Ending Holy Wars : Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars 9780702249051, 9780702249563

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Isak Svensson is Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, and associated to the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. His research focuses on conflict resolution; in particular, international mediation processes, as well as religious dimensions of armed conflicts. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, International Negotiation, and European Journal of International Relations. He is author, with Peter Wallensteen, of The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the styles of mediation (2010).

Other titles in UQP’s New Approaches to Peace and Conflict series When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys through the soundscape of healing and reconciliation by John Paul Lederach and Angela Jill Lederach Report Conflict: New directions in peace journalism by Jake Lynch and John Galtung Peace-making and the Imagination: Papua New Guinea perspectives by Andrew Strathern and Pamela J Stewart Peace and Security: Implications for Women by Elisabeth Porter and Anuradha Mundkur

Also by Isak Svensson Isak Svensson and Peter Wallensteen, The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the styles of mediation, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, 2010.

New approaches to peace aNd coNflict

H W Ending Holy Wars: religion and conflict resolution in civil wars

Isak Svensson

First published 2012 by University of Queensland Press PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.com.au [email protected] © Isak Svensson 2012 This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Cover design by i2i design Typeset in Minion 12/16.5pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group National Library of Australia Cataloging-in-Publication Data http://catalogue.nla.gov.au 978 0 7022 4956 3 (pbk) 978 0 7022 4904 4 (epdf) 978 0 7022 4905 1 (epub) 978 0 7022 4906 8 (kindle) University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

To Elias, Johanna, and Kaspian

Note from Series Editor

UQP’s New Approaches to Peace and Conflict series builds on the wisdom of the first wave of peace researchers while addressing important 21st century challenges to peace, human rights and sustainable development. The series publishes new theory, new research and new strategies for­ effective peacebuilding and the transformation of violent conflict. It challenges orthodox perspectives on development, conflict transformation and peacebuilding within an ethical framework of doing no harm while doing good.

Professor Kevin P Clements Chair in Peace and Conflict Studies Director of The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies University of Otago, New Zealand

Contents List of tables and graphs

ix

Preface 

xi

Introduction 

1

Chapter 1

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 

13

Chapter 2

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 

49

Chapter 3 How do religious issue conflicts get resolved

  through peace agreements? 

83

Chapter 4 How do religious issue conflicts get resolved

Chapter 5

  through concessions? 

126

Towards a theory of desacralisation 

160

Chapter 6 Implications 

175

Acknowledgements 

187

Notes 

189

References 

194

Index 

208

List of tables and graphs Table 1

Overview of research on religion and conflict  Table 2 Peace agreements in the religious conflicts  Table 3 Typology of solutions of religious issues   in internal armed conflicts  Table 4 Solutions of religious issues in contemporary   armed conflicts  and identities in armed conflicts,   1975–2010  Graph 2 Religion and issues in armed conflicts,   1975–2010  Graph 3 Importance of religious issues, 1975–2010 

2 69 164 165

Graph 1 Religion

23 36 41

Preface

Pattani, southern Thailand, 13 March 2012 I am visiting a place of an ongoing ‘religious’ conflict. A Swedish colleague and I are in the southern districts of Thailand where a violent insurgency has been raging for a long time between the Thai–Buddhist-dominated government and the Muslim–Malay insurgency movement. Over 5000 people have perished in the fighting between the government troops and the elusive rebel movement that aspires to create an Islamic sultanate. On this particular day we have gone to the historical Krue Se Mosque where the violence escalated in 2004 when over one hundred young Muslim militants took refuge there after launching a violent assault on local police stations. They were all killed during the military’s attempt to break their occupation. The bullet holes are still visible in this beautiful old place of worship. Later in the day we interview one of the main religious figures in the region, an Islamic teacher and imam of one of the main mosques. In his mild voice and sophisticated way, he tells us that the conflict is essentially a political one, and not religious. But he also stresses the fact that the insurgents have tried to utilise religious issues in order to mobilise support for their cause. During the conversation, the imam continuously underlines the need to

xii Ending Holy Wars

settle this conflict through negotiations, agreements and political compromise. Through the prism of this Thai conflict we can glance at some general patterns of the religious dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts. In most, if not all, of the armed conflicts around the world, religion is not the main problem or the original cause of violence. Religion sometimes lends itself as a tool for political, economic or ethnic mobilisation of the faithful but, once religion has been utilised, politicised and manipulated, this instrument can decrease the chances of settling an armed conflict peacefully. Religion can be, and is, used to create severe obstacles that are not always easy to overcome. Once polarised religious identities and structures have been constructed, they are not easily deconstructed. In order to reach peaceful solutions to conflicts that have been religiously framed, negotiations and different conflictresolution processes are essential. But how can peace agreements and peaceful settlements be reached in armed religious conflicts? My research on religion and conflict was initiated in 2004 through the preparations of an international peace conference called, ‘Tools for Peace? The Role of Religion in Conflict’. The organisers of the conference – a multifaith initiative from the main Muslim, Jewish and Christian organisations in Sweden – contacted me in order to get a peace and conflict researcher’s perspective on the conference’s theme: ‘Why religion sometimes contributes to peace and sometimes has more of a war-promoting effect.’ I was fascinated by this important issue and struck by the message in the title – that religion can be used in the context of armed conflict, sometimes for peaceful processes and sometimes (as the question mark signals) in other, less benevolent, ways. At the time, I made an assessment of the research and was surprised by the lack of empirical peace research on this crucial

Preface xiii

topic. Although a lot of research had been done on religion, religious peacebuilding, and various aspects of religious violence, the research was quite separate from analyses of conflicts. My own academic field – empirical peace research – had barely incorpor­ ated the religious dimensions at all or had utilised such broad conceptualisations that it did not reveal much. I then started to examine the empirical patterns of negotiated settlement and in 2007 I published a journal article in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 3. This research showed that certain religious dimensions – explicit religious aspirations concerning the main issues in conflict – are associated with low chances of peaceful solutions to armed conflicts. As a peace researcher, it is not sufficient for me to establish that certain conditions make conflicts more difficult to resolve. I am also interested in how this problem can be solved. In other words, I want to gain a deeper understanding of what it is about religion that hampers conflict resolution – where religion becomes a tool not for peace but for war – and, even more importantly, what can be done about it. I do not take the position that the religious dimensions of armed conflicts represent something entirely rigid, impossible to change, or dooms conflicts to continue endlessly. An important perspective for peace research has always been, and continues to be, a perception of conflicts as resolvable, and from this point of departure it is important to empirically investigate the processes through which conflicting issues can be settled and hostile behaviour managed peacefully. According to my basic perspective, this applies to the religious dimensions of armed conflicts as well. Yet, that does not necessarily imply that the religious dimensions are just as every other type of issue that has become contentious. They are not.

xiv Ending Holy Wars

Religious dimensions pose some particular difficulties for conflict-resolution processes. Hence, although religion tends to make conflicts difficult, they can be perceived as basically resolvable. Religion does not make conflict-resolution processes impossible, but does make it harder to successfully implement such processes. What these problems are, and how these can be overcome, is the subject of this book.

Introduction

How can religious armed conflicts be settled peacefully? The relationship between religion, on the one hand, and armed conflicts, on the other, is much debated. Most previous discussion has, however, been preoccupied with the questions of why religious conflicts start, escalate and become intractably stalemated. By contrast, the focus here is on how they can be de-escalated, resolved and terminated. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to this question of how conflicts can de-escalate once religion has been brought into the dynamics of the armed conflicts. The concern in this book is on the resolution of the religious dimensions of armed conflict and, in particular, how these religious dimensions have been settled in contemporary armed conflicts within states. I am investigating how the religious elements of conflicts can, in some places and times, decline in status and significance. Religion has an increasingly pivotal role in shaping the world of today (Albright 2006; Micklethwait & Wooldridge 2009; Toft et al. 2011; Snyder 2011). It is therefore no longer possible to disregard religion from the analysis of international relations and armed conflicts. For a long time, the secular thesis was the underlying assumption behind political science at large, including the study of international affairs. The common belief was that, following modernisation, religion would move out of the

2 Ending Holy Wars

public sphere. Many scholars have now argued convincingly that this is a faulty assumption (Juergensmeyer 1995; Hurd 2003; Shah & Toft 2006; Micklethwait & Wooldridge 2009). Instead, the world has increasingly witnessed a revival of religion. This, of course, has implications for the analysis and study of armed conflicts. Research on religion and conflicts can be organised along two dichotomous dimensions. The first is whether religion is seen primarily as a problem or a solution to conflicts. Thus, religion can play a positive, constructive, peacebuilding role in armed conflicts, and it can also serve as a negative, destructive, war-promoting force. This duality of conflict – Appleby (2000) calls it ‘the ambivalence of the sacred’ – implies that religion can be the source of both conflict and peace. This concept has been further explored in other important research (Gopin 1997, 2000; Philpott 2007; Basedau & De Juan 2008). The second dimension is whether religion is examined in terms of the onset of conflicts or the termination phase of conflicts. In other words, whether religion can influence either the chance that conflicts will be initiated or resolved once they are started. These two dimensions are graphically seen in Table 1, with the first dimension being the problem–solution axis and the second the onset–termination axis. This helps us to identify four different fields of research. Table 1  Overview of research on religion and conflict Religion as a problem Religion as a solution Conflict onset

Field of research 1

Field of research 3

Conflict termination

Field of research 4

Field of research 2

Note: The shaded area is the focus of this book.

Introduction 3

The first field of research focuses its study primarily on religion as a problem in relation to the onset of armed conflicts. Hence, in this first category of research there is a significant body of research on the causes of religious-based conflicts. Thus, the works on religious militancy, extremism and fundamentalism, religious nationalism, religious fractionalisation or polarisations, and on religious discrimination tend to primarily try to explain why religious conflict starts and occurs (Juergensmeyer 1993, 2000; Marty & Appleby 1995; Little 1996; Appleby 2000; Almond et al. 2003; Fox 2004; Toft 2006, 2007; Horowitz 2009; Nordås 2010). A large part of this research has focused on the negative function that religion can have in initiating armed conflicts. The second field of research focuses on religion as a solution and its potential to contribute to the peaceful termination of armed conflicts. This category of research concentrates primarily on religion as a peacebuilding force and on the termination (resolution) of armed conflict. This field has generated significant insights on how religious organisations, cultures and leaders can make pivotal contributions to the process from war towards peace (Johnston & Sampson 1995; Appleby 2001, 2003; Gopin 2002; Sampson 2002; Smock 2006; Sisk 2011). In fact, in many conflict situations courageous individuals motivated by religious faiths have made important contributions to dialogue, peacemaking and reconciliation. This strand of research is very much focused on conflict resolution and how religion can be activated as a positive resource for peacemaking. The third category of research concentrates on how religion (religious actors and norms) can prevent conflicts from starting and escalating (Philpott 2007: Toft et al. 2011). Structural and normative processes – through the building of tolerance and human rights, democratisation processes, peaceful cultures,

4 Ending Holy Wars

respect for peaceful co-existence – are important aspects of how religion contributes positively to long-term peacebuilding and the prevention of armed conflicts. An important area of this research is also about how religious actors and ideas can contri­ bute to non-violent political change through channels other than armed conflicts, such as popular-based non-violent uprisings against oppressive regimes (Appleby 2000; Abu-Nimer 2003). The fourth category of research – religion as a problem in the termination phase of conflict – has, though, not been captured in previous research. This is what concerns us here. I am interested in the negative influence religion can have in the context of armed conflicts, with an emphasis on how these conflicts end rather than start. Little research has been done on ways of regulating armed conflicts with religious dimensions and, in particular, on the question of how to find common ground among religious divisions in conflicts once they have become violent. Indeed, Hasenclever and Rittberger (2000) identified correctly that there ‘is little systematic research on the impact of religious faith on the course of conflicts. Nor is there much systematic research on adequate strategies for dealing peacefully with conflicts which include a religious dimension’ (p. 650). This is a troublesome lacuna and it is therefore pivotal to find out if and, in that case, how religious dimensions of internal disputes within states can be mitigated and resolved. So the focus is on conflict resolution, and not on the role religion can play in contributing to conflict resolution. It is rather about how conflict-resolution processes can be designed in order to handle religious obstacles to conflicts. I make two claims in presenting this research. First, religious conflicts are more difficult to settle peacefully than other types of conflicts. This is not a particularly controversial claim. The idea that religion makes armed conflicts more difficult to resolve

Introduction 5

represents the general opinion among scholars as well as practitioners of conflict resolution; for example, Harpviken and Røislien (2008) note that ‘even if religion plays a limited role in initiating a conflict, it can nevertheless play an important role in perpetuating such a conflict once the latter is under way’ (p. 359). Although this may be seen, on the surface, as common sense, this work is the first to systematically and empirically test the negative aspects of religion on conflict resolution. In the analysis, we will get a better grip on what, more precisely, it is that make religious conflicts difficult to resolve. It is not the difference in religious identities but rather the fact that at least one side has made explicit religious demands and this makes conflicts less likely to be settled through peace agreements. If the religious issue is a major one for the parties, chances for successful negotiated settlement are slim. Conflicts where the religious dimension is of central concern are even less likely to experience negotiated settlement than those conflicts where the religious concerns are more marginal. This immediately raises a question. Given that there are some religious aspects of armed conflicts that could obstruct the resol­ ution process, how should these be handled? My second claim may be seen, at first glance, as contradicting the first one. I argue that religious conflicts can be resolved peacefully. This can, I contend, be brought about either through a settlement where parties find institutional arrangements that can satisfy religious aspir­ations, or through shifts in the positions of the parties where religious aspirations are downgraded as goals in the conflict. This process, which takes place through joint settlements or unilateral concessions, I call the ‘desacralisation of armed conflicts’. By this I mean a political or societal process of removing the religious status or significance from an armed conflict. It is about alleviating the saliency of religious dimensions in conflicts where the incompatible

6 Ending Holy Wars

positions at the origins of the conflicts involve religious dimensions. Thus, religious aspirations are not fixed and unchangeable. Desacralisation shows how the religious dimensions of armed conflicts can become solvable through a process in which the religious dimensions are either decreased in importance, replaced by other more urgent concerns, re-framed in terms of their content (rather than intensity), or channeled through other societal processes rather than through the battlefields. Thus, religious claims are dynamic and religious components can also be one of several political claims – and interact and change in relation to those other claims. Religion can be seen as a system of thought and practice aimed at giving basic meaning to existence, invoking conditions beyond strictly human affairs. Juergensmeyer (2008) suggests that religion can be seen as ‘the language of ultimate order’ (p. 213). Appleby (2000) conceptualises religion as a fourfold phenomenon in terms of creeds, rituals, norms and an organisational community (p. 8). Toft, Philpott & Shah (2011), building on the conceptual framework of Alston (1972), understand religion in terms of involving ‘a combination of beliefs, behavior, and belonging in a community’ (p. 21).1 In line with these previous conceptualisations, religion is studied in its functional forms, and it will be examined both in terms of traditional religious identities (the cultural aspect) and explicit religious-based group aspirations (the convictional aspect). Moreover, the study of religion can take religious identities, traditions and aspirations as given (primordialism), as created by elites in order to advance their goals (instrumentalism), or as socially constructed (constructivism) (Hasenclever & Rittberger 2000). My intellectual position can be placed somewhere between an instrumentalist and a constructivist approach to the study of religion and violence. I build

Introduction 7

my argument on the assumption that religious conflicts are basically created socially; they are elite-driven processes. My main concern, though, is not on how they are constructed but rather on how they are deconstructed. Consequently, there are both elite-driven and the more popular-based processes to desacralise armed conflicts or, in other words, to eject the religious element from religious armed conflicts. At the most basic level every conflict is religious in some sense of the word. There are religious dimensions to all armed conflicts. That is not, however, a fruitful way of conceptualising the role of religion in armed conflicts because it does not distinguish between the various forms in which religion manifests itself in armed conflicts. Utilising conceptual distinctions from previous research, there are three basic religious aspects of armed conflicts that can be explored. From Toft (2006) and others, there is the distinction between intrareligious and interreligious armed conflicts. The identity dimension of religion conceptualises situations where the conflicting parties are divided following religious lines so that one side belongs predominately, and traditionally, to one faith tradition, and the other side to another tradition. These are the types of conflicts where, for instance, parties belonging to the Christian faith stand against Muslims, and Muslims against Buddhists (interreligious conflicts), or Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims, and Catholics against Lutherans (intrareligious conflicts). From my earlier work (Svensson 2007), I take the notion of a religious dimension in the incompatibility. Incompatibility is about aspiring to the same set of limited resources, that is, explicitly made incompatible positions, such as in regard to the exclusive control over government, or the control of particular territory. In other words, it has to do with the parties’ open political aspirations as stated publicly at the onset of the conflict.

8 Ending Holy Wars

From Nordås (2010) I take the distinction between issues in the incompatibility that are major and those that are minor ones. This distinction is particularly useful because it tells us something about how important the religious issue dimension in the incompatibility can be. Three clarifications are needed here in order to be transparent about what this book is, and what it is not about. First, this is not a book about Islam. After 9/11 and the War on Terror that followed, there has been a lot of research on conflicts and violence involving the Islamic faith tradition (Fox 2001; Lewis 2002; Berman 2003; Kepel 2004; de Soysa & Nordås 2007; Toft 2007). In fact, although Islam is represented in a majority of the cases of armed conflicts explored, the cases include conflicts from all the world’s larger religious traditions – Christianity and Judaism as well as Hinduism and Buddhism – and the framework here suggests a broader focus than merely on Islam. I depart from the basic assumption that no religious tradition is either inherently violent or entirely peaceful. All religious traditions can contribute to nationalism, hatred, ethnic cleavages, racism, discrimination, and intolerance. At the same time, every religion has its own peaceful potential that can be tapped in order to contribute to compassion, nonviolence, understanding, democracy, and peace. Second, it should also be emphasised, this book does not aspire to compare different religious traditions. Instead, the focus is, as stated above, on the function of religions in the identities, incompatible claims of the parties, and the centrality of those claims, regardless of the specific religious tradition to which they belong. Third, this study builds on the assumption that it is a useful endeavour to compare conflicts across time and space and, in fact, that this is one of the main contributions research can offer to a better understanding of conflict processes. I recognise that every conflict is,

Introduction 9

in some respect, unique. Yet, there are also commonalities and general tendencies that cut across the individual characteristics of conflicts. Comparative analysis is needed in order to determine what is unique and what is of a more general nature. Moreover, insights generated by comparative analysis always need to be carefully contextualised before they are implemented in policy. The analysis in this book utilises both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Through analysis of the global trends of armed conflicts, as well as through case studies, we explore how religious dimensions affect the possibilities for conflict resolution in civil war. It draws upon empirical work utilising the world-leading data source on organised violence, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The time period examined is 1975–2010.2 It also complements this data with several case studies of peace agreements from around the world: Sudan, Somalia, Nepal, Tajikistan, the Philippines and Indonesia. We will also examine (in somewhat less detail and depth) a set of examples of desacralisation processes that did not occur in the context of fully fledged peace agreements but rather through unilateral concessions, paying particular attention to the cases of Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, and Kashmir, and showing the conditions under which one side that originally took up arms with explicit religious aspirations is ready to change its religious-based goals or its means of achieving them. A note regarding the terminology used in this book is important. I use the term ‘religious conflict’ generically, but it should be understood in terms of the three ways in which religion primarily manifests itself in armed conflicts: identities, incompatibilities, and centrality. This should be analytically separated from religious causes of conflicts. There can be religious causes (for instance, ideologies, mobilisations, etc.) behind strictly secular

10 Ending Holy Wars

conflicts. Likewise, there can be material causes (of economical, political or personal nature) behind religious conflicts. Even conflicts with a religious dimension in the incompatibility might be caused by, for example, socio-economic factors. As has been pointed out correctly by Gopin (2000), ‘even if the roots of the conflict are economic disenfranchisement, the revolt against the status quo may in fact express itself in religious terms’ (p. 14). Moreover, ‘armed conflict’ has a precise meaning as well. Following the UCDP, it is defined as ‘a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year’ (UCDP 2012a). Another term for this definition is ‘state-based conflicts’, and hence a limitation of this research is that those conflicts where a government is not one of the fighting sides falls outside our scope. We examine how to resolve the religious dimensions of armed conflicts and this book is organised in the following manner. In Chapter 1, the religious dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts are looked at in terms of identity, incompatibility and the centrality of religious demands. Building on the UCDP, the broader picture of religious dimensions in all contemporary armed conflicts around the world is mapped. In Chapter 2, the relationships between these religious dimensions (identity, incompatibility, and centrality) on the one hand, and the likelihood of negotiated settlement on the other, are examined. The chapter also illustrates how religious dimensions impede the conflict-resolution process through the study of the most recent peace process in Sri Lanka. Attention is then turned to the question of how these obstacles can be mitigated, managed, and overcome. Various forms of formal conflict-resolution processes that lead

Introduction 11

to negotiated settlements are examined in Chapter 3 and other forms of unilateral attempts to desacralise religious conflicts are discussed in Chapter 4. There have been several important processes and mechanisms for resolving religious dimensions of armed conflicts. These two chapters explore the different empirical models of conflict resolution that have been applied in contemporary armed conflicts with religious dimensions or, in other words, how armed conflicts have been desacralised. In Chapter 5, these empirical insights are drawn and the process through which contentious religious issues become less important is theorised. These findings pave the way for a discussion on how conflict theory can better incorporate religious dimensions, as well as how policy can be designed to manage religious dimensions in armed conflicts in Chapter 6. Before we end this introduction, we might take a step back and ask ourselves why a study of the desacralisation of armed conflicts is an important endeavour? This book examines how religious dimensions influence the likelihood of agreements. In particular, it is a study on the conditions under which religion decreases the chances for peaceful solutions of armed conflicts – and how this can be mitigated. Previous research on religion and conflict, although it has generated many important insights, has paid too little attention to how peace agreements can be formed in these contexts. Examining the possibilities for resolution of armed conflicts with religious dimensions is pivotal partly because, as this study will show, the conflicts with religious issues are becoming relatively more common than those without. These types of conflicts pose a particular type of security problem for the international community. Moreover, from a peace-research perspective, it is crucial that theory and research is better equipped to analyse the religious dimensions – the empirical examination

12 Ending Holy Wars

of the global patterns and trends in this book, the theoretical framework with its conceptual distinctions and the empirical case illustrations can all serve to enhance the quality of the research on armed conflicts. Peace research needs better analytical tools to be able to analyse the religious dimensions of armed conflicts. This research also serves an important function for a wider policy debate. This book examines the mechanisms through which parties in conflicts and third parties outside and inside the conflict have been able to overcome religious obstacles to negotiated settlements. Hence, a study on how the religious dimensions of armed conflicts influence the resolution of these conflicts is clearly needed. Conflicts with religious components can pose a particular challenge for peace-making processes. Unless we understand the ways in which religion can be transformed in armed conflicts, we will not be able to design processes to facilitate such transformations. The hope is that this study will generate some insights that can make our theories more sophisticated, our analysis more empirically grounded, and our policies more effective. In some small way, this book can thereby contribute to a more untroubled world in which even the ‘holy’ wars can be ended peacefully.

