In response to the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan, which has the potential to disturb the regional strategic environment, several countries have offered to mediate between these sub-continental neighbours.
China is the latest country to offer its good offices. On 7 March 2019, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said Beijing was willing to play a “constructive role” between India and Pakistan. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 28 February 2019 remarked, “If they want this, then of course.” Moscow did play an intermediary role in 1966 at Tashkent. Besides the United States, Iran, Luxemburg, and Norway have all agreed to intervene between India and Pakistan.
Oslo is an old hand at peace-making through mediation, facilitation or intervention.
Norway has, over time, emerged as a ‘peace superpower’ which brokered peace in almost 20 conflicts across the world from Columbia in the West to the Philippines in the East, most noteworthy being the Palestine and Sri Lankan ethnic issues.
Over 100,000 Norwegians have participated in 27 UN peacekeeping operations. The first UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, was a Norwegian. Importantly, Olso was a founder member of the League of Nations.
The country holds independent views on international affairs, which reinforces its impartiality, and its foreign policy has been coherent and consistent despite changes of government in Oslo. Evidently, Norway has experienced leaders and diplomats with expertise in conflict resolution and peace.
Academia in Norway runs prestigious Peace Studies programmes with the most notable one being at the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Norway’s approach towards peace-making has five features: involvement only on consensual invitation by the parties concerned, impartiality, insistence on parity of status among the mediated parties, humanitarian and development aid as a complement to peace-making, and collaboration with like-minded state and non-state actors.
Its policy of ‘no sticks, but carrots’ is more popular than the big powers’ ‘carrot and stick’ policy. It is not a coincidence that Norway is world’s largest per capita aid donor. All these constituted what is famously called ‘Norwegian Model’ of peace-making.
The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in Oslo annually, has added an extra feather in its peace hat.
Norway, therefore, is a first priority for those who want to establish contacts with their enemies for negotiations.
For instance, in the Sri Lanka case, Norway went on to facilitate six rounds of talks between the LTTE and Sri Lankan government despite opposition from the Sinhalese hardliners dubbing the facilitators as ‘White Tigers’.
This does not mean that Norway’s peace-making missions are not driven by national interests. For Norway, to be able to broker peace in various conflicts has earned Oslo ‘soft superpower’ status, synonymous with mega moral authority and influence in international affairs.
In the process, the small Scandinavian state could hobnob with big powers at any time, otherwise impossible. For instance, Norway’s involvement in conflicts in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and South Sudan had given Oslo direct access to Washington to discuss issues relevant to its own national interests. It is no more ‘a small fish in a big pond’.
For Norway national security concerns in a globalised era, is yet another factor.
Though most countries’ conflicts are internal, they pose serious threats to regional and global security. For instance, the presence of refugees who migrate from conflicts zones within its borders leads to resentment from rightist forces especially in the West.
Norway has faced the brunt of one such right-wing response in the form of terror attacks in July 2011 that claimed 77 lives. The attacker Anders Behring Breivik claimed without any remorse that his actions though ‘atrocious’ were ‘necessary’ to stop the ‘Islamisation’ of Norway.
Since then, immigration has become one of the important issues.
Not surprisingly, Progress Party has emerged as the third largest party in Norway and is part of the current coalition government that Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg heads.
Peace-making has now become a ‘top task of Norway’s foreign policy’ and there is a dedicated department for this role in its foreign office. This gels well with the other three pillars of Norwegian foreign policy: neutrality, moralism and internationalism.
Appreciably, there is a political consensus in Oslo on this conviction that in fact developed as a ‘missionary zeal’.
There are indeed let-downs like Sri Lanka and Philippines raising doubts on the very ‘Norwegian approach’.
But there are success stories like in Mali, Macedonia and Guatemala.
However, irrespective of failures and successes, in all the peace missions, there have been intangible outcomes like bringing the antagonists together, which otherwise would not have happened.
This is exactly what is required in the India-Pakistan context: a transformation.
(The author is Associate Professor, Department of International Studies and History, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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