibilities (Brown and Guo
2010, 539-545; Iecovich 2004, 6-9). The differences between board members’ rankings of the
importance of activities versus the lower fulfillment rankings suggest that nonprofit
peacemaking organizations need to examine and attend to these discrepancies. This study
supports the suggestion by Inglis, Alexander, and Weaver (1999, 163-164) that board roles and
responsibilities can be grouped into a meaningful framework for understanding the functions of
nonprofit boards. In particular, it supports the categories of strategy and operation, albeit with
a slightly different understanding. It also suggests that for nonprofit peacemaking organizations
evaluation is a more appropriate third category of roles and responsibilities than resource
planning.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Table 5. Paired Samples Test Paired Differences
Roles & Responsibilities
Setting financial policy
Ensuring a mission and
vision for the organization
Interval** of the
Difference
Mean
(Importance Std.
Std. Error
Fulfillment) Deviation
Mean
.632
1.080
.143
.475
.887
.114
Lower
Upper
.345
.248
.918
.703
t
4.417
4.186
57
61
56
60
Sig. (2tailed)
.000
.000
n***
df
Developing and assessing
long-range plans and
overall strategy for the
organization
Responding to community
needs
Evaluating the executive
director/CEO's performance
Developing collaborations
and partnership
Setting policy from which the
paid staff and program
volunteers can deliver the
programs and services
.586
1.009
.133
.321
.852
4.423
58
57
.000
.444
1.003
.137
.171
.718
3.256
54
53
.002
.469
1.174
.168
.132
.807
2.798
49
48
.007
.321
.917
.122
.076
.567
2.624
56
55
.011
.593
1.108
.151
.290
.895
3.931
54
53
.000
Conducting ongoing
evaluation of how well the
board is doing
.793
1.253
.165
.464
1.123
4.820
58
57
.000
Setting annual budget
allocations
Raising funds for the
organization
Advocating for the interests
of certain groups or persons
the organization serves
Developing specific
programs and services
.408
.864
.123
.160
.656
3.307
49
48
.002
1.113
1.266
.174
.764
1.462
6.402
53
52
.000
.545
.901
.136
.272
.819
4.016
44
43
.000
.352
1.200
.163
.024
.679
2.155
54
53
.036
Delivering specific
programs and service
.019
1.266
.172
-.327
.364
.107
54
53
.915
Hiring senior paid staff
(other than the executive
director/CEO)
.581
1.314
.200
.177
.986
2.902
43
42
.006
*Specified alpha value of .05*
**95% confidence interval of the difference
*When respondents indicated ‘not applicable’, it was not possible to compare the means from all of the surveys.
16
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Implications for nonprofit peacemaking organizations & future research
The three-factor framework of strategic activity, operation, and evaluation supported in
this study serves as a simple, concise way of understanding nonprofit peacemaking organization
board governance. It may be useful for board members and executive directors to think of their
roles and responsibilities within a cycle of governance operations (see Figure 1). This model
may assist board members in ensuring they attend to the task of each of the components. The
connections between each component may help remind board members that each component
impacts and informs the other components.
Figure 1: Roles and responsibilities within a cycle of governance operations.
The strategic activity component encourages the board members to pay attention to
ensuring the mission while developing a strategy to guide the organization and also to develop
the external relationships necessary so that organization will thrive. When considering the
strategic activity component, it is imperative that the operational capacity of the organization
and its previous evaluations be considered. The second component of operations addresses the
implementation component of the strategic activity. This component is useful for board and
nonprofit leadership to consider how their work enables the nonprofit peacemaking
organization to achieve its objectives. The third component calls for reflection and evaluation of
the leader and board of the organizations. It follows that the evaluation should be based on the
strategy and operations of organizations. Further, the result of the evaluation must inform the
strategic activity and operations of the nonprofit in the future.
This study and framework may be useful for nonprofit peacemaking organizations in a
variety of ways. First, it provides a concise way for board members to conceptualize their work.
This understanding of governance may inform how board members allocate their time, the
types of board development practices in place, and the skill set the board seeks for potential
new members. This framework may also be useful for board education and communication.
17
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The study may also spark conversations about how boards ensure they fulfill their moral and
legal obligations as directors. Organizations can use this framework to help promote
understanding of the purpose of the board.
Future inter-disciplinary research is necessary to examine how the above roles and
responsibilities are actually fulfilled. Questions such as:
 Why do board members perceive certain roles as important?
 How do board members perceive fulfillment of roles?
 Can boards increase engagement in other areas where fulfillment rates were
below rankings of importance?
 How do boards members use the three-factor framework proposed in this
study?
 Does the adoption of the framework for understanding governance improve
organizational efficacy?
 How do gender, age, and other factors influence board member perception?
 How and why do board members and executive director perceptions vary as
they relate to board governance?
 Is there a connection between the level of fulfillment of one of the categories in
the framework and the fulfillment of the other categories?
 How do board members determine which roles to strive to fulfill?
 What influences a board members decision to join the board and how does that
shape the board members involvement in their roles and responsibilities?
Given the continued expansion of violence in the world and the critical role that
nonprofit peacemaking organizations hold in proliferating information, strategies, and
knowledge about the process of peacemaking and the importance of peacemaking, it is
essential that the boards of nonprofit peacemaking organizations examine and strive to fulfill
their roles and responsibilities. Findings from this study indicate that the three-factor
framework of strategic activity, operations, and evaluations is a simple and practical tool for
this purpose.
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20
Nation-building Challenges of the Post-Independence State of Eritrea
and Its Regional Domino Effect
Meressa Tsehaye Gebrewahd
1.
Conceptual Framework
There are contending arguments on the challenges of the current Eritrean national selfdetermination and nation-building process. These debates look at the foundations of Eritrean
nationalism and where it converges and diverges with traditional European nationalism and
with African nationalist principles. This paper looks into the origin, evolution, and impacts of
Eritrean nationalism on the post-independence State of Eritrea and the subsequent challenges
that the new state is facing in institutionalizing a smooth nation-building process and a viable
multi-ethnic state.
In an attempt to find the root of Eritrean nationalism, it is worth identifying the
convergences and divergences of Eritrean nationalism to traditional nationalism, in which a
nation is the prerequisite for statehood (Gellner 1983), and African nationalism which lays its
pillars on common oppression and colonialization by European colonizers, and the territorial
feature of national struggle against colonialism.
The philosophical and political features in the discussions of nation-building are basically
centered on the concept of nation, mainly in Europe (Smith 2005). But there is no consensus on
the very concept of nation and its constitutive elements. According to Levine (2007, 155),
nation refers to “a community of people joined together by a common descent and common
culture.” It represents homogeneous people “sharing common language, religion, historical
myths, and common territory” (155). Joseph Stalin (1929) also defined nation as “a historically
constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory,
economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”
The organizing ideology of a nation is nationalism. Nationalism in Europe was rooted in
the idea that every nation has the right to government (Lawrence 2005). It was based on the
idea that “a state should be founded in a nation and the nation should be constituted as a state,
i.e., nation and state should be congruent” (34). It is a “theory of political legitimacy which
requires that ethnic boundaries should not cut across political ones, and in particular, that
ethnic boundaries within a given state…should not separate the power-holders from the rest”
(Gellner 1983, 1). Moreover, its appeal was “popular and democratic, and proclaimed the
sovereign right of the people to determine their own destinies, in states of their own, if that
was what they desired” (Smith 1998, 1).
Giuseppe Mazzini, in his book A Cosmopolitanism of Nations as translated by Stefano
Recchia (2009, 50), defined nation and nation-building in terms of political equality and popular
consent expressed in the form of “equality, liberty, and association.” He underlined that only

The writer is a full-time lecturer at Mekelle University, College of Law and Governance, Ethiopia. He earned his
M.A. in Peace and Security Studies from the Institute of Peace and Security Studies, Joint institute of the University
for Peace (UPEACE) and Addis Ababa University in 2010. He received a B.A. degree in Political Science and
International Relations from Addis Ababa University in 2006. meressa21@yahoo.com.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 21-36
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
these three elements together can constitute a genuine nation. By nation he meant “the
entirety of citizens who speak the same language and are associated, under equal enjoyment of
civil and political rights, for the common purpose of developing and progressively perfecting all
social forces and their activity” (50). He further argued that language, territory, and ethnicity
are pre-political factors — probably necessary but not sufficient for the emergence of selfdetermining political units, and certainly unable in and of themselves to legitimate national
independence. The nation is not simply a territory that ought to be strengthened by enlarging
its size nor is it just a collection of men who speak the same language and follow the initiative
of a single leader. It is instead an organic whole held together by a unity of goals and common
efforts. Therefore, nation is a concept that “stands for Unity: Unity of principles, of purpose,
and of rights that is the only kind of unity able to associate a multitude of men and transform
them into a homogenous whole. Without it, there is no nation, but only a crowd” (14). Mazzini
gave nation an essentially political meaning as “commonwealth” or government by the people,
based on a written constitution (14). Nation-building is thus, according to Mazzini, the
institutionalization of popular sovereignty expressed in the form of equality and liberty of
individuals based on a written constitution regardless of the pre-political factors including
language, territory and ethnicity.
Charles Tilly, in his historical comparative analysis of European nation-states and their
nation-building policies, viewed states as “agents of organized violence” performing four
activities:
War Making: Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals outside the territories in which
they have clear and continuous priority as wielders of force;
State making (nation-building): Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those
territories;
Protection: Eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients; and
Extraction: Acquiring the means of carrying out the first three activities—war
making, state making, and protection. (Tilly 1985, 181)
Tilly’s analysis implied that “war makes state,” so that state making as well as the subsequent
nation-building process are the result of the state’s capability to organize violence in order to
eliminate rivals both from within and outside the state and to extract resources necessary to
the making of the state, and ultimately to ensure national unity. Taking the ideas of both Jagger
and Tilly, Ayoob (1995, 22) defined state making and nation-building as:
The expansion and consolidation of territorial and demographic domain under a
political authority, …imposing and maintaining order in the occupied territories and
people, …; and extracting resources from the territories and population under the
control of the state essential to support not only the war making and policing
activities undertaken by the state but also the maintenance of the apparatus of the
state necessary to carry on routine administration, deepen the state’s penetration of
society, and show symbolic purpose.
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In addition to the war making capacity of a state, the historical longevity of the nation-state is
also critical in the nation-building process. However, establishing nation-states (i.e., achieving
cohesive societies) based on long historical evolution is not the reality in third world states,
mainly in Africa, as well summarized in Ayoob (2005, 17):
Societal cohesiveness is equally essential for states to remain largely immune from
external intervention. Such cohesiveness is a function of the longevity of the state
and its ability to bring to bear superior force against recalcitrant elements among its
population. It is also based on its ability over time to weld a diverse population into
a “nation” by the standardization of laws, language, and often religion, and the
construction of historical memories that provide the foundational myths both for
the nation and the state.
According to the above definitions, state making and nation-building thus depend on the state’s
ability to monopolize and concentrate the means of coercion in its own hands within the
territory and among the population it controls. Hence, it is possible to infer that accumulation
of power becomes crucial to state making and nation-building (Ayoob 2005).
However, such a state making and nation-building project is expensive and, more
importantly, impossible in an era of global interdependence. New states are late-comers to the
state-making enterprise unlike Western states which have already achieved their nation-states
using the expansion–extraction approaches stated above. Hence, the nation-building dilemma
that new states face is due to structural barriers to accumulating power using the traditional
state making and nation-building approaches. Such structural failures in the newly independent
states in turn resulted in a “lack of unconditional legitimacy for state boundaries, state
institutions, and regimes; inadequate societal cohesion; and absence of societal consensus on
fundamental issues of social, economic, and political organization” (Ayoob 1995, 28). These
challenges are naturally manifested at the early stages of state making and nation-building as
state makers attempt to impose order, monopolize instruments of violence, and demand
uncontested loyalties from their populations (Ayoob 1995), which in turn becomes unattainable
business to new states.
In Africa, the colonial project by European powers resulted in the arbitrary division of
the nations of the continent across different neighboring states creating “part-nation-states.”
Part-nation-states refers to a nation divided up among two or more states where the
population of each state consists largely of people from that nation. Indeed, a substantial
minority of its members falls outside its boundaries, living as minority groups in neighboring
states (Buzan 1991, 74). Nationalism in most African states thus formed on the basis of
“common territory, common colonial history, and a common goal for de-colonialization”
(Davidson 1992, 164-165).
The founding ideology of nation-building in post-independence Africa was populist
nationalism with the assertions of a direct link between mass and leadership. The roles of
victorious anti-colonialists were considered themselves as legitimate and uncontested builders
of the “nation-building-in-process-of-becoming” (Glickman 1987, 33). In doing so, the
ideologies were framed to reflect a unity of political sentiment sufficiently strong to support the
reconstruction of the ex-colonial state. But most of these ideologies were variations of anti23
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
pluralist and their defining characteristic was the rejection of political competition, except
between the forces of liberation and forces of imperialism (Glickman 1987).
Thus nationalism was defined as the claim to the right to create a new state from
colonial domination. The organizing ideologies of the nationalist movements aimed at melting
down the prevailing diversity, and creating a state that reflected the pre-existing cultural unity
that was artificially divided by colonial rule (Glickman 1987). Although the organizing ideologies
of the nationalist movements in their post-independence nation-building projects were
intended to be solidaristic, they fell short of achieving their goals. This is because the ideologies
of nation-builders were the continuation of colonial administration, i.e., top-down approaches
in the name of national unity without taking into account the existing realties of fragile nations,
weak institutional capacities, and international dynamics. As a result, the organizing ideologies
become targets of penetration, and distortion and eventually undermined the nation-building
process (Glickman 1987).
In line with the above argument, Marenin (1987, 65) characterized the organizing
ideologies of African states as “extensive, fragile, prebendal, and elitist.” The central idea is that
“the state is everywhere: it controls, directs, and misdirects the economy; it shapes social life
by granting and withholding amenities and constraining group interactions into approved
channels” (Marenin 1987). As a result, the state and its institutions become “more of a resister
and processor than maker of demands” (Rothchild 1987, 126) that in turn structurally hamper
national unity.
2.
Identity Politics in Eritrea
There are a number of emerging lines of academic and political debates on the Eritrean
nation-building challenges over whether they are internally evolved or externally imposed.
These debates look at the foundations of Eritrean nationalism and where it converges and
diverges with traditional European nationalism and with African nationalist principles.
2.1.
Contradictory Interpretations of Eritrean Nationalism: Historical perspective
Eritrean nationalism was defiant of European nationalism as Eritrea was/is not inhabited
by a single nation. There were different ethnic groups in Eritrea. People living in the lowlands
and the highlands in Eritrea had a number of differences, sharing only a common tradition of
colonial oppression that later evolved into common national culture (Lobban 1976). Until the
arrival of the Italians, the region had experienced multiple and shifting identities. The
highlanders are mostly Christians and speak Tigrinya with more communal, religious, and
language ties to their counterparts in Ethiopia. On the other hand, the lowlanders are Muslims
and speak different languages, mainly Arabic and Afar (Kalewongel 2008).
Furthermore, Eritrean nationalism, although it shares similarities with nationalism of
most African states in the sense that it was founded on common territory and common colonial
historical experience, also partially defies African nationalism in the sense that it was not
expressed by common resistance to Italian colonial rule (Tekeste 1997). Examples of opposition
and resistance of Eritreans both in the highlands and the lowlands of Eritrea against Italian
colonial rule were almost nonexistent (Mesfin 1986; Tekeste 1987). For those smaller ethnic
groups threatened by the more powerful ones, Italian colonial rule was perceived as an
impartial phenomenon committed to law, order, and development. Moreover, through the
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“praxis of meticulous respect for religious liberty, which in effect meant the elevation of Islam
to a level of parity with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the colonial state gained support of
those ethnic groups which professed Islam” (Ibid). The level of parity of Muslims with Christians
during Italian colonialism however did not result in the formation of inclusive identity to
demand nationhood immediately after the end of the Italian colonial era (Kalewongel 2008;
Mesfin 1986 and 1988). Therefore, Eritrea’s problem was “neither a national nor a colonial
question” and hence was not “a typical African phenomenon” but rather “an extreme
manifestation of the overall problem of the relationship between state and society in Ethiopia”
(Mesfin 1986, 11). Eritrean resistance to colonial rule was not strong enough to qualify as an
example of the characteristic feature of African nationalism, i.e., common goal for decolonialization (Mesfin 1986, 11).
It is undeniable fact that, given the influence of Italy and its policy to develop a new
identity distinct from the Ethiopian culture, a new Eritrean identity began to be conceived in
the minds of both the Christians in the highlands and the Muslims in the lowlands. It arose
because of colonial economic practices and territorial exclusiveness from their Ethiopian
counterpart (Medhane 1999; Tekeste 1987 and 1997). Some historians (e.g., Osman 1974)
claimed that Eritrean identity was a pre-existing realty traceable back to the pre-Italian era and
equal to the ancient Ethiopian kingdom. But most of the literature on the history of Eritrean
identity does not accept the arguments of a pre-existing or Italian colonial origin of Eritrean
national identity. For Bereket (2010), Eritrean nationalism was the result of Italian industrialism
that melted down the pre-colonial diverse and disparate Eritrean society. Stephen Longrigg
(1945, 3), British military administrator of Eritrea, contended that Eritrea possessed “none of
the qualities of geographical or cultural singleness which should entitle it to be a unit of
territory or of government.” He further stated that “had the Italians not colonized Eritrea,
Eritrea would be partly, as always before, the ill-governed or non-governed northernmost
province of Ethiopia” (Longrigg). This idea is also shared by Mensour in discussing the post-1946
intra-Eritrean divisions. He said that “the historical and cultural bondage of most Eritrean
Abyssinians with the other part of historical Abyssinia1 was still strong. Sixty years of different
socio-economic transformations had not been enough to cut or weaken the umbilical cord”
(2002, 1-2). Tekeste (1987 and 1997) also added that even during Italian colonialism the
Eritreans had a strong affinity towards Ethiopia, particularly through the Orthodox Church, the
traditional bearer of Ethiopian nationalism.
Hence, an identity consciousness began to take over the Eritrean political sphere during
the British period. According to Tekeste (1987 and 1997), the British, due to their desire to remap the Italian Horn of Africa, allowed the Eritreans access to weekly newspapers and lifted the
ban on political activity to express their opinions as to the fate of their country. But Eritreans
failed to map out their future destiny due to either non-existent or divided identity of the time.
