Doris Mariani, Nonviolent Peaceforce CEO Visits Minneapolis, MN

Report by Amy Hansen, Nonviolent Peaceforce Communications and Development Associate

Over the past six months as CEO, Doris has spent thirty days at each field program. Newly-invigorated by seeing Nonviolent Peaceforce’s work in action, Doris returned for a small tour of the United States to meet with NP supporters. In Minneapolis, Doris attended two events in March put together by the local Nonviolent Peaceforce office. She was a guest speaker at Plymouth Congregational Church and attended a “Meet and Greet.”  Each event was attended by many long-time supporters, potential supporters and our volunteer interns.

At both events Doris reiterated again and again, that “compared to war, an investment in peace is cheap!” She noted that, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, investments in development accounts for 11% of the global economy.  However, the amount spent on containing violence is 75 times more than what is spent for development assistance. For Doris, who is an economist by training, and has experience in both international development and international security, this is part of what drew her to Nonviolent Peaceforce. She stated the work NP does is return on an investment and it is a foundation for peace.

Doris talked about the progress she witnessed by NP’s field staff.  “South Sudan has been in the news a lot and it breaks my heart,” she said. “I left South Sudan just two days before the fighting started there and I got an opportunity to visit a couple of the field sites there.”Accompanied by Atif Hameed, NP’s Program Director, they visited in Lake States, located in central South Sudan. They visited a cattle camp with one of NP’s women’s peacekeeping teams. There the women’s peacekeeping team met with cattle clansmen who had been involved in violent conflict that had caused many deaths over the past year.

Doris stated that she and the other peacekeepers sat waiting in a circle of plastic patio chairs, but initially no one came to meet them.“It took about an hour, until they checked us  out and then they came. They sat in their chairs, we were already in our chairs. When the men came and sat down, our women’s peacekeeping team, got up and went and sat on the ground in front of the men.” Doris explained “this was to show that the women had come there humble, pleading with them to end the violence.” She then reiterated after this happened, the women stood up one by one to talk about losing their son or their husbands to violence. She said, at first the men kept blaming the other tribe, but eventually the chief stood up and spoke. He said “look let’s be honest, these women have travelled hours, you know they are telling the truth, let’s be honest with them.” She said that the men started telling different sorts of stories then.

Doris also talked about the successes made in the Philippines, where she noted that the final peace agreement with various annexes was soon to be signed. “Our part in the success in the Philippines has been small but important. After having been on the ground for a couple years and proven what we do works, and after having won the confidence and the trust of both the key parties, the government, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been a non-state party, and other stakeholders, the local civil society people…we were invited to be an official party to the International Monitoring Team. It was a historical event for an NGO to be invited to participate in work that typically belongs to government/state actors. Our role there was civilian protection role, so we worked with local civil society to put in place mechanisms to protect civilians.” She explained part of this was the Early Warning and Early Response mechanism and the use of communications technology in the form of cell phones. Doris noted because of what NP did in the Philippines, we were invited to Myanmar (where there is conflict among dozens of armed ethnic group) by the civil society organizations and the government. Doris went on to point out, “Needless to say the people trust towards the government is lacking owing to past incidences and the civil society is technically not strong particularly with regards to ceasefire monitoring. So what we have been doing in Myanmar, we are like the glue, a bridge. Because of the non-partisanship, we can work with everyone. We have been providing trainings to civil society organizations, we work with the ethnic-armed groups and we assist the government.” 

Doris talked about how the government’s objective is to take all of the various ceasefire agreements that have been established so far and develop it into one nationwide ceasefire agreement. She noted this is “not easy, we’re working with helping the parties think through what the mechanisms should be, how one should organize it to make sure all the stakeholders are brought together…because if you don’t, the peace does not last.”

Doris described the levels at which peace agreements can be achieved. She said Nonviolent Peaceforce focuses on the grassroots level, working in the villages. This can be referred to as “track three” diplomacy, or the bottom level of a 3-tiered pyramid. She asked the audience to think about Secretary Kerry sitting in Geneva, negotiating peace for Syria and to think about how disconnected that is from the grassroots level. His work is at the very top of the pyramid at the track one or official diplomatic level. In the middle of the pyramid is track two, which encompases the national level, the capital cities, and national civil society’s organization.

Doris pointed out that that there is often a disconnect between these levels, both from the standpoint of the flow of information and the ability to influence decisions.  She said when she was in Mindanao talking to local civil society people, she asked them what their biggest challenge was. They responded, “People really don’t understand these peace agreements that have been signed (at the national level).” Doris pointed out that because of our experience we can be bringing people together from the local to the national levels, possibly combining this with mediation so that a lasting peace may better be achieved. This is the value of working at the track three level, while being engaged with all the participants in the conflict.

During the “Meet and Greet” Doris turned to NP’s younger volunteer interns and asked “How do we get your generation involved? What do we do?” This sparked excitement, as people began discussing how to engage younger generation support for NP’s work. Our volunteer intern, Daniel Bartup brought his wife Rachel to this event. She was so impressed with NP’s work, that she said she would help in her spare time.

Meeting with CEO Doris Mariani opened the eyes of the local Minnesota NP supporters to the current work NP is engaging in and how our value as people working at the track three level can assist in bring lasting peace. We are looking forward to seeing the accomplishments Nonviolent Peaceforce can make, with the help of our supporters.