Nearly 100 Catholic Church leaders and specialists in peace and reconciliation convened in the Central African country ofBurundifor the Third International Conference of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network (CPN) from July 24 to 28.Joining them were six faculty and staff members from the University of Notre Dames Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace 91ÊÓƵ, a principal organizer of the event.

The conference examined the Churchs peacebuilding efforts in the Great Lakes region ofAfrica. Issues addressed included community-based reconciliation inRwanda, trauma healing inBurundi, efforts to achieve political stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the role of the Church in other countries in supporting these efforts.

Noting the importance of this conference, which focused on the war-torn countries of Burundi, Congo and Rwanda, Pope Benedict XVI emphasized, in a message to participants, that the Church in the region contributes to peaceby taking an active role in the resolution of tensions among communities and by fighting all forms of ethnic discrimination or corruption, in calling on all of the partners concerned at the political and economic levels to become positively engaged in the disinterested service of all and in the search for the common good.

The conference was held at a critical time for the Churchs peace and reconciliation initiatives, according to Bishop Jean Ntagwarara of Bubanza, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Burundi.

The holding of this CPN Conference is a chance, or rather a grace, a gift from God for our sub-region, so often misdirected by repetitive and interminable wars,he said.We hope that it will permit the international community to become more familiar with our problems, the causes of our conflicts and the efforts undertaken by the Catholic Church in trying to contribute to peace.

The conference was sponsored by the CPN, in collaboration with the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Burundi and Catholic Relief Services, and with support from the Kroc Institute and the German Catholic aid agency, Misereor.It was dedicated to the memory of Archbishop Michael Aidan Courtney, the Apostolic Nuncio inBurundiwhose work for peace led to his murder in 2003.Conferees participated in the dedication of a memorial at the place where the archbishop was killed.

Scott Appleby, John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute and a co-founder of the CPN, noted that the conference isan example of the need for the many peacebuilders from around the world to share ‘best practicesand for scholars to engage with those who are doing the hard work of peacebuilding on the ground.

Besides Appleby, participants from the Kroc Institutewere faculty fellows Larissa Fast; Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C.; Thomas McDermott, C.S.C.; Robert Dowd, C.S.C.; and events coordinator Colette Sgambati. They joined a diverse group of Church leaders (including 14 bishops), development experts, and academics and practitioners from 20 countries who specialize in peacebuilding.

The CPN is a voluntary network of practitioners, academics, clergy and laity that seeks to enhance the study and practice of peacebuilding, especially at the local level.It was founded by the Kroc Institute and Catholic Relief Services, with the active involvement of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Maryknoll, the Center for International Social Development at the Catholic University of America, the SantEgidio Community in the United States, and Pax Christi International.

The conference program, the list of participants, papers presented at the conference, and video of the conference, will be posted on the CPN Web site:

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Robert Johansen is known for coming up with ideas that are ahead of their time: proposals having to do with world order, international ethics, global governance, and the maintenance of peace and security. Thirty years ago, for example, he described the need for a United Nations rapid reaction force that could stop genocide and other crimes against humanity- an idea now getting traction on the worlds political landscape.

Johansen, a Notre Dame political scientist and Kroc Institute senior fellow, is chief writer for a coalition of academic experts, former officials and representatives of human rights organizations who are working to establish a United Nations Emergency Peace Service. This service, dubbed UNEPS, would be a permanent agency able to set off for an emergency zone within 24 hours after UN authorization. Because members of the service would be individually recruited among volunteers from many countries, Johansen notes, it would not face the usual reluctance of UN members to deploy their own national units. Because it would be an integrated service, including conflict-transformation specialists, civilian police and judicial and military personnel, it would not suffer from lack of essential components or from confusion about the chain of command.

Such a law enforcement service could have stopped genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and is undeniably needed in places such as Sudans Darfur region, Johansen contends.

Everyone knows that at times innocent people are ruthlessly killed simply because of their national, ethnic, racial or religious identities," he said. "We also know that such killings and other crimes against humanity are prohibited by existing international law. The international community could prevent many of these crimes if it would act quickly and send a professional security force to enforce the law.

If a peace service had been established years ago, he argues, it could have curtailed some of the atrocities that have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, forced millions from their homes, destroyed entire economies, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars.

In recent years, concerned governments, several United Nations study groups, the UN secretary-general, and many independent experts have all stressed the need for more effective rapid-reaction capability. Yet, governments are not taking the lead.

To fill the leadership void, Johansen helped to create the independent Working Group for a United Nations Emergency Peace Service. As its rapporteur, Johansen authoredA United Nations Emergency Peace Service to Prevent Genocide and Crimes against Humanity,a statement that grew from the coalition’s first meeting, in 2003, in Santa Barbara, California.

Following a second meeting of experts in Cuenca, Spain, in 2005, plus many international conference calls, Johansen wrote another report that details the principles on which participants agreed. TitledDiscussion of the Proposal for a United Nations Emergency Peace Service: The Cuenca Report,it also identifies questions for further research, including: How can the legitimate interests of both the Global South and the North be advanced by UNEPS? How might UNEPS be authorized for deployment if the Security Council is deadlocked during a crisis? How might UNEPS and the International Criminal Court work together to implement human rights law? Should UNEPS address terrorist violence?

The Ford Foundation, which helped pay for the Cuenca conference, made a second grant in November 2005 in support of future study, with Johansen as research director. The Working Group will meet again this month in Vancouver, with financial help from the Ford Foundation and Simons Foundation, to discuss membersresearch and strategy for building worldwide support for the initiative.

Organizations that have shaped the UNEPS proposal and support it in principle include Human Rights Watch and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Juan Mendez, the UN secretary-generals special representative for genocide (and a former Notre Dame faculty member), has endorsed the idea. So have individual legislators in national parliaments and congresses around the world.

The working group includes former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy; Sir Bryan Urquhart, the former UN under-secretary-general for special political affairs, who has worked on UN peace operations with five different UN secretaries-general; Lt. General Satish Nambiar of the Indian Armed Forces, who commanded UN peacekeeping operations in Bosnia; Professor Hussein Solomon, director of the Centre for International Political 91ÊÓƵ at the University of Pretoria, South Africa; and Professor Alcides Costa Vaz from the University of Brasilia, a security expert and consultant to the Brazilian government. Some members, particularly William Pace, the convener of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, are drawing on experiences gained in the worldwide effort that succeeded in establishing the court.

In the mid-1990s, when the discussions for the court began in earnest, no one would have predicted that the treaty for an international court could have been completed by 1998 and that it would be a reality by 2002, Johansen points out. With appropriate research, discussion, and coalition building, he believes that the United Nations Emergency Peace Service can be established in the foreseeable future.

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