Central America’s crisis did not end when the UNO (National Oppositional Union) defeated the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) in Nicaragua’s February 1990 elections. Violent conflict still rages in Guatemala, and the economic challenges faced by the other countries of the isthmus make a Canadian finance minister’s worst nightmares seem like sweet dreams. Still, the change of government in Nicaragua¹ and the Salvadoran peace accord, should send unmistakable signals to Canadian foreign policy makers: only where the contending parties are politically committed to securing peace and reconciliation (perhaps even at the risk of losing power) will it be possible to...

Before peace finally comes to Southern Africa, the settlement which will have to be forged will involve a profound transformation in South Africa—the transfer of power from a tiny, immensely privileged white minority to a black population which has endured immiserating poverty, gross inequality, and serious abuses of human rights. While the dismantling of formal legislated apartheid was well under way in the early 1990s, agreement on a new constitution to give the substance of power to the majority was much more difficult. By mid-1992, the white government in power was still unwilling to give up proposals which amounted...

Once a focus of international interest for its stable policy and progressive welfare system, Sri Lanka today is a grim exemplar of the global resurgence of communal violence. Indiscriminate “revenge” killings, disappearances, torture, incommunicado detention, the erosion of civil liberties, and the abuse of emergency powers are routine features of the political landscape. Closer now to Lebanon than Costa Rica, Sri Lanka’s democratic stability has been shaken by a cycle of ethnic violence that will shape its political course for several generations.¹

Human rights are said to be a “fundamental and integral part of Canadian foreign policy.”² In practice, however,...

Out of poorly informed political judgement, bold innovation, and controversy, has come a CIDA program for assistance to NGOs which, despite its errors—and even contrary impact in Negros—may eventually be said to have made a small contribution to the resolution of the deep ongoing conflict in Philippine society. Though it may be too early to make a conclusive assessment, this tentative finding comes from numerous conversations with NGO representatives and government officials in both Canada and the Philippines, 1988—90 and from two visits to Negros.

To understand the impetus behind CIDA initiatives, one must first understand the...

The basic notions underlying foreign aid are deceptively simple. We want to help less fortunate countries improve their standard of living and especially to alleviate the distress of millions of poor and hungry people. We give aid primarily for humanitarian reasons, but it is also seen to be a useful instrument of diplomacy and of mutual benefit in an increasingly interdependent global economy. At least that is what we tell ourselves. Over the years, as aid has been formalized into “official development assistance” (ODA), it has evolved into an enterprise much larger, more permanent and administratively complex than could have...

Suddenly, the world has entered a new era. The Cold War is over. The modem age is passé. But despite brave talk about a “new world order,” the shape of this new era remains opaque. It is far easier to define contemporary events by what they are not than by what they are.

The international community may be in for a prolonged period of uncertainty. Some trends—such as the growth of regional trading blocs and the increasing permeability of national border—point toward increased multilateral co-operation, while others, like the upsurge in ethnocultural conflict, have dramatized the limitations of...

Acting on a personal appeal from Nelson Mandela, just weeks after his release from prison in February 1990, External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, speaking in Toronto, endorsed an all party drive to help the African National Congress (ANC) raise $20 million needed to set up its offices and launch political activities inside South Africa. In June of the same year, when Mandela visited Canada during a world tour, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney pledged $5.7 million in Canadian government aid to help returning exiles in South Africa, most of whom were affiliated with the ANC. It was a dramatic turnaround for...

The adoption by the Canadian Parliament, on 30 September 1988, of the act establishing the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (ICHRDD) opened a new channel of Canadian assistance to developing countries. The ICHRDD began its operations on 19 October 1991.¹ Since then, it has supported a number of activities intended to promote and defend democracy and human rights in developing countries. The centre has also been confronting the challenge of setting operative goals which respond to its official mission. The distinction that is made here between the official mission of the centre and its operative goals is...

Two remarkable phenomena are taking place in the world today: one is the campaign to immunize all children of the developing world; the other is the trend toward the resolution of regional conflict. While these are unrelated events, it is possible for them to be linked in a way that would augment the chances of success for both. The means of this linking, we propose, is the immunization cease-fire—a cessation of fighting for a predetermined time, for instance five days, in order that children can be immunized. Such cease-fires have happened in El Salvador and Lebanon. A humanitarian cease-fire...

They read like highlights from military after-action reports, but the quotations above are actually excerpts from the regular situation reports filed back to headquarters by CARE Canada field staff. CARE Canada is the autonomous Canadian wing of a federation of CARE organizations around the world—organizations which pool their resources and energies and, operating as a relief and development agency, have gained a reputation for going to great lengths to get food, water, medicine, and other essentials to people in need.

In the past decade, CARE’s involvement in conflict zones has been intensive and effective. From the Horn of Africa...

This paper reflects on the Horn of Africa Project (HAP)—a conflict resolution venture based at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel College in Waterloo, Ontario. The project was begun as an effort to test the ability of the voluntary agency community to address, in a sustained way, conflict as a root cause of hunger. For the Horn of Africa, the obvious response was to exercise whatever talents the NGO community held in order to contribute to the larger task of building peace as opposed to the typical emphasis on the job of logistics and the urgencies...

The editor of a collection like this may sometimes provide, or attempt to provide, a framework into which all of the cases can be fitted. Those who look for this inAid as Peacemakerwill be disappointed. We have invented no such framework, which is not to say one cannot be invented. We invite others to try.

The words “observations and reflections” suggest the different intent behind this concluding piece. Our purpose is to share thoughts concerning four different points that we found ourselves returning to time after time in the course of this study: the first point is that,...