DIPLOMACY IN TRANSITION
Jerusalem, 29 March 1995
THE DIPLOMATIC AGENDA IN TRANSITION
Mr. Jan Egeland, Norway
Let me concentrate a little bit more on some other challenges for
diplomacy of the 1990's and beyond, and that is to design the tools, the
people and the hardware needed to meet contemporary and future problems.
There was a time when diplomats felt that if the Norwegian and the British
ambassadors to Washington had an excellent discussion about the internal
strife of the Balkans at a cocktail offered by the Brazilians, we promoted
peace and collective security. Today we certainly to a much much great
extent need to be able to respond to the challenges by immediately
responding to the security risks or other threats, by providing the
appropriate tools, the concrete answer to the situation, whether they be
experts or observers, or the relevant material aids such as
telecommunications for disaster situations, field hospitals, or whatever
would be the appropriate response.
I have in my four years in the leadership of the Norwegian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs been struck with how much time diplomats to the U.N., to
the European Council, the OAU, the OAS and many other organizations spent
on discussing the mandates, the legalities, the framework for any specific
operation, when we all know that the real problem will be that very few
countries are actually able to move the needed human and material
resources from A to Z, to actually realize what we are discussing.
Allow me to describe how we, in a modest way in the Norwegian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs over the last few years, have tried to addressed these
operational needs of the 1990s by working closely with governmental and
non-governmental organizations. But first perhaps a word to follow up
Prof. Avineri on the challenges.
Extreme poverty, social inequality, rapid population growth and
environmental degredation, lack of democracy, violation of human rights
are all destabilizing factors that promote insecurity, that is well known.
Equally well known is that while military messages may contain such
factors in a short perspective, they inevitably fail to do so in the long
run. We should therefore create efforts to promote development, democracy
and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as important
preventive measures to improve collective security.
In our view, future activities for peace and security should increasingly
be focused on efforts that can solve problems before they deepen into
crisis or conflict. At a time when a multitude of demands and scarce
resources affect us all, focused preventive action will be the most
efficient way in which we can seek to meet tomorrow's challenges to
collective security. Preventive action requires early action to become
effective action. We have seen that international assistance can preserve
peace, save lives and promote human rights and democracy if it reaches
vulnerable communities in time. Too often we have been passive observers
while unique opportunities are lost because we, as individual nations or
U.N. members, did not mobilize resources in time. It happened last year in
Rwanda, it may be happening this week in Burundi. Too often our response
mechanisms have proved to be inadequate for the early needs of embattled
democracies or peace initiatives, or of disaster-prone and vulnerable
communities.
All countries have an obligation to strengthen their ability to respond
when democratic and peace-oriented initiatives call for urgent support.
Our common ability to provide flexible, speedy and effective assistance to
those at humanity's first line of defense will also determine our ability
to protect them from our own collective security.
Our Norwegian experience is that we have a vast untapped reservoir of
relevant resources and expertise in especially our governmental and non-
governmental organizations. Non-governmental groups have often the best
access to people and networks that can be mobilized quickly. Many NGOs
have long experience of working with government agencies. They are
knowledgeable about government requirements, specifications and even
budget procedures. They can operate in a very flexible manner, decisions
can be decentralized, and operation can be started more quickly. Private
groups can recruit personnel on the basis of short-term contracts and on
stand-by agreements. They are often able to track down key personnel whom
government services as our own might not even know existed. Considerable
resources can be deployed often within hours. NGOs frequently display
impressive creativity in solving practical problems.
To utilize these resources, we have established what we call the Norwegian
Emergency Preparedness System, in short NOREPS, and the Norwegian Bank for
Democracy and Human Rights - NORDEM. These are flexible stand-by
agreements with a number of governmental and non-governmental
organizations. This close cooperation between voluntary organizations,
academic institutions and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in humanitarian
action and peace work is sometimes referred to as the "Norwegian model".
Through the stand-by procedures, NOREPS and NORDEM can send more than 500
relief workers, human rights advisers and peace mediators and observers
all over the world within a few hours, or at the most days. Last year we
sent several hundred people to more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia,
Latin America, Europe, and here to the Middle East - at the request of
U.N. agencies, newborn democracies, and increasingly by parties to armed
conflicts.
