Winning the Peace: The Reintegration of ex-combatants in Northern Ireland

"Just because you have a past, doesn't mean you can't have a future". David Trimble

Demilitarisation, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) has been undertaken in many post-conflict reconstruction and development programmes with mixed successes, many failing completely with a return to conflict. The United Nations report known as the “Brahimi Report” outlines the need for “bringing demobilisation and reintegration programmes into the assessed budgets of complex peace operations for the first phase of an operation in order to facilitate the rapid disassembly of fighting factions and reduce the likelihood of resumed conflict.” (United Nations, 2000).Following the official announcement of complete disarmament and the perceived success of demobilisation, I would like to examine the success or failure of reintegration of ex-combatants in Northern Ireland by first outlining the process of DDR in general and then consider it from a Northern Ireland perspective before finally outlining some social issues and examining if they are attributable to a failure of reintegration.

“In a peace process, since no-one has won the war, all must be involved in winning the peace.” (Gormally, 2001)

Demilitarisation, demobilisation and reintegration programmes have been an integral part of at least 25 peacekeeping missions undertaken by the UN up to 2001, sometimes failing dramatically as in Eritrea in 1998 and in Sierra Leone in 2000. (Kingma,2001).Demilitarisation can be seen as the preliminary steps towards demobilising and reintegration and as securing an environment in which the next steps can be implemented is essential. While the presence of arms is clearly part of that process, alone, it is not a credible short to medium term solution to violence and can in fact aggravate the situation. (Berdal, 1997).Demilitarisation can be pursued through coercion or through consent-based approaches but there always remains the risk of partial or incomplete inventories and clandestine arms caches.

Demobilisation is defined here as a “process in which the number of people under arms and in military command structures, including official armed forces personnel, paramilitary forces and opposition forces, is significantly reduced.” (Kingma, 2001).Demobilisation is nearly always welcomed by civilian populations but can be received with mixed emotions by combatants. In order to overcome these issues it is necessary to carry out reintegration of those directly involved in the conflict.

The United Nations has set as a priority, “the reintegration of ex-combatants and others into productive society”.(United Nations, 1998) building on the idea expressed by Berdal (1997) that only with the transition from violent conflict to peace and the consequent change in use of social and economic resources and change in vocation of ex-combatants can the fragile mid-term and long-term nature of post-conflict situations be overcome.

Re-integration generally includes enrolment in vocational training programmes, job-placement schemes and providing credit for small enterprise and it is important to identify the aspirations and capabilities of the demobilised population.Community-based programmes promoting the involvement of ex-combatants have been identified as key to the success of reintegration. The most successful programmes in Ethiopia have been nation-wide small-scale localised projects as opposed to the government-sponsored concept. (Berdal, 1997)These programmes are more sensitive to local needs, offer more flexibility and integrate ex-combatants into society.

Graph 1: Remembering- Changing: The Challenges of Grass-roots Peace-building, 1999. NIVI.

“Northern Ireland is a patchwork of small communities often separated by walls and peace lines.”  (Dunlop et al, 2002)

The severity of the divisions in Northern Ireland have been the after-effects of what became known as the ‘Troubles’,a conflict that lasted from the 1960s until the signing of The Good Friday Agreement in 1998.Disarmament became an immediate security requirement and posed many obstacles in reaching an agreement on peace due to ideological, tactical and strategic thinking, from both Republican and Unionist sides on the issue.(Rolston, 2007)A gradual disarmament was officially completed in 2011 with the declaration of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.

Figure 1: Map of religious divisons in Belfast, based on 1991 census (wesleyjohnston.com)

In July 2007, Operation Banner, which was the British Armed Forces’ name for operations in Northern Ireland, was officially ended and declared that although the I.R.A. had not been defeated,victory through the use of violence had been made impossible. (Ministry of Defence, 2006). A reduction of troops from a peak strength of 30,000 to just 5,000 and handover of security responsibilities to the police demonstrated the British Army’s satisfaction with the demobilisation of armed groups.The numbers of estimated active members of the I.R.A. in Northern Ireland fell from 750 in 1986 to 150 in 2005. (O’Brien, 1995), (DailEireann, 2005).

