5.2. Women organizing for peace: the narratives and strategies
5.2.2. Women’s organizations, peace agencies and strategies in conflict times
5.2.2.3. Attending conferences/dialogues and peace talks
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groups, the phenomenon was quite different in the case of the Liberian second civil war in terms of the mass action by women. In consort with most conflict situations, women’s agency for peace in Liberia also took on another trajectory of attending conferences and peace talks.
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last we were allowed entry under the status observers only. According to the warlords, we were supposed to remain quiet, but then they kept referring back to us, asking our opinions on the deliberations and decisions of the meeting. This was quite remarkable and most importantly signified that we the women of Liberia were making progress in our quest for peace. Following from this, we made our presence felt in all the peace conferences…and this was irrespective of the fact that we received no official invitations to attend these events. Our mission was not to relent in our peace efforts until the guns were silent.
Assembling for conferences and dialogues is one of the many ways through which women’s involvement in peace processes occur (UI-6 July 2015). Speaking of the importance of conferences and dialogues, UI-5 and UI-2 asserted that the holding of the United Nations Women in Beijing Conference in 1995 gave the women of Liberia a voice of motivation, a consciousness to strive on and work as a united force. Therefore, reviewing the experiences of women’s pursuit of peace in Liberia, discernment of why meetings and dialogues were a necessary approach to attending their goal builds on the fact that through such fora, women were able to brainstorm; share and analyse their experiences; draw on different propositions and work together to accomplish the peace cause. Lelde (2011: 18) acknowledges that women’s activism for peace in Liberia also included requests to engage President Taylor in dialogue and streaming to the parliament with demands for a space for conversation to be granted. According to women the audience with President Taylor in April 2003 was a significant moment in women’s struggle for peace in Liberia. Women came out in their numbers, dressed in white for the meeting, and in the statement presented by Leymah, women patently stated:
“We, the women of Liberia, including the IDPs, are tired of war, we are tired of running, tired of begging for bulgur wheat, we are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand to secure the future of our children because we believe we are custodians of our society and tomorrow our children will ask us: “Mama, what was your role during the crisis” (Pray the Devil Back to Hell 2009).
It is important to highlight that this proclamation, as described by Tripp (2015:99), was in effect the market women’s open and justifiable demand for the immediate ceasefire and peaceful dialogue between the government and warring factions. Several reports and documentations detail how President Taylor challenged the women to locate rebels and bring them on board to dialogue, as his pre-condition to participate in peace talks and ceasefire
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agreements. Research by Sewell (2007: 17), Lelde (2011: 18), and Tavaana Institute (2014:
10) maintain that women took on this challenge, went across borders to Sierra Leone, and convinced the rebels to come on board. This was the breakthrough in women’s activism for the resolution of the conflict and peace that set the space for the Accra, Ghana peace talks, which commenced on 4th June 2003. As observed by this study, the strategy of women meeting with Taylor and the warlords served as an indicator to the world that there is power in the voices of women, which not even the gendered nature of the conflict and patriarchal display of society could/can supress. This also reverberated the message that the women of Liberian were indeed tired of the killings and unrest; and having taken these significant strides to do the inconceivable, simply meant they would do it again. This position was severally reasserted by research participants and by Leymah (2011 and 2013) as articulated in the below data excerpts:
“WIPNET attended peace talks in Accra, Ghana in June 2003. The talks which where to last for two weeks, lasted for 3 months. With the talks in progress and weeks before they were ever even concluded, President Charles Taylor had been indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Abandoning his peace dialogue table and his delegation in Ghana, he fled back to Liberia. This however did not dissuade us the women from our mission to ensure the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Liberia. Working in collaboration with our women counterparts in Ghana and other women’s organizations like MARWOPNET and Women’s NGO Secretariat of Liberia, among others, WIPNET released statements airing their worries about the continuing violence and unrest in Liberia, and the need for further intervention in the state of affairs by the United Nations. The impasse of the peace dialogues coupled with the news that the conflict had taken the turn for the worst, and a missile had landed in the American compound in Liberia where the displaced people were being housed, was the defining moment for WIPNET women. Angered and provoked by this news, Leymah articulates - ‘I went into the hall and told the women to lock arms for we are putting this venue under siege, and must ensure that no food or water is served and no factions, mediators and negotiators live the hall until a peace agreement is reached and signed. Accused of impeding justice by blockading the hall, the security forces came to arrest me and threatened to make it easy for them to strip naked. And as I pulled off my scarf, they immediately retreated.’ What followed two weeks after on August 18, 2003 was the pronouncement and the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and the appointment of Gyde Bryant to chair the Transitional Government of Liberia”
(Leymah Gbowee 2011 and 2013).
