Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention

reportMinority Rights: The Key to Conflict PreventionBy Clive Baldwin, Chris Chapman and Zoë Gray

AcknowledgementsMinority Rights Group International (MRG) gratefullyacknowledges the support of all organizations andindividuals who gave financial and other assistance for thisreport, including the Ford Foundation. Report commissionedand edited by Katrina Naomi.

The authorsClive Baldwin has been Head of Advocacy at Minority RightsGroup International (MRG) since 2002 and has spentextensive periods working in Europe, Africa and Asia. Hepreviously worked for the Organization for Security andCooperation in Europe in Bosnia and Hercegovina and inKosovo, and was a practising human rights lawyer.

Chris Chapman has worked at MRG for six years, leading onMRG’s advocacy work with international institutions such asthe United Nations, and capacity-building with MRG partners.Previously, he worked in Haiti and Guatemala as a humanrights monitor, conflict management trainer and journalist.

Zoë Gray has worked at MRG for four years on a range ofregions and themes including on minorities’ inclusion indevelopment, on South-East Europe and currently on theMinority Rights and Prevention of Violent Conflict programme.She has a background in political science and developmentstudies.

Minority Rights Group InternationalMinority Rights Group International (MRG) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) working to secure therights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities andindigenous peoples worldwide, and to promote cooperationand understanding between communities. Our activities arefocused on international advocacy, training, publishing andoutreach. We are guided by the needs expressed by ourworldwide partner network of organizations, which representminority and indigenous peoples.

MRG works with over 150 organizations in nearly 50countries. Our governing Council, which meets twice a year,has members from 10 different countries. MRG hasconsultative status with the United Nations Economic andSocial Council (ECOSOC), and observer status with theAfrican Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights(ACHPR). MRG is registered as a charity and a companylimited by guarantee under English law. Registered charityno. 282305, limited company no. 1544957.

© Minority Rights Group International 2007All rights reserved

Material from this publication may be reproduced for teaching or for other non-commercial purposes. No part of it may bereproduced in any form for commercial purposes without the prior express permission of the copyright holders. For furtherinformation please contact MRG. A CIP catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 1 904584 62 4. Published May 2007. Typeset Kavita Graphics. Printed in the UK on recycled paper. Minority Rights: TheKey to Conflict Prevention is published by MRG as a contribution to public understanding of the issue which forms its subject.

Palestinian woman surveying the damage to her family homein Khan Younis following an attack by the Israeli armyBrendan Corr/Panos Pictures

Contents

Executive summary 2

Introduction 4

Identity 7

Political participation 12

Economic participation 18

Justice 24

International responses 27

Overall conclusions 32

Relevant international instruments 33

Checklist 35

Recommendations 36

Notes 38

Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict PreventionBy Clive Baldwin, Chris Chapman and Zoë Gray

2 MINORITY RIGHTS: THE KEY TO CONFLICT PREVENTION

Executive summary

Chechnya, Darfur, Kashmir, Kosovo, Sri Lanka – justsome of the world’s long running conflicts. All fuelled andfought over ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural issues.All concern minority groups. But despite the fact that adisregard for minority issues lies at the heart of these con-flicts, minority rights have been marginalized ininternational conflict prevention. Too many conflicts thathave minority rights at their centre are not being under-stood as such. The result? Conflicts that could have beenprevented flare up, as warning signs provided by minorityrights violations go unheeded. Attempts to end violenceonly sow the seeds for more violence in the future, aspeace settlements simply become ceasefires.

Too often, separating groups along ethnic, religious orlinguistic lines has been seen as a way of upholdingminority rights and keeping peace between groups. Whilesuch solutions might be an easy option in the immediateaftermath of conflicts, long term these divisions canentrench old hatreds and wounds. Such has been the casein Kosovo, where after seven years of international rule,society is deeply segregated and the threat of another eth-nic conflict remains very real.

But the protection of minority rights began with theaim of preventing conflicts. These rights were notdesigned to separate people, nor are they meant to sup-port secessionist movements, as some governments todayfear. They aim to protect groups, and individuals withinthose groups, such as women, who lack power. Minorityrights fall into four main categories: • Existence: for example the Turkish state currently

denies that Kurds are a minority, and for many yearsthe government policy was to refer to them as ‘Moun-tain Turks’;

• Identity: in Iraq, minority communities such as Chris-tians and Turkomans are targeted for violence becauseof their religious and ethnic identities;

• Discrimination: in China, well-qualified members ofminority communities such as Uyghurs face discrimi-nation in employment because they are not HanChinese; and

• Participation: political and economic. In Sudan,national identity is defined in terms of one or a small,restricted, number of ethnic/religious groups, andother groups that form part of the country are implic-itly or explicitly excluded from political life. Thesource of the Darfur crisis lies in economic exclusionand competition over scarce resources, exacerbated by

the historical discrimination of minorities and neglectof the area by successive governments.

When minority rights are enshrined in constitutions, andimplemented through electoral, justice and education sys-tems before a conflict has the chance to fester, there is achance that conflict might not occur at all. Each of thesesystems can either promote peace or deepen minorities’sense of alienation from mainstream society. Post-apartheid, South Africa’s electoral system has steadilypromoted more representative participation of a range ofblack linguistic minority groups, white, Indian andColoured people in the National Assembly. In contrast,minorities in Bosnia who are not considered ‘constituentpeoples’ such as Jews, Roma and a dozen more communi-ties, cannot vote, stand for election in the House of Peoplesor run for the Presidency unless they compromise theirethnic or religious identity. This directly contravenes theirright to take part in the economic and political decisionsthat affect them. Justice systems can offer minorities thechance to see violators of their rights brought to accountand punished, whether the crime is violent or whether it isdiscrimination. Such justice is particularly important aftermass crimes against a group of people – such as the geno-cide of Jews, Roma and others in the Second World War,or the expulsion of indigenous peoples from their historiclands. Education systems can combat or condone hatespeech, can erode or support minority languages, and havea direct impact on building understanding between minor-ity and majority cultures and religions that can create firmfoundations for tolerant societies.

Conflict early warning systems are therefore moreeffective when they take a clear note of minority rightsviolations. Incorporating and analysing patterns of dis-crimination and exclusion, such as the systematic denialof the existence of particular groups or noting a lack oflegislative framework to prevent racism and punish it, arevital in tracking the rise of tension that could lead to vio-lence. Currently, such systems do exist but few haveminority rights at their heart, others do but are criticizedfor being inconsistently applied. A more coherent andcoordinated system that draws together national and con-tinental expertise and highlights this at the internationallevel, especially in the United Nations (UN), could havecaused an intervention in Darfur at a time when the gov-ernment might have been more accommodating tominority concerns. Instead, since 2003, at least 200,000

3MINORITY RIGHTS: THE KEY TO CONFLICT PREVENTION

people have died, 2 million are displaced and thousandsof women and girls have been raped.1

Minority experts should exist in key UN bodies thatdeal with conflict, including the Office for Co-Ordinationof Humanitarian Affairs, the Peace Building Commissionand the country missions.

Segregation, or the creation of ethnically or religiously‘pure’ countries or regions, must not be the only post-conflict solution if sustainable peace is the genuine aim.

A greater commitment to understanding and imple-menting minority rights at local, national, regional andinternational levels, with the full inclusion and participa-tion of minority groups, is imperative to conflictprevention. Where conflict has occurred, such knowledgeand participation is critical in peace building, not least sothat minorities who are caught up in violence betweenother groups have their voices heard.


Introduction

BackgroundIn 1914, the problems of minorities in South-East Europeproved to be one of the major triggers of the First WorldWar.2 When this war ended, the world’s most powerfulleaders determined to create a new international societywhere the rights of minorities would be protected; this, itwas believed, would remove one of the fundamental caus-es of conflict. One of the main areas of activity of theresulting League of Nations3 was the protection of minori-ties in certain countries. The protection of minority rightsthen, began with the aim of preventing conflict. Indeed,this international protection of minority rights led directlyto the development of the protection of human rights bythe UN and other international bodies.

Today, the number of violent conflicts in the worldthat have a major underlying cause involving ethnicity,culture or language remains extremely high. The vastmajority of these types of conflicts concern minoritygroups. It is the conflicts involving minorities that seemto last the longest and often cause the most bitterness anddamage. Just a few examples of minorities involved inconflicts would include: Chechens, Darfurians (for exam-ple, Fur), Kurds, Palestinians, Roman Catholics inNorthern Ireland, Serbs and Tamils.

And yet, despite minority issues being at the heart ofmany conflicts, the priority given by those who seek toend and prevent conflict to understanding minorities andminority rights is lower than it was in 1919. Althoughminority rights as such have developed significantly since1919, they have largely been marginalized within theinternational protection of human rights. Among thoseworking on conflict prevention, notably the UN, there arefew or no specialists working on minority rights, (withthe notable exception of the Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe [OSCE] High Commissioneron National Minorities [HCNM]). Too many conflictsthat are essentially about minority rights are not beingunderstood or addressed as such. The result is that thesame mistakes are made time and again, conflicts breakout that could have been prevented, and attempts to endviolence only sow the seeds for future conflicts.

Our basic proposition is that an understanding ofminority rights is essential for anyone dealing with con-flict prevention and resolution. MRG has been workingon minority issues for 40 years in all parts of the world.4

This report draws in particular on recent research carried

out in China, Darfur and other parts of Sudan, India,Iraq, Kosovo and Nicaragua, and thematic studies on elec-toral systems and genocide prevention, but also morebroadly on MRG’s experience worldwide. Our evidence isthat the violations of minority rights are very often awarning sign of an approaching conflict. Such conflictscan be prevented if action is taking to protect the rights ofminorities at an early stage. Equally, when attempting toresolve ethnic- or religiously-based conflict, an under-standing and application of minority rights for allcommunities is vital. Without addressing the underlyingcauses of the conflict, what purport to be peace settle-ments are often simply ceasefires.

Definitions

When referring to ‘conflict’ we are referring to violentconflict, largely (but not exclusively) within states, involvingminorities.

The term ‘minority’ is still often portrayed as one that iscontroversial, with many governments continuing to denythat minorities exist or pretending that there is noagreement on who or what is a minority. Yet, theinternational understanding of who is a minority is quitestraightforward – it is a group of people who believe theyhave a common identity, based on culture/ethnicity,language or religion, which is different from that of amajority group around them. A minority is often, but notalways, defined as such with reference to their positionwithin a country, but can also be defined with reference toa wider area (e.g. regional) or narrower area (e.g. byprovince). What matters is whether the minorities lackpower – i.e. the ability to affect the decisions that concernthem. It is those minorities that minority rights aredesigned to protect.

‘Minority rights’ is an international legal term. It refers tothe rights of minorities as groups, but also the rights ofthose individuals within them. Minority rights derive frombasic international law on human rights, as well asspecific treaties and declarations on minority rights,notably the UN Declaration on the Rights of All PersonsBelonging to National or Ethnic, Linguistic and ReligiousMinorities (UNDM).


Minority rights fall essentially into four main categories:existence, identity, discrimination and participation.

Existence Minorities have the right to exist, and to be recognized asthe groups they define themselves to be. Genocide, theattempted destruction of a group, is the ultimate violationof this right.5 But groups can also be threatened by thesimple denial of their existence, especially when such adenial is official state policy (e.g. for many years the Turk-ish government policy was to refer to Kurds as ‘MountainTurks’ and even today the Turkish state denies that Kurdsare a minority).

Identity Toleration of the existence of minorities is only the firststep. Minorities are also entitled to full protection of theiridentity. This means for groups, that the identity theychoose is fully recognized, in particular that their culture,language and religion can be freely practised, and indeedis recognized and supported by the authorities. But also,there is an individual right of identity. Individuals havethe right to choose their identity or identities, and notsuffer any detriment for doing so. Indeed it is oftenattempts to rigidly divide society and individuals into pre-determined groups that leads to conflict, as in Bosnia,India and Rwanda.

Discrimination Discrimination affects people on many different grounds.A person can be discriminated against due to their ethnic-ity as well as their religion, and also due to their gender,age, disability or other grounds. This is often referred toas multiple or intersectional discrimination.

One of the major problems suffered by minorities ispersistent and systematic discrimination, in which they aretreated differently (i.e. worse) due to their ethnicity, reli-gion or language (often along with other forms ofdiscrimination). Or being treated the same in theory aseveryone else, but in practice, their language or religious orcultural practices are not recognized (e.g. being required towork on a religious holiday). Discrimination affects peopleon many different grounds, but persistent and systematicdiscrimination is one of the major causes of conflict, caus-ing groups and individuals to feel excluded and divided.

Participation This is the right of everyone to influence the decisionsthat affect them. It is of particular importance to minori-ties. The essential issue of why minorities matter, apartfrom their distinct identities, is their lack of power. Withlack of power comes a feeling of exclusion, which can eas-ily lead to violence being seen as the only option to attain

their needs. Minorities have a right, like all people, to par-ticipate in the political and economic decisions that affectthem, but given their lack of power, particular care andmeasures are needed to ensure that they can. While this isan issue for minority men and women, minority womentend to have even less influence on decisions affectingtheir lives than minority men.

ViolenceViolent conflict involving minorities appears to come intwo main forms: attacks on minorities and minoritiesresorting to violence.

Attacks on minoritiesThis is where the violence is largely directed at minorities,sometimes because the minorities are scapegoated forother problems in society, sometimes because authoritieswant their land or other possessions, or simply becausethey are ‘different’. Such violence may be carried outdirectly by government agents or it may be done by thirdparties, but almost always with government connivance.This type of violence, if left unchecked, can easily esca-late. Minorities may retaliate, or the violence against themmay worsen, sometimes culminating in mass killing, rapeand other atrocities.

Minorities resort to violenceThe other type of violence is when it is resorted to bymembers of minority groups. This is often because manymembers of the minority community feel they are underthreat and have nothing to lose from violence. Often, theminority community has suffered years of discriminationand denial of its identity. What may spark the violencemay be a relatively minor incident, but based on years ofdiscrimination and exclusion. But again violence, oncestarted, may easily escalate and violence can continue forgenerations.

Both types of violence can be used for other ends byparties without a direct interest in the minority concern –such as agitators, governments and neighbouring states. Buteven when the violence is used for other purposes, it isoften based on real concerns. However, ethnic and religiousconflicts often last for decades, sometimes long after theinitial grievances have been remedied. For example, the vio-lence associated with Euskadi ta Azkatasuna (ETA) in theBasque region of Spain began at a time when the Basqueidentity (including its language) was being strongly sup-pressed by Madrid. Today, while the problems remain, theBasques have great freedom to practice their language and alarge degree of autonomy and participation in the decisionsthat affect them, yet the violence continues. It is clear it ismuch better to prevent conflict before it begins.


This report is a practical guide on the essential ele-ments of minority rights that are vital in conflictprevention. We have set out five broad themes – identi-ty, the ability of minorities to participate in bothpolitical and economic rights, land rights and justice.The violation of these rights that have come up timeand again as causes of conflict involving minorities and

we believe general lessons can be drawn in all five areasfrom experiences around the world. We also show howapplying minority rights can (and indeed has) preventedconflicts from becoming violent. The report also givesan overview of how the international communityresponds to crises, and concludes with practical recom-mendations and a checklist.


Identity is a key factor in most conflicts involving minori-ties. In genocides and ‘ethnic cleansing’, people aretargeted because of their ethnic, religious or linguisticidentity. Groups struggling for political control often basetheir claim to be the legitimate governors on their identi-ty, and may argue that other groups are of a different, lesslegitimate (i.e. possibly ‘foreign’) origin and therefore haveno right to govern. In psychological terms, people whoare attacked (physically or otherwise) on the basis of theiridentity, will feel that their sense of self and their place inthe world is being questioned, which explains why attacksof this type elicit such a strong reaction.

This section will look at a number of key issues withregard to identity and conflict: the role played by identityin conflict; how the national concept of identity isdefined; education, language and religion; hate speech;and how conflict impacts on minorities’ sense of identity.It will then propose some conclusions and ways forward.

The role of identity in conflictIn conflicts which are mainly about an issue not directlyrelated to identity, such as control of resources, one groupor leader may use identity issues to mobilize people againstanother group. The phenomenon of ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’(someone who uses issues of ethnicity for their own ends,particularly the threat of violence) has led many conflicttheorists to conclude that identity is merely used andmanipulated by leaders, and is not an issue in itself that isrelevant to conflict. It is true that ethnic or religious iden-tities are not everyone’s primary reference in their sense ofself, and nor do they condemn one to always fight againstthe other, but it would be wrong to argue that identityplays no role in ethnic/religious conflicts. Ethnicentrepreneurs would not be able to mobilize communitiesif there was no shared sense of identity and, above all, ifthere were no grievances to build on. Group identity existsregardless of state acceptance or denial of these groups, sothere are major dangers in ignoring its relevance:

‘It…has been argued that the nonethnic character ofYugoslav politics actually led to its strengthening as avehicle for the political opposition and made it possiblefor Serbs to gain control over the armed forces andstate bureaucracy: since political ethnicity officially didnot exist…there were no institutionalised ways of pre-venting one group from dominating the public sector’.6

While identity may be the main, or at least the most evi-dent factor in tensions between minorities and majorities,often other factors such as political and economic partici-pation come into play. In Latvia, for example, restrictivecitizenship and language policies in the 1990s – essential-ly targeting and affecting ethnic Russians – resulted intheir large-scale economic marginalization. At a time ofeconomic transition, while ethnic Russians comprised40–45 per cent of the population, they held less than 10per cent of the jobs in the relatively large civil service.7

How nations define identityThe causes of the conflict that erupted on the NicaraguanAtlantic Coast in the 1980s can in part be attributed tothe Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN)’sheavy-handed approach to the identities of the coastalcommunities. Decades of neglect by previous regimes hadencouraged the development of a completely separateidentity.8 Coast communities ‘did not identify themselvesas Nicaraguans, and...referred to mestizo Nicaraguans asSpaniards’.9 When the FSLN introduced an educationalpolicy of teaching basic literacy skills in Spanish, theindigenous organization MISURASATA defied the gov-ernment and ran the campaign in the Miskito language.10

While the intentions of the FSLN appeared to be to bringdevelopment and education to the coastal communities,their assimilationalist approach caused grievances and sus-picion, which led the coastal communities to demandautonomy.

