Civil society actors in peace negotiations in Central America

ABSTRACT

Civil society actors are assumed to play an important part in post-conflict peacebuilding; therefore, the international community pushes for civil society participation already during peace negotiations. However, the actual connection between civil society’s participation in those negotiations and its role in implementation processes remains unclear. Taking the Central American peace processes of the late 1980s and early 90s as a case study, this article compares civil society participation in peace negotiations and provisions for civil society involvement for the implementation phase, with the actual role that the civil society played in the implementation processes in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. The article questions the importance of including civil society actors in the negotiation process since the level of civil society inclusion in, activism during and influence on the negotiation process in the three cases did not result in a stronger role for civil society organizations in the implementation process. The article concludes with an analysis of how these findings modify the current understanding of the role of civil society in peace processes and proposes a different focus for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• peace making
• peacebuilding
• Central America
• peace process

Introduction

Peace processes¹ ending protracted violent conflict provide local actors with unique opportunities to create lasting social and political change, transform relationships and create an integrated and coordinated design concerning the desirable social, economic and political structures of their future society. Local civil society actors play an important part in post-conflict peacebuilding and democratization processes (Belloni, 2008; Paffenholz, 2015; Van Sluijs et al., 2013; World Bank, 2006). The international community oftentimes even pushes for local civil society participation already during the peace negotiation process in order to give civil society actors the opportunity to influence the post-conflict settlement early on, and much donor funding is directed towards strengthening civil society in post-conflict societies (MacGinty & Richmond, 2013; OECD/DAC, 1997; Paffenholz, 2014a).

However, little is known about the actual connection between civil society’s participation in peace negotiations and its role in the implementation of the agreements that constitute the basis for peace in countries emerging from violent conflict. Taking the Central American peace processes of the late 1980s and early 90s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala as case studies, this research attempts to shed light on this connection by answering three interrelated questions: How active were civil society actors in influencing the peace agreements in all three countries? How did the level of civil society participation in the peace negotiation process impact the form and frequency with which civil society actors were mentioned and their role acknowledged in the peace agreements? How did that acknowledgement of civil society in the peace agreements compare to the role that civil society actors played in the peace implementation process? Three Central American case studies have been selected for this study primarily because of their similarities: common culture and history and similar political and interdependent development. All three, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, were involved in civil wars during the 1960s–1980s based on power struggles between national governments and opposing guerrilla groups evolving against the context of the cold war. The peace processes that ended the armed conflict during the 1980s and early 90s² were initiated by the same Latin American neighbour countries, establishing a common framework for all three countries. As a result of the agreements ending armed conflict in all three countries, the guerrilla groups (largely) disarmed and became part of the political opposition. In the aftermath of that regional peace process, all three countries enjoyed extensive donor funding for peacebuilding that emphasized strengthening civil society actors. And finally, peace held in all three cases. The research is based primarily on in-depth analysis of all peace agreement documents³ as well as previous research on all three cases and a series of interviews conducted with civil society actors in Nicaragua in 2003, 2004 and 2014.⁴ The following section presents an overview of the research debate on the conceptualization of civil society and the involvement of civil society in peace processes. Thereafter, I evaluate civil society actors’ involvement in the negotiation process in all three countries as well as the actual impact of that involvement on the peace agreement texts. The article then proceeds to analyse the actual involvement of civil society actors in the implementation phase and compares that to the provisions for civil society involvement, mentioned in the three peace agreement texts. This is followed by a discussion on the repercussions of those findings for the debate on civil society involvement in peace agreements and their implementation.

Concept and Functions of Civil Society

Civil society is a value-laden and highly contested concept. Much of the discussions concerning a definition focus on the actors that constitute civil society. The tendency, particularly by international donors, to conflate civil society with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been widely criticized (Chandler, 2010, pp. 385–386; Paffenholz, 2014b; Paffenholz and Spurk, 2006, pp. 9–10; Pouligny, 2005, p. 499; Van Leeuwen & Verkoren, 2012, p. 89). Research on civil society in countries struggling with conflict and developmental challenges underlines that NGOs are regarded as less representative of and accountable to local constituencies than broad-based social movements. Critics also point at their dependency on donors because funding makes them impartial and short-lived, asserting that competition between them also impedes coordination of their efforts. Furthermore, donor-driven NGOs have been found to limit the capacity to create domestic social capital and ownership for peace processes (Belloni, 2008; Bendaña, 2003; Foley, 1996; Paffenholz, 2010a; Paffenholz & Spurk, 2006; Paris, 2004; Richmond, 2009). There is also much debate concerning if the media, political parties, private business and so-called ‘uncivil’ actors⁵ should be considered as civil society actors (Barnes, 2002; Wanis-St. John & Kew, 2008). In the absence of a consensus concerning a definition of civil society, this research defines civil society as a space of voluntarily, non-state, not-for-profit and autonomously organized social life within the public sphere and independent from as well as interacting with the state, the family and the market. This space allows for citizens to act collectively to articulate their interests, make demands on the state and act as intermediaries between the state and the private sphere. Trade unions, student associations, cooperatives, community organizations, religious and cultural associations, youth organizations, social movements, traditional organizational structures, business associations, religious groups and churches, NGOs, women’s groups, indigenous organizations, professional associations, including business associations and the academic sector, are included in this broader concept. However, private business actors, political parties, the media and so-called uncivil actors (see note 1) are excluded from the definition of civil society adopted for this article.

