Dealing with Conflicts

What is the issue?

Increasing conflicts around the world call for a different approach in dealing with them beyond the intervention of the armed forces.

What are the different forms of conflict?

Conflict could be external or internal to the country.
Internal conflicts can be further classified into two categories - conflict against the state and people-to-people conflict.
Conflict against the state may include separatist movements, and suicide bombings.
Suicide bombings are an extreme manifestation of conflict, carried out by a relatively organised group of non-state actors.
Their ultimate goal is the destabilisation of the state and these incidents are generally referred to as terrorism.
The people-to-people conflict could be between different ethnic, religious and social groups.
This could include religious riots, homicides, domestic violence, common violence, and other crimes.

How has the trend changed?

Over the period, internal conflict has replaced external conflict.
Within this, people-to-people internal conflict has declined, and internal conflict against the state has increased.
The adverse economic and social impact of internal conflict against the state is much greater compared to people-to-people conflict.

Why do conflicts need attention?

The world has made rapid progress in reducing poverty but regions affected by conflict have been left behind.
In the last decade, various global conflicts have affected nearly 2 billion people and resulted in a loss of more than 10% of the global economic activity.
Perceivably, international ideological movements merge with local grievances, and different forms of violence get linked to each other.
When economic changes become a concern for local community, local grievances can escalate into acute demands for change.
In this context, unemployment, corruption and social exclusion increase the risks of violence.
Clearly, conflict is not just one-off events, but cycles of repeated violence.
Hence it needs due attention given the multifaceted implications.

What are the driving factors for conflicts?

Economy - Internal conflicts are largely related to the economic dynamics.
Global evidence supports a strong inverse relationship between conflict and per-capita income level.
Conflict increases due to adverse economic shocks, such as famines and rural distress.
Youth unemployment has been and is a key motive for many joining both rebel movements and urban gangs.
Exclusion - Political exclusion and inequality affecting different ethnic groups result in higher risks of civil war.
It is easier for terrorists and rebels to recruit people to their cause in such areas because their opportunity cost is low.
In ethnically-based or separatist conflict, recruitment can be easily made on ethnicity or religion basis.

Poverty - Conflict is concentrated in areas that have higher poverty rates, weak institutions and that are poorly integrated.
These have experienced more than three times the number of terrorist incidents per capita, compared with the well-off regions.
Poorer regions also have poorer state capacity, and hence the government is not able to deal with the rebels effectively.
The poverty-conflict interlink can thus slow down the pace of poverty reduction and achievement of multilateral development goals.

Geographic conditions, such as the presence of forest cover, can also be associated with the incidence of conflict.
States in India that have a higher forest cover have experienced higher conflict intensity.
This is consistent with numerous accounts of Naxalites using forest cover to hide effectively from law enforcement forces.

Have measures at tackling this been effective?

Development efforts from the ancient times have focussed on reducing conflict through collaboration, with the formation of village communities.
In modern times, the most common approach is to use police forces to establish law and order in the affected areas.
In areas where police forces are insufficient, the armed forces are called in to deal with the insurgency.
But in most cases, this has not been a successful strategy.
Even when successful in defeating the insurgents, the human costs associated with military operations are very high.

What are the other better options?

Peace agreements - A different approach to dealing with conflict is to conduct negotiations and sign peace agreements with the insurgents.
To be effective, this approach needs two requirements -

the government must conduct coordinated negotiations
the insurgent group must be genuinely interested in joining the political mainstream

E.g. Indian government has signed peace deals with several separatist groups in the north-eastern states
Similarly, negotiations with some Tamil groups in Sri Lanka have resulted in their integration into mainstream politics.
Economic solution - Complementary to the security-based solution is an economic solution.
In this, the government takes measures to expand social and welfare programmes.
It thereby reduces poverty in the conflict-affected areas to undercut the support for insurgency.
Regional cooperation - Many internal conflicts in South Asia have cross-border dimensions.
E.g. the Taliban in Afghanistan has support in Pakistan’s border areas, Maoists in Nepal have links with Maoist movements in India
Likewise, many separatist groups in India’s north-eastern states had training camps and cells in neighbouring countries.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other Tamil separatist groups in Sri Lanka have traditionally enjoyed support from the Tamil diaspora.
In such a context, cross-border regional cooperation is an essential part of any counterinsurgency strategy and a more effective one.
Regional Partnership Forums should be formed with support of donors and national policymakers.
Besides, it must have the flexibility to work with the local communities.

What should the approach be?

Policy choices are critical for reducing repeated conflicts.
In this context, economic policies should be geared not just to maximise growth, which could take time.
It should also focus on proactively engaging the local communities, and addressing the distributional or political factors that led to the conflict.
Policy choices must be structured to reduce both real and perceived inequities.
It should focus on short-term economic and social goals first, and then on medium and longer-term efficiency considerations.
This approach calls for humanitarian and community-based treatment for conflict-affected people.
This includes closure of refugee camps, and reintegration of refugees within the society.
Policies should have plans for post-conflict development and reducing poverty too, to have sustainable results.

Source: Financial Express