Ch a p t e r 1

Where and when do religious conflicts occur?

The world today is experiencing a plethora of armed conflicts in which different religious dimensions manifest themselves. This chapter will sketch the empirical landscape of religion and armed conflicts from a global perspective. It will examine the patterns of religious, intrastate, armed conflicts and show how these patterns shifted over time, during the period from 1975 up to 2010. To start, we need to consider some cases of armed conflicts that have reached the headlines over the last few years. In Syria, what initially started as an unarmed uprising in April 2011 was met by brutal countermeasures from the Bashar al-Assad regime. The conflict gradually deteriorated into a civil war between the opposition, composed partly of defectors from the Syrian army, against loyal government forces. The opposition went to great lengths to try to create a united front, with Sunni Muslim, Alawi, Kurdish and Christian minorities united against the regime. This trans-sectarian appeal seemed to be, at least

14 Ending Holy Wars

initially, successful; however, the conflict nevertheless followed a distinct, although not total, cleavage according to religious lines. The government’s main support groups – including the major parts of the leadership of the army – consists of the Alawites, a Shia Islamic-faith tradition, whereas the opposition movement is dominated mainly by Sunni Muslims, which makes up about three-quarters of the Syrian population. Christians, another religious minority in Syria, have also tended to come out in support of the Assad regime, primarily because of fear of the prospects of living as a minority in a post-Assad Syria dominated by Sunni Muslims. Seeing the marginalisation of the Christian minorities in Iraq and Egypt, where the representatives of the Sunni Muslim population have risen to power through their majority status, has increased the fears of the Syrian Christians. The Sunni Muslims have a trajectory of opposition against the Ba’ath regime in Syria, which has been in government since 1963, and has portrayed itself as the power that can mitigate sectarian tensions in Syria. The historical pattern is important here. In 1979, there was an uprising, based mostly in Hama, initiated by the Sunni Muslimdominated group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was crushed in the Hama massacre in 1982 by the regime of Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad. Syria is an example of an intrastate, armed conflict where the parties’ identities predominately break down along different religious identity lines. Afghanistan is perhaps one of the most well-known examples of an armed conflict with religious dimensions. The hosting of the al-Qaeda by the Taliban regime and the American-led invasion of the country in 2001 put Afghanistan on the radar screen of the international community. The strict religious code enforced by the Taliban regime, seen in the praxis of stoning for criminals, exclusion of girls and women from education, and the destruction

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 15

of the ancient Buddha statue in Bamyan in 2001 are visible signs of religious militancy in that country. In Afghanistan, the core of the conflict is basically a power struggle between different ethnic groups, but the conflicting positions of the parties also centre on a religious–political question: What should be the nature of the Afghanistan state? The Taliban movement – or rather movements in plural, since there are several different groups in the insurgency – was originally aspiring to create a strict implementation of their particular version of Islam. During their reign of power between 1996 and 2001, they did bring law and order to a chaotic society, but they also banned alcohol, excluded women from education, and prosecuted religious minorities. The government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul, which was brought to power through the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, seeks to maintain the status quo, which is an Islamic state in character but without the stricter application of Sharia law. Religion is only one of the issues in this conflict. Nevertheless, the conflict has a religious dimension to the basic incompatible positions of the parties. The conflicting parties have different ethnic constituencies and recruit from different ethnic segments of the Afghanistan population, but basically share the religious faith tradition of Islam. The conflict in Afghanistan represents a case where the basic issue at stake has a religious dimension in terms of the conflicting aspirations of the parties. In Nigeria, an Islamic sect called Boko Haram, based in the north of the country, have created havoc by indiscriminate killings of civilians, and the targeting of symbolic locations, such as the United Nations office in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, in 2011. Demanding strict application of Sharia laws throughout Nigeria, and with an animosity towards Western education, culture and lifestyle, the group has directed its energy against the government of Goodluck

16 Ending Holy Wars

Jonathan and those they perceive as collaborators. The name Boko Haram can translate as ‘Western education is forbidden’; however, the aspirations of the party are wider than merely opposition to Western education and centre more around the demands for an Islamic state. The history of resistance among local Muslims to Western education has deep historical roots and can be traced back to the colonisation of Nigeria by Britain. The conflict grows from a history of religious militancy, such as the previous armed uprising in the north, Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah (‘Followers of the Prophet’) in 2003–04, aspiring to create an Islamic state in the northern part of the country. The charismatic Muslim cleric Mohammed Yusuf created Boko Haram in 2002 and at that time the organisation was not armed. The original organisation was similar to a religious complex, including a mosque and an Islamic school. The conflict became armed in 2009 and was violently suppressed by the govern­ment. Yusuf was killed during the violence and most observers assumed that the armed conflict was terminated. However, it resurfaced in 2011. The conflict has also escalated from a localised one to a wider international conflict. Suggestions of connections to international jihadist networks, such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mauritania and Algeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia, are indications of this, as are actions such as the attack against the United Nations in Nigeria. The case of Boko Haram in Nigeria illustrates an intrastate, armed conflict where the religious issue is central to the concern of one side in the conflict.

Different types of religious conflicts Religious conflicts differ markedly. The three illustrative examples above can help to shed light on what the three basic types of religious dimensions of armed conflicts are: whether the parties’ religious identities are separate (Syria), whether there is a

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 17

contested religious issue in the incompatibility of the conflict (Afghanistan), and the degree to which the religious issues are of central concern for at least one of the conflicting parties (Boko Haram in Nigeria). First I will discuss these three dimensions separately, and then examine how they relate to each other. We will get a bird’s-eye perspective on the main empirical patterns, which will set the stage for the analysis of the particular cases to follow. One of the basic ways in which religion shows up in a conflict dynamic is through defining the parties. This does not mean that all those from one faith tradition belong to one side and all those in another to the other side. But it does mean that there is a clear difference in the constituency of the two sides in conflict. A crucial distinction is that religion in the context of armed conflicts can take the forms of what can be called convictional identity or cultural identity. The former describes active religious commitments whereas the later denotes the cultural sphere of religious tradition in a particular country or region. This is the same distinction as Sells (2003) describes in the difference between ‘religion identity’ (which is the cultural dimension) and ‘religious identity’ (which is the convictional dimension) (p. 310). Similarly, Juergensmeyer (1996) distinguishes between ethnic and ideological religious nationalism. What this essentially points to is the difference between active religious ideas and traditional spheres of religious groups. We will come back to the ideological and convictional dimension of religion below, but will first clarify the cultural or identity dimension. In order to capture this identity aspect, this study examines whether the primary parties belong to different religious traditions rather than sharing one religious tradition. It is, in general, the religious tradition of the majority of the people in a

18 Ending Holy Wars

state that can be used to determine the religious identity of the govern­ment side, and likewise the majority of the group that a non-state actor sets out to represent, which is used to determine that side’s religious identity. Whereas religious traditions can be separated in a myriad of ways, here we simply refer to the major world religions (that is, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism) and their major sub-groups (Sunni and Shia within Islam; and Protestant, Roman Catholic or Orthodox within Christianity). The most predominant religion in a country can be a good indicator for defining the cultural religiosity of a government. As an example of this, in India, the main fault line of the Punjab conflict was between a Hindu government against rebel groups aspiring to represent the interests of the minority of Sikhs. India is a constitutionally secular country, but we are not focusing on the convictional religious identity but rather the cultural aspect of religion. In that sense, we can see the identification of the conflict parties in Punjab following a basic delimitation between Sikhs and Hindus. Likewise, in Myanmar, the identity of the parties also broke down along religious and ethnic lines: the rebel group, Karen National Union (KNU), draws from a constituency, the Karen ethnic group which is predominately Christians, and have taken up arms against a government of predominately Buddhist Myanmar. Yet, it is not always feasible to utilise the raster of the majority in order to understand the identity divisions, because of the simple fact that the regime is drawn from a constituency that belongs to a religious minority in the country as a whole. Iraq is an example of this. The rebel group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), set out to represent a religious majority (Muslim Shiites). SCIRI had been fighting against the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad, a regime spearheaded by the Ba’ath

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 19

Party, which was dominated by a religious minority (Sunni Islam). There was clearly a religious identity cleavage in this conflict, but with a religious minority in the government position. Another way in which religious aspects come forward in a conflict is in the issue dimension. This is the convictional or ideol­ ogical aspect of religion in the context of armed conflicts. There can be a religious incompatibility in the conflict. By ‘religious incompatibility’, I am referring to conflicts where at least one side has made explicit claims relating to the religious sphere. Parties (both or just one) in an armed conflict have to make a statement at the onset of the conflict that is related to the religious sphere in order for it to be classified as a religious incompatibility conflict. Aspirations can be related to change over the government of a country – the ambition to replace secular governments with religiously defined governments, or challenging an underlying ideology of states and seeking to replace a secular constitution with a religiously based constitution. Aspirations can also be related to a specific territory, not the whole state, and aspirations to get a particular religiously based governance system in that territory.3 In relation to the religious sphere, this means that the non-state entity demands a replacement of a government, monarchy or regime with an alternative based on a religious doctrine. Since conflicts are dyadic – there are by definition always two sides to a conflict – the religiously defined aspirations may also arise from the government side seeking to maintain a religious status quo. In those circumstances it may be the secular rebels who are challenging a religiously defined state. Departing from, and utilising the UCDP, this study has collected and analysed novel data on whether or not there is an explicit demand in the stated position of the parties as well as the religious identities of those actors who do state such positions. An

20 Ending Holy Wars

‘incompatibility’ is the conflict issue that the belligerents themselves have expressed, indicating the aspirations and motivation of why they fight. Hence, incompatibilities are grounded in the manifested viewpoint of the two sides. A religious dimension in the incompatibility does not necessarily imply that religious considerations are the overriding concerns of the parties. In most conflicts, the incompatibility consists of several, sometimes quite complex, sets of issues. In order to determine whether a conflict should be classified as having a religious dimension in the incompatibility we need to go back to the stated positions of the primary parties in conflict. There has to be a reference to a religious question in the stated goal of the opposition, for example, a particular role of religion (or one particular religion) in the state, whether the conflict is framed in religious terms, demands for religious laws, or alternative demands in the other direction such as for change towards a secular state. Incompatibility, it should be noted, is about what the parties disagree about. The status of Islam in Afghanistan is an example mentioned above. Another example is Sudan, where the rebels in the south fought for, among other goals, a secular system against a government advocating the explicit Islamic character of the Sudanese state. We are not including any type of religious dimension, but only the explicit religious reference in terms of stated original aspirations. Consequently, the conflict over Kosovo, for example, is not coded as a conflict with a religious incompatibility – none of the sides made explicit religious demands – although the area is a religious heartland for the Serbian Orthodox tradition and among the support groups for the Serbian regime during this conflict the Serbian Orthodox Church played a pivotal role. A religious dimension does not require that all actors subsume to these positions. Sometimes, the armed opposition consists of

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 21

coalitions, in which some groups have raised religious demands whereas others have not. It is, in this study, sufficient to be measured as a religious dimension of an incompatibility when at least one of the actors in a coalition raises religious demands. The example of Tajikistan is illustrative here. The rebel organisation, Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), was fighting against the government but was a part of a coalition of different opposition movements, the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). The IRP was the only member organisation of the UTO that explicitly aspired to create a ‘Tajikistan united by Islamic principles’ (Olimova & Olimov 2001, p. 27). Nevertheless, even if not all opposition groups in a coalition have expressed religious aspirations, it implies that there is a religious dimension in the basic incompatibility of the conflict. In some of the conflicts where there is a religious dimension in the incompatibility, these religious demands are central to at least one of the sides. The Boko Haram was originally a religious group that only eventually took up arms. Their religious aspirations stand at the core of the conflict, although their more immediate demands are also related to the release of their comrades from prison. An armed conflict can be considered as a ‘core’ religious conflict if the parties’ demand, in relation to religion, is one of their main demands, and if most of the non-state actors on the rebel side are behind such demands. By contrast, a religious conflict will be seen as a ‘peripheral’ religious conflict if the parties have made explicit religious demands but these are generally not their main demands, or alternatively only one group or faction within an armed opposition movement holds religious aspirations as their main demands. A conflict can be seen as having a peripheral religious issue if the parties in conflicts do not put weight to it, or alternatively,

22 Ending Holy Wars

if the parties in conflict are alliances where only one group or a few groups have major religious concerns. An example of a conflict in which the religious issue can be considered peripheral, because only some of the actors consider it central, is the conflict in Kashmir. An insurgency in 1989 against Indian rule, where unarmed protests were met with heavy Indian repression, led to a civil war. A plethora of opposition groups fought against the Indian regime and for self-determination or unification with Pakistan. Whereas some of the groups, notably Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (meaning ‘party of holy warriors’), had a clearly expressed Islamic agenda, most of the rebel groups did not express explicitly religious demands. This conflict can therefore be classified as having a religious dimension in the incompatibility, but a minor one.

Religious identity conflicts We now have the conceptual tools for analysing religious dimensions of armed conflicts around the world. In this section, we will map out the landscape of religious dimensions in armed conflicts. This section deals with the identity aspect of religious dimensions. To what extent is religion a delimiter in armed intrastate conflicts, and how does it represent a way through which identities of belligerents can be categorised? Religion can play a role as an identity marker, that is, in terms of the parties in conflict having different religious identities. Overall, conflicts with parties from the same religious tradition clearly outnumber conflicts that cut across religious lines. During the years 1975–2010, 70 per cent of the ongoing, armed conflicts have been fought with parties from the same religious tradition, and only 30 per cent of the armed conflicts have crossed religious identities.4 Religious identity conflicts are, taken together, therefore in the minority.

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 23

Are conflicts between different religions becoming more likely or less likely, or is there no change over time? Graph 1 plots the empirical trend in terms of the frequency of internal armed conflict, disaggregated into the two mutually exclusive categories: parties that either predominately come from the same religious tradition (and hence, this is not a case of where the religious identity dimension plays a role) or belong to different religious traditions (and religion is an identity marker). As the darker area in Graph 1 shows, there is one small increase during the period, followed by a period of decrease of religious conflicts. The period of increase is towards the end of the Cold War. This increase may be seen as in line with the prediction by Samuel Graph 1  Religion and identities in armed conflicts, 1975–2010 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009

Different religions

Same religion

Note: This is a ‘stacked’ graph, where the different categories are placed on top of each other in order to illustrate proportion and proportional changes.

24 Ending Holy Wars

Huntington at the end of the Cold War in his theory of what he calls ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. The wars in Bosnia, starting in 1992, were of this nature, posing parties from different religious traditions against each other: Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks, and Orthodox Serbians involved in a set of different conflicts. In Azerbaijan, the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh took up arms in 1991 and fought to gain independence from Azerbaijan and to merge with Armenia. The armed conflict was between the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, from a predominately Armenian Orthodox region, versus the government of Azerbaijan, in a predominately Muslim country, and therefore also representing a kind of ‘civilizational’ conflict, an armed dispute across religious identity lines. However, the initial increase at the beginning of the 1990s was not a large one and turned to a decrease after the mid 1990s. For instance, in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict a ceasefire agreement was reached in 1994, but the parties were not able to reach a comprehensive peace settlement and the conflict has remained ‘frozen’ in a state of negative peace (absence of war).5 The armed conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina was brought to an end with a peace agreement in Dayton in 1995. The overall shape of the trend of religious identity conflicts has been one of remarkable consistency over time. There have been no major changes in the frequency of religious identity conflicts. Conflicts across religious lines are not becoming more common. The main shape of the relationship is that of a straight line. This confirms the notion that the rise in ethno-religious conflicts has more to do with increased awareness of their presence, rather than any substantial changes in their actual occurrence. Little (2011) suggests that ethno-religious conflicts ‘were there all along but were either unnoticed or were not seen for what they were until the 1990s’ (p. 9). The Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM)

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 25

is a case in point. The conflict can be interpreted in two ways, depending on the frame of interpretation. It could be seen as part of the Cold War dynamic, with a communist armed uprising against a Western-supported government (the rebel group was defeated with the help of UK military support). Or alternatively, it could be seen as a civilizational conflict, posing a predominately Buddhist-dominated uprising against a Muslim-dominated government. The point is simply that conflicts can be interpreted in different ways, and looking at the identity of the conflict parties, it seems to be a case of a continuum rather than dramatic change. The fact that the frequency of interreligious conflicts is not decreasing over time is noteworthy. The general trend of internal armed conflicts, which is visible in Graph 1 when we look at the whole graph, is that of an increase up to the beginning of the 1990s, a decrease in the mid 1990s, and a slight flattening out of that decrease after that (Themnér & Wallensteen 2011). Seen from a longer perspective, there is a clear downward trend of intensity and frequency of armed conflicts (Mueller 2004; Gleditsch 2008; Goldstein 2011; Pinker 2011). Yet religious identity conflicts are not following this general decrease but are of equal frequency over the studied time period. This may be because they are more diffi­ cult to resolve (something we will examine in the next chapter) or because new interreligious conflicts get initiated. This becomes clear in Graph 1 when we examine the conflicts that occur between parties from the same religious–cultural tradition, as shown by the lighter grey area in Graph 1. The armed conflicts with parties from the same religious tradition (intrareligious) have been on a decrease, whereas interreligious conflicts have not. What sorts of armed conflicts between parties from different religious identities can we detect? These conflicts can be sorted into four different ‘empirical’ categories, depending on the role

26 Ending Holy Wars

of the religious identities. I deliberately call them empirical categ­ ories because I do not attach any theoretical and explanatory power to these categorisations. Here we will discuss cases of religious dissimilarity conflicts that do not concern religious issues (conflicts that also concern religious issues will be discussed in the next section). One empirical category is the case of conflicts between Muslim-dominated governments and rebel groups that set out to represent the interests of non-Muslim minorities. In the armed conflict during 1992–95 in Bosnia, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from a Serbian-Orthodox tradition, fought against the Muslim-dominated government of BosniaHerzegovina. Other armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia can also be sorted into this empirical category. The ‘Croatian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, and the Croatian irregular forces set out to represent the Catholic minority during the years 1993–94 and fought against the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a Muslimdominated government. On another front, the Serbian irregular forces (Serbian-Orthodox Christians) fought against the govern­ ment of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95). In Cote d’Ivoire (2002–04), rebel groups from the Muslim-dominated north of the country (first MPCI, MPIGO and MJP, and then joined in an alliance under the name of FN) fought against the government in the south, which had a Christian-dominated constituency (Nordås 2010). The violence returned in 2010 in connection with a contested election. As mentioned, in Malaysia a communist uprising against the state was part of the Cold War confrontations but also carried some religious identity differences. The Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM) took up arms in 1948, first against the British colonial power and then, in 1957, against