The demobilised military personnel, ex-members of paramilitary groups, 447 released prisoners (Rolston, 2007) and family members of these groups, require support in reintegrating into productive society (United Nations, 1998) given that many had not completed their education or trades-training before joining their group, either before or during the period of ‘The Troubles’, and communities in which many lived were economically deprived with few opportunities for employment. (Nieminen et al, 2011)Unfortunately the occurrence of the global economic crisis has coincided with a vital stage in the DDR process, compounding economic and social disparities.

When Republican communities withdrew their consent for policing from the early 1970s, the IRA undertook the role of (informal) control of crime and anti-social behaviour utilising retributive practices, involving punishment beatings, shootings and expulsions from the community. (Ellison et al, 2012) This highlights the need for integration of the community in policy making and security issues as a means of securing the area and creating an environment in which readjustment and transition are more attainable

“The Governments continue to recognise the importance of measures to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners into the community by providing support both prior and after release, including assistance directed towards availing of employment opportunities, retraining and/or re-skilling, and further education.” (The Belfast Agreement 1998, p 25.)

All actors must be represented in the peace-building process and this must be founded in social, political and economic parity. Ex-combatants are seen as important symbolic representatives of their communities and what happens to them can be seen as what happens to their community as a whole. (Gormally, 2001)

Reintegration programmes have been established and funded mainly by the Northern Ireland Valuation Tribunal and District Partnerships including projects working with men in prison, educational and vocational courses, family support services, mutual support groups and emotional and psychological support.

One particularly successful programme has been Coiste na nLarchimi whose aims areto work on behalf of the republican ex-prisoner community, be "the" representative body for republican ex-prisoners, work to promote all legislative and discriminatory practices against ex-prisoners and to be a model of good practice.(Coiste,1999)The initiative started in 1998 and represented 24 groups of former I.R.A. prisoners at its peak and has been involved in issues such as nation building, outreach to victims’ groups, making contact with all major sectors of Irish society and local business set up schemes with a focus on self-help and community development.

An innovative and successful project has been the training of ex-prisoners who give guided tours of West Belfast and the Shankill Road working alongside Loyalist ex-prisoners,uniting communities, offering opportunities to recount their past experiences, providing employment and building awareness of the conflict and its actors.Coiste were able to have this influence because of their legitimacy as they were organic and rooted in their communities while there were difficulties in relation to counselling provided by statutory bodies which they felt had not engaged with the communities. (Coiste 1999; Coiste 2004)

Despite efforts to tackle the issues of reintegration of ex-combatants following the peace agreement, suicide, gun crime, drugs trade and public disorder are prevalent in Northern Ireland. With the coming of peace in N.I. the suicide rate has almost doubled (Tomlinson,2012). Durkheim’s idea that war reduces suicide through greater social and political integrations has been used to explain suicide trends during the N.I. conflict and in the period of peace(Tomlinson, 2012) and is backed by the idea that the Troubles affected a social cohesion and ghettoization that had the effect of protecting people from suicide. (McGowan et al., 2005)

Growth in social isolation since peace, poor mental health arising from the experience of conflict, and the “fatalistic masculinity and excessive regulation” (Kushner and Sterk, 2005) of militarisation are compounded by the fact that in peace times externalised aggression is no longer socially approved and becomes internalised instead. (Tomlinson,2012) Many suicides can be due to the economic and social instability related to conflict and reflect suicide in the population in general but under the wider definition of a combatant we can link the effects of the conflict to psychological health and in particular to the period after the 1998 Agreement.

Figure 1.Northern Ireland suicide rates by gender, 1967–2008.

Source: Compiled from Registrar General Northern Ireland Annual Report

While care has been taken in stabilising economic, political and, in some measure, social aspects of the societies in which the ex-combatants live, little has been done towards the psychological reparations necessary in post-conflict combatants in confronting reintegration into productive society. Also the majority of work and research has been carried out in relation to ex-prisoners andvery little has been done with other ex-combatants creating an unbridgeable gap between the two groups. The DDR in Northern Ireland has shown significant shortcomings but much progress and has avoided a return to conflict which must be seen as a success as “countries face a 50% risk of renewed conflict during the next 5 years.”  (Collier&Hoeffler,2002)The DDR process is a long one and it has only been two years since official disarmament was announced and whether difficulties in securing disarmament and demobilisation have helped or undermined reintegration remains to be seen.

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