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ABSTRACT
While the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration literature emphasises that social reintegration of ex-combatants is key to sustainable peace, few analyses exist, leading to limited understanding of reintegration dynamics and subsequently ad hoc programme design. We examined the psychosocial conditions faced by 223 ex-combatants from the People’s Liberation Army and 213 host community stakeholders in Nepal in 2012 and 2013, specifically investigating the relation between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), factional ties and Readiness to Reconcile in ex-combatants. Despite ex-combatants’ positive attitudes and perceptions of their host communities, many struggled to generate an income. Ex-combatants who were likely to suffer from PTSD reported lower readiness to reconcile with former enemies. Having factional ties did not impact willingness to reconcile, but was associated with reduced PTSD. Most community stakeholders positively regarded the arrival of these ex-combatants. However, a minority expressed alarm about political differences, war grievances and ex-combatants’ problematic behaviour. Critical activities identified to facilitate social reintegration are psychosocial trauma support and counselling, social interaction and peace education programmes and continued socio-economic support for both communities and ex-combatants.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on two surveys the Nepalese NGO Pro Public conducted for the Nepal–German Support of Measures to Strengthen the Peace Process project (STPP) supported by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The views and information provided in this article are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Pro Public or GIZ.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Do and Iyer, ‘Geography, Poverty, and Conflict in Nepal’, 736.
2. BBC News, ‘Nepal Government raises conflict death toll’. 22 September 2009.
3. Singh et al., ‘Conflict induced internal displacement in Nepal’, 103.
4. UNOHCHR, Nepal Conflict Report, 36.
5. Nepal Government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Comprehensive Peace Accord, clause 4.4.
6. Subedi and Jenkins, ‘The Nexus Between Reintegration of Ex-combatants and Reconciliation’; Luna, ‘Everyday realities of reintegration’.
7. Schulhofer-Wohl and Sambanis, Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration Programs.
8. Özerdem and Podder, ‘The Long Road Home’.
9. Colletta, Kostner and Wiederhofer, The Transition from War to Peace.
10. Maedl et al., ‘Psychological Rehabilitation of Ex-combatants’.
11. UNDP, Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration, 49.
12. Sharif, A Critical Review of Evidence.
13. See for example Subedi ‘Conflict, Combatants, and Cash’.
14. Hazen, ‘Understanding “Reintegration” within Postconflict Peacebuilding’.
15. Özerdem, ‘Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration’, 962.
16. Sharif, A Critical Review of Evidence.
17. Bowd and Özerdem, ‘How to Assess Social Reintegration’.
18. Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’.
19. Spear, ‘Disarmament and Demobilization’.
20. Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’.
21. Kaplan and Nussio, ‘Community Counts’, 133.
22. Hazen, Social Integration of Ex-Combatants.
23. De Vries and Wiegink, ‘Breaking up and Going Home?’.
24. Colletta, Kostner and Wiederhofer, The Transition from War to Peace.
25. Nussio, ‘How ex-combatants talk about personal security’.
26. Sharif, A Critical Review of Evidence.
27. Chautari, Political Risk and Ex-Combatants.
28. Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation.
29. Bloomfield, Barnes and Huyse. Reconciliation after violent conflict: A handbook, 12.
30. Willems and van Leeuwen, ‘Reconciling reintegration’, 333.
31. Kelman, ‘Reconciliation as Identity Change’.
32. Bockers, Stammel and Knaevelsrud, ‘Reconciliation in Cambodia’, 72.
33. See for example Karstoft et al., ‘Community integration after deployment’; Kohrt et al., ‘Social ecology of child soldiers’; and Odenwald et al., ‘Screening for posttraumatic stress disorder’.
34. Bayer, Klasen and Adam, ‘Association of trauma and PTSD symptoms with openness to reconciliation and feelings of revenge’.
35. Pham, Weinstein and Longman, ‘Trauma and PTSD symptoms in Rwanda’.
36. Schaal et al., ‘Mental health 15 years after’. Attitudes towards forgiveness, trust, empathy, future orientation, justice, revenge and the use of violence were included into the measure of attitudes towards reconciliation.
37. Maedl et al., ‘Psychological Rehabilitation of Ex-combatants’.
38. Annan et al., ‘Civil War, Reintegration, and Gender’.
39. Luitel et al., ‘Conflict and mental health’.
40. Kohrt et al., ‘Comparison of mental health’; Tol et al., ‘Political violence and mental health’.
41. Bogati, ‘Assessing Inclusivity’.
42. Subedi, ‘Conflict, Combatants, and Cash’, 248: ‘Out of the 19,602 ex-combatants, 2,456 were missing (absent) and 94 were reported dead at the time of update and re-verification held in November–December 2011.’
43. Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation, 36.
44. Kohrt et al., ‘Comparison of mental health’.
45. GIZ, From Armed Conflict to Civilian Responsibility.
46. ZFD is an acronym of Ziviler Friedensdienst, Civil Peace Service. The peace advisor was co-author Jeannine Suurmond.
47. Stammel et al., ‘Construction of a questionnaire’.
48. Eichhorn et al., ‘Readiness to reconcile and post-traumatic distress’.
49. Breslau et al., ‘Short screening scale’.
50. Kimerling et al., ‘Utility of a short screening scale’; Washington et al., ‘PTSD risk and mental health care engagement’; Zhou et al., ‘The Effect of Maternal Death’.
51. Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’.
52. Corbin and Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research.
53. As in Breslau et al., ‘Short screening scale’.
54. Kaplan and Nussio, ‘Community Counts’; Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’; Maedl et al., ‘Psychological Rehabilitation of Ex-combatants’; Annan et al., ‘Civil War, Reintegration, and Gender’.
55. Chautari, Political Risk and Ex-Combatants; Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation.
56. Hazen, Social Integration of Ex-Combatants.
57. Sharif, A Critical Review of Evidence.
58. De Vries and Wiegink, ‘Breaking up and Going Home?’.
59. Subedi and Jenkins, ‘The Nexus Between Reintegration of Ex-combatants and Reconciliation’.
60. Grant and Gino, ‘A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way’.
61. Kelman, ‘Reconciliation as Identity Change’.
62. Bockers, Stammel and Knaevelsrud, ‘Reconciliation in Cambodia’.
63. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Trauma-Informed Care.
64. Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Enemy Images; Staub, The Roots of Evil.
65. Kelman and Fisher, Herbert C. Kelman.
66. Bayer, Klasen and Adam, ‘Association of trauma and PTSD symptoms with openness to reconciliation and feelings of revenge’; Eichhorn et al., ‘Readiness to reconcile and post-traumatic distress’; Pham, Weinstein and Longman, ‘Trauma and PTSD symptoms in Rwanda’.
67. In the study conducted by Eichhorn and colleagues (ibid.) more feelings of revenge were correlated only with higher reported hyper-arousal symptoms.
68. Other authors who have recommended this are for example Willems and van Leeuwen, ‘Reconciling reintegration’ and Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation.
69. The participatory study by Robins and colleagues, ibid., also pointed this out.
70. For a discussion of unemployment rates in Nepal, see e.g. Chandan Sapkota, ‘Remittance pitfalls’, Kathmandu Post, 20 September 2016, OPED. http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-09-20/remittance-pitfalls.html [Accessed 19 December 2019].
71. Bogati, ‘Assessing Inclusivity’.
72. Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation.
73. Kaplan and Nussio, ‘Community Counts’.
74. De Vries and Wiegink, ‘Breaking up and Going Home?’.
75. Jain et al., ‘Peer Support and Outcome for Veterans’; Laffaye et al., ‘Relationships among PTSD symptoms, social support, and support source’.
76. Robins, Bhandari and ex-PLA working group, Poverty, stigma and alienation.
77. Humphreys and Weinstein, ‘Demobilization and Reintegration’; Porto, Parsons and Alden, From soldiers to citizens.
78. The association of torture with PTSD was shown for example in the meta-analysis by Zachary Steel and colleagues, 2009, ‘Association of torture and other potentially traumatic events with mental health outcomes among populations exposed to mass conflict and displacement: a systematic review and meta-analysis.’ JAMA, 302(5), 537–549; as well as the study on child soldiers in Nepal by Brandon Kohrt and colleagues, ‘Social ecology of child soldiers’.
79. See Stammel et al., ‘The Readiness to Reconcile Inventory.’
80. Axinn et al., ‘Gender, traumatic events, and mental health disorders’.
81. Caputo, ‘Social Desirability Bias in self-reported wellbeing Measures’; Veenhoven, ‘Questions on Happiness’; Dawes et al., ‘Social desirability does not confound reports of wellbeing’.
82. Caputo, ‘Social Desirability Bias in self-reported wellbeing Measures’; Konow and Earley, ‘The Hedonistic Paradox’.
83. Eysenck, Happiness: Facts and myths.
84. For example, see Dami et al. ‘Combat exposure and PTSD’, who found 24.6% PTSD prevalence in a sample of military combatants in North East Nigeria; and Schaal et al., ‘Posttraumatic stress disorder’, who identified 50% PTSD prevalence in combatants from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jeannine Suurmond
Jeannine Suurmond (PhD Peace and Conflict Studies, MA Psychology) works as researcher and practitioner specialised in conflict resolution, mediation and peace process support. In Nepal, she cooperated for GIZ with Pro Public, advising the Government of Nepal on peace-building policy and implementing ex-combatant integration, community mediation and restorative dialogue programs.
Babu Ram Poudel
Babu Ram Poudel is executive director of Pro Public in Nepal, and responsible for the organisation’s peace-building and conflict transformation projects. Having worked on social, political and governance issues from 2003 to 2009, he has focused on peace-building initiatives from 2010 onward. Babu Ram has a Master’s degree in Sociology.
Maya Böhm
Maya Böhm, Dr. rer. med., is a psychologist. Her research interests are political violence, psychotraumatology and dealing with the past. After working on the effects of political imprisonment on family systems, the research reported here was part of her engagement with the Civil Peace Service of GIZ in Nepal.