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 27

the independent Malaysia. The conflict occurred between a Chinese–Buddhist-dominated rebel group that was fighting against a predominately Malay–Muslim government. None of the conflict dyads raised any religious demands, but religion functioned as a way of categorising conflicting identities. In all of these cases, religion played a role in defining the conflicting identities, but was not part of the issue of contention. The issue – as defined by the parties’ aspirations – was not religious. A second empirical category is that of rebel groups aspiring to represent Muslim minorities against governments of other faith traditions. In Myanmar, the government of a predominately Buddhist country has been in conflict ever since independence from the British against the ethnic armies in the fringes of the country, some of which have been ethnic rebel groups from Muslimdominated territories, such as Arakan. Likewise, in Ethiopia there have been several armed conflicts pitting the government of a country with its religious–cultural majority of ChristianOrthodox and, in particular, the politically influential Tigray ethnic group against rebel groups that aspire to a greater degree of self-determination for their Muslim-dominated regions, primarily in the Ogaden and Afar regions. Religion was seen as something that distinguished the territories. For instance, in 1996 an official spokesperson for the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) stated that the Ogaden region had ‘neither the same culture, nor the same history, nor even the same religion as Ethiopia’.6 In Macedonia in 2001 there was a shorter internal armed conflict posing the Christian-Orthodox government against the Albanian minority in which the Muslim tradition dominated.7 The Kosovo conflict from 1999 to 2000 had a government with a constituency that was predominately (Serbian) Orthodox on one side and a non-state actor with state aspirations that were predominately

28 Ending Holy Wars

culturally Muslim on the other. In Trinidad and Tobago, a traditionally Roman Catholic country, a rebel group called Jamaat al-Muslimeen, an Islamic group which drew its support from Muslims of African descent in the country, were involved in an abortive coup d’état in July 1990.8 In the Israel–Palestine conflict, the Jewish Israel confronted the Palestinian groups of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah (although Christians played an important role in the leadership, especially in the beginning, the constituency of these organisations was predominately Muslims). Fatah and the PLO were predominately secular rebel organisations and, although there has been a trend of more explicit religious rhetoric over time, these organisations did not express religious aspirations at the beginning of the conflict. Also, the government side in this conflict (Israel) held a secular position at the onset of the conflict and it was not until the 1976 war that the religious character of Israeli demands and rhetoric as well as the increasing influence of religious Jewish groups was enhanced (Gopin 2002). A third empirical category is that of rebel groups aspiring to represent Christian minorities in countries dominated by other faith traditions. In India (a constitutionally secular, but culturally Hindu country), rebel groups in the regions of Nagaland and Tripura, regions with a large section of Christians, aspire to greater autonomy and self-determination. In East Timor, during 1989–98, the rebel group Fretilin (Christian) fought against the Indonesian occupation, the Muslim-majority country of Indonesia, and were able, with international backing, to establish an independent state (Timor-Leste). Similarly, but less successful in their efforts, the people of West Papua, through the rebel group of OPM (Christian) have utilised both armed and unarmed campaigns against Indonesian (Muslim) rule. In Lebanon, the

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 29

Aoun-led Lebanese Army (Maronite Christians) was involved in a complicated web of sectarian conflicts. In the culturally Buddhist Myanmar, the government has also been fighting against ethnic minorities belonging predominately to the Christian tradition, such as in Karen where the rebel group KNU has been involved in a protracted campaign for independence (1949– ). Lastly, there is the category of inter-sectarian conflicts; that is, conflicts that occur between groups belonging to the same world religion, but different branches of it. The tension between Shias and Sunnis has been discussed heavily over the last few years; for example, following the largely unarmed Shiadominated uprising in Bahrain in 2011 that was heavily repressed by the Sunni-dominated government with the assistance of Saudi Arabia. Another such case is in Iran (a predominately Shia country), in its conflict with rebel groups from its Kurdish minority (predominately Sunni Muslims). There have also been sectarian conflicts within the Christian tradition. The Northern Ireland conflict, between two actors where the population predominately belonged to the Catholic Christianity and Protestant Christianity, is classi­fied as only a religious-identity conflict as there was no explicit reference to religion at the start of the conflict.9 Another example is the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that posed a set of religious traditions within the Christian tradition against each other: Croatia Catholics fought Serbian Orthodox in the war for independence of Croatia 1991–92 and in the Bosnian war of 1993–95; the Republic of Slovenia, a predominately Catholic country, fought and gained independence from the government of Yugoslavia in 1991; and the traditionally Catholic Republic of Croatia fought against Serbians from the Orthodox tradition over the territory of the Serbian enclave of Krajina.10

30 Ending Holy Wars

The conflicts identified here share two features that are important for the analysis. The conflicting identities can be broken down along religious lines, as one marker that distinguishes the parties from each other. They are also similar in what they do not have: in none of these cases have any of the sides made explicit religious-related aspirations at the onset of the conflict. The religious identities in the Balkans, Northern Ireland, several of the East Asian conflicts, and in some of the conflict dyads in the Middle East (but not in others) have identity differences, but are not involved in a conflict over a conflicting religious issue.

Religious issue conflicts We now turn to the other dimension, the issue at stake. There is a religious dimension in the incompatibility, as defined here, if one side has made an explicit reference to religion when expressing the incompatible claims at the onset of the conflict. Conflicts that have a religious dimension in the incompatibility may or may not have religious identity differences. What are the contours of the global terrain of armed conflicts over religious issues? Religious incompatibility conflicts represented only a minority of all armed conflicts. During the time period 1975–2010, there were 78 armed conflict dyads with an explicit religious dimension in the incompatibility.11 During this time period, the conflicts over religious issues represents only 28 per cent of all ongoing armed conflicts.12 This empirical fact is an important starting point for any analysis on religion and conflict, and puts the question of religion and conflict in perspective. It is important not to exaggerate the religious factor in armed conflicts. In fact, in 72 per cent of all armed conflicts none of the parties have stressed conflicting positions that relate to the religious sphere. The 78 armed conflicts in which at least one side made explicit

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 31

demands relating to the religious sphere have occurred in 33 different countries.13 This group is not representative of the whole empirical universe of armed conflicts. In most armed conflicts, the parties do not make any explicit reference to religion when stating why they take up arms. That three-quarters of all armed conflicts are fought without religiously anchored aspirations from the parties may come as a surprise. There is a widespread perception that religious aspects of armed conflicts are prevalent and that religious aspirations therefore should be associated with most, if not all, of the armed conflicts around the world. In fact, religious aspirations surface only in a fraction of all the armed conflicts. Armed disputes without religiously framed demands are far more common. Hence, we are zooming in on a minority of cases, and we will primarily limit our discussion to this minority, although we will also compare these cases with other types of conflicts. Armed conflicts with religious dimensions in their incompatibility have occurred in various spaces, on almost all continents, and with participants from all world religions. From the religious– political movement for the establishment of the pre-colonial Kongo, Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) in Africa, through the Caucasus Emirate in Southern Russia in Euroasia, through to the conflict between Hamas and the government of Israel in the Middle East and the armed conflict between the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal and the secular Maoists in Asia, parties have taken up arms declaring the aim of advancing a religious goal, or change of a religious status quo. In fact, conflicts with religious dimensions in the incompatibilities are a global phenomenon. Armed conflicts with Islamic groups as the rebels represent the majority of cases but, still, religious conflicts cannot be reduced to a problem for Islam. As far as the track record of armed conflicts are concerned, there are

32 Ending Holy Wars

parties involved in conflict from Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. What are these types of 78 armed conflicts with a religious dimension and what, more precisely, are these aspirations? We can observe some empirical categories of armed conflicts with religious dimensions in their incompatibilities. Some armed conflicts involve a religiously based opposition and are primarily related to contested territories, such as Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Mindanao, Arakan, Pattani, and Kurdistan. In parallel or before the emergence of religious militancy, there have been active secular-oriented opposition groups taking up arms to challenge the existent state formation of Israel, India, Russia, the Philippines, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Iraq, respectively. However, there has also been some groups among the opposition that have had an agenda of creating not only independence from what they perceive as an occupation force, but also a new state under religious rule. The conflict in Punjab, which ended with a complete military victory by the Indian government, had a religious incompatibility with the Sikh minority who were aspiring to create an independent Khalistan (the separatists’ name for the region, which means ‘the land of the pure’), make Amritsar a holy city, and change the Indian constitution so that it specifies the Sikh religion as a sect of Hinduism. The armed conflict was active during the years 1983–93, when the Indian military defeated the religiously based insurgency (Juergensmeyer 2008, pp. 115–25). Moreover, the religious motivations may not be symmetrical. They can occur primarily on one side of the conflict. It may be on the government side, so it is the government that has religious aspirations relating to the nature of the state. In Sudan, the govern­ment wanted to maintain an Islamic character of the state, in Sri Lanka the government aspired to maintain constitutional stipulations that gave Buddhism a particularly prominent place

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 33

in the state, in Nepal the kingdom was of a Hindu character, and in Afghanistan, under the Taliban, one extreme form of Islamic rule was implemented. In all of these cases, the opposition groups (SPLM/A in Sudan, LTTE in Sri Lanka, the Maoists in Nepal) were fighting for a secular state, or at least a less religiously enforced form of Islam (Northern Alliance in Afghanistan). In Iran, the Ayatollah-led government was challenged by the MEK, a group with a religious, leftist ideology, that took part in the uprising against the Shah in 1979 but subsequently questioned the priestdominated regime and have since demanded a more secular Iran. Religious aspirations can also occur primarily on the rebel side. In these cases, there are governments that are not neces­ sarily secular, but they do advance a less zealous interpretation of their religious tradition. Afghanistan under Karzai emphasises its Islamic character but has nevertheless been challenged by the Taliban movement (which was ousted from power in 2001) that aspires to create an Afghanistan state with a stricter Islamic implementation of Sharia. In Tajikistan, the IRP, which was part of the UTO movement challenging the government in the beginning of the 1990s, was an Islamic group with aspirations of creating enhanced Islamic values in the state. Likewise, the Islamic uprisings in Somalia, under the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and later under the more radical al-Shabaab, also directed energy towards a government they perceived as not Islamic enough. The previous uprisings in Algeria posed a potential election winner (FIS, and their military wing AIS) against a military-backed government that had a more secular orientation. In Nigeria, the Boko Haram aspired to create an Islamic character of the state. Boko Haram shifted from aspiring for an Islamic state in the northern part of Nigeria (in the conflict in 2009) to demanding a regime shift in the whole of Nigeria (in the conflict that started in 2011).

34 Ending Holy Wars

The Taliban movement in Pakistan aspired to establish a strict implementation of Sharia law in the northeast of Pakistan (the rebel group TNSM) or throughout Pakistan (the rebel group TTP). In the Middle East there are several examples of these types of conflicts between radical religious rebels and more secularleaning governments. The government of Egypt was challenged by the Islamic group al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. SCIRI, a Shiadominated opposition group that was close to Iran, was opposing the Saddam regime and its Ba’ath Party, which was largely a secular party. Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are cases of groups challenging the Israeli government. Hamas is perhaps the most well known of these groups, with an Islamic agenda aspiring to both fight Israel and create an Islamic state. Their Islamic Covenant from 1988 states that ‘The Movement’s program is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It resorts to it for judgement in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps’. Hezbollah is a Shia-dominated and an Iranian-supported group based in Lebanon that had been involved in armed conflict with Israel during the years 1990–99. After the Israeli withdrawal, the conflict was inactive during the years 2000–06. In 2006, following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers and rocket attacks against northern Israel, an intensive Israeli operation was launched against several Lebanese areas, including Beirut. The conflict ended inconclusively with both sides proclaiming victory.14 Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was a Sunni-dominated Palestinian group founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood and inspired by the Shia-led revolution in Iran. It set out to destroy the state of Israel through a holy war. The group has been active since the late 1970s and during the 1990s launched joint attacks with Hezbollah against Israel. In India, the Islamic group PULF fought for an Islamic state (a

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 35

state for Muslims with a specific Islamic character) in the northeast of India. In Eritrea, there has been a fractious Islamic rebel movement that originated from the independence movement (from which some members were expelled on the ground that they were too religious). The group EIJM-AS, which has been involved in a relatively low-intensity conflict with the Eritrean government, demands a government based on Islamic values. In Sub-Sahara Africa, there have been four cases of armed conflicts where spiritual leaders used religious sentiments in order to rally support for a religious–political goal: the religious–political movement of Ntsiloulous in Congo; the (initially) spiritually based Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda; a spiritually based movement has been seeking to re-establish the pre-colonial Kingdom of the Kongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the Islamic sect within the ADF in Uganda. The last category is that of groups with aspirations that are larger than a particular state. These are all Islamic extremist groups that have utilised targeted killings of civilians as part of their repertoire, and that are part of the al-Qaeda network or share important similar characteristics. In the Caucasus, the Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district and the Forces of the Caucasus Emirate are two rebel groups that have raised religious (Islamic) demands that are related not only to their specific territory, but they have a wider regional agenda as well (as indicated in the name of Caucasus Emirate). In Yemen, al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula aspires to create a geographically broader Islamic caliphate. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan started its armed campaign in Uzbekistan in 1998 and later spread its operations and ambitions to a more regional basis. In 2010, the IMU was active in Tajikistan. The IMU was originally a Uzbek rebel group, challenging the government of Uzbekistan, but

36 Ending Holy Wars

expanded its aspirations to create ‘an Islamic Caliphate in Central Asia’ (Themnér & Wallensteen 2011, p. 529). In the Northern African rim, the group AQIM have challenged, and operated in, both Algeria and Mauritania (and possibly Nigeria) and have a wider ambition that cuts across existing state borders (that were constructed during the colonial period). AIAI in Ethiopia aspires to merge the Ogaden region with Somali territory and create a larger pan-Somali Salafist emirate. Although religious conflicts represent a minority of cases, this is an aggregated figure for the time period. What about variations over time? Are religious incompatibility conflicts becoming more common? Graph 2 shows the trends. Graph 2  Religion and issues in armed conflicts, 1975–2010 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009

Religious incompatibility

No religious incompatibility

Note: This is a ‘stacked’ graph, where the different categories are placed on top of each other in order to illustrate proportion and proportional changes.

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 37

Seen from the whole time period, there has been a substantial increase in the number of armed conflicts over religious issues. The increase seems to start in 1979, which has been identified in previous literature as the breaking point (Armstrong 2000), with the historical shifts in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and the religiously based resistance that followed), the Ayatollah-led revolution in Iran, and the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conflicts over religious issues have overall been quite robust in their frequency, showing no tendency to either increase or decrease. Since 1991, (before that the frequency was lower), the occurrence of religious conflicts has been fluctuating between 12 and 16 every year. Whereas other conflicts have decreased in frequency, religious conflicts have not decreased in a similar manner. Thus, the religious conflicts’ share of all armed conflicts have increased dramatically. In 1975, conflicts over religious issues represented only 3 per cent of all armed conflicts; in 1989 that proportion had increased to 18 per cent. By comparison, in 2008 that number increased to 49 per cent. A majority of these conflicts involve Islamic rebels. Examining the trends in the occurrence of Islamic rebels, Buhag and Gleditsch (cited in Pinker 2011) reach a similar finding: a proportional increase, that is, they are increasing in absolute numbers, but other types of conflicts are becoming less common. This finding is in line with previous literature. Nordås (2010), studying the 1989–2004 period, identified that ‘the share of conflicts involving a religious incompatibility is growing’ (pp. 4–5). Similarly, Toft (2006), studying civil wars during the time period 1940–2000, finds that ‘as a proportion of all civil wars, the number of religious civil wars has been increasing’ (p. 2).15 In the evolution of armed conflicts with religious dimensions, Afghanistan plays a crucial role. This was a watershed, not

38 Ending Holy Wars

only for Afghanistan but also for the role of religion in armed conflicts as a whole. The Soviet invasion triggered an Islamic radicalisation that had global repercussions. During the Soviet occupation (1979–89) the United States and Saudi Arabia supported a number of Mujahedins with weapons and funds in a proxy war with the Soviet-backed government (Parenti 2008). Pakistan was also involved in both directly supporting Islamist groups and funnelling American-supplied weapons (Rubin 2002). Pakistan’s support of the Islamists was also driven by the motivation of countering Pashtun ethnic-inspired nationalism, as that could potentially threaten the unity of Pakistan itself, which has a large Pashtun population, primarily based in the northeast of the country. In the uprising against the Soviet rule, Mujahedins gathered from all over the world to fight against the atheist Soviet occupation. This then became a training ground, with inspiration and know-how transported from the Afghanistan war into the Philippines, Algeria, Yemen, etc. Veterans returned radicalised and well trained, and with a more internationally based version of jihad (Rashid 2002).16 Afghanistan also plays a crucial role in the other watershed during this period: 9/11. When the Taliban took control in 1996, many greeted them with relief as they established a sense of order. The Taliban took control of Kabul and controlled 90 to 95 per cent of the country. The rest of the country was controlled by the Northern Alliance (Sullivan 2007).17 Following the al-Qaeda attacks against the United States in 2001, the Americans attacked Afghanistan in order to destroy al-Qaeda and its leadership. In the space of three months the Taliban Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was overthrown (Jones 2008). Backed first by a coalition led by the United States and then the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a government was formed at

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 39

the Bonn Conference in 2001, at which time Hamid Karzai was selected to be the first president (Jones 2008). After regrouping, the Taliban and other armed Islamic groups began an insurgency in 2002, which has been ongoing since then. Pakistan provides funding and other resources to the Taliban and other armed groups. Rubin (2002) suggests that part of Pakistan’s strategy has been to emphasise Islam rather than Pashtun nationalism, which would represent a direct threat to its own unity given the large number of Pashtuns residing in Pakistan. Pakistan can be seen as playing a difficult game, supporting the Taliban more as a way to maintain influence in the region, and for its own internal politics, than from any ideological commitment to Islam. In fact, Pakistan is struggling with its own internal Islamic-fundamentalist groups, many of which have connections to the Taliban (Thier 2010). Some of the conflicts with a religious dimension in the incompatibility have occurred between parties from different religious traditions. In other words, the two dimensions that we have discussed so far (issues and identities) can be combined. Interreligious conflicts over religious issues are, for instance, armed conflicts between predominately Hindu Tamils against predominately Buddhist Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, or a government with a majority of Catholic Christians in the Philippines versus a Muslim-dominated Mindanao. These are religious-issue conflicts between parties from different religious traditions. Thus, 33 conflicts during this time period have involved a contested religious issue at stake and the parties have been separated according to religious lines. During this time period as a whole, there have been 45 conflicts with a religious incompatibility, where the parties belonged to the same religious tradition. An example of a religious conflict where the parties belong to the same religious tradition is

40 Ending Holy Wars

the government of Algeria versus Islamist groups such as AIS, Takfir wa’l Hijra, GIA and AQIM. In Afghanistan in 1989–95 there was an armed conflict between a Shia-dominated rebel movement, Hizb-i-Wahdat, recruiting primarily from the Hazara ethnic group, and the government of the time with a mainly Sunni-dominated constituency. Of the religious-issue conflicts, the distribution of conflicts where parties come from the same, or different, religious traditions break down in half.18

Conflicts over central religious issues Having discussed and examined the religious identities and the issues in armed conflict, the last dimension to examine is the variation within conflicts of religious dimensions in their incompatibilities. This is the degree of importance of the religious issue in the conflict. Whereas the first category classified conflicts after the type of parties holding these aspirations, this category classifies conflicts by the degree of commitment to which the parties hold on to the aspirations. We are now zooming in on the armed conflicts that have a religious dimension in their incompatibilities and exploring variations within this category. The conflicts with a central religious dimension in the incompatibilities represents the majority of the conflicts that have a religious dimension in the incompatibility. There were 62 conflicts where the issue was a major concern, and 16 where it was of a more peripheral and minor nature. Thus, for most of the religiously framed armed conflicts, the religious issue is central. So in about 80 per cent of the religious incompatibility conflicts, the concern is a major one. By contrast, 20 per cent of all armed conflicts over religious issues involved a more peripheral and minor religious issue.19

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 41

What is the temporal trend? Are these conflicts increasing or decreasing? In Graph 3, we visualise the changes over time. Note that the graph only shows the religious incompatibility conflicts, and it is showing (as discussed above) an increase in conflicts over religious issues. In particular, as we can see in the darker shaded area, this increase has been driven by a growth over time of armed conflicts where the religious issue is a major concern. The number of conflicts started to increase in the beginning of 1979 and was fairly robust, but since 2000 there has been only a slight increase. This is in line with previous observations. For instance, Nordås (2010) finds that ‘there has been a recent increase in the number of conflicts where religion is a major issue’ (p. 4). We can also see that the religious peripheral conflicts (the light grey area) have been low in frequency up to the beginning of the 1990s, and during the 1990s they were fairly robust in Graph 3  Importance of religious issues, 1975–2010 25 20 15 10 5 0 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009

Central

Peripheral

Note: This is a ‘stacked’ graph, where the different categories are placed on top of each other in order to illustrate proportion and proportional changes.