Civil society’s nature and role is significantly shaped by the state, which becomes increasingly clear when looking at the three case studies selected for this article. If civil society actors are protected by an institutionalized legal order to preserve their autonomy and liberty of action, they not only restrain the power of the state but also legitimize its authority. Local civil society is often presented and discussed as a necessary counterbalance to the power of the nation state (Fischer, 2006, p. 21). When conflict environments weaken the state and with it the state of law, power relations and networks become unclear, and the restriction of infrastructure and communication channels leaves civil society actors exposed and unable to fulfil their functions (Kjellman & Harpviken, 2010, p. 38–39). However, research has also shown how civil society actors in failing and failed states eventually adjust by occupying the spaces the state has abandoned and develop alternative systems of self-help and informal forms of governance (Marchetti & Tocci, 2011, p. 49; Verkoren & Van Leeuwen, 2013, pp. 168–169).

Civil Society and Peacebuilding

The main focus of this research is the level of participation by civil society actors in peace negotiations and its impact on the role that civil society plays in the implementation of the agreements. In order to address that issue, however, it is useful to give a brief overview of the much more active debate concerning civil society’s functions in the peacebuilding phase that follows the implementation of peace agreements, since that debate is closely related to the discussion concerning the justification for civil society actors’ participation in the negotiation process itself. Peacemaking and peacebuilding processes cannot easily be separated from each other. Ball (2001, p. 722) divides peace processes into two stages: cessation of conflict and peacebuilding, and each of those stages into two phases. Negotiation and cessation of hostilities constitute the stage of cessation of conflict, and transition and consolidation the state of peacebuilding. The implementation of the peace agreement therefore falls into the stage of peacebuilding but is closely connected to and interdependent with the stage of cessation of conflict.

Local civil society actors are considered important actors when societies emerge from periods of protracted social conflict and face the challenge of reconstructing their country. There is a broad consensus that a vibrant civil society strengthens democracy by providing spaces to develop and promote democratic norms and practices. Well adjusted to local conditions, in touch with local communities and equipped with good connections to the local political elites, civil society actors are expected to create important domestic social capital and ownership for the peacebuilding process and empower local capacities, all of which is lost if international actors, including international NGOs, impose themselves too much on the local process (Belloni, 2008; Foley, 1996; Nilsson, 2005a; Nilsson, 2005b; Pouligny, 2005; Putnam, 1993; Verkoren & Leeuwen, 2013). An active civil society is seen as a prerequisite for sustainable development and critical to boosting the accountability of governments towards their constituencies. As interlocutors between society and the state, they are expected to promote attitudinal changes among the population as well as the elite actors, exert pressure for structural change and reform, bring about social cohesion and reconciliation, provide early warning, protect citizens from state abuse, make states accountable for their actions and increase local ownership of peacebuilding (Bell, 2008; Bell & O’Rourke, 2007; Donais, 2015; Paffenholz & Spurk, 2006, 2010).⁶

However, research on the actual impact of civil society actors on peacebuilding provides a mixed picture, warning that expectations of civil society actors as miracle workers, when it comes to creating democratic societies are overstated. Fischer (2006, p. 21) highlights that the proliferation of NGOs in post-conflict societies does not guarantee a further development of civil society and might actually be a hindrance to state-building and institutional development because NGOs absorb skills and human resources that are needed for these tasks. Furthermore, civil society actors themselves have come under attack: critics accuse them of being partial and lacking mechanisms of accountability and democratic structure. Belloni (2008, p. 200) underlines that dependency on international support has led many civil society organizations to adapt their agendas to donor priorities, thereby, undermining their own autonomy, accountability and legitimacy, just to end up fading into limbo when financial resources dry out. Since many of those organizations are continually compelled to look for funding from international agencies and design short-term, visible projects to comply with donor requirements, it is difficult for them to undertake long-term peacebuilding activities with few visible outcomes in the short run. He argues that their constant struggle over financial support decreases their likelihood of coordinating their efforts and being an expression of grassroots democracy, which is a limiting factor to their performance and makes them more accountable to their donors than to the local constituencies. Anderson (1996, p. 347) points out that civil society resources for civilians in violent environments often relieve the burden of the state to support its population and thus free internal resources for the war effort. Thus, civil society organizations become the executors of social policies and alternative implementers of development assistance when states are weak (Paffenholz and Spurk, 2006, p. 10). Summarizing the criticism, Belloni (2008, p. 208) warns that the hopes placed on civil society as actors sustaining peacebuilding and democratization may prove illusionary. He claims that a healthy civil society is a sign of a well-functioning state, not its cause, and proposes to the international community to focus on strengthening the state so that civil society has a basis to develop. Van Leeuwen and Verkoren (2012, p. 86) add that international actors need to re-evaluate their idealized western images of the nature of civil society.