‘Boxed in by a Marxist ideology that could not compre-hend indigenous identity and mobilization, theSandinistas viewed such demands as part of thecounter-revolution and labelled MISURASATA leadersas contras (opposition forces fighting to reinstate theprevious regime) and the scene was set for conflict.’ 11

The autonomy law which brought an end to the conflictin Nicaragua contained very positive language on ethnicidentity, suggesting that in order to successfully bringsuch conflicts to an end, key legitimate grievances need tobe addressed:

‘[T]he process of Autonomy enriches the national cul-ture, recognizes and strengthens ethnic identity; itrespects the specificities of the cultures of the commu-

Identity


nities of the Atlantic Coast; it redeems the history ofthe same; it recognizes property rights to communalland and repudiates any type of discrimination; itrecognizes religious freedom and without deepeningdifferences it recognizes distinct identities as comingtogether to build national unity’.12

Divisive appeals by ruling parties to the majority had adevastating impact on community relations in the Punjabin India:

‘Had the Congress Party retained the support of low-caste and poorer segments of Sikhs, and refrainedfrom making sectarian appeals, militants would havehad a hard time unifying the community behindtheir cause. Appeals to communal sentiments by osten-sibly secular Congress leaders destroyed the onlyalternative for inter-ethnic cooperation in Punjab.Once the region became polarized along religiouslines, voluntary organizations and grassroots leaderslost any leverage they might have had against advo-cates of violence’.13

Denial of citizenship (see also the section on political par-ticipation) to a group of people based on their belongingto a minority community will also have a significantimpact on their sense of identity, and also results fromhow the nation defines itself. Identity is as much about asense of belonging to a place as to a group, and the stateis sending a clear message – i.e.: ‘You do not belong here.’This can have far-reaching ramifications in terms of eth-nic or religious conflict. As the former OSCE HighCommissioner on National Minorities, Max van derStoel, pointed out, based on seven years’ experience ofworking with governments and minority groups to reducetensions between them:

‘[A] minority that has the opportunity to fully developits identity is more likely to remain loyal to the statethan a minority who is denied its identity’.14

Even the declaration of principles in the Nicaraguanautonomy law, regarding the promotion and protection ofidentity, which has yet to be fully implemented, seems tohave played a significant role in ending the conflict.

Denial of citizenship can be used by the state toattempt to sidestep its obligations to promote and protectthe specific identity of groups.

The problems of identity often stem from the lack ofofficial recognition. Signs of problems within a state canbe when the official (constitutional or otherwise) defini-tion of a state is one based on ethnicity, language orreligion.15 This means that all other ethnic/cultural, lin-

guistic or religious identities are to be at best, secondclass, and at worst providing a strong justification to thestate to suppress such identities. In response, manyminorities, for example in Iraq, wish to see official recog-nition by naming all groups in the Constitution.Unfortunately there is no guarantee that even this willlead to concrete measures to promote and protect identi-ty, and there may be debates as to who should and whoshould not be included. The recognition of groups maybe a significant first step towards realizing the protectionof their identity, and also sends a signal of goodwill tothose groups. But such recognition should be backed up by strong guarantees of specific rights protectingidentity in the Constitution or other laws in secondarylegislation.

Education, language andreligionAll aspects of identity are important to minorities but twothat are often at stake in situations of violent conflict arelanguage and religion. In Kosovo:

‘little has been done to stop third parties restrictingpersons’ right to use their language in public, includ-ing the destruction and removal of signs, and eventhreats and violence against persons speaking the“wrong” language in public. This has been essentiallya security issue, but an attempt to require municipalauthorities to protect signs was removed from the1999 Regulation at the drafting stage’.16

In Nicaragua, as mentioned above, the imposition by theFSLN of Spanish exacerbated tensions with the Atlanticregion. Unfortunately, despite the autonomy arrangement,which enshrines the right to be educated in one’s own lan-guage,17 education in Spanish still dominates on theAtlantic Coast. It is very common, for example, for Cre-oles not to be able to write Creole English, although it isthe language they speak at home. Languages of smallercommunities such as the Rama are under threat of com-plete disappearance.18

Religion is another aspect of identity that can give riseto intense conflict. In China the issue is exacerbated bythe government’s perspective that religious expression out-side of strictly-defined parameters should be interpreted asa security threat:

‘religious establishments are under state supervisionand control, and non-state-sanctioned religiousexpression is equated with separatism, which is usedas a pretext to crack down on such expressions, mostrecently in the Uyghur context’.19


This is also problematic in the Tibetan context, where‘historically, religious leaders had also been political headsof state, while today, expression of political rights is syn-onymous with religious freedom for many Tibetans’.20 Inthe case of the Uyghurs, this situation has led to conflictwith the state and secessionist claims.

The school curriculum is a key mechanism. A positivecurriculum, in history and other subjects, can promotemutual and positive understanding of different minoritycultures and their contribution to national identity. Itthen becomes much more difficult for nationalist leadersto incite hatred against other groups. Unfortunately suchcurricula are still rarely implemented, even where theyhave been agreed to in theory. In China:

‘Ethnic elements are rarely incorporated in the schoolcurricula of either regular or ethnic schools in ethnicautonomous areas, although such provisions areenshrined in law’.21

In fact, the central government monitors teaching materialsclosely to ensure that they incorporate ‘the proper under-standing of nationality relations and advanced socialistthinking’.22 A sign of a community that feels its identity tobe under threat is when leaders and parents demand sepa-rate schooling, usually on religious or linguistic lines. Suchseparation is rarely helpful in terms of integration and pro-moting understanding between communities, particularlyin situations where there is real or potential violent conflict.Authorities responsible for such systems need to be awareof the genuine need for parents and others to ensure theirchildren can grow up understanding their culture (includ-ing language and religion) combined with the need for theunderstanding between communities.

In China, various factors are contributing to the erosionof minority culture, including Han Chinese migration intominority areas , and decreased use of local languages in thepublic sphere. In some areas, ‘businesses are Han-dominat-ed, making knowledge of Mandarin a prerequisite foremployment’.23 But a critical factor seems to be an educa-tion system imposed by central government that initiates:

‘patriotic and Chinese nationalist education cam-paigns in religious forums and in primary andsecondary schools, in an attempt by the state tostrengthen minority individuals’ sense of loyalty to theChinese state’.24

Hate speechHate speech publicly incites people to hatred and/or vio-lence against minority communities and individuals, onthe basis that they belong to a minority community. Hate

speech, whether carried out directly by governmentauthorities or by third parties (particularly the media), is amajor sign of a society which does not tolerate diversityand different identities. Hate speech, which can continueover many years, plays a role in building up support forviolent attacks on minorities, and can lead to genocide.MRG’s Darfur study notes that in inter-ethnic fighting inthe region in the 1980s:

‘an “Arab Alliance” emerged, which unified Arabtribes in pursuit of an Arab supremacist agenda andagainst a Fur-dominated regional government…Thegovernment assisted Arab tribes, and the ArabAlliance invoked racially supremacist arguments inentreating this support’.25

Particularly pernicious hate speech is that done systemati-cally through the media or education systems. Thoseconducting hate speech through the media have beenconvicted of inciting genocide, such as in Rwanda in1994 and the Nazi Holocaust in the 1940s.26 Incitementto hatred was seen as a critical part of both genocides.

Hate speech often has a gender aspect, in particular inconflict situations, where military forces may be incited tocommit sexual violence against minority women. Suchhate speech is likely to exacerbate conflict, as minoritymen may be motivated by a need to avenge a perceivedinsult to the ‘honour’ of their community.

Recognizing in part the role hate speech has played inconflicts and genocide, both the International Conventionon the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)and the International Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights (ICCPR) require all signatories to prohibit advoca-cy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutesincitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.27

In 2005 the UN Committee on the Elimination ofRacial Discrimination (CERD) recognized the impor-tance of hate speech when it developed indicators to helpit to identify the early signs of genocide, when examininga government’s record towards eliminating racial discrimi-nation. These indicators include:

‘Systematic and widespread use and acceptance ofspeech or propaganda promoting hatred and/or incit-ing violence against minority groups, particularly inthe media’, and ‘Grave statements by political lead-ers/prominent people that express support foraffirmation of superiority of a race or an ethnicgroup, dehumanize and demonize minorities, or con-done or justify violence against a minority’.28

The CERD initiative in developing these indicators isvery important. However, the UN, with its agencies that


operate on the ground in pre-, mid- and post-conflict sit-uations, needs to do more to incorporate human rightsindicators – particularly minority rights – into early warn-ing and conflict prevention mechanisms in order to betteridentify the warning signs of ethnic/religious conflict.29

Governments have an important role to play in com-bating hate speech, and key to this is the promotion ofunderstanding between groups.30 Further, the Council ofEurope (CoE) Framework Convention on the Protectionof National Minorities (FCNM) obliges governments topromote such understanding.31

Personal lawsPersonal laws govern issues relating to family life such aschildcare, custody, divorce and marriage, and play a keyrole in how communities can exercise culture and tradi-tions. In some states, minorities are granted freedoms toimplement personal laws in accordance with their cultures.On the other hand it is important that any such applica-tion of personal laws does not exacerbate division betweencommunities. Understanding and applying minority rightswill help minimize divisions.

Some states have opted for applying personal lawaccording to territory, which can also be problematic forminorities. In Nigeria, violent conflicts have arisen over theapplication of shari’a law (which covers most aspects of per-sonal law) in majority Muslim states where Christianminorities live. This illustrates the importance of protectingthe rights of groups who become minorities when statesdevolve power to the regional level. Further, it is importantto retain strong safeguards of individual rights, particularlywomen’s rights, within personal law frameworks. On someoccasions, personal laws have been applied to overly favourthe position of males, on issues such as inheritance rights.

How does conflict impact onidentity?Conflicts often accentuate the sense of identity of thoseinvolved, but at the same time make it narrower. If com-munities feel that they are threatened, the identity that isat the heart of the conflict – or which others place at itsheart – may take on a greater significance for them than itpreviously had. In South Sudan:

‘the message of “we are all one as Southerners”,pushed by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/ Movement…was to some extent effective in unifyingthe south during war times’.32

However, greater diversity within South Sudan hasreasserted itself since the signing of the Comprehensive

Peace Agreement (CPA). This may be due to newgrievances against decentralized power structures in theSouth, as ‘resources and government in South Sudan arecentralized in Juba’.33 Women belonging to minoritiesmay often feel this narrowing of identities most acutely, asthey may be required to suppress their specific grievances(including repression from within the community) in thename of prioritizing the ‘more pressing’ conflict with thestate.

Simplifying identities to bipolar opposites makes iteasier for ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ to rally support fornationalist platforms, demonize other groups and inciteviolence. In diverse societies not marked by recent con-flict, it is common for individuals to have multi-facetedidentities, and to empathize with, for example, others intheir neighbourhood, or people of the same social class,just as much as with people of the same ethnic or reli-gious group.34 Nationalist leaders often seek to simplifyaspects of belonging to ethnicity or religion. One way isthrough hate speech. Another is the dynamic of conflictitself. Research in ethnically-mixed regions of Croatia inthe 1980s and 1990s showed how the emerging conflictand experience of atrocities forced people to reassess howthey perceived neighbours of different ethnic groups –and their own identities.35

Ironically, power-sharing agreements that are intendedto bring conflicts to an end may contribute to fixing andsimplifying identities, and work against the multiple,cross-cutting identities that help to emphasize what peo-ple have in common rather than what divides them. Asdiscussed below in the section on political participation,Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a case in point. Citizensare forced to identify in terms of one of three constituentpeoples to have access to a range of rights. This is con-trary to human rights law, which states that individualsmust have the freedom to choose their identity and notsuffer a detriment for doing so (see for example Article 3of the FCNM). A hypothetical case illustrates the far-reaching impacts this may have in terms of integrationand discrimination:

‘a well-qualified Bosniak woman could, for example,be rejected for a position [as a judge] with the newlyestablished State Court because the Court hadreached its quota of Bosniaks and is only seeking thosefrom a Serb or Croat background. If this person seesherself primarily as a woman who happens to haveIslam as her religion, it is not clear if this wouldamount to gender discrimination’.36

The participation of the three constituent peoples is priori-tized over guarantees for women’s participation. However,as a judge with a more complex sense of self-identification


than just her ethnic belonging, she might bring a differentperspective to cases coming before her, thus contributingto the promotion of a more diverse and integrative society.

Just as war hardens and simplifies identity, however,peace (at least relative peace) helps people to return to amore diverse self-view. In Nicaragua, there is evidence ofmore diverse political participation; the Miskito-dominat-ed YATAMA party reached out to other communitiesmore effectively in the 2006 municipal elections, fieldingmore diverse candidates, which also resulted in the partygaining more seats on municipal councils.37 It was evenpossible for YATAMA to enter into a coalition with itsenemy of the 1980s, the FSLN.

Where power-sharing agreements have been used tobring identity-based conflicts to an end, a period of peacemay allow ‘sunset clauses’38 or reform of rigid power-shar-ing structures to be implemented, (as proposed below inthe section on participation).

Conclusions and ways forwardRepression of identity often leads to violent conflict, andthe first step to preventing this is for states to institutestrong guarantees of the right to practice identity in lawand in practice, and to promote a concept of the nationthat recognizes its full diversity. Schools also play a keyrole in promoting understanding of the diversity of iden-tities within a state. Where the size of communitiesallows, minorities should have access to education in boththe minority and national language. When members ofminorities can speak both the minority and majority lan-guage, their employment opportunities improve.However, separate schools for minorities do not help topromote understanding between communities and shouldbe avoided unless they are essential for pupils’ security. It

is also very important, whether schools are integrated ornot, that a common curriculum is developed for thewhole country, to include positive teaching about the fulldiversity of communities in society. A nationally agreedhistory curriculum is particularly important as the propa-gation of historical myths, one-sided versions andexaggerations is a powerful tool in the hands of ‘ethnicentrepreneurs’.

It becomes particularly difficult to resolve identity issuesin situations of ethnic/religious tension, when hatred/fearof the other has become a part of the group’s perceivedidentity. In such situations, a process of healing is necessary.There has been some success with workshops that bringtogether people of different groups to deconstruct their per-ceived grievances and perceptions of the other:

‘long-term resolution of such conflicts and reconcilia-tion between the former enemies requires changes inthe groups’ national identities; in particular, theyrequire a redefinition of each group’s identity so thataffirmation of its own identity is no longer predicatedon negation of the identity of the other. Such identitychanges are possible, provided they leave the core ofeach group’s identity and national narrative…intact’.39

Broad-based truth and reconciliation processes can alsoserve this purpose.

In the case of Indian communal tensions, civil societyorganizations have been able to build cooperative linksacross communities and have helped to prevent riots.40

Where minority leaders lack legitimacy or represent only alimited conservative element of their communities – andwhose main focus may be the kind of power-sharingarrangements that set in stone their own roles and powers– civil society groups may be a counter-balancing force.


When minorities are denied a say in political affairs, con-flict often results because a political voice is the key to theenjoyment of all other rights. For example, exclusion fromeducation/employment opportunities and land rights canresult, as minorities fail to influence government policyand practice. Further, a strong signal is sent to minoritiesthat the dominant community does not see them asbelonging in the nation. In the face of such exclusion, aminority may see secession as the only route.

This section will look first at mechanisms to facilitateminority participation and their effectiveness, and thenexamine some of the issues affecting the participation pro-cess. Finally, it will present some conclusions andsuggestions for ways forward.

Factors affecting minorities’political participationMinorities can be excluded from political participation fornumerous reasons. In Nicaragua (before the civil war inthe 1980s) and Sudan, central governments were foundedon an exclusive concept of nationhood: i.e. national iden-tity is defined in terms of one or a small, restricted,number of ethnic/religious groups, and other groupswhich form part of the country are implicitly or explicitlyexcluded.

To participate politically, minority representatives haveto accept this concept, which casts doubt on their abilityto truly represent their communities. In addition, someminority regions are geographically isolated from the restof the country, and governments have maintained an atti-tude of neglect and disinterest towards them.

In China, autonomy arrangements have been set upfor some minority communities, but the highly central-ized government has shown itself to be intolerant ofcritical expression, and other problems. For example, theallocation of sufficient financial resources and the inade-quate education provision have blocked effectivefunctioning of the autonomies.

In India,41 complex and innovative power-sharingagreements and affirmative action mechanisms have beendeveloped, but obstacles have included central govern-ment interference in political appointments andmanipulation of sectarian differences. In addition, inChina, India, Iraq, Kosovo and Sudan, a poor security sit-uation in some areas has hindered local politicalparticipation.