42 Ending Holy Wars

their frequency. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the peripheral conflicts have occurred at a rate of around five ongoing, armed conflicts every year. There are several examples of conflicts in which religion has played a central role in the incompatibility, and I have discussed some of these cases above. Here I mention three other examples: Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Iraq. Saudi Arabia experienced a religious revolt when a group of young radical Islamists led by Juhaiman Saif al Otaibi argued against modernity and for a more literal religious interpretation, which questioned the religious mainstream in Saudi Arabia. Recruiting from primarily poor religious students, the group initially demanded cultural and social reforms, but later radicalised and demanded change in government. In 1979, they occupied the Great Mosque in Mecca and took thousands of hostages. After two weeks, the group was defeated by the government forces.20 In Chechnya, Russian forces fought against separatists in the form of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1999–2007). The first Chechnyan war (1994–96) was not framed religiously, and the rebel side expressed no Islamic aspirations, but was rather a nationalist campaign. This conflict was ended with a peace agreement in 1996. As the conflict arose again in 1999, it had become explicitly religious based, with strong Islamist aspirations under leaders such as Bakayev. When Russian forces invaded Chechnya they did it with the stated goal of eliminating ‘Islamic terrorists’ (Gammer 2005, p. 842). In 2007, the aspirations of the rebel groups spread from merely focusing on the Chechnyan to a larger (though basically undefined) Caucasus caliphate. The expressed aspirations of the Caucasus emirate leadership were related to the expulsion of non-Muslims, the creation of an Islamic emirate, and the implementation of Sharia law. Its leadership had abandoned

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 43

the Chechen nationalist cause and now claimed extensive land in the Caucasian region as an Islamic state (Shlapentokh 2008). In 1999, the onset of the war in Chechnya was trigged by a military confrontation in Dagestan between a militant Islamist group and the Russian forces. There were several reasons why the conflict in Chechnya was increasingly framed as religious resistance rather than a nationalist campaign. The repressive Russian counter-insurgency served to radicalise sections among the population and, at the same time, lack of substantial progress on the ground increased the appeal of Islamic separatism: ‘What drove people to this [Islamist separatism] is not Islamic education or emissaries from the Arab world but the state failure, anarchy, violence, and the hopelessness that reigns in the North Caucasus’ (Akhmadov et al. 2010, p. 241). There might also have been some opportunism in the framing of the conflict. The Western world did not assist the Chechens in their nationalist uprising in the first Chechnya war, so Chechnyan warlords and politicians saw that they had a better chance of getting assistance from Muslim organisations abroad if they portrayed themselves as an Islamic resistance (Giuliano 2005). Although this was also attempted during the first war, the Chechnyan religious leadership and foreign Muslim leaders did not recognise it as jihad at that time (Akaev 2009). A third example of a conflict in which the religious issue was central is the post-Saddam insurgency in Iraq, where there have been several Iraqi resistance groups – Ansar al-Islam, RJF and ISF – fighting against the American-supported post-Saddam regime. Some of these groups recruited primarily from the constituency of the old Saddam regime; others were supported by foreign jihadists. They all fought under an Islamist banner with explicit Islamic goals. There was also an element of tension

44 Ending Holy Wars

between religious groups, as the Shia majority had started to get an increased influence in the government, challenging the previous Sunni domination. Religious aspirations were present but largely took a marginal role in some armed conflicts, and here I will exemplify with three cases: Republic of Congo, Thailand and Uganda. In the Congo, following the 1992 presidential and legislative elections, there was a period of turmoil in which several militias were active (Themner 2011). Initially, attempts to demobilise and disarm the militias were unsuccessful but eventually they paved the way for a more comprehensive peace agreement to be signed between the government and the National Resistance Council (CNR), the political wing of a military alliance between factions of the Cocoye and Ninja militias (Themner 2011). However, a rebel leader, Frédéric Bitsangou, also known as Pastor Ntoumi, was the only militia leader not to participate in this peace process (United Nations 2002). Ntoumi and his rebels – those loyal to Ntoumi are also known as Ntsiloulous – were not a part of these agreements. Ntoumi claimed that he had a divine mission from God, in which he had been sent to free the Lari people from the oppression of President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s regime. The Ntsiloulous began as a peaceful messianic movement located in the Pool region of the Congo. When the Sassou Nguesso government began forcibly disarming Ninjas in 1998, a group found refuge in Ntoumi’s church, where they came under the influence of his preachings and joined the Ntsiloulous. These Ninjas believed they were carrying out God’s will by following Ntoumi’s orders (Themner 2011, p. 50). Ntoumi accepted the role of leader of the rebel coalition, CNR, but having once defined the conflict in divine terms he found it hard to negotiate on political policies without losing legitimacy among his following. He

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 45

refused requests to disarm and demobilise (Themner 2011, p. 50). Despite general demobilisation in the Congo, some rebels, strengthened by their messianic beliefs, still adhered to Ntoumi’s religious beliefs and remained part of his congregation. They abided by the dress code – a beard, dreadlocks and purple garments – and his rules of prayer, what to eat and personal hygiene guidelines (Themner 2011, p. 59). The relationship with these ex-Ninja gave Ntoumi a platform when war broke out again in March 2002 to frame the struggle in divine terms and argue that by fighting they were carrying out God’s will. ‘To some extent Ntoumi was able to use his religious position to incite fears among his disciples, in essence coercing them to take to arms’ (Themner 2011, p. 59). In this way, Ntoumi used religious rhetoric to increase his following. Another conflict in which religion played a role, but a minor one, was in the south of Thailand. The Pattani rebels are predominately Malay–Muslim whereas the Thai government side is predominately Buddhist. Religion serves an important point of difference in identity in southern Thailand, particularly since it serves as a marker of group identity among those who are not physically different (Jerryson 2011).21 Historically this region was grouped in the Pattani kingdom, subject to the king of Siam, the former name of Thailand, but exercising extensive autonomy (Dorairajoo 2004). The conflict had a religious dimension in the incompatibility in the sense that the rebels seem to be demanding, although their exact demands are elusive, an independent state with at least some extent of an explicit Islamic character.22 An early phase of the armed insurgency, from the 1960s to the 1980s, involved various separatist groups. The insurgency was essentially an elitist movement motivated by ethno-nationalist considerations, focusing on the Malay ethnicity in southern

46 Ending Holy Wars

Thailand rather than Islam itself (Dorairajoo 2004).23 The conflict temporarily eased in the 1990s after the opening up of political space for Malay–Muslims and greater government sensitivity to Malay–Muslim aspirations (Liow 2006, p. 5). But it escalated in 2004, partly in relation to the Krue Se Mosque incident discussed in the Preface. This new phase of the uprising had more of a religious character than the previous episode of uprising against the Thai state. The present incompatibilities between the militants and the Thai government remain vague and the opposition has a rather mysterious nature. There is no unified leadership that has made public claims but, rather, the claims are made through propaganda literature, graffiti and secret booklets.24 While the conflict has been framed in religious terms, it uses this authority to call for clearly nationalist goals in terms of an independent Pattani state. The primary place for religion in the Pattani conflict has been as a mobilising force, utilising religious rhetoric as motivational power through an emphasis on a range of historical grievances and manipulating religious symbols to justify violent struggle. Deducing from earlier grievances and the behaviour of the insurgents, the most important religious aspects can be related to religious education (mitigating against the perception that Thai– Buddhist values are indoctrinated to the Malay–Muslim children through the state education system); the implementation of some aspects of the Muslim Sharia law, for instance, in family affairs; the right to wear Muslim traditional clothes and take part in other forms of cultural practices, and the safeguarding and respect of Muslim mosques. We cannot be certain, however, that these are the demands propagated by the Pattani rebels, and certainly there is a degree of variation within the rebel movement in terms of their demands. All of these aspirations are ways for expressing a

Where and when do religious conflicts occur? 47

separate Malay–Muslim identity, and the overarching conflicting issue is related to the formation of the Thai state. The religious dimensions in the demands of the rebels are real, but marginal. The third and last example where the religious demands were present but played a relatively minor role in the aspirations is the ADF in Uganda. The government of Uganda was involved in an armed conflict with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from 1996 until 2000. The ADF was a coalition made up of an Islamic sect called the Tabliqs and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda, which aimed to overthrow the Yoweri Museveni govern­ ment and was active along Uganda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and was funded by the government of Sudan. All these examples serve to illustrate that religion is a component in some armed conflicts, but that the weight of that component can differ. The examples of Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Iraq show that religion can be a central theme in a religious dispute, and the examples of Congo, Thailand and Uganda show it can be of a more marginal character. Centrality of religion is therefore an important aspect to take into account if we are to understand the dynamics of religions in the context of armed conflicts.

Conclusions In this chapter the forms and frequencies of religious dimensions in internal armed conflicts have been outlined. Three preliminary conclusions are important to establish a broader understanding of the phenomenon that we are examining in this book, the religious dimensions of armed conflicts. These are also important to carry with us as we proceed with the examination of how these religious dimensions influence the prospects for conflict

48 Ending Holy Wars

resolution. First, we are talking about a minority of all armed conflicts. This empirical fact is rarely mentioned but is important to underline in order to get the right perspectives on the phenomenon. Second, these types of conflicts remain a problem for the international community to resolve. Whereas other types of conflicts have decreased over time, we have seen that conflicts with religious dimensions are not decreasing in a similar fashion, and some types of religious conflicts seem to be on the rise (central religious conflicts). Third, religious conflicts vary in type and form. We have seen in this overview how religious conflicts occur over territory and over government, between parties from different religious traditions, on most continents of the world, and the religious aspirations can be on the government or the rebel side. The fact that we see such variation is also important. Religious conflicts are not one unitary group of conflicts, they are diverse in many ways but similar in the sense that they have religious dimensions. How these religious dimensions affect the chances for conflict resolution is the subject of the next chapter.

Ch a p t e r 2

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve?

The idea that religious conflicts are difficult to resolve peacefully has received surprisingly little empirical scrutiny. This chapter will discuss the particular religious dimensions of armed conflicts that affect the probability of parties entering into negotiated settlements. The question of interest here is whether there are structural conditions under which religious conflicts are more or less difficult to resolve. The different rate of conflict-resolution outcomes across the range of conflicts that we started to identify at the outset of this book will be examined. Thus, the three relevant religious dimensions of armed conflicts – identity, incompatibility and centrality – that were discussed in the overview of contemporary armed conflicts (Chapter 1) will also permeate this chapter. This analysis will be examined further as we look at the relationship between these three dimensions, on the one hand, and the likelihood of negotiated settlement, on the other.

50 Ending Holy Wars

Religious dynamics can serve to impede peaceful conflictresolution processes. Highly religious conflicts will be difficult to settle peacefully through negotiations, peace agreements or other forms of conflict-resolution procedures. Religious conflicts can be intractable ‘due to the non-bargainable nature of the motivations behind them’ (Fox 2004, p. 58). Hasenclever and Rittberger (2000) argue that religious conflicts are difficult to resolve since the parties involved tend to perceive compromises as impossible (p. 119). But why is that so? Previous debate suggests a set of different arguments.

• Civilization fault lines: The most well-known (and controver-

sial) theory relating to religion and conflict is the one formulated by the American political scientist Samuel Huntington in his thesis, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ (1993). Huntington suggested that at the end of the Cold War the emerging lines of tensions in the world were not between ideological cleavages (which had been the case during the Cold War in the contest between the Soviet form of communism and the Western form of liberalism), but rather between religiously defined ‘civilizations’, the largest block of identity-based spheres of cultures. According to Huntington, clashes between these civilizations would become more common, severe and difficult to resolve peacefully. A lot of empirical research has been done on this proposition, and the findings in general give scant support for the idea that the major lines of contention are between large religious–cultural identity groups (Ellingsen 2000; Russett et al. 2000; Fox 2001; Chiozza 2002; Fox 2004; Pearce 2005; de Soysa & Nordås 2007; Nordås 2007). A Huntingtonian perspective would yield a pessimistic outlook on the probability of negotiated settlement in conflicts where parties’ identities follow civilizational lines. The deep-rooted identity-based cleavages that

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 51

would occur in conflicts between parties from different religious traditions would make peaceful solutions, such as peace agreements or concessions, difficult to come by.

• Indivisibility: Another approach to explaining how religious

dimensions can impede conflict-resolution processes is suggested by Ron Hassner (2003; 2009). According to his argument, physical territory of religious importance (sacred space) can suffer, under particular conditions, from the problem of indivisibility. Indivisibility can occur if parties demand the same thing, are unable to replace it with something else that is of equal value, and cannot divide the object without a significant loss of value. The perceived indivisibility of a contested issue can cause the conflict to not be resolved. Thus, indivisibility, under some circumstances, is a ‘social fact’ (Hassner 2003; p. 13). The problem of perceived indivisibility is more likely to occur when the issue is of central importance to the relevant faith communities and there is a perception of vulnerability, which makes foreign presence more likely to be interpreted as offensive. Indivisibility was for some time disregarded as a rational explanation for war and political violence, since Fearon (1995) suggested in his seminal article that it rarely occurs in political conflicts. According to him, this is because wars are basically always fought over several issues and that there is always at least a theoretical possibility for horse-trading and compromises. Yet, as convincingly argued by both Toft (2006) and Hassner (2003), indivisibility is an important theoretical framework for explaining the intractability of political conflicts. Although Hassner primarily limits his analysis to sacred spaces, the theory of indivisibility can be applicable to armed political conflicts in a wider sense (Svensson 2007; Hassner 2009, p. 166).

52 Ending Holy Wars

• Religious outbidding: The process of religious outbidding can

complicate peaceful settlement. The theory of religious outbidding explains why religion becomes central in some conflicts but remains peripheral in others (Toft 2007). Political elites under threat and in need of external support can reframe the issue of contention in religious terms. Under these conditions, these groups will engage in an outbidding process, appeal competitively to religious sentiments and create more radicalised religious landscapes as a result. Once religion becomes central to the conflict through such an elite-driven outbidding process, non-violent termination will be less likely to occur (Toft 2007).

• Political theology and religious independence: Another expla-

nation for why religious conflicts are more difficult to resolve can be found in the framework suggested by Daniel Philpott and his co-authors (2007; Toft et al. 2011). The two main structural explanations for why religion serves a peaceful versus more malign function in the context of armed conflicts can be found in the norms as well as in the structures. More precisely, the type of political theology – the content of the religious message in relation to the political sphere – and the structural relationship between the religious and political authorities – how independent the religious sector is from the political sphere – will determine the role religion plays in conflicts and wider societal processes. Hence, by implication, religion will tend to have a negative influence on the chances of settlement of armed conflicts within states when there is an intimate relationship between religious actors and the political leadership and the religious message is focused more on religious nationalism, violence and exclusivity than on tolerance, human rights and non-violence. On a similar line of thought, Little (2011) outlines a framework that also identifies

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 53

the combination of two main factors: political institutions and ideology. In particular, Little identifies the character of the state (constitutional democracy or non-democratic regime types) and the type of nationalism (religious tolerant or religious intolerant) that can help to explain the general conditions under which violence is likely and peaceful settlement is unlikely.

• Time horizons: Yet another explanation for why religious con-

flicts are more difficult to resolve may be due to the relationship that people of faith have to time. Religious traditions usually have a longer time perspective than can be found in more secular political spheres. Time horizons is about the parties’ value of the future and if there is an asymmetry in the time horizons of the parties – that is, if one of the sides in conflicts is discounting the present – then the chance of reaching settlements peacefully may decrease. The costs of conflicts can therefore become more acceptable if the longer time horizons that are implicit in most religious traditions are taken into account. Longer time horizons can motivate followers to be ready to absorb more costs in order to reach their religious aspirations. Discounting the present, religious militants can therefore be ready to continue to fight for a longer period short of peaceful settlement (Toft 2006).

• Religious nationalism: Religious nationalism has been iden-

tified as a phenomenon with substantial impact on possibilities for peace and democracy around the globe (Juergensmeyer 1993, 1995, 1996; van der Veer 1994). Religious nationalism refers to the attempt to ‘link religion and the nation-state’ (Juergensmeyer 1993, p. 40). The room for compromise is smaller if the underlying governing ideologies of states are disputed, and competition can follow as both secular forms of nationalism and religious

54 Ending Holy Wars

nationalism ‘claim to be the guarantor of the orderliness within a society’ (Juergensmeyer 1995, p. 381). There is only one constitution in a state, which can either be secular or religious, but not both simultaneously. Juergensmeyer (1993) contends that any compromises between secular and religious nationalism ‘suggest that spiritual and political matters are separate, which most religious activists see as a capitulation to the secularist point of view’ (p. 339). Ideological religious nationalism frames political demands within a sacred context and can therefore be said to ‘religionise’ politics. The political methods used are instrumental in order to advance goals within the religious sphere. Ethnic religious nationalism is relating to people and land – that is, a community that shares the same values, language, race and history. This ethnic religious nationalism ‘politicises’ religion by employing religious identities for political ends. Hence, religious identification of a group is utilised by basically non-religious elites as a means for power politics (Juergensmeyer 1996).

Negotiated settlement This book focuses on the three dimensions of religious armed conflicts – identity, issue and centrality – but it is beyond our scope to test in a strict sense which of the arguments above can best help to explain why religious conflicts are difficult to resolve. However, the approach can shed relevant light on the arguments by scrutinising how the three religious dimensions of armed conflicts influence the chances for conflict resolution. The dependent variable in this analysis is negotiated settlement. Negotiated settlement is a good measurement for the resolution of conflicting issues as it can illustrate how the issues at stake and the contesting incompatible positions have been settled. Religious issues are examined in this chapter in two ways. First, by

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 55

utilising global studies on armed conflicts we examine whether there are any discernible patterns when it comes to religion and conflict resolution. Are religious conflicts really more difficult to settle than other types of conflicts? And if so, which specific religious dimensions impede negotiated settlements? Second, once the general patterns are established I examine the causal relationship between religion and conflict resolution in more detail through a case study of the religious dimensions of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. This combination of extensive and intensive research can help to shed light on the conditions under which religion impedes settlements. Before I do that, however, I need to discuss negotiated settlement as a way of measuring conflict resolution. I use negotiated settlement as a way of systematically assessing and measuring the theoretical notion of conflict resolution. Negotiated settlement is, I propose, a good, although not perfect, indicator of conflict resolution. However, there are some obvious shortcomings with this way of conceptualising conflict resolution. First of all, negotiated settlements between two conflicting parties do not necessarily have to resolve the whole conflict. There may, for instance, be parties that are not included in the resolution attempt and that therefore may continue to fight on (Nilsson 2008). The agreements can also be partial, settling some but not necessarily all conflicting issues (Harbom et al. 2006). Second, the type of negotiated settlement varies considerably. In some conflicts, the parties have been able to transform their relationship in a profound manner. In other conflicts, the settlement is a more superficial arrangement that does little to address the underlying issues beneath the conflict. Third, there is a possibility that there could be a resolution of the conflict without a negotiated settlement. Negotiated settlement examines the formal procedure of

56 Ending Holy Wars

conflict resolution. Informal mechanisms of conflict resolution are not captured in the concept but could, in some particular cases, be as, or even more, important. These cases of conflict-resolution attempts will be examined in closer detail in Chapter 5. Even after taking these shortcomings into account, negotiated settlement is, in general, a valid and good way of conceptualising conflict resolution. A well-established definition of conflict disaggregates comprises three basic components: incompatibility, parties and behaviour. As discussed, an armed conflict, according to Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), is ‘a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths’ (UCDP 2012a). Negotiated settlement, as defined here, addresses all of these three components. It goes to the core of the conflict. It focuses on the notion of incompatibility, which is pivotal in our understanding of conflicts (Wallensteen 2011, p. 15). The resolution of conflict through a negotiated settlement is dependent on three criteria. First, a negotiated settlement should engage and be signed by both parties of an armed conflict, one of which is the government of a state. Second, it should issue regulatory measures agreed to by both parties to address the contested incompatibilities of the conflict. Third, the settlement should decrease the level of hostilities to below the threshold of 25 battle-related deaths in a year. Multiple peace agreements may be reached by both parties but only the agreement that ends fighting for at least a one-year period is coded as a negotiated settlement. Consequently, change in conflict behaviour and regulations of incompatibility are necessary components of a negotiated settlement, and are of particular interest in this book.