Civil Society and Peace Making

The debate concerning the question if and why civil society actors should sit at the negotiation table is equally inconclusive. Those who argue that civil society actors should be included in peace negotiations maintain that they are important for democratic peacebuilding processes and that their participation in peace negotiations enhances the legitimacy, commitment to and ownership of the resulting agreement as well as its implementation. Civil society participation has also been found to be crucial to help mediate conflicts and avoid ‘spoiler’ problems, at the table as well as in the implementation phase (Lanz, 2011; Nilsson & Söderberg, 2011; Paffenholz, 2015; Paris, 2004; SIDA, 2007; UN General Assembly, 2011; UNSC, 2009). However, including civil society actors in peace making also creates problems. The lack of a generally accepted consensus concerning who constitutes civil society and the fact that civil society actors often define themselves in opposition to the state during conflict contribute to preventing civil society actors from being invited to the negotiation table (Bell & O’Rourke, 2007, pp. 294–295). Others stress that increasing the number of actors at the table unduly complicates already complex negotiations and makes it difficult to reach an agreement by creating more disorganization, enlarging the agenda and decreasing the efficiency of negotiations (Edwards, 2009, p. 52; Paffenholz, 2014a, p. 72). Very few civil society actors actually come to sit at the negotiation table (Bell, 2008, p. 211; Paffenholz, Kew & Wanis-St. John, 2006, p. 67). As reasons for their exclusion, Barnes (2002, p. 11) suggests that they are often very critical and add complexity to the negotiation and that most governments traditionally view peace making as a quintessentially governmental activity. Belloni (2008, p. 194) points out that the need for confidentiality and efficiency necessarily keeps the number of actors at the table small and that therefore even international mediators often prefer to pay lip service to civil society groups rather than involve them in a meaningful way.

Recent quantitative research has given new strength to the side of the debate that favours inclusion. Nilsson (2012, p. 244) shows a positive correlation between the degree of civil society involvement in peace negotiations and the sustainability of peace agreements, emphasizing that the inclusion of civil society actors in peace accords can be of critical importance in anchoring peace. Her research argues that if civil society actors are included in the peace deal, the risk of peace failing regarding the signatories is reduced by 64% (Nilsson, 2012, p. 258). Wanis-St. John and Kew (2008, p. 14) even maintain that the absence of civil society interests at the table can prove fatal to the negotiation of the agreement and its implementation and emphasize that peace negotiations characterized by high civil society involvement have enjoyed sustained peace in the peacebuilding phase. They state that this also holds true for cases in which civil society groups did not have a direct seat at the table, but nevertheless exercised significant influence over the negotiators. Finally, they argue that war resumed in many cases not characterized by direct or indirect civil society involvement in the peace negotiations. Others put the above quantitative research results in doubt. Bell and O’Rourke (2007, p. 306) wonder whether the relationship between peace agreement provision for civil society involvement and the success or failure of peace agreements could even be evaluated by a quantitative study, given the multiple variables involved. She stresses the need for more research on this issue, particularly small-n research and case studies. Paffenholz’s (2010b, pp. 387–388) assessment of twelve in-depth case studies revealed that while civil society organizations were often effective in getting issues addressed during negotiation or in post-agreement agendas, they typically did not manage to maintain their level of advocacy after the peace agreement was reached. Zanker’s (2014, pp. 82–83) comparison on peace processes in Kenya and Liberia showed a mixed result on civil society’s ability to positively impact the legitimacy of negotiations. Wilson’s (1997) research on civil society organizations in South Africa found that the relative silence of a framework peace agreement regarding civil society involvement did not automatically exclude those organizations from playing an important role in post-conflict governance. In her research on NGO impact on international negotiations, Albin (1999, p. 372) found that NGO participation remains largely unofficial and successful only when supporting the interests of national governments.

So what exactly is the relationship between civil society actors’ participation in peace making processes, the provisions for civil society in the negotiated agreement and the role that civil society actors actually play in the implementation phase that follows? As the above debates show, most research on civil society in peace processes either engage in the discussion on inclusive versus exclusive negotiations or concentrate on the role of civil society actors in peacebuilding. This article attempts to connect both debates by filling the gap between.

Civil Society and Peace Making: A Central American Comparison

Civil society actors were involved in varying degrees in the peace making processes in Central America during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, particularly in terms of the different types of civil society actors involved, their capacity to influence peace-making, and the level of activism they brought into the process. The Esquipulas I (1986) and II (1987) agreements that provided the basis for ending conflict in the Central American region excluded civil society actors completely. In the Esquipulas II agreement, ‘eminent citizens’ from each Central American country were called to serve on the National Reconciliation Commissions created in each country, for the purpose of monitoring the implementation of the agreements as well as human rights.⁷ Furthermore, the text states rather vaguely that the Central American presidents committed themselves to seek assistance to assist refugees and displaced persons in the region either from international organizations or from ‘other organizations and agencies’, a phrase that might point to a role for civil society actors but remains unclear.⁸

