Catholic Relief Services Contribution to International Peacemaking Father William Headley Deputy Executive Director of Catholic Relief Services. Presented at the USIP workshop on Catholic Peacemaking February 5, 2001 Washington DC " The positive role played by mediation and pacification agencies should be extended to the non-governmental humanitarian organizations and religious bodies which, discreetly and without ulterior motives, promote peace between opposed groups and help to overcome age-old rivalries, reconcile enemies and open the way to a new and shared future." Message of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, For the Celebration of World Day of Peace, January 1, 2000 1. No Stranger to War: World War II Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is no stranger to war. It came into existence because of conflict. The year was 1943. It was the end of World War II. The Catholic Church in the United States wanted to aid in the relief of war-ravaged Europe. CRS, then called War Relief Service, a part of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, was the United States Catholic institutional response. 2. Armed Conflict: Benchmarks of CRS History Since then, armed conflicts of various sorts have served as benchmarks or turning points in the life of this faith-based agency. When civil war broke out in Nigeria (1966-1970), CRS fed the starving people of the eastern or Biafran part of the country against the will of the national government. CRS, along with hundreds of Catholic missionaries, was summarily expelled from the country at the end of this Biafran War for this "interference." During the US presence in the Vietnam War (1965-1975), we fed, clothed and housed thousands of villagers in the south. For our participation in this popularly known "villagization" program, we won the undying gratitude of many Vietnamese. Others scorned and mistrusted us for excessive identification with the US government. Disillusionment with CRS by many liberal, activist Catholics in the United States stems from that moment in our history. No single experience, however, so affected the direction of CRS than the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. CRS presence there predated the country s independence in 1962. For more than three decades, we went about what was considered at the time "good" relief and development work: Providing emergency relief for displaced groups and working with various indigenous partners to maintain development programs in agriculture, micro-finance, reforestation, etc. We were
known and respected by all levels of the population. We had become part of the fabric of the society. Then came the genocide in the spring and summer of 1994. We were in shock and reacted as we always had: with emergency relief. In a sense, we acted like the traumatized apostles immediately after the violent death of Christ. We returned to our own fishing boats of charitable service, distributing blankets, rice and tents. In truth, Rwanda was not a case of a mysteriously appearing genocide. There had been major societal and ethnic rifts as well as related injustices for years. These were not hidden. They were considered to be outside CRS development mandate. Our traditional programming improved socioeconomic life. It did not touch the country s latent conflict. CRS projects were wiped out in minutes; the people we served became "the well-fed dead." 3. Adopting a Justice Lens In the weeks and months following this slaughter we began to reflect on how it was that we had been in this beautiful country with these loving people for so long and were caught unprepared for the violence and evil lurking just under the skin of the society. It challenged us to rethink our entire service approach. For the agency, this reflection and other reformist yearnings afoot at the time within our organization -- led us back to a body of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) that had been accumulated, sharpened and refined within our Church for just over 100 years. A popular volume calls this compendium of teaching the Church s "best kept secrets." The consecrated expression for the segment of this teaching in common use since the post-vatican II era is "Justice and Peace." In a major agency-wide planning exercise undertaken in 1996, we developed an approach to our work embodying these principles. We called it the "Justice Lens." It directed us to apply a social analysis inspired by justice principles to everything that we did. Everything! This included a just work place, our relationship with our partners, the people we serve and the various social policies of the countries in which we worked. It was a huge undertaking to expose CRS nearly 4,000 overseas workers in approximately eighty-seven countries to this perspective. Most of these valued employees were of other faiths. Ways had to be devised to both stress CST and be respectful of the diversity within CRS as well as among those we serve. Strategic Planning Processes required every three or four years of each country program now must include an analysis of core social justice issues. An institutional expression of this "Justice Lens" evolved into what has become the Policy and Strategic Issues (PSI) division. In close collaboration with USCC and what is happening in the countries where we work, this office is charged with developing policy and advocacy programs informed by this justice and
peace perspective. It studies both the local and global issues that both affect our work and the people we serve. With this new capacity, CRS is examining with local churches the financial windfall coming from the Chad-Cameroon pipeline and whether it will truly benefit the impacted communities and nations, child labor laws in India and whether we should take funds from a US-based brand name clothing manufacturer for earthquake victims in El Salvador. We help give voice to Colombian bishops who want to speak to US legislators about the US-assisted fumigation of fields in the Colombian drug wars. Included, too, is the facilitation of participatory processes that enable civil society to influence restoration projects in Kosovo, Gujarat State in India and the countries affected by Mitch in Central America. We study how USAID distributes foreign aid and how it will use its food aid in the years ahead. Policy and advocacy work in CRS concerns itself with the larger, transnational issues such as the effects of globalization, immigration, corporate responsibility, US legislation on HIV/AIDS and extractive industries in Africa. Reviewed with some care, these examples of institutional justice and peace activity will reveal a lopsidedness. The efforts are almost exclusively in the area of justice policy, education and advocacy. Little explicit attention "appears" to be given to the peace dimension or its converse, conflict. A similar slant toward justice would have been seen if the examples had been drawn from the program area. This emphasis seemingly follows post-vatican II thinking and practice caught in the dictum of Pope Paul VI, "If you want peace, work for justice." 4. Peacebuilding Highlighted But, "appearances" sometimes deceive, as they do in this instance. Something else of a more explicit peacebuilding nature has been occurring in the everyday activities in the "field," i.e., the various countries where CRS works. Like the Maasai people of East Africa who do not like to count their cattle, CRS was not counting these peacebuilding activities until very recently. Field Activities When CRS expanded its "Justice Lens" work to more explicitly include peacebuilding services, we did count. The raw, unrefined data, being regularly updated and sharpened, indicates that CRS presently has sixty-one peacebuilding projects throughout the world. The project category labels are not precise. There is overlap and possibly some strained examples. Still, the list is indicative. It offers insight into what CRS, as a Catholic relief and development agency, is doing by way of peacebuilding. Here are some trends in present peacebuilding activities within CRS: 1. Programs exist at all stages of a conflict s life cycle, from prevention through trauma healing.
