Everyone is a potential peace builder or threat

In our individual capacities, each should start accepting it in his or her mind that he or she is capable of preventing conflicts and resolving existing ones peacefully or violently. However, the ideal way is doing it peacefully and quickly. This is because every individual wherever he or she is, is a potential builder of peace and or potential disrupter of the same. Therefore it is incumbent upon everyone to be part of the peace process as long as he or she lives. The best way of doing so, is valuing and listening to every person who has something to say or express. Ignoring him or her for whatever reason is recklessness and ignorance of peace dynamics. As one person’s actions can take away the peace of a family or village or district or province or country or that of the world, so can they disrupt it. A good example is Osama Bin Laden and various suicide bombers in different parts of the world, especially the Middle East. Another example is that of serial killers. For instance, with the moral support of a Rwandese by the name Joseph Rugamba of Kyanamukaaka, Masaka, now deceased, I formed United Uganda Committee in October 1985, while in Nairobi, Kenya, as a Think Tank or pressure group for influencing decisions of the then Peace Talks between the interim Government of the late General Tito Lutwa Okello and the National Resistance Movement/National Resistance Army led by the current Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. I succeeded making frequent statements to the press, urging the two parties to be genuine and resolve the conflict peacefully, insisting that Ugandans were tired of war. Most notable of the statements I made is one reported in all the three respected Kenyan newspapers, the Daily Nation, the Kenya Times and the Standard on 30 November 1985. However small or little the contribution was, it caused the international community and President Moi to echo the same and somehow brought the two parties back to a negotiating table even after they had issued press statements or behaved in a manner not to come back. I also used the same opportunity to make telephone pleas with then Army Commander General Elly Tumwine, Mr Eriya Kategaya and the late Dr Samson Kisseka of National Resistance Movement/National Resistance Army and the late General Tito Okello Lutwa, the late General Bazilio Okello and Colonel Gad Toko of then Tito Okello’s interim Government. During the counter accusations conflict between Kenya and Uganda in the later part of 1987 when either Government accused the other of plotting to overthrow it, I brokered a peaceful conflict resolution meeting between then President Daniel arap Moi and President Yoweri Museveni. By that time the border between Kenya and Uganda had been closed, telephone links cut and flights between the two countries suspended. The conflict even claimed 13 lives of Ugandans through a skirmish at Busia. The two countries were unfortunately close to war. I travelled from Kampala through the Uganda/Tanzania border of Mutukula to Kenya through Bukoba, Mwanza, Musoma and Sirari/Isibania in December 1987. On arrival, I communicated to almost all Heads of the major churches I knew in Kenya, requesting them to reach then President Moi and request him to contact his counterpart, President Museveni, to arrange a meeting between them and resolve the matter peacefully once and for all. Of all the church leaders I contacted, it was the then Anglican Church Bishop of Eldoret Diocese, the Right Rev. late Alexander Kipsang Muge who made it possible. Accordingly, the two leaders met in early 1988 at the Kenya/Uganda border of Malaba, the dispute resolved peacefully, the common border reopened and telephone links and flights between the two countries resumed. So you now see that I had no Government or United Nations big title to use to plead for the peaceful resolution of the conflict. You too can do it and even better. The notion that the role of helping to prevent or resolve conflicts peacefully can only be done successfully by eminent persons, such as former Heads of State or former Vice Presidents or former Prime Ministers or former Secretary Generals of the United Nations or Organisation of African Unity or African Union or Members of Parliament or religious leaders is illogical and outdated. Every upright minded person is able and supposed to prevent and or resolve conflicts. It is indeed a lack of understanding of the conflicts dynamics and a wrong supposition and insinuation of the matter to therefore even imagine that we should even wait for eminent persons to help us resolve conflicts in our homes, villages and or workplaces. We must all be involved. Folding hands, waiting for dignitaries to move back and forth, between parties in conflict, trying to negotiate and secure peaceful resolution of conflicts, while we simply watch and or pray is a shame. Faith without corresponding actions is dead and therefore useless. As it is possible for one person to disrupt world peace, so is it possible for any person to promote it. dalemuta@yahoo.co.uk