Nicaragua

Nicaragua’s peace process commenced in the mid-1980s and was thus the first of the three cases under consideration in this study. Bell and O’Rourke (2007, p. 297) plainly state that civil society had no appearance whatsoever in the Nicaraguan peace agreement process. However, an analysis of the documents relevant to Nicaragua’s peace process shows extensive involvement by the Catholic and Protestant Churches in the negotiation with the opposing indigenous communities along the Atlantic Coast as well as with the Nicaraguan Resistance in 1988 and 1990, respectively. A National Reconciliation Commission, led by Nicaragua’s archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo and including the heads of the Moravian Church and the Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua (CEPAD) as well as the President of the Nicaraguan Red Cross, served as facilitator to the talks between the contending parties, improving communication between them as well as helping to set the agenda and making recommendations for solutions.⁹ However, no particular documents seem to exist that could provide the basis for an analysis of the specific recommendations and proposals brought forth by the church leaders. Cardinal Obando y Bravo also participated in the negotiations between President-Elect Violeta Chamorro and the Nicaraguan Resistance in March 1990, which led to the Tonconting Agreement and initiated the de-mobilization process as well as the ceasefire agreement a month later.¹⁰ Overall, analysis of the documents of the Nicaraguan peace process leads to the conclusion that only selected heads of established religious organizations in the country (with the exception of the head of the Nicaragua Red Cross) were invited to play a role in the negotiations and that that role was confined to facilitating the talks, not to representing particular societal interests. It is very likely that, as important societal leaders, they also served the purpose of legitimizing the negotiations. However, no records exist that explain how exactly those church leaders influenced the negotiation process. The resulting peace agreements only stated that the parties at the table were committed to ‘continuing working with the Red Cross, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations’. This cooperation was exclusively limited to the resettlement of refugees and internationally displaced persons. A special Commission of Support, apart from those organizations already present, also included ‘other national and regional organizations’, but those were not further specified.¹¹ Only Obando y Bravo was asked to cooperate ‘in any other tasks of a humanitarian and social nature deriving from the above-mentioned activities’.¹² However, what those tasks might be was not explained.

Further civil society involvement remains unclear. The ceasefire negotiations to end violence in the Atlantic Coast region in 1985, preceding the Esquipulas accords, involved spontaneously created Commissions for Peace and Autonomy consisting of elected representatives of the Miskito Indian communities along Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast to serve as mediators in the dialogue process with the government, concerning the issue of autonomy of the coastal regions.¹³ However, the level of influence that these organizations had on the peace making process or its implementation is not documented.

When evaluating Nicaragua’s civil society involvement, it has to be taken into account that the country’s political situation created a different starting point for civil society’s possible role in peace making, compared to Guatemala and El Salvador. Under the Somoza dictatorship (1936–1979), civil society was rather weak, particularly in the countryside. Somoza successfully controlled existing social organizations by co-opting their leaders while left-oriented trade unions faced severe repression (Borchgrevink, 2006). When opposition against the dictatorship rose in the 1970s, stronger social organizations emerged that later flourished as mass organizations of the party under the Sandinista revolutionary government and constituted by far the largest part of the Nicaraguan civil society (Luciak, 1990). Nevertheless, Borchgrevink (2006) found several hundred independent civil society organizations in Nicaragua during the time peace was negotiated. Furthermore, in the late 1980s, a number of civil society organizations that were disillusioned with the FSLN (though often not with the revolutionary ideas themselves) emerged and established themselves as alternatives to the established organizations. However, those Nicaraguan civil society actors were not invited by any of the conflict partners to sit at the negotiation table or submit proposals for the peace process. As a consequence, Nicaraguan civil society actors’ involvement came only in the form of participation by church leaders and the Nicaraguan section of the International Red Cross.

El Salvador

While in Nicaragua almost all civil society organizations were mainstreamed with the governing Sandinista ideology and thus supported – and controlled – by the government, civil society actors in El Salvador were considered during the 1970s to be supporting the opposing guerrilla group FMLN, and civil society representatives were frequently targeted by death squads and forced into hiding (Foley, 1996).¹⁴ As in Nicaragua, the Catholic Church was a crucial actor in the peace process in the country. In the late 1980s, after suffering through eighteen years of civil war, the Church engaged in an effort to formulate a proposal, uniting the perspectives of the different sectors of Salvadoran society for a National Debate for Peace and was instrumental afterwards in forming a permanent committee in an effort to institutionalize a united civil society action for peace. The committee attempted to influence the agenda points for the peace negotiations, brought forth concrete proposals on particular parts of the agenda, demanded to be granted representation at the table and even pushed the negotiation process back into action when it stagnated. However, the attempt was weakened by the conservative sectors’ withdrawal from the process due to mistrust towards a civil society that they still considered to be predominantly leftist (Ponciano, 1996, pp. 146–194).