As a result, Longrigg proposed a partition plan unifying the Tigrinya-speaking communities into
1
It refers to the geopolitical center of the Axumite civilization, the ancestor of today’s Ethiopia. Its political
territory covers the northern parts of Amhara, Tigray, and the highland plateaus of Eritrea. The people of these
areas descend from the Semitic family. Their linguistic ties originated from Ge’ez and their religious root is
predominantly orthodox Christianity that was introduced into Axum in the 4th century AD. The language of Tigray
and the highland plateaus of Eritrea is the same: Tigrinya—the official language of the independent State of Eritrea
and the National Regional State of Tigray in Ethiopia.
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Ethiopia and the Muslim and Arabic-speaking western and northern parts of Eritrea into Sudan
on the assumption that Eritreans were more closely tied with their Sudanese and Ethiopian
counterparts than with each other (Sherman 1980; Tekeste 1987).
During the early periods of British administration, the political and national
consciousness of the Eritreans was not focused on demanding independence of Eritrea from
colonialism. However, in 1946, the Bet Giorgies conference was convened and it was
considered a turning point for contemporary Eritrean identity politics as well as for the postindependence nation-building project (Mensour 2002). The meeting, for the first time, brought
all Eritreans, both Christians and Muslims, together to discuss their future. According to
Mensour (2002, 1), the conference was the beginning or the birth of Eritrean national selfconsciousness. It was not a conscious political choice; it was rather a celebration of the
transformation from slavery to a politically-conscious society. It was the first test of the newly
acquired political consciousness.
The participants came to the conference with diametrically opposed goals. The
divergences were reflections of difficult choices faced by both Christian and Muslim Eritreans
between unity or independence. Accordingly “most Eritrean Abyssinians suffered identity crises
and divided consciousness between their cultural and religious sentiments on the one hand and
their newly-acquired identity on the other hand, between joining Christian Ethiopia on the one
hand or compromise with their Eritrean Moslem brothers on the other hand” (Mensour 2002,
2).
But Mesfin (1986, 12) argued that the Christian mobilization was centred on “revival and
anticipatory hope ... that Eritrea had always been part and parcel of Ethiopia and the union
would bring dignity, freedom, and jobs.” Conversely, those opposed to union with Ethiopia
engaged in mobilization by “revival and anticipatory fear ... that Eritrea had never been part of
Ethiopia and union would bring oppression, pain, and sorrow for Muslims in autocratic and
Christian Ethiopia.” Moreover, they feared that “they would be detached from the Arab and
Islamic world for which they had had economic interests, and linguistic, cultural, social, and
religious affinity” (Mensour 2002, 3).
The conference signalled the end of the Italian colonial policy of constructing a separate
and unified identity. The failure of Eritreans themselves to come up with a determined and
integrative agreement to claim an Eritrean state was a disappointment. Rather, they defined
their mobilization on the basis of Muslim and Christian identities. It also indicated the division
of the society into pro-independence, unionist, and pro-colonial thinking that laid down the
seeds of the subsequent divisive syndromes which continued to manifest during armed struggle
in the post-independence Eritrean state.
The next source of identity conflict in the Eritrean historical continuum was the identity
externally-imposed by the United Nations and the failed federation. The failure of Eritreans to
provide a home-based solution to their problems due to the divergent approaches made
Eritrea, unlike other colonized territories, face an externally-tailored federation. This is also the
result of a weak Italian policy of forging a separate Eritrean identity and the inability of the
British military administration to effectively prepare the Eritreans to determine their future
destiny as its major mandate. Strong Ethiopian interest in Eritrea as its integral part added
further complication and made Eritrea the hot tub of conflict of interests which added seeds of
lasting problems to their fate.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The federation collapsed in 1962 mainly because of weak Eritrean nationalism. Local
forces had no integrative or comprehensive solution to address the historical absence of an
inclusive consensus on the idea of Eritrea and Eritreanism. The federation also added
inflammatory issues to the already stated divisions including legalization and politicization of
the divisions of Eritrean society geographically into highland-lowland, and religiously into
Christian-Muslim. This was also reflected in the recognition of both Arabic and Tigrinya as
official languages of the federation. Political power was equally shared between Christian and
Muslim leaders. These dichotomies were major challenges to Eritrean society. They started
during the British mandate, remained through armed struggle, and now persist as structural
challenges to national security. The failed federation also internationalized the Eritrean
problem because the Eritreans themselves failed to provide a home-based solution.
2.2.
Militant Nationalism and the Long March for Territorial Independence
There is no common ground on the basic causes of the Eritrean armed liberation
struggle that lasted for three decades and fundamentally affected the post-independence
Eritrean nation-building process.
Following the persistent incursions of the Ethiopian government and the observable
weakness of the federation, the Eritreans began to establish an underground cell called “Haraka
al-Tahrir al-Eritrea” (Arabic for Party of Seven Members) or “Mahber Shewuate” (Tigrinya for
Party of Seven Members) in 1958 that evolved into the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) to
pursue its goals “politically and diplomatically” (Tekeste 1997, 149). The major purpose of the
ELM was “protecting the collapse of the federation, and its members were composed of both
Muslims and Christians who had sympathy for the federation” (Tekeste 1997).
The continued disrespect for the federation by the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie
cultivated hostility among Eritreans who viewed the incursions as illegal and therefore a form of
colonial subjugation no different than that of Italian or British colonialism. According to
Sherman (1980) Eritrean nationalism was based on grievances against the Ethiopian state that
caused the loss of Eritrea’s regional autonomy. The grievances towards the Ethiopian state are
also traced back to the nineteenth-century Italo-Ethiopian agreements and wars, including the
Wuchale Treaty of 1889, the Battle of Adwa in 1896, and the Addis Ababa Treaty of 1896, and
culminated in the abrogation of the federation as well as the subsequent harsh treatment of
Eritreans by the Ethiopian governments.
The other major ingredient to the beginning of Eritrean armed struggle, according to
Lobban (1976, 336), was a “national culture of common colonial oppression.”2 Furthermore,
struggle was viewed as a national liberation movement against both past and present colonial
oppression—Nahnan Elamanan.3
2
According to my informant Tesfu, (former ELF veteran living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Eritrean nationalism was
based on common colonial oppression where there was no an Eritrean oppressor and oppressed class or nation as
is the case in Ethiopia where other nations claimed oppression by Amhara domination. As a result, the nationalists
defined their struggle as national oppression and the solution is self-determination up to and including secession.
Therefore, in Eritrea there is no reason for self-determination up to and including secession due to the absence of
oppression–an oppressor class or nation.
3
Tigrinya for “Our struggle and its goals,” the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) manifesto declared in 1971.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The Eritrean armed struggle was initiated by the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) based on
sectarian (Islamic) nationalism in 1961 in the lowlands of Eritrea. ELF however suffered
ideological problems. Practically, the problems reflected the failure of Eritreans to agree on the
future state of Eritrea. ELF was pro-Arab and aspired to establish a revolutionary Islamic state of
Eritrea. It was supported by many Arab countries. ELF was criticized for excluding and executing
Christian Eritreans who joined the armed struggle as Ethiopian state spies. That, in turn, paved
the way for the undemocratic and exclusionary nature of the Eritrean liberation struggle
(Antonio 2002).
Following recurrent civil wars among the Eritrean liberation fighters, ELF was defeated
by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). EPLF consisted pre-dominantly of Christian
highlanders. The EPLF was realistic in out-maneuvering its predecessor by redefining the
territorial conception of Eritrean nationalism over the communal (sectarian) conception of the
ELF. Following the internal leadership crisis within ELF, it was clear that a sectarian-based
liberation struggle could not fit to define the objective causes of the Eritrean problems (Antonio
2002). Indeed, the crisis paved the way for the emergence of new nonsectarian liberation front
(EPLF) and re-conception of Eritrean nationalism based on territorial identity of the commonlycolonized Eritrean people (Connell 2001; Saideman et al. 2005; Sherman 1980).
EPLF ultimately prevailed over the ELF for several interrelated reasons. First, the EPLF, in
its 1971 manifesto “Our Struggle and Its Goals,” Nahnan Elamanan, rejected the ELF’s
communal identification and self-consciously propagated a nonsectarian, territorial Eritrean
identity that could accommodate everyone who supported independence. As a result, EPLF
abandoned the division of Eritrea into a zonal system, adopting a single command structure
that reflected its emphasis on building national unity (Connell 2001 and 2005; Saideman et al.
2005; Sherman 1980).
Second, the EPLF had layered an ideological identity onto its territorial identity. Its
leadership was committed to social revolution as part of the liberation struggle, and it adopted
a “selective, pragmatic (even eclectic)” Marxist philosophy of “revolution before unity”
emphasizing the principle of uncompromising struggle against the Ethiopian state (Henze 1985,
48). To this end, EPLF, in its national democratic revolution of 1977, “calls for the establishment
of a solid worker–peasant alliance and the formation of a broad National United Front under
the firm leadership of a proletariat party that can successfully rally all patriotic elements against
the common enemy of colonial aggression” (Sherman 1980, 52). The EPLF’s economic and
social programs proved extremely popular; it provided much-needed services such as schools
and medical care, undertook land reform, set up village assemblies and peasant associations,
and worked to improve the status of women (Sherman 1980).
Learning from the negative experience of the ELF in accepting conditions along with
Arab support, the EPLF emphasized self-reliance in all aspects including political, military, and
economic development. This remains the unique feature of the post-independence
government of Eritrea. Self-reliance became an integral feature of its domestic strategy, which
reinforced the EPLF’s commitments to its territorial and ideological identities (Sherman 1980).
The EPLF also effectively galvanized the people into a single wartime identity through
“the established axiom of Eritrean identity [that] emerged from war-induced hardship” (Akinola
2007, 49). Furthermore, the EPLF effectively utilized the party’s democratic centralism modeled
on the Chinese Maoist principle. According to Mesfine (2001, 6), EPLF mobilized and galvanized
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
the Eritrean people into a uniform, disciplined, mobilized people who rally around a common
cause: independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. More importantly, through its internal security
mechanism, Halawa Sewura, Defender of the Revolution, EPLF was able to create a hierarchical
and disciplined military organization of formidable historical significance. It initiated and
penetrated civic associations of urban workers, peasants, and women and youth; in the rural
liberated areas, it provided public services such as health and education (Mesfine 2001; Connell
2005; Gebru 2009). The party used a “combination of promises, mostly land reform, and
focused terror” (Ibid). Connell (2005) also argued that the repressive, secretive, and arbitrary
exercise of absolute power sought to bring everyone in line with the discipline. It used two
techniques to ensure conformity, discipline, and order: the first one was criticism and selfcriticism, locally known as gimgema, and the second instrument was coercion implemented by
the Halawa Sewura (Gebru 2009, 66-67).
As to the first instrument, gimgema was an instrument of control to “prevent mistakes
and cultivate openness, trust, and comradeship,” on the one hand, and encourage “secrecy,
hypocrisy, insincerity, self-censorship, and docility for fear of ridicule and humiliation in public
sessions,” on the other hand (Gebru 2009, 66). The second instrument was coercion
implemented by the so called the Halawa Sewura (Gebru 2009, 67). The very function of the
Halawa Sewura was “to protect the revolution from internal subversion and external
infiltration” (Gebru 2009, 67), and it used written and unwritten codes to intimidate the targets
so as to make them in line with the discipline. The most common instruments utilized by the
party were “isolation and public humiliation” (Gebru 2009, 67).
Such repressive, controlling mechanisms were used by the EPLF not only to punish the
ordinary fighters, but to eliminate political and military figures who were considered a threat to
the ruling clique in particular and the party in general. One group in opposition to the ruling
elite was known as “the Menkae4 movement.” It rose from the educated fighters who criticized
the national leadership as backward and ineffective (Connell 2005; Mekonen 2008; Pool 1990).
The repression of the Menkae movement was followed by the suppression of another
opposition group from within the EPLF known as the Yemin or rightist opposition” (Mekonen
2008, 44), with feudalist and regionalist tendencies.
All the above structural problems and traumas of intra-Eritrean conflicts and the
subsequent repressive mechanisms of eliminating opponent groups used by the liberation
movements resulted in politics of exclusion and monopolization, changing the liberation
struggles to be undemocratic. This had negative implications for the post-independence
nation-building project.
4
After the Tigrinya word for bat, and derived from the opposition’s habit of mobilizing support through discussions
and propaganda conducted with fighters at night (Pool 1990, 76). On every occasion, in every valley and hilltop, at
the highest pitch of their voices they began spreading news that there was no democracy and the rights of the
freedom fighters were violated (Ibid). According to Medhane cited in Mekonen (2008, 42), in the Eritrean
Tigrinya/highland tradition, a bat symbolizes dishonesty. Remarkably, the Tigrinya word menkae also stands for
‘left,’ denoting at the same time left-wing conservatism.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Nation-building From Above: “One-People, One-Heart”5
Robert Kaplan in the April 2003 Atlantic Monthly edition entitled “A Tale of Two
Colonies” characterized Eritrea as “the newly independent, sleepily calm, and remarkably stable
state.” He further argued that the country has achieved “a degree of non-coercive social
discipline and efficiency enviable in the developing world and particularly in Africa.” According
to Kaplan, Eritrea has achieved such a non-coercive social function “by ignoring the West's
advice on democracy and development, by cultivating a sometimes obsessive and narcissistic
dislike of its neighbors, and by not demobilizing its vast army, built up during a thirty-year
conflict with Ethiopia…” (Kaplan 2003). Hence, Eritrea’s clarified sense of nationhood is rare in a
world of nation-states rent by tribalism and globalization (Kaplan 2003).
However, Kaplan, in the same edition, quoted President Issayas Afeworki on the existing
realities of Eritrea, “...we have not yet institutionalized social discipline, so the possibility of
chaos is still here. Remember, we have nine language groups and two religions...therefore we
will have to manage the creation of political parties so that they don't become means of
religious and ethnic division, like in Ivory Coast or Nigeria” (Kaplan 2003). The postindependence Eritrean nation-building from above is the continuity of the EPLF’s controlled
national mobilization of the armed struggle. The armed struggle that lasted three decades was
effective in mobilizing all Eritreans all over the world to use Kaplan’s description as “an almost
Maoist degree of mobilization and an almost Albanian degree of xenophobia” (Kaplan 2003,
13).
The unity that was demonstrated during the armed struggle to achieve the first vision
(i.e., independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia) was to be the pillar in achieving the second vision,
to radically transform Eritrea into the Singapore of Africa6 (Berhane 2006, 31). The success of
the second vision would be based on “national unity and self-reliance” as stated in the
preamble of the unimplemented Eritrean constitution of 1997 while “sub-national identity”
that promoted any specific ethnicity and/or religion was strongly condemned (Berhane 2006,
34). The post-independence nation-building was therefore an outgrowth of the liberation
conception of Eritrean nationalism: “the ‘melting pot strategy’ that united the fragmented
society and mobilized them against an alien occupying army, eventually leading to the country’s
independence” through the process of “social engineering” (Berhane 2006, 39) of the multiethnic Eritrean people.
However, the post-independence nation-building policy from above under the principle
of “one people, one heart” was criticized. The new states of Eritrea faced challenges to
consolidate a single national identity since none of the Eritrean ethnic groups are unique to it
but rather Eritrea is characterized by all-round trans-border community ties (Berhane 2006;
Ibrahim 2010) which in turn make Eritrea an “all-round part-nation state.” This further
2.3.
5
Locally known as Hade-Hizbi, Hade-Libe.
In 1994 EPLF organized an all-Eritrean international conference on how to transform the nation from war-born
state to peacetime nation-building. After the conference, the government aspired to catch up to Germany in terms
of infrastructure, Israel in terms of military capability, Sweden in ensuring social justice, and Singapore in terms of
urbanization by 2015. As result Eritrea was to be the “heartland (power-house)” of the Horn and Ethiopia and
Sudan viewed to be the “hinterlands” to support Eritrean industrial establishment in terms of raw material, labor,
and market. In fact, this could be the structural problem that makes Eritrea have antagonistic regional relations,
especially with its contenders, Ethiopia and Sudan.
6
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indicated that the nation-building process not only depended on war-induced unity but also on
the acts of Eritrea’s significant others, Ethiopia and Sudan, as one defining feature of nationstate-of-becoming (Gebru 2006; Medhane 1999; Mesfine 1988 and 1986).
An attempt to build a single national identity out of all-round trans-border community
ties, therefore, forced the government of Eritrea to frame contradictory policies which resulted
in conflicted relationships with its neighbors. According to Gebru (2006) Eritrea’s conflicted
relations with its neighbors emanated basically from the aspirations of the leadership to forge a
single Eritrean national identity within a short period of time taking the triumphant militant
nationalism and the war-induced mobilization and leaping over the arduous and protracted
paths of state formation, neglecting the pre-independence identity conflicts among Eritreans.
Gebru’s argument is further supported by Bundegaard who said that “the Eritrean leadership
has increasingly found itself in the hot water of state-making and nation-building “in a hurry,”
though the craft of state-making and nation-building is often of a less heroic and even dull,
bureaucratic nature”(2004, 17).
Gebru further went on to substantiate his argument that the leadership strategy was
“conflicting and self-defeating ,i.e. fanning conflicts with neighboring states in order to forge a
strong Eritrean identity, and tapping the resources and markets of neighboring countries with
the aim of achieving miraculous economic development strategies”(Gebru 2006, 11). The
structural reason for the aggressive policies of the government of Eritrea was/is to differentiate
Eritrea’s ethnic groups from their counterparts in the neighboring countries by involving them
in wars to sever the ethnic ties with Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan ,and Yemen and ultimately to
promote national unity of the new and young state of Eritrea.
The post-independence Eritrean leadership has been increasingly preoccupied with
state making and nation-building strategies to make Eritrea a Tiger of the Horn of Africa within
a short period of time via the traditional principle of “war makes state” (Tilly 1985, 181). Eritrea
is therefore facing Ayoob’s security predicament of the third world state of “late entry to the
state making project, and the simultaneous and contingent natures of nation-building” (1995,
2) with its neighbors. The state-making strategies from above under the principle of Hade-Hizbi,
Hade-Libi is framed to continuously project the war-induced mobilization through securitization
of every sector, over-politicization of nation-building, and militarization of the young generation
through national service (Bundegaard 2004). The national military service, as one major
component of nation-building, was introduced in 1995 with the National Service Proclamation
of Article5. As Eritrea was born out of war, the national military service was primary aimed at
ensuring the inter-generation transition between Yikaalo,7 the old generation, and Warsay,8 the
new generation, which in turn was to accelerate the “Eritreanization” of nation-building in
order to fit the founding pillar of self-reliance(Connell 2001, 11). Similar to the armed struggle,
the new generation was to be indoctrinated and militarized under the revolutionary slogan: “An
army without a revolutionary ideology is like a man without a brain. An army without a brain
can never defeat the enemy” (Connell 2001).
