Mangovia is situated on the west coast of the continent. Udubia lies to the north, Somer to the east, and Aegeriland is its southern neighbour. Mangovia has relinquished any territorial claims a decade ago following a particularly ferocious eighteen-month war of secession from Aegeriland. Its twelve million people are governed by an especially repressive one-party regime.

Now, an aggrieved Aegeri minority, after eight years of armed strife characterised by human rights abuses on both sides, has fought the Mangovian army to a tactical standstill; some renegade Mangovian army elements intermittently remain in control of the forested areas along the Udubian border, forcing Udubian men and boys, and some local Mangovians, to work in logging operations. The valuable wood, sold to fund proxy dissenting militias among the Aegeri minority, has been marketed in Somer where most Mangovian and Aegerian refugees have fled.

Local peace activists have been intimidated by the murder of several of their number and their families, and although some medical, development and educational NGOs have remained in Mangovia throughout the fighting, many have left the country.

The Continental Union and the UN have been conducting diplomatic negotiations and have achieved six unsustained ceasefires and two failed peace accords over the eight-year strife. The Mangovian government and the Aegeri minority leadership have recently agreed in principle to the deployment of an international peace force whose mandate is:

• to protect civil society peace advocates;
  
• to provide security for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Aegeri militias and most Mangovian government soldiers;
• to assist in the re-establishment of infrastructure, with an emphasis on schools and hospitals;
• to educate about, and advocate for, the peace process;
  
• to encourage and support reconciliation at local, regional and national levels;
• to assist the UN Political Office in Mangovia in the conduct of democratic multiparty elections, two years from the arrival of the peace force;
• to advise, and assist if requested, local authority in the maintenance of order;
• to monitor the human rights situation; and
• to protect unarmed civilians, and minorities, from violence.
  

The peace force, the United Nations Intermediary Mission in Mangovia (UNIMIM), arrived after two weeks of contact skills training including basic language instruction and cultural education. The force included not only security personnel but specialist engineering units and civilian technical officers including educators, political scientists, economists, nutritionists, agronomists, lawyers, health workers, police trainers, anthropologists and human rights officers. All these peacekeepers, civilian, police and military, had undergone the tailored two weeks training course before arrival in Mangovia.

International elite diplomacy was augmented by track II efforts before, and since deployment of, the peace operation. Six battalion groups of blue helmet infantry soldiers are separately located around Mangovia and engage in patrols of communities where there are heightened levels of fear and insecurity. The main mission of these soldiers is not to dominate the area but to maintain a visible presence, to defuse tension, negotiate weapons surrender and protect unarmed civilians. Each patrol team includes a paramedic or nurse, and a conflict resolution specialist.

The rules of engagement permit the use of deadly force to protect vulnerable local people, other members of the mission, and themselves – if circumstances preclude negotiation. Ten to twelve light armoured vehicles and some heavy weaponry are held in reserve in each battalion headquarters location.

The day-to-day activities of the peace force centre on displaying impartial good offices, mixing proactively with local people in ways appropriate to the host culture and seeking out and supporting peace advocates. Breaches of the peace are to be monitored and where possible, negotiated and mediated with the participants so that antagonists realise that the peacekeepers are deployed as a resource to assist in keeping, monitoring and building the peace.

All dealings with Mangovians are informed by the constraining values of restorative justice. This means that in encounters at meetings, regardless of venue, where significant armed violence is not underway, and even in some circumstances where the violence is minimal, peacekeepers act as patient and impartial facilitators. Safety is paramount and empowerment of those clearly less powerful is fostered. Persuasion and negotiation are preferred over dominating interactions and coercing cooperation.

With the continued deployment of the peace force, monitoring and upgrading of their knowledge base and contact skills occurs at planned intervals. At patrol or team level, the mix of military and civilian, male and female personnel, their skill sets and combination of national backgrounds, are evaluated and adjusted as the mission and ongoing peace building is consolidated.

Coordination between NGO, UN agency and UNIMIM activities is enhanced by regular briefings by and for all groups concerned – including local Mangovian stakeholder representatives. If an area contains militia and government force units, then all forces are to be equally included. The activities more engaged with building civil society – drawing on the maximizing values of restorative justice – would be effectuated initially from this platform.

Peace conferences are encouraged and supported – and where necessary secured – throughout the peace operation. Where the emergent values of restorative justice appear and reconciliation is undertaken across Mangovian society and between any Udubian, Somerian and Aegerilanders concerned, then this is supported by the peace force.

Reconciliation of any issue in the conflict, and of any from the previous war of secession, is to be included. This would have to include the bringing to account, through restorative processes measured against the relevant constraining, maximising and emergent values, of those who had perpetrated serious crime and human rights violations. How this would happen is, for the most part, up to Mangovian society to resolve.

The peace force would only be scaled down incrementally upon the declaration of a free and fair poll in Mangovia, and improvements being witnessed in infrastructure development. In addition, a measurable decrease in the harmful effects of the civil war, including the reintegration of combatants, particularly child soldiers attending school, would need to be in evidence. Regeneration would have to have taken hold and visible signs, such as the beginnings of functioning communities of former belligerents, would be underway. 

Peter Damien Reddy
August 2007