In the end, peace in El Salvador was attained behind closed doors, and civil society actors did not manage to sit at the negotiation table or influence the negotiations to a considerable extent. The final agreements confined civil society involvement in the peace implementation process predominantly to monitoring human rights and engaging in relief operations.¹⁵ Formulations in the El Salvadoran documents were carefully chosen. Most agreements talk about ‘members of civilian society’ rather than civil society organizations. For example, a National Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (Comisión Nacional Para la Consolidación de la Paz, COPAZ)¹⁶ was to guarantee ‘the participation of civilian society in the process of the changes resulting from the negotiations’. The Forum for Economic and Social Accommodation (Foro para la Concertación Exonómica y Social, FOCES) was to be ‘open to participation by other social and political sectors as observers’ when social and economic problems were discussed.¹⁷ And three ‘Salvadorians of recognized independence of judgment and unimpeachable democratic credentials’ were to be part of a commission to help vet the armed forces.¹⁸ However, the agreement nevertheless set the stage for civil society involvement when the contending parties agreed that ‘social organizations existing in El Salvador’ had an important role to play in the attainment of peace and emphasized the need to maintain consultation mechanism with those actors.¹⁹ Furthermore, the proposal to create COPAZ and FOCES in which civil society actors were promised to have an, albeit vaguely specified, role seemed promising when peace was finally signed in 1992.

Guatemala

Guatemala’s peace process was the last to take place, finalizing an agreement in 1996, and also features the most successful involvement of civil society compared to its regional neighbours. As in the neighbouring countries, the Catholic Church played a major part in this process, actively campaigning for peace, human rights and economic justice throughout the civil war period (ECCP, 1999). In 1989, a National Dialogue brought together representatives of the state and forty-seven civil society organizations to discuss human and indigenous rights, education and the environment. Even though rather unsuccessful in and of itself, the Dialogue opened up space for a new round of talks, this time between the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG) and civil society actors as a prelude to talks with the government, which was facilitated by the Catholic Church.²⁰ The Querétaro Agreement of 1991 highlighted the importance of the participation of ‘civilian society’ in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of government policies in order to strengthen participatory democracy.²¹ When talks stalled a year later, civil society actors were instrumental in keeping the process alive and pushing it back on track. Forming a social movement, they managed to formulate united demands and became involved in rallying a large constituency behind their cause (Ponciano, 1996). When talks resumed in 1994, a newly created Civil Society Assembly institutionalized the participation of civil society in the peace process by formulating positions and giving recommendations and guidelines to the UN moderator as well as to the two contending parties while the direct negotiation process between the primary actors was going on.²² However, while Paffenholz (2015, p. 866) calls the peace process in Guatemala inclusive and maintains that the input from civil society was substantial and that a majority of all its proposals by civil society were included in the agreement, Ponciano (1996, pp. 87–89) argues that the impact on the final content of the peace agreement was limited and that very few provisions in the peace agreement text actually followed the Assembly proposals. She emphasizes that the Assembly was expected to discuss – and ultimately endorse – the agreements reached in the track-one negotiations, thereby serving as a legitimizing tool. None of its recommendations were binding to the conflicting parties. Kurtenbach (2012, p. 2) adds that those parts of the agreements that were based on input from the Assembly were among those that were never really fully implemented.

The final peace agreement claimed to reflect a national consensus endorsed by civil society, thereby emphasizing once again the legitimizing role of civil society in the peace process, and urged the state as the ‘provider of social consensus’ to ‘strengthen civilian power’, to broaden opportunities for civilian participation and to find solutions to the country’s problems in cooperation with ‘organized sectors of society’.²³ The agreement also mentioned a number of tasks for civil society actors in the implementation phase, particularly in terms of monitoring and the delivery of services in rural areas.²⁴ Furthermore, civil society actors were invited to accompany the process of the reform of the legal system, help implement the development agenda set out in the peace agreements and participate in a National Agricultural Development Council as the main mechanism for consultation, coordination and social participation in the decision-making process for rural development.²⁵ A system of citizen councils at the community level worked to empower local communities to actively engage in their own development.²⁶ A final agreement in 1996 promised to start a constitutional reform process that would create a new social order that provided for ‘the broadest possible public participation in all structures of power’.²⁷

Civil society and Peace Implementation in Central America

Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan peace agreements had essentially assigned only one body, the Nicaraguan National Reconciliation Commission, to be in charge of supervising the implementation of the peace agreements. No further institutions were specified or endowed with specific tasks. As the head of the Commission, Cardinal Obando y Bravo also cooperated alongside the United Nations Mission in Central America (ONUCA) and the Organization of American States’ (OAS) International Commission of Support and Verification (CIAV-OEA) throughout the de-mobilization phase, observing the ceasefire and the established security zones.

Even though Nicaraguan civil society was largely excluded from the peace process itself and mandates given in the peace agreement were limited to verification and assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons, a whole range of different civil society actors played an important part in shaping the society that emerged from the long civil war. The defeat of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua’s 1990 elections and the election of a liberal anti-Sandinista coalition opened up an entirely new and virtually unlimited space for civil society activities in the country. Amply financed by the donor community, the early 1990s witnessed an explosion of civil society organizations. Deprived of government support, the Sandinista mass organizations began to weaken and many transformed into party-loyal NGOs (Ådahl, 2007). Ex-combatants formed short-lived associations in order to strengthen their negotiating position towards the government, demanding to fulfil the promises made to support their re-integration into civilian life or engaged in local peace commissions to mediate conflicts within their communities and denounced human rights abuses on both sides. An ever increasing host of newly created NGOs engaged in reconciliation programmes, offered workshops for ex-combatants, mediated conflicts and trained members of the isolated rural communities to get engaged in their own development (Nilsson, 2010). However, by the mid 1990s, civil society actors’ seemingly unlimited access to donor funding and unregulated engagement in the reconstruction of their society finally awakened resentment in the liberal government and led to state efforts to restrict and control civil society organizations (Borchgrevink, 2006; Close, 2012).