7
Tigrinya for “able generation.” It refers to the guerrilla generation of Eritrea who achieved the first Eritrean
vision: independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia. It mainly refers to the EPLF fighters. It is also called the “Nakfa”
generation.
8
Tigrinya for “heir.” It refers to the post-independence Eritrean generation that was expected to ensure the
second Eritrean vision: making Eritrea the Singapore of Africa. It is also called the “Sawa” generation.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Nakfa was the symbol of resistance, heroism, protracted war, and independence
accomplished by the old generation, Yikaalo. Now Sawa,9 the center of post-independence
Eritrea’s military training, is considered the symbol of the inter-generation transition (from
Yikaalo to Warsay), nation-building and the nucleus or melting pot of the collective identity of
the existing diversity of the new generation, Warsay. The end result of the militarization and
securitization was therefore a huge military buildup and militarization (both in human and
material assets). The militarization together with the longest protracted liberation war
aggravated the superiority and the invincibility of the Eritrean army. This indeed contributed to
conflictual policy towards its neighbors in border, religion, and economic issues as well as its
hegemonic leadership tendency in the Horn of Africa.
Eritrea’s all-round conflict with its neighbors was to stretch the military indoctrination
and test the transition into the new generation under the supervision of the old generation and
ultimately to establish Eritrea’s leadership in the Horn of Africa’s power structure. According to
Henze (2001, 52) “the Eritrean leadership was obsessed with the problems of miscalculations
about their reputation they had cultivated for years of being the best fighting forces in Africa as
they were the longest guerrilla fighters.” The superiority assumptions thus gave rise to a sense
of military invincibility which in turn led to the confusion between the guerrilla army vis-à-vis a
conventional army. This deceived the leadership into thinking that they could impose their
interest and instigate instability in every direction to meet Tilly’s conception of the state as an
“agent of organized violence” (1985, 181) engaging in “war making, protection, extraction, and
state making” (Tilly 1985).
Eritrea’s last war,10 the Ethio-Eritrea war of 1998-2000, however, resulted in negative
repercussions to its nation-building strategies as it signified the failure of the invincibility of the
Eritrean army, the inter-generation transition, and negative implications to the historical intraEritrean divisive factors: bipolar division of Eritrean society as lowland-highland and ChristianMuslim. Furthermore, the war forced the leadership to redefine new policies: internally, the
government declared a national emergency with tight control in order to contain internal
problems signaling that the state would be swallowed by its neighbors, mainly Ethiopia;
externally, the state also engaged in proxy wars in order to contain the internal challenges and
to maintain its external power balance.
The United Nation Security Council, upon the request by the African Union,11 has
imposed sanctions in 2009 and 2011 for the reason that Eritrea was destabilizing the fragile
region of the horn and supporting terrorist groups in the failed state of Somalia. This further
aggravated Eritrea’s isolation from regional and international actors and arenas.
9
The center for national military service where the new Eritrean generations are expected to get military training,
political indoctrination, and a post high school education.
10
Eritrea fought continuous wars with all of its neighbors following its independence: war with Sudan in 1994, with
Yemen in 1995, with Djibouti in 1996 and 2010, and finally with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000 marking the end of
Eritrea’s military invincibility in the horn.
11
The African Union, for the first time in its history after the end of apartheid in South Africa, requested the
Security Council to impose sanctions on its member state, implying Eritrea’s failure and inability to peacefully
establish diplomatic relation with the outside world.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
3.
External Challenges to Eritrean Nation-building
The Horn of Africa seems to be the litmus paper for different kinds of nation-building
attempts and failures ranging from secession (war-born), centralization, federation, failing, and
collapsed states. Moreover, small and young states (Eritrea and South Sudan), and large and old
states (Ethiopia and Sudan) are becoming features of the region. The small states recently
achieved independence through protracted armed struggles fought for decades against the
large states that partly aggravated the nation-building challenges of the states in the region.
The state making and nation-building project in the region is also inherently conflictual
as the contingent nation-building strategies are diametrically opposite (e.g. ethnic federalism in
Ethiopia and imposed centralism in Eritrea and Sudan). The relationship of the states is based
on “mutual intervention” (Clapham 2000, 4) through hosting opponent groups of their
counterparts with consistently fluid alliances as a means to counterbalance both the perceived
and actual threats. This is further complicated by the absence of an established “security
community” (Medhane 2004, 1) and the lack of strong state with a balancer role that could
peacefully contain emerging conflicts and their spillover effects due to the mutual mistrust
among the neighboring states.
The failure of nation-building has thus remarkably shown that state building in the Horn
of African is not founded on the objective realities of the existing socio-political makeup. To
use Medhane’s characterization, “the nation-builders are the products of—not solutions to—
the historical contradictions in their respective countries (Medhane 2004, 1). Cognizant of the
above structural problems, Eritrea, the unique state “born out of war” not only in the Horn of
Africa but also the post-colonial African state system, has challenged the institutional status
quo of Organization of African Unity (OAU) that declared the goal to maintain the colonial
borders and refrain from accepting any forms of secession. What makes the nation-building
experience of Eritrea complex is that it seceded from the regional power, Ethiopia, and its own
history of hegemonic leadership in the region. The geopolitical structure of the Horn of Africa is
therefore a serious challenge to the nation-building of the small and young state of Eritrea, let
alone the other challenges of its policies towards its neighboring states with which it shares
trans-border ethnic, religious, and cultural ties. Finally, the nation-building project is further
complicated by the regional security predicament of emerging religious fundamentalism and
terrorism which could further polarize the Christian and Muslim society of Eritrea.
4.
Windows of Opportunities
Now, Eritrea is at a crossroads in search of a way out. Two scenarios present
themselves:
Best case scenario: Given the complex historical conflicts among the Eritrean liberation
fronts based on region and religion, the existential bipolar dichotomies of Eritrean society into
Christian-Muslim and lowland-highland, the incompatibility of wartime-peacetime mobilization
tactics of achieving “one-people, one-heart” nationhood, the militarization and securitization of
the new Eritrean generation (Yikaalo to Warsay) that makes the youth hostage to national
military service indefinitely, the reported polarization between the people and the government
as the critical population is leaving Eritrea for migration, and the absence of legitimatelyestablished institutions of governance which makes Eritrea one of the latest examples of
postcolonial democratic reversal, Eritrea needs an inclusive national reconciliation to safely
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
depolarize the differences, to maintain the social mobilizations inherited from war in
peacetime, to rebuild broad-based state institutions, and to ultimately uphold a unitary state of
Eritrea.
Middle case scenario: Being that Eritrea is inherently an all-round part-nation-state
sharing all-round ties with all its neighbors, that there are structural challenges in the horn for
isolated nation-building strategies, that the neighboring states are becoming federalized,
especially Ethiopia, the Transitional Government of Somalia, and Sudan to some extent, and
that there is an emerging quest for democratic self-determination from Eritrean opposition
groups, the Eritrean nation-builders should revisit federal arrangement to re-address its
historical, socio-cultural, and political differences. The neighboring states, especially Ethiopia
and Sudan, and regional institutions like the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD) should also constructively engage with the situation to maintain the unity and integrity
of Eritrea. In the long run, the neighboring states, mainly Ethiopia and Sudan, and regional
institutions should think of possibilities for regional integration and confederation. The healthy
nation-building of Eritrea is to the advantage of all states in the region.
5.
Conclusion
The nation-building challenges of the young and small war-born state of Eritrea are
structural and internal. The challenges center on the lack of agreed consensus among the
Eritreans themselves on the creation of an Eritrean state and the identity of Eritreanism. These
divergent outlooks are the results of historical evolutions that we trace back to European
colonialism, federation with Ethiopia, and the period of armed liberation struggle.
Moreover, the post-independence nation-building from above under the principle of
“one people, one heart,” which was the continuation of the armed struggle, was unrealistic as it
failed to integrate the existential realities of Eritrean multi-ethnic societies and their historical
dichotomies in peacetime nation-building. The nation-building strategy also failed to take into
account the basic feature of Eritrea as an “all-round part-nation-state” because of its all-round
trans-border community ties with its neighbors. Hence, its attempt to forge a single national
identity through melting down diversity and erecting artificial borders with its neighbors
through the traditional state making principles “war makes state” and militarization strategy
strongly affected the very idea of national unity and equality, i.e., building, cultivating and
institutionalizing the idea of the state through agreed and inclusive consensus among its
nations.
In addition to the above facts, Eritrean independence is a rare case to the modern
nation-state system and institutional norms and frameworks. Eritrea’s independence from
Ethiopia, the regional power, through war, is at odds with the institutional principles of the
Organization of African Unity and the United Nations which advocate for territorial integrity
and prohibit secessionism. The leadership’s continuous indoctrination and mobilization tactics,
that the Eritrean people have been betrayed by the whole international community throughout
its history, and the policy of self-reliance also make Eritrea an enclave state in a globallyinterdependent world. And, finally, if the Eritreans and the states in the region, as well as
international states and institutions, fail to constructively and timely engage, there are now
emerging fears that Eritrea will follow the path of the failed state of Somalia.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
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36
Going Deep: Service-Learning and Human Rights Education
Christine A. Wolf
The concept of human rights for many North-American college students is associated
with the “other.” Those in need of human rights are perceived as nameless people living in the
far corners of the globe. When I ask my students next semester who suffers from a lack of
human rights, most will produce responses such as Africans or refugees. Some may include
LGBT communities or children, but most responses will be vague and generic. Traditional-aged
students generally don’t feel a personal connection to the “others” who are suffering or even
recognize those “others” in their midst, let alone some sense of responsibility around this
concept. Unless human rights education ignites a sense of personal, hometown identification in
the minds of students, as educators we lose long-term transformative possibilities. For what I
term “deep human rights learning” to occur, or an embodiment of the concept rather than
merely an intellectual grasp, a creative synergy of diverse experiences best transforms both the
individual and the class. In order to meet each student where they are in their perceptions and
understanding of human rights, teachers need multiple ways to convey the subject. Learning
about human rights requires a personal identification with otherness in order to be sustainable
over time. How then do educators do better at creating a grounded solidarity, within and
outside the classroom, fostering a shift from human rights being a mere subject to instead
becoming a recognizable issue not separate from, but part of each student’s personal
experience?
To create this type of “deep” learning experience in my course, I look for strategies to
identify with the other, so much so, that the other becomes a part of the zone in which the
student dwells, both intellectually and emotionally. I have found it is also possible for a human
rights learner to reach a learning outcome of self-identification as a human rights seeker, where
previously there was no personal recognition of belonging to both camps. We can teach the
tenets of the Declaration of Human Rights, watch documentaries, invite guest speakers, discuss
the political history and social structures in place that both undermine and support human
rights; but until that student is rocked in the very place where they stand, their intellectual
borders around human rights redrawn, I would argue the lasting impact on students is minimal.
A successful human rights learning experience does not end when the class ends, rather it is the
beginning of a new relationship with self and the idea of place, politics, and belonging. At its
root, it becomes an ongoing internal dialogue around behavior, attitudes, and policy around
human systems that results in external actions promoting greater inclusion and opportunity for
all people.
In teaching human rights, a major barrier to this type of radical identification is the
cultural segregation undermining learning opportunities right in front of our eyes. As an
educator, how many times have you had a class or a meeting self-divide based on color or

Christine Wolf is an adjunct instructor at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a senior academic
advisor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She has an M.S. in Political Science and Community and
Economic Development from Illinois State University and is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RSVP Poland 19961998). cawolf@uwm.edu.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 37-41
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
ethnicity? The trouble with all the white girls sitting in the back or all the Spanish speakers
sticking together is that it creates our own micro-system of segregation, thus diminishing our
ability to connect and form community. Understanding and creating a wider comfort zone
regarding human rights requires us to visit the multicultural neighborhood right in our own
classrooms and use that wealth of knowledge as our springboard. The classroom could and
should represent the wider world, becoming a safe home base in which to test-drive our
theories and ideas. If we can’t break the cycle in the classroom, how can we expect students to
find the impetus to move out into the greater community and actively participate as engaged
citizens in an inclusive way? In other words, if students don’t develop and practice the skills
involved in cultivating diversity they are less likely to critically reflect on, act on, prioritize, or
even examine broader human rights topics later on. It stands to reason they will be less likely to
act on behalf of human rights at the ballot box, for example, if their understanding of these
issues is minimal or worse yet, left the topic so overwhelmed by the scope of human rights
challenges that they feel powerless to affect change.
One educational tool that I use for teaching human rights by fostering community
engagement is service-learning. Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that
integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning
experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities (National Service-Learning
Clearinghouse, 2013). Service-learning is not without critics. I have heard students in my own
classroom complain that service-learning seems like forced volunteerism. Professor Stanley
Fish, in his article “Aim Low,” comments on what he terms “moral and civic education” as “… a
mish mash of self-help platitudes, vulgar multiculturalism (is there any other kind?) and a softcore version of 60s radicalism complete with the injunction (although not in song) to ‘love one
another right now.’” (Fish, 2003) The urge to dismiss civic education and by association
practices like service-learning are not only unfortunate, but short-sighted. One of our roles in
higher education is to expose students to new ideas and ways of thinking. The mode we employ
as educators to create these experiences vary and furthermore, other forms of experiential
learning have been accepted as legitimate for a long time. For example, no one usually thinks
an internship experience is forced labor. Why then the pushback with service-learning? Why is
it considered “soft” learning for students to leave the classroom to engage in communities and
social issues, while at the same time perfectly acceptable to receive college credit to learn how
to further your future career working as an intern? As a society, we honor the experience of
learning how to make money, but dismiss the notion of learning about moral choices as outside
the realm of our responsibility in most higher education settings. Yet, it seems obvious that the
topic of ethics has long been deemed valid as an academic subject. Ethics made real, by
everyday moral dilemmas found out in the field, whether at an internship or service-learning
assignment, seem to be two sides of the same coin. Both these experiences challenge students
to decide how they will act in a given situation. I believe we call this critical thinking. I contend
the resistance is fundamentally rooted in fear of the “other” and a lack of societal value on
social or cultural competency as a baseline measure of an educated person. Additionally,
students coming from a place of privilege are often simply ignorant of the kinds of issues
service-learning tackles. When faced with these realities, often for the first time, this cohort of
students can be stifled by shame associated with their privileges or outright defensive. The
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
vulnerability that surfaces for both the instructor and the student in this work becomes almost
problematic in my view. Not in and of itself, but because we have so little experience talking
about race, class, and identity as a culture, that the honesty and sharing required to go deep
becomes a formidable barrier.
As a rigorous service-learning assignment often gets down into the swamp of poverty,
prejudice, privilege, inequity, and human rights it forces participants to go to the dark places of
their own stereotypes and fears. As a practice, it often breaks down barriers of cultural
segregation by getting students into another part of town, for example, where they may have
never been before. For higher education, where the mind and reason are celebrated, the grey
area of emotions that service-learning and human rights education brings forward is some of
the toughest work of all to process. Emotions seem out of place somehow in college for many,
yet human feelings are ever present no matter what we do. Human rights bring up human
emotion and we need to have a way to explore that safely and legitimately as part of the
academic experience. We must somehow come face to face with the baggage in all its
awkwardness to find the elements missing from the relative safety of our books and podcasts.
As a part of this process, students have the potential to grow their emotional intelligence and
even experience a sense of radical empathy, possibly moving some toward personal change as
a result. Emotions and beliefs influence behavior inside and outside the classroom. As a
teacher, I believe learning to recognize and understand this in oneself and others is of great
value.
Perhaps service-learning should be referred to as “human rights learning.” Students as
human rights learners engage in experiential learning that challenges their old ways of thinking
and being in the world by putting them in direct contact with the academic subject being
played out in real life with all the undeniable humanness that comes with putting yourself “out
there.” Once “out there,” students often have to face their emotional responses and examine
the influence of feelings and held beliefs on their values and actions.
Service-learning takes us out to see and feel the issues first hand, but how do we tell the
story? Fostering the attitudes of respect and solidarity begins in class. In the spring of 2011, I
enjoyed the class chemistry to shape a multi-pronged approach to teaching human rights. I
teach a course titled Leadership Seminar for Social Justice at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. Mount Mary College is an historical women’s college, serving a diverse population.
This particular term, many students in my class were both first generation Mexican-Americans
and college students. A few students had had relatives deported, leaving them behind
sometimes fatherless or motherless, from young ages. Service-learning is a part of my course
curriculum and to fulfill this requirement several students chose a local organization called
Voces de la Frontera, a grassroots organization that fights for the rights of immigrants in
Wisconsin.
Much of their service-learning/human rights learning experience dealt with the issues of
immigrant rights. They recorded case histories, answered public inquiries, disseminated
information on the rights of migrant workers, and organized protests. They also demonstrated
during the historic state budget protests in Madison, Wisconsin, during the winter and spring of
2011. They were representing the issues and mission of Voces de la Frontera and of themselves
in the most deeply personal way. These students, Luz, Daesy, and Eileen, presented a slideshow
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
to the class as part of their service-learning presentation recalling how, during one of the epic
rallies in Madison, counter-protesters had shouted demeaning remarks and told them to “go
back home” despite the fact they are Americans. They retold stories of meeting with other
Mexican immigrant families and their hardships. They shared their own personal family stories
of struggle, separation, racism, and heartbreak. The learning is in the story. The stories of these
young women finding their voices, taking action, even under threatening conditions, made an
impact not to be forgotten. The emotion in these stories could not be denied or ignored by the
audience. After working with each other all semester this was personal for everyone in the
room. The line between server and the served was blurred. In fact, they were one in the same.
The line between student and teacher was blurred. The students were teaching me and each
other. The class had human rights seekers in their midst. We all became human rights seekers,
understanding more completely now how personal success is tied to success of others. We saw
ourselves in them.
Teaching and learning in this way requires at least three key ingredients: willingness,
time, and reflection. Not all students who take a class in human rights are ready to engage in
the experience. Without real engagement students gain much less and the class functions less
well as a whole. Creating buy-in and getting students on board is crucial though frank
discussions and other exercises about fears, race, class, social issues, and commonalities.
