How to prevent violent conflict Conflict is a driving force in human history Conflict has led to destruction, but it is also

a strong motivating force for peace building. Conflicts signal problems that need to be taken care of. If serious conflicts are not resolved effectively, they can become destructive and cause a great deal of suffering. Today one can visit nearly 200 places in the world where people kill people. A great number of seemingly peaceful countries suffer from serious tensions and latent conflict. Violence is Costly The high costs of violence have led to an increase in the efforts to prevent conflicts from crossing the threshold of violence. This is called proactive violence prevention. This is more cost-effective than reactive violence prevention. The aim of reactive conflict prevention is to prevent a further escalation of the conflict by controlling the intensity of the violence, by reducing the duration of the conflict, and by containing or preventing geographic spillover. Also in the post conflict phase, violence-prevention efforts could be needed to avert a new flaring up of the conflict. When a conflict crosses the threshold of violence, the costs and the difficulty of managing them increase significantly. violence becomes the cause of more violence. A comprehensive analysis of the costs of the violence gives an idea of reconstruction and peace building efforts that will have to be made when the violence ends. Not only are there human and economic costs but also social, political, ecological, cultural, psychological, and spiritual destruction. Costs of violent conflicts

What is Violence? To understand violence prevention, it is essential to analyze the violence that exists and the instruments for committing violence. The term violence refers to a situation in which the quantitative and qualitative life expectancy of individuals or communities is intentionally reduced. There are different ways to hurt people. The most visible is armed violence. Armed violence is intended to deter, coerce, wound, and even kill people. psychological violence aims at the minds and hearts and tries to incapacitate the sentimental power of people. Psychological violence is often intended to produce mental suffering or spread fear and hate. Structural violence differs from the two preceding types in that it is an indirect type of violence. Here, violence is built into the social structure and is less visible than physical or psychological violence. A fourth instrument, cultural violence, refers to

those aspects of the culture that legitimize the abuse of the instruments of violence cited above. violence is approved of in the name of revolution, in the name of religious fanaticism, and in the name of political ideologies, such as nationalism and communism. To achieve sustainable peace, we must first study how and to what extent each of the four types of violence is used. Peace requires more than the absence of armed violence.

Praveen OMI Based on Peace Building ( A field Guild ) by Luc Reychler and Thania Paffenholz