The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), like many other international humanitarian organisations, views conflict management and resolution as falling outside its mandate. These functions are considered the domain of political rather than humanitarian actors. Whereas UNHCR deals with refugees, displaced people and related consequences of high-intensity conflict, the responsibility for averting and ending such conflict lies with states, the UN Security Council, the Organisation of African Unity and similar bodies. This position is evident in the briefing on the ‘situation of refugees in Africa’ presented to the UN Security Council in January 2000 by Sadako Ogata, the head of UNHCR: It is important that UNHCR makes efforts at the community level to assist affected populations, and ultimately to help refugees return home. Helping communities is an area in which humanitarian work — with its emphasis on vulnerable groups — can be a valuable complement to conflict resolution and peace-building efforts. ...All these efforts, however, will be neither effective nor durable if they are not complemented at the political level by African states, supporting governments and developmental institutions [emphasis in the original].1

UNHCR’s reluctance to engage in conflict resolution derives not only from the way in which its founding charter defines its objectives and character. It is also concerned that such engagement might undermine its non-partisan status and embroil the organisation in controversy. These are highly undesirable consequences in the polarised conditions of violent conflict, impeding the agency’s access to local communities and endangering the lives of field personnel.

Although these concerns are legitimate, they may be influenced by the United Nations’ misleading tendency to equate ‘conflict’ with armed hostilities. Conflict is better understood as a normal and ubiquitous social phenomenon that does not lead inexorably to violence. The concerns may also be based on a mistaken association of conflict resolution with ‘high politics’. The truth of the matter is that UNHCR is regularly obliged, for practical reasons, to manage if not resolve the following types of conflict:

• Conflict invariably exists within refugee communities because of the acute stress and alienation experienced by people who have been traumatised by violence, uprooted from their homes, separated from their families and denied access to adequate social services and gainful employment.
• Conflict within refugee communities is heightened considerably when they include members of the political, ethnic or religious groups that are at war with each other in the refugees’ country of origin. In the worst-case scenario, as occurred in eastern Zaire in 1995—6, refugee camps may house armed militia engaged in military activity.
• The relationship between refugees and local communities in the country of refuge may be intensely conflictual. As in South Africa currently, the latter may regard the former as responsible for crime and ‘stealing’ jobs. In conditions of poverty and famine, they may deeply resent the distribution of food and other resources to refugees.
• Conflict around the status and activities of refugees may arise between the government of the refugees’ country of origin and the government of their country of refuge, as well as between UNHCR and either or both of these governments. Notwithstanding the international consensus on the legal definition of a ‘refugee’, the status of asylum seekers in a given situation is frequently a matter of political dispute.
• UNHCR may encounter conflict with other international bodies, including humanitarian agencies, as a result of their different mandates, objectives and strategic perspectives. For example, there was heated debate among a number of foreign powers and international organisations on the appropriateness of military intervention to protect the Hutu refugees encamped in eastern Zaire in the mid-1990s.2

The critical point is that UNHCR is unlikely to undertake such activities in a consistently optimal fashion if its formal position is that conflict management and resolution lie outside its terms of reference. On the other hand, an institutional acknowledgement that these functions flow logically from its mandate, the development of appropriate strategies and the acquisition of analytical and practical expertise in this regard would be immensely beneficial.

The main assumption here is that constructive conflict resolution is not simply a matter of intuition and common sense. It is a specialist discipline that encompasses a rich body of theory, comparative research, case studies, models, techniques and procedures. It does not offer ready-made solutions to conflict but it does provide valuable insights and skills in respect of the causes, dynamics, management, de-escalation and termination of conflict.

The techniques and procedures, which constitute the tactical elements of constructive conflict resolution, relate to diagnosing the causes of a conflict; acting as an interlocutor where the disputant parties refuse to talk directly to each other; designing and initiating facilitation, negotiation and mediation processes; setting agendas and conducting meetings; distinguishing between the parties’ formal demands and their underlying concerns and needs; identifying common ground between the parties; and generating options for resolving deadlocks. Many of the techniques are intended to defuse the anger and suspicion that characterise serious conflict and pose significant obstacles to its resolution.

At the strategic level, constructive conflict resolution is concerned as much with process as with outcomes. The process by which conflict is addressed matters greatly, not only because of the importance that disputant parties attach to their substantive demands but also because individuals and groups commonly want to be involved in decisions that affect their lives. They resent being treated as the object of some other body’s plans. In general, solutions to inter-group conflict are most likely to be sustained when they are forged and embraced by the disputants. Facilitating dialogue and problem-solving efforts by the parties is thus vastly preferable to attempting to solve problems on their behalf.

Pursued in this manner, peacemaking can empower people who have no formal power. This has great relevance where refugees are in conflict with each other or with local communities. Other than when refugees engage in military or political activity, they tend to be viewed in an overly passive and abstract way: they are victims of persecution, beneficiaries of aid, holders of rights and objects of international concern. Yet they are also social actors who crave greater control over their precarious circumstances in a foreign country.