* In Morocco we are engaged in preventing violent conflict by incorporating conflict resolution alongside our justice focus in all programming areas. * CRS/Philippines plays an intervention role by supporting dialogue between religious leaders in the conflicted southern region of Mindanao. The Bishops- Ulama Dialogue Forum provides a visible example of inter-religious bridge building and feeds into the more formal political process of negotiation through the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process. * Our staff in Croatia works in the area of post-conflict trauma healing. CRS developed basic and advanced curricula for trauma awareness and continues to provide training for medical personnel, social workers, doctors, teachers and attorneys in trauma awareness and response. 2. Nearly half of our examples are listed under "institutional peacebuilding." Generally speaking, these are efforts in capacity building for peacebuilding with sister churches in war-torn countries. Examples help. * In East Timor, CRS works with two Peace and Justice Commissions of the Catholic Church on the "East Timor Peace, Reconciliation and Dialogue" initiative. Jointly, they nourished 12 local organizations capacities to work at peacebuilding and reconciliation over this past year. * Working with Peace and Justice Commissions of four Dioceses in Chad, CRS has helped build up local efforts on peacebuilding and conflict transformation. One product of this work was supporting local mediation efforts between herders and farmers in southern Chad. Another product was the translation of peacebuilding materials into French for local use. * CRS/Kosovo initiated a Justice and Peace program to develop explicitly local capacity in peacebuilding. Given the precarious nature of relationships in Kosovo, this is a very important element of CRS goal of helping build a sustainable peace predicated on justice and right relationships in the region. 3. Many of our Peacebuilding initiatives are being integrated into ongoing relief and development efforts. * The Myriamville community bakery project in Mindanao, Philippines provides an excellent example of how peacebuilding can be integrated into micro-enterprise development projects. In June 1997, a bakery was established to strengthen community relations, provide opportunities for employment and allow Muslims and Christians to work side-by-side. The bakery is a financial success and has fostered joint participation in religious celebrations -- both related to the bakery and elsewhere in the community. * Programs in Bosnia-Herzegovina also very purposely involve representatives from various religious communities in micro-enterprise projects, as well as in the larger tasks of identifying development and reconstruction projects and potential
recipients for their respective communities. Local Community Working Groups are formed with representatives from the majority and minority religious groups in the region. This structure has helped foster working relationships between Bosnian Serb, Muslim and Croat leaders in numerous communities including a current project that is working on building up relationships in Srebernica. Further, for each development or reconstruction project, there are primary and secondary beneficiaries, who are required to be from different religious backgrounds. 4. A growing number of peacebuilding training experiences and workshops are being held. These are conducted both for CRS staff and indigenous leadership. * CRS has supported peacebuilding, conflict resolution and conflict transformation workshops in Colombia, El Salvador, Kosovo, Peru, the Philippines and Rwanda. The project in Rwanda focuses particularly on youth from four dioceses, bringing together approximately 500 youth in solidarity camps and providing education on peace teachings, justice, reconciliation, Rwandan history and conflict resolution. * Over the years, CRS has benefited from the conflict transformation approach of John Paul Lederach and his colleagues at Eastern Mennonite University s Conflict Transformation Program. Many CRS workers have traveled to Harrisonburg, VA, to take part in learning more about this people-centered and context-sensitive approach to peacebuilding. In fact, there was so much interest in CRS South-east Asia region, that last summer CRS and EMU co-sponsored the first ever Mindanao Summer Peace Institute. CRS is looking to build several similar regional peace institutes around the world. Finally, CRS is pursuing another educational development with Notre Dame University s Kroc Institute. Together, we are planning a two-week summer course that combines our development work with Catholic approaches to peace and peacebuilding. In summary, within many of CRS international country programs, a variety of peacebuilding activities have bloomed in the context of an agency that is examining everything it does with the "Justice Lens." US Domestic Partnerships Partnerships in the US have provided another avenue for developing CRS peacebuilding capacity, while contributing our grassroots experience and resources to enrich the emerging field of peacebuilding. A number of these initiatives have already been mentioned, but it is good to consider them briefly as contributions to the field here in the US. Interestingly, early initiatives were secular and ecumenical as well as Catholic. For many years, CRS has been an institutional participant in Dr. Mary Anderson s "Local Capacities for Peace Project" research and the "Do No Harm" approach within development work. This is an effort to examine the complex functions played by international development in conflict situations. Programmatically, these initiatives straddle the domestic/international divide.