Finding the similarities that bind the class is equally as important as acknowledging the
differences. Building the capacity for a classroom community starts with these similarities. In
this case, the class was all female; therefore, we could look at all these topics through a shared
gender focus that helped to grow relationships among students across ethnic and racial lines.
The flip side to the conversations is reflection. Along with reflection comes time, both within
and outside the class. The issues inherent in human rights are so complex that students need to
keep working on them after class is over. Journaling is one way to reflect, but even more
powerful, I believe, is carving out class time to share feelings and thoughts. Making time for this
free dialogue is vital to creating the safe and respectful space the classroom needs in order go
deep. It’s about creating trust. This is much easier said than done and depends greatly on class
dynamics. However, it is also dependent on the willingness of instructors to go unscripted and
be present with the class where they are in any given moment. In order to grow, everyone must
take a risk.
We met this subject of human rights in the flesh that semester and it was no longer a
topic or an idea. It became our reality, the place in which we lived. The human rights seeker
was from Wisconsin, not Sudan or East Timor. It became for the class not a matter of us and
them, but we. The class was out of its comfort zone and mighty uncomfortable. Here is where
the real absorption of those concepts and class discussions gelled. Learning in this context was
applied in real life and in real time and expanded upon. Students had the difficult conversations
with themselves and about themselves. This is a profound way to learn the language of human
rights.
Service-learning as human rights learning can become a total immersion experience.
Deep identification leads to greater understanding and respect, but most especially, it builds
the bonds of solidarity. Finally, the uncomfortable zone is expanded and students become more
comfortable with this thing called human rights. Can students ultimately see themselves as part
40
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
of some solutions and care enough to take action? In this case, the same students who were
once complaining were now planning how to continue on at their service-learning site
placement after the class ended. In one case, a student was offered a job. Of course, not every
student has this outcome, but some do. The students, once aware of these issues, could not be
unaware ever again.
To fully engage the more privileged in the real issues of the less privileged, we must find
ways for students to truly embody the learning right where they stand, so they can care about
human rights someplace else, especially, when that place is the seat next to you. This class
found themselves at the center of some of the most pressing human rights issues in our part of
the world. International migration, migrant labor, citizenship rights and what that means in
human terms, all played out in the classroom. We didn’t have to travel or even leave our
community to examine the dysfunctional relationship of the global north and south in a deeply
personal way. By using a variety of teaching methods, inside and outside the classroom, and
taking the time to get to know one another and sit with all the emotions and questions that
process generated, my class became community. What did they take away? That building highly
inclusive, multicultural local communities may lead us to global peace. In this particular class,
with all its limitations, the students broke through the cultural segregation of habit and comfort
and got uncomfortable. Using that discomfort as a push forward, students saw human rights
through different lenses they didn’t even anticipate. Without planning for it, the class wove the
“other” into their own personal narratives because those others were ultimately themselves.
When the lines that separate us in the classroom dissolve away and we find a kind of
unity in storytelling, cooperation, and inclusion, not just tolerance, we find ourselves right there
at the table of social change.
References
Fish, Stanley. "Aim Low." The Chronicle of Higher Education (2003). http://chronicle.com/article/Aim-Low/45210/.
“What is Service-Learning?” http://www.servicelearning.org/what-service-learning.
Voces de la Frontera. http://www.vdlf.org/.
Compass Compact. http://www.compact.org/.
41
At Any Cost: Big Coal Crushes Fragile Communities in Colombia
Shane Boeder

Abstract
In this paper I describe the impact of mountaintop-removal coal mining by large
international consortia on the local indigenous Afro-Colombian and campesino communities in
the department of Guajira in northeastern Colombia. In June 2011, I travelled with a human
rights delegation to the most northern region of Colombia where I heard story after story of
broken promises, forced displacement, loss of health and cultural identity, and environmental
degradation on a massive scale. I spoke with those most directly affected by open-pit mining
practices and the collusion of local and regional government officials who have abrogated their
human and civil rights protected by the 1991 Colombian Constitution, decisions of the
Colombian Constitutional Court, and international accords. Travelling throughout the area, I
saw the extent of the devastation and met with leaders of three of the indigenous groups whose
ancestral homelands are threatened. I toured tiny, remote hamlets whose residents are
threatened with forced relocation as their land is increasingly absorbed by the encroaching El
Cerrejón, the largest open-pit mine in the world, and polluted by toxic runoff, air pollution, and
enormous mountains of waste called “overburden” that literally surround and poison their
communities. In further conversations with labor union leaders who risk assassination for their
activism on behalf of the mine employees, I came to understand the extent to which
government corruption, local social service agencies, and the armed forces support the
multinational corporations’ false promises of local development. The result is the systemic,
intentional destruction of ancestral lands and ancient cultures along with the gentle subsistence
practices of local residents. In pursuit of profits and power, the international mining industry has
benefited from its partnership with the weak Colombian government to exploit the most
vulnerable and poorest communities in the nation. Yet this is not a problem exclusive to
Colombia; rather, it is global in scope and confirms the need to establish an international culture
of social justice to protect human rights and foster sustainable development. In June 2011, I also
toured some Appalachian communities in eastern Kentucky and met with locals whose health,
livelihoods, and ecosystems have also been devastated by this large-scale assault for corporate
profit. In this paper I draw some parallels between situations and activism in both nations and
give voice to the people whose stories often go untold.

Shane Boeder is Associate Professor of Spanish at Marian University, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She teaches
literature, culture(s) and language. She served for ten years chair or co-chair of the Social Justice Committee on
campus. Her passions are social justice and human rights issues, with particular interests in truth-telling,
testimonial texts, the role of human rights defenders, forced migration, gender and women's rights, peace
communities, housing and land tenancy, and the role of the artist in Latin America. She has travelled with several
delegations to Nicaragua, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, the US-Mexico border, and several times to Colombia.
SBoeder@marianuniversity.edu.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 42-64
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
To quote Garry Leech, author of The People Behind Colombian Coal: Mining,
Multinationals and Human Rights, “It's crucial ... to realize that whenever ... [North Americans]
flip the light switch, blood flows along with electricity.”1 In a globalized economy of
neoliberalism and free trade, the lives of people who are largely invisible in their own nation
are inextricably linked to consumers of products and energy in other countries. As part of the
tragic tale of the global land grab by foreign investors, the story of Colombian coal reveals the
increasing gap between rich and poor within one nation and the growing disparity of wealth
and income between rich and poor countries.2 In Colombia it’s a story about corruption and
complicity at all levels of a government that fails to protect the most basic human rights of its
most vulnerable citizens in its haste to curry favor with foreign corporations. It’s a story about
companies that shear off the top of entire mountains and steal the very patrimony of a nation:
its land, minerals, fresh water, and cultural diversity. In short, this is the story of what Tom
Butler calls “the deadly legacy of coal.”3
In June 2011, I travelled to Colombia and Kentucky with a human rights delegation
sponsored by the international human rights organization Witness for Peace and led by Aviva
Chomsky and Steve Striffler, college professors who have studied the human and
environmental impact of coal mining in Colombia and the Appalachians, organized international
conferences highlighting the issues, and published widely on the subject. In Colombia, we
toured the northernmost departments of Magdalena, La Guajira, and César, where we
interviewed leaders of several displaced indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, leaders
of labor unions at the Carbones de Cerrejón mine, representatives of that mining corporation,
and people living on land adjacent to the mine itself. I heard story after story of broken
promises, abuses of civil and human rights, and violations of the Colombian Constitution that
guarantees the sovereign rights of the indigenous peoples. On mountaintops and in subtropical
valleys I saw the destruction of entire ecosystems wrought by multinational coal mining
consortiums such as Carbones de Cerrejón. It became apparent that in northern Colombia coal
mining hasn’t brought prosperity to Colombia or jobs to the locals where unemployment hovers
at 20 percent. Instead, multinational mining corporations have forcibly displaced entire
communities, devastated pristine environments, caused irreversible health problems,
exacerbated government corruption, and even re-routed rivers. Decades after the Uruguayan
journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano explained how the “Indians have suffered, and continue
to suffer, the curse of their own wealth”4 through the “mechanisms of plunder,”5 the
exploitation continues. In Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a
Continent published in 1971, Galeano concludes that “[u]nderdevelopment isn’t a stage of
development, but its consequence. Latin America’s underdevelopment arises from external
1
Chris Arsenault, letter to the editor, The Coast, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, March 27, 2006,
http://www.thecoast.ca/LettersToTheEditor/archives/2006/03/27/letters-to-the-editor.
2
Robert P. Weiss, “Introduction to Criminal Justice and Globalization at the New Millennium," Social Justice 27, no.
2 (2000), http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/SJEdits/80Edit.html.
3
“Cradle to Grave. Coal’s Deadly Legacy,” 2009, http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/theissue.htm.
4
Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, trans. Cedric Belfrage
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 45.
5
Ibid, 8.
43
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
development, and continues to feed it.”6 He explains the “clear identity of interest between
private monopolies and the state apparatus. Multinational corporations make direct use of the
state to accumulate, multiply, and concentrate capital, to deepen the technological revolution
to militarize the economy, and by various means to assure success.”7
This paper examines the impact of multinational coal mining from the perspectives of
several groups: indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians facing displacement, officials of
mining trade unions whose lives are threatened even now by paramilitary assassins, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working to raise awareness of these issues. To present this
issue as a problem replicated across the globe, I draw some parallels with the mining industry in
eastern Kentucky, an area I also toured in June 2011. Inevitably, I intertwine voices and quotes
from both Colombia and the Appalachians because they confirm what physicist and
environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva says about the violence of the consumption-andprofit model of global capitalism. She explains that “[a] system like the economic growth model
we know today creates trillions of dollars of super profits for corporations while condemning
billions of people to poverty. Poverty is not, as Sachs suggests, an initial state of human
progress from which to escape. It is a final state people fall into when one-sided development
destroys the ecological and social systems that have maintained the life, health and sustenance
of people and the planet for ages. The reality is that people do not die for lack of income. They
die for lack of access to the wealth of the commons.”8
Mountaintop Removal Plunders the Appalachians
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Waterkeeper Alliance has said, “King Coal sells its product to
the American public as cheap and clean–but the propaganda phrase ‘clean coal’ is a dirty lie.
While coal-generated power may appear cheap on your electric bill, its true costs to our nation
make it the most catastrophically expensive method ever devised for boiling a pot of water.”9
“More than 470 mountains in the southern Appalachians, which are among the oldest
mountains on Earth, have already been sheared off.”10 In the states of Kentucky, West Virginia,
Tennessee, and Virginia, entire forests, all wildlife habitat, and ancient landscapes have been
scraped bare. “[Two thousand] miles of streams have been filled or severely degraded by
mining waste.”11 Toxic waste released through surface mining, transporting coal, erosion, and
clouds of dust contaminate water supplies and poison people. To blast away hundreds of feet
of mountaintops, the mining industry used “more than 1.8 billion pounds of high explosives in
6
Ibid, 283.
Ibid, 227.
8
Vandana Shiva, “Two myths that keep the world poor,” Ode Magazine, November 2005 issue,
http://odewire.com/60038/two-myths-that-keep-the-world-poor.html.
9
Tom Butler and George Wuerthner, “Plundering Appalachia: The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Mining,”
2009, http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/thebook_contents.htm.
10
Tom Butler, “The Mine as Metaphor,” in Plundering Appalachia: The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Coal
Mining, ed. Tom Butler and George Wuerthner. (San Rafael, CA: Earth Aware Editions, 2009).
11
Butler and Wuerthner, http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/theissue.htm.
7
44
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
West Virginia and Kentucky alone”12 in 2005, according to government records cited by Tom
Butler and George Wuerthner.
Black Mountain, Kentucky, the oldest mountain in the United States and the tallest
mountain in Kentucky, has been denuded and turned to rubble. I met Sam Gilbert, a retired
coal miner whose home is now surrounded by mountains sheared off and flattened by
mountain top removal. As Sam explained, “We depend on our creeks and rivers. There are no
lakes around here. In fact, we are at the headwaters of a river that flows for 450 miles. Most
fish, salamanders, and frogs have disappeared because of the arsenic and lead and other byproducts of coal mining. … Everyone here has a well, and now, because of the blasting, they are
full of chemicals. We have two wells. The water from one of them catches fire even though it is
236 feet deep.” 13
In the Appalachians, the residents and activists want to end mountaintop coal mining
because the destruction and toxic waste far outweigh the benefits. This mining is estimated to
“produce just 5 to 10 percent of total U.S. coal production, and generate less than 4 percent of
our electricity.”14 Nevertheless, for investors, the “most profitable way to decapitate a
mountain… [is] to “blow its top off, section by section, and then move the rubble with heavy
equipment.”15 In Colombia, according to Yamile Salinas, a lawyer with INDEPAZ (The Institute
for Development and Peace Studies) specializing in human rights law, local residents are willing
to accept their multinational neighbors if the corporations protect the environment, respect
human rights, and preserve heritage cultures that have used truly sustainable development for
centuries.16
Exploitation of land, resources, and peoples
No other country in South America has a Pacific Coast, Caribbean coast, tall mountains,
deserts, and Amazon jungles. Yet the rich biodiversity and valuable mineral deposits on lands
occupied by indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, and campesino farmers make them a target
for megaprojects by multinational corporations. These vulnerable people continue to be
forcibly displaced by government forces or paramilitary renegades doing the bidding of
expanding corporations. On June 4, 2011, Pedro, the human rights commissioner of the Wiwa
people described a series of events spanning four years beginning with the 2002 massacre of
his pueblo by the paramilitaries that was closely followed by raids by guerrillas who
assassinated people at random, including his cousin. During this time, twenty-six extra-judicial
executions known as false positives were carried out by the police, military personnel, and the
DAS (secret police.) The survivors’ testimonies and a full report were presented to the human
rights court of the Organization of the American States in 2005. Such accounts personalize the
means by which indigenous peoples are forced to abandon their lands, their memories, their
cemeteries, and the cultural traditions that bind them as a community.
12
Butler and Wuerthner, Plundering Appalachia, 25.
Sam Gilbert, interview with the author, June 1, 2011.
14
Butler and Wuerthner, Plundering Appalachia, 23.
15
Ibid, 25.
16
Yamile Salinas, interview with the author, June 4, 2011.
13
45
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
In June we traveled from Barranquilla to the outskirts of Ciénaga, a Caribbean port at
the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains on the northern coast that had
been one of the most prosperous cities in Colombia until a government massacre of striking
United Fruit Company workers on December 6, 1928.17 The loss of the thriving banana industry
in the 1960s led to a pronounced economic decline. Despite the considerable growth of coal
exports by the La Loma, Cerrejon, and Drummond mines in the 1990s,18 its former splendor is
now reduced to grinding poverty.19 From Ciénaga we moved deeper into this region that has
the second largest number of victims of paramilitary and guerrilla violence in the nation. 20 Now
they are again facing displacement, loss of their land and traditions, and pervasive hunger
because the Colombian government has abrogated protections of the indigenous peoples, their
rights to prior consent, and their lands as guaranteed by the 1991 Colombian Constitution and
the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007.
Rationalizing their actions, Colombian officials promise jobs to the local jobless while parroting
claims of the very mega-development projects that depend on the minerals beneath indigenous
lands.
Tapestry of Cultural Diversity Preserves Many Natural Resources
There are 1.4 million indigenous peoples in 102 different groups, and 64 of them are in
danger of extinction.”21 We met Camilo González Posso, president of the Instituto de Estudios
para el Desarrollo y la Paz(INDEPAZ), and governors of the four indigenous peoples who dwell in
the lush Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains. The 45,000 Kogis, Arhuacos, Wiwas, and
Kamkuamos are descendants of the ancient pre-Colombian Tayrona peoples. They live in an
ecological paradise drained by 30 rivers in the highest coastal mountain range in the world.
Calling themselves the “Elder Brothers and Guardians of the Corazón del Mundo” or “The
Guardians of the Heart of the World,” they believe it is their sacred trust to keep the universe in
balance and preserve the wealth of all knowledge. Revering the diversity of the mangrove
swamps, tropical rain forests, open woodlands, snowy mountaintops, and deserts in the 8,000
square miles of their homeland, they have developed sustainable practices over centuries. As
Caytano, governor of the Arhuaco peoples, explained, they are united like the four fingers of
one hand and work together to guarantee the rights guaranteed them by the 1991 Colombian
Constitution.22 Since the 1990s, they have suffered waves of marauding guerrilla fighters,
rampaging paramilitaries who massacred an entire Wiwa pueblo in six days in 2002, and
extrajudicial executions by military brigades. Now they must repel the onslaught of the
multinational coal corporations who have desecrated their lands, poisoned their waters, fouled
their air, driven off the animals, and forced them to seek refuge ever higher in the mountains.
17
Adolfo Meisel Roca, “La economía de Ciénaga después del banana,” Documentos de trabajo sobre la economía
regional, Banco de la República (Colombia), no. 44 (2004),
http://www.banrep.gov.co/documentos/publicaciones/pdf/DTSER-50.pdf.
18
Ibid, 36.
19
Ibid, 27.
20
Aviva Chomsky, interview with the author, June 4, 2011.
21
Camilo Gonzalez Posso, interview with the author, June 4, 2011.
22
Juan Caytano, interview with the author, June 4, 2011.
46
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
The corporate profiteers have dredged new ocean ports. They have dammed the Ranchería
River to irrigate banana and palm oil plantations and provide water for cleaning coal. With
these “development projects” have come dengue fever, mosquitos, and flesh-eating bacteria of
leptoporosis.23 And now the Cerrejón coal company plans to reroute the principal river in their
territory.
The 1991 Colombian Constitution clearly defends the rights of indigenous Colombians to
their land, their cultural integrity, and free, informed, and prior consent before any
development projects are undertaken in their territories. But guarantees are only as strong as
the government’s will to carry them out. For example, the indigenous council had tried to stop
the damming of the Ranchería River after studies clearly showed that the dam would be built
on a seismic fault line and that the cost to clean the polluted water would be even greater than
the cost of the dam itself. As the Wiwa explain, there are no words in their language to explain
the extent of the resulting pollution. Unfortunately the court has denied their brief because it
was submitted late. Furthermore, the court refused to acknowledge the fact that the brief was
due precisely when the entire community was fleeing bombardments by the military and
paramilitaries.24 Although guaranteed protection by the 1991 Constitution and the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in April 2009, the indigenous peoples
were again denied access to the national forum for hearing their concerns. Redress for their
grievances remains paradoxically elusive.
