Armed Social Violence Violence Social Armed “Undeclared Wars” Exploring a Peacebuilding Approach to Armed Social Violence Barbara Unger, Véronique Dudouet, Matteo Dressler and Beatrix Austin (eds.) Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series Berghof Handbook Dialogue No. 12 No. Dialogue Handbook Berghof No. 12 About the Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series: The Dialogue Series is an offshoot of the Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation. Each topic in the series is chosen because it is particularly relevant to societies in conflict and the practice of conflict transformation, and because it raises important issues at the present time. In each Dialogue, practitioners and scholars critically engage and debate in light of their experience. Typically, a Dialogue includes one lead article from key experts, and several commentaries from practitioners and others. Rather than presenting a single analysis, these practitioner-scholar encounters stimulate debate, integrating different perspectives, challenging prevailing views and comparing research findings with experiences and insights on the ground. Importantly, Dialogues, as works of broad relevance, are distributed in print version as well as online. We invite readers to respond to the papers (as to all articles). Interesting and original contributions can be added to the web version of the Dialogue. Contact us: [email protected]. Up to 2016, the editors have initiated eleven Dialogues: No. 1 - Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA), 2003 No. 2 - Security Sector Reform, 2004 No. 3 - Transforming War Economies, 2005 No. 4 - New Trends in PCIA, 2005 No. 5 - Social Change and Conflict Transformation, 2006 No. 6 - A Systemic Approach to Conflict Transformation, 2008 No. 7 - Peacebuilding at a Crossroads? 2009 No. 8 - Building Peace in the Absence of States, 2009 No. 9 - Human Rights and Conflict Transformation, 2010, 2nd ed. 2015 No.10 - Peace Infrastructures, 2013, 2nd ed. 2015 No.11 - Transforming War-Related Identities, 2016 Acknowledgements: Layout & Graphics Design: Coxorange (http://coxorange-berlin.de/) Proofreading: Hillary Crowe and Glenine Hamlyn Desktop Publishing: Astrid Fischer Graph page ix: Nele Rathke & Barbara Unger © 2016 Berghof Foundation Operations GmbH. All rights reserved. To cite this Dialogue: Barbara Unger, Véronique Dudouet, Matteo Dressler and Beatrix Austin (eds.). “Undeclared Wars”– Exploring a Peacebuilding Approach to Armed Social Violence. Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series No. 12. Berlin: Berghof Foundation. Available also online: <http://image.berghof-foundation.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publications/Handbook/Dialogues/dialogue12_ armedsocialviolence_complete.pdf>. First launch 31.10.2016. Please note: The Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation has a new virtual home at:: www.berghof-foundation.org/handbook To order copies: [email protected] Berghof Foundation Altensteinstraße 48a 14195 Berlin Germany www.berghof-foundation.org [email protected] ISSN 1616-2544 ISBN 978-3-941514-21-8 Contents Introduction i Barbara Unger, Véronique Dudouet, Matteo Dressler and Beatrix Austin Armed Social Violence and Peacebuilding 1 Towards an Operational Approach Bernardo Arévalo de León and Ana Glenda Tager The “Violence Turn” in Peace Studies and Practice 31 Jenny Pearce The (Not So) New Challenge of Responding to Armed Social Violence with Peacebuilding 41 Andy Carl From War-Making to Peacebuilding? 51 Opportunities and Pitfalls of an Integral Approach to Armed Social Violence in Mexico Gema Santamaría The Value of Listening to Community Voices 61 A Peacebuilding Approach to Armed Social Violence Karen P. Simbulan and Laurens J. Visser Countering Armed Social Violence in Guinea-Bissau 69 The Case of the Model Police Station in Bairro Militar Marco Carmignani and Fernando Cavalcante Armed Social Violence and Peacebuilding 77 A Response Bernardo Arévalo de León and Ana Glenda Tager About the Authors 89 About the Editors 91 Introduction Barbara Unger, Véronique Dudouet, Matteo Dressler and Beatrix Austin Content 1 Setting the scene: what is this dialogue about and whom does it address? ii 2 The contributions to this dialogue iii 3 Themes and dilemmas vii Armed social violence: a useful terminology? vii How to operationalise systemic and participatory peacebuilding? viii 4 Where do we go from here? x 5 References xi Barbara Unger, Véronique Dudouet, Matteo Dressler and Beatrix Austin 1 Setting the scene: what is this dialogue about and whom does it address? There is a growing awareness today that the nature of violence around the world is changing. A milestone in this assessment was the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report, which noted that civil war and inter- state conflict are becoming less common but that