WOMEN SHOULD HAVE STRONGER PRESENCE AT PEACE TABLE, SAY PARTICIPANTS IN WOMEN'S DAY PANEL

7 March 1997

Press Release
PI/993
WOM/953

WOMEN SHOULD HAVE STRONGER PRESENCE AT PEACE TABLE, SAY PARTICIPANTS IN WOMEN'S DAY PANEL

19970307 The United Nations should take the lead in ensuring that women were involved at all stages and all levels of peace negotiations, Dame Margaret Joan Anstee said Thursday, as the keynote speaker in a panel discussion on "Women at the Peace Table", held at Headquarters to commemorate International Women's Day. Other participants in the panel, which was moderated by the Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information, Samir Sanbar, were: the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Angela King; the Vice-President of the National Assembly of El Salvador, Ana Guadalupe Martinez; and Gordana Knezevic, former Deputy-Editor- in-Chief of Oslobodjenje, a daily newspaper in Sarajevo.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Sanbar said that the participation of women in peace efforts was an issue of interest both to the United Nations and to the international women's movement. While women had been very visible over the years in calling for an end to internal conflicts and the arms race, they had been less visible at the negotiating table. Yet, he said, it was a sad fact that in today's conflicts more women and children were killed than soldiers. He quoted a passage from the Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995, which called for "the equal and full participation" of women in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts. Dame Margaret, who spoke at length about her experience as the former Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Angola, added that women were caught in a vicious circle; because it was deemed that they could not do something, they were not given the opportunity. Thus, when women were given the opportunity, they should seize it, which she did in 1992 when given 24 hours to decide whether or not to take over the mission in Angola.

The mission already had many of the attributes of "a potentially lost cause", she continued, but she felt refusal would be letting women down. On the other hand, if she accepted and the mission failed there would "no lack of die-hard misogyny". She accepted the challenge. Overall, the mission helped to shore up an unsteady peace, and to bring about elections in which over 90 per cent of the population voted. It was, however, a case of the operation being successful and the patient being ready to die. The opposition chose not to accept the results of the elections.

"It was traumatic", she said, and her new book about the experience, Orphan of the Cold War, was an "examination of conscience". Yet, what happened in Angola was quite unrelated to the fact that the head of the mission was a woman. She had been accepted by the leaders on both sides. Dr. Jonas Savimbi, head of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), called her "mother", she said, adding that she was the only woman sitting at the peace table. Once it became clear that the country was heading for civil war, she became the mediator.

Dame Margaret recalled the attacks she experienced on her character while serving in Angola, the worst of which came after she declared the Angola elections free and fair. After that, UNITA announced that she was a diamond smuggler who had taken bribes by the Angolan Government. Later, they added that she was also a prostitute. Another rumour was that she had to come to New York because she was pregnant with the baby of Dr. Savimbi. Things that a man would never have to face were brought into question, she said.

Dame Margaret said that despite the trauma, she did not regret going to Angola and would do it again. Women the world over had an important stake in peace, yet their voices were rarely heard. The Secretary-General should be urged to appoint more women special representatives. There were qualified women inside and outside the United Nations system, and the same applied for women in senior posts in United Nations peace-keeping missions. Women must be encouraged to play the fullest part possible in all aspects of implementation of peace process itself.

Addressing the same issue, Mrs. King, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women and former Chief of the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA), said the development and fielding of peace-keeping and peace-building teams with women and men as equal partners would improve the efficiency of peace-keeping and peace maintenance throughout the world. United Nations evidence did not show that women were better peacemakers than men, but she believed that women made an operation more effective than if there were few women or no women.

She said that in South Africa she met with the heads of all political entities to encourage them to return to the peace table and later to participate in the elections. The role of the mission was to reduce violence and prepare the way forward. Deployment was a key factor. For the most part, she tried to make teams ethnically diverse and gender-balanced. Observers were physically present at many marches and rallies where there was a potential threat of violence. She had to liaise with armed security forces and local police forces. The acronym UNOMSA meant "she who brings mercy" in the Zulu language, she said.

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While women had been very active in the liberation movements, their status plummeted during negotiations, she continued. They were also victims of domestic violence, which was still a major problem. There was compelling evidence that those United Nations peace-keeping missions with better gender- balance had been highly effective. Cases of successful missions were: Namibia with 60 per cent women; South Africa with 53 per cent women; and Guatemala with nearly 49 per cent women.

Ms. King said that when a critical mass of women was involved in a peace-related mission, women in the mission acted as role models for women in the host country. The presence of women seemed to be a potent ingredient in fostering and maintaining confidence and trust among the local population. The presence of so many women in leadership positions in UNOMSA acted as a catalyst to change the views and attitudes of many of the local women, regardless of party affiliation. One outcome of the mission was the determination of South African women to have a voice. Women now had 25 per cent of the seats in South Africa's Parliament.

In closing, Ms. King emphasized the costs to the United Nations and Member States of ignoring women's basic right to equality and of failing to include them as full partners with men around the peace table. She hoped the United Nations and its Member States would recraft their thinking on the role of women in peace-keeping, peacemaking and peace-building, on good offices missions and those requiring special envoys, on pre-planning missions, and fact-finding missions.