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 57

Religious identities and negotiated settlements In an effort to systematically evaluate the intricate nature of religion and conflict resolution, we need to disaggregate the different religious dimensions in armed conflicts. The first dimension is religious identity, and we need to establish whether armed conflicts with parties from different religious traditions are overall more difficult to resolve than conflicts with parties from similar religious traditions. In order to test whether religious dynamics of armed conflicts make them less prone to settlement, a new data set on all intrastate armed conflicts during 1989–2003 was constructed, using the UCDP as the point of departure, with new data on the religious dimensions added as part of the study. An intrastate armed conflict is a conflict between a government and a non-governmental party, where the use of armed forces between two parties results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year. All intrastate armed conflicts during the years 1989–2003 are included in the analysis. The study explores 217 pairs of conflicting actors – each pair consisting of a government on one side and a rebel group on the other – in a total of 73 countries around the world. This approach differs from previous research on religion and armed conflict where the country or conflict is used as the unit of analysis. However, in several conflicts there are more than one rebel group fighting the government and religious dimensions may vary between these groups. Some rebel groups may have religious aspirations, whereas other groups, within the same conflict, may not. This study does not treat different groups on the rebel side as one actor, instead it analyses each conflict dyad involved in the armed conflict. This approach allows a more comprehensive understanding of the incompatibilities present in armed conflict and gives additional precision in the measurement of religious

58 Ending Holy Wars

dimensions in comparison to much of the previous research in this area. All the conflicts are coded as either ended through a negotiated settlement, or not. A conflict between a rebel group and a government will be seen as ended when the parties have signed a peace agreement and laid down their weapons. The category of ‘no settlement’ captures conflicts that continued to drag on into the year 2004, ended in decisive victory for one of the sides, or terminated in other ways. Other ways of termination are the creation of an alliance (implying a new dyad) or when one of the sides has been defeated by another party. The incompatibility is measured at the onset of the dyad, and is therefore assumed to be constant throughout the conflict-dyad history. The analysis of the 217 conflict dyads shows some interesting results. Whether the main parties have different religious identities has no systematic relation at all to chances for negotiated settlements, which is surprising given the attention to this in previous research. If anything, the relationship is positive, indicating that there actually tends to be a higher chance of reaching an agreement in pairs of conflict parties who come from different religious traditions. The relationship is statistically insignificant; however, it indicates we cannot rule out that the trend may just be a random pattern. Basically, there is no support for the notion that conflicts where parties come from different religious traditions are more difficult to resolve than conflicts where parties are within the same religious tradition. The religious-identity dimension of armed conflict cannot explain the seeming intractability of conflicts with religious dimensions. How should we interpret this finding? Three observations can be made here. First, this finding does not say that conflicts across religious cleavages are not severe and entail difficult social

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 59

problems. It does not imply any indifference to the suffering of people involved in and affected by these types of conflict. All conflicts are basically difficult to resolve once they have escalated to a level of violence, including the religious-identity conflicts. But this finding does show us that, in general, there are no structural conditions associated with conflict across religious faith traditions that make them more difficult to resolve and settle peacefully than other types of intrastate armed conflicts. Second, previous research, based on inter- rather than intranational conflicts, has found some evidence indicating that religious dissimilarity does decrease the chance for a settlement (Leng & Regan 2003). Yet, as it is shown here, this seems not to be the case for internal armed conflicts. Pending a systematic comparative analysis of inter- and intrastate armed conflicts, one can only speculate about the reason for this difference. One poss­ ible explanation can be that misunderstanding across cultural divides may occur in interstate armed conflicts and hinder effective negotiations in situations where parties come from different religious traditions, speak different languages and have different historical horizons. In intrastate conflicts by contrast, the parties generally share more ties to each other. Even if they are separated by religious traditions, they may nevertheless share language, history (of a common state), ethnic bonds and so on, leaving less room for culturally based misunderstanding and communication problems. Third, these findings do not support the claim that conflicts involving different civilizations – that is, conflicts where the ident­ity crosses religious boundaries – are less likely to be resolved through negotiated settlement than other types of conflicts. Huntington (1993) suggests that it is the immutable and exclusive character of differences in civilizations that will make them

60 Ending Holy Wars

less amenable to compromise and negotiations (p. 298). Hence, conflicts with participants from different civilizations – ‘fault line wars’ – should not be settled by ‘comprehensive peace treaties that resolve central political issues’ (p. 291). However, the results of my analysis challenge this proposition. Rather, the evidence indicates that parties separated by religious traditions (which is the way Huntington classifies ‘civilizations’) are no less likely to be resolved through negotiated settlement than intra-civilization conflicts. This is quite important. There have been several attempts to examine and test Huntington’s thesis, examining its explanatory power for international conflicts, intrastate conflicts, Islamic participation in armed conflict, severity of conflicts and so on (Ellingsen 2000; Russett et al. 2000; Chiozza 2002; Fox 2004; Tusicisny 2004; Pearce 2005; de Soysa & Nordås 2007; Nordås 2010). Yet, no one has, until this study, examined the effect of religious cleavages on negotiated settlement. Hence, this study adds to the overall body of research of empirical examination of Huntington’s theory, providing yet another piece of evidence that Huntington’s theory of ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, although interesting and thought provoking, does not carry sufficient explanatory power to explain trends of conflicts. Moreover, this study provides an additional advantage in comparison with several empirical tests of Huntington’s theoretical implications, and thereby addresses a relevant line of counter-criticism. Huntington’s argument is basically a prediction of the post-Cold War situation and his counterargument to the empirical tests has been that analysing the time period during the Cold War cannot be used to test the predictions of ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ theory: ‘My clash of civilizations thesis, however, deals with the post-Cold War period. That is what the book is about. It is not about the Cold War, and an analysis of conflicts during the

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 61

Cold War can neither prove nor disprove its central argument’ (Huntington 2000, p. 609). Consequently, if the Huntington theory is supposed to be tested, then the appropriate time period is post-1989. Importantly, my study here examines the post-Cold War period, the same timeframe employed by Huntington, but finds, contrary to his predictions, that central political concerns have been settled through comprehensive peaceful negotiated agreements. Religious dissimilarities of parties in conflict do not appear to pose a barrier to peace agreements. Indeed, there are many cases where parties have signed a peace deal in religious-identity conflicts. Not surprisingly, religion seems mostly to be absent from peace agreements in religious–cultural conflicts. In most of the peace agreements reached in religious identity conflicts, the religious issues are not specifically regulated. The absence of regulation could in these instances be seen as an indication of the absence of religious disputes among the primary parties. However, in some rare instances, religious issues have been regulated. For example, the UK/Northern Ireland conflict is an appropriate illustration of where a general principle of religious freedom is utilised in the peace settlement. The 1998 UK/Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement contains the general regulation of religious freedoms and provisions prohibiting discrimination for religious reasons. More specifically, the British government is stipulated to create a statutory or legal obligation on the public authorities in Northern Ireland to carry out all of their functions with due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity in relation to religion (Ireland 1998, p. 31). In the conflict between Fatah and the Israeli government in the Israel–Palestine conflict, the parties have forged a number of peace agreements that address specific religious issues.

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Interestingly, these have been focused on regulating holy sites in order to guarantee the right of entry and the safeguarding of these places. Likewise, a number of partial peace agreements were signed between the Israeli government, Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority during the 1990s. Provisions for access to, and protection of, religious places or holy sites are apparent in the 1994 Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area and the 1997 Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron (Israel 1994, 1997). These agreements also present guarantees to ensure religious events and holidays are recognised. Furthermore, in Macedonia, the incompatibility in the conflict between UCK and the Macedonian government concerns the issue of constitutional reform as a way to achieve improved rights for the Albanian ethnic group. The peace agreement, the Ohrid Agreement (Maced­onia 2001), prohibits religious actors such as the Macedonian Orthodox Church, the Islamic religious community in Macedonia, the Catholic Church, and others from dominating the state. This is done by ensuring the separation of the government and religion, and instituting the equality of all religious communities before the law (p. 2). Hence, it is possible to identify three conflictregulating mechanisms that have been stipulated in the peace agreements reached in conflicts where parties are separated by religious identity boundaries: religious freedom, guarantees for protection and safeguarding particular places or events that are of religious significance, and separation of religious bodies from the governance of the state. Religious identities are only one possible aspect through which religion can manifest itself in armed conflicts. Another one is the issue at stake. The question that concerns us here is whether conflict resolution is less likely to occur in conflicts where there is a religious dimension in the incompatibility.

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 63

There are several possible explanations for why a religious dimension of the incompatibility would decrease the chances for negotiated settlements. The main explanations for why religious conflicts are difficult to resolve were summarised above, and many of these explanations are applicable to conflicts that have a religious dimension in the incompatibility. Hence, if one side has made explicit religious demands concerning the conflicting issue, the parties may perceive the limited resource (be it a govern­ment, constitution, or a part of the territory) as indivisible. It is more difficult to negotiate a peace deal if the basic issue at stake is perceived as not possible to divide, which would leave total victory or continuing fighting as the only viable options. Moreover, the elites and leadership of the different actors may compete with each other to outbid their competitors in their religious appeal. An intimate connection between the political and religious authorities in combination with a religious message that emphasises exclusiveness, militancy and a religious rationale for violence can affect the chances for negotiated peace. If the political theology emphasises violence before non-violence, then the backing of religious authorities for peaceful attempts will be problematic. Furthermore, asymmetrical time horizons could imply situations where the parties with religious aspirations in a violent dispute could be generally less cost sensitive. This readiness to absorb higher costs in conflict could stem from another worldview that would provide a rationale for sacrifices or be due to the fact that the costs can be discounted as a result of a longer time perspective. Compromises and negotiated agreements are more difficult to reach if one side will not back down because it is willing to absorb the costs of violence over longer periods of time. Religious nationalism is generally hard to square at the negotiation table with a more secular-based form of nationalism,

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since the underlying assumptions for the state-building projects are fundamentally different. All these explanations are applicable to the situations of interest here, where at least one side has made explicit religious demands in relation to the core incompatibility. Does the occurrence of religious incompatibilities in armed conflicts influence the probabilities of the parties reaching negotiated settlements? In order to examine this question, I looked at the relationship between negotiated settlement and the occurrence of religious incompatibilities (regardless of how central those are to the parties). The study showed that the relationship between these two factors is negative; in other words, the occurrences of religious dimensions in incompatibilities have negative effects on the chances of the parties reaching a negotiated settle­ ment. Hence, if one of the parties has made explicit demands relating to the religious sphere, the conflict is less likely to end through the signing of a peace deal. Although different religious identities do not decrease the likelihood of a peaceful resolution to conflict (as we saw above), if religious demands are explicitly sought the conflict is less likely to end through the signing of a peace deal. This negative empirical relationship between religious incompatibilities and negotiated settlement is a robust one. It remains even after taking into account the effect (or lack thereof) of several factors that have been shown in previous research to influence the chance for negotiated settlement, such as the existence of thirdparty security guarantees, the size of the governments’ armies, the duration and intensity of conflicts, and the occurrence of military interventions on either the rebels’ or the government’s side, level of democracy, and size of the economy. Moreover, even after controlling for the effect of other identity-based factors, such as ethnicity, demands for territorial change, or separatist demands, the finding

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 65

is robust. Therefore there are good reasons to be confident that the relationship between religious dimensions in the incompatibilities and negotiated settlement is not spurious; these types of conflicts seem to be less likely to be ended through conflict resolution than other types of conflicts. How should this finding be interpreted? Three observations can be made. First, this result contributes by showing exactly what it is in religion that makes it more difficult to resolve: the aspirations of the conflicting parties. When the demands of both or at least one side in a conflict is related to the religious sphere, then negotiated settlement is less likely to come about. The incompatibilities in conflicts can be related either to a governmental or a territorial dimension (or both), and demands regarding religious issues can therefore be related to either of these two dimensions. This points to the importance of studying incompatibilities in conflicts. Second, we know (as we showed above) that religious identity does not by itself systematically decrease the risk for negotiated settlements. Rather, it is not primarily religious differences that cause conflicts to be difficult to resolve, but if the issue at stake is framed in religious terms. This points to the importance of separating the identity and the issue dimensions of conflicts. There is overlap, of course, between these two categories: in some conflicts where parties have different religious identities the issue is also religiously framed, in other conflicts it is not. And in some of the conflicts in which the issue is religiously contentious, the parties come from the same religious tradition, whereas in others the parties come from different religious traditions. The point is that it does not matter so much what the identities of the parties are; what matters (unfortunately, in a negative way) is whether the aspirations of the parties carry some explicit religious component.

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A third observation that needs to be made here may seem technical but has important substantial ramifications. The analy­ sis is dyadic, meaning measuring pairs of governments and non-state actors. This implies that in several cases there can be a number of conflict dyads. In some of these the rebel side may have raised religiously based aspirations, whereas in other dyads, they have not. We have studied the propensity for dyadic pairs to reach negotiated agreements and found that those with a religious dimension in the incompatibility have in general lower probabilities to reach a negotiated peaceful outcome of the conflict. It is not empirically unusual that new rebel groups emerge in intractable conflicts and that religious demands develop in later rebel–government pairs as the conflict unfolds. There is, in other words, a potential escalation of demands between different rebel groups. If governments have not been able to reach agreement with non-religious-oriented rebel groups, they may later face even more difficult situations when confronting groups with religiously based aspirations, and those conflicts are harder to resolve.

Central religious issues and negotiated settlements Up until now we have looked at how religious identities of parties in conflict and the presence of religious dimensions in incompatibilities influence the chances for negotiated settlement. Yet, religious dimensions in incompatibilities are not monolithic. There is an important variation within conflicts with a religious dimension in the incompatibility in the sense that the religious dimension can range from central importance to a peripheral issue. In other words, in some conflicts where there is a religious incompatibility the religious issue is a major one, of central

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 67

concern, for at least one of the sides in conflict. In other cases, although there is a religious dimension, it is a minor issue and hence plays a much lesser role. The centrality of religious issues is an important question. Nordås (2010) suggests that centrality is a fruitful way of classi­ fying armed conflicts (p. 28), but that it has no systematic effect on the level of conflict intensity (pp. 28, 173). Toft also utilises this distinction in analysing religious civil wars. Hassner (2009) suggests that whether a sacred space is central to the concerns of the conflicting parties is a crucial factor in explaining when a space is perceived as indivisible. Fox (1997) shows that conflicts where the religious issue has a high salience represent a clear minority of ethnic conflicts but do follow some distinct empirical patterns. The theoretical explanations that we have discussed that account for the intractability of religious dimensions in conflict apply to centrality of religion as well. In conflicts where the religious issue is considered central, there is a risk that the parties apply zero-sum thinking and fail to see any bargaining range within which an agreement could be reached. Conflicts where religion is of central importance might suffer from challenges in dividing the stake, problems with a decrease in cost sensitivity, a political theology which endorses violence, elites outbidding each other in religious appeals, and a conceptualisation of the basis of the nation-state that challenges secular views. This can help to explain why the chance of reaching a negotiated settlement where the religious issue is central to the conflict is so small. Centrality of religious incompatibilities can be identified in two ways. First, it is relative to the number of issues the party is concerned with. The more issues that are on the table, the less rela­tive importance the religious issue may have. This is about the single-mindedness of the religious actor and whether or not their

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demands boil down to religious aspirations. Yet very few, if any, of the actors in armed conflicts in contemporary times have had a singular religious agenda. The religious factor has been related, but also intertwined, with political, economic or military aspirations, such as the withdrawal of foreign troops, end of occupation, termination of corruption, and so forth. Second, centrality of religious incompatibilities can be about the relative weight of religious demands in relation to other contentious issues, primarily in terms of how prominent the religious dimension is in the conflict. The religious issue may be one among many, but may nevertheless be one of central importance. It may be an issue from which there is no backing down, no readiness to make concessions or no will to find creative solutions. In Table 2, the occurrence of negotiated settlement, that is, peace agreements that terminate the conflict, is examined. As expected, after the study in the earlier section, negotiated settlement overall is rare – there are only six agreements that have been reached between parties in conflict with religious dimensions in the incompatibilities (these six agreements will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3). A majority of the cases (four of them) are found in the category of conflicts with minor peripheral religious issues. Sudan and Somalia are the only case that had a religious dimension central to its incompatibility and resulted in a negotiated settlement. We will turn our attention to these cases shortly, but an analysis of the relationship, utilising a simple table analysis, shows a statistically significant negative relationship.25 This means that 24 per cent of armed conflicts where religion is a minor issue are resolved peacefully through a peace agreement, whereas only 3 per cent of armed conflicts where religion is a major issue are settled through an agreement. This implies that central religious dimensions are in general associated with lower chances of reaching negotiated

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 69

settlements. The few numbers seen here militate against doing multivariate regressions or more advanced statistical analysis, so it must be sufficient to establish just a basic correlation. There is, nevertheless, evidence enough to support the notion that armed internal conflicts where religious issues are central to the parties’ concerns are less likely to be resolved peacefully. Table 2 Peace agreements in the religious conflicts No peace agreement

Peace agreement

Total

Peripheral religious issue

13

4

17

Central religious issue

59

2

61

Total

72

6

78

How should these findings be interpreted? Three observations can be made. First, centrally placed demands concerning religion seem to impede the prospect for settlement more than peripheral demands concerning religion. This is further evidence that it is the religious aspirations that are causing a problem of nonnegotiability and the lack of conflict resolution. Moreover, this shows the importance of taking the variation within the category of religious incompatibility conflicts into account. The prospect for conflict resolution looks different depending on the place in the incompatibility where a religious dimension manifests itself. Second, it indicates a difference between conflict management in, and conflict resolution of, religious disputes. Nordås (2010) finds that centrality of religion does not affect the levels of intensity of conflicts (pp. 28, 173), but how can this be squared with the finding here? One possible explanation can be built around the distinction between conflict resolution and conflict

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management: it seems that armed conflicts where religion plays a central role in the issue dimension are harder to settle, but not necessarily harder to manage. There may be ways of keeping these conflicts on lower levels of intensity (regulating the behaviour), but they are overall very unlikely to be resolved (regulating the issue). The third observation concerns the character of these conflicts. A majority of the conflicts in which the religious issue is central, but not all of them, are governmental conflicts; that is, they are fought over the issue of control of government of the whole state rather than territorial control over some parts of the state. Since there can be only one constitution, governmental conflicts where the religious issues are central may suffer from severe problems through dividing the state. Territorial differentiation may open up possibilities to divide a territory. In the majority of these conflicts the identities of the parties come from the same religious tradition (primarily these are cases where both sides are from the Muslim tradition). This further complicates conflict resolution, since the two sides in a conflict are competing against the same audience. When the two parties appeal to the same basic constituency, rather than having separate constituencies, this can increase the risk for religious outbidding, indivisibility, and overall a negotiation climate permeated with zero-sum thinking. To conclude, the aim of this study is to gain an understanding of whether conflicts involving religion are inherently more intractable than other types of conflicts and, more precisely, what it is in religion that can make conflict resolution more difficult to occur. We have seen that the evidence shows no significant effect of religious dissimilarity on the likelihood of negotiated settlements in intrastate, armed conflicts. This suggests that religious identity dimensions are not the main components causing problems

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 71

for conflict-resolution processes in armed conflicts. On the other hand, once religious aspirations have been stated in relation to the incompatibility in conflicts there is a general and systematic pattern of decreased change of conflict resolution. Even more strongly, if the religious issue in conflict is a major one (for at least one of the sides), then the likelihood of conflict resolution is quite slim. In order to isolate the religious dimensions that need to be addressed for the peaceful resolution of conflict further analysis of the religious dimensions needs to be undertaken. The case studies in Chapter 3 will examine these dimensions and how they were addressed in negotiated settlements.

How religion impedes negotiated settlements – Sri Lanka Statistical analysis can establish the correlation between different religious dimensions and the chances for peaceful solutions. In order to understand the more dynamic and complex interplay between the religious factors and conflict resolution, we now turn to an examination of an empirical case. What is important here is understanding how conflict-resolution processes are impeded by religious forces, primarily related to the conflicting issue. Sri Lanka is a good example to study since it represents an armed conflict that had all three religious dimensions that we have been examining up to now. First, it was a conflict across religious identity lines – a predominately Buddhist government versus a predominately Hindu rebel movement (LTTE).26 The religious identity cleavage was not complete, but still present.27 Second, there was also a contested religious issue, in terms due to the fact that the government sought to uphold a unified country in which Buddhism has constitutionally held the ‘foremost place’ as juridically enshrined in the 1972 constitution (Bartholomeusz

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2002, p. 5; Frydenlund 2005, p. 9; Uyangoda 2007, p. 2), which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) vigorously contested. Third, this issue was central to the conflicting parties. It was definitely not the only conflicting issue as several other disputes issues were as, or even more, important, but it was part of the different perspective on the state formation and the character of the Sri Lankan nation and therefore was a major part of the conflict. Sri Lanka is a good study to help us understand the relationship between religion and conflict resolution as well because it has had a peace process. A Norwegian-facilitated negotiation process commenced in 2002 between the government and the LTTE, and it included an internationally monitored ceasefire. This represented a serious attempt to settle the conflict peacefully, but it utterly failed in the end, culminating in an intensive and victorious government campaign that in the last few months of 2009 cost the lives of at least 7000 people.28 Hence, Sri Lanka enables us to see in more detail exactly how religious dimensions hamper conflict-resolution processes. I will therefore ask two empirical questions in looking at this case: what were the religious dimensions of the incompatibility, and how did these influence the chances for conflict resolution? The example of the religious nationalism of the Buddhist movement in Sri Lanka will serve as an illustration of how religious dimensions can obstruct prospects for peaceful solutions. The peace process took place in a context of a long and bloody war over the state formation of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan armed conflict, from 1983 to 2009, was one of the longest-running and most devastating intrastate conflicts in contemporary times. Around 84,000 people perished in the fighting (UCDP). The two main parties, the government of Sri Lanka and Tamil militants, and one group in particular, the LTTE, fought a vicious war on

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 73

the question of state formation. The LTTE’s aspiration was the creation of a Tamil Eelam – a homeland for the Tamil people in the north and northeast of the island – a demand that was, for the most part of the conflict, interpreted as an aspiration for the separation and the creation of an independent, sovereign state. When Norway was invited to facilitate dialogue and negotiations between the two parties in 1999, the parties had reached a stalemate situation and needed ways to break the impasse.29 The causes and dynamics of the armed conflict have been analysed in great detail elsewhere (Swamy 1996, 2003; de Silva 1998; Philipson 1999; Wilson 2000). For our purposes, it is sufficient to establish that the question about the role between the state and Buddhism was a significant part of the basic incompatibility between the conflicting parties (Little 1996, 1999; Seneviratne 2001; Hayward 2011; Manor 1994; Neumaier 2004). Although it is safe to say that there was a religious dimension in the incompatibility, it should also be underlined that it was not the only contentious issue that separated the Tamil Tigers from the government of Sri Lanka. Additional and closely related issues were those of language, access to higher education, security and political influence for the Tamil minority, the degree of selfdetermination for the Tamil minority, whether the north and northeast should be one or two regions, and the degree of the LTTE’s influence and its role in particular in relation to other rival Tamil political groups. All of these concerns were part of the complex web of the intractable dispute, in which the issue of the religious character of the Sri Lankan state played a vital, but not exclusively important, role. The conflict issue in Sri Lanka partly included a religious dimension, but this was primarily one-sided. The government’s status quo position, as enshrined in the constitution, gave Buddhism