There are 100 NGOs receiving Norwegian government funding for development
assistance and human rights to day in more than 100 countries. Over the
years, thousands of Norwegians have acquired field experience from working
with these organizations, as well as with the Norwegian Development
Agency, NORAD. It is estimated that their numbers are equal to the one
percent of the Norwegian population which has served in U.N. peace-keeping
operations, some 43,000, altogether perhaps between 80,000 and 100,000
people with some expertise in this area.
In addition to increased flexibility, the participation of NGOs in the
facilitation of peace processes has in the Norwegian case proven to have
several other advantages. In our discrete or even secret peace channels,
the news media which focus on what divides rather than on what unites can
be excluded, time-consuming diplomatic protocol and speeches to the
gallery can be avoided, and the conflicting parties can benefit from
deniability. I believe tomorrow we will go more into detail on the Middle
East peace channel, but I'd just like to recall that the organization we
used in this case, FAFO, the research institute connected to the trade
union movement in Norway, facilitated the secret negotiations between
Israel and the PLO, operating for a long time in the guise of a study on
living conditions in Gaza, the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem. The study
provided the ideal cover for the otherwise suspicious increase in visits
from Tunis and Israel.
Working with or through an NGO helps insure that while negotiations take
place, the parties and the media can more trustworthily deny the existence
of any such activity. Such deniability exists because the activity always
involves something other than negotiations. Until agreement has been
reached, one can point out that humanitarian or other non-threatening NGO
activity is also going on. As a government, we can keep distance from the
activity. As you well know, the Israel-PLO meetings in Norway numbered 14,
and remained a secret until after Uri Savir and Abu Ala initialed the
secret, at that time, Declaration of Principles in Oslo on the night
between the 19th and the 20th of August.
It is our hope that the Middle East could perhaps develop from being a
laboratory for hostility to becoming a model for solution of conflicts in
other parts of the world - a model that is more sorely needed now than
ever before. Our channel demonstrated how a small country with no
aspirations of changing its small-country status can bring parties to a
conflict together for talks when they are reluctant or unable to reach
compromises in the cumbersome and highly public conference diplomacy.
Through NOREPS and NORDEM, Norway has quietly, on the parties' own terms,
also been able to facilitate or contribute to three parallel peace
processes in addition to the Middle East - in Guatemala, in the former
Yugoslavie, and most recently in Sri Lanka.
On 3 January, the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers jointly
requested the Netherlands, Canada and Norway to direct the supervision of
the ceasefire panels which entered into force in connection with the
ceasefire which came the following weekend. Within 24 hours, details of
nine qualified Norwegian candidates were presented in Colombo, and 36
hours after being selected by the parties our first NGO-recruited peace
monitors were airborne for Sri Lanka. The task was thus sub-contracted to
the NGO, again, in this case the Norwegian Refugee Council. Today the
observers are active in the field, receiving reports from the parties and
meeting with government officials and the Tamil Tiger leadership. However,
due to differences between the parties, the bipartisan observer committees
that we were supposed to lead have not yet been able to start operating.
The peace process in Guatemala was initiated in Norway in March 1990, when
representatives of the government peace commission and of the guerilla
movement URNG signed the Oslo Agremeent which established a format and an
agenda for the negotiations. Today, exactly five years later, there is
still an armed conflict in Guatemala, but the group of friends in which
Norway participates hopes that there will be final peace before the end of
the year.
Not as well known but equally important, I think, is the personnel we have
provided on short notice for the U.N. and the EU co-chairmen to the
mediation of the peace process in the Balkans, Toval Staltenberg and David
Owen. The authorities in Belgrade gave in to foreign pressure, as you will
remember, earlier this year, and decided to impose internationally-
monitored sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs - that actually happened in
September of last year. We provided, at Mr. Staltenberg's and Lord Owen's
request, 20 observers for deployment along the Serbia-Montenegro borders
within the first 48 hours. The work of this mission is essential for
credible sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs, inducing them to accept the
peace plan of the contact group which has been accepted by the Moslem and
Croat sides.
International diplomacy is, in sum, in my opinion, often surprisingly
under-prepared in terms of provided the personnel, the expertise and the
material support necessary to meet the tasks of our time. Such tools,
ranging from experts on separation of military forces, constitutional
lawyers, stand-by observer missions, executive airplans, etc. - these are,
in my opinion, most needed if we are to meet many of our most acute
challenges and respond to the demands of a diplomacy in transition.
Thank you very much.