Citizenship Citizenship is key to full participation in political life. Forexample, in most countries non-citizens are not able tovote or stand for election. Whereas governments have theright to put in place mechanisms and legislation govern-ing the process by which people can gain citizenship ofthe country, some may intentionally restrict certaingroups’ access to citizenship to exclude them from politi-cal participation – or from enjoying other rights such asaccess to public services, or land/property rights.

In the case of Yean and Bosico vs Dominican Republic,the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found thatthe government had unfairly denied citizenship to twowomen who were born in the Dominican Republic to oneDominican and one Haitian parent. As a result of theirlack of citizenship, the women were:

‘unable to access other critical rights such as the rightto education, the right to recognition of juridical per-sonality, the right to a name, and the right to equalprotection before the law, and they were “vulnerableto expulsion from their home country”’.42

The state approach of excluding those of Haitian originfrom citizenship has contributed to a feeling among majori-ty Dominicans that people with a Haitian origin do notbelong, and racism is prevalent. In the past three years,there have been several cases of mob violence, where entireHaitian communities have been attacked in retaliation forcrimes allegedly committed by Haitian individuals.

Obstacles in accessing citizenship may also have gen-der elements, highlighting issues of multiple orintersectional discrimination. For example, it is reportedthat some Lisu women in northern Thailand have had tohave sex with officials before they could get citizenshippapers.43 Latvia and Estonia are examples where tensionsover citizenship – involving ethnic Russians – were tosome extent resolved, partly through the ‘good offices’involvement of international organizations such as theCoE, European Union (EU) and the OSCE.

Mechanisms for minorityparticipation Mechanisms to promote minorities’ political participationcan be set up at the national or local level (the latter usually

Political participation


in the case of territorially concentrated groups). They canbe formal (often enshrined in the Constitution) or infor-mal, and have an executive or merely consultative mandate.

Electoral systems and reserved seatsAt the national level, a common arrangement is to reservequotas for minorities – these can be ministerial posts ingovernment, and/or seats in parliament. In addition, cer-tain electoral arrangements, such as block votes, closed oropen list proportional representation, and transferablevotes will not guarantee minority representation butunder certain circumstances may promote it. Importantissues here include the extent to which the minority repre-sentatives genuinely represent their communities (inparticular the full diversity of those communities, includ-ing minority women), and the influence they have inpractice, being one voice among many.

In India, 22 per cent of seats in the legislature arereserved for minorities, and the record in terms of pre-venting conflict has been mixed. But it is hard to drawconclusions about the precise impact of reserved seats inthis case, due to the many and disparate conflicts in thecountry which are affected by both local and nationalconditions. However, the evidence from MRG’s researchshows that while devolved powers are important for pro-moting minority rights and reducing tensions, it is alsoimportant for minorities to be represented at the nationallevel, and reserved seats can be important in this regard.

In Kosovo, there has been good practice in that theapproach ‘has gone beyond simple representation inassemblies and attempted to ensure minority representa-tion in government’.44 However:

‘the right to participate has largely been the right ofminority leaders to participate… In 2003, the OSCEsaid that the elected minority representatives lackedaccountability to their electorate’.45

By increasing the number of minority representatives inlegislatures, reserved seats can strengthen the voice ofminorities in political life. Further, they signal goodwillon the part of the state and as such, can be important increating an inclusive environment where minorities canidentify with and feel part of the nation, thus reducingthe likelihood of separatist tendencies. However, as withaffirmative action measures in the economic domain (seelater), there is always the danger that elements of themajority population will see them as ‘unjustified’ and ‘dis-criminatory’, thus potentially increasing tensions. For thisreason, states must take care when introducing such mea-sures, be aware of potential tensions and ensure that themeasures are transparent. States must also give clear expla-nations as to why such measures are necessary and how

they can benefit the state as a whole. Most importantly,the actual causes of the lack of representation of minori-ties in the parliament, in particular systematicdiscrimination must be addressed. Reserved seats mustnot become an excuse for avoiding addressing the under-lying problems. If an arrangement for reserved seats isagreed as part of a peace agreement, it may be possible toincorporate a clause replacing them with a more integra-tive arrangement after a certain number of years.

Minority women will not necessarily benefit fromseats reserved for minorities (or those reserved forwomen). In Sudan, although the CPA mandates that 25per cent of all political posts be held by women:

‘the reality is that out of 28 ministerial posts, onlytwo are held by women. In 10 Southern Sudanesestates, there is not one woman governor. There are nofemale community chiefs’.46

On the other hand, in Afghanistan:

‘Under the SNTV system…the ethnic diversity of thenation was reflected in the 68 women MPs elected.This was a product of the geographic concentration ofthe Hazara, Tajik and Uzbek communities and thelaw which mandated that one or two women beelected from each of the country’s 35 provinces’.47

Minority women can play a role in peace-building bydrawing attention to the many different identities thatpeople have and therefore the commonalities they shareacross ethnic/religious divides.

Changing boundaries to create minority-dominatedelectoral districts can also be seen as a form of affirmativeaction, designed to ensure that minorities are elected incertain districts. However:

‘the creation of ethnically concentrated constituenciesmeans not only more minority-dominated constituen-cies, but also more constituencies in whichmajority-group voters dominate and in which major-ity-group candidates do not need to worry aboutminority support or minority interests’.48

Certain systems, under the right circumstances, canstrengthen minority representation in legislatures and gov-ernments, and improve chances of preventing a relapseinto war in post-conflict scenarios.49 In New Caledonia, asystem of power-sharing based on list proportional repre-sentation took:

‘the heat off inter-ethnic issues, enabled the emergenceof smaller parties and, in 2004, paved the way to the


triumph of centrist parties which have shifted thepolitical agenda away from the politics of ethnicity’.50

There is some evidence that list proportional representa-tion systems are more successful than majoritariansystems in strengthening minority representation. How-ever in India, which has a ‘first past the post’ system,there has been some success in promoting ethnic cooper-ation, mainly due to the Congress Party’s ‘umbrella rolefor Hindus and Muslims…to unite under a national ban-ner of the state, leading to a long period of eliteaccommodation’.51

MRG’s report, Electoral Systems and the Protection andParticipation of Minorities, lists nine common types ofelectoral system, and looks at cases where they have beenimplemented, analysing the impact on minority represen-tation and reduction of communal tensions. While it doesnot conclude that any one system is always better forminority integration, emphasizing the importance of con-text in each situation, it does outline some generalguidelines for designers of electoral systems.

Minority-based political partiesPolitical parties based on minority identity may also pro-vide a vehicle for minority voices to be heard. TheNicaragua experience shows that where ethnically-basedpolitical parties exist, there may be obstacles to theirensuring political participation for minorities.52 YATA-MA, a party with roots in the Miskito community andnow reaching out to all minorities on the Atlantic Coast,was barred from participating in elections in 2000 by aSupreme Election Council resolution on the basis of theparty having failed to meet a requirement of a sufficientnumber of signatures backing their candidates. The casewent to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights,which found that the Nicaraguan state unfairly limitedregional inhabitants’ rights of political participation.53

And while the proportion of minority representatives inthe governing bodies of the two autonomous regions isstaying the same or falling, that of mestizos (majorityNicaraguans) is increasing (to over 50 per cent in bothregions). Further, four out of five deputies representingthe regions in the National Assembly are mestizo 54 (rep-resentation at the centre to reinforce decentralizedautonomy has also been crucial in India),55 and in anycase, the system is set up to minimize representation ofthe coastal regions at national level (the SouthernAtlantic Autonomous Region has 88,574 habitants pernational level deputy, as opposed to 34,145 inGrenada).56 To remedy this, the Network of CoastalLeaders has demanded two reserved seats per ethnicgroup in the National Assembly and Central AmericanParliament.57

But do minority-based parties promote or hinderlong-term democracy and peace-building?

As in the case with education, promoting separatepolitical development for different groups will do little topromote long-term understanding and peace. Creating apolitical system where ethnicity and religion is the mainor only criteria for power risks meaning that minority-based parties become seen as the only possible choice toprotect a group’s rights (as has been the case in Bosniaand Hercegovina [BiH] and Belgium). This risks allaspects of day to day politics, including disputes over theeconomy, taxation and spending, being seen through thelens of ethnicity or religion, making differences betweengroups much sharper.

However, minority-based parties may be genuinelydesired by a community, particularly one that has long feltexcluded. In India, ‘[t]he empowerment of the regionalethnic parties that broadly represented the ethnolinguisticidentity of the majority Tamils fulfilled the first pre-condi-tion for ethnic peace’58 in Tamil Nadu. Given the rightcircumstances (and the same caveats regarding genuinerepresentativity, inclusiveness and prohibition of hatespeech apply to both majority and minority parties), theycan provide an alternative to fixed allocations of seats andgovernment posts. Given the freedom to set up parties, itwill be minorities themselves who decide what their identi-ties are and how they are represented.

Consultative/advisory bodies Consultative or advisory bodies advise government or par-liament on minority issues without having executivepower. They can vary greatly in their composition, work-ing methods and focus. Their power may in practice belimited, and will depend, upon other things, on their per-ceived legitimacy (in the eyes of central government andtheir own community), and funding. Where legitimacy ishigh there may be considerable pressure on the govern-ment to implement their recommendations.

In Nicaragua there is an advisor to the president onAtlantic Coast issues, but he is not from a minority com-munity, and this has affected the coastal communities’confidence in him. Kosovo boasts similar mechanisms atmunicipal level, with each authority required to set up aCommunities Committee, but ‘the effectiveness of theseseems to have been very limited’.59

Nevertheless, in other countries, such as Croatia, Hun-gary and Singapore, there has been more success with suchmechanisms and their flexibility and informality may allowthem to play an important role in conflict management.

Autonomy and federalismIn countries where minorities are concentrated in specificareas, arrangements for political decision-making to be


taken at the regional level may be set up. A commonmechanism is autonomy, where an agreed set of powers(often covering culture, economy, education and religion)is ceded by the central government to a local governmentwith jurisdiction over a specific territory (which may beinhabited by one or more minority communities). In fed-eralism, the entire country is divided up into decentralizedunits, each enjoying devolved powers. Federal/autonomyboundaries may or may not be drawn based on the loca-tion of ethnic/religious communities. In the case ofautonomies it is more usual for this to be the case.

Autonomy or decentralization can create new minori-ties in the regions to which power is decentralized. Forexample, if power over education or language is devolvedto regional levels it will be the regional minorities whoserights will need to be protected on these issues, evenwhere the regional minority may be a majority in thecountry as a whole. If there is a minority area which ispoorer than the rest of the country, and powers over taxa-tion and spending on social assistance, health etc aredevolved to regions rather than being done nationally, thepoorer minority region may find itself worse off with lesstax revenue, but an increased need to spend on socialassistance and health. If new municipalities or autonomiesare created which are dominated by an ethnic, religious orlinguistic community to the exclusion of other smallercommunities, heightened population transfer may happenout of the area by these smaller excluded communities,thus leading to increased segregation.

Where a minority is not concentrated in one place,non-territorial autonomy (also referred to as cultural orgroup autonomy) is a possible arrangement. This involvesgranting decision-making powers to a minority communi-ty (often through a body such as a council) over specificareas which concern them directly, for example, culture,education, personal laws and religion. The autonomybody may have some tax-raising powers and/or receivesubsidies from the central government. Current examplescan be found in Estonia, Hungary, the Russian Federa-tion, Slovenia and the provisions for Muslim personallaws in India.60

In Nicaragua, the autonomy arrangement agreed in1987 succeeded in putting an end to the war betweencoastal communities and the Sandinistas. One reason forthe success of the arrangement may be the broad-basedconsultative process:

‘a...working document...was presented to communi-ties through a large-scale house-to-house communityeffort aimed at winning local approval for a broad-based autonomy package. Hundreds of civil societyactivists on the Atlantic Coast were trained to carryout door-to-door consultations as part of a major

social mobilization involving workshops, communityassemblies, workplace meetings and broad participa-tory meetings with churches and other localorganizations.’ 61

It is likely that another factor in the success of the auton-omy arrangement is that it addressed the key issue of theAtlantic communities’ identities, one of the initial triggersof the war.

Whether autonomy is good or bad as a long-termpeace-building mechanism seems very much to dependon how it is implemented; however:

‘carefully designed autonomy and self-governanceregimes can provide the institutional structures thatoffer sufficient space to non-dominant groups to expe-rience genuine self-governance, while simultaneouslymaking dominant groups less insecure about thefuture existence of the overall state’.62

Various failings have prevented the full implementation ofthe autonomy on the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast. Whilethese do not appear at present to signal a return to violentconflict, they may offer lessons for governments and minor-ity representatives negotiating on future autonomies. Theyinclude: domination of the political posts in theautonomous organs by mestizos; a failure to address con-flicts over land – conflicts with the state, with companies,and with other coastal communities (a crucial law on landwas not passed until 2003), and the central governmentbypassing the autonomy statutes to sign deals with privatecompanies for natural resource exploration; and a lack oftransparency around central budgets and decisions aroundbudget allocations to autonomous organs.63 In this respectthe concerns with the Atlantic Coast autonomy are theopposite of the concerns cited by some observers64 regard-ing the cementing of separation; here, minorities are notable to protect their cultures and interests sufficiently.

India offers an interesting contrast of a positive andnegative experience with autonomy – that of Tamil Naduwith Indian Jammu and Kashmir (IJK). In Tamil Nadu,where Dravida65 demands for a separate state dated backto before independence:

‘scrupulous observation of ethnic autonomy, adequaterepresentation at state and national level, inclusion ofsmaller minorities through ethnic power-sharing andshared access to state benefits can turn a separatistmovement into a force for democracy and a willingpart of the state’.66

In IJK, by contrast, the government granted a special sta-tus to the region but then ‘gutted that promise of any real


autonomy’67 by imprisoning the legitimate leader SheikhAbdullah. Two wars between India and Pakistan ‘had themost profound implications for the Kashmir dispute andfor the rights of minorities and their demand for autono-my in IJK’.68 But as well as external pressures, it appearsthat:

‘Sheikh Abdullah’s actions did not help matters: hedenied Praja Parishad, a Jammu Hindu party, thechance to put up candidates in elections to the firstConstituent Assembly.’ 69

As noted in the Tamil Nadu case, the protection of small-er minorities within autonomies is crucial. In this case,the failure to do so may have given the central govern-ment part of the pretext it needed to renege on itspromises.

Complex power-sharingFinally, some experts propose complex packages ofarrangements to ensure broad-based participation. Theseare often instituted as part of a peace-building process inthe aftermath of a violent conflict. Two such packages areconsociationalism and integrative power-sharing.70

Consociationalism, originally developed by ArendLijphart,71 involves power-sharing among communities inthe executive, often through reserved ministerial seats, andautonomy arrangements, which allow ‘segments’ of society(for example minority communities) to take key decisionson matters concerning them. These arrangements arebacked up by proportional representation (for example inpublic sector employment, funding, and/or political rep-resentation) and a mutual veto for each community onkey issues affecting them. Integrative power-sharing ismost commonly associated with the work of DonaldHorowitz. Rather than setting up institutions thatentrench powers for named communities, it favours elec-toral systems and preferential policies that encouragecooperation and alliances across ethnic/religious divides.72

These may be backed up by a strong minority rightsregime, including effective anti-discrimination laws, andeffective enforcement mechanisms.

A number of cases show that consociational power-sharing arrangements may in the short term help a societyto emerge from conflict; however, that this might be atthe cost of freezing ethnic identities. The most extremeexample of this is in BiH, where voters are required toidentify themselves as one of the three ‘constituent peo-ples’. This rules out mixed identities, and violates theminority right to be free to identify or not as a minority,and not to suffer advantage or disadvantage as a result ofthat choice.73 (For further discussion of how this arrange-ment, and others like it, work to counter cross-cutting

identities and thus hinder integration, see the section onidentity). Moreover, where such systems reserve fixednumbers of seats for communities, the distribution ofseats may become rapidly outdated as demographicschange. Observers point out that the Dayton agreementdid serve its primary purpose – to bring the violent con-flict to an end. But reconciliation between communities isnot happening, and there is little indication that thecountry would be able to survive as a coherent wholewithout the current high level of international interven-tion. The short-term measures that may be considerednecessary for a ceasefire often become frozen into the per-manent settlement leaving little room to address theintegration of all communities.

Participation in peaceprocesses One of the major focuses of peace processes in ethnically-or religiously-divided societies is how the state will begoverned in the future and what role the various commu-nities will have in it. It is highly important for minoritywomen and men to take part in such processes. However,in Darfur, Iraq and Kosovo, these processes have beendominated by a small number of groups, often those thatwere actively involved in armed conflict, leaving othergroups with no voice. In Iraq:

‘The [Constitution] drafting effort largely representeda political pact between the Kurd and Shi’i leaders.To meet the constitutional deadline…the consensus-building process was moved from the all-inclusiveConstitutional Committee to an informal forum ofShi’ite and Kurdish leaders, with some US–UNdiplomatic mediation and influence’. 74

In Kosovo, similar secrecy-shrouded negotiations sur-rounded the drafting of the Constitutional Framework in2001.75 In 2006–2007, discussions on a future status ofKosovo only included Serbs and Albanians, with othergroups being officially represented by an Albanian.76 InDarfur, one of the key triggers in the escalation of theconflict there was the decision of negotiators at Naivasha(supported by the international community) to excludeDarfur and other areas from the inaptly named Compre-hensive Peace Agreement.77

Conclusions and ways forwardWhen devising mechanisms for minority participation toprevent violent conflict or build peace, one of the maindebates can be reductively described as ‘separation versusintegration’. Where there are entrenched historical


grievances (often very recent), separate mechanisms for dif-ferent groups either at the regional level (autonomies) ornational level (power-sharing mechanisms with a distribu-tion of posts, seats etc according to community), are morecommon than more integrative solutions focusing onincentives to politicians to reach out to all communitiesand guarantees of equal participation, which include stronganti-discrimination measures. Analyses of peace agreementsindicate that consociational agreements may be needed inorder to get parties to agree to a transition.78 Historicalgrievances and lack of trust combine to ensure that leaderspush for strong entrenched mechanisms, which specificallyguarantee their voice in decision-making.

