Fr Robert Schreiter, a world renowned expert on peace building and reconciliation led a powerful discussion on peace building at Caritas Australia’s WYD activities from Customs House in Sydney. Fr Schreiter, a co-founder of Caritas Internationalis Peace Building Committee, defined “peace building” as attempting to address not only the resolution of conflict, but focusing on how to build a culture that includes the prevention of conflict that leads to war, humane intervention during conflict, and perhaps most importantly, the rebuilding of a just society and a lasting peace after conflict.

Claire Harris, an Arts/Law student from Notre Dame University attended this presentation and takes time to reflect on Fr Robert’s words in light of her own recent visit with Caritas Australia to Uganda, the northern part of the country affected by over 20 years of brutal and bloody conflict:

I was fortunate enough to travel to Uganda in December last year as part of a Caritas immersion program.

Occupying 241551 sq. km of land, Uganda is a land-locked country sharing its borders with: Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Burundi. Northern Uganda has endured civil unrest since the early 1980s with the current President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni using Uganda’s military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

The brutality of the rebel groups, particularly the LRA is well documented with an estimated 20,000 children being abducted and forced to serve as fighters, porters, or sex slaves over the 20 years of civil conflict. Many have been forced at gunpoint to commit atrocities against their own families ensuring their inability to return home. An estimated 400,000 people have been left homeless, forced to take refuge in camps for Internally Displaced People [IDPs]. Some children have lived all their lives in such camps and have known no other home. Others have been killed or tortured. In 2003, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Humanitarian Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland stated that he considered the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda to be among the worst on the planet.

Although today there is optimism that a peace deal recently brokered can hold, strife in the northern part of the country continues.

When visiting Uganda I was struck by how many people, despite their trauma – having witnessed the death of relatives, abduction of their children and loss of their homes – were able to rise above their terrible experiences and call for reconciliation and amnesties. I would have understood if they called for justice in terms of revenge and retribution, but what I observed was a people moving beyond retaliation and retribution to seek: rehabilitation for returned combatants and former child soldiers, to offer amnesties, and traditional healing ceremonies.

Fr Robert explained that there are many challenges of peace building and reconciliation. Firstly, he identified traditionally held values within a community as vitally important to determining the existence of conflict, including tribal loyalties, and that conflicts and divisions tend to be long lasting, unless people find something deeper inside to overcome them. Peace requires real changes in attitudes if it is to last and these attitudes must be founded in the human dignity of all.

The peace and healing that Fr Schrieter speaks of, and that the Church teaches us about, is something that the people of Northern Uganda are actively seeking through projects supported by Caritas Australia. Working in partnership with local communities, former child soldiers are provided with counselling and are welcomed back home. Displaced families are equipped to return to their farms with seeds and tools, and households headed by children, are supported with vocational training and school equipment. Women’s groups are held with traditional music and dance forming part of therapy. Income generation activities, such as bead making, enable women who have been displaced by the conflict to attain an income, and have more control of their lives.

In these ways peace and reconciliation is moved outside the walls of the Church or government and takes life in the reality of the homes, fields and classrooms of Uganda where it is shown to have real meaning and weight even amid recent challenges to the shaky peace process. The results of such a process can be profound.

On my trip I met a man who was abducted and forcibly conscripted at age fifteen into the rebel army but later escaped. He now helps to rehabilitate other returned child soldiers. He says many of his former captors don’t know any better as they themselves had been victims of abduction, and so felt able to forgive them.

From Fr Robert we learned that the youth of a community are instrumental in post-conflict healing and in carrying the hope and action required to move a community forward and overcome conflict. This message was very pertinent to World Youth Day, and as a young person it was very inspiring to hear him speak of the real power of youth to creatively influence and change our community. This message is particularly relevant for us here in Australia in regard to the question of reconciliation between indigenous and non indigenous Australians. If saying sorry is just a beginning, then a real response and a change in our relationships with non-indigenous Australians is required for reconciliation to occur.

Fr Robert Shreiter’s presentation prompted me to view peace building and reconciliation as vital to my daily life, something I found personally inspiring. It is something that I am called to every day. Peace building isn’t just about pointing a finger at conflicts in Africa, but calls me to reflect on conditions in my own country and relationships with people in my life. The role of youth is particularly powerful in this regard. It also calls people like me, to respond to the challenge of the Caritas campaign to ‘be more’ and to take action on what the church teaches.

Claire Harris is an Arts (Politics)/Law student at the University of Notre Dame. Last year she travelled to Uganda as part of a Caritas Immersion program, which she found to be a life changing experience. Claire was particularly inspired by the dignity, hard work and resilience of the Ugandans who she met and was delighted to be able to share a little of that experience at World Youth Day through the Caritas exhibition at Customs House. Both experiences have reaffirmed her passion for social justice and altered her perspective to more fully appreciate the value of education and grassroots initiatives that Caritas supports.

Anna Orchard
Communications Officer, Caritas Australia