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WAND
and the UN |
UN
Report: U.S. Women and the new Peacebuilding Commission
September 2006
by Sayre Sheldon, WAND representative
on the NGO Working Group for Women, Peace and Security
Humanitarian
crisis has followed humanitarian crisis around the
world and our press is flooded with images of women
and children victims of bombing or other forms of
wartime violence. It almost seems as if conditions
for women were getting worse. From our more fortunate
place as U.S. women, we feel helpless in the face
of so much suffering. This is when we turn to the
United Nations: will they alert the world, enlist
the NGO’s, find the funding, go out and alleviate
these desperate situations? For most U.S. citizens,
this is what we think the U.N. does and what we count
on it to do.
But more and more, although peacekeeping efforts may
succeed for a while, countries are sliding back into
conflict at an alarming rate--in fact nearly one half
of all countries where peacekeeping has succeeded
have reverted to armed conflict, Sri Lanka being a
powerful example right now. As a number of U.N. reforms
were being considered, it became clear that efforts
made to end wars were not being carried over to the
post-conflict period. Here in the U.S. we have only
to look at the disastrous lack of post-conflict planning
in Iraq. The Peacebuilding Commission, an entirely
new U.N. body, was designed to coordinate all the
elements necessary to create a lasting civil society
in war-torn areas.
Although U.S. policy has been mostly to oppose or
question attempts to make the U.N. more efficient,
in the case of the Peacebuilding Commission this has
not been true. Even our notoriously resistant Ambassador
Bolton has approved of the new commission, perhaps
because the U.S. will automatically be a member along
with the other permanent Security Council countries.
Peacekeeping is always difficult for the U.S.: we
will not permit our forces to take part because we
cannot agree to having them serve under officers from
other countries. We should, however, be able to join
peacebuilding in this new form. When the time for
it comes in Iraq we will need all the international
help we can get.
Here the NGO’s have a big part to play. Usually
already on the ground in conflict areas, now they
will have a big role in the transition to peace and
the formation of civil societies. We know already
that without the support and cooperation of women’s
groups, peace cannot be lasting. Here is a chance
for women in the U.S. to spread the word about this
new asset for making sure that women everywhere have
the chance to use their networks, their skills, and
their determination to reclaim societies from repeated
relapses into conflict. But so far there is no language
in the proposals for the commission to give women
a larger role or to fulfill the mandate of 1325--this
should be our first demand.
WAND as a member of the working group on Women, Peace
and Security will be part of the effort to bring about
these important changes for women everywhere.
Sayre
Sheldon, WAND president emerita
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A founding member of WAND and President Emerita
of the National WAND Board, Sayre has been a
long time political and social activist. She
is a college professor of literature and an
author of several plays and articles about women's
issues and peace issues.
She
edited the anthology Her War Story: 20th
Century Women Write About War, published
in 1999 by Southern Illinois University Press.
She represents WAND as an NGO at the United
Nations. |