But such measures which should be temporary, rarelyremain so. Political systems based on separation do verylittle to bring about the integration of different groupsthat is necessary for long-term peace between them. The‘separate’ models rarely give a voice to the smaller, peace-ful groups, such as the Roma, and give no roles to thosewith mixed identities. They do little to address the keyunderlying causes of violence, systematic discriminationand denial of identity.

The South African experience shows that it is possi-ble to institute a mechanism whereby an initialpower-sharing arrangement is reviewed after a numberof years and replaced by a more integrative system (asproposed by the Lund Recommendations, see ‘Relevantinternational instruments’). In a minor way, this hasbeen done in Iraq, where the three-member presidency(with a Kurd, Shi’a, and Sunni representative), ‘envis-aged by the TAL [Transitional Administrative Law] as aconsociational arrangement to constrain the tyranny of asimple majority’,79 has been carried over into the post-

TAL set-up for a limited four-year term. It is hard to getcommunity leaders to give up mechanisms whichcement their roles in place, but which are unlikely to begood for the integration and inter-community under-standing needed if peace is to be sustainable in the longterm. At the very least, reserved seat arrangementsshould be reviewed periodically to ensure that they con-tinue to reflect changing demographics.

The only system that would appear to work in thelong-term is one that does not create boxes which minori-ty representatives have to fit themselves into, and whichenshrines minority rights in the Constitution; operatesaffirmative action, but not rigid quotas, where necessaryto overcome entrenched historic discrimination; promotesunderstanding and knowledge of all communities in soci-ety through the education system and media; andguarantees a voice to all parts of society, including minori-ty women. This structure needs to be underpinned bystrong anti-discrimination laws and enforcement mea-sures, which make available effective and accessiblechannels to challenge discrimination in all its aspects,including discrimination in political participation.

In addition, mechanisms to facilitate dialogue betweencommunities and the government established at the nation-al level have often been instrumental in preventing conflict,and in dealing constructively and in a structured way withissues affecting minorities that may contribute to increasedtensions. Such bodies can function effectively not only indecreasing tensions but also, in the long term, as a tool tomanage diversity in society in informal ways. This functionmay be taken up by a standing consultative/advisory bodyof the type mentioned above, or as an ad hoc body set upfor the specific purpose of managing tensions.


Development and economic exclusion affecting ethnic,religious and linguistic minorities have been key featuresin conflicts in the Balkans, Kenya, Nigeria, Northern Ire-land, Philippines and Sri Lanka, among others. Illplanned or intentionally discriminatory economic anddevelopment policies/programmes can deepen inequali-ties, entrench power and economic hierarchies, andstimulate or aggravate inter-ethnic tensions leading toconflict.81 Development that clashes with the prioritiesand needs of minorities and indigenous peoples, such asthrough the appropriation of lands, can lead to ‘develop-ment conflict’ (see below). Aside from the effect thatconflicts have on the people affected, development con-flict or conflict involving economic inequalities/exclusionand/or competition over resources has a seriously negativeeffect on growth and poverty reduction. Yet genuinerights-based development and equitable policies that pro-vide for economic participation, using the minority rightsframework, can promote stability, sustainable develop-ment and even economic growth. This section willconsider these two types of conflict and some of themeans to help alleviate economic and development exclu-sion. It also proposes some conclusions.

Analysts and academics tend to argue that economicexclusion contributes to causing conflicts when it is com-bined with political exclusion of a group.82 What is clear isthat economic exclusion has been a major feature acrossmany conflicts, and is so closely tied to other forms ofsocial exclusion it can often preclude access to power,access to decision making or be partially caused by these.Analysts also regularly raise the case that a certain level ofdevelopment is required for a community to be in a posi-tion to risk resorting to violence. However, wheregovernments do not take action to promote and protectminority rights, the development of minority communi-ties is neglected and the reality and perception ofexclusion is increased. The solution is to work systemati-cally towards improving the situation of the excluded, andto entrench inclusion economically, socially and political-ly. This includes taking additional ‘special measures’,when required, to guarantee minorities ‘full and equalenjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms’ asprovided for in the UNDM83 and the ICERD. Structuralinequalities should be tackled to avert conflict. Failingthat (and this is much more costly on all accounts), actionto address these potential causes of conflict needs to occurearly on in the gestation period of violence.84

Factors affecting minoritywomen and men’s exclusionEthnic, religious and linguistic minorities are vulnerable toeconomic exclusion largely due to direct and indirect dis-crimination. Minorities, many of whom live in remoteareas, will often also face barriers due to regional under-development. Economic exclusion can mean minoritieshave inadequate access to markets, resources, services,socio-political institutions and technology. Factors causingthis include barriers to citizenship; ‘ethnically disqualifying’criteria for education and employment; lack of or inade-quate implementation of anti- discrimination legislation;language barriers; and regional under-funding.85 Minoritywomen are particularly vulnerable as they face double dis-crimination as women and as members of minoritycommunities. Minority women are susceptible to experi-encing lower levels of education than minority men ormajority women, and therefore they are less likely to speakthe majority language when compared with men. Thesebarriers in conjunction with discriminatory practices, pro-hibit women from political, economic and socialparticipation. Minority communities in general tend tohave fewer educational opportunities, higher mortalityrates, higher rates of poverty, and higher unemploymentthan other poor groups.

Development, whether focusing on economic growth orpoverty reduction, whether policy orientated or focused onan individual project, should have a redistributive effect.How this is applied is partly dependent on the politicalcontext, and ‘ethnic politics intrudes on…developmentpolicy; rules are bent, project locations skewed, privatisa-tions distorted’.86 The exclusion and discriminationminorities face affects whether and how developmentreaches them. MRG has conducted research on the PovertyReduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and Country StrategyPapers, and informally monitored other such documents,and has found that these do not adequately integrateminorities’ needs from formulation through to implemen-tation. MRG found that minorities were rarely invited toparticipate in the formulation of the PRSPs and whenminorities were invited to participate their needs were notaccounted for, their participation tokenistic and ‘oftendeeply rooted’ in the ‘power differentials’, i.e. that the out-comes did not tend to favour minorities’ or women’sneeds.87 Development projects are very rarely monitoredwith disaggregated data (by ethnicity and gender). The Mil-

Economic participation


lennium Development Goals (MDGs) intended to reducepoverty, do not include any specific reference to minorities,and therefore have rarely been monitored by ethnicity orreligion. They cannot be considered genuinely rights-based.Although apparent progress towards the goals, whichinclude halving extreme poverty, halting the spread ofHIV/AIDS, promoting gender equality and reducing infantmortality, may be achieved in a country, the calculationsused to monitor success can hide deepening inequalitiesacross ethnic lines. By failing to heed inequalities andpower differentials, the MDGs and their implementationare not conflict-sensitive.88

How do development andeconomic exclusion contributeto conflict?The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly ConflictFinal Report 89 found that:

‘The resentment likely to be induced by drasticallyunbalanced or inequitable growth may outweighwhatever prosperity that growth generates. In contrastequitable access to economic growth and, importantly,economic opportunity inhibits deadly conflict’.

Economic exclusion can propel or maintain a minoritycommunity within a sub-status or cycle of deprivation. Itcan greatly impede minorities’ ability to access their civil,political, social and cultural rights, and this can haveenormous implications for their security, status and well-being. The UK’s Department for InternationalDevelopment (DFID) report on Preventing Violent Con-flict,90 shows how important it is that developmentassistance is conflict-sensitive:

‘…until the genocide in 1994, Rwanda received moredevelopment assistance per capita than most other coun-tries. Most of this aid reinforced the existing politics ofexclusion and repression in the country and ignored manyof the political and social tensions that set the stage for thekillings. At the same time, on the traditional measures ofsuccess, Rwanda scored highly for its development achieve-ments. These apparent “successes” were mis-diagnosedbecause the underlying conflict was ignored’.

Even when there there are attempts to address inequalitiesacross ethnic, religious, or linguistic divides, inter-com-munity tensions can be stirred up. Paradoxically,minorities being targeted as the beneficiaries of pro-grammes can also lead to tensions, especially where therelatively less well-off feel that they will suffer as a result.

The system of Dalit reservations in India, which includesquotas in political appointments and in public sectoremployment, has led to Dalits being physically attacked.For example, in Tamil Nadu, there have been some vio-lent incidents where other excluded communities havetargeted Dalits:

‘There have been clashes between the Vanniyars andthe Dalits or Dalits and Thevars. What is paradoxi-cal is that some of these incidents were in response toimprovements in the conditions of the Dalit commu-nity, their consolidation as a political force and theirstate-protected access to benefits under the “reserva-tions” policies’. 91

This underlines that care needs to be taken in selectingthe forms of targeted programmes and affirmativeapproaches to ensure that they do not increase resentmentor conflict. Projects fostering inter-community relations,and public information/media campaigns, can be impor-tant in promoting understanding between communities toavoid such tensions. An overall approach to addressingdiscrimination is needed in development.

The way development is carried out can be closelybound up with identities, and potentially also stir up ten-sions, not least because it can affect ways of life. In Chinatoday, large projects in minority and autonomous regionscarry slogans which promote the national identity, and inNicaragua in the 1980s the feelings of isolation and eco-nomic deprivation contributed to the Atlantic Coastpeoples’ sense of not belonging to and not feelingacknowledged by the Nicaraguan state. North Americancompanies on the Coast had provided jobs and thisaccentuated the Atlantic Coast peoples’ feelings of havinga separate, more ‘anglo-affinitive’ culture. In resolving theNicaraguan conflict, considerable political and economicautonomy was key. However, the introduction of relevantlegislation was slow. The central government has madedeals with private companies to exploit natural resourceson indigenous communities’ lands against their wishes, apractice condemned by the Inter-American Court ofHuman Rights.92

China’s boom based ondisproportionate distributionincreases risk of conflict 93

The striking economic growth in China over the lasttwo decades is not trickling down to minority commu-nities. This, combined with inadequate protection ofidentity; political marginalization; and militarization ‘tocurb internal and regional threats’ in the Inner Mongo-


lian Autonomous Region (IMAR), Tibetan AutonomousRegion (TAR) and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region(XUAR); is stirring up unrest and increasing tensions.China’s macroeconomic policy has emphasized economicgrowth without considering the sustainability of develop-ment, and is largely driven by military and politicalconsiderations. Conducted as part of MRG’s ConflictPrevention Programme, Human Rights in China(HRIC)’s research focuses on the situation of the Mon-gols, Tibetans and Uyghurs, it reveals how minorities areeconomically excluded and how tensions are increasing.Minority protection in domestic law is overridden bynational security and unity concerns. Development ischaracterized by an exploitation of resources to the cen-tre, inequality in the delivery of basic services and a lackof opportunities for minorities with their gross under-representation in employment. Lower educational levels(low enrolment, high drop-out figures), and widespreadMandarin fluency requirement are examples of pro-hibitive factors to employment, and this situation isworse still for minority women. Even minorities who arewell educated are failing to get jobs as they face directdiscrimination because they are not Han Chinese. SomeUyghur interviewees reported that when they haveapplied for jobs, prospective employers have said: ‘Wedon’t want you.’ There have also been instances of dis-criminatory recruitment notices at job fairs saying:‘Uyghurs need not apply.’ 94 Tibetans feel that they areexcluded from the Han’s networks and connections. InIMAR, Mongols have been blamed for overgrazing theiranimals and are being forcibly displaced without com-pensation, to ‘restore the grasslands’.95

China launched the Western Development Strategy in2001 to address inequalities across rural–urban divides(following considerable international pressure). In estab-lishing the Strategy, China acknowledged the potentialeffect of inequality on instability, and the need to addressthis to promote stability and unity. Although there hasbeen growth in some of the autonomous regions, theinequalities between the centre and periphery remain.Considerable mineral resources are extracted from theperiphery and the vast employment benefits have gone tothe autonomous regions’ Han populations, rather thanequally benefiting these regions’ national minorities. TheXinjiang Production and Construction Corps, based inXUAR has a workforce of c. 2.5 million and the vastmajority are Han Chinese, who currently make upapproximately 13 per cent of the region’s population.Han settlers are moving into the autonomous regions inlarge numbers to seek the new job opportunities, anddemographics are altering. Minorities believe this internal‘colonization’ to be intentional assimilation. Despite statecontrol and suppression, incidents of violence across

China are on the rise according to official statistics. Thisis among both minorities and Han as dissatisfactiongrows. The Han ‘colonization’ is stirring up resentmentand tensions, and contributing to the current difficulties.There have also been some incidents between minorities,such as between Tibetans and Hui in Tibetan areas, dueto the high competition over jobs.96

Economic exclusion andcompetition for resources –a major role in DarfurDarfur was long neglected by successive governments. InDarfur there is considerable competition over resourcesbetween agro-pastoral, sedentary and semi-nomadicfarmers. Land access issues have been a long-term boneof contention for the communities (including Arab com-munities), and small-scale inter-tribal skirmishes werenot unusual.97 Competition increased with ecologicalcrises in the 1970s. Tensions were further exacerbated inthe following decades with influxes of semi-nomadicpastoralist Arabs from Chad, often armed, seeking landto sustain themselves. Over the 1980s and 1990s, theseminor conflicts were increasingly polarized across ‘Arab’and ‘non-Arab’, or ‘African’ lines, stirred up by the cen-tral government (and the central government alsosupported ‘land-grabbing’ by some groups). Territorialarrangements were designed to alter power relations anda supremacist ideology was promoted against the ‘non-Arabs’ and ‘Africans’. Although the Darfur conflict andgenocide have become more about the politics of thegovernment in Khartoum exerting and further entrench-ing its power, the source of the crises is in economicexclusion and competition over scarce resources. Hadthe structural differences in the disputes over land, andthe political exclusion and regional marginalization beentackled earlier and adequately, the source of the disputewould have weakened considerably, and it may havebeen difficult for government and insurgents to mobi-lize.98 Resolution of the situation in Darfur will require areview of the May 2006 peace agreement and greaterheed to the economic rights of all communities.

Promoting economic inclusioncan help diffuse tensionsThere have been some cases where attention to address-ing the root causes of economic exclusion ordevelopment exclusion in conflicts has had a positiveeffect. In Northern Ireland, a range of different mecha-nisms has reduced inequalities in education andemployment, helping to provide support among the


Roman Catholic minority for a peace process. Effortsinclude The Fair Employment Act of 1989 outlawingindirect discrimination, providing a complaints tribunal,monitoring recruitment and employment, and limitedaffirmative action; and the establishment of The Equali-ty Commission in 1998. Stewart describes how areduction in inequalities across religious lines since the1980s – including income and housing inequalities,improved access to higher education and some limitedreduction in inequality in the police force – helpsexplain the ‘readiness of the Roman Catholic Communi-ty to bring the conflict to an end’.99 In the Republic ofMacedonia, the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001ending the conflict between the majority Macedoniansand minority Albanians includes considerable attentionto economic inclusion, including in public sectoremployment. However, implementation is slow andthere is a lack of adequate attention to the rights ofother smaller minority communities, including theRoma. In her comparative study on horizontal inequali-ties in a number of countries, Stewart 100 points out thatthe poorest among the community who have been eco-nomically dominant may suffer as result of affirmativeaction policies. In both Macedonia and Northern Ire-land there has been some resentment from the majoritycommunity. The considerable and transparent reviewprocess of the various mechanisms in Northern Irelandshould help to alleviate this.

Development conflict UN Declaration on the Right To Development, Article2.3:

‘States have the right and the duty to formulateappropriate national development policies that aimat the constant improvement of the well-being of theentire population and of all individuals, on the basisof their active, free and meaningful participation indevelopment and in the fair distribution of the ben-efits resulting therefrom.’

‘Development conflict’ (or development-related conflict)is the term often used to explain conflict induced bydevelopment projects that are highly exploitative of theresources of minority and indigenous peoples, and atworst cause forcible relocation. Ill planned, top-down,resource extractive projects such as conservation andtourism projects, hydroelectric plants and large-scaledams, can have a major negative impact on minorities’livelihoods and wellbeing, often eradicating their eco-nomic base and eroding their culture and traditions.MRG has been campaigning alongside partner organiza-

tions in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where violencehas resulted from development initiatives (sometimesinvolving multinationals as well as the state) that violatethe rights of the minority and indigenous peoples.