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the foremost place, and gave the state special obligation to protect and foster Buddhism, although the amended constitution in 1978 also specified equal rights for the other religious traditions within the state, such as Hinduism and Christianity.30 It was on the government’s side, not the rebels’, that there was a religious dimension in their aspiration in relation to the state-formation question (Seneviratne 2001; Schalk 2007). The Tamil nationalist movement took on some pseudo-religious aspects in the mobilisation throughout the conflict, in terms of an extreme leadership cult, rituals to honour the fallen fighters, and the emphasis on sacrifice for the sake of the homeland (most clearly in the use of suicide bombing, which the LTTE utilised as a strategy frequently). Whether this would be seen to some extent as ‘religious’ is debated (Schalk 1997). It nevertheless did not play a role in the incompatible aspirations of the LTTE as the organisation demanded a secular state. It is interesting to note that in their only attempt to spell out a comprehensive political solution to the conflict, the LTTE, in explicit contrast to the 1972 constitution in Sri Lanka, stated that ‘No religion should be given a foremost place in the North East’ (Sri Lanka 2003, para. 5). Thus, the LTTE demanded a separate state, and one that was to be defined, in contrast to the Sri Lankan state, as explicitly secular. There are three main ways in which the religious dimensions of the incompatibility played out in the conflict and affected the way in which the peace process unfolded. First, a Sinhalanationalist ideology that incorporated religious doctrines and traditions permeated the political discourse on the government side. The Sinhala-nationalist ideology has old roots, but has taken a distinctively modern form. The origin of this can be traced back to a countermovement of Buddhist nationalism that feared the offensive Christian missionary activities in Ceylon (now

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 75

Sri Lanka) (Seneviratne 2001; Hayward 2011). According to this ideological understanding, there is a basic unity between the Sinhala nation, the Sinhalese language, and the Buddhist religion. Although a modern nation-state is a relatively new phenomenon on the island, it is this precise nation-state that is seen to embody this trinity of race, language and faith. Buddhist nationalists believed that Buddha himself had given Sri Lanka, which applied to the whole of Sri Lanka, a divine mission to uphold and maintain the pure form of Buddhist teaching and practice (Harris 2007, p. 152). This Buddhist-nationalist ideology influenced the discourse, the motivations of the parties in the south, and room for manoeuvring on the basic issue of the formation of the state. This assumption of a unity between language, race and territory inflicts the prospects for negotiated agreements, since representatives of this ideological perspective ‘believe in a religiously defined island . . . which, by being religious, is lifted above all negotiations, because it is made the ultimate aim’ (Schalk 2007, p. 143). Against this ideological frame, every indication of an openness to consider changing the unitary status of the state became extremely controversial. This ideology permeated all political parties and contributed to, among other factors, the problems of the government side to make substantial moves towards a negotiated settlement. Religion also influenced the dynamics of the peace process by the activation of a religiously defined party. Many monks had become active in other political parties – the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the United National Party (UNP), and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), in which more nationalistic monks organised themselves. Yet, partly as a counteraction to growing momentum of the peace process and in the context of growing popular resentment over the development on the political

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negotiation front, a political party comprising Buddhist monks emerged in the 2004 parliamentary election, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) (Rampton & Welikala 2005; DeVotta & Stone 2008). Hence, Sri Lanka is an example of religious actors becoming involved in politics. In its election manifesto, the JHU sought the establishment of a righteous state that would maintain the unitary status of the country as well as protecting Buddhist values, principles and rights. The JHU aspired to maintain and deepen Sinhalese Buddhist domination in Sri Lanka (DeVotta & Stone 2008, p. 39). The fact that the monk-based JHU party could emerge was a ‘manifestation of contemporary changes in Sinhala Buddhist religiosity’ (Sørbø et al. 2011, p. 121). The JHU was a minority party and had only a limited influence over policy. It did, however, contribute to the collapse of the peace process through its extensive critique of post-tsunami relief mechanisms, which were instruments for cooperation between the government and the Tamil Tigers in order to address the needs of the tsunami victims. The Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS) was a turning point in the peace process, when after a period of conflict escalation the parties sought ways to establish collaborative efforts to the tsunami-affected east and northeast of the country (Sørbø et al. 2011). The parties agreed on P-TOMS, which gave the LTTE the possibility to distribute international aid in the areas it controlled. ‘This provided the JHU monks with an opportunity to flex their nationalist credentials, given the party’s opposition to dealing with the LTTE. They, consequently, vehemently argued in parliament and in the media that the P-TOMS merely helped the LTTE rearm in their quest to create a separate state’ (DeVotta & Stone 2008, p. 44). Thus, at a critical juncture of the peace process, when there was a possibility for an opening after

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 77

a long period of stalemate, a religiously defined actor obstructed the peace process and their spoiling attempts succeeded to hinder further progress of the process. Religiously defined political actors, in particular the Buddhist monk party JHU, played an influential opposition role, in particular, in creating opposition to the joint mechanism for reconstruction following the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. The Buddhist nationalists represented a relatively small but still influential and vocal voice in the Sinhalese political landscape and they fought to protect the unitary status and political integrity of Sri Lanka and protested against any attempts aimed at increasing autonomy; attempts which potentially could have helped to carve out a peaceful solution to the conflict. The religious actors were also active in expressing objection to the facilitator. Importantly, Buddhist-nationalist individuals, news media, and organisations played a prominent role in criticising and delegitimising the Norwegian peace diplomats. Norway was invited by both parties to facilitate the process between the two main parties. Buddhist-nationalist news media, individuals and groups campaigned against the Norwegian involvement, portraying Norway as a colonial power, a LTTE-biased actor and a Christian nation. This campaign of delegitimisation eventually decreased the possibilities for Norway to play a constructive role. Monks vocally criticised the Norwegian-facilitated peace talks and ‘staged demonstrations in front of the state building and at local religious sites, with actions ranging from sit-down protests to burning the Norwegian flag’ (Hayashi-Smith 2011, p. 164). The rationale for these protests and criticism was both political as well as religious: ‘The monks, characterizing themselves as the protectors of Buddhism, ground their views in spiritually authoritative texts’ (Hayashi-Smith 2011, p. 164). Hence, in Sri

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Lanka, the religious actors provided an important obstacle for peaceful solutions by making the role of facilitation more difficult to pursue. This is by no mean a new phenomenon, but rather has occurred regularly in contemporary times. The politically mobilised monks have raised opposition against suggested accommodation of minority concerns for political power sharing, and ‘they have done so on every occasion that such attempts have been made’, was one observation made at the onset of the peace process (Seneviratne 2001, p. 16). This religiously based resistance against attempts of peaceful conflict resolution thus follows a certain degree of empirical regularity. ‘In fact, whenever the idea of a negotiated settlement to the ethnic question has entered the political debate, the mainstream Buddhist intelligentsia has not only opposed it, but has also openly advocated war’ (Uyangoda 2007, p. 2). By providing a rationale for aggressive militarisation and actively engaging in opposition against attempts to peacefully settle the conflict, the majority of the Buddhist organisations have had a detrimental role in the progression towards a peaceful solution to the armed conflict. The third way in which religion played out in the conflict was in the form of politicians who instrumentalised religious sentiments in their struggle for political power and influence. Political actors utilised, and to some extent manipulated, religious sentiments, perceptions and imaginations in order to enhance their own political ambitions and further their own political agenda. Religious sentiments, perceptions and structures have been used by political elites that seek to advance other interests, such as economic interests or political power. There has been a process of ‘state appropriation of Buddhist practices’ (Uyangoda 2007, p. 1), where political parties utilise appeals to Buddhist narratives and cooperation with leading

Which religious conflicts are difficult to resolve? 79

figures in the Sinhala–Buddhist community. These have been a regular praxis of politicians seeking support from religious groups and leaders as part of the political mobilisations for particular programs or candidatures (Uyangoda 2007, p. 2). The Rajapaksa administration, which came to power at the end of the peace process, had an overt Buddhist nationalistic appeal and, through this, co-opted the religious-nationalistic JHU (Sørbø et al. 2011, p. 126), and this may be one reason why the monk-based party did not win a second term in parliament. We have tried to detect the negative influence that religion played on the peace process. Unfortunately, Sinhala–Buddhism had an overall negative influence in terms of actors, ideology and by lending itself as a basis for popular appeals against the aspir­ ations of the peace process. This negative impact was real and substantial. Yet, we need to end this section with two necessary clarifications on the role of religion that can serve as caveats to the claim of the negative influence of Sinhala–Buddhism on the country’s peace process. First, sections of Sinhala–Buddhism also played a positive role. There were active peacebuilding initiatives and groups of monks within the Sangha who tried to reach out to the Tamil minority and actively engage in peace work (Seneviratne 2001; Orjuela 2003, 2008; Frydenlund 2005; Hayward 2011). Second, nothing in the analysis above suggests that religion was the only, or even the main, obstacle to peace between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE. In fact, the obstacles were not entirely found on the side of the actor that had religious aspir­ations. The secular LTTE is definitely also to be blamed for the breakdown of the peace process, in terms of extensive violations of the ceasefire, harassment of political opponents, and enforcing an election boycott that brought the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa to power. Hence, religion has played one, but

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definitely not the only or perhaps even not the most important, role in hindering negotiated settlement in Sri Lanka. Other factors have influenced the parties’ willingness and ability to settle the conflict peacefully as well. The peace attempt failed because of lack of political will between both sides, as well as because of the internal divisions within both the LTTE and the government. Nothing here suggests that the religious aspects of the conflicts were insurmountable obstacles for conflict resolution. Religion did not make it impossible to settle the conflict peacefully, but it did make it significantly more difficult.

Conclusions The point of departure for this chapter was the need to ident­ ify how the different religious dimensions of conflicts affect the chances for peaceful resolution of armed conflicts between governments and rebel groups. After analysing data on armed conflicts, we now know how, on average, the three different religious dimensions affect the chances for negotiated settlement. By differentiating between the three dimensions – identity, incompatibility and centrality – this chapter provides some initial answers to the question of what it is that makes religious conflicts more difficult to resolve. If we focus on religious dissimilarity – conflicts in which belligerents follow religious lines – we can conclude that religious conflicts are not more intractable than others. Conflicting religious identities, which have preoccupied much of previous research, did not seem to have any effect on the likelihood that the parties will reach a negotiated settlement. On the other hand, if we examine the incompatibilities of conflicts, we get a quite different answer. Conflicts where at least one side has an explicit religious claim are less likely to end through negotiated settlements in

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comparison with, and in contrast to, conflicts lacking explicit religious aspirations. Moreover, if the central religious issue is of fundamental concern for the parties, then the chance for the resolution of the conflict is even less. Centrality of religious aspiration does seem to decrease, on a general level, the odds of negotiated settlement. In order to clarify how these general tendencies play out in the real life of armed conflicts, we have studied the Sri Lankan case. Sri Lanka illustrates some of the basic ways in which religious dynamics impede settlements in internal armed conflict. As a conflict where the religious controversy had central location among the issues (although not being the only or necessarily the most important one) it is a good case to examine. By examining the peace process of 1999–2006, we can detect in more detail than in the statistical analysis the way in which religious aspects negated the attempts to peacefully resolve the issue. Religion – in the form of religiously inspired ideologies, religiously defined actors who took action against the peace attempts at important junctures of the process, as well as political elites who utilised and mobilised religious sentiments and imaginations for their own purposes – stood in the way of peace. We have seen how paradigmatic ideas (underlying ideologies) limited the space for possible negotiated solutions. Furthermore, we have seen how religiously defined actors have played an active role in hindering the peace process and how, by utilising political mobilisation, these actors were able to enforce deep-rooted identity cleavages and thereby enforce the identity polarisation between the parties. These religious actors also tried to appeal to the religious sentiments against something ‘foreign’ (in this case Norway). Moreover, politicians have competed with each other in their efforts to appeal to religious

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feelings and perceptions, instrumentalising the religious basis for their own narrow purposes. Taken together, these religiously related processes have helped to undermine the once-promising process towards a negotiated peace in Sri Lanka.

Ch a p t e r 3

How do religious issue conflicts get resolved through peace agreements?

The previous chapter explains how religious dimensions of armed conflicts make negotiated settlements harder to reach. The global pattern of armed conflicts with religious dimensions in the incompatibilities (and in particular when the religious dimensions are central) involved show they have a negative impact on conflict resolution. Yet, as is the case in basically all social sciences, that pattern concerns the overall probability of the parties reaching a negotiated settlement. This implies there are exceptions to the general trends; that is, cases where parties were able to resolve the conflicts even though the conflict had religious dimensions. In this chapter, we examine exceptions: the six cases of peace agreements that have been reached in conflicts over religious issues. Why are these exceptions possible? What do the settlements that go against the general tendencies in armed conflicts look like? And how were the parties able to overcome the intractable

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enhancing power of religion in their dispute? To answer these questions an empirical examination of peace agreements in armed conflicts that have a religious dimension in the basic incompatibility are investigated.31 The ambition here is to make an inventory of the conflict-regulating mechanisms utilised to resolve armed conflicts with religious dimensions in general, and the way in which religious issues have been dealt with in particular. In these armed conflicts, where at least one side has expressed explicit religious aspirations at the onset of the conflict, the belligerents have found innovative ways for regulating contentious religious issues. The fact that they are rare makes them particularly important to scrutinise. Are there conflict-resolution models, procedures and arrangements that have worked in desacralising these conflicts that are applicable to other cases? I think so. There are some creative solutions that, although they carry certain negative implications as well, which will be discussed later in this book, are basically signs of hope, showing how religious dimensions can be made less significant or can be accommodated within a larger framework of conflict resolution. In Chapter 6, I will discuss the applicability of these mechanisms and identify some of the potential problems in using them in other cases. As argued in the Introduction, it is important to bear in mind that contentious religious issues are never isolated from other issues under dispute. Armed conflicts are basically never onedimensional. Through escalation processes, more issues may be drawn into a conflict and this typically results in a whole set of issues being unresolved. Political, economical, military and wider cultural issues are part of the complex nature of armed conflicts, together with religious disputes. Here, however, the focus is on a specific set of conflicting issues and on the question of how

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the religious aspects of armed conflicts can be regulated. It is also important to point out that by examining cases of religious regulation there is no assumption that religion is a root cause of armed conflicts. In fact, in many cases, religious language and symbols have been used as instruments of conflict, as fig leafs for other political or economic aspirations. Exploring the way religious issues have been regulated can shed light on how religious issues can be mitigated once they have been incorporated into the conflict dynamics. Contentious religious dimensions have been resolved in six armed conflicts: in Sudan through changes in priorities, horsetrading procedures and with the establishment of a temporary religious federalist structure; in Tajikistan through the legalisation of religious-based political parties and power-sharing arrangements; in Mindanao in the Philippines and in Aceh in Indonesia by instituting autonomy in the religious sphere; in Somalia through power sharing with religious militants and through the implementation of Sharia law; and in Nepal through the abdication of the Hindu King, the negotiated abolishment of the monarchy and establishing the country as a secular state. They all show interesting ways of regulating religious issues in armed conflicts, and although none of them can be seen as unproblematic (and we will come back to a discussion about the negative implications of regulating religious issues later) they all have important lessons to tell us about how conflicts can be transformed through a negotiated desacralisation process.

Religious federalism – South Sudan, Sudan The conflict in southern Sudan is a rare case in the sense that it represents an internal armed conflict with a central religious dispute that was resolved and terminated peacefully through

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negotiated settlement.32 In Sudan, the government, based on its particular form of political Islam, fought against the SPLM/A (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army) with their political aspiration of a secular South Sudan.33 In the agreement reached at Machakos in Kenya in 2002 and confirmed later in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005, mediated under the auspices of the regional organisation Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa, the parties were able to settle their dispute through the sharing of power, the division of wealth from the oil industry, and a referendum on independence (Woodward 2006; Brosché 2009). Critically, from the perspective of this book, the overall agreement also included a solution to their religious dispute through an interesting crafting of institutional religious federalism. How did this solution solve the contentious issue of the role of religion in the Sudanese state? How did such unique settlement arrangements manifest? What were the peace arrangements that enabled the parties to settle religious demands? As we shall see, the peace formula in the Sudan was reached in three basic ways: a decrease in the importance of the religious factor, in particular for the government side, in the context of other priorities; institutional arrangements that met the parties’ most important aspirations; and negotiation that occurred within a framework where parties made concessions on other issues. Sudan represents a case where religion has played an important and central role in the conflict.34 The issue of Islam or secularism in the state as well as the identity division between the predominately Muslim north and the predominately Christian (as well as followers of traditional African religious beliefs) south were two ways in which religion manifested in the conflict. The identity and issues dimensions are, in the Sudanese case, intermingled:

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‘Contrary to the North, southerners see themselves as unambiguously African and advocate secularism as their basis for national identity and national building’ (Deng 2005, p. 263). The SPLM/A demanded autonomy (self-determination) and possibly independence but, in particular, under its legendary leader John Garang de Mabior, it also had aspirations to transform the whole of Sudan into a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. SPLM/A was the key members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 1989, which consisted of various opposition groups that were critical of the Hassan al-Turabi-led radical Islamists. Originating in 1983 as a socialist-oriented movement, with the backing of the socialist leader in Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, the SPLM/A demanded a new unified Sudan: ‘under a socialist system that affords democracy and human rights to all nationalities and guarantees freedom to all religions, beliefs and outlooks’ (cited by Gallab 2008; p. 2). The SPLM/A toned down its socialist rhetoric after the collapse of the Mengistu regime in 1991, when the organisation moved its headquarters to Kenya instead. It still maintained, however, the basic position regarding secularism in the whole of Sudan. Whereas there has always been a religious dimension in the conflict, the centrality of religion as a contentious issue, as well as the readiness of the parties to seek accommodation, have varied over time. If we examine the salience of the religious issues, we can identify five different phases in the conflict. First there was the civil war of 1962–72, where the question of religion was primarily one of an identity marker. The Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 ended the conflict through devolution of power to the south (Rothchild & Hartzell 1993). This first Sudanese civil war is not an example of an armed conflict with a religious dimension in the incompatibility, since neither side made any explicit reference

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to religion at the onset of the conflict. Yet, religion helped (in both the first Sudanese civil war and the second one, 1983–2005) to mark the conflicting identities of the parties, reinforcing other attributes of separateness such as culture, tradition, geography and history (Assefa 1987, 1990). The dispute over the religious character of Sudan took a second phase in September 1983 when General Jaafar al-Nimeiry (who had paradoxically been in negotiations of the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972) instigated what became known as the September Laws, which made Sudan a Muslim country. Nimeiry was pressurised in this issue by the influential religious–political party Nation Islamic Front (NIF): ‘one of the Nation Islamic Front’s earliest political achievements was persuading President Nimeiry to abrogate the 1972 Addis Ababa peace agreement with the south’ (ICG 2002, p. 72). The imposition of Sharia law by Nimeiry in 1983 was one of the reasons why the Addis Ababa Agreement broke down (Rothchild & Hartzell 1993, p. 89) as this sacralisation was against what had been agreed in 1972. Sharia law was deemed to be the basic premise for the legal regulations of the country – Islamic law should from then on be ‘the sole guiding force behind the law of the Sudan’ (Lesch 1998, p. 55), and the Sharia penal code applied throughout the country. The third phase is detectable from about 1985 to 1989, during a period of increased democracy in Sudan when religious issues became less important and there were several openings for negotiations with the SPLM/A. This shift can be explained partly by geostrategic factors, such as the loss of support from the Soviet Union (for Sudan). Nimeiry was overthrown, when he was out of the country, in a popular uprising in 1985 by the Transitional Military Council (TMC). Party and press freedoms were reintroduced and a general election was scheduled for April

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1986, ‘as many as 36 parties registered with the T.M.C., ranging from those committed to revolutionary socialism to those who adhered to Islamic ideology’ (Salih 1990, p. 201). The resulting coalition proved to be fragmented, unstable and corrupt. Peace talks, including discussion of the implementation of Sharia law, were entered into with the SPLM/A during this period, however the shooting down of civilian aircraft by the SPLM/A suspended negotiations. The fourth phase of the conflict occurred when the parties were moving closer to a potential deal. A day before an agreement on suspending Sharia law was signed a turning point emerged in the conflict. A new coup d’état was implemented in 1989, through which Omar al-Bashir came to power, but the ideological and de facto leader was Hassan al-Turabi, the founder and leader for the NIF, a Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.35 Turabi was committed to stopping the slide towards peaceful settlement with the south and the openings for a less strict implementation of Sharia. Instead, Sharia became even more strictly applied. For instance, Bashir described the fallen soldiers in the fight against the rebels in the south as martyrs (ICG 2002, p. 15), which implied religious connotations. ‘For the NIF government, fighting “rebels” assumed the nature of jihad’ (el-Battahani 2006, p. 12) and ‘elevated the civil war into an Islamic holy war’ (Khadiagala 2007, p. 189). The religiously political contentious issues were the implementation of Islamic penal codes and dress codes, but also religious persecution against Christians (such as the prohibition against the building of Catholic churches) as well as Islamic Banking (persons from the NIF were centrally placed in the Islamic banking industry). The Islamic issue also became internationalised, since Turabi saw Sudan as a hub for radical Islamic groups (most notably al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, who was living in Khartoum in