Ms. Guadalupe Martinez, Vice-President of the National Assembly of El Salvador and former delegate of the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) to the El Salvador peace negotiations, called on the United Nations to establish a mechanism to assess the impact of armed conflict on women. In her country, the conflict had been generated by poverty, a lack of freedom and the constant violation of human rights. Because of El Salvador's location, the geopolitical component had been very important. Thus, many had tried to characterize the war not as a social and economic one, but as a result of the cold war.

Also, she continued, because of the internal aspects of war, the participation of women was highlighted. Entire families had been affected. Any political activity was deemed suspicious. When the war broke out, women became involved in the war as combatants. Later, it had been a great experience to be involved in the negotiations, since she believed that women were particularly skilful in seeking out peace and in finding solutions to the most difficult problems. Logically, the participation of women had an element which was sometimes left out -- valuing life. Women wanted to save their right to life in the broadest sense of the word.

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On the guerrilla front, there were two women at the negotiating table, she said. In the army of the FMLN, more than 25 per cent of soldiers were women. Women had been very involved in decisions about demobilization and re-entry into civilian life. It was not just a question of disarming the combatants, but also of offering hope in terms of economic, political and social reintegration. The involvement of women in reintegration was decisive. They thought about the families of the soldiers, which was a key element.

Ms. Guadalupe Martinez said that women had ensured that the code of the new civil police specified that a certain percentage of the new police force should be women. Coming from a history of an abusive police force, that was very important. If women had not been there during discussions of the composition of the police forces, there would not have been such an agreement. She added that women should participate more at the negotiating table, not because they were more sensitive, but because they saw problems that perhaps others did not see. Ms. Knezevic, former Deputy-Editor-in-Chief of Oslobodjenje, a daily newspaper in Sarajevo that she kept running during the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that she would like to devote her statement to three women. The first woman was the first victim of the war in Bosnia, Suada Dilberovic, a student in Sarajevo who was killed in April 1992 during a peace march of thousands. In the middle of the march, shots were fired from the Holiday Inn Hotel and people were horrified because many parents had brought their children to the peace march. It was later learned that the shots were fired by a militant wing of the Bosnian Serbs.

The second woman was Fata Merzic, who lost her only son in the war, she continued. He was forced to put on a uniform and defend his city. In February 1993 he did not return from the frontlines and the parents began to search for him. The hospitals did not have him on the list of wounded patients. Her only son had been killed. She said, at that moment, the war for both of them was over. They did not care about the war anymore. A year later, there was a peace proposal on the table, which was the division of Bosnia. A foreign journalist was visiting who wanted to talk to someone who had lost a family member in the war. Fata told the journalist that she did not want any other mother to lose her child and that even an unjust agreement was better than war.

The third woman mentioned by Ms. Knezevic was Halima, a Muslim who lived in the Serb-occupied part of Sarajevo. She was raped in her apartment by soldiers. Her neighbours sent a message to her sister, who was married to a Serb solider. The husband sent Serb soldiers to get her. When the soldiers arrived, Halima was so afraid, she threatened to jump out the window. After hearing their explanations that they had been sent by her brother-in-law, she agreed to go with them to safety. Now Halima works with a humanitarian organization providing assistance to women in need and women in crisis.

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Ms. Knezevic said the United Nations was involved in peace-keeping in the former Yugoslavia and the issue that had been neglected was the situation of women and children. Assistance should be given to women because they now carried the load of rebuilding the family, which led to peace in the long-run. There was not a single woman involved in the signing of the Dayton Accords, she stressed.

During the question-and-answer session, a woman from a non-governmental organization took the floor and launched an international peace petition from women of the world to the governments of the world. She said that the petition, which called for a reduction in military spending and an end to war, was co-sponsored by a large number of non-governmental organizations from around the world. The petition would circle the world for signatures and then be presented to the President of the General Assembly in September 1997. "If women don't demand an end to war", she asked, "who will?"

Asked how "street peace" could be included in the agenda of the United Nations, Dame Margaret said that women had a very important role to play against street violence through non-governmental organizations. Ms. King said that community peace-keepers were active in South Africa and women played an important role.

Ms. Guadalupe Martinez said there was an entire generation of young people in El Salvador who had grown up without families, which had led to groups of youth who lived on the street, some of them committing crimes. The basic problem resulted from a lack of family. While they had their basic needs covered from monies sent from parents working abroad, they began to get involved with street gangs. Those were middle class youth who had no sense of belonging. El Salvador was now trying to create jobs quickly in order to create opportunities.

A questioner appealed for action against drugs, which, she said, were destroying families in urban areas around the world. Dame Margaret said that the United Nations had a very large programme for the control of illicit drugs. A great deal was being done at the international level to stop the cultivation of drugs, and an international convention had been signed on the subject. She also said that governments had a key role to play.

The Permanent Representative of Liechtenstein said that the seven women ambassadors to the United Nations had presented a request to the Secretary- General to give due consideration to the appointment of more female Special Representatives. Mr. Sanbar said that the Secretary-General had welcomed that initiative. Ms. King said that there were several lists of qualified women in existence, and that over the next few months, there would be appointments.

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