Building Confidence in the Peace Process

Billy Mitchell

Much media coverage has been given of late to politicians who insist that confidence in the peace process is declining because paramilitary organisations refuse to decommission and bring a swift end to rough community justice. Those who are so vociferous in linking confidence building to decommissioning and rough justice have traditionally been less than enthusiastic about the peace process themselves. Indeed they often done more than most to help undermine and erode confidence in the peace process.

The ethical responsibility for establishing the confidence necessary to build a genuine and lasting peace must not be limited simply to the prevention of violence or to a peaceful resolution of political conflict - important as this. Confidence building, like peace building, must address the absence of structures and conditions that will lead to the establishment of a full and holistic human development for all citizens of Northern Ireland.

Structural Injustice

There can be no genuine peace while the wheels of structural injustice impose psychological violence and economic misery on those communities that have suffered the brunt of conflict related violence. One has only to look at areas like North Belfast where six of the fourteen wards are regarded as being amongst the most deprived in Northern Ireland and where ninety percent of those most affected by conflict and violence in the area live. The number of conflict related deaths in North Belfast account for almost 23% of all such deaths in the Province since 1969. Studies by Marie Smith and her "Cost of the Troubles" Team show that there is a clear linkage between social and economic deprivation and increased incidents of both inter and intra community violence.

It could be argued that structural violence and paramilitary violence go hand in hand. Why then should politicians focus on one to the exclusion of the other? The cycle of deprivation, marginalisation, conflict and violence will only be broken when as much attention is given to tackling social and economic injustice as is given to tackling political conflict and paramilitary violence.

Since the cease-fires were announced in 1994 there has been an evident optimism sweeping the business and industrial planning communities. This has been paralleled by a significant drop in the rate of unemployment and a subsequent growth in Northern Ireland�s GDP. Undoubtedly, the cessation of violence makes a visible contribution to confidence building in that it improves the mobility of potential employees and consumers, provides the potential of reducing the impact of �chill factors� and encourages both exogenous and external rates of investment.

Social Exclusion

However these positive aspects of the peace dividend are not shared by sections of the population on low income. Clearly, there are whole sections of the North Belfast community who are socially excluded from the benefits of the socio-economic restructuring that have taken place in recent years. It is evident that the decision-making and resource allocation structures currently in place are producing gross inequalities in the distribution of the economic benefits accruing from the peace process. In the absence of any substantial and positive social and economic outcomes for those communities that have been most adversely affected by the �troubles� it is improbable that any measure of confidence in the peace process will be forthcoming.

Confidence building measures to underpin the peace process must include innovative community and economic initiatives that address social and economic deprivation and bring hope to our people. If the focus of so-called constitutional politicians remains fixed on one form of violence then those people who remain excluded from the mainstream of social and economic life and continue to suffer the debilitating effects of structural violence will have little confidence in a process that appears to be passing them by.

(This article first appeared in the North Belfast News)