El Salvador

El Salvador’s main organized civil society roof organization during the peace negotiation period, the National Dialogue (Diálogo Nacional, DN), attempted initially to survive the signing of the peace process in 1992 and started immediately to campaign for the implementation of the agreements. It did so mainly by making the agreements known to the public and by campaigning for an increase in democratic participation. It also worked to bring about international solidarity for the implementation process and solicit international aid. However, the DN lost its impetus and was soon replaced by the institutions created through the peace accords to implement the peace agreement, namely, COPAZ and FOCES. According to Ponciano (1996, pp. 194–196), instead of strengthening civil society participation, both institutions weakened and replaced the civil society engagement created during the peace negotiation years. COPAZ was hailed as a civil society organization but did not have any civil society organizations as members; FOCES included members of the business sector and a number of labour unions but was essentially too polarized to function effectively; thus, the agreements reached in this institution were unsubstantial. On the whole, this new distribution of tasks left all other civil society actors without a function and contributed significantly to cutting off their base of operations in the implementation phase. Nevertheless, while Nicaraguan peace documents only assigned peacebuilding tasks to selected prominent church leaders, the El Salvadoran process at least set the stage for more extended civil society involvement that transcended monitoring human rights and engaging in relief operations.

Guatemala

Even though civil society in Guatemala managed to make its voice heard in the peace process, and the United Nations Development Programme even organized two projects for the participation of NGOs in the implementation of the peace accords, the record of civil society’s role in the implementation of the peace agreement is less than impressive. Even though the end of violence opened up more spaces, civil society actors in Guatemala did not manage to develop a joint strategy or to form a concerted political and social force during the implementation period. The peace accords established a series of peace institutions, such as the Peace Secretariat (Secretaría para la Paz, SEPAZ) for the implementation of the peace accords, to which members of civil society were often appointed. However, these institutions never managed to have much leverage towards the government, and even produced conflicts within civil society at times and deepened fragmentation (Kurtenbach, 2010, pp. 95–96). The failure of the constitutional referendum on the fundamental provision of the peace accord in 1999, which would have constituted a radical system change by transferring power from political and military elites to other groups in a more democratic setting, put its implementation in danger and crushed the expectations of many civil society actors to bring about change through the peace process. As a consequence, most of the achievements of the peace agreement have never been implemented. This is particularly true for the parts dealing with radical change and addressing exclusion and land rights that had been pushed forward by civil society (Paffenholz, 2015, p. 866). After the war ended, some civil society organizations and think tanks worked as formal or informal consultants for government institutions, and public policies were discussed on a more institutional level in a series of dialogues. Humanitarian civil society organizations attempted to engage in service delivery to the neglected rural areas after the end of the war, but those activities did not produce an entry point for long-term engagement in reconciliation work (Kurtenbach, 2010, p. 95). In fact, the explicit shifting of service delivery to civil society actors, which was depicted in the peace agreement, seems to have relieved the state from any further responsibility for that task. Kurtenbach (2010, p. 86) argues that the war promoted social cohesion and created common goals among civil society actors. In the absence of these goals during peacetime, however, civil society lacked a united and long-term vision. Fragmented along ethnic and social but also ethnic-cultural lines, civil society actors concentrated on sector-oriented activities and engaged predominantly in monitoring and advocacy activities. The Catholic Church continued to be one of the strongest civil society actors, pushing for human rights and the recuperation of historic memories concerning human rights abuses (Johnston, 2005).

Discussion

When comparing the three case studies constituting the Central American peace process of the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, a number of similarities and differences, in terms of the type of civil society actors involved and the tasks they performed during peace negotiations, become apparent. Church actors, particularly the Catholic Church, were active in all three processes. However, in Nicaragua, they actually sat at the negotiation table, while in El Salvador and Guatemala they were instrumental in initiating the process of civil society involvement in the process, but no civil society actors ever sat at the table. On the other hand, church actors were practically the only civil society actors that accompanied the peace making process in Nicaragua, while the El Salvadoran and Guatemalan cases feature many more civil society actors, broadening the participation of civil society in those countries. The Church rallied support around concerted action, but was not the exclusive leader of the process, as was the case in Nicaragua.

Despite virtually no activism displayed before or during the negotiation process, those actors involved in Nicaragua had officially received influential tasks for the negotiation process, such as facilitating the negotiations, mediating between conflict partners, setting the agenda and even advancing proposals for solutions. However, nothing is known about the specific proposals those actors might have brought to the table, and it is doubtful that they were expected to function as negotiating actors with specific demands, rather than as mere facilitators and witnesses to the process. The broader civil society alliances formed in El Salvador and Guatemala, on the other hand, albeit at times even conflicting and heated dialogue processes, to bring about a consensus behind a civil society agenda to be presented to the negotiating parties. Those two cases present therefore a much more consolidated civil society consensus, while a specific connection between the church leaders and the rest of civil society in the Nicaraguan case does not seem to have taken place. Thus, even though specific representatives of civil society in the Nicaraguan case had more potential to influence the negotiations, they did not advance agendas based on a consensus among the broader civil society in their country, as was the case in their Central American neighbour countries.