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the late 1990s), and wanted Sudan to be a religious centre for radical Islam. This period of increased Islamisation coincided with increased polarisation of the parties in the conflict. The fifth phase of the conflict was between 2000 and 05 and was both partial desacralisation and negotiated resolution of the religious issues. At the beginning of 2000, the international pressure on the government as well as the prospect of access to the emerging oil resources made the government more open to consider alternatives to its positions. An important factor here was also the power struggles in Khartoum, which resulted in Turabi eventually being marginalised from power. Instead there was an increasing economic impetus. ‘Success in the National Islamic Front’s economic agenda led to a moderation of its ideology. Oil development became the first priority of the government’ (ICG 2002, p. 35). The ousting of Turabi was perceived by the neighbouring countries as ‘the end of political extremism that would improve the chances of a comprehensive agreement’ (Khadiagala 2007, p. 217). The resolution of the religious dimensions culminated in the Machakos Protocol (Sudan 2002). Somewhat paradoxically, desacralisation initially had a negative effect on mediation attempts. The immediate effect of the decreasing role of religion was that the process, spearheaded by IGAD, lost some of its momentum. The pressure from the neighbouring countries decreased when the expansionist Islamist agenda of the Khartoum regime was reduced in the late 1990s. Hence, they lost the incentive to put pressure on the government of Sudan (Deng 2005). The contentious issue of the role of the secular state was one of the major obstacles contributing to a lack of progress in several of the peace attempts throughout the conflict. For instance, in 1986, ‘the [Koka Dam] Declaration was unable to resolve the contentious issue of sharia’ (ICG 2002, p. 14). In August 1989, the

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Addis Ababa peace negotiation session failed as did the Nairobi nego­tiations the same year, ‘with Islamic law again a key sticking point. SPLA demands to revoke Sharia were anathema to the National Islamic Front’ (p. 15). And in the Abuja talks in Nigeria during 1992–93 the sides were reported to be ‘deadlocked again on the hot-button issues: religion and state; the political system and security during an interim period; socio-economic policies; and a referendum on self-determination’ (p. 17, citing Lesch 1998, p. 178). Hence, there were two (or three) peace negotiations that failed (1986 and 1989, and perhaps Abuja talks) because of disagreement over the religious issue, and one of the prime reasons for the failure of the Addis Ababa Agreement was also a religious dimension: the anti-peace advocacy by the NIF. The third-party mediation effort under the auspices of IGAD played a pivotal role in reaching regulation of the religious issues in Sudan.36 As early as in 1994, the IGAD mediation effort formulated a Declaration of Principles (DOP) that stated the separation of state and religion (Khadiagala 2007). Yet at that time, the government rejected the DOP on the basis that ‘the issues of self-determination and secularism were not negotiable’ (p. 199). Hence, the IGAD mediation attempts initially failed to bridge the gap between the parties on the issue of secularism of the Sudanese state. The maximalist positions of the two sides were far away from each other and there was little room for a zone of agreement. Yet the IGAD process got reinvigorated in 2002 by the mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo, and increased pressure from the United States, including a commitment by the US congress in 2002 to facilitate famine relief efforts and a comprehensive solution to the war in Sudan stipulated in the Sudan Peace Act. The big breakthrough came with the Machakos Protocol signed on 20 July 2002. This document stipulated a continuation

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of Sharia as the basis of legislation in the north, whereas the administration in the south was to be conducted on a secular basis. ‘The Machakos Protocol represented a mutual renunciation of previously “non-negotiable” items such as Khartoum’s desire to Islamise southern Sudan and the SPLA’s determination to secularise the entire country’ (Khadiagala 2007, p. 241). The CPA contained the Machakos Protocol and the other protocols that the parties had agreed on after the Machakos Protocol. After decades of civil war and various failed peace negotiations the CPA was signed in 2005 (Brosché 2008). The CPA was an important step towards conflict resolution in Sudan. The agreement reconciled the peace agreements previously discussed and explicitly regulated the religious issues of both parties. The CPA was ratified by the government of the Republic of Sudan and the SPLM/A. The peace settlement stipulates the establishment of a new national identity and basis for citizenship, the acknowledgement of the religious, cultural and ethnic diversity of Sudan, good governance, and fundamental human rights. The CPA also established three conflict-regulating mechanisms that addressed the incompatibilities faced by both parties: religious rights, a new autonomous structure of the judicial system and a dual banking system. In the longer haul, the CPA also provided the basis for the creation of the two independent Sudans, giving people of South Sudan the possibility to vote for independence in a referendum that was held in January 2011.37 The need to establish a new set of individual religious rights for Sudanese society was central to the conflict. This conflictregulation method attempted to unify the combatants’ differences by allowing religious groups to function and participate within Sudanese society, while also maintaining their distinctive religious traditions. Religious rights specified within this framework are

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the right to worship or assemble, the right to establish and maintain places for this practice as well as the right to make, acquire, and use adequate or necessary articles and materials related to rites. The agreement also outlines the freedom of all Sudanese citizens to publish religious texts, solicit religious contributions from others and observe days of rest and holidays in accordance to religious beliefs (ICG 2002). The creation of an autonomous structure of the judicial system was made in order to regulate the contention of Muslim Sharia law between both parties. As discussed above, the disputed question of Sharia law in Sudan had been a major obstacle to conflict resolution in the past. This was regulated in the CPA by a compromise to apply Sharia law only to the people of Islamic faith in Sudan. This conflict-resolution method involved concessions from both parties, as non-Muslims in Khartoum were exempt from penalties prescribed by Sharia law under the new stipulation, however they were not exempt from national and state laws based on Sharia. The new autonomous structure of the judicial system also specifies the right of individuals to be governed by the religion and custom of their choice in regards to marriage, divorce, parentage and inheritance. Power sharing was used as a tool that stated ‘a special commission shall be appointed by the Presidency to ensure that the rights of non-Muslims are protected in accordance with the aforementioned guidelines and not adversely affected by the application of Sharia Law in the capital’ (Sudan 2002, p. 20). It was to be the role of individual Sudanese states to introduce new legislation based on the values of the majority within the state and repeal legislation that did not adhere to the religion and customs of its people. The new governing principles of the judicial system in Sudan were the result of the integration of previous peace settlements that attempted to reconcile this religious issue. One

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example of this was a national dialogue conference held seven weeks after General Omar al-Bashir took power in 1989, where the government and the SPLM/A agreed that ‘non-Muslims had the right not to be ruled by shari’a just as Muslims had the right to be ruled by shari’a’ (Hussein 2006, p. 18). The final conflict-regulating mechanism regarding religious aspects outlined by the CPA is the implementation of a dual banking system. As previously mentioned the banking system was a source of religious contention as the NIF had centrally placed persons to further the influence of Islam in the banking sector. The CPA established an Islamic banking system in northern Sudan and a conventional banking system in the south. Thus, the main conflict-regulating mechanisms that can be identified are specified religious rights, autonomy arrangements through specified and limited application of the Sharia law, and new monetary policies through dual banking systems. The armed conflict continued after the religious issue was settled. This indicates that, while religious issues did serve as an important obstacle for a peaceful solution, it was not the only one. Yet an agreement on the basic formula of regulating religion was seen as necessary for the parties to engage in the peace process, and it opened up the possibility for a comprehensive solution to the armed conflict. Hence, the war continued for three more years before the CPA was reached and the negotiations focused on wealth and power sharing and other issues. There were two developments within each side of the conflict that enabled the desacralisation process in Sudan to take place. First, there was an aspirational shift for the rebel group SPLM/A to seek primary separation rather than the transformation of the whole of Sudan. As long as Garang was the leader of the SPLM/A, the aspirations were for a new Sudan, rather than independence.

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However, after his death in a helicopter crash in July 2005, the prosecessionists within the SPLM/A gradually got the upper hand. Second, there was a change in priority from the government side, with a decreased emphasis on religion and an increased emphasis on economic matters. These two trends opened up the possibility to allow Sharia law to be partially implemented and allowed the south to be exempt from its application. How did the process of desacralisation manifest itself in Sudan? The desacralisation process can be seen in three ways. First, the religious issue between the parties decreased in importance over time and in relation to other issues, particularly at the end of the 1990s and beginning of 2000. Hence, more tangible interests took over the agenda: oil, escaping the wrath of the United States in the War on Terror, and internal power considerations on both sides. For the two parties, the prospect of oil contributed to their incentives to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. The war weariness after a long and intensive armed conflict and the external pressure from outside countries, in particular the United States, cajoled and pressured them to make concessions from their maximalist positions. In particular, following the power struggles in Khartoum that left Bashir in charge and Turabi marginalised, there was a shift in priority. Although Bashir maintained the rhetorical position of the Islamic character of the Sudanese state, it was becoming clear that he was ready to consider positional changes. Already in 2001 Bashir expressed the possibility of a partial application of Islamic law in terms of selectively applying Sharia law to the north of the country only, a formula which eventually became integrated into the CPA. Second, the international religious dimension decreased following the 9/11 events. Several factors contributed to make religion less salient as a conflicting issue. The government made a concession and backed

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down from its previous hardline stance on the issue of the relationship between state and religion. The role of religion in the Islamic Sudan decreased, and that opened up the possibility to find solutions to the conflict. Second, the parties were able to reach agreement on the basic religious incompatibility: the state of religion in Sudan. Hence, with the Machakos Protocol confirmed in the CPA, the SPLM/A effectively gave up their position regarding a secular Sudan. The agreement gave both sides what they ultimately aspired: a secular south for the SPLM/A and an Islamic north for the GOS. Third, the agreement represents a case where the fulfilment of aspirations in the religious sphere was traded against concessions on other issue dimensions. In particular, the SPLM/A was ready to give up these in exchange for the formula for self-determination: a limited period of autonomy followed by a referendum (which was successfully implemented in January 2011) on the question of independence for southern Sudan.

Power sharing – Somalia In Somalia, peace agreements have not succeeded in putting an end to the armed conflict. Two peace agreements in 2008, the Djibouti Agreement and The Decision of the High Level Committee, Djibouti Agreement, attempted to reconcile the religious dimension of conflict in Somalia by initiating new dialogue between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Alliance for Re-Liberation in Somalia (ARS) (ICG 2008, p. i). Although the aspirations of the rebel side were largely met, a fractionalisation within both the TFG and the ARS hindered progress, and the exclusion of the al-Shabaab movement led to an escalation of the armed conflict. The majority of Somali people share both a common language (Somali) and a common religion (sufi Islam – mostly Shafi’i

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faith). In general Somalis have shown a preference towards a more moderate or ‘less radical’ Islamic influence within government (Simpson 2009, p. 31). The Islamic faith has traditionally been valued across clan lines: ‘Islam was essentially assimilated into clan culture’ (Le Sage 2001, p. 472). Attempts to create a stable government since the fall of Siyaad Barre’s regime in 1991 have been largely unsuccessful. Following a peace conference between 2002 and 2004, which constituted the fourteenth peace attempt and the fourth attempt to form a functioning government, the TFG was created. The TFG’s charter allowed for political factions, clan representation (both major and minor clans), seats for women and the acceptance of ‘Islam as the national religion, and agreed that sharia (Islamic) law would be the basis for national legislation’ (Dagne 2009, p. 97). However, the TFG has remained relatively weak due to its inability to bring stability to the region and continued corruption charges. The influence of the TFG within Somalia was lessened as some regions in the north did not recognise the authority of the TFG and areas of central and southern Somalia have been controlled by Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (al-Shabaab). The TFG’s primary area of control has been in Mogadishu, which has been maintained by African Union troops. Al-Shabaab is ‘a Salafi jihadi group bent on overthrowing the TFG and imposing its extreme version of Islam on the entire country, if not the entire region’ (ICG 2011a, p. 1). The religious dimension of the Somali conflict is focused on the way in which Islam is implemented in the running of the country. The Djibouti Agreement sought to resolve the political and religious incompatibilities of the conflict through power sharing between the TFG and the ARS. The ARS was a coalition of disaffected MPs, Somali diaspora and former leaders of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The aim of the talks was to create a

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stabilising alliance between the two political parties, marginalise radical Islamists in Somalia by empowering less radical but still active Islamists, and reduce, or at least stagnate, the role of Islamist militancy in the region (ICG 2008b, p. 23). The government made an agreement with the more moderate Islamists in the ICU in order to marginalise the radicals in the al-Shabaab movement. The Djibouti talks were a key event in the regulation of religious issues and influenced the stated incompatibilities of the insurgency. The years 2007 and 2008 were by all accounts particularly violent in Somalia, with a severe humanitarian impact as a result. This dire situation in Somalia, compounded by a government struggling to control the situation, an escalating insurgency, and a worsening humanitarian crisis prompted the United Nations to initiate talks between the two opposing parties: ‘This developed formally into the Djibouti mediation process that lasted, in its official form, from June 2008 to February 2009, and resulted in a new TFG that brought together the ARS and former TFG within one transitional government’ (McGhie 2010, p. 20). Whereas in previous efforts, Islamic factions had not been included in the peace attempts, this time there was an understanding that they needed to be included in order to reach a sustainable peace: ‘For the first time, there was a genuine consensus that the only way forward was a peace process involving the Islamists and eventually leading to a power-sharing accord’ (ICG 2011a, p. 23). However, the peace talks were limited by the refusal to participate by hardline elements of the insurgency. In 2008, the two declarations/agreements were signed. Although neither agreement put an end to the fighting, both were precursors to events in 2009 that ‘triggered a series of shockwaves that jolted al-Shabaab to the core’ (ICG 2011a, p. 6). The first initiative was a joint declaration between the TFG and the ARS

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signed on 9 June 2008 in Djibouti that focused on the question of Ethiopia’s withdrawal from Somalia. The second document was an agreement between the TFG and the ARS entitled the Decisions of the High Level Committee, Djibouti Agreement, signed on 25 November 2008 in Djibouti. The agreement stipulated a ‘power-sharing deal between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Alliance for Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS). The agreement provided a framework for the establishment of a Unity Government, consisting of members drawn from both the TFG and the ARS’ (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2011). The UN-led reconciliation process was Somalia’s fifteenth attempt to set up a central government since 1991. A UN-facilitated working group was established in order to develop detailed plans of a structure for the Unity Government, which it would submit to the High Level Committee, established through the Djibouti Agreement. In order to accommodate the changes necessary in line with this agreement and others, the parties agreed the new provisions would be embedded in the Transitional Federal Charter as amendments. The Transitional Period of the TFG was extended for two years, beginning in August 2009. The Committee’s recom­mendations addressed part of the incompatibility between the two actors by introducing power-sharing measures, however the limitation of the TFG’s charter expiring in 2011 implied that the resulting document was only a partial peace agreement, with limited authority (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2011). The months following the peace talks are of particular interest for the purposes of this book. Three events are important to consider in a discussion about how religious dimensions of armed conflicts can be regulated. First, the more ‘inclusive’ parliament elected the Head of the ARS (and one of the previous leaders of the ICU), Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as the new president. This, coupled

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with the earlier Decisions of the High Level Committee, Djibouti Agreement to allow for an additional 200 seats for ARS members, addressed the religious incompatibility of the conflict. The election of a president with Islamic credentials, and the inclusion of the ARS was an effort to ‘de-legitimise the al-Shabaab opposition’ (Moller 2009, p. 5). It was hoped that Ahmed’s background ‘would enable him to draw elements of the formidable but diverse armed opposition to the TFG under his banner’ (Albin-Lackey et al. 2010, p. 13). The second way the religious dimension of the conflict was addressed and attempted to accommodate the rebels’ demands was the new government’s commitment to the classification and implemention of Sharia law in Somalia (ICG 2010, p. 6). In 2009 the Somali parliament voted to implement Sharia throughout Somalia as a concession to the rebels’ demands for Sharia law (Al Jazeera 2009). President Ahmed stated it would not be a strict interpretation of Sharia however, ‘which forbids girls from attending school, requires veils for women and beards for men, and bans music and television’ (CNN 2009). The decision to implement Sharia law was an effort to take the mobilisation argument from the radical Islamists. Government representatives explicitly stated that ‘the opposition hardliners would no longer be able to use Islam as a justification for attacking the government’ (Ibrahim 2009). The inclusion of Sharia law in the agreement caught the hardine al-Shabaab off guard as it aimed to undermine their insurgency. Al-Shabaab then had to re-justify their continued opposition to the Ahmed government (ICG 2010, p. 1). Al-Shabaab shifted their rhetoric to frame Ahmed as a traitor: ‘His Islamist credentials were dubious and his intentions to implement Sharia suspect’ (p. 6). The movement was also forced to identify policy to show how their project to Islamise Somalia differed from the TFG (p. 6).

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The third point that addressed the religious incompatibility in the Djibouti agreements was the withdrawal of Ethiopia’s troops from Somalia from December 2008 to February 2009 (p. 6). The departure of Ethiopian troops also decreased al-Shabaab’s rhetoric of a necessary religious struggle for national liberation away from the Ethiopian Christian influence (Moller 2009, p. 5). However, following the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops al-Shabaab moved quickly to fill the vacuum created and reframed their struggle as an internal conflict against the TFG (Albin-Lackey et al. 2010, p. 15; Vidino 2010, p. 228). Al-Shabaab and other hardline insurgents and groups had not anticipated these agreements. The result was a destabilisation of the ideological cohesion of the movements. The support for their extreme measures faltered as their message became less clear. Divisions among al-Shabaab escalated due to individuals’ qualities and the movement’s guiding principles, ‘and the gulf widened between those amenable to some form of a political settlement and those wedded to al-Qaeda inspired notions of a permanent global jihad’ (ICG 2010, p. 1). Al-Shabaab thereafter moved towards a more global jihadist ideology and connected to international jihadist networks, which manifested itself not at least through a different recruitment base: ‘Arguably the most significant (and visible) evidence to show this consequence of the sacralisation of the Somali conflict is the presence and growing profile of non-ethnic Somalis in al-Shabaab’s ranks’ (Vidino 2010, p. 228). The government of Somalia attempted to address the religious dimensions of this conflict through power sharing and the implementation of Sharia in Somalia, however it has not resulted in a resolution to the armed conflict in Somalia. Nevertheless, it has desacralised the conflict, bringing some of the religious aspects

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out of the conflict, transforming the dynamics of the conflict: ‘Politics rather than religion lies at the heart of the fighting today, with rival religious ideologies mobilized to support personal and political ambitions’ (Bradbury & Healy 2010, p. 97). The Somali civil war was initially a conflict between opposing clans; however, the conflict has evolved into a struggle between Islamic factions and the government, who have stated their intention to apply Sharia law throughout Somalia. The negotiated settlement did not succeed in ending the overall conflict, but it did represent an effort to establish a partial resolution of the religious dimensions of the conflict.