Resource exploitation andconflict in the Philippines‘Development conflict’ is a regular feature within thePhilippines. The exploitation of communities’ resourceshas led to conflicts between communities, within commu-nities, and between communities and corporations. Onesuch case is that of the exploitation of the land of the Ata-Manabos, traditionally hunter-gatherer indigenouspeoples of Talaingod of Mindanao. Within the IndustrialForest Management Agreement (IFMA) scheme for refor-estation, Alcantara and Sons (Alsons) were granted apermit in 1989 to work on most of the land area ofTalaingod town. Unknown to the Ata-Manabos, themayor and some allies then agreed to permit Alsons towiden the land area, including Langilan (not traditionallypart of Tailangod). The first the Ata-Manabos knew ofthis was in 1991 when the mayor called a meeting withthem and Alsons. The Ata-Manabos were encouraged tobecome employees to plant trees. Despite the promises,wages were not paid and work was not available for all –including most of those from Langilan. The chief ofLangilan had not agreed for the scheme to extend to hisvillage and was angry. Soon after the Ata-Manabos weretold they could not plant within the area and that theywould be relocated to another area, and then the bulldoz-ers arrived. In 1993 the Ata-Manabos declared they woulddefend their land to the death. They presented a resolu-tion that Langilan was not a part of Talaingod but thepro-IFMA leaders refused. In short, in 1994 an army bat-talion marched in, houses were looted, harvests andanimals destroyed. The Ata-Manabos took a peacefulprotest to the city. With support from non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) and advocates, agreement wasreached that Langilan would not be included in the workand a survey would determine boundaries. However, nosurvey was ever carried out. As a result, the communitieswent to war, resulting in a number of deaths.101

Land and property rightsAs discussed above, at the heart of many conflicts involv-ing minority rights lies land. This is hardly surprising, asland has historically been one of the key sources of conflictboth between and within states. In terms of minority con-flict though, land is both a cause of attacks on minorities,but also an issue for which minorities may often take uparms, often generations after they initially lost their land.


Attacks on minorities

Land is coveted for many reasons. Not least of these arenatural resources, such as arable land, fishing, minerals,oil, water, or in today’s world, tourism. Sometimes themilitary or other state authorities may want particularlocations for their bases.

While such valued land may occur anywhere, when it isoccupied by minorities there is often an increased risk thatit will be seized and the minorities expelled. The reasons areessentially due to minorities’ lack of power. They are onlyrarely given legal rights over their land, and where these doexist on paper they are rarely enforced. So authorities, orthe majority population, may end up encroaching onminority land or even expelling the whole community. Thisusually requires violence or the threat of violence.

Such expulsions have occurred throughout history.However, particular problems today have been caused bythe seizure of lands from indigenous peoples throughoutthe colonial era, and subsequently. The colonial justifica-tion was often that the land was ‘empty’ (terra nullius),and could be seized by settlers or others, with no consid-eration as to the impact on the peoples concerned.Seizures of land and expulsion of peoples have been par-ticularly damaging as the indigenous peoples often had adifferent concept of land ownership from that of individ-ual title, (collective and/or nomadic) so their loss of landoften destroyed the fabric of their society.

The other reason for seizing land is specifically to expelthe minority or indigenous peoples, i.e. ‘ethnic’ or ‘sectariancleansing’. This is often done during wars and other violentconflict. At these times in particular, minorities may beseen as disloyal and expulsion may appear to be easy. Alter-natively minorities, like others, may simply flee the war, butfind their property and homes have been seized and itbecomes impossible to return. Or minorities may findthemselves in the middle of a war in which they are notdirectly involved, but where nevertheless their property isdestroyed and seized (again often due to their lack ofpower). The Assyrian people of south-east Turkey in 1915and again in the 1980s have been an example of this.

The persistence of claims to landMinorities, therefore, often lose their land, with muchviolence. What is notable is that the claim to land persistsfor many years, indeed generations, leading to conflictmany years after the initial seizure. As previously men-tioned, it is an issue for which many minorities areprepared to use violence. There are several reasons for this.

First, many places are of particular importance to aminorities’ cultural or religious identity. Most religionshave sacred sites or cities. One need only look at the his-tory of Jerusalem, sacred to three major religions, to see

that people are prepared to kill and die for places theyconsider sacred. Much smaller communities may also haveparticular sacred locations. The culture, religion and tradi-tions of the Endorois community in Kenya are centredaround Lake Bogoria. The Endorois were expelled fromthe Lake Bogoria region in the 1970s but still maintainstrong collective traditions centred on this lake. It seemsthat for particular important locations, as long as thecommunity continues to exist, the traditions about theirsacred homes will be passed down.

Linked to this is the sense of home. This can be ahome as a community, or simply the actual houses thatwere lost. An example is the tradition among both Jewsand Palestinians of keeping the keys to their ancestralhomes for the day when they will return. Again this showsthe importance of the particular place for the people.

But another reason for the link between land claimsand violence is that minorities often recognize that theloss of land is the start of a dramatic downturn in theirwellbeing. Once expelled from their homes, minoritiesmay become refugees in other countries, in situations ofextreme poverty and isolation, which often persist fromgeneration to generation. Examples of this include theJews in Europe, the Palestinians in many countries today,and the Chagossians in Mauritius and the UK. Indige-nous peoples in particular can see the loss of their land, asthe loss of a whole way of life from which they have rarelyrecovered (for example in Australia, the United States ofAmerica [USA] or Canada). In these circumstances, it isscarcely surprising that desperation may lead to desperateattempts to recover land, which may be seen as the onlyway to restore their former prosperity and way of life.

Resolving land disputesGiven the importance and persistence of land as an issuein conflict, it is highly surprising that it is not addressedin a more systematic way. International law does givesome protection. The right to property is acknowledgedin many documents, including the right to compensationfor loss of land and restitution of illegally taken land.102

Recently, indigenous peoples have begun to have theirrights to land formally recognized, notably in Australia,New Zealand, Nicaragua and the Philippines. In BiH, avery well funded project resolved property rights for over90 per cent of the displaced people there.103 The right ofKurdish refugees to have a property right over their tradi-tional homes, even without written proof of ownership,has been acknowledged by the European Court ofHuman Rights. But the vast majority of minority landand property disputes throughout the world, remainunresolved and many could erupt into violence at anytime. Even where tribunals have been set up on paper, asin Iraq, Kosovo and Nicaragua, in practice they have


either failed to even resolve the legal ownership of prop-erty, or certainly failed to physically return the propertyto the original owners. And minority women face addi-tional difficulties in ownership of and gaining access toland or property. Trying and failing to resolve a propertyissue actually makes people more angry. The key to thefailures to date to resolve the Cyprus dispute have largelylay in the failure to produce a settlement on propertyrights and return to homes that all sides feel respectstheir rights.

Conclusions and ways forwardThe examples in this report highlight how economic anddevelopment exclusion, and divisions over land, can raisetensions between communities and the state. Aside frominternational obligations to promote rights, they also illus-trate the importance of development bodies (includingnational and local governments) considering the effects ofdevelopment policies and programmes on relationsbetween different communities in order to promote sta-bility. Economic exclusion and exclusion from decisionmaking tend to be bound up in tensions leading to con-flict, so efforts to tackle economic inequalities will need tobe taken alongside efforts to promote minorities’ politicalparticipation. The recognition of minorities and protec-tion of their identity need to be promoted to ensure thatrights-based development is a reality.

These issues need to be acted upon to avoid tensionsturning into causes for conflict. Further, monitoringdevelopment policies and programmes through ethnically-and gender-disaggregated data will be an important step.There needs to be real minority participation throughoutdevelopment policies, programmes and projects, in thedesign, implementation and the benefits – to include bothminority women and men. Programmes and budgets needto be monitored across geographical, ethnic and genderdivides, with the involvement of minority women andmen. Where a large-scale project affects a community, ajust proportion of benefits should go to the minority orindigenous communities. When conflict has alreadyoccurred, such monitoring will continue to be essential, aswill the development and implementation of mechanismsthat tackle the inequality.

Functioning systems to punish and eradicate discrimi-nation are essential and relatively uncontroversial, legal

provisions include the International Covenant on Eco-nomic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Article2.2.104 Where simply treating minorities in the same wayas majorities will be insufficient to lift communities out ofeconomic exclusion and discrimination, special measureswill be needed to complement the anti-discriminationmechanisms. The form that positive or affirmative actionshould take will be context specific, tackling barriers suchas low levels of education will often be very effective andleast controversial. However, systems of ‘affirmative pref-erence’ and reservations might be required in situationswhere inequalities are extremely high.105 These should bereviewed periodically to ensure that when certain mea-sures are no longer required that they will be no longerused. Majority communities also need to be educated tounderstand that work to promote minorities’ economicinclusion does not privilege minorities – and that it endsas exclusion and discrimination is overcome.106

The basic principles of finding solutions to land dis-putes are relatively straightforward. The first step is tounderstand the different issues that can be involved in landdisputes. The land issue may be a collective one (often thecase for indigenous peoples) or one based on families orindividual property. The position of women is particularlyimportant. Then it is necessary to recognize there is bothan economic issue about land, and one connected withidentity. The economic one is about loss of property andrequires compensation. The identity issue requires therestoration of property, no matter how long since it wasgone, or at the very least, it requires free access to sacredplaces. Finally, solutions need to be complete and rapid.Particularly when property and land have recently beenlost, restoration should be done as quickly as possible. Thelonger land is disputed the more difficult resolutionbecomes. And where a community feels there has been nofinal settlement, a sense of grievance will fester.

Solutions therefore require an overall settlement. Forland rights a critical part of this resolution is legal – a set-tlement that recognizes the rights of those who havepreviously occupied land and been unfairly evicted. Theserights can be collective, family or individual. Traditionalownership and not just registered title need to be recog-nized – but the particular status of women needs to beacknowledged. Where there is legal recognition of minori-ty land rights, this needs to be implemented and landrestored and protected.


Where peoples and individuals feel a strong sense of injus-tice, violence is much more likely. Not only does thefeeling of injustice greatly increase the peoples’ feeling ofalienation from the wider society; it often results in injus-tice being blamed on other peoples or religions. Relationsbetween communities are poisoned, often for generations.Ongoing resentments help start conflicts, decades, evencenturies, after the problem started. Injustice can be feltby both minority and majority communities. This sectionends with several conclusions on these points.

How injustice can lead toconflictThere appear to be two essential elements of injustice andconflict. First, that there has been an historic or ongoingmassive violation of minority rights. Second, is the lack ofany effective mechanism to address the injustice (i.e. toconsider, evaluate it and provide a remedy).

Historic injusticeThe types of historic injustices that are likely to be impor-tant in collective memories are essentially those of masscrimes against peoples. These include memories of geno-cide and other attempts to destroy communities, forgroups such as the Aborigines of Australia; the Armeniansand others in the Ottoman Empire; or the Jews, Roma,Serbs and others during the Second World War. ‘Ethniccleansing’ and expulsion from historic lands are alsoremembered for many years, as in the case of indigenouspeoples across the world, the Acadians in Canada and, atdifferent times, the Jews and Palestinians in Israel/Pales-tine. Other crimes that have affected many peoples, suchas the transportation into slavery of millions of Africans,are also remembered centuries afterwards. In places suchas Iraq or former Yugoslavia, the historic memory ofmany crimes committed against many peoples at differenttimes can continue to poison relations between almost allcommunities.

What emerges from this is that the memory of suchinjustices can fester for generations and lead eventually toviolence between peoples. While such resentment is par-ticularly acute when the victims are still alive (which willbe the case for decades after the event), many memoriescontinue for centuries. This can be particularly acute inthe case of loss of historic lands, as the lands remain,clearly identifiable, but under occupation by another peo-

ple. The loss of land is a crime like slavery and transporta-tion, which is often perceived by a people as the cause oftheir poverty today. A crime may simply be so horrificthat a people cannot forget it. Resentment may beincreased though by attempts to deny or forget crimes,particularly by the state/people that had committed them.

Three issues can be seen as important in a collectivememory of historic crimes leading to violence. The first isthe sense that the historic crime has not been remedied,or, in many cases, even acknowledged. The second, linkedto this, will be a tendency to blame entire peoples for thecrimes, e.g. Arabs, Croats, Jews, Serbs. This is particularlythe case when none or few individuals were actuallybrought to justice. Finally, there may be a tendency for ahistorically oppressed people to believe the crimes com-mitted against them gives them the entitlement tocompensation at the expense of another people, for exam-ple by seizing their land.

Current injusticesOf a different order, but equally important, is a minority’scollective belief that they are being unjustly treated today.Much, if not most, of the treatment that leads to ongoingfeelings of alienation and anger is about what is nowlabelled as discrimination – that is, a community, andindividuals within it, are treated significantly worse thanothers due to their race/ethnicity, language or religion.This is most important where the discrimination iswidespread or systematic, and is generally in areas of day-to-day life – such as education, policing and work.Discrimination may be officially sanctioned, as inapartheid; may be a long-accepted way of life (as with theDalits and Roma); or may be a new development such asthe discrimination often experienced by new migrants.People may experience discrimination several times over,due to their age, caste, disability, ethnicity, religion, sex,sexuality, etc. Discrimination in society often begins withthe Constitution or the structure of the political system.A state that declares itself to be ‘of ’ a particular religion orethnicity, or grants privileged status to certain groups inits political system, effectively condones day to day dis-crimination against the others. Or, in Iraq, theConstitution may clearly bias the justice system in favourof one religion or group.107

The feelings of unfairness and humiliation that suchdiscrimination creates in those who suffer it can lead toviolence. It alienates communities from the rest of society

Justice


and again leads to a tendency to blame other communi-ties for this. Paradoxically, a slight improvement in thesituation of a community (and also an increasing rise incommunications with and knowledge of the rest of theworld) may lead to a greater risk of violence, as the com-munity realizes that its situation of second-class status isnot tolerable.

Lack of mechanisms to deal with injusticePerhaps the critical factor that can cause violence where acommunity has suffered or is suffering from injustice, iswhen it believes there is no mechanism that can identifyand remedy these injustices.

The basic remedy for injustice has been understoodfor centuries as a ‘justice system’, or what is often calledthe rule of law. For ongoing injustices, what is needed areclear laws that outlaw such practices (notably an anti-discrimination law) and a justice system that will applysuch laws; i.e. it identifies such practices, ends them andprovides remedies to those who have suffered from them.For criminal activities, the system should identify the per-petrators (and particularly the leaders and instigators) ofsuch crimes, and prosecute and punish them.108

For historic crimes, the response begins with investiga-tion and acknowledgement of what happened, and of theindividuals responsible. Once this has been done, if theperpetrators and victims are still alive, prosecution andcompensation are vital. If not, a system of fair compensa-tion for a community is needed, whether financial or,certainly in the case of land, the possible restitution ofwhat has been lost.

For minorities in particular, such mechanisms are cru-cial. Lacking power in political life, they need strong laws,and objective, strong judicial and other systems to enforcethese laws on their behalf. But they will need particularhelp to use the laws – notably to be informed aboutthem, and legal and other assistance, to use the system inlitigation or prosecution. Further, ensuring groups can usetheir own language in the legal system is very important.Group actions need to be recognized and funded by thestate or others seeking to prevent violence.

Discrimination within the justice system itself is oneof the most obvious areas where minorities can feel day today grievances. In the criminal justice side, it is very oftenminorities who suffer when it comes to being stopped,arrested, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced; and whodo not get a fair investigation of crimes against them.Minorities may feel that they cannot expect anythingfrom a justice system biased against them at all levels. Andminorities, lacking economic resources and often unableto speak the majority language, may have no access to jus-tice. Where the justice system is seen as inherently biasedagainst minorities, high-profile initiatives to investigate

such in-built discrimination and propose radical changes,such as the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in the UK, may bethe only way to begin to restore confidence.

Yet, despite the importance of this issue, it is still notplaying an essential role in conflict prevention. Tradition-ally, the rule of law has not been seen as of majorimportance after conflicts, as opposed to say, elections oreconomic development. This has changed to a degree,with the UN now having a rule of law unit in the UNDepartment of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), andthe creation first of the tribunals on former Yugoslaviaand Rwanda, and now the International Criminal Court(ICC). The tribunals and ICC are mandated to deal withthe most serious crimes, largely against minorities. TheSouth African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hasbeen upheld as a model in this regard.

What has been done has been largely limited to crimi-nal law, and even then to high-profile cases. Investigationsand trials have taken an inordinate length of time, makingjustice and reconciliation very difficult. Most notably thetrial of Slobodan Milosevic, despite his ill health, lastedfour years, and no justice was achieved due to his death;whereas the trial of the most important Nazis at Nurem-berg took approximately one year.

While there have been some moves towards morecomprehensive and effective anti-discrimination laws, par-ticularly in Europe and South Africa, it is still not beingseen as one of the vital steps in conflict prevention.109 Thisis despite the prohibition of discrimination being a funda-mental requirement of international law. Compared withthe large amounts of money spent on elections anddemocratization, very little money has been spent on giv-ing minorities access to justice, such as support forlitigation.

Conflict prevention work still rarely deals with a sys-tematic approach to justice for minorities, an approachthat deals with both existing and historic injustices. Jus-tice needs to be implemented at the most local levelpossible to ensure that, for minorities, justice is not onlydone, it is seen to be done. But in many countries justicesystems do not implement their rulings, and at bestminorities have to use international courts, as some areincreasingly doing. For example, in Nicaragua minoritieshave had to go to the Inter-American Court of HumanRights due to the failure to achieve justice on land rightsand political participation.

Conclusions and ways forwardA functioning justice system is vital to address the under-lying problems experienced by minorities. Mostimportantly the justice system needs to address the fol-lowing issues, especially after a violent conflict.


Crime It is vital that the state can and does deal with day-to-daycrimes against minorities, particularly those of a violentnature. The justice system must be accessible and unbiased,both when minorities are victims or suspected perpetrators.