Despite these differences, in terms of inclusion, participation and activism surrounding the negotiation process, the actual impact of civil society on the peace agreement texts in all three countries was rather limited in Nicaragua and El Salvador and is at best debated in the case of Guatemala. However, the level of civil society activism during the negotiation process, which grew with every case, seems to, at least, have impacted the form and frequency at which civil society was mentioned in the peace agreements. No civil society activism surrounded the negotiation process in Nicaragua, and even though church leaders facilitated the talks, civil society was not specifically mentioned in the peace agreement text. In the peace agreements in El Salvador and Guatemala, on the other hand, civil society actors were mentioned more frequently and were even assigned specific spaces in political institutions. The Guatemalan agreement even highlighted the importance of civil society in peace processes.

However, this increasing appearance of civil society in the peace agreements texts of the three cases did not facilitate civil society organizations’ participation as actors during the implementation phase. Even in the case of Guatemala, civil society seems to have been used by the main conflict actors predominantly to legitimize the negotiations. The Guatemalan experience created the highest expectations as to civil society’s impact and role in this process. However, the political elite’s promises of a society in which civil society would occupy a major space were not fulfilled in the aftermath of the peace negotiations. As much as civil society in Guatemala managed to unite behind a common effort during the peace-making phase, it also fell prey to internal divisions in the implementation phase. Political realities took over and cohesion was lost. The same happened in El Salvador. No important role was assigned to its civil society actors in the implementation phase, and only individual citizens and private business organizations were included in the two new institutions that emerged from the peace agreements. As a consequence, civil society remained somewhat muted and politically divided. Nicaraguan civil society, on the other hand, blossomed in the implementation period when the regime change brought an increased influx of donor funds, despite it not being mentioned in the peace agreements. Civil society actors in Nicaragua got involved in implementation tasks at least as much, or even more than their counterparts in the neighbouring countries.

One contributing factor might have been the political context for civil society involvement in the implementation period, which was significantly different in the three cases. In El Salvador and Guatemala, existing political elite structures emerged in positions of power from the peace negotiations and, at least for some time, were not seriously challenged by the political opposition, which now also included the disarmed ex-guerrilla members. Therefore, the same political power structures that had limited civil society activism already before the peace negotiations remained intact. In Nicaragua, on the other hand, the revolutionary government suffered electoral defeat, bringing to power a liberal anti-guerrilla coalition. Thus, the political power structure opened up considerably, which might be an explanation for the period of civil society expansion and activism during the early to mid 1990s. However, this effect was limited in time. In the later 1990s, civil society actors’ seemingly unlimited access to donor funding and unregulated engagement in peacebuilding finally awakened resentment in the liberal government and led to state efforts to restrict and control civil society organizations (Borchgrevink, 2006; Close, 2012).

Conclusion

The comparative analysis of civil society actors’ involvement in peace making processes in the three Central American countries that terminated their civil war during the 1980s and 1990s reveals that a) the level of civil society inclusion in and influence on the negotiation process did not result in a stronger role in the implementation process and b) the level of activism of civil society that accompanied the negotiation process had an impact on the text of the agreement; however, in the end, it mainly served to legitimize the negotiated outcome, not to strengthen civil society’s role in the implementation phase. These results question the importance of including civil society actors in the negotiation process as a factor that makes peace agreements implementable, or even contributes to sustainable peace, as maintained by previous research (Nilsson, 2012, p. 258; Paffenholz, 2014a, p. 74; Paffenholz, Kew and Wanis St. John, 2006, p. 68 and 74; Wanis-St. John and Kew, 2008, p. 14). However, citizen participation in political decision-making is one of the pillars of democracy, particularly, in societies emerging from protracted armed conflict, and civil society participation in peace processes increases the legitimacy of those processes. Therefore, rather than assigning a role to civil society that it cannot possibly fulfil, at least not on its own, future research should focus on the circumstances, contextual factors and actors, national as well as international, which might increase the potential for civil society to impact peace processes more forcefully, from influencing agenda-setting and pushing proposals into the final agreement to filling spaces in post-conflict political structures that enable them to play the important role they could play in implementation and peacebuilding processes after prolonged societal conflict.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term peace process embodies all efforts to end armed conflict, including pre-negotiation efforts, the negotiation process itself, the implementation of the agreement, which marks the transition phase from armed conflict to peace, as well as the longer period of peacebuilding that consolidates the peace. Lederach (1997, p. 20) defines peacebuilding as ‘encompassing the full array of long-term approaches needed to transform a conflict society into one in which local actors create and maintain sustainable and peaceful social relationships as well as viable political and social structures capable of addressing the root causes and mediating social conflict, furthering sustainable development and creating a long-term peace environment, thereby inhibiting the reoccurrence of violence at a later stage’.

