Rumiko Seya, Secretary General of the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention

Civil War Brings Conflict Close to Home:
Divisions Between Aggressor and Victim Are Paper Thin.

From this issue, we will consider together how we could convert states of armed conflict so as to bring closer the development of a peace process. As a first step, let's take a closer look at how conflict occurs, and once conflict breaks out somewhere, what happens to the people who live there.

Rumiko Seya

Born in Gunma Prefecture in 1977. Graduated from Chuo University and received an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford in the UK. Specialist in post-conflict peacebuilding and reintegration of ex-combatants into society. In the past she held various positions in conflict areas, such as NGO staff (Rwanda), UN volunteer (Sierra Leone), Special Assistant to the Ambassador (Japanese Embassy, Afghanistan), and UN Peacekeeping Operations staff (Côte d'Ivoire). She became Secretary General of the JCCP in April 2007.

JCCP's website http://www.jccp.gr.jp/

My theme in issue 28 was to imagine that an orange was the cause of a conflict, although in actual conflict the orange would be replaced by various things, such as power, territory, natural resources and rights and interests. Moreover, there are also groups of influential people, or those who benefit politically or economically from conflict, who use differences of "race" or "religion" to conceal the real causes of such a conflict. There are situations in which it is easy for such groups of people to gain the sympathy of ordinary people by citing everybody's immediate dissatisfactions as the cause of the conflict.

For example, in the case of Rwanda in Africa, people lived together unaware of ethnic differences until the colonial era when they were divided into two groups, and it was decided that the Tutsi people were superior to the Hutu and were given priority in work, government and power. In this way, Hutu resentment towards the Tutsis was allowed to grow so that it would be difficult for them to turn their discontent towards the rule of the developed countries. After the end of colonial rule, the manufactured ethnic divisions and discontent remained in Rwanda until neighbor rose up against neighbor in the conflict that resulted in the massacre of 1994.

As with Japan's past experience of war, the circumstances under which other countries fought wars meant that it was mainly soldiers who took part in the conflict. However, in the circumstances of conflict within a single country, or "civil war", where conflict breaks out close to home, it is not only highly likely for someone to become a victim, but bound up together with that there is also the possibility that the same person will be one of the aggressors.

Recent civil wars have taken on diverse forms, such as conflict between government and anti-government forces, or civil wars with an emphasis on terrorist attacks such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. The "aggressors" include national armies, the civilian population, local militias and so on and this diversification makes finding a solution more complicated.

Children escaped from conflict, living in a camp for displaced people. (At Freetown in Sierra Leone in April 2000)

Also, in Civil war the number of civilian casualties increases and damage takes on various different forms.

In the Second World War, many cities experienced air-raids, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced many civilian victims. In civil wars too, because of the close proximity of victims and aggressors, people often seek to avoid the danger by escaping to other places.

We call those who escape from the danger of war by fleeing to other countries "refugees," and those who escape to another location in same country "displaced persons." As the topic for this issue, I would like to think about people like that, who escape from the fires of war.

Most of them have lost everything, their homes, household goods, assets and sometimes even their families, and with nothing left but themselves, they go in search of a safe place. There is one condition for knowing whether or not refugees and displaced persons can return home and whether their problems can be resolved so that a society which has experienced conflict can return to peaceful conditions. Please think about what that condition is, by comparing their lives with your life in Japan, and show common points and differences between their lives and your life.