DiscriminationThis is still a largely ignored area, but there needs to becomprehensive and accessible, easy-to-use law to provideremedies for grievances, particularly where the discrimina-tion is widespread or systematic. Minorities need to be fullyaware of this and supported in bringing test litigation.

Land and property There should be clear recognition and protection of landownership by minorities, which meets their needs andway of life (including recognition of collective and othertraditional forms of ownership).

Addressing historic injustice claims needs a separateapproach, possibly with a special body being set up.‘Truth and reconciliation’ will only work if there is recon-ciliation based on peoples’ rights.


International responses

The lack of comprehensive and enforceable minority rightscan exacerbate inter-ethnic tensions, as has been illustratedthroughout this report. The minority rights frameworkoffers governments and international bodies the ‘how to’ tocreate and maintain multicultural, just and peaceful soci-eties; societies that are inclusive yet acknowledge andprotect peoples’ differences. Suppression of identities, andexclusionary and discriminatory practices, do not foster sta-ble societies or durable peace. The four pillars of minorityrights, i.e. protection of identity, protection of existence,non-discrimination (including measures to prevent/tacklediscrimination, and affirmative action) and participation,are the means to achieve inclusive and tolerant societies.Monitoring minority women and men’s situations providesa good indicator of the health of a country, a means ofestablishing the extent that a country applies genuine goodgovernance. Conversely, violations of minority rights suchas hate speech, political exclusion or territorial ‘ethnic engi-neering’ can provide early warning signs that a country is atrisk of erupting into a conflict. By addressing these issues,tackling the root causes, conflict can be averted or a reoc-currence prevented. Despite the strong role that minorityrights can play in conflict prevention (and post-conflict),this is not heeded sufficiently in practice either by govern-ments or international bodies.

With a rise in conflicts within state borders there hasbeen a movement toward international accountability forviolations of rights and crimes against humanity. There hasalso been a movement towards the acknowledgement of theneed for a culture of prevention of conflict and codificationof a graduated system of prevention, with international col-lective action as the last resort. The establishment of theICC and the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals are veryimportant steps. In 2005 the UN member states agreed tothe ‘Responsibility to Protect’, and African countries inte-grated it into the African Charter on Human and Peoples’Rights – that the international community has a responsi-bility to protect populations from genocide, ethniccleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity when astate cannot or will not protect them. With UN reformand efforts to codify the responsibility to protect, this is aprime time in which to integrate attention to minorityrights within conflict prevention.

The international community has a key role to ensurethat national governments can put in place legislation andmechanisms to promote and protect minority rights, andit needs to improve its own mechanisms of conflict pre-

vention in this respect. This section sets out some of theinternational community’s mistakes, and some lessons onminority incorporation at the various stages of conflictprevention.

Marginalization andmisunderstanding of minorityrightsThere is a range of internationally agreed standards pro-viding legal protection for minorities. These include theICCPR (Article 27) and the UNDM. Yet MRG hasfound throughout its work that minority rights tends tobe marginalized within human rights. There is a lack ofunderstanding on the usefulness of minority rights andhow it can help accommodate diversity. There is a lack ofunderstanding on what a minority community is, despiteinternationally agreed characteristics. Further, some gov-ernments use the argument, at times successfully, thatpromoting minority rights will promote secession. How-ever, this has not proved to be the case,110 and this isunderscored by the Preamble to the UNDM:

‘[...] the promotion and protection of the rights ofpersons belonging to national or ethnic, religious andlinguistic minorities contribute to the political andsocial stability of States in which they live’.

Within conflict prevention, this marginalization of minor-ity rights is evident in a lack of attention to and at timesmisapplication of minority rights. In BiH, the provisionof political participation to some communities has been atthe complete exclusion of smaller ‘non-constituent peo-ples’. However, there has been some recent acknow-ledgement 111 of the links between ethnic rights violationsand conflicts.

There are some important mechanisms although thesehave limited political support and capacity, despite theirpotential and cost effectiveness. The Convention on thePrevention and Punishment of Genocide in 1948, crimi-nalizing genocide, was an important step but there hasbeen some confusion regarding the use of the term geno-cide. One misinterpretation is that a situation needs to beofficially declared genocide for intervention to occur toprotect threatened peoples. Recently a Special Advisor tothe Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide

(SAPG) was established. However, the office is part-timeand under-resourced. Additionally an Independent Experton Minority Issues (IEMI) was established and the post-holder has undertaken to include within her workconsiderable attention to minority rights and conflictissues, but this is one aspect of the post and it is also part-time.

Structural prevention andminoritiesStructural prevention refers to the prevention of conflictthrough tackling systems, hierarchies and inequalities inorder to promote a long-term peace. The MillenniumSummit Outcome Document 2005 has a section on the‘Responsibility to Protect’, an extract reads:

‘We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary andappropriate, to helping States build capacity to protecttheir populations from genocide, war crimes, ethniccleansing and crimes against humanity and to assist-ing those which are under stress before crises andconflicts break.’

Despite the emphasis in the Responsibility to Protect onthe need for and commitment to conflict prevention, thusfar, the emphasis has been on crisis management, onreacting. Prevention is a ‘hard sell’ it is difficult to estab-lish when a conflict has been averted, and a positiveoutcome achieved.112 There is considerable scope for inte-grating conflict prevention within development projectsby ensuring ethnic, religious and linguistic inclusion, sothat the benefits meet the needs of all communities. Seethe previous sections in the report for highlighting thedangers that structural inequalities bring and some alter-natives to tackling them within the minority rightsframework.

Early warning, early action andminoritiesEarly warning systems aim to prevent conflict by recog-nizing signs that tensions are rising and that conflict is aserious risk. Well-designed systems should raise the alarmearly, provide a holistic analysis on the causes and triggerappropriate early action. Early warning systems need toincorporate an analysis of patterns of discrimination andexclusion in order to provide an holistic picture of causesand means to address differences.

Early warning systems have been developed since the1990s but many are in the early stages of design. Theearly warning unit of the UN Office for the Coordina-tion of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) set up in 1993

monitors approximately 30 countries considered atrisk.113 Indicators used by the UN include some onhuman rights, such as imprisonment of human rightsdefenders, and some on inequality. However these arenot designed to specifically consider minority rights vio-lations. In Africa, several early warning mechanisms havebeen set up: Continental Early Warning System forAfrica (CEWARN), Economic Community of WestAfrican States (ECOWAS)114 and The Southern AfricanDevelopment Cooperation. Most are in their infancy.The European Commission Check List for Root Causesof Conflict includes indicators attending to economicand political exclusion, equality of all citizens before thelaw, and respect for religious and cultural rights. Accord-ing to critics the Check List is desk based and it is notprioritized among Commission staff due to a lack ofcapacity, and therefore is inconsistently applied.115 CERDhas developed indicators (with support from MRG) to beused in early warning systems that specifically includeminority concerns, including: the lack of a legislativeframework and institutions to prevent racial discrimina-tion and provide recourse to victims of discrimination;and systematic official denial of the existence of particu-lar distinct groups.116

While there is no absence of early warning systems,despite their infancy, there is scope for better coordinationand greater heed to minority rights, especially within theUN. This need not necessarily be in the form of one uni-fied system; however, there should at least be a mech-anism to draw on each system’s strengths to feed theseinto conflict management discussions at the internationallevel.

With UN reform and efforts to codify the Responsi-bility to Protect, so prevention is favoured and inter-vention occurs as a last resort, this is a key moment inwhich to integrate attention to minority rights withinconflict prevention. The Responsibility to Protect shouldhelp provide impetus for a more coherent early warningsystem, and for the translation of early warning systeminformation into legitimate and appropriate action to pro-tect populations.

Iraq illustrates how the wrong type of internationalintervention, not authorized through the accepted inter-national channel, has served to frustrate authorizedintervention elsewhere, has seriously worsened sectarianconflict, and created a security climate with horrific effectsfor all communities and one which threatens the existenceof minorities. A purported justification for the interven-tion in Iraq, after the event, is the need to remove adictator who persecuted minorities, but the result hasbeen a much worse situation for minorities. Iraq strength-ens the argument that early conflict prevention is far lesscostly and risky than military intervention.



Failure in early warning andaction in Darfur 117

Conflict has been brewing in Darfur over the last fewdecades, yet opportunities to tackle the situation at thestage of structural prevention were not taken up. Coordi-nated and coherent early warning, including political andrights-focused analysis could have translated into appro-priate early action at a time when the government ofSudan may have been more inclined to accommodateminorities’ concerns. Instead, since 2003, at least 200,000people have died, 2 million people have been displaced,and thousands of women and girls have been raped. TheMay 2006 Darfur Peace Afreement (DFA) is unworkable,the ceasefire not adhered to and the crisis continues.

Although to many the scale of the conflict and thegenocide came somewhat as a surprise, there was consid-erable build up to the incident in El Fasher in 2003(generally considered the beginning of the current con-flict). Conflicts in 1987 left 3,000 people dead and in1994, 2,000 people. There was ad hoc early warning inthe 1990s, primarily from human rights bodies, on thepossibility of escalation. In 1999 a group of SudaneseNGOs raised the alarm to the UN Sub-Commission onthe Prevention of Discrimination and Protection ofMinorities that the conflict risked becoming ‘full blownwar’. This was followed in 2000 by the dissemination ofThe Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan,written by anonymous members of excluded communi-ties. From 2001, the UN Commission on Human Rights’Special Rapporteur for Sudan began paying particularattention to Darfur reporting his concerns on the deterio-rating situation there. Yet in 2003 his mandate was ended.The same year, the UN Resident Representative, the high-est UN official in Khartoum, had only a mandate to dealwith humanitarian and development issues. When herequested political engagement from the UN Departmentof Political Affairs, this was met with reluctance. In 2003,some attempts were made by more moderate forces withinSudan to reach a solution but talks in Abeche and in ElFasher in February 2003 were ineffective. After these talksthe stakes were raised, with the Sudan Liberation Army’sdeclared nationwide struggle against the government andthe escalation in violence. The international community’sfailure to act can also be explained by the precedencegiven to the North–South peace process; Darfur was con-sidered a peace spoiler to this despite the conflicts beingtied up with each other. Failure to consider Darfur in theprocess provided further impetus to the conflict and theSudan People’s Liberation Movement provided support tothe insurgents in Darfur. A number of opportunities toact were lost, early warning information was available,

although not in a systematic way. Without effective andcoordinated early warning analysis linked to a graduatedsystem of action, the international community failed toact in a timely, decisive and appropriate fashion.118

Preventative diplomacy:positive lessons from theOSCE’s High Commissioner onNational Minorities

The international community accepts that it needs to domore to prevent conflict before it erupts. There is consider-able scope and value to adopting an approach that appliesminority rights within preventative diplomacy. Possibleapproaches can take inspiration from the work of theHCNM. This post was created as a response to the ethnicthreats in the 1990s in Eastern Europe and the formerSoviet Union. The approach is one of quiet diplomacy. TheHCNM works in confidence and will only use the mediawhen negotiations cannot be threatened. The mandateincludes early warning but most of the work has focused ontaking appropriate early action in situations where conflictinvolving minorities is foreseeable. Activities include con-sultations and dialogues with the government, thecommunities and other relevant political, rights and devel-opment bodies. With a small office of legal and politicaladvisors, the HCNM makes recommendations to the maindecision-makers within the country on strategies to pro-mote integration and stability, advising and prescribing onlegislation and practices within the framework of minorityrights. This has proven successful to date in Estonia, Hun-gary and Latvia, among others, where compromisesbetween state and minority communities have been possi-ble. The stress on a long-term involvement is a particularstrength of the HCNM; some countries have been visited30 times or more. Success requires the government to beopen to negotiation. While this is an obligation of memberstates of the OSCE, the states have to issue a formal invita-tion for visits and in practice, a little pressure is sometimesrequired by other interested governments and internationalbodies. This form of quiet preventative diplomacy needs tooccur before a conflict ignites, and before it becomes socomplex or large scale that competing interests cannot becompromised on.

Peace making and minoritiesPeace making does not tend to heed the rights violationsaspects of conflicts, adequately paying attention to andaddressing the causes. Further, usually only the main andarmed parties to the conflict are brought to the table to

consider the future of the area and its peoples. Women(minority and majority) are rarely involved. This isdespite the Security Council Resolution 1325, which callsfor much greater participation of women in peace process-es, reaffirming the important role of women in conflictprevention and conflict resolution. The Dayton Agree-ment in BiH and the CPA in Sudan that ended the‘North–South’ civil war are examples of exclusionaryapproaches. In both cases closely linked minority prob-lems, in Kosovo and Darfur, respectively, were excludedand ignored from the peace processes in BiH and Sudanrespectively, as those involved in the peacemaking foundaddressing these issues to be too complicated. Instead theymissed the major chance to address these problems, whicherupted into violence shortly afterwards. But also in deal-ing with the specific conflict at hand, the peacemakingadopted an exclusionary approach, only including theleaders of the communities that had used violence.

The neglect of rights and the focus solely on the mainperpetrators has major repercussions in the way that thecountry will be governed, and on the extent to which allthe communities especially the smallest and mostmarginalized will be affected. If smaller minorities areexcluded in peacemaking this will be very difficult to rec-tify, and they will be likely to suffer discrimination andexclusion in the aftermath.

The Ohrid Framework Agreement, which broughtpeace to the Republic of Macedonia, is generally consid-ered a relative success. The international communityhelped broker peace and did so with adherence to minori-ty rights principles, including providing a greaterrepresentation of Albanians in government and society,and recognition of their language. However, even theregreater attention is needed to protect the rights of theother minority communities, such as the Roma. The GoodFriday Agreement for Northern Ireland placed consider-able emphasis on political and economic inclusion. It alsoprovided for the development of anti-discrimination andrights-related mechanisms, including the Northern IrelandHuman Rights Commission and a Police Ombudsperson.Currently a Bill of Rights is being developed.

Lack of consultation withminorities and segregation inKosovoFollowing the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 1999 led by Milosevic,and then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)military intervention, the UN Mission in Kosovo(UNMIK) has been in Kosovo for seven years in probablythe most extensive international intervention to end andreverse an ethnic conflict. Despite the amount of

resources poured into Kosovo, international rule has donelittle to entrench the protection of minority rights andcreate an integrated society. Instead, the approach is oneof segregation, of keeping the main communities – theSerbs and Albanians – separate, and relegating all othercommunities to second-class status. ‘Ethnic cleansing’happened in 1999, under international rule, and again in2004, even after UNMIK had been the main governingauthority for several years. Rather than resolving theunderlying problems, Kosovo is in the position of a‘frozen’ conflict. There has been a failure to return the dis-placed to their homes. There are parallel systems ofeducation and employment, and politics is almost com-pletely organized along ethnic lines. There is acomprehensive anti-discrimination law in place, consid-ered by some to be the best in Europe, but no resourceshave been devoted to its implementation.119 TheAshkaelia, Egyptians and Roma; Croatians; Gorani; andTurks are caught in the middle, with little attention totheir rights. The Roma are particularly at risk of totalexclusion and they have been major victims of both peri-ods of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

The current proposals from the international commu-nity on the future of Kosovo seemed designed to deependivision between communities. It would grant a form ofethnic decentralization, which would further divide Koso-vo, introducing a number of new municipalities alongethnic lines. Decentralization can be very useful inincreasing accountability and effective participation indecision-making, devolving power to regional areas. How-ever, the many caveats which need to be considered toensure it does not negate minority rights seem to havebeen ignored in Kosovo.

In Kosovo, decentralization risks exacerbating alreadyconsiderable segregation, and risks increasing barriers tomovement. When interviewed by MRG, some Serbsexpressed their concern that without this level of decen-tralization they feared for their long-term future withinKosovo. They conceded though that with implemented,accessible anti-discrimination mechanisms, and with therule of law applied equally, a future might be possible inKosovo without it.

Minorities have been systematically excluded fromdecision making in Kosovo, with the appearance of partic-ipation (guaranteed seats in the Assembly) but withoutthe reality, in particular on the most important decisions.The status negotiations of 2006–7 took place with onlyAlbanian and Serb delegations involved directly. TheConsultative Committee for Communities, set up toadvise the status negotiations on the issues affecting the‘other’ communities, is led by an Albanian, and has heldmeetings mainly with the minority politicians who havelittle room to manoeuvre in a difficult political situation.



The resulting Framework for the Protection of Minorities,drafted largely by international experts and Albanians, wasconsidered too broad and not reflective of the actual con-cerns of the communities. Minority women have alsobeen underrepresented in these committees and minoritywomen’s rights in particular have not been to the fore.

Conclusions and ways forwardThere is no ‘one size fits all’ model for conflict preventionbut consideration of minority rights can help offer solu-tions. This report indicates a range of alternatives andprovides discussion points regarding issues to be takeninto account within minority rights parameters. Some keypoints should be noted in terms of carrying forwardappropriate international responses:

First, there needs to be a much greater emphasis onavoiding conflicts’ occurrence and reoccurrence. Allthose involved in conflict prevention, development,financial, political and rights-related issues need to payattention to minority rights within their work – forexample, knowing the different communities at thegrassroots, understanding the effects of their work ondifferent communities and providing for genuine partici-pation of women and men from minorities in country

strategy/programming documents. Anti-discriminationmechanisms are also essential to ensure the functioningof a multi-ethnic society, and international decision-makers have a role to promote this within goodgovernance.