More than 250 CRS staff members have been trained in the "Do No Harm" methodology. We have also participated in an ongoing "Reflecting on Peace Practice Project." Eastern Mennonite University and the work of Dr. John Paul Lederach, both mentioned earlier, have made an incalculable contribution to CRS work with peacebuilding. We trust the interaction with CRS international staff working in setting of protracted conflict have, in turn, enriched Eastern Mennonite s program. CRS sponsorship of an "Africa Church as Peacemaker Colloquium" at the Catholic, Duquesne University in 1994 enabled a fledgling Conflict and Peace Studies program to get off to a good start. From this beginning, a promising conflict resolution program was launched and a fruitful and mutually beneficial relationship was formed. This has produced peacebuilder graduates from Duquesne for CRS staff; stimulated a tri-university organization of conflict resolution students concerned about peacebuilding in Africa; and been a source of trainers and consultants for peacebuilding in Africa and the Balkans. As part of an agency-wide expansion of its US Catholic partnerships, CRS is presently exploring research ties with a number of US Catholic institutions of higher learning through the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and Washington Theological Union. High on the list of concerns to CRS in these dialogues is peacebuilding. The training program to be held at Notre Dame this summer, which was mentioned earlier, provides a good example of what can be done on the education level. Global Collaboration We like to think that CRS focus on peacebuilding has had an effect much larger than the cumulative activities in the different countries and here in the US. We have tried to facilitate wider, global reflection and action on this important topic. Again, examples help. A long hoped-for desire to have Catholic religious leaders from Africa and Latin America meet and share what has been learned from conflicts in their parts of the world became real with the "Intercontinental Meeting: Africa/ (Latin) America" held in Maputo, Mozambique (August 22-27, 2000). The intent was to have a South-South dialogue on peacemaking efforts. Two Catholic bodies with a global reach jointly shared sponsorship for this event: Caritas Internationalis and the Vatican s Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. CRS regional staff in Latin America was among the initial architects for this program. The agency provided significant funding for it and its personnel participated. The same Caritas Internationalis, a federation of 154 national Catholic Caritas organizations worldwide, made work on reconciliation a priority for its 1995-1999 mandate. This led to the production of Working for Reconciliation: A Caritas Handbook. CRS provided staff and financial support for this important resource
for Catholic peacebuilding throughout the world. We are helping to fund and direct the further popularization of this text by the construction of lesson plans and training manuals. 5. World Summit: Door to the Future Our 1996 "Justice Lens" helped guide us to where CRS is today in its peacebuilding initiatives. Our World Summit held in Tampa, Florida, from October 8-13, 2000 is carrying us into the future. The Summit was two years in preparation. After culling the extraordinary contributions from the grassroots of our far-flung agency, 250 staff, partners, friends and experts gathered for a week of celebration, spiritual renewal and reflection. One of the five visionary directions that came from this meeting reads: "CRS will (help) build a culture of peace throughout the world based on a foundation of justice and reconciliation." Obviously, from what has been said here, we did not need the Summit to begin making a contribution to bringing peace to the world. As a visionary direction, however, peacebuilding will receive even greater focus and attention within the agency. There is a catch phrase in the World Summit write-up on this culture of peace that CRS wants to help build. It reads: "Peace must be built, not declared." Let us act together, then, that these words will give way to the actions of fellow peacebuilders in CRS, this room and across the world, united -- whatever our religious affiliation or value system -- in the cause of peace. William Headley, CSSp Deputy Executive Director Catholic Relief Services Tel. 410-625-2220 X 3555 Fax 410-234-2986 E-mail: wheadley@catholicrelief.org