By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Conflict analysts have opined that the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of violence is one of the drivers of conflict stressing the knowledge that the perpetrators would get away with their violent actions emboldens them to continue in the act while victims may develop the propensity for revenge thereby sustaining the cycle of violence.

The Country Director, Mission 21, an international Non-Governmental Organization, Dr. Yakubu Joseph, disclosed this while addressing participants who are undergoing a 5-day training in Jos on Conflict sensitivity, restorative justice (healing and forgiveness), and effective messaging for peace, put together by Mission 21 in collaboration with the Mennonite Central Committee, Plateau Peace Practitioners Network, PPPN and Plateau Peace Building Agency, PPBA.

He noted that Jos and its environs have had “checkered history of ethnoreligious conflicts, which have taken a toll on human lives and property with attendant consequences on the social fabric of the society and efforts by successive state administrations to get the roots of the conflicts by setting up a panel of inquiries have yielded no fruitful results. Against this backdrop, many conflicts analysts have concluded that the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of violence is one of the drivers of conflicts.”

He stressed that conflict is not always about who is right and who is wrong and truth-seeking may require going beyond the normal paradigm of justice and helping conflicting parties to respectively reframe their subjective definitions of the conflict into an inter-subjective understanding of what went wrong, the parties’ respective responsibilities, their positions, interests and needs and vision for peace.

The Country Director further disclosed the goals of the workshop are to build the capacity of key stakeholders on restorative justice, “improve the peacebuilding advocacy capacity and synergy among key stakeholders for effective promotion of restorative justice and conflict transformation in Plateau State.”

Earlier John Danboyi of the Peace Training Centre whose organization is partnering with Mission 21 on the Peacebuilding Advocacy for Restorative Justice Project, tasked participants drawn from civil society organizations, justice administration agencies, members of the bar, journalists, religious and community leaders, among other groups, to use the period of the weeklong training to enhance their job as peacebuilders.

The training which began on Monday and would end on Friday has various resource persons taking the participants through diverse topics including conflict sensitivity, effective messaging for peace, an Islamic perspective of restorative justice, Christian perspective to restorative justice, restorative justice, and conflict transformation, social justice and mediation approach to conflict sensitivity, legal perspective of restorative justice, nexus between restorative justice, trauma healing and conflict transformation, among others.