Swanee Hunt Tells Congress That Women Are Essential to Peace Efforts

For Swanee Hunt, chair of the Hunt Alternatives Fund and former U.S. ambassador to Austria, women must be allowed to function as peacemakers in crisis spots around the world. She testified on Capitol Hill last week, asking that a House subcommittee take action to enforce the UN resolution that calls for recognizing and advancing women in roles to prevent and resolve conflict.

It was in her role as ambassador that she witnessed the absence of women in the diplomatic world. In Vienna in the mid-nineties, she would host dinners and find the guest list was basically men. And so she “just created this edict,” she said in a Women’s Media Center interview, that one-third of each dinner’s guest list must be women. “The next invitation list comes in. It’s from my defense attaché. It’s all men. I said to the colonel, ‘maybe our emails crossed.’ He said, ‘I apologize Madame Ambassador, but there just aren’t women interested in NATO expansion.’ I said, ‘either you find the women or I will. I’ll tell you where I’ll look. I’ll go to the diplomatic academy. I’ll go to the press. I’ll go to the NGOs. This is not rocket science.’ That was the last time I received a list that wasn’t one-third women.”

Among the many things Hunt did upon leaving the diplomatic corps was to found the Initiative for Inclusive Security in 1999, a global network, she told members of the House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight on May 15, “of women peacebuilders, which has since grown to include over 800 women from 50 conflicts.” Explaining the term “inclusive security,” the title of a course she teaches at Harvard, she said, “Just as warfare has become more inclusive—with civilian deaths more common than soldiers’—so too must our approach to ending conflict.” And the goal is not only to end the war, but also to gain “a sustainable peace fostered by fundamental social changes.” Women, she said, are a “shockingly underutilized resource in conflict prevention and resolution.”

Her initiative documents women’s impact: Ana Teresa Bernal, who mobilized 10 million voters for peace in Colombia in a 1996 national referendum and helped bring representatives of civil society into negotiations between the government and guerilla forces; Sierra Leone Foreign Affairs Minister Zainab Hawa Bangura, “arguably the driving force behind the signing of the peace accord,” who mobilized women to confront armed soldiers in pro-democracy street protests; Vasika Dharamadasa of Sri Lanka, who after her soldier son disappeared, traveled into Tamil territory to advocate for proper treatment of prisoners of war and won the trust of Tamil rebels who, refusing to talk to negotiators, asked her to carry messages to the government; and Aloisea Inyumba, who at 26-years-old became Rwanda’s minister of gender and social affairs, oversaw programs to stimulate adoptions and to bury corpses following the genocide, and headed the Commission for Unity and Reconciliation.

Hunt brought with her to testify three members of the Initiative for Inclusive Security. Rebecca Joshua Akwaci, Sudan Radio Service executive producer and secretary general of Woman Action for Development, talked about women’s contribution to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan and continuing efforts to resolve the conflict in Darfur, where, she said, “peace and stability remain elusive.” To achieve the peace agreement, she said, women “kept constant check” and worked across party lines. The effort paid off. Women are guaranteed 25 percent of government positions, and in the assembly, women formed the country’s only cross-party grouping of parliamentarians in 2007.

Rina Amiri, of the Open Society Institute’s Central Eurasia Project, testified about the importance of UN Security Resolution 1325 in Afghanistan. Along with broad appeals by women’s organizations and human rights groups, the resolution “provided a powerful framework for ensuring the inclusion of women’s rights in the Afghanistan peace process,” which, she said, the Afghan women themselves work to make a reality. Still, although maternal mortality rates are down 25 percent, the country is at the bottom of measurements for poverty, health and education standards. Women are the direct targets of a revitalized insurgency, she said. “For many outside Kabul, little has changed since the Taliban’s departure.” But Afghan women’s organizations act as a moderating force, by working with traditional justice systems to promote a moderate interpretation of Shariah law.

The third initiative member to testify, Betty Bigombe of Uganda, is currently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Bigombe, who organized the first face-to-face meeting between Ugandan government representatives and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in 2004, has a peace initiative named for her, which led to ongoing peace talks. “I have found that women are often very pragmatic when it comes to getting their sons, brothers, and husbands to lay down arms,” she said. “In my experience, a woman’s vision of peace is far more comprehensive and expansive than simply the cessation of violence. Ending hostilities is obviously crucial, but to succeed in the post-conflict transition to a peaceful, stable, and prosperous society, basic issues such as education, health, social service provision, justice, and community reconciliation must be taken into account.”

Beyond funding aid programs and overseeing diplomatic policy, U.S. Congressional recognition of all of these women is important, said Hunt. Ana Teresa Bernal of Colombia, who had visited Washington, used a photo of her posing with members of Congress as a safeguard at home, a protection “chip” against many threats to her life.