The Kogis
The Kogis share a cosmic vision of equilibrium between nature and man, between the
spiritual and the material worlds. “What is important, what has ultimate value, is not what is
measured and seen but what exists in the many realms of meanings and connections that lie
beneath the tangible realities of the world, linking all things.”25 For the Kogis, each living
creature and each plant is integral to maintaining the balance of the universe. They believe that
even the “most modest of creatures can be seen as a teacher, and every feature of the world
mirrors the whole.”26 Calling themselves the Elder Brothers, the Kogis believe that their
sustainable practices guarantee the well-being and harmony of the two million people who live
in the lower regions. As they heal the land, they heal themselves. As José de los Santos said in
June 2011, the planet is a living being who must be respected. Yet the corporate megaprojects
are “pulling our eyes out, cutting off our hands and feet by building dams, forts, giant banana
and palm oil plantations. Our veins are bleeding.”27
The Arhuaco
The Arhuaco Indians of the Sierra Nevada in the north are the most traditional Indian
tribe of Colombia and one of the most spiritual of the Americas. The very remoteness of their
habitat in the Sierra Nevada has enabled them to live in harmony with their environment while
23
Posso, June 4, 2011.
Posso, June 4, 2011.
25
Wade Davis, introduction to “Keepers of the World,” National Geographic, October 2004,
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature3/index.html.
26
Ibid.
27
José de los Santos, interview with the author, June 6, 2011.
24
47
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
preserving their traditions and customs. The men wear white robes and a white cone-shaped
hat that represents the snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada. They never leave their houses without
the poporo, a pear-shaped gourd used to prepare coca leaves for chewing and mediation. This
mild stimulant provides essential vitamins and minerals and is both a rite of passage for boys
and a symbol of adulthood.28
These indigenous peoples are willing to extend this harmonious relationship to mining
companies through mutual respect. However, in September 2006, the International Verification
Mission on the Humanitarian and Human Rights Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
sent a delegation of human rights experts from Europe, Latin America, the United States, and
Canada to interview indigenous peoples in five regions of Colombia, as well as government
officials, diplomats, UN officials, and others. In their report, they wrote that the “[i]ndigenous
peoples (men, women, children, and their organizations) are currently victims of violations to
fundamental human rights and crimes against humanity, such as political murders, mass and
arbitrary detentions, torture and cruel treatment, forced disappearances, searches,
unsubstantiated accusations, criminal investigations and groundless charges, ongoing
checkpoints, and limitations to movement.29
The delegation confirmed that the government had used “informant networks, anti-riot
squads, and military units to carry out violations of indigenous peoples’ rights.”30 By sponsoring
large-scale, corporate development projects they “de-structure territory, break the natural and
spiritual balance that indigenous peoples have maintained over the years, as well as adversely
affect health, productive and growing cycles, and the co-existence of the indigenous
communities.”31
The Commission’s report goes on to implicate the Colombian government in systematic
efforts to enact laws “that reverse the rights attained by indigenous peoples, lead to the
generation of greater levels of socio-cultural exclusion and violence, and create clear settings
for the extinction of indigenous peoples.”32
In 2007, after twenty-five years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly adopted the
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. For the first time, native peoples whose
heritage lands often extend across national borders negotiated as equals with representatives
of national governments. Offering testimony of displacement, exclusion, discrimination, and
cultural genocide, they pled their case for restoring their cultural autonomy and for inclusion in
all negotiations about their welfare. As a result, the UN Declaration acknowledges indigenous
peoples’ right to self-determination, prior and informed consent, and control over their
territories. The Declaration recognizes “that respect for indigenous knowledge, cultures and
28
Alexander Rieser, Pa’lante: A Journey Through Colombia. (Calgary, Vancouver, Canada: Scotia Waterous & Scotia
Capital, 2009).
29
Mark Cherrington, “Human Rights Delegation Finds Colombia Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity,” Cultural
Survival Quarterly 30.4 (Winter 2006) Land & Resources in the Americas,
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/colombia/human-rights-delegation-findscolombia-guilty-crim.
30
Ibid.
31
International Verification Mission on the Humanitarian and Human Rights Situation of Indigenous Peoples in
Colombia, “Final Statement,” World Rainforest Movement, September 28, 2006,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Colombia/Final_Statement.html.
32
Ibid.
48
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
traditional practices contributes to sustainable and equitable development and proper
management of the environment.” Therefore, indigenous peoples have the right to:

their lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or
otherwise used or acquired. (Article 26)

practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. (Article 11)

maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally
owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas & other
resources. (Article 25) 33
Inequality
Written sixteen years after Colombia’s new constitution and amplifying protections for
indigenous peoples named there, these words offer little solace in everyday life. Nothing is ever
simple in Colombia where natural resources are valuable commodities sold to the highest
bidder. As Galeano explains, in “systems organized upside down, when the economy grows,
social injustice grows with it.”34 As rural peoples are forcibly displaced from their heritage lands
and vast tracts of land come under the control of multinational corporations, poverty increases
at an alarming rate. “In fact between 2005 and 2008, wealth concentration worsened and
Colombia moved from the 9th to the 6th most unequal country in the world.” 35 Some 16,350
landowners (0.4% of the total) held 62.6% of the land.”36 In terms of income inequality, “Latin
America is the most unequal region in the world” and “Colombia is the third most unequal
country in the Americas after Bolivia and Haiti.”37
Land Ownership is Key to Food Security and Cultural Survival
“Around 63 per cent of Colombia’s indigenous population lives below the poverty line,
while almost 48 per cent lives in extreme poverty. This situation is only made worse by the
large numbers of indigenous people who, due to internal displacement, are forced to live in
overcrowded conditions where they lack access to even the most basic services.”38 Estimated
per person annual income in U.S. dollars is $3,021. Consequently, among the indigenous and
Afro-Colombian peoples, 65.3 percent39 are unable to afford the most basic of daily needs.
Most have no recorded titles to land, no running water, and no electricity.
33
United National Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007,
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf.
34
Galeano, Open Veins, 282.
35
“EU Trade Agreement with Colombia and Peru,” ABColombia, November 2010,
http://www.abcolombia.org.uk/downloads/8FE_EU_trade_agreement_with_Colombia_and_Peru.pdf.
36
“At last the government tries to reverse a violent agrarian ‘counter-reform,’” The Economist (September 16,
2010), http://www.economist.com/node/17043061.
37
“Poverty, Inequality and Drugs,” ABColombia, http://www.abcolombia.org.uk/mainpage.asp?mainid=76.
38
“International Day of the World’s Indigenous People: Colombia,” ABColombia (August 9, 2011),
http://www.abcolombia.org.uk/subpage.asp?subid=409&mainid=22.
39
“Datos de interés sobre La Guajira,” Cerrejón corporate website. http://www.cerrejon.com/site/nuestraempresa/la-guajira/datos-de-interes-sobre-la-guajira.aspx.
49
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Human Rights Record
Colombia has the worst human rights record in Latin America. According to the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, nearly five million people40 have been forcibly displaced
within their own nation by civil war, military/paramilitary targeting of civilian populations, and
the greed of multinational agricultural and extractive industries. “In January 2009, the
Colombian Constitutional Court issued a Ruling (Auto 004) on the rights of indigenous peoples
displaced by the conflict. The ruling states that the armed conflict disproportionately affects
indigenous peoples and places them at serious risk of physical and cultural extinction.”41 Yet
not only have no plans been developed to rescue the thirty-four indigenous peoples in danger
of extinction, but “[r]eportedly, in the period January to May 2011, there have been 17
massacres of indigenous peoples resulting in 76 deaths; a 21 percent increase from the same
period in 2010.”42 Special Rapporteur James Anaya concluded in his report to the General
Assembly of the UN in May 2010 that “multiple indications [indicate] that the grave situation of
the indigenous people in Colombia has not been addressed with the level of urgency it
deserves.”43 He goes on describe their “precarious human rights” situation that “reflects the
gap between progressive domestic legislation and the ineffectiveness of the institutions
responsible for protecting.”44 He is concerned that “their rights are still being violated through
“concessions granted and projects authorized without the necessary prior consultation with the
affected communities.”45
Big Coal is Big Business in Colombia
According to Camilo González Posso of INDEPAZ, Colombia is a verdant paradise and the
leading exporter of coal, oil and gold in Latin America. Seventy percent of those exports go to
U.S. markets.46 Although touted as the economic salvation of Colombia, most profits from coal
are reinvested in infrastructure that directly benefits the companies, such as railroads, roads,
dams, airports. None of this development benefits local communities. Nor does the coal itself
benefit Colombians. As Jack Kimball of Reuters explains, “Colombia, the world’s No. 4 coal
exporter, is looking to nearly double production of the material over the coming years”47 and
“the industry ships most of its coal to Europe and the United States.”48 As Eder Arregoces Pinto,
40
Witness for Peace. “National Days of Action for Colombia,”
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5436/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2747.
41
“International Day of the World's Indigenous People: Colombia.”
42
Ibid.
43
James Anaya, “The situation of indigenous peoples in Colombia: Follow-up to the recommendations made by the
previous Special Reporter,” in “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental
freedoms of indigenous people,” Report to the15th Session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations
GE10-13669 ( E) 070719, (May 25, 2010),1.
44
Ibid, 6.
45
Ibid, 46.
46
Posso, June 4, 2011.
47
Jack Kimball, “Colombia's Drummond sees 2011 coal output up 14 pct,” Reuters (September 20, 2011),
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/colombia-drummond-idUSS1E78J1CW2011092.
48
Ibid.
50
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
president of Chancleta’s community action council, commented, “It [Cerrejón Coal] may be one
of the largest coal mines in Latin America but most families here can eat only one meal a day.”49
As in Appalachia where coal mines produce “just 5 to 10 percent of total U.S. coal production”
and “generate less than 4 percent of our electricity,”50 little Colombian coal is used to generate
electricity in Colombia where power is either thermoelectric or hydroelectric. Furthermore,
some estimate that the coal deposits may last only another 80 years. But the annihilation of
indigenous and historically Afro-Colombian communities that lie in the path of development
will be permanent.
Unlike native peoples and Afro-Colombians who measure progress in terms of harmony
and sustainable subsistence, coal companies measure progress as exploiting “the mineral
deposit at the lowest possible cost with a view of maximizing profits. 51 Simply put, to attract
foreign investment, Colombia rewrites laws to authorize state control over mineral rights and
then conspires to evict residents from their lands. In order to gain access to the minerals on
adjacent lands they tantalize poor residents with promises of new homes, roads, jobs,
education and public services. This tactic effectively divides communities as some families
choose to accept the deal while others insist on staying in their homes to farm and hunt as they
always have. Those who resist the voluntary relocation feel the wrath of the coal companies
who use lawyers and government officials to baffle residents unaccustomed to evaluating such
apparently good deals. If this coercion fails, paramilitaries burn villages, assassinate leaders,
rape women, and empty tiny hamlets so development can proceed.52
Planning and Carrying Out a Mining Project
In Colombia, the ore is close to the surface and deep mine shafts are not economically
feasible, so mining corporations use the technique called open-pit mining or mountaintop
removal (MTR.) It “flattens mountains and devastates ecosystems. In this process, forests are
clear-cut to expose the tops of mountains, which are then blown off with explosives. Coal is
extracted using large machinery and the unused soil and rock are dumped into adjacent valleys,
filling them up and creating a flat landscape.”53 New, gigantic, flat-topped walls of debris called
overburden are dumped between tiny communities and along the periphery of open pit mines.
They swallow farmers’ fields, impede the movement of grazing animals, disrupt rivers and
streams, and leach poisons into the earth and water. Mountaintop-removal and open-pit mines
also produce “massive amounts of toxic waste like heavy metals and other carcinogens that
49
Suzanne MacNeil, “Union-Community Solidarity in Colombia: Sintracarbón Takes a Stand,” Colombia Journal
(February 19, 2007), http://colombiajournal.org/union-community-solidarity-in-colombia-sintracarbon-takes-astand.htm.
50
Butler and Wuerthner, Plundering Appalachia, 23.
51
“Open Pit Surface Mine,” Mine-Engineer.com, http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/open_pit.htm.
52
Posso, June 4, 2011.
53
“Coal: Why It's Dirty,” Green America,
http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/climate/dirtyenergy/coal/whydirty.cfm.
51
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
must be stored in ponds or slurries, which may leak or burst and endanger nearby towns.” 54
Slurry often pollutes the water supply.55
Carbones del Cerrejón
Located in the largest reserves of coal in all of Latin America and comprised of seven
open pits, Carbones del Cerrejón is the world’s largest open-pit mine. It is about 30 miles long
and 5 miles wide,56 almost exactly the size of Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. Each day about
85,000 tons of high-quality thermal coal57 are extracted from this giant operation. Each year
they extract about 30 million tons of coal.58 Cerrejón was initially incorporated as Carbones de
Colombia (Carbocol) as a joint project of government of Colombia and Intercor, a subsidiary of
the U.S. energy company Exxon Mobil. Since sales and a merger in 2006, Cerrejón is a
multinational consortium owned equally by Anglo American, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata (33
percent each). Originally licensed for 30 years, the license has recently been extended another
25 years, until 2034, when most of the ore will have been extracted.59 A giant corporation,
Cerrejón employs 4,600 workers. Another 3,800 are employed by contractors.60 Yet almost
none of the current employees are indigenous peoples or Afro-Colombian residents of the local
communities. Throughout the day and night busloads of employees arrive to work in shifts
while the people living without running water or electricity on the expanding boundaries of
corporate land are being swindled into relinquishing their humble homes or simply forced out.
The mining operation is exacerbating poverty and unemployment and increasing hunger by
usurping local farmland and destroying fields used for grazing sheep, goats, and some cattle.
The clear cutting and acres of barren landscape also disrupt the foraging patterns of wild
animals formerly hunted for food.
Open-Pit Mining: Decapitating Mountains
Massive machinery at Cerrejón can “undo in months what geological processes took
millions of years to build.”61 After purportedly relocating all wildlife from vast tracks of land,
they clear cut forests, strip off all vegetation, and scrape off the topsoil. Then 500 machines at
Cerrejón62 rip, drill, and blast the rock to expose coal, layer by layer, using “explosives up to 100
times as strong as ones that tore open the Oklahoma City Federal building.”63 Then the drag
line, a giant machine that can weigh up to 8 million pounds, exposes rock and gouges out the
54
Ibid.
Butler and Wuerthner, http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/theissue.htm.
56
Chomsky, interview with the author, June 6, 2011.
57
Luis Jaime Acosta and Jack Kimball, “Colombia Coal Union, Cerrejón Near Deal – Officials,” Reuters (February 5,
2011), http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/05/colombia-cerrejon-idUSN0528732120110205.
58
Jairo Quiroz of the Sintracarbón Union, interview with the author, June 7, 2011.
59
“Carbones del Cerrejón Coal Mine, Colombia,” Mining-Technology.Com, http://www.miningtechnology.com/projects/cerrejon/cerrejon1.html.
60
Ibid.
61
Butler and Wuerthner, http://www.plunderingappalachia.org/theissue.htm.
62
Orlando Cuello, interview with the author, June 5, 2011.
63
“What is Mountaintop Removal Mining?” Mountain Justice.Org, http://mountainjustice.org/facts/steps.php.
55
52
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
ore. This behemoth has a base as big as a gymnasium and can be as tall as a 20-story building.64
Next, they load the waste into 154-ton dump haulers and carry it to hoppers where it is
crushed. Then it is washed with water mixed with 368 chemicals.65 The noise is constant, dust
settles everywhere for miles in all directions, and giant explosions crack mud brick walls and
collapse sheds constructed of slim tree trunks. In an adequate but costly attempt to reduce the
particles in the air, every 12 hours twenty 20-tank trucks each holding 18,000 gallons of water
spray their contents on the barren landscape. Twice each day these trucks traverse this same
desolate moonscape, spraying water to reduce dust while wasting precious water in this semiarid region. The resulting toxic brew of water, chemicals, and coal dust creates liquid waste
called slurry that is stored in ponds called impoundments that may leak and bury homes or
poison water sheds. Next, coal is loaded into silos and then on to a train of 128 open coal cars
that operates 24 hours a day, every day. Generally two trains make the 12-hour trip north each
day to the ocean port, Puerto Bolívar. In some areas, trains pass every 15 minutes day and night
while shedding coal dust that covers every plant and every tree. It seeps into every home and is
breathed in and drunk by animals and people alike. Constructed at the behest of Cerrejón,
Puerto Bolívar has become one of the largest ports for loading coal in the world. At the port,
conveyor belts deliver coal to small ships that in turn carry it to larger ships anchored in the
deeper waters of the Atlantic. Sometimes ships capsize. Sometimes ships catch fire. They
always pollute. All phases of the operation, the mine, the railroad, and the port operate 24
hours per day and pollute land, air, and water on a magnitude hard to imagine.
Meanwhile the waste back at the mine is pushed into valleys or carried to the edges of
company property where it forms immense walls of overburden that extend toward the horizon
and dwarf the tiny two- or three-room houses now in their shadows. Valleys fill. Soil and water
become polluted. The landscape changes forever.
“Clean Coal is a Delusion”66
Of course, Carbones del Cerrejón and Drummond Coal Corporation try to mask this vast
destruction and publicize their efforts at reclamation. Cerrejón’s slogan “Coal for the world;
progress for Colombia” dominates enormous billboards throughout region, pops up on their
website, and beckons from slick brochures to convince investors and the unwary. Cerrejón’s
campaign of “Responsible Mining” that professes to adhere to the highest standards and work
in partnership with surrounding communities, undergirds a massive - and expensive - marketing
campaign. Clever television commercials mix the whimsy of children, images of family unity,
and pleas for national pride in a corporate fairy tale to obfuscate the truth. Yes, the industry
does smooth out the most devastated and ragged contours in the bleak landscape and plants
fast-growing vegetation, but natural habitats are gone forever. Dispossessed families scatter as
their communities are dismantled. Huge gashes in the earth visible to the astronauts belie the
truth of marketing strategies. As local residents and ecologists explain, the scale of the
64
Ibid.
Cuello, June 5, 2011.
66
Reg Morrison, “The Clean-Coal Delusion,” Scientific American (December 13, 2007),
http://homepage.mac.com/gregalchin/rm/pdfs/coal%20delusion.pdf.
65
53
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
environmental degradation confirms that Colombia is a nation in crisis. In areas controlled by
mining interests there is not even a leaf on the tiniest weed. It looks like a barren wasteland.