Regarding early warning and operational preventionthere needs to be both greater coordination and coher-ence, with a strengthened international role to ensureaccountability and greater attention to rights violations.In peacemaking much greater attention to minorityrights will also be worth the investment. Minority exper-tise in the key bodies that deal directly with conflict inthe UN is needed – to include the UN Department ofPolitical Affairs (DPA), DPKO, OCHA and the UNPeacebuilding Commission. This expertise also needs tobe translated into the country missions to ensure thatthis knowledge is used on the ground. All of this can beachieved by having specific posts in each agency. By hav-ing the necessary expertise these bodies will be muchbetter placed to promote and implement approaches toprevention that are workable and have some durability.These UN bodies can also draw on minorities’ expertisefrom the Working Group on Minorities in Geneva, andinformation gained by the other UN and regionalhuman rights treaty and charter bodies on missions.


At the heart of many violent conflicts lie minority issues.Such violent conflict generally has three main origins.Violence may originate directly from governments andmajority communities. Violence can originate inattempts to suppress the minority’s identity, can becomemanifest in widespread hate speech against the communi-ty and in systematic discrimination, and culminate inviolent attacks on the minority. Such violence may arisefrom dislike of the community, from the minority beinga useful scapegoat, or from a desire to drive out ordestroy the community, in the name of ethnic or reli-gious purity, or simply to grab their property andresources. Alternatively (or sometimes at the same time),members of the minority community may resort to vio-lence. Such violence may prove long-lasting when itreceives widespread support from within the community.This violence seems to begin when the minority commu-nity has a long-lasting grievance, often related toattempts to suppress their identity, to systematic discrim-ination or to exclusion from participation indecision-making. Support for violence appears to behigher where minorities feel excluded from the politicalprocess or have no effective access to the rule of law toaddress their grievances.

The third main cause seems unfortunately, to be theattempts of the ‘international community’ to address eth-nic and religious conflict. Over 80 years after minorityrights began to be developed as a tool of conflict preven-tion, it is striking how poorly international experts stillunderstand minority issues. Often, they fail to perceive

the ethnic and religious issues within conflicts that maybe nominally about other issues. Or, when they do per-ceive such issues to be important, the solutions proposedmay amount to little more than creating or reinforcingcleavages on the basis of ethnic or religious division(thereby creating ethnically or religiously ‘pure’ countriesor regions). These are policies that have failed so disas-trously in the past, yet continue to be repeated. Inparticular, international involvement rarely understandsthe importance of the rights of everyone to choose theiridentity or identities, and instead divides states or politi-cal systems into rigid ethnic or religious blocs.Peacemakers also only focus on those groups that havebeen using violence, ignoring others and thereby relegat-ing them to second-class status. At worse, this ends upwith a situation such as in BiH where, after over a decadeof international rule, society is more divided than in thepast, and there is systematic discrimination against thesmaller minorities.

And yet, the minority rights regime that began in 1919as a tool to prevent conflict has greatly strengthened in theintervening decades. Using minority rights to ensure aneffective rule of law that addresses security, discriminationand property rights, and a system of real participation andaccountability for minority women and men in decisionmaking, will ensure that the identities of all peoples andgroups can flourish in societies, and even for old conflictsto be resolved. The checklist and recommendations beloware a series of steps for those trying to prevent or end suchconflicts involving ethnic or religious minorities.

Overall conclusions


Relevant international instruments

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR)120

Article 202. ‘Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that con-

stitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shallbe prohibited by law.’

Article 25 ‘Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, withoutany of the distinctions mentioned in Article 2 and withoutunreasonable restrictions:

(a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly orthrough freely chosen representatives.

(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections,which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall beheld by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of thewill of the electors.

(c) To have access, on general terms of equality, to public servicein his [sic] country.’

Article 27‘In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minori-ties exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not bedenied the right, in community with the other members oftheir group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practisetheir own religion, or to use their own language.’

United Nations Declaration on the Rights ofPersons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religiousand Linguistic Minorities (UNDM)121

Article 11. ‘States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic,

cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities withintheir respective territories and shall encourage conditions forthe promotion of that identity.

2. States shall adopt appropriate legislative and other measuresto achieve those ends.’

Article 2‘[…] 2. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to par-ticipate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic andpublic life. 3. Persons belonging to minorities have the right toparticipate effectively in decisions on the national and, whereappropriate, regional level concerning the minority to whichthey belong or the regions in which they live […]’.

Article 4.5‘States should consider appropriate measures so that personsbelonging to minorities may participate fully in the economicprogress and development in their country.’

Council of Europe Framework Convention for theProtection of National Minorities (FCNM)122

Article 3‘Every person belonging to a national minority shall have theright freely to choose to be treated or not to be treated assuch and no disadvantage shall result from this choice or

from the exercise of the rights which are connected to thatchoice.’

Article 51. ‘The Parties undertake to promote the conditions necessary

for persons belonging to national minorities to maintain anddevelop their culture, and to preserve the essential elementsof their identity, namely their religion, language, traditions andcultural heritage.

2. Without prejudice to measures taken in pursuance of theirgeneral integration policy, the Parties shall refrain from poli-cies or practices aimed at assimilation of persons belongingto national minorities against their will and shall protect thesepersons from any action aimed at such assimilation.’

Article 61. ‘The Parties shall encourage a spirit of tolerance and intercul-

tural dialogue and take effective measures to promote mutualrespect and understanding and co-operation among all per-sons living on their territory, irrespective of those persons'ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious identity, in particular inthe fields of education, culture and the media.

2. The Parties undertake to take appropriate measures to pro-tect persons who may be subject to threats or acts ofdiscrimination, hostility or violence as a result of their ethnic,cultural, linguistic or religious identity.’

Article 7‘The Parties shall ensure respect for the right of every personbelonging to a national minority to freedom of peacefulassembly, freedom of association, freedom of expression, andfreedom of thought, conscience and religion.’

UNESCO Convention on the Protection andPromotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions123

Article 7‘Parties shall endeavour to create in their territory an environ-ment which encourages individuals and social groups:

(a) to create, produce, disseminate, distribute and have access totheir own cultural expressions, paying due attention to thespecial circumstances and needs of women as well as varioussocial groups, including persons belonging to minorities andindigenous peoples; […]’

OSCE Lund Recommendations on the EffectiveParticipation of National Minorities in Public Life(Lund Recommendations)124

A. Arrangements at the Level of the Central Government ‘[…] These may include, depending upon the circumstances: * special representation of national minorities, for example,through a reserved number of seats in one or both chambersof parliament or in parliamentary committees; and other formsof guaranteed participation in the legislative process; […]’.

III. Self-governance‘14) Effective participation of minorities in public life may callfor non-territorial or territorial arrangements of self-gover-nance or a combination thereof. States should devoteadequate resources to such arrangements. […]’

B. Territorial Arrangements ‘[…] 21) Local, regional, and autonomous authorities mustrespect and ensure the human rights of all persons, includingthe rights of any minorities within their jurisdiction.’

IV. Guarantees Constitutional and Legal Safeguards ‘[…] Periodic review of arrangements for self-governance andminority participation in decision-making can provide usefulopportunities to determine whether such arrangementsshould be amended in the light of experience and changedcircumstances.’

International Convention on Economic Social andCultural Rights125

Article 2.2‘The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake toguarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenantwill be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race,colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,national or social origin, property, birth or other status.’

International Convention on the Elimination ofRacial Discrimination126

Article 2.2‘States Parties shall, when the circumstances so warrant, take,in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, special andconcrete measures to ensure the adequate development andprotection of certain racial groups or individuals belonging tothem, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equalenjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Thesemeasures shall in no case entail as a consequence the main-tenance of unequal or separate rights for different racialgroups after the objectives for which they were taken havebeen achieved.’

UN Declaration on the Right To Development127

Article 2.3 ‘States have the right and the duty to formulate appropriatenational development policies that aim at the constantimprovement of the well-being of the entire population and ofall individuals, on the basis of their active, free and meaningfulparticipation in development and in the fair distribution of thebenefits resulting therefrom.’


Different identities• Are there different groups with different identi-

ties in the country?• Are all the groups accepted and acknowledged? • Does the state accept it has minorities?• Are some groups/religions/cultures/languages

given superior status, such as by stating the stateis of a particular religion or people, or ‘con-stituent’ peoples?

Identity

• Is everyone able to practice their language, reli-gion and culture freely?

• Is everyone able to choose their identity or iden-tities without suffering a detriment?

History

• Is there a history of violence and crimes againstdifferent groups?

• Where there is a history of major crimes againstminorities has this been addressed, throughinvestigations, prosecutions at the senior level,and apologies?

• Is there a common history curriculum, whichreflects the history of all the communities in thecountry in a positive way?

Separation and segregation

• Are different peoples able to mix? Do they livetogether?

• Are schools, housing, jobs segregated?• Are there strict quota systems?

Constitution

• Does the Constitution guarantee equality?

Political system

• Does the political system ensure participation byall groups, including women in all groups?

• Is the government accountable in fact to allgroups?

• Does the political system encourage parties toseek support across different groups, or force par-ties and voters into ethnic or religious blocs?

• Where there is devolution or decentralization, arethe boundaries arbitrary?


ChecklistA checklist for assessing if a country is at risk of violent conflict involving ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities

• If devolution is on the basis of ‘ethnic’ or ‘reli-gious’ areas are minorities within those areasgiven equal rights and the ability to freely expresstheir identity?

Violence and security

• Is hate speech tolerated against minorities, espe-cially in the media and education?

• Is violence common against minorities?• Is there any rule of law for minorities – do police

protect them and arrest those who are violenttowards them?

Economics

• Are any groups economically marginalized?• Is there understanding and action by those help-

ing on development to address suchmarginalization?

• Is development respectful of minorities’ identity,including language, religion, and land?

Land and property

• Do minorities have full protection of their prop-erty and land rights, in law and in practice?

• Has there been historic eviction of minoritiesfrom their homes?

• Where there have been evictions, are there effec-tive mechanisms to address this, providingrestitution and/or compensation?

• Are the displaced people integrated into newhomes where they can make a viable living andmaintain their identity?

• Are important sites to religions and groups pro-tected?

Discrimination

• Is there systematic discrimination against particu-lar groups?

• Are there laws against discrimination?• Are these implemented? Are cases being brought

and implemented?

Justice

• Can and do minorities use the justice system,especially in security, land/property and discrimi-nation?

Y / NY / NY / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / NY / NY / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / NY / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / N

Y / NY / N

Y / N

Y / N

Creation of integrated societies with diversity

1 There should be no references in a Constitution orelsewhere to the pre-eminence of one religion, com-munity or language.

2 Governments should create frameworks that allowindividuals and groups to determine their own identi-ty. Governments should not entrench particularidentities and groups, but recognize and protect thosethat exist and develop.

3 Governments must implement their obligations topromote minorities’ rights to practice their culture,religion and language, in public and in private.

4 Governments should take effective measures to pro-mote mutual respect, understanding and cooperationamong everyone living on their territory, includingthrough educational curricula, culture and the media.

Preventing violence

5. Hate speech should be prohibited, and effectivelyaddressed, especially when committed by state andpublic officials, in education and in the media.

6 Violence against members of minorities, whether by stateofficials or other parties should be effectively addressed,in particular by prosecutions of the organizers.

Education

7 Governments, and anyone else contributing to educa-tion, must ensure that all children, boys and girls, ofminority communities are able to learn their own lan-guages, culture and religions in the education system.Minority communities have the right to set up privateeducation on the same basis as anyone else.

8 The norm in public education should be integratedschools where children from all communities can learnabout each others’ culture, languages, religions andhistory. In areas of mixed population, public schoolsbased on one religion, language or community shouldbe discouraged.

9 Where publicly-funded schools based on religion exist,there should be a provision for a percentage of pupilsfrom other (or no) religions, and an opt-out from reli-gious activities within the school. Any state funding ofreligious schools should be applied proportionately toall religions in the country.

10 Female and male representatives of all communitiesshould work together to draw up an agreed historycurriculum that is applied across the country.

1 Stop violence against minorities, ensure a justice sys-tem that identifies and prosecutes perpetrators,especially the leaders. Ensure that all communities arefree from attack, including minority women.

2 Ensure minorities do not leave against their will, byproviding security and financial assistance. Provideconditions for minorities to return who have recent-ly left as quickly as possible. Set up systems foridentifying owners of property and returning these.

3 Prohibit and prosecute hate speech, especially in themedia and education.

4 Create a political system based on equality. Remove(and do not insert any new) references to a countrybeing based on a particular people, religion or con-stituent peoples.

5 If power-sharing is considered the only option, have aclause providing for a review or termination after a

fixed period. Do not have any system that forces per-sons into ethnic groups.

6 Create an effective legal system that uses all languagesin the country and is open to all. Ensure minoritieshave financial means to use it.

7 Create a system to outlaw discrimination, and giveeffective (legal and other) remedies against it.

8 If quotas are deemed necessary, make them temporaryand ensure the discrimination is addressed first.

9 Ensure economic development does not marginalizecommunities, or destroy their identity. Ensure thoseinvolved in development understand discrimination.

10 Create an education system that ensures all childrencan learn their communities’ language, religion andculture, but also creates common experiences andunderstanding. Ensure a shared history curriculum.


The most important steps after an ethnic or religious conflict

General recommendations to governments and others in positionof authority

Recommendations


Participation of minorities in political life11 There must be accessible, collaborative consultative

mechanisms at the national and local level for mem-bers of minorities (both women and men); thereshould be free prior and informed consent on issuesthat directly affect them.

12 Constitutional arrangements, especially electoral sys-tems, should be carefully designed to provideincentives to leaders to cooperate across communitiesand avoid narrow sectarian appeals. Particular careshould be taken to ensure that no predetermined iden-tities are forced on electors and elected in theseconditions. The needs of smaller minorities should beparticularly taken into account. Special measures maybe necessary to ensure a fair representation of minoritywomen.

13. States must operate fair and transparent processes toallow for access to citizenship, and should not discrim-inate against specific minority groups, especiallywomen from those groups, in this access. Citizenshipshould not be denied to communities that have livedin the country for a number of generations.

14 Where there are autonomy and other decentralizedsystems:(a) Autonomy must be fully implemented and respect-

ed in practice – the autonomous institutions mustbe adequately funded, and governments mustavoid undue interference in decision-making andelection of officials;

(b) Minority women and men must also have ade-quate representation in central government;

(c) Within regions, there must be full promotion andprotection of human and minority rights for all,including smaller minorities within those regions.

15 Peacemaking efforts must be rights-based, should fol-low SC Resolution 1325 and be inclusive of allcommunities including minority women. Conflictsmust be tackled in an holistic way with an appropriatecountry and/or regional approach, inclusive of all peo-ples affected, and not just those that take up arms.

16 Generally, rigid power-sharing agreements based onfixed ethnic and religious structures and identitiesshould be avoided. In the few cases where they are con-sidered necessary on a temporary basis, there should bea sunset clause to end them and shift to more integra-tive arrangements after a fixed number of years. Thenorm for this should be one or two parliaments.

Economic participation

17 Economic data must be collected on a basis that is dis-aggregated by ethnicity, religion and gender. Urgentaction should be taken for any group that is clearlyeconomically disadvantaged.

18 The right to development must be respected as theright of each group to determine its own developmentwith full respect to its religion, language and culture.

Land

19 The protection of land and property rights of minoritygroups and individuals should be a key priority in anysociety where there is tension. This includes an ade-quate legal framework, effective implementation of theabove and protection of any vulnerable groups fromevictions by any parties. Development donors andothers should be particularly aware of this.

20 Where there have been recent evictions, especially eth-nic cleansing, voluntary return should be organized asquickly as possible for all communities, through theguarantee of the return of land and property, andsecurity.

21 Where there have been historic evictions that lead tounderlying tensions today, a fair and comprehensivesettlement should be designed and dealt with, includ-ing a determination of the legal owner, and restitutionwhere this is possible, with compensation.

22 Whatever the legal status, access to places of religiousand cultural significance should be guaranteed.

Justice

23 The rule of law should be a key priority, in particularensuring fair access for minorities. All minoritiesshould be able to use their language in the justice sys-tem. The justice system should prioritize security(criminal justice), land and property rights protectionand address discrimination.

24 Major crimes against minorities should be addressedby judicial and other bodies that investigate, in publicwhat occurred, and provide for prosecution, compen-sation and apologies.

Addressing discrimination

25 Addressing discrimination against all groups should bea major priority.

26 A comprehensive anti-discrimination law should bedrafted with input from all disadvantaged groups.

27 Such a law should be implemented with the supportof an official anti-discrimination body (ombudspersonor similar). State laws and policies should be reviewedfor discrimination. Members of minorities should beassisted to bring test cases.

28 Anti-discrimination policies should include specialmeasures where necessary to produce equality in fact.

29 Comprehensive and effective anti-discrimination mea-sures should take the preference over quota-typesystems.


1 Srinivasan, S., Minority Rights, Early Warning and Conflict Pre-vention: Lessons from Darfur, London, MRG, 2006.

2 Given that the immediate cause was the assassination of theArchduke Franz Ferdinand and Austria–Hungary’s declarationof war on Serbia, linked to Austria’s inability to address theclaims of the Serbian minority in Bosnia.

3 Which was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.4 We have found a strong link between minority rights violations

and the outbreak of major conflict. In 2003, MRG started aproject to examine the causes of conflict involving minoritiesand to see how such conflicts could be prevented, with theaim of drawing general lessons.

5 Genocide is defined as certain acts carried out with the inten-tion to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial orreligious group, as such. (UN Convention on the Preventionand Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2.)