2. Internal war officially ended in Nicaragua in 1990, in El Salvador in 1992 and in Guatemala in 1996.

3. All peace agreement documents used for this research are available at http://peacemaker.un.org

4. The author lived and worked, including with and within civil society organizations, in Nicaragua during the countries post-conflict peacebuilding phase from August 1991 to the end of 2005.

5. Belloni (2008) describes uncivil civil society organizations as actors who are violent and undemocratic, often also nationalistic and xenophobic, particularly in conflict environments. Because of the legacy of the conflict, post-war societies are particularly likely to show characteristics of an uncivil civil society. Verkoren and Leeuwen (2013) underline that local actors in fragile contexts often play mixed roles, engaging in peacebuilding while simultaneously being associated with armed actors.

6. Paffenholz and Spurk (2006; Paffenholz, 2010a) identify a number of functions of civil society in peacebuilding, including providing protection from the state, monitoring central authorities and holding them accountable, articulating interests and bringing specific topics to the agenda, mobilizing their constituencies behind those causes, creating a culture of peace and democratic values, fostering social cohesion and providing space for debate and the articulation of concerns. Civil society actors also deliver services and humanitarian assistance.

7. Esquipulas Agreement II, art. 1.c.

8. Esquipulas II, art. 8.

9. Basic Preliminary Accords between the Government of Nicaragua and the Organization YATAMA, January 1988, Adjoining Protocol I.4.

10. Definitive Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua and the YATAMA Atlantic Front of the Nicaraguan Resistance under the Auspices of his Eminence Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, 18 April 1990.

11. Basic Preliminary Accords between the Government of Nicaragua and the Organization YATAMA, January 1988, art. 3.4; Definitive Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua and the YATAMA Atlantic Front of the Nicaraguan Resistance under the Auspices of his Eminence Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, 18 April 1990; The Managua Protocol on Disarmament, between the government and the Resistance Forces, 30 May 1990, section 1 (c).

12. Definitive Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua and the YATAMA Atlantic Front of the Nicaraguan Resistance under the Auspices of his Eminence Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, 18 April 1990, art. 13.

13. Revista Envio “La Paz en la Costa: Preludio de Esquipulas II”, no. 77, November 1987.

14. During the 1980s, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) attempted to counteract this trend by funding a whole generation of pro-Western, neoliberal NGOs, thus, splitting El Salvador’s civil society along the lines of the political conflict (Foley, 1996).

15. Geneva agreement, 4 April 1990, 6 and 7; Agreement on Human Rights, 26 July 1990, II, 12 and 13. Chapultepec Peace Agreement, 16 January 1992, Annex E.D.

16. COPAZ, which included the Catholic Church as an observer, was responsible for overseeing all political agreements reached by the two conflict parties and was to be dissolved after the peace agreement’s implementation phase. New York Agreement, 25 September 1991, VII.4 (c); see also a letter of the Sec. General to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on 2 December 1991 (A/46/713, S23256, point 11, point 14).

17. New York Agreement, 25 September 1991, VII.4 (c).

18. Chapultepec Peace Agreement (Mexico City), 16 January 1992, I.2; I.3.

19. Geneva Agreement, 4 April 1990, art. 6 and 7.

20. Basic Agreement for the Search for Peace by Political Means, 30 March 1990 (Oslo Agreement), preamble, part (b) and article III. For a further mention of the dialogue with civil society groups, see point 17 of the letter from the UN Sec. Gen to the UNSC on 2 December 1991 (A/46/713, S23256).

21. Framework Agreement on Democratization in the Search for Peace by Political Means (The Querétaro Agreement), 25 July 1991, introductory part, as well as parts 1, 5 and 6 and articles I (a), II and III; Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable for the Peace Agreements, 29 December 1996, 189, 190 and 193.

22. Framework Agreement for the Resumption of the Negotiating Process between the Government of Guatemala and the ‘Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca’ (URNG), 10 January 1994, art III.

23. Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace, 29 December 1996, I.1, I.7, I.9 and I.10.

24. Agreement on Resettlement of the Population Groups Uprooted by the Armed Conflict, 17 June 1994, II.11, IV.1 and 3; 1996 Agreement on the Social and Economic Aspects and the Agrarian Situation, II.B.23 (b) and (g), III.B.34 (g9; III.C.35 (c) and (d). Agreement on the Strengthening of Civilian Power and on the Role of the Armed Forces in a Democratic Society, 19 September 1996, III.15. Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable for the Peace Agreements, 29 December 1996, 106.

25. Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable for the Peace Agreements, 29 December 1996, I.9; Agreement on the Social and Economic Aspects and Agrarian Situation, 6 May 1996, introductory part, I. 1, 2, 4 and 5, II.19 (b), IIE.26 (g) (ii), III.A.33. Agreement on Constitutional Reforms and the Electoral Regime, 7 December 1996, part II, preamble. Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable for Peace, 29 December 1996, I.8, I.6 (d), 100; Agreement on the Implementation, Compliance and Verification Timetable for Peace, 29 December 1996, I.22

26. Agreement on the Strengthening of Civilian Power and on the Role of the Armed Forces in a Democratic Society, 19 September 1996, 60; V.58 (c).

27. Agreement on Constitutional Reforms and the Electoral Regime, 7 December 1996, preamble.