WORKSHOP E - CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACE-BUILDING
58th COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE Colombo, Sri Lanka
Workshop E - 12 September 2012 THE ROLE OF
PARLIAMENTARIANS IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACE-BUILDING
Moderator: Hon. Julianna O’Connor- Connolly, JP, MLA, Deputy Premier and Minister for District Administration, Works, Lands and Agriculture, Cayman Islands
Discussion Leaders: Ms Anna Lo, MBE, MLA, Northern Ireland Mr Devinder Shory, MP, Canada Sir Allan Kemakeza, MP, Speaker of the National Parliament, Solomon Islands Hon. Datuk Ronald Kiandee, MP, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Malaysia Mr Mitch O’Brien, Parliament Programme Team Leader, World Bank Institute
“By its very nature, Parliament brings divergent interests and divergent opinions to one place at one time for discussion.”
Parliamentarians must go beyond
dialogue to strengthen national institutions, including Parliament, as a key part of their vital role in resolving and preventing conflicts, stressed speakers in this workshop. It was widely agreed that
the valuable experience of Parliamentarians in building understanding among communities should be exploited both domestically and internationally to air grievances, resolve disputes and prevent conflicts as well as to reconcile opposing forces to end conflicts and prevent them from erupting again. But Parliamentarians must go beyond dialogue facilitation to ensure that institutions are either established or maintained to provide a just and equitable society for all. Prime among institutional
measures should be parliamentary 264 | The Parliamentarian | 2012: Issue Four
and electoral reform to guarantee that all communities are – and perceive that they are – fully represented and heard in the nation’s primary political forum.
Parliaments must also be strengthened so they legislate and hold the executive accountable effectively, transparently and in the interests of all sections of society. The workshop noted that Parliaments must also campaign to depoliticize and strengthen other institutions such as the judiciary, the police and security forces. Commissions such as those to prevent corruption and to protect human rights must be established or strengthened. All these institutions must be monitored to ensure they operate according to the rule of law and without partisan political or communal biases.
Listening to minorities The first discussion leader, Ms Anna Lo, MBA, MLA, of Northern Ireland,
discussed the issue of violence faced by Northern Ireland in the 1990s and reflected on the involvement of Parliamentarians to the process of peace-building. She stated that the conflict
in Northern Ireland was rooted in history and had at it centre the issue of religious and cultural identify. She identified the underlying cause of the conflict as the “denial of full civil rights” to a minority community. The conflict related to the failure to listen to the voice of this community and this failure resulted in heightened tension and eventually violent conflict. She stressed the need for
Parliament to support an inclusive government and highlighted the work of the CPA and the World Bank during the Vienna Workshop in 2010 in which democratic governance and specifically oversight functions and accountability of the executive were identified as key areas to prevent the development of conflict within communities. She stated that