there has been an increase in violence linked to crime, terrorism and civil unrest (World Bank 2011, 1). There has been, on the one hand, a decline in the lethality of conventional, large-scale inter-state wars, especially after the Second World War (Human Security Research Group 2014; Melander/Pettersen/Themnér 2016). This has been, overall, a steady development, despite the current deadly civil wars raging, for example, in Syria (Human Security Research Group 2014, 80). On the other hand, there has been growing concern that the death toll associated with “undeclared wars” involving more amorphous and shifting enemies is increasing in a manner that demands attention, and action: “the almost 13,000 deaths from organized crime in Mexico in 2011 were greater than the 2011 battle-death tolls in any of the three countries worst affected by armed conflict and violence against civilians between 2006 and 2011 – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan” (Human Security Research Group 2014, 52). Also in the past decade, the rise of ‘extremist’ violence by non-state and especially Islamist actors (Melander/Petterson/Themnér 2016, 731ff.; IEP 2016, 28/29) has given further cause for concern that the “better angels of our nature”, to quote the title of the seminal book by Steven Pinker (2011), might be fighting a losing battle. According to the most recent Global Burden of Armed Violence report, “non-conflict” violence (i.e. interpersonal or criminal violence) was causing over six times more fatalities than armed conflict in the years 2007-2012 (Geneva Declaration Secretariat 2015, 2). As just one example, urban violence “is (or has become) the most serious form of lethal violence in the world” (EUISS-IDRC 2012, 14ff.). In fact, experts are envisioning cities as the primary site of tomorrow’s warfare, noting that violence in urban spaces has begun to “resemble classic armed conflict situations” (Moser/McIllwaine 2014, 333). In Latin America, the phenomenon is most prominent (as exemplified by street gangs, drug trafficking or vigilante groups), but it is also on the rise in other regions such as the Sahara (epitomised in smuggling of people and illicit goods) and clearly present in the cities of the Global North as well, documented most visibly for the United States, with Baltimore and Chicago being examples (OAS 2015, 10/11; Beckett 2016). At the same time, it has been noted that, in terms of countering this trend and working to reduce urban violence, “the evidence base for what works and what does not is extremely thin” (Muggah 2012, ix). With respect to addressing what we will call “armed social violence”,1 there are both promising and worrying developments. Colombia, on the one hand, will be an eagerly observed ‘fishbowl’ for seeing how a country with diverse forms of violence can use the momentum generated from a peace accord2 – resulting in a drop of conflict-related casualties – for undertaking the transformations needed to deal with other actors and factors of violence (Paffenholz/Charvet/Ross 2016). Another case – the Philippines – offers a 1 Our lead authors offer a useful definition of the term, describing armed social violence as “situations in which groups in society use large-scale violence to pursue non-political goals” (Arévalo de León/Tager 2016, 5). 2 A peace agreement was signed on 26 September 2016 between the Government of Colombia and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia): “Colombia peace deal: Historic agreement is signed” (BBC, 26 September 2016), http://www. bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37477202. A referendum held on 2 October 2016 has since rejected the specifics of the peace deal. However, both the Colombian president and the FARC leadership have committed to prolong the ceasefire until the end of October 2016 and to try and salvage the peace deal (“Colombia peace deal: President says Farc ceasefire will end this month” (BBC, 5 October 2016), http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37558825). ii Introduction less promising outlook. Here, a change in leadership is causing the world to sit up and take notice of a combative strategy: elected in 2016, in large part for his hard-line, iron-fist responses to organised crime, new Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte is fighting crime without respect for human rights.3 He has named a chief of police with a track record of human rights violations. This appointment has resulted in a sharp spike in extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers and a reported fall in the crime rate (Hansen 2016). On the multilateral development agenda, bi- and multilateral agencies have started to embrace broader concepts of violence, conflict and peacebuilding: in 2015, the United Nations 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was adopted. Its Sustainable Development Goal