6 Hylland Eriksen, T., ‘Ethnic identity, national identity and inter-group conflict’, in R. Ashmore, L. Jussim, and D. Wilder, (eds),Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict and Conflict Reduction, NewYork, Oxford University Press, 2001.

7 Packer, J., Presentation at MRG High-Level Seminar on Minori-ty Rights and Conflict Prevention, New York, November 2006.

8 Brunnegger, S., From Conflict to Autonomy in Nicaragua,Lessons Learnt, London, MRG, 2007.

9 Ibid., citing M. Cleary, ‘Democracy and indigenous rebellion inLatin America’, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 33, no. 9,November 2000, p. 1137. Note: mestizos are the majoritygroup in Nicaragua of mixed European, indigenous andAfrican descent.

10 Brunnegger, op. cit.11 Ibid., citing Cleary, op. cit.12 Ley 28 Estatuto de la Autonomía de las Regiones de la Costa

Atlántica de Nicaragua – Law no. 28, Autonomy Statute of theRegions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (author’s transla-tion), Section V.

13 Chadda, M., Minority Rights and Conflict Prevention: CaseStudy of Conflicts in Indian Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab andNagaland, London, MRG, 2006.

14 van der Stoel, M., The Protection of Minorities in the OSCERegion, Address at a Seminar at the OSCE ParliamentaryAssembly, Antalya, 12 April 2000.

15 Examples can include defining a state as ‘French’, ‘Islamic’,‘Jewish’ or ‘Turkish’, being based on three or more “constituentpeoples”, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

16 Baldwin, C., Minority Rights in Kosovo under International Rule,London, MRG, 2006.

17 Autonomy Law no. 28, ch. III, Art. 11.18 Presentation by Valdrack Jaentschke, coordinator of the

Caribbean Coast Programme of the United Nations Develop-ment Programme, at the workshop ‘Autonomía comoHerramienta para la Resolución de Conflictos’ organized bythe Centre for Human, Civil and Autonomous Rights in Blue-fields, Nicaragua, 18–19 September 2006; author interviewwith Miriam Hooker, Director of the Centre for Human, Civiland Autonomous Rights.

19 Human Rights in China and Minority Rights Group Internation-al, China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and RisingTensions, London, MRG, 2007.

20 Ibid.21 Ibid.22 Wang, L.Q., (Maintain the

Dominant Position of Marxism in Ideological Work)’, Qiushi,

no. 2, 16 January 2005. http://www.qsjournal.com.cn/qs/20050116/GB/qs^399^0^2.htm. cited in Human Rights inChina and Minority Rights Group International, op. cit.

23 Human Rights in China and Minority Rights Group Interna-tional, op. cit.

24 Ibid.25 Srinivasan, op. cit.26 See the conviction of the directors of Radio Mille Collines in

the International Tribunal of Rwanda, 2003; the conviction ofJulius Streicher, publisher of Der Sturmer, at the NurembergWar Crimes Trial, 1946.

27 ICCPR Article 20, ICERD Article 4.28 Decision on follow-up to the declaration on the prevention of

genocide: indicators of patterns of systematic and massiveracial discrimination, United Nations Committee on the Elimi-nation of Racial Discrimination (document no.CERD/C/67/1), 14 October 2005.

29 Srinivasan, op. cit., p. 8.30 Boyle, K., Presentation at MRG High-Level Seminar on

Minority Rights and Conflict Prevention, New York, Novem-ber 2006.

31 See ‘Relevant International Instruments’. 32 Schomerus, M., Minority Rights in Sudan, London, MRG,

forthcoming, 2007.33 Ibid.34 See for example Gilliland, M.K., ‘Nationalism and ethnogene-

sis in the Former Yugoslavia’, in L. Romanucci-Ross and G.DeVos (eds), Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict and Accom-modation, Walnut Creek, Altamira Press, 1995.

35 Ibid.36 Rebouché, R. and Fearon, K., ‘Overlapping identities: power

sharing and women’s rights’, in I. O’Flynn, and D. Russell,(eds), Power Sharing: New Challenges for Divided Societies,London, Pluto Press, 2005.

37 Hooker, M., Participación Política de Pueblos Indígenas yAfrodescendientes en el Proceso Electoral, 2006, papercommissioned by MRG.

38 In which an arrangement ends after a certain period.39 Kelman, H., ‘The role of national identity in conflict resolu-

tion’, in R. Ashmore, L. Jussim and D. Wilder, (eds), SocialIdentity, Intergroup Conflict and Conflict Resolution, NewYork, Oxford University Press, 2001. (based on Kelman’swork on problem-solving workshops in Israel/Palestine,Cyprus and other conflict situations).

40 Varshney, A., Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Mus-lims in India, New York, Yale University Press, 2003.

41 Chadda, op. cit.42 ‘Inter-American Court of Human Rights Affirms the Human

Right to Nationality and Upholds the International Prohibitionon Racial Discrimination in Access to Nationality’, OpenSociety Justice Initiative press release, 17 October 2005.

43 Presentation at MRG seminar on Gender, Minorities andIndigenous Peoples, at CEDAW, New York, 2004.

44 Baldwin, op. cit.45 Ibid.46 Schomerus, op. cit.47 Reynolds, A., Electoral Systems and the Protection and Par-

ticipation of Minorities, London, MRG, 2006.48 Horowitz, D., ‘Electoral systems: a primer for decision mak-

ers’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 119–20, cited inReynolds, op. cit.

49 Reynolds, op. cit.

Notes


50 Fraenkel, J. and Grofman, B., ‘Introduction – political culture,representation and electoral systems in the Pacific Islands’,Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 43, no. 3,2005, cited in Reynolds, op. cit.

51 Reynolds, op. cit.52 Brunnegger, op. cit.53 Ibid.54 Hooker, 2006, op. cit.55 Chadda, M., Minority Rights and Conflict Prevention: Case

Study of Conflicts in Indian Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab andNagaland, London, MRG, 2006.

56 Hooker, 2006, op. cit.57 Red de Dirigentes Costeños (Network of Coastal Leaders),

Regiones Autónomos reclaman nuevo marco de relacionescon el estado de Nicaragua, 5 November 2006.

58 Chadda, op. cit.59 Baldwin, op. cit.60 Ghai, Y., Public Participation and Minorities, London, MRG,

2003.61 Brunnegger, S., op. cit. (citing sources: Cleary 2000, p.1, 140;

Assies, p. 195, Hale 1996; P. Sollis, ‘The Atlantic Coast ofNicaragua: development and autonomy’, Journal of LatinAmerican Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, October 1989, p. 514).

62 Weller, M., and Wolff, S., ‘Recent trends in autonomy andstate construction’, in M. Weller and S. Wolff, (eds), Autono-my, Self-Governance and Conflict Resolution: InnovativeApproaches to Institutional Design in Divided Societies, Lon-don, Routledge, 2005.

63 Brunnegger, op. cit.64 See, for example, Cornell, S.E., 'Autonomy as a Source of

Conflict: Caucasian Conflicts in Theoretical Perspective',World Politics, vol. 54 no. 2, 2002, http://www.cornellcaspian.com/pub2/WorldPolitics542Cornell.htm.

65 Collective name for a number of ethnic groups speakingDravidian languages in southern India, including Tamils.

66 Chadda, op. cit.67 Ibid.68 Ibid.69 Ibid.70 Wolff, S., The Emerging Practice of ‘Complex Power-sharing’

in the Settlement of Self-determination Conflicts, Draftpaper presented to Conference on Federalism, Decentraliza-tion and Conflict (Centre for Research on Inequality, HumanSecurity and Ethnicity), University of Oxford, October 2006.

71 Lijphart, A., Democracy in Plural Societies, New Haven, YaleUniversity Press, 1977.

72 Horowitz, D., Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, Universityof California Press, 1985.

73 See FCNM.74 Jabar, F. A., The Constitution of Iraq: Religious and Ethnic

Relations, London, MRG, 2005.75 Baldwin, op. cit.76 Ibid.77 Srinivasan, op. cit.78 Wolff, S., Statement at MRG High-Level Seminar on Minority

Rights and Conflict Prevention, New York, November 2006.79 Jabar, op. cit.80 While Security Council Resolution 1325 does not specifically

mention minority women, it is clear in stating that womenshould be fully involved.

81 Esman M.J. and Herring R.J., (eds.), Carrots, Sticks, and Eth-nic Conflict: Rethinking Development Assistance, TheUniversity of Michigan Press, 2003.

82 See for example: Stewart, F., Barrón, M., Brown, G. andHartwell, M., Centre for Research on Inequality, HumanSecurity and Ethnicity, CRISE, Oxford University, 2005.

83 UNDM, Article 4.5: States should consider appropriate mea-sures so that persons belonging to minorities mayparticipate fully in the economic progress and developmentin their country.

84 Premdas discusses an opportunity lost in preventing conflictin Fiji, where economic and other perceived inequalitieswere not tackled and the conflict escalated. Premdas, R.R.,‘Fiji: peace making in a multi ethnic state’, C.L Siriam and K.Wermeinster (eds), From Promise to Practice: StrengtheningUN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict, NewYork, International Peace Academy, 2003.

85 Justino, P., and Litchfield, P., Economic Exclusion and Dis-crimination: The Experiences of Minorities and IndigenousPeoples, London, MRG, 2003.

86 Esman, and Herring, op. cit.87 MRG, Assessing the Framework for Country Strategy Papers,

London, MRG, 2003, see http://www.minorityrights.org/Advocacy/advocacy_cspbriefing.htm; Hughes, A., PRSPs,Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – An Issues Paper, Lon-don, MRG, 2005.

88 MRG, Minorities and Indigenous Peoples Rights in the Millen-nium Development Goals, London, MRG, 2003,http://www.minorityrights.org/admin/Download/pdf/AdvMDGBriefing.pdf.

89 Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report, Washington DC,Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1997,p. 84.

90 DFID, Preventing Deadly Conflict, London, DFID, 2007, p. 28.91 Chadda, op. cit.92 The case of the Magagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v.

Nicaragua, Judgement of 31 August 2001.93 See HRIC/MRG, China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization

and Rising Tensions, London, MRG, 2007.94 Gilley, B., ‘Uighurs need not apply’, Far Eastern Economic

Review, 23 August 2001.95 Togochog, E., ‘Ecological Migration as a Human Rights Issue’,

at the Association for Asian Studies Session 187: EcologicalMigration: Environment, Ethnicity, and Human Rights in InnerMongolia, Sponsored by the Mongolia Society, 31 March–3April 2005.

96 See HRIC/MRG, op. cit.97 Flint, J. and de Waal, A., Darfur: A Short History of a Long

War, African Arguments, London, Zed Books, 2005.98 See Srinivasan, op. cit.99 Stewart, F., Horizontal Inequalities: A Neglected Dimension of

Development, CRISE Centre on Research on Inequality,Human Security and Ethnicity, 2004.

100 Ibid.101 Gobrin, G. and Andin, A., Development Conflict: The Philip-

pine Experience, London, MRG, 2003.102 See for example, Article 14 American Convention on Human

Rights, 1969.103 Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Project, Profile of

Internal Displacement: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Geneva,2005, p. 144.

104 International Covenant on Economic Social and CulturalRights, Article: 2.2: ‘The States Parties to the presentCovenant undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciatedin the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimi-nation of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion,political or other opinion, national or social origin, property,birth or other status.’

105 See CERD Article 2(2): ‘States Parties shall, when the cir-cumstances so warrant, take, in the social, economic,cultural and other fields, special and concrete measures toensure the adequate development and protection of certainracial groups or individuals belonging to them, for the pur-pose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment ofhuman rights and fundamental freedoms. These measuresshall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance ofunequal or separate rights for different racial groups afterthe objectives for which they were taken have beenachieved.’

106 For some of the challenges of positive action, see Bossuyt,


M., (Rapporteur on Special Measures for the UN Sub-Com-mission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights)submission to the Economic and Social Councilhttp://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/AllSymbols/0AAA7775DAF0BCEBC1256C0C0031C5BD/$File/G0214014.doc?OpenElement.

107 Religious minorities in Iraq are very concerned that courtswill be packed with clerics who will impose shari’a law. TheIraqi Constitution bars the passage of any law that contra-dicts ‘the fixed elements of the rulings of Islam’.

108 Although many members of minorities experiencing ongoingconflict may support amnesties for crimes committedagainst them, if this will bring a permanent end to the con-flict. (Conclusion of MRG seminar on minorities and justice,2003.)

109 For example although a good anti-discrimination law waspassed in Kosovo in 2004 it was not implemented as of2006, and no cases had been brought or policies changedas a result, despite all the resources spent by the interna-tional community in Kosovo. Baldwin, op. cit.

110 There have been a small number of examples of successfuldrives for secession in recent years, but these have eitherhappened as a result of an amicable solution reached byboth parties, or have been preceded by large-scale viola-tions carried out by the state against the populationconcerned.

111 In the UNDM, 1992 and Millennium Summit Outcome, 2005.See the Millennium Summit Outcome Document 2005,http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf?OpenElement.

112 Siriam and Wermeister, op. cit., p. 364.113 Based on MRG research on early warning by Jacqueline

Msipha.114 ECOWAS set up a sub-regional early warning system known

as ‘The System’.

115 http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cpcm/cp/list.htm; http://www.conflictsensitivity.org/resource_pack/5_ec_checklist_for_root_causes_of_conflict_315.html.

116 See Decision On Follow Up Procedure To The Declaration OnPrevention Of Genocide Indicators Of Systematic And Mas-sive Patterns Of Racial Discrimination, http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/CERD.C.67.Misc.8.pdf.

117 The information in this section draws on statistics and com-mentary cited in Srinivasan, op. cit.

118 Ibid.119 Baldwin, op. cit.120 Adopted by the UN General Assembly; Resolution 2200A

(XXI) of 16 December 1966.121 Adopted by General Assembly resolution 47/135 of 18

December 1992.122 Council of Europe document H(1995)010, Strasbourg, Febru-

ary 1995.123 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisa-

tion, Paris, 20 October 2005, (CLT-2005/CONVENTIONDIVERSITE-CULT REV.).

124 Foundation on Inter-Ethnic Relations, September 1999. TheLund Recommendations were commissioned by the Officeof the High Commissioner on National Minorities of theOSCE, to provide guidelines for the work of the office. Run-ning to 24 Articles, they provide highly detailed guidance onthe participation of minorities in public life, to aid the officein implementing its mandate, which includes the reductionof tensions in relations between minorities and govern-ments. Only a small selection can be provided here.

125 Adopted and opened for signature and ratification by Gener-al Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966.

126 Adopted and opened for signature and ratification by Gener-al Assembly resolution 2106 (XX) of 21 December 1965.

127 Adopted by General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4December 1986.

MRG relies on the generous support of institutions andindividuals to further our work. All donations receivedcontribute directly to our projects with minorities andindigenous peoples.

One valuable way to support us is to subscribe to ourreport series. Subscribers receive regular MRG reportsand our annual review. We also have over 100 titles whichcan be purchased from our publications catalogue andwebsite. In addition, MRG publications are available tominority and indigenous peoples’ organizations throughour library scheme.

MRG’s unique publications provide well-researched,accurate and impartial information on minority andindigenous peoples’ rights worldwide. We offer criticalanalysis and new perspectives on international issues.Our specialist training materials include essential guidesfor NGOs and others on international human rightsinstruments, and on accessing international bodies. ManyMRG publications have been translated into severallanguages.

If you would like to know more about MRG, how to supportus and how to work with us, please visit our websitewww.minorityrights.org, or contact our London office.

Getting involved

Davies, J.L. and Gurr, T.R., (eds), Preventive Measures: BuildingRisk Assessment And Crisis Early Warning Systems, Oxford, Row-man and Littlefield, 1998.

Gurr, T.R., Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the NewCentury, Washington, United States Institute of Peace Press,2000.

Kemp, W., Quiet Diplomacy in Action: the OSCE High Commis-sioner on National Minorities, The Hague, Kluwer LawInternational, 2001.

Ghai, Y., Public Participation and Minorities, London, MinorityRights Group International, 2003.

Horowitz, D., Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, University ofCalifornia Press, 1985.

Jentleson, B.W., Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized, Pre-ventive Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World, Oxford, CarnegieCorporation of New York, 2000.

Lijphart, A., Democracy in Plural Societies, New Haven, Yale Uni-versity Press, 1977.

Bibliography

Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention

Minority Rights Group International 54 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT, United Kingdom ISBN 1 904584 62 4Tel +44 (0)20 7422 4200 Fax +44 (0)20 7422 4201Email [email protected] Website www.minorityrights.org

This report, Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention,cogently argues that an understanding of minority rights isessential for anyone dealing with conflict prevention andresolution.

The report’s authors, Clive Baldwin, Chris Chapman andZoë Gray, demonstrate the strong links between minorityrights violations and the outbreak of major conflicts,drawing on research carried out in China, India, Iraq,Kosovo, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Sudan, amongother states. MRG’s report shows how minority rightsviolations are often warning signs of an approachingconflict.

This new report looks at five themes: minority identity, theability of minorities to participate in political and economiclife, land/property rights and justice issues. Using casestudies and providing practical advice, the authors showwhy ignoring early warning signs in any of these areascould lead to a build up of tensions and ultimately, violentconflict.

The international community’s record on minority rightsand conflict prevention is examined and found wanting.The report concludes with a checklist and a series ofrecommendations aimed at international bodies workingon conflict prevention and resolution.

working to secure the rights ofminorities and indigenous peoples

Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention

Documents

Transcript of Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention