Acknowledgement, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Conflict Resolution: Perspectives from Lebanon

Abstract

The history of the Lebanese civil war is not just a record of violent and destructive conflict, it is also a record of various efforts at conflict resolution. Many times in the course of the sixteen-year war, serious attempts were made to halt the bloodshed. However, because the Lebanese war involved two major dimensions, an internal dimension involving issues of power-sharing and constitutional reforms and an external dimension involving Lebanon's relationships to its neighbours (Syria, Israel and the Palestinians), successful conflict resolutions methods responsive to all of Lebanon's complex problems seemed impossible to find. From 1975 to 1989, several plans were devised by the Lebanese themselves or advanced by external parties to bring the fighting to a conclusive end. Most of these attempts at conflict resolution focused on traditional instruments of diplomacy, i.e., mediation, shuttle diplomacy, good offices, etc. These efforts usually represented official governmental attempts to put an end to the strife in Lebanon by imposing a solution from above and from without. Non-traditional instruments of conflict resolution, such as citizen-centred efforts and "Track Two" diplomacy stressing the psychological and interpersonal roots of conflict, were rarely used.