The empowerment of refugees is enhanced when they are trained in conflict resolution skills. They are then able to manage on-going tensions and specific disputes more adeptly than otherwise, and without being dependent on interventions by other actors. This has been the result of training provided to the Cape Town Refugee Forum (CTRF) by the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR). Members of the Forum report that they now tackle conflict that was previously left to fester; that “just getting people to talk has defused tension”; and that they wish to apply their newly acquired skills in their own countries when they are repatriated. The training has contributed to a sense of “self-sufficiency”, which is “one of our main foundations for security as refugees”.5 Dealing effectively with conflict also helps to build social cohesion and may alter negative perceptions of the refugees among the local population.

The strategic dimensions of a constructive approach to conflict resolution can be further elaborated by comparing it with a human rights based approach. UNHCR might consider certain of the conflicts described above largely in terms of the rights of refugees. Since these rights are contained in international conventions, they are not negotiable. UNHCR might therefore regard a government’s unwillingness to provide sanctuary to asylum seekers as illegitimate, insisting privately or even publicly that the government is in violation of its legal obligations.

A conflict resolution approach, in contrast, would emphasise the need to discern and accommodate the interests that give rise to the government’s reluctance to house refugees. These interests may derive from entirely legitimate economic or security concerns. They would be negotiable in the sense that various means might be found to eliminate or at least mitigate the concerns. This is an eminently sensible approach from a pragmatic perspective since UNHCR has no means of enforcing compliance with international conventions. The approach would not ignore the rights of refugees but would be pursued precisely in order to satisfy those rights. By way of analogy, labour mediation in disputes between trade unions and management takes place within the framework of legislative and constitutional rights; any resultant agreement that violates these rights would be illegitimate.

Further, human rights enshrined in international legal instruments are intended to be universal. In reality though, values and norms vary greatly among people of different nationality, ethnicity and religion. Conflict among refugees or with local communities may consequently arise because they view certain practices in a fundamentally dissimilar fashion. Cultural differences may also lead to prejudice and misunderstandings that generate or exacerbate conflict. Most importantly for present purposes, there are diverse cultural methods of handling disputes. A constructive approach to conflict resolution would be sensitive to these dynamics and offer tools for dealing with them appropriately.6

If UNHCR accepts the argument that conflict resolution and management are an integral part of its mission, it could develop a programme of action that has several components. First, UNHCR field staff and the directors of country and regional offices could be trained in conflict resolution skills. The training would focus on the conflict scenarios that typically confront UNHCR, and would draw on the agency’s experience of accomplished fieldwork over many decades. The training would be most useful if it were conducted on site and adapted from case to case in order to reflect local dynamics. A small group of individuals with an aptitude for peacemaking could receive more extensive training so that they can be deployed on an ad-hoc basis in crisis situations and high level negotiations.

Second, as motivated above, UNHCR could arrange for conflict resolution training to be provided to refugees. In addition to being empowering, there is the practical consideration that UNHCR does not have the capacity to address the myriad tensions and disputes that arise among refugees and with local communities. Third, as proposed elsewhere in this edition of Track Two, training could also be provided to immigration officers and other government officials with responsibility for asylum seekers. (See the article by Lee Anne de la Hunt and Helen Moffett, pp. 21—24.) Another important category would be police personnel charged with maintaining security in refugee camps.

Fourth, UNHCR could devise systems for conflict prevention. In the light of its experience and its knowledge of local conditions, coupled with proficiency in conflict analysis, many of the problems encountered by the organisation are entirely predictable. The establishment of mechanisms for continuous communication, relationship-building and problem-solving might serve as conflict early warning function, alleviate tension before it becomes explosive, and facilitate timely implementation of preventive measures. In conclusion, treating peacemaking as a specialist discipline offers great promise. Its potential should not be exaggerated, since the complexity of serious conflict and the underlying structural causes preclude simple solutions. Nevertheless, the acquisition of practical and analytical skills in conflict resolution would equip UNHCR staff to perform this activity with greater expertise and confidence.

ENDNOTES

1. Sadako Ogata. `Briefing on the Situation of Refugees in Africa’, presented to the UN Security Council, New York, 13 January 2000.
2. See Glynne Evans, 1997. Responding to Crises in the African Great Lakes. Adelphi Paper No. 311, International Institute for Strategic Studies. London: Oxford University Press.
3. Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) interview with the head of UNHCR Kakuma, Dr Saber Azam, 6 April 2000; distributed through irin@ocha.unon.org. Dr Azam describes vividly many of the categories of conflict identified in this article.
4. See Africa Confidential, Vol. 40, No. 1, 8 January 1999.
5. Unpublished interview conducted by Roshila Nair with Olesegun Abdulrasaaq, Executive Secretary of the Cape Town Refugee Forum, 18 April 2000.
6. See, for example, Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, 1998. Conflict and Peacemaking Across Cultures: Training for Trainers. Fresno, CA: Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific University. See also the website of this Center’s Refugee Conflict Management Project at .