OST and violent conflict (long)

[Gilbert Brenson-Lazan]

Good Morning all:

Until now I have remained silent regarding the use of OST in the case of 
civil conflict and violence, specifically in the case of treaty 
negociations en Colombia where there are a multiplicity of factors and 
actors, both armed and unarmed.  At this time, however, I feel both the 
need to share our learnings and the authority to do so, as I have lived and 
worked in Colombia for over thirty years, the last ten years of which I 
have taught OST to hundreds of grad students and have opened spaces in over 
one hundred social systems in Latin America, most of which involved serious 
conflict.  We are also currently training and mentoring several teams of 
facilitators in community development and refugee management in the 
Colombian war zones.

First and foremost, I can only agree in part with Harrison´s statement that 
OS is pretty much the same in conflict-violence situations as it is in 
"normal" situations.  We have very successfully used OST in many conflict 
situations in companies, NGOs, communities and governmental agencias.  Our 
learning, however, is that there is a point in the process of escalation of 
a conflict (Glasl, Gnass and Brenson, 1998) in which OST ceases to be a 
viable option, simply because there is no shared need to be agreed upon or 
met, only the "need" to destroy one another. This has also been borne out 
by the excellent work of ICA-Canada in the development of strategies of 
facilitating conciliation.

In our experience in violent conflict situations, when there does not exist 
an awareness or recognition of a common need shared by a critical mass of 
participants,  the space rapidly degenerates into a launching pad for 
mutual attacks, retaliations and even greater polarization, because, from 
the beginning, that was the hidden agenda of so many of the participants. 
Even in the Incan Empire, where open space techniques were successfully 
used by the Mitimaes "facilitators" over 1500 years ago, the "Minga" and 
the "Tequio" were never used when the conflicts reached a certain 
"temperature" (translation of the Quechua word used).

It might be thought that this would not be a problem if the sponsors 
arrived at an agreement beforehand and that has, in fact,  been the case in 
some  situations.  However, in others, the "agreement" is "De dientes 
pa´fuera"  (From the teeth out) and it behooves us to remember that 
"agreement" has different meanings in different cultures. Just last 
weekend, two dear friends and clients of ours, the Governor of the 
Antioquia Province and his Advisor on Peace (a former a Colombian Defense 
Minister) were on a peaceful citizens march for non-violence.  As they 
approched the last town on their schedule, a messenger from one of the 
guerrilla groups approached the almost 1000 marchers and informed 
them  that the FARC Guerrilla Movement would not allow the march to 
continue unless the Governor agreed to sit down and negociate with the 
local Guerrilla leader in a nearby village.  The Governor, his Advisor and 
a half dozen clergy and leaders of the social pastorate willingly went with 
the messenger with the best intentions to negociate.  Once they arrived, 
they were immediately informed that by order of the National Guerrilla 
Headquarters they were to be held prisoners of the FARC.  All but one of 
the priests were released and the last one, the Provincial Chaplain, was 
released the following day to tell the tale and to carry demands for 
capitulation to the Colombian President. No word has been received in the 
last week on the condition of the Governor or his Advisor, who now are a 
part of the list of thousands of kidnapped citizens in Colombia.

Regarding the specific case of the Colombian situation, there is no black 
and white and not even a couple of shades of gray.  There are dozens and 
dozens of conflicting social, political, commercial, international and 
criminal interests simultaneously at work, some intent on physically 
annihilating some of the others for a variety of reasons: power, revenge, 
money, drug trading, arms dealing, etc.  The rest of Colombia is in the 
middle of this multiple crossfire.

I can certainly see an effective use of OST with the GOs, International and 
National NGOs and Civil Society to bring them together to generate 
effective estrategies.  I can certainly see an effective use of OST to 
bring concerned citizens together.   I cannot see OST as a useful 
intervention in the communities in the war zone, since any gathering of 
even a small group of citizens can and does easily provoke a guerrilla, 
paramilitary or military attack. Nor can I see its usefulness in 
conversations in another country between leaders of the different armed 
camps whose only declared intent and reason for existence is to kill one 
another.  That has been going on for years now, with some of the best 
negotiators from around the world, but with no results.

I hope I am wrong.

Warm regards,

Gil


     **************************************
     AMAUTA INTERNATIONAL, LLC
      Bogotá, Colombia - St. Paul, MN
  Gilbert Brenson-Lazan - Socio-Gerente
   Tel: (+57-1) 345-2724 - Fax: 345-2072
U.S. Voice Mail and Fax: (206) 888-4386
          e-mail: <gbl at amauta.org>
         website: <http://amauta.org>
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