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From the extract, it is worth noting that the intersection of women’s organized strategies in their pursuit of peace was rife and strategic for the eventual resolution of the conflict. More so, their peace advocacies and crusades were backed by Clergies and Imams alike, and broadcasted by the Catholic radio station - Radio Veritas, the BBC and CNN news outlets (Tavaana Institute 2014:9; Tripp 2015:99). As was the case with LWI, WIPNET was also accorded only an observer status during the peace negotiations in Accra in 2003. However, history records some of the outcomes of women’s activism during the first civil war to include, the appointment of one of the women’s Muslim activists - Ruth Sando Perry - in 1996 to oversee the National Transitional Government’s legislative and presidential elections that took place in 1997. Apparently, this success was symptomatic of the significant strides that women’s organizational agency and strategies were contributing towards ending the conflict.
According to UI-3 (July 2015), it was through these earlier actions and resolve to influence peace negotiations that LWI and collaborating organizations in the ECOWAS region laid the groundwork for women’s agency by advocating for their involvement and participation at formal peace dialogues and decision-making at all levels. One of the conspicuous yields of this endeavour, as stated by Massaquoi (2007:78-79) and Tripp (2015:100) was that women delegates selected from the Liberian subdivision of MARWOPNET and headed by Sando Perry and Theresa Leigh-Sherman to honour ECOWAS’ invitation, were able to secure seats at the Accra negotiating tables. As representatives of the wider women body during the peace dialogues, MARWOPNET was ultimately endorsed as an official signatory to the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreements (Marshall and Hayward 2011: 7; Tripp 2015: 100). For its interventionist strategies, acclaimed role as regional peacebuilders at all levels of the society, and agents of socio-political change, MARWOPNET received the distinguished 2003 United Nations Award for Human Rights (Sewell 2007:18; Massaquoi 2007: 73).
It is a documented fact the Accra peace agreement signalled the official end of Liberia’s 14 years of civil war and was welcomed as a milestone achievement by many, especially women.
In essence, the agreement happened just few months into WIPNET’s non-violent mass campaign for peace, and the message ‘we want peace’, which had been resonated throughout women’s pursuit of peace in Liberia, was achieved. Leymah Gbowee (2013) however recalls that some of the sentiments after the peace deal included common perceptiveness that women
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would just lay back since they have achieved the peace they wanted. Contrary to this view, the second phase of real activism by women to influence the reconstruction and development processes in the post-conflict and meaningfully intervene in the political affairs of Liberian nation-state had just begun, and the confidence in their ability to lead and impact change was immeasurable. Alaga (2011: 14) substantiates that women did not just settle for the sheer ideology of peace as the absence of war following the 2003 peace deal, but took upon themselves the responsibility of consulting with the stakeholders on their various role in the implementation of the Accra agreement. Through these arrangements, women objectivized their activities; conceived operationalization timeframes; and encouraged fellow women, especially from the grassroots and rural Liberia to not relent in their efforts at ensuring the sustainability of the peace they have all worked so hard to achieve (Alaga 2011: 14).
An assessment from the fore-discussed excerpts and analyses of women’s organizational agency and strategies convey that the role of women’s organizations was indispensable in the resolution of the Liberian conflict. In view of this, it is observed that if women’s agency for peace propelled their strategies to navigate and transform the conflict space and achieve their immediate goal, then Molyneux’s organizational theory provides the basis for understanding how and why of women’s collective action (see: Molyneux 2001 - Analysing Women’s Movements). Besides, deciphering from Molyneux’s practical and strategic gender interests standpoint, peace as the absence of war and beyond emerges as a vital component, foundational for realizing women’s practical and strategic interests and society’s development at large. From this, it becomes critical to recognize that women’s organizational agency as peacebuilders has remained integral in advancing the consolidation and implementation of peacebuilding, reconstruction and development agenda in post-conflict Liberia.