Even far from the open pit mines themselves, coal mining impacts the economy, human
health, and the ecological balance. On the northern coast Santa Marta is Colombia’s oldest city,
founded in 1524. Progress there is measured in tourist dollars and room reservations. The city
offers many attractions including white beaches, colonial architecture, and proximity to “Lost
City” one of oldest pre-Colombian civilizations. But coal dust is fouling its air and water. “Four
mining companies use Santa Marta and its environs as a storage depot and offloading point for
coal. But the facility maintained by Carbosan in the Santa Marta port, just hundreds of yards
from the densely populated city center, is the main source of the dust.”67 Every day some 200
open trucks full of coal shed dust en route to a 4-story holding place on the edge of the
Caribbean. That dust “covers the plants, the furniture, enters into the reception area and even
the rooms,” said Leonor Gomez Gonzalez, owner of the beachfront Park Hotel. “It’s a
permanent condition. Nothing stays clean.”68 Coal also spills from barges, contaminates the
water, has damaged marine ecology and put the fishing industry at risk. The tourist industry
suffers. Residents suffer and the ecosystem is at risk.
Notwithstanding the coal industry’s marketing ploys that promise local development,
James Gustav Speth, former administrator of the UN Development Program, has said:
“Sustainable human development is development that not only generates economic growth but
distributes its benefits equitably; that regenerates the environment rather than destroying it;
that empowers people rather than marginalizing them.”69
The Human Cost of Mining
Tiny indigenous Afro-Colombian and campesino communities that are adjacent to the
mining operation are in a state of siege. In the short term, company-financed environmental
assessments have been skewed to favor big business. Meanwhile, multinational coal mining has
flooded mangrove swamps that were rich hunting grounds, cut people off from their sacred
territories, and affirmed the unequal balance of power thus leaving the heritage communities
with little recourse and absolutely no power to resist the incursion of the machines, the divideand-conquer tactics of corporate lawyers, and the relentless pollution that sickens their
children.
For example, Tabaco, a community of 700 self-sufficient residents, most of African
descent, who raised fruits, vegetables, cattle, goats and chickens, has been forcibly dismantled
to permit expansion of the Cerrejón mine. Their school, health center, and police station had
served them as well as serving residents of smaller, nearby communities. They had electricity
and running water. Using the land- appropriation strategy that they would continue to refine,
representatives of Cerrejón promised some home owners that if they relinquished the titles to
their land, they would still be able to farm it or the company would reward them with new
67
Chris Kraul, “Black Residue Settles over Santa Marta,” June 14, 2006, http://www.laborrights.org/end-violenceagainst-trade-unions/colombia/news/11393
68
Kraul.
69
James Gustav Speth, Epigraph in Just and Lasting Change: When Communities Own Their Futures, ed. Daniel
Taylor-Ide and Carl E. Taylor. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), viii.
54
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
houses in town, job training, and higher incomes. Dazzled by such an offer, some residents
were duped into selling their properties. However, as their water became polluted and their
pastures were appropriated, nearly 100 people resisted. As farmers, they knew that if they lost
their land, they would also lose their source of food, their history, their cultural identity, and
their shared traditions. Meanwhile, in deference to Cerrejón and in defiance of state policies,
the Ministry of Mines and Energy declared the area a mining reserve, as if it were a totally
uninhabited, empty space. In response to this new affront, residents appealed to the courts and
cited the 1991 Colombian Constitution that recognizes the rights of Indigenous and AfroColombian communities to prior consultation about proposed changes to their territories and
traditions. Nevertheless, on August 9, 2001, a judge ordered that everyone surrender their
homes.70 Within hours, employees of Cerrejón, 500 soldiers, and 200 policemen invaded the
church, forcibly evicted everyone, and bulldozed every home flat. All of their meager
possessions were destroyed. Their animals were let loose. Their cemetery was desecrated. One
former resident yelled, “How can you tear down my house? Everything I own is inside it. Then
15 police officers answered by hitting me unconscious with their clubs.”71 Before his home and
the entire town were annihilated, this man had run a farm prosperous enough to send his
children to the university. Now he lives in poverty. Ten years later, those same 100 former
residents of Tabaco are crowded into relatives’ homes in other villages. Nine years ago, in 2002,
a judgment awarded the Tabacans the right to resettlement as a community in the municipality
of Hatonuevo and some reparations for their losses. Yet they are still waiting for Cerrejón to
fulfill its promise of relocating them as a community to other farmland where they can be
assured of food security and stability. Because of rampant corruption at all levels of
government and corporate greed, the court’s judgment has been ignored. The community has
been razed, the social fabric has been irreparably rent, and the dignity of humble people has
been denied.
Other tiny, defenseless communities nearby are similarly at risk. As Eder Arregoces Pinto
of Chancleta observes ironically, “What a paradox: We are surrounded by the world’s largest
coal mine, and we don’t have enough to eat! Most of the families here can only eat one meal a
day, all because we don’t have land. There is outrageous exploitation that fails to see that there
are human beings living here, there are black and indigenous communities. The environmental
situation is worse than critical. The government pursues those who plant bombs and kill people.
But what about a company that is slowly killing people off with contamination? Is that not
terrorist?”72
The largest indigenous group in Colombia, the Wayuus, number about 500,000. Wayuu
and other indigenous reservations occupy more than 27% of national territory.73 A semi70
Avi Chomsky and Cindy Forster, “Extraction: In Colombia, a Mine Takes Much More from the Land than Coal,”
Cultural Survival Quarterly 30.4 (Winter 2006) Land & Resources in the Americas,
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/colombia/extraction-colombia-minetakes-much-more-land-coal.
71
Dennis Romer Adamson et al., “The Curse of Coal: A Report,” DanWatch: Investigative Journalism on Corporate
Ethics (May 2010), http://www.multiwatch.ch/cm_data/100505_danwatch_cerrejon.pdf.
72
Chomsky and Forster.
73
Jairo Montoya, “Explanation of vote in the consideration of Draft Resolution A/61/L.67: “United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Report for Human Rights Council, (August 13, 2007),
55
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
nomadic people, Wayuus have lived on the Guajira peninsula for centuries because no one else
wanted the arid land. They have raised animals and farmed where a few little rivers crossed
their land. When large deposits of coal were discovered, however, their tranquil, if very
difficult, lives were disrupted. Although wary, they initially welcomed the mine and its promise
of jobs, roads, clean and steady water supply, and schools. But they were deceived on a
massive scale. Their ancestral lands have been raped, mineral deposits sold, and entire
communities bulldozed for corporate profit. Aviva Chomsky explains that “What they didn’t
predict was the suffocating dust, the loss of land, the cultural decomposition, and the
increasing poverty that the mine would bring to the region’s communities. They didn’t predict
that village after village would fall to the mine’s inexorable expansion. They didn’t predict the
coughing, the respiratory diseases, the skin diseases, and the deaths. They didn’t predict the
way the mine would succeed in buying off members of their communities and creating new
lines of tension among families, clans, and villages.”74
If Wayuu families tried to resist displacement from their ancestral lands, they received
anonymous threats, women were raped, and leaders were murdered by paramilitary assassins.
As Karmen Ramírez, leader of Fuerza de las mujeres Wayúu said in 2008, “Not only are the
paramilitary actions killing the Wayúu people, so too are the actions of the multinationals.”75
She continued, “By now there have been 250 crimes, among them murders and rapes
committed against our people, and 27 of them have been committed against my family.” 76
By now, the Cerrejón corporation has bought up most of the adjacent farm lands on the
borders of the ever-expanding mine. As farms have been vacated, the Wayuu and AfroColombians have lost their jobs as day laborers in the communities that have been razed or
abandoned. They have also lost access to pasture lands and hunting territories. Eking out a
living and feeding their families had been very difficult before. Now, with the encroachment of
the mine, it is nearly impossible.
This wrenching scenario is repeated in every tiny community and cluster of houses
bordering the multinational mining corporations. In June 2011, while en route to La Jagua de
Iberico, one of the villages scheduled for displacement by the Drummond Coal Mine in César
Department, we saw and breathed the choking dust that covered everything: every blade of
grass, every leaf that the cows were munching on, all the clean clothes hanging on the line, and
even the children’s bare feet. As we approached the wall of toxic overburden that nearly
surrounded the houses, the tires stirred up clouds of dust that enveloped the vehicle and
reduced visibility to nearly zero. It was a completely surreal scene.
Just as the Carbones del Cerrejón Corporation has swallowed the town of Tabaco, it
continues to expand by enticing the Colombian government with promises of tax monies and
trade advantages. It continues to usurp all the lands in surrounding villages that are even
smaller than Tabaco was. The mine has a “voracious appetite for land and it consumes about
http://www.fns.bc.ca/info/UNDeclaration/Stmnts%20Made%20by%20States%20Before%20and%20After%20the%
20Vote/Colombia.pdf.
74
Chomsky and Forster.
75
AmecoPress. “Karmen Ramírez:‘No sólo las acciones paramilitares están matando al pueblo Wayúu, también las
acciones de las multinacionales’" WebIslam, Oct 14, 2008. http://www.webislam.com/?idt=11180.
76
Ibid.
56
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
600 hectares [1250 acres] per year.”77 Now the tiny community of Tamaquitos is completely
surrounded by mines. According to Adamson, residents there used to “have access to 12,500
acres, but Cerrejón’s systematic buying of the surrounding land has reduced their area to 25.5
acres.”78 One afternoon we bumped along dirt roads in a jeep and drove through eight streams
to reach Tamaquitos, a Wayuu community of about 114 people living in 34 houses. People
there are poor but self-sufficient. They only need to buy rice and cooking oil. Yet 24 hours a day
they are assailed by noise and toxic dust. Erosion on a massive scale disrupts farming, limits
pasture land, and causes native plants used for traditional medicine to disappear. The residents
are penned in by massive walls of toxic overburden. Many are plagued by ill health on a scale
never seen before. Children suffer from severe respiratory diseases. Their hair falls out. Babies
cry constantly. Unable to survive the carcinogens and air heavy with particulate matter, the
elderly die early.
In order to literally survive and stop the onslaught of threats, they must choose to
abandon their animals and the only lives they have known as self-sufficient farmers. Since they
are indigenous peoples who do not live on official Wayuu reserves, the government does not
recognize their titles to land. If they accept relocation into tiny cement homes on the outskirts
of a nearby town, they cannot hang their hammocks, they cannot plant a garden, they cannot
hunt or fish on nearby without being fined or jailed. They cannot heal themselves because they
have no access to medicinal plants. As their community scatters, their shared heritage
dissolves.
Las Casitas, a village of 48 Afro-Colombian families, is also undergoing relocation. Here,
as in the other tiny villages, the dirt roads, sick children, and walls of overburden give lie to the
coal behemoth’s marketing campaign of responsible mining in partnership with surrounding
communities. For example, although the Cerrejón Corporation has placed a device to monitor
air quality near the homes, the company refuses to release data to the community.
Furthermore, among the many exceptions in the relocation program offered by Cerrejón, only
people who were at home on the day the census was taken are eligible for relocation. No one in
a grave in the cemetery is eligible, so graves are not moved. The leader of the community
himself is not eligible even though he owns a home. Since the local school only goes through
grade 5, he had felt compelled to move to the city to educate his children and had left a
caretaker in charge of his very humble house. That employee who still tends a tiny plot of land
is now eligible for relocation, but the community leader and his family are not. Living the
paradox of the powerless, by choosing a better future for his children, he has lost his land, lost
any hope of reparations, and now watches his entire community disintegrate.
In Roche, community leader Lino Ustate Ramírez said, this is “our beloved Roche that
we have loved, still love, and will always love. We struggled for 15 years with Cerrejón. They
took advantage of our poverty. They manipulated us. Made promises. They wore us down.”79
As we walked in a light rain down a dirt road, Ustate Ramírez continued, “Fifty percent of the
77
Alejandro Pulido, ”Coal and its Effects: Case Study: Cerrejón Zona Norte, 2003,” trans. Aviva Chomsky in The
People Behind Colombian Coal: Mining, Multinationals and Human Rights, ed. Aviva Chomsky, Garry Leech, and
Steve Striffler. (Colombia: Casa Editorial Pisando Callos, 2007), 81.
78
Adamson.
79
Ustate Ramírez, interview with the author, June 5, 2011.
57
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
residents were tricked into making deals with Cerrejón.”80 We then paused beside a small pile
of rubble that had been the site of a family’s home. Ustate Ramírez then added this chilling
explanation, “We had to destroy our own house to receive any compensation from Cerrejón, to
move into New Roche. We had to take it apart piece by piece as our children watched.”81
Conclusion
In Colombia, sustainable small-scale development that respects the dignity of people in
heritage communities is no match for the economic imperialism of megaprojects financed by
megacorporations. As Shiva explains, “A system like the economic growth model we know
today creates trillions of dollars of super profits for corporations while condemning billions of
people to poverty.”82 Government corruption, free trade agreements, lax environmental
regulations, unreflective consumption in developed nations, and greed permit the privatization
of natural resources, the dissolution of communities, and cultural genocide.
Is there a difference between Kentucky and Colombia? In both places, clever marketing
strategies and a concerted appeal to vague notions of national progress just mask a litany of
broken promises and the failure to uphold national and international human rights and social
justice accords. In Colombia, ancestral lands have been seized. Indigenous and AfroColombians’ rights to collective territory have been denied. The right to prior consultation
before any large-scale development projects are undertaken has been ignored. As the
international mission examining the human rights situation of indigenous peoples in Colombia
concluded in 2006, “In addition to generating grave and irreparable environmental damage,
these large-scale development projects de-structure territory, break the natural and spiritual
balance that indigenous peoples have maintained over the years, as well as adversely affect
health, productive and growing cycles, and the co-existence of the indigenous communities.”83
The residents, communities, trade unionists, and human rights defenders who would
demand their rights risk threats, starvation, forced displacement and assassination.
Nevertheless, living with hope of a better future while battling in the courts and alongside the
trade unionists and human rights groups, they share their stories in the hope that international
allies with a larger voice will disrupt this cycle of violence. As a daily reminder of their
commitment they have painted this motto on the wall of a public building in a little village:
“There will only be a just and lasting change when communities own their own
futures. Then peace and harmony will be part of the community.”84
80
Ibid.
Ibid.
82
Shiva.
83
International Verification Mission.
84
Observation of the author, June 7, 2011.
81
58
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
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64
Conflicted Are the Peacemakers: Israeli and Palestinian Moderates and the Death of
Oslo by Eric N. Budd. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. Cloth, 176 pages, $120.00.
ISBN: 9781441159052
Unique, informative, and concise, Eric N. Budd’s, Conflicted Are the Peacemakers: Israeli
and Palestinian Moderates and the Death of Oslo, provides readers with an in-depth look at the
roles of the key players in the crumbling of the Oslo Peace Process. Traditionally, failed
attempts at peace are blamed on extremists from both ends of the spectrum. However, Budd
argues that the majority of the blame is held by Israeli and Palestinian moderate parties for
Oslo’s deterioration. As a professor in the Department of Economics, History, and Political
Science at Fitchburg State University, Budd’s expertise in the Israel and Palestine conflict,
peacebuilding implementation, and extensive outside research are displayed throughout this
book leaving the reader with a clear understanding of the reasons behind the failure of Oslo.
Budd begins by communicating descriptive explanations of all the players in the peace
process citing the doves as the activists for peace, the hawks as the drivers of violence, and the
moderates who fall in between the two. Budd goes on to contend that the moderates of Israel
and Palestine hold credibility, the ability to persuade, flexibility and practicality, empathy, and
collegiality making them able to consider everyone’s best interest. However, Budd places the
majority of the blame for the unraveling of the Oslo peace process on the moderates providing
explanations categorized under three principles. These three principles highlight the
asymmetrical distribution of power between Israel and Palestine, the lack of commitment both
sides exhibited to finding peace, and the inconsistent and contradictory approaches to
reconciliation both Israel and Palestine brought to the negotiating table.
Organized chronologically, chapters two and three provide numerous examples of
tensions that preceded and followed the meeting in Oslo, perhaps shaping its outcomes. The
first half of the book delivers insights into why and how the Oslo Peace Process began and how
both the Israeli and Palestinian moderates caused it to fail. In addition, Budd successfully
explains how the details of the Declaration of Principles signed at Oslo were doomed to fail
using his primary three principles. Central issues were purposefully avoided at Oslo. Moreover,
the presence of vague rhetoric, ambivalent intentions, unwillingness to recognize the other as
an equal player, along with several additional issues, contributed to the inability of the parties
to reach agreement on paths to peace. These two chapters provide the reader with a solid
foundation for understanding both the complications at Oslo and the author’s three core
principles.
The second half of the book offers a more in-depth evaluation while using the same
analytical structure seen throughout the book. This allows for the reader to continuously
reference the main three principles, never straying away from the author’s main point. Chapter
three looks at how the language used by both Israeli and Palestinian officials and the images
they hold of each other and themselves crushed the path of peace. In the wake of these issues
of trust, chapter four outlines further halfhearted attempts at peace through the Camp David
Summit, Beilin-Abu Agreement, and National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners which all
proved ineffective. Although Budd had introduced analysis of the role of outside players of the
peace process prior to this section, more emphasis was placed on the influence and efforts
from outside intervention.
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Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
In an effort not to leave the reader wondering how the situation could have been
improved upon, Budd concludes on how to successfully participate in peacebuilding providing
detailed examinations and implementations exemplifying his knowledge in the field. Readers
can take away lessons from the faults of both the Israelis and the Palestinians and pull many
examples of effective and ineffective approaches at seeking peace. In addition, Budd provides
in the back of the book key documents that support a deeper analysis of the peace process.
These include the Declaration of Principles that were negotiated at Oslo, the Beilin-Abu Mazen
document, and the National Conciliation document. They serve as useful supplements and
reference points into the broader picture of the history of attempts at peace by Israel and
Palestine.
With the layout of the book, the abundance of examples to support his argument, and
alternative methods of how the process could have and should have been handled, Budd
successfully conveys his position that the moderates fail to be able to achieve peace because
they use conflicting and self-serving approaches. Although Budd places the majority of the
blame on the moderates, he stays cognizant of the complexity of conflict transformation and
does acknowledge the challenges brought by the “doves” and especially by the “hawks.” While
repetitive in places, the volume consistently ties information on the failing of the process back
to the three principles central to the analysis. This makes the book easy to comprehend and
highly informative. The best audience for this book is students and practitioners in the areas of
international relations and peace studies; however, it does provide enough information and
clarity to engage anyone interested in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Although rich in
analysis, it is an accessible read well-suited for the university classroom.
__________________________
Cheri Pomerening
Mount Mary University
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Cheri Pomerening received her B.A. in Psychology/Behavioral Science and Justice as well as a
Certificate in Peacebuilding from Mount Mary University in May 2013. She plans to attend
graduate school to study International Relations.
66
U.S. War-culture, Sacrifice and Salvation by Kelly Denton-Borhaug. Equinox Publishing,
2011. Paper, viii + 279 pages, $29.95. ISBN: 9781845537111
Many peace educators have struggled with the pervasiveness of war and violence in this
world. Too often it seems that, in popular consciousness, the unchallenged assumption is that
this pervasiveness translates into a situation where violence becomes a necessary and natural
means to “fight fire with fire.” According to the biblical theologian, Walter Wink, this response
is underlain by a false belief in the “myth of redemptive violence,” briefly that violence can
“save us” and bring about peace. In the present volume, Kelly Denton-Borhaug convincingly
shows that U.S. war culture is buttressed by this belief. In particular, she draws our attention to
how a discourse of the necessity of sacrifice, both in terms of military service and ways of
understanding Jesus’ death on the cross, reinforce each other in the U.S. context,
monopolistically serving to quell dissenting and alternative positions.
In forming her argument, Denton-Borhaug provides many examples that show how
militarism is connected not only to industry in the United States, but also to film, video gaming,
education, and other aspects of culture. She also cites the predominance of a penal substitution
model of atonement in popular Christianity. Namely, this model is centered on the view that to
open a path for salvation, Jesus needed to die for us in order to pay a debt (or serve the
penalty) that was required as a matter of justice because of human sin. Here, Denton-Borhaug
makes the link with the way soldiers’ deaths have been explained throughout U.S. history as a
necessary sacrifice, in order to protect freedom at home (in particular) and abroad. Not only
are war and the death of U.S. soldiers required outcomes within this framing but the deaths of
enemy combatants and civilians in the theatre of combat also become necessary. The absence
of loved ones serving or dying abroad is also often represented within the language of
necessary sacrifice. Additionally, massive military budgets are justified in similar terms, even as
social programming is cut or ill-funded in favor of “the needs” national security.
The end result of these intersections, perhaps not surprisingly, given an all-volunteer
army, is that it is those on the margins of U.S. society who most often pay the highest cost of
military culture. Bearing the brunt of an unequally shared sacrifice are representatives of the
lowest socio-economic groups who are disproportionately represented in terms of U.S.
casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq even as those same groups are squeezed by the lack of a
wider social safety net at home. At the same time, military contractors grow wealthy and those
who directly choose to send troops into war remain aloof from the immediate dangers of
armed conflict. Lest some might be tempted to think that the rhetoric and effects of the myth
of sacrifice are problems particular to one side on the political divide in the United States,
Denton-Borhaug cites both Republican and Democratic use of sacrificial language when praising
dead soldiers’ valor, justifying the necessity of particular wars, and acknowledging the sacrifice
of loved ones via images of homes with empty chairs at the dinner table. This language of
sacrifice and necessity, as she points out, even crept into Barack Obama’s acceptance speech
for his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
Given the many knock-on effects of U.S. war culture, it follows from this analysis that
deconstructing and challenging this rhetoric of sacrifice may prove helpful in building peace in
America and abroad. Yet, Denton-Borhaug does not leave it there. She further suggests
alternative ways to approach difficult questions like, “if a soldier’s death was not a necessary
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 67-68
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
sacrifice then how do we explain it?” One of her principle argumentative strategies is to turn
back to the Christian tradition and note the multiplicity of other models of atonement. In
particular, she is attracted to a theology of work as a representative of the potential for
nonviolent understandings of the redemption. This theology of work would pose an alternative
to a national religion that seemingly requires the shedding of blood or at very least the bearing
of arms (as per the oath to naturalize U.S. citizens) to prove loyalty. In contrast, a nonviolent
theology of work would emphasize good work (labor) that is life giving in terms of both process
and results. According to Denton-Borhaug’s analysis, such a theology of work would have the
advantage of calling on us to look for deeper responses to loss and grieving than those afforded
by the discourse of “necessary sacrifice” and would further challenge expressions of U.S. civic
virtue to be more life giving at home and abroad. As Denton-Borhaug notes, this is arduous but
valuable work, which is already being undertaken by some who are motivated by hope for a
more peaceful world.
Two principal academic constituencies could benefit from reading this book. The first
group is those peace theorists and political scientists who are open to investigating possible
links between war culture and Christian imagery and are looking for a more theologically
differentiated, yet accessible, discussion on these issues than is generally presented in their
fields. Additionally, Christian theologians will be given pause for thought in terms of the sociopolitical consequences of expressions of doctrine. Finally and perhaps most crucially, moving
beyond academia, Kelly Denton-Borhaug’s internal voice and numerous illustrative examples
will have resonance for residents of the United States, and American Christians in particular,
who, whatever their development of a peace consciousness, are likely to benefit from the
stimulus of reading U.S. War-culture, Sacrifice and Salvation from within their cultural matrix.
__________________________
Christopher Hrynkow
Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Culture
Thomas More College
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada
68
A Whole Which is Greater: Why the Wisconsin “Uprising” Failed, Paul Gilk and David
Kast, editors. Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, OR, 2012. Paper, 251 pages, $30.00.
ISBN: 978-1620325605
The Progressive Movement in Wisconsin really wants to know what “went wrong” with
the “uprising” in early 2011, when Republican Governor Scott Walker announced his party’s
“budget repair bill.” The uprising failed in one sense to make any permanent changes in the
Republican move to greatly decrease the collective bargaining rights for most of the public
sector unions in the state. Why had the recall efforts failed and why were people turning
against the cherished position of unions?
Paul Gilk and David Kast, after participating in “Bob Fest,” an annual gathering of
Wisconsin progressives, wondered if there was a way of dealing with the partisan gridlock and
the lack of progress in fixing the problems that triggered the “repair bill” that sent thousands of
teachers and municipal workers to protest in the Wisconsin capital building and on Madison
streets. So Gilk and Kast asked many political, economic, religious, and sociological thinkers
who actively participated, or still do participate, in Wisconsin public life to comment on the
deeper issues involved in the “uprising” and its outcome.
“Initially, we wanted a deeper discussion than was presented through the media,” says
Paul Gilk. The editors were not anticipating, positively or negatively, the recall results and the
current outcome, but wanted to know more of the underlying issues involved in the drama of
2011 and 2012. The book, A Whole Which Is Greater, would be released after the recall
decisions were made, so they added the subtitle, “Why the Wisconsin ‘Uprising’ Failed.” “We
added it later to create a little more market excitement, I suppose,” Gilk said.
The essays that Gilk and Kast included in the volume do not answer the subtitle
question, but provide a worthy and readable text for understanding the climate of the period.
The essays give clear and compelling information that will allow the reader to answer for one’s
self that question—“Why did the uprising fail?” This volume also posits a survival prescription
that emanates from Paul Gilk’s hope for a “eutopian” instead of utopian future.
The essays provide “significant diversity,” as David Kast mentions in his foreword. They
range from Al Gedicks’s historical description of northern Wisconsin’s resistance to large-scale
corporate mining in the Bad River watershed to a philosophical statement by Maynard Kaufman
on the Myth of Progress; from a thoughtful, personal reflection by Margaret Swedish on her
activities in the Wisconsin political scene to theological and religious-oriented essays of James
Veninga, Michael Slattery, and James Botsford. Eric Yonke provides a brief and enlightening
explanation of the ideology and history of fascism that subtly hints at Wisconsin’s present state
of political life. These later essays set the stage for Paul Gilk’s analysis of the entire life of
Wisconsin politics suggesting that something more, something bigger is happening. There is a
larger story here, says Gilk—a story that implies that corporations have taken over government
and that this government-corporation partnership has become part of the ecological crises
facing our present world. Botsford, in particular, calls for humble movement into the awareness
that we are all part of the problem. We must learn to live beyond personal and family concerns
to respect for the entirety of life—“both the local and foreign and the sacredness inherent in all
being.”
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 69-70
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Kast and Gilk, as editors, offer in their introductions and conclusion suggestions for
looking beyond the personal Democratic or Republican ideology and caveats if we do not
extend our vision of the situation. They encourage the reader to examine carefully what each
can do. Remember, as redactors of information, they have final control of what the public sees
and can shape the details of the dialogue in varying directions. Biblical scholars know that very
well and Kast, and especially Gilk, apply their ideologies quite clearly, but not overbearingly.
They are attempting to see beyond the individual essays and find within the whole of the essays
the need to look for a new template of cooperation that might lead to a new creation, a new
culture, a new existence, not only in Wisconsin but also within the planet.
As Gilk states, “To actually live a post-civilized, post-industrial Green life is what we’re
now called upon to do.” (p. 235) Gilk’s conclusion, while commenting quite pointedly on each of
the essays’ contribution to the theme of the book, consistently brings the reader again and
again to his belief that the progressive’s sense of material comfort and his utopian belief in the
lifestyle of entitled well-being must not continue forever. Although Gilk does not detail the way
out of the political gridlock and its direction, he, David Kast, and the essays hint at what must
be done and why the Wisconsin “uprising” needed to fail. All the reader needs to do is divine
the answer one’s self and begin spiritual self-transformation.
__________________________
Michael A Ketterhagen
Associate Professor, Theology
Marian University
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
70
Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification and the Law by Tony Milligan. New York:
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. Paper, 176 pages, $29.95. ISBN: 9781441132093
Tony Milligan, Honorary Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen,
UK, and author of Beyond Animal Rights (Continuum, 2010) and Love (Acumen, 2011), draws
upon his previous work in a new book that will be valuable to both theorists and practitioners
of civil disobedience. On his Amazon author page, Milligan says: “My feeling is that we need a
new account of civil disobedience, one that is not modeled around the protests of decades ago
but which will, instead, help us to understand contemporary protests,” including environmental
and animal rights protests, and the recent Occupy movement. The book is valuable not only
because it re-examines the concept of civil disobedience in light of recent events, but also
because it examines the main streams of the tradition of theory and practice of civil
disobedience, in order to create a forward-looking account of civil disobedience for our time.
Milligan seeks to establish an open-textured definition which provides a basis for
categorizing and analyzing protest movements and actions in terms of which are to be included
and which excluded from the domain of CD. To that end he examines the communication
model of civil disobedience proposed by John Rawls, as well as the versions of conscientious
law-breaking advocated by Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., raising critical
questions about the ideas of each one. Given that those who engage in CD have historically
claimed special standing in the criminal justice system, the categorization of an act of protest as
civil disobedience may have real consequences, since activists who claim that their
conscientious acts of protest are not motivated by criminal intent expect a reduction in
penalties for law-breaking not afforded to others. But does claiming an act or movement as a
form of civil disobedience commit activists to uphold a pledge of non-violence, or to
acknowledge the authority of the government and the legitimacy of the framework of law (to
which the injustice of the law or policy they protest is an exception), or to make their acts
public, or to love (in some fashion) their opponents? Milligan raises doubts about each of these
traditional elements of the definition of civil disobedience, and points out that on these
grounds some kinds of contemporary activism would not count as civil disobedience, and that
many contemporary activists would be reluctant to have the forms of direct action they engage
in bound by these restrictions. For instance, not all local encampments of the Occupy
movement insisted upon the pledge of non-violence, and animal rights activists whose direct
action consists in freeing captive lab and factory-farmed animals often do so covertly, rather
than seeking publicity for their work. Anarchists refuse to recognize the authority of any
government (a position they hold in common with Tolstoy, and to an extent, Thoreau) and even
Martin Luther King, Jr., came to question whether it was possible, or appropriate, to love some
of his racist opponents. Milligan also takes up the uncomfortable question, for many
practitioners and theorists, of whether reactionary disobedience, such as abortion protest and
the defense of fox hunting in the UK, can be considered civil disobedience.
In response to these questions about the tradition, Milligan proposes that we adopt a
civility-based theory of civil disobedience which does not require activists to be saintly or
heroic, that proscribes harm to persons but may admit a degree of damage to property, that
allows covert action and does not require that the activists court arrest, and that is contentneutral with respect to the issues that occasion protest, as long as civility and respect for others
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 71-72
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
are assumed by practitioners. Milligan claims that his definition allows for traditionally
excluded issues such as economic protest, environmental welfare and animal rights, and opens
up the practice of civil disobedience to those whose protest is not rooted in religious belief.
Because Milligan’s own view emerges in the course of a dialogue with the tradition and
an examination of contemporary forms of protest, it may be a challenge for some readers to
pull together all of its details. Also, his argument for a civility-based model of civil disobedience
might have been strengthened by a more thorough exploration (rather than the scattered
treatment he gives it) of the role in civil disobedience of the rule of law under both
authoritarian and democratic governments. A theory of civil disobedience would benefit from a
careful examination of what constitutes justice in the creation and administration of law. The
rule of law is generally understood to include requirements such as these: that laws protect the
rights and security of citizens (and in the best case, of other living things and the environment),
that they are administered fairly and transparently, that government officials are accountable
to law, and that justice is delivered by officials who are not unduly influenced by political or
economic power and have adequate resources and credibility with the public. A systematic
examination of the ways in which the rule of law can fail might provide a more complete
account of what motivates activists to take exception to particular laws and policies, and a basis
for arguments about their justification in doing so.
Milligan’s book will be very useful for researchers looking for a thought-provoking
contemporary treatment of civil disobedience, and for students in both graduate and
undergraduate courses in peace studies, social movements and political theory.
__________________________
Donna Engelmann
Professor and Chair, Philosophy Department
Alverno College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
72
The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future by Robert A. Pastor.
Oxford University Press, 2011. Cloth, 202 pages, $24.95. ISBN: 978-0-19-978241-3
In The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future, Robert Pastor returns to
an argument he has made before—that Canada, Mexico, and the United States need to
reinvigorate their trilateral cooperation. Pastor is very clear, and measured, about what he
wants—a North American Community where three sovereign countries cooperate closely with
each other on a wide range of issues. Pastor is equally clear that he is not advocating a North
American Union with “pooled sovereignty” and supranational institutions that bear all the
hallmarks of a continental government. Despite this, some of his critics have taken to calling
Pastor the “father of the North American Union.”
Pastor made this argument previously in a 2008 Foreign Affairs article (“The Future of
North America”) and in his current book he both updates and expands his argument. The most
notable new wrinkle to his argument in that NAFTA has “run out of steam.” While Pastor
considers NAFTA a success, he thinks the “next step” in North American cooperation is needed.
This provides the book with an extra sense of urgency.
With more space to work with in a book format, Pastor can add new elements to his
argument. Foremost among the additions is a section on public opinion where he argues that a
series of attitudinal surveys show significant shared values between the three countries. He
argues that the three publics are willing but leaders, particularly in the United States, are timid.
Less successful is a section on “The Genetic Code of North America” where he discusses things
like the geographic development of the North American continent and prehistoric migration to
it. This material almost seems like filler and takes Pastor away from the core of this argument.
Pastor is perhaps at his most convincing when he is focused on the economic costs of the
current situation. He estimates this to be $66 billion annually with the costs of “rule of origins”
procedures, delays due to border restrictions, divergent regulations, and a handful of other
things.
The blueprint Pastor provides for a North American Community has four parts to it. The
first deals with the North American economy, particularly closing the income gap between
Mexico and its two northern neighbors, improving infrastructure and transportation
connections, coordinating economic policy, and harmonizing regulations. As he turns his
attention to security, Pastor discusses drug trafficking, counter-terrorism, border cooperation,
and natural disasters. A third component of his blueprint deals with transnational issues like
immigration, climate change, energy security, and education. The final part of the blueprint
might be the most controversial—creating North American institutions. Pastor argues that
while Europe created too many supranational institutions, too few (practically none) were
created in North America leaving what he calls an “institutional black hole.” Pastor’s vision is
not creating a North American government, but rather creating connections between existing
national institutions. One of the great strengths of this book, and with Pastor’s argument more
generally, is how comprehensive this blueprint is. While Pastor lays out a grand vision, he is not
expecting to see it realized any time soon. This might be a case of overreaching, but he likens
the idea of creating a North American Community to ending slavery or extending the right to
vote to women—ideas that took a long time to be accepted.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 73-74
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
One of the educational proposals Pastor makes, that the three North American
governments make grants to support North American Studies programs at universities,
highlights one of the obstacles facing the book. There are not many classes where this book is
likely to be adopted. The issue is too marginal for the book to be used in an American (or
Canadian or Mexican) politics class. The dearth of North American institutions makes it an
unlikely choice for an International Organizations class. It is even a long shot for a class since
there are so many more developed regional organizations. This is a provocative book that raises
important issues. It is a shame that more college students won’t be exposed to it.
__________________________
David Brooker
Associate Professor, Political Science
Alverno College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
74
Civilians in a World at War: 1914-1918 by Tammy M. Proctor. New York University Press,
2010. Cloth, 363 pages, notes, bibliography, $35.00. ISBN: 978-0-8147-6715-3
That World War I was a “total war” has become a truism that we too often state without
really understanding its ramifications. Tammy Proctor’s Civilians in a World at War: 1914-1918
goes far in helping us comprehend how the conflict touched noncombatants in minute and
global ways and how we have accepted and even embraced the militarization of our lives in the
century since that war. Drawing upon a wide array of sources from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the
Americas, Proctor examines the many roles that “civilians” played in World War I.
Proctor explores the evolution of the terms “civilian” and “soldier.” By the time of World
War I, “civilians” were seen as noncombatants who needed to be protected and defended,
largely women, children, and elderly men. Soldiers, by contrast, were adult men who did the
protecting. Ironically, these usages evolved precisely at the time when the lines between the
experiences of soldiers and of civilians were increasingly hard to distinguish. Thus, the idea of
the “civilian” as one who needed to be protected or defended had become psychologically
important to justify the war even if it did not reflect reality.
Proctor uses seven of the book’s eight chapters to discuss the different roles civilians
played in the war, making clear that the soldier/civilian dichotomy was an illusion. Chapter one
examines the process by which societies turned civilians into soldiers, emphasizing the difficulty
of turning conscripts and volunteers into killers. Chapter two looks at those deemed “unfit” for
service in the military (colonized peoples, minorities, women, children, and elderly men) who
were enlisted to do the “work” of war while the soldiers “fought” the war. The third chapter
considers the importance of the concept of “home front” as a separate, safe, domestic,
feminine space apart from the war. Despite this, Proctor documents a great deal of overlap and
movement between the “home front” and the “battlefield.” The fourth chapter explores those
whose “home fronts” were located between battle fronts or on battle lines. These people were
often forced to provide food, lodging, entertainment, and work for armies and as such their
lives were significantly different than civilians living in the “home fronts” that were further
removed from the fighting. Chapters five and six deal with medical personnel, humanitarian
workers, relief workers, and “experts” in various fields who regularly moved back and forth
from the battle fronts to the staging areas to the home fronts. These were often considered
civilians; however, they experienced many of the same dangers as soldiers. In chapter seven,
she looks at people who were interned as “aliens” in enemy countries or as dissenters in their
own, living in a kind of limbo between two worlds. In her last chapter, Proctor takes a
somewhat different tack and explores the pressures and tensions of war that led civilians to
engage in civil wars, revolutions, strikes, and rebellions both during and after the war.
The blurring of the soldier/civilian identity has had important consequences both during
and after World War I. For after November 1918, “the logic of war and its structuring of politics,
society and culture continued.” (p. 268) Civilians’ lives have continued to be militarized in small
and large ways through ballooning bureaucracies, intelligence services, passports, daylight
savings time, income taxes, and liquor regulations.
Toward the end of the book, Proctor states that “Civilians were and are crucial to the
waging of warfare in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and without their willingness to
serve as soldiers, producers, and reproducers for the nation, wars of the scope and length of
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 75-76
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
World War I would not have been possible.” (p. 268) This raises two important questions. First,
if civilians are responsible for the continuation of the war, is it not fair that they also be targets,
just as the soldiers are? Second, and more hopefully, if civilian cooperation is indeed essential
to modern, total war, can we stop or prevent such wars by adopting Gandhi’s strategy of
withholding our obedience from those who would have us work for “the war effort”?
Ultimately, Proctor asks us to adopt a truer understanding of what modern war really is,
arguing that “we create an artificial dichotomy and construct too many barriers in our
understanding of war—by defining civilians as objects of war rather than active participants, we
create a vision of war that is profoundly gendered, “raced,” and in many ways, imaginary.” (p.
275) Proctor’s book is an important step in correcting our misperceptions.
__________________________
Deborah Buffton
Professor of History
University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
76
Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Praxis, edited by Robert J. Schreiter,
R. Scott Appleby, and Gerard F. Powers. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, Paper,
400 pages, index, $30.00. ISBN: 978-1-57075-893-5
As I read through the 400 pages of this volume, my reaction oscillated between inspired
and frustrated. Overall, the authors of this book attempt to take stock of the resources and
teachings found within the Catholic tradition that can be utilized to support the work of
peacebuilding. Being the first volume of its kind, the authors seek to make clear the Catholic
imperative for developing peacebuilding theology and practice. While an inventory of this kind
is necessary to promote the development of such an inchoate field as Catholic peacebuilding,
few chapters pushed the envelope in identifying new frontiers for Catholic peacebuilding. This
book is a beginning, and although it provides useful starting points, the ideas and topics need
further development in future iterations.
The fifteen chapters in this book, in addition to the foreword and preface, seek to
develop an understanding of Catholic peacebuilding from multiple angles. The first nine
chapters are intended to discuss “Catholic engagement with other actors.” This includes
Lederach’s discussion of Catholic peacebuilders’ relationships with armed actors, Love’s chapter
on Catholic peacebuilding at the state level, Philpott’s discussion of reconciliation, and various
authors’ experiences of Catholic peacebuilding in places as diverse as Rwanda, Colombia,
Indonesia, and South Africa. The second half of the book intends to elaborate on “the growing
edge of Catholic peacebuilding.” These chapters include Cahill’s theology of Catholic
peacebuilding, Himes’s discussion of the connections between Catholic social teaching and
peacebuilding, and Schreiter’s practical theology of reconciliation. Schreiter’s conclusion ends
with a discussion of main themes found throughout the book, as well as a couple of pages on
future directions of Catholic peacebuilding.
The strength of this book can be found in its ability to bring together theologians with
various specialties to comment on how peacebuilding can be understood in light of these
various specialties. From Phan’s work on interreligious dialogue to Cahill’s focus on Christology,
to Schreiter’s understanding of ritual and spirituality, this book offers insight into the field of
Catholic peacebuilding from various angles. At the same time, the authors attempt to find
strands to connect their specialties. Notably, almost every author comments on how the
Catholic tradition can offer numerous resources for promoting reconciliation as a facet of
peacebuilding.
To this reader, the continuous discussion of reconciliation, especially while reading this
book in just a few sittings (indeed this book would be better read if digested slowly), became
too repetitive. For me, the more provocative chapters often shied away from this litany of
reconciliation and were informed by extensive time in a conflict-affected area. These authors
indicated the need for Catholic peacebuilding to be continually informed and stretched by the
stories of people affected by conflict, which would go beyond evident concepts such as
reconciliation. Whitmore’s chapter was especially impressive on this front, as he discussed how
common teachings of the Church on solidarity and authentic development must be revised in
the face of such peacebuilding experiences as Western absenteeism and the ability of
development to do harm.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 77-79
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Promoting reconciliation, however, has been one of the great assets religious
peacebuilders can offer (see, for example, the stories of religious peacebuilders in the
Tannenbaum Center’s volume Peacemakers in Action), thus it makes sense why most of the
authors in this volume devote many pages to the Catholic understanding of reconciliation.
Nevertheless, the Catholic Church, in developing its understanding of peacebuilding, will need
to revise some of its theology and doctrine, and push through almost antiquated dichotomies
that have dominated church debate, such as just war or pacifism. The Church will need to view
the complexity of a globalized world no longer through such inadequate lenses as statecentered sovereignty. These changes must be made in order to adequately respond to the
needs of local and national churches in conflict-affected areas. More authors in this volume
could have addressed this need, envisioning new theology instead of repeatedly applying either
outdated or already well understood doctrines to emerging understandings of conflict and war.
Although this book does try to develop an emerging and hopeful understanding of
Catholic peacebuilding, this idealism sometimes risks becoming unrealistic. Some of this can be
found in the chapters written by authors who have not spent much time in conflict-affected
areas, but who contribute to the development of a theology of peacebuilding from more of an
academic lens. (This of course is not to mention the fact that most of the authors are white and
male, and almost all hail from the United States.) For example, Kenneth Himes argues that the
option for the poor, in a conflict setting, translates to the “option for victims.”(p. 277) But
peacebuilders are often trained to understand that, within conflict affected contexts, obvious
statements such as “helping victims” are complicated where many are both victim and
perpetrator. In comparison, Michel, a priest who has spent years working in Indonesia, admits
to the “messiness” of peacebuilding, as well as the inspiration Catholicism can gain for
peacebuilding from other faith traditions, such as indigenous beliefs and Islam.
A second level at which this sort of unhelpful idealism presents itself in this book is in
the almost unanimous assumption that Catholic peacebuilding is entirely good. For example,
Headley and Neufeldt spend a considerable amount of their chapter heralding the work of
Catholic Relief Services, reserving few pages for constructive criticism, sounding almost
exceptionalist at times. Furthermore, rarely did an author explicitly discuss how the Catholic
Church can get in its own way in terms of peacebuilding. For example, many authors note the
need to empower the laity, but few honestly discuss how a hierarchical church has hampered
such a process. Cahill discusses how a theology of the trinity can contribute to a theology of
peacebuilding since “[f]aith in a triune God of love entails a way of living in community that is
inclusive and participatory.” (p. 319) But she did not mention that the institutional Church often
lacks inclusivity and participation. Are Catholic peacebuilders doing a disservice by presenting
their work and Church in such an overwhelmingly positive light? An inventory of Catholic
peacebuilding is incomplete without an honest discussion of the negatives found within the
tradition and work, as well as the positives. Only with this holistic picture can the field be
further developed.
Schreiter, Appleby, and Powers do an incredible job of bringing together prominent
theologians to begin the discussion of how Catholic tradition, theology, and scripture can
contribute to the work of peacebuilding. While several weaknesses can be pointed out, this
book must be heralded as a necessary first step in promoting the growing edge of a Catholic
theology of peacebuilding. In many ways, their volume is idealism at its best -- attempting to
78
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
promote a needed development in theology to address a new reality in our world of global wars
and Catholic peacebuilding. On the other hand, this idealism must be reigned in -- the authors
must be honest about the holes in the Catholic Church’s ability to address this new reality. The
editors and authors of this volume would do well to continue this intra-faith dialogue,
particularly through the inclusion of practitioner voices from conflict-affected contexts. These
dialogues can continue to uncover Catholic resources for peace, as well as challenge and push
forward theology to inform peacebuilding practice on the ground.
__________________________
Anna Zaros
Anna Zaros recently completed her M.A. from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
at the University of Notre Dame. She worked as the associate director of Franciscan Community
Volunteers, and is currently traveling and volunteering abroad for a year.
79
Tourism in Northeastern Argentina: The Intersection of Human and Indigenous Rights
with the Environment, edited by Penny Seymoure and Jeffrey L. Roberg. Lexington Books,
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2012. Cloth, 230 pages, $68.50.
ISBN 9780739137789
Tourism in Northeastern Argentina offers a compelling and compassionate study of the
issues that arise when tourism intersects with indigenous peoples in northeastern Argentina.
The authors, having interacted with people native to this area over the course of seven years,
show how tourism can both benefit and harm local populations. Moreover, as many of these
issues affect the development of land that holds immense potential for disease-curing
medicines (aside from being a source of livelihood for local inhabitants), the environmental
concerns raised by the development of tourism in northeastern Argentina, as the authors note,
are of global concern. The book’s research relates to many disciplines and would be of interest
to anthropologists, environmentalists, political scientists, and economists and business people
interested in the economy of developing areas.
Chapter One provides an overview of the book and the research interests of the authors
in relation to this study. A brief account of relevant history of the area is included; as such, even
one who is not familiar with the geographical area or its economic history will be able to
comprehend the information offered throughout the book and understand the import of the
authors’ research. The chapter explains that the book is organized into specific case studies
with an interest in exploring the connection between tourism, indigenous peoples, and the
environment.
Chapter Two’s case study involves the Mbya Guaraní and a conflict over land rights.
Deforestation of Mbya land, some of which is a result of hotel chains wanting to build in the
area, has a severe impact on the Mbya community. Though the tourist industry brings revenue
to the area as a whole, the loss of land negatively affects the Mbya’s physical health as well as
their livelihood. The authors explain how the Mbya have little voice in what happens to their
land and that external agencies must become involved to speak on their behalf.
Chapters Three through Five continue to focus on the Mbya. Chapter Three discusses
specific aspects of the relationship between the Mbya and the type of tourism involved in their
geographic location; in their research, the authors’ findings inspire them to propose that
anthropologists study indigenous groups “as part of a wider national society with several
networks…[A]nthropology must be open to…changes and, as a scientific discipline, it must
integrate new issues into its central theoretical frameworks.” (46) Chapter Three is most
interested in exploring how Mbya handicrafts are impacted by tourism, both from
environmental and economic perspectives. Chapter Four explains the development of specific
tourist programs that involve the Mbya and how such programs have necessitated education,
often with mixed results. Chapter Five relays the unfortunate circumstances that sometimes
result when hegemonic, white culture begins to influence indigenous communities; along with
white influence, problems with alcohol and suicide have increased in the Mbya community. In
addition, the Mbya have educational challenges as members of the community are compelled
to learn additional languages and skills in order to effectively interact with members of the
tourist community.
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 80-81
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Chapter Six’s focus is on the effects of tourism in the Iguazú Waterfalls area and reveals
the façade of green tourism, to a certain extent, that some of the local hotels and other tourist
businesses advertise. Though tourism is vital to the area’s economic sustainability, the area
faces challenges of environmental sustainability (which will inevitably affect the area’s
attractiveness to tourists) if development is not completed with a truly ‘green’ mindset.
Chapter Seven’s case study of the effect of tourism on Colonia Carlos Pellegrini shares similar
concerns with that of Chapter Six, discussing the paradoxical nature of tourism in the area.
Chapter Eight details some of the plans involving the progress of tourism in
northeastern Argentina, including organizations and programs that have been put into place to
protect the economic interests of indigenous communities which are inevitably tied to
protecting the land as well. Many of these programs take a more holistic approach to planning
that focuses on longevity of the indigenous communities and their lands while continuing to
implement programs that encourage tourism so as to foster economic vitality in these same
communities.
In conclusion, the authors admit that many of the problems associated with tourism
that they discuss in the book are not new. In their approach, however, they have elected to
focus on the human rights of the indigenous people involved in the tourism industry in
northeastern Argentina, a perspective that is often underrepresented. Throughout the book,
the concern and preference for the rights of and benefits to the indigenous people involved is
evident. As mentioned earlier, Seymoure and Roberg, both excellent scholars, simultaneously
demonstrate real compassion for the Mbya and other communities discussed. Their personal
relationships developed over the course of their seven years of research are clear.
Furthermore, the authors’ insistence on privileging the rights of the indigenous communities
does not compromise the integrity or soundness of the research presented. In essence, in
Tourism in Northeastern Argentina, Penny Seymoure and Jeffrey L. Roberg offer a series of case
studies of specific people, in a particular location, in a focused industry, yet present their
research in such a way that makes all of us care about it.
__________________________
Elizabeth Skwiot
Assistant Professor of English
Ashford University
Clinton, Iowa
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How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War by Dominic Tierney.
University of Nebraska Press, 2010. Paper, 342 pages, $19.95. ISBN: 978-0-8032-4396-5
Recently released in paperback edition (first Nebraska paperback printing, 2012),
Dominic Tierney’s How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War details
“important patterns in the nation’s experience of war.” (p. 11) Tierney, a professor of political
science, provides an accessible and informed discussion of the contradictory nature with which
Americans approach, experience, interpret, recall, support, and oppose military efforts.
Assessing the nation’s history with military conflict, from the Civil War through the more recent
conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the book identifies an undeniable trend in which “public
opinion follow[s] a familiar arc of hope and disappointment.” (p. 229) Painting a picture in
which two equally strong yet contradictory traditions collide, Tierney provides a compelling
story detailing “the stark dangers that result when the crusade and quagmire traditions
combine.” (p. 245)
As a foundation for the book, Tierney observes that “[i]n the American mind, nationbuilding and interstate war are polar opposites.” (p. 37) Beginning with the Civil War, he
identifies a crusade tradition in which interstate wars are fought for and generally supported by
idealism and vengeance. On the other hand, he observes a distinguishable trend, which he
terms the quagmire tradition, in which Americans (military and civilian alike) generally detest
the ‘grim labor’ of nation-building. Simply stated, “[Americans] prefer smashing dictators, not
dealing with the messy consequences.” (p. 9) Taking the reader on a journey through American
history, Tierney draws on these two traditions to explain why, for example, the Civil War and
the initial response to 9/11 in Afghanistan “follow a similar enthusiastic beat” while southern
Reconstruction in the nineteenth century and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan in the
twenty-first “hit the same weary notes.” (p. 8) Along the way, Tierney provides ample evidence
demonstrating the extent to which these two contradictory traditions shape public support for
war (or lack of support), military strategy and tactics, and even war outcomes. These traditions
are thus of significant social interest when we observe, as the author does, that the United
States has a long history of entering into well-supported crusades which over time become
unsupported quagmires.
At the outset, Tierney draws the reader in with descriptive and symbolic imagery of the
National Mall in Washington, D.C. Here, the author notes that accompanying “a panorama of
glory and victory,” including, for example, the World War II Memorial and a statue of the
celebrated Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, is “a less comfortable military narrative… [h]idden
away behind trees.” (p. 5) Here we find memorials, for example, to the Korean and Vietnam
Wars, military efforts Tierney notes were “no splendid crusade.” (p. 5) The nation’s relationship
with war (both in-the-moment and in retrospect), he thus argues, is influenced by the degree to
which the conflict is understood as a crusade with “a glorious cause to overthrow tyrants” or a
quagmire, “a wearying trial, in which American valor is squandered.” (p. 7)
In the first three chapters of the book, Tierney describes in detail the crusade tradition
(the focus of chapter two) and the quagmire tradition (the focus of chapter three). Once
established, he devotes six chapters (chapters four through nine) to tracking the United States’
long history in which these two traditions have influenced the nation’s experience with military
conflict beginning with the Civil War (in chapter four) through the current wars in Iraq and
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict (2012-2013), pages 82-83
Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict 2012-2013
Afghanistan (in chapter nine). Notably, the author does not rely on a systematic analysis of
data, but rather weaves together quite effectively various sources of data to provide a narrative
account of how the crusade and quagmire traditions shape the nation’s experience with war
across time. Whether quoting popular battle songs, analyzing cartoons or magazine covers,
summarizing surveys of members of Congress, providing information from public opinion polls,
describing themes from popular music or film of the era, or analyzing the rhetorical devices of
U.S. presidents (whose depictions of war are often “superbly attuned to the American mind” (p.
131)), soldiers, clergy, and journalists, the evidence Tierney relies on to demonstrate the
presence of one tradition or the other at a particular point in time is both effective and
thought-provoking. With such varied and accessible examples, the main arguments proposed
by the author are easily contextualized for a general audience.
In the final chapter, Tierney discusses what he terms the founding tradition. Discussing
the commitments of the nation’s Founding Fathers, he notes that while Americans today
“disdain limited wars and nation building… these were precisely the uses of force favored by
the Founders.” (p. 251) Similarly, he notes that while later Americans “celebrate grand crusades
against enemy countries… this was the type of campaign most feared by the Founders.” (p. 251)
Noting that limited wars and nation building are “the future of combat” (p. 250), Tierney
recommends a return to the founding tradition and a commitment to a sober, humble, and
committed approach to such operations in the future as, in his words, “the United States
remains one of the best hopes for expanding the reach of freedom and democracy around the
world.” (p. 267)
In conclusion, Tierney suggests that “it is the founding tradition that needs to be heard
more loudly in today’s marketplace of ideas.” (p. 267) As such, it is noteworthy that Why We
Fight is accessible to a general audience. Notably, however, Tierney’s observations hold the
potential to serve multiple lines of inquiry for scholars. Whether interested in, for example,
foreign policy, public opinion, war outcomes, the prevalence of peace, or military organization,
strategy, tactics, or morale, How We Fight provides scholars with useful information about the
traditions that explain, in part, “why people back some conflicts but not others, how the United
States fights, why Washington wins or loses, and how Americans remember and learn from
war.” (p. 7) As such, this book is a useful resource for anyone interested in the American way of
war, its causes, and its consequences.
__________________________
Wade P. Smith
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Sociology
University of Colorado, Boulder
83