Religious autonomy – Mindanao, the Philippines There are several armed groups in the Philippines in conflict with the government over the contested area of Mindanao. Each of the rebel groups have religious-related goals to varying degrees. The three main rebel groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), all set out to represent the Muslim population in the southern region of Mindanao, aspiring to create an independent or self-governing region. The MNLF, though calling for an Islamic state and demanding the implementation of Sharia law, Islamic education and protection of Islamic culture, can be seen primarily as a nationalist movement (Salim 2004), and even as a leftist movement (Tan 2000). The MILF, which was formed as a result of a fracture within the MNLF, aspires to create a religious Islamic state in Mindanao (Salim 2004). The ASG, founded in 1991, is a breakaway group from the MNLF, led by Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, who is said to have received Islamic education in Libya and military training in Afghanistan. It appears that at least the initial focus of the ASG was on a more militant Islam

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than either the MNLF or the MILF represented; however, their tactics indicate that the group’s border between religious ideology and criminal intentions (Turner 2003, p. 369). The religious dimension of the conflict has been addressed in peace talks between the MNLF, the MILF and the government. The government has refused to engage in talks with the ASG due to the terrorist tactics the ASG has adopted. Religious aspir­ ations played a minor role in the objectives of the MNLF and were basically resolved in a 1996 agreement with the Philippine govern­ment, which stipulated a religious autonomy arrangement in the area of family law, education and banking. The MILF rejected this 1996 agreement, partly because of religious reasons, and has been involved in a long negotiation process with the govern­ment about a greater degree of autonomy, implying a greater degree of regulating religious affairs in the region. The main way in which desacralisation has unfolded in the Philippine case has been through negotiating agreements with the possibility of reaching an agreement on religious autonomy for Mindanao. The territorial dimension can to some extent be seen as an advantage here as it creates the possibilities for separating the jurisdiction of Islamic law, and the regional implementation of a school curriculum that takes into account Islamic values. The background to the conflict can be traced to colonial times. Prior to Spanish colonialism, the areas in contention in Mindanao were Islamic sultanates. While the Spanish never succeeded in fully incorporating these areas into their colony, they were granted to the United States in 1898. The United States successfully integrated the areas and granted full independence to the Philippines in 1946 (Santos 2005). Ironically, it is the efforts at subjugating the region and the colonial administrations combining different ethnic groups in one territory that eventually led to the identification of

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the people as Bangsamoro or Moro people, with Mindanao as their territory (Turner 2003). Migration of people from other regions of the Philippines, all of whom were of a Christian faith tradition, was encouraged first under the Americans and then by the Philippine government. These new arrivals were granted title to lands under the American administration, since it did not recognise the shared ownership system of land in the traditional Mindanao culture, perceiving the land as unoccupied or not owned. Land was granted only to new migrants at first, but eventually lesser amounts of land were granted to Muslim families as well. The land transfer resulted in a huge displacement and impoverishment of Muslim communi­ties (Vellema et al. 2011). Concurrent with the change in land ownership the ethnic make-up of the area changed, in some areas shifting the population from a majority of Muslims to a majority of Christians, which marginalised the Moro in their traditional homeland (Rodil 2009, p. 261). Overall, Muslims made up 75 per cent of the population in the 1900s but by the 1990s that proportion had sunk to only 18 per cent (Quimpo 2001). The inundation of Christian settlers, in combination with a sense of alienation towards the post-independent state, ‘whose laws were clearly derived from Western or Catholic moral values and whose public school system was too Americanized and alien to Islamic tradition’ (p. 274), created resentment among the Muslim population. The government’s continued policy of settling Christians in the region, supporting huge agribusiness consolidation of landholdings, and an unwillingness to do anything to address the high levels of poverty in the region contributed to the perceived sense of grievances (Vellema et al. 2011). By the early 1970s the displacement of Muslims, not only by Christian settlers but also by large agribusiness, and the continued marginalisation of Muslims, combined with the increasing

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militarisation under the Marcos regime, fuelled Moro national­ ism. Christian settlers formed militias that regularly attacked Muslim communities, and vice versa (Santos 2005). A major precipitating cause for the creation of the MNLF was the Jabidah massacre of Muslim army recruits during their training in 1968 (Concepcion et al. 2003), a massacre the Philippine government denied ever took place (Majul 1988). The Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM) was created in response to this massacre, and the MNLF was formed in 1969 as an armed group of younger militant Muslims. President Ferdinand Marcos instituted martial law in the Philippines in 1972 (Quimpo 2001), but the MNLF was only strengthened during this time. From the 1970s until the peace agreement in 1996, the MNLF fought at first for independence, and then for autonomy. The MNLF has seen themselves not as Filipino, but as Bangsamoro (the people of Mindanao) and were fighting to establish their own republic. The Philippine govern­ment however has seen the population of Mindanao as part of one nation, as part of the Filipino people, and has seen the MNLF as a threat to sovereignty by trying to dismember the country (Rodil 2009, p. 256). The conflict is thus territorial in nature and evolves around the state-formation process in the Philippines. The parties have different basic perspectives on the main incompatibility: the status of the Mindanao region. Under various administrations the position of the Philippine government has remained constant – the integrity of the state, but at the same time a willingness to negotiate on elements of autonomy and inclusion of Islamic law. The MNLF contributed to creating the basis of a national consciousness and a common identity for the 13 disparate ethno-linguistic groups of Muslims in the region (Santos 2005, p. 4). The emphasis of the MNLF was primarily on the nationalist

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question – that is, national self-determination – and the territorial homeland, rather than the Islamic dimension, and religion played a peripheral role in the aspirations of the MNLF (p. 4). The main religious dimension of the conflict is hence that the MNLF (and the MILF) sought to create an Islamic character of the Mindanao region, in contrast to what they perceived as a Christian-dominated, central Philippine state (Quimpo 2001, p. 276). The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), a religiousbased actor, played a key role in the efforts of trying to find a solution to the armed conflict. The OIC brought the MNLF and the Philippine government together for the first talks in Saudia Arabia in 1975. The organisation intervened on the basis of a shared religious identity and of concerns for their religious cobrethren: ‘Its rationale in participating in the peace process was based on the principle of Islamic solidarity’ (Abubakar 2006, p. 457). The organisation has used various methods to get the parties to an agreement. The OIC pressured both sides to consider a framework that included an autonomous region within the nation of the Philippines. These efforts resulted in the Tripoli Peace Agreement signed in December 1976, which became the framework for future agreements, even though this agreement was never implemented. The agreement ‘provided the establishment of autonomy for Muslims in Southern Philippines, within the realm of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Philippines, covering thirteen provinces’ (Lingga 2007, p. 6). The agreement made a fundamental shift in the MNLF’s position, from fighting for secession to fighting for autonomy (Santos 2005). Hence, it was the OIC that was able to convince the MNLF to make a significant change in their position by dropping their demand for independence and accepting autonomy (Lingga 2007, p. 6).

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Several attempts to settle the conflict through agreeing to the implementation of the 1976 agreement failed; however, in the period from 1992 to 1996, the newly elected President Fidel Ramos initiated peace talks with the MNLF after extensive consultation, leading to the 1996 Mindanao Final Agreement. The agreement was made between the government and the MNLF, which led to resentment and resistance among some of the Christian communities and leadership, as well as the Lumad (indigenous peoples in Mindanao), against the agreement. There have also been numerous problems with the implementation of this agreement (Abubakar 2006). The lack of real political autonomy and continued poverty and marginalisation of Muslims, fuelled political unrest and the armed struggle was carried on by both the MILF and the ASG (Tan 2000). These problems notwithstanding, the agreement still has some novel and interesting approaches in its attempt to resolve the religious dimensions of the conflict. The 1996 agreement outlined three conflict-regulating mechanisms to address the incompatibilities of both parties: territorially bound application of Sharia law, Islamic banking and autonomous Islamic education. The agreement stated that a new autonomous region and 14 provinces would be created. One of the important elements of the peace agreement was the establishment of the Sharia Court (Abubakar 2006, p. 456). A new court system would then be established based on Sharia law. Sharia courts were to be set up in the region enabling application of Sharia law. The Legislative Assembly of the autonomous region would have jurisdiction over cases concerning Sharia law and the establishment of these courts in accordance with existing laws (Philippine government 1996). Issues regarding the banking system were also addressed. An Islamic Banking Unit was to be established and staffed by Islamic banking experts. The agreement further stipulated that Islamic

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education would be incorporated into the school curriculum. The Regional Autonomous government education system would maintain and enhance Islamic ideals and aspirations. The school system should provide for the Muslim culture as well as traditions that are mainly based on Islam. Moreover, the agreement stipulates that teaching materials would promote Islamic values and orientation. Yet, the application of Islamic education was not to be restrictive and exclusive; the agreement also stipulated that Filipino values that include those of Christians and indigenous peoples would also be included and enhanced. The implementation of the integration of Islamic values in the school system was stipulated to be gradual, based on research and studies, and the religious instructions in public schools were set to be optional and taught by the authorities of the religion to which the students belong (pp. 97–103). The MILF was founded in 1984, after several years of internal leadership struggles within the MNLF, in order to promote a more Islamic vision of a separate nation (Santos 2005). Hence, the MILF was formed as a breakaway group of the MNLF. Islam and nationalism have been used by both the MNLF and the MILF to advance support for their causes, however the fundamental difference between the two is that the latter emphasised Islamic revival and customs more than the former, as well as having a base in a larger ethnic group within the Mindanao region (Santos 2005, p. 4). This difference could also be seen in the leadership structure, where Islamic scholars played a significantly more prominent role in the MILF than in the MNLF. The difference between the groups can also be traced back to their different ethnic constituencies (Kamlian 2003). When the MNLF agreed to the 1996 agreement, the MILF rejected it. The MILF envisioned a sub-state within the nationstate, with much broader powers than the arrangements

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stipulated in the agreement and covering a larger territory. This would require a change in the Philippine constitution and there is significant opposition to this from Christian elites in the region, as well as in other parts of the country (ICG 2011c). While the stated incompatibilities do not include references to Islamic law or education or other practices, they are implied by the MILF in self-rule. The reasons the MILF rejected the 1996 agreement were partly religious as the agreement only stipulated the institution of Sharia courts within the parameters of existing Philippine law (Santos 2001). Hence, two different constitutional paradigms came to clash here: the separation between church and state as an underlying principle of the Philippine state on the one hand, and the integration of religion and politics in the autonomous region of Mindanao on the other (p. 168ff). For the MILF the full implementation of Sharia law, without the confines of the Philippine constitutional framework agreed to by the MNLF, means pursuing the right to self-determination: ‘the struggle for Islamic governance with the implementation of sharia as the central agenda is certainly a legitimate aspiration to secure fully their identity and to rule themselves accordingly’ (Salim 2004, p. 94). While the government was in negotiation with the MNLF, the MILF continued to build its forces. With the conclusion of the 1996 peace agreement with the MNLF, the Ramos administration turned to negotiations with the MILF (Buendia 2011). Negotiations continue to be facilitated by the OIC, with the Malaysian government playing the lead role. Between 1997 and 2000 the government entered into 39 agreements of various sorts, but reached no real conclusions (Bacani 2005, p. 5). Hence, the patterns of the peace process between the government and the MILF have been alternating between negotiations and renewed ceasefire agreements with open hostilities. Several agreements have

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been made and although there have been several partial agreements there has not been any final comprehensive settlement to the conflict. In the Philippines there has been a partial desacralisation through an institutional arrangement in the form of religious autonomy. The autonomy in religious matters has been stipulated in order to meet the aspirations of the rebels and safeguard the minority’s self-determination. The more religious actor, the MILF, has not been satisfied with the autonomy arrangement partly because it would yield too little power to implement Sharia law. The ASG, the most radical of the three main armed Mindanao groups, has not engaged in the peace negotiations at all (and, as stated above, the government has not been willing to engage with a group that applies terrorist tactics). The religious aspirations, although present, have always been minor and subsumed under the national project.

Politicisation – Tajikistan Tajikistan represents a case of how a peace agreement was reached in a conflict where the religious character of the state was one of the most controversial issues in the conflict. It is an interesting case to study because of the fact that the parties were able to find a solution to their dispute despite its intensity and the difference in positions regarding the basic incompatibility: the nature of the Tajikistan state. Tajikistan suffered from one of the most intense and bloody civil wars in Central Asia, with death estimations around 50,000 – however, estimates vary; the ICG (2001) states a death toll between 60,000 and 100,000. The parties had diametrical positions on the underlying question of the whole nature of the state – whether, and to what extent, Tajikistan should be an Islamic state. Still, the parties were, at the final phase of the

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conflict, able to find a peaceful solution that regulated the religious dimension in a way that was acceptable to both sides, and which created a durable, although not complete, solution. The desacralisation of the Tajikistan civil war implied a shift in ideological emphasis from Islamism to nationalism on the part of the opposition movement, but also an arrangement that enabled the Islamist party to continue to strive for its goals through ballot boxes rather than bullets. In Tajikistan, a moderate Islamist movement, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), fought together with other opponent groups (including explicitly secular groups) against a system that comprised remaining Soviet-era commanders. The IRP demanded a state governed through Islamic principles. The end of the civil war saw the emergence of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), which disputed the government’s power and the role of religion in the state. The UTO was a coalition made up of the IRP and other actors, ‘consisting largely of Islamic activists, but also Westernising reformists, engaged in a costly struggle against remnants of the Soviet-era leadership led by Emomali Rakhmon’ (ICG 2001a, p. 2). The demands of the IRP and the degree to which their aspir­ ations had a religious dimension is somewhat controversial. Whereas some scholars state their explicit reference to create an Islamic state (Collins 2007, p. 87; Juergensmeyer 2008, p. 99), others perceive this group as mainly aspiring to enhance Islamic values in the society, in parallel to Christian-democratic parties in the West (Roy 1998, p. 134; Naumkin 2005, p. 215; Toft et al. 2011, p. 166). This ambivalence in positions by the IRP has been explained by one scholar as a way to justify their actions ‘without having a core religious ideology’ (Collins 2007, p. 87). It is also clear that although a religious interpretation filter can be put on the Tajikistan case (secular government versus Islamist

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rebels), this captures only part of the empirical picture. In fact, part of the polarisation of the conflict was mainly clan-based and localised to different regions of Tajikistan: ‘Local people saw the IRP as a political party first, representing the interests of particular regions and clans, and an Islamic party second’ (Tazmini 2001, p. 69). Hence, religious aspirations were one part of the rebels’ objectives, but not the major ones. The conflict developed in different stages. It started as an intensive civil war between May and December 1992, in which the government targeted the Islamists and drove them to take refuge in Afghanistan. When the UTO was driven into Afghanistan in 1992, they received protection from Afghan warlords from the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, although they also had simultaneous contact with the Taliban movement. Tajiks are the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the ethnic ties can help to explain the support. Russia sided with the Tajikistan government and deployed a peacekeeping force to Tajikistan. Iran backed the IRP. Part of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan supports the IRP in exile. Between 1993 and 1997, the IRP launched a series of attacks from their base in Afghanistan. In the mid 1990s, the leadership came to the realisation that they would not be able to win. An important dynamic was the increasing unravelling of the Tajikistan state due to regional differences threatening the Tajikistan state formation. The UTO at this point needed to shift their priority to holding Tajikistan together, rather than pursuing its political agenda. The loss of support of the Tajik people for the UTO’s armed struggle also influenced this shift in policy during this period; ‘they realized that most Tajikistanis preferred secular political ideologies and resisted Islamicism’ (Olimova & Olimov 2001, p. 27). The coming to power of the Taliban in 1996 also

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motivated external powers to push for a peaceful resolution in Tajikistan (Akiner & Barnes 2001). Hence, there was an opening for political negotiations. A major controversy during these peace negotiations was the nature of the state. The government wanted an explicit, ‘secular’ state, whereas the opposition aspired to have reference to a democratic state, and a state governed by law, with no reference to a secular status. Only a high-level negotiation through the Commission on National Reconciliation managed to find a formula acceptable to both sides, and this was centred on the inclusion of the UTO in a democratic Tajik political system. The conflict in Tajikistan resulted in the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan signed in Moscow in 1997. The peace agreement prioritised the equality of all citizens as nationals of Tajikistan rather than a country united by Islamic principles. As part of this settlement, a nationwide referendum was held in 1999, which endorsed the change of making religious parties legal. The implementation of this has been controversial, and the IRP has lost a lot of its support (partly because it was blamed for the costly civil war, but also – from the hardliners – that it made concessions towards the government). The IRP had been in the government before the civil war, so this was a case of re-politicisation, a re-entering into the political sphere of an armed actor. ‘A major achievement of the Tajik peace process is that it facilitated the peaceful incorporation of Islamicist movements into a constitutional political process’ (Olimova & Olimov 2001, p. 27). The peace settlement, mediated under the UN auspices, also stipulated a power-sharing agreement: ‘UTO figures were allocated 30 per cent of military and political positions in the new government’ (ICG 2011b, p. 2).

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The desacralisation process of the conflict was due partly to decreased demands from the IRP, a shift in emphasis on the value of Islam to the importance of Tajikistan unity (a factor behind this was also decreased popular support for jihadism among Tajikistanis), which took place in 1995. Another reason peace negotiations were possible was the change in the regional power dynamics in Central Asia, in particular the problem that the IRP faced with the victory of the Taliban in 1996. A peace agreement that included an institutional arrangement that satisfied the Islamists in terms of giving them the possibility to organise as a political party was also implemented. The politicisation of a religious actor that had taken up arms, giving it political space to pursue its agenda, was the essence of the desacralisation of the civil war in Tajikistan.

Secularisation – Nepal The religious dimension of the Nepal conflict (1998–2006) was focused on different claims regarding the status of religion in the Nepalese state: proponents for a Hindu Kingdom versus aspirations for a secular state. Pressure on the King-led government by a coalition of opposition groups – consisting of several political parties and the Maoists – led to the abdication of the King and the abolishment of the Hindu Kingdom in 2008, as part of the peace process encapsulated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2006. The conflict in Nepal is an interesting case of desacralisation of an armed conflict. Nepal has a tumultuous political history, centred on the role of the monarchy. The aspirations of the rebels were not directed towards increasing the religious character of the state, as in some of the cases discussed earlier in this chapter, but rather to decrease the role of a singular religion in a multifaith society.

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Nepal was traditionally a Hindu Kingdom and, until 2006, the world’s only ‘officially’ Hindu state (Sangraula 2006). After the unification of Nepal in 1768, the first Gorkha King, Prithvi Narayan Shah, declared Nepal the ‘true land of Hindus’ (Hachhethu 2007, p. 1829; Rangdrol 2007, p. 24). In 1846, there was a shift in power from the Gorkha monarchy to a powerful Nepalese family, the Ranas, who implemented a dictatorial rule over Nepal for over a century. Hindu rule was still central to Nepal during this period; however the monarchy was relegated to a ceremonial role. In 1960, the Gorkha dynasty instigated a royal coup d’état and reestablished the Hindu monarchy in Nepal (Hachhethu 2007, p. 1829; Rangdrol 2007, p. 25). The King, having been restored to power, introduced a political system (Panchayat) in 1961 in which the monarch held supreme political power, political parties were banned, and some limited political authority to local dignitaries, who were considered emissaries of the King, were delegated. Popular opposition to the Panchayat system grew in the 1960s and 1970s, when calls for reform were dismissed by the new King (Riaz & Basu 2007). The Panchayat system increasingly led to exclusivity and unaccountability, dissent was suppressed, and the system failed to deliver increases in development (Hutt 2004, p. 3). The anti-Panchayat movement was led by some of the banned political parties. The Panchayat system ended in 1990 following democracy protests as part of the ‘people’s movement’ led by the Nepali Congress and the United Left Front. The new constitution set forth a multiparty system of parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. The palace was seen to have surrendered power; however, through the constitutional drafting process, the King was able to retain substantial power. Control of the armed forces and the power to intervene in a crisis were two areas that were

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vaguely defined and constitutionally unclear (ICG 2003b, p. 3). Nepal’s form of governance was constitutionally autocratic, since supreme political power resided with the monarch. In the 1991 elections, the anti-Panchayat Nepali Congress Party won, but the government collapsed in 1994, and the following election led to a hung parliament. Between 1995 and 1999 at least six different parties formed various coalition governments. The Nepali Congress Party returned to power in 1999, mainly due to a divided left side of politics (Hutt 2004, p. 4). In February 1996, the political wing of the Maoists, the United People’s Front (UPF), presented a 40-point demand list to the then government. The primary demands were related to nationalism and the people of Nepal. As part of this, they also demanded the abolishment of the Hindu monarchy. The plan called for a roundtable conference followed by an interim government, elections of a constituent assembly, a constitution drafted by the people’s representatives, as well as demands for the democratisation of the Royal Nepal Army (ICG 2005a, p. 4). A week after they had presented their demands, the Maoist guerilla group, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or CPN (M), launched its ‘people’s war’ by initiating a number of attacks mostly in western hilly parts of Nepal on 13 February 1996. The ideological goal of the CPN (M) was to capture the power of the state and establish a ‘new people’s democracy’. This notion of a new democracy was based on socialist thinking from Mao Zedong, as well as from Soviet-Russia’s Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. The new democracy is part of the classical Marxist transition from a bourgeois to a proletarian hegemony. Transition to socialism involves the destruction of feudalism and imperialism via continuous revolutions. The new state envisaged by the Maoist ideologues would be a mixed-class ‘people’s democratic

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dictatorship’ (ICG 2005a, p. 3). The prime targets of this strategy were the parliamentary system and the monarchy (2007, p. 6). The Maoist approach to the monarchy has been flexible over time. The forerunner to the CPN (M), the CPN (Unity Centre), saw the purpose of the 1990 people’s movement as a way to ‘end the monarchical system’ (2005a, p. 5). In the 2001 peace talks, the Maoists renewed their call for a new constitution and the end of the monarchy in Nepal. Yet, by the third round of talks, the Maoists were willing to drop their demands for a republic and for the monarchy to be abolished. The CPN (M)’s 40-point plan stipulated that Nepal be made a secular state, yet in peace talks in 2001 and 2003 the Maoists said they would most likely accept the continued role of the monarchy if it was ceremonial (p. 4). The Maoists further stated they would accept the verdict of the people in relation to the monarchy and that they would not impose their will by force (p. 5). However, talks broke down again in August 2005, when the government said they would not compromise over the countries multiparty constitutional monarchy. Two major events dramatically decreased the legitimacy of the Hindu Kingdom. The first one was the mass murder that occurred at the royal palace in 2001. The Crown Prince Dipendra killed nine members of the royal family, including his father, King Birendra, and his mother, Queen Aiswarya. He then shot himself. After this cataclysmic event, the palace lost most of its legitimacy and support among the people of Nepal. This loss of support was bolstered by the unpopularity of the King’s successor, his brother Gyanendra. The second event occurred in 2005. King Gyanendra, weary of the inefficiency of political parties and the Maoist war, took complete power on February 2005 in a royal coup d’état, dissolved the parliament and declared a state of emergency in Nepal. This action led to an upsurge in resistance from the

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Nepalese people and acted as a catalyst for change in Nepal. Following the 2005 royal uprising, there was a hardening of rhetoric by the CPN (M) against the monarchy. This was supported by strong republican sentiment that was emerging from student politics, the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) leadership and parts of the congress (p. 5). The 2006 popular democracy movement grew out of a loose alliance between the political parties and the Maoists and ended with the King relinquishing power (2007a, p. 1). The King was forced to cede back power to the parliament and a peace process was established. It is unclear how much popular support the CPN (M) gained for the religious aspect of their demands. Obviously the Maoists have a substantial support base, otherwise they would not have grown so large. However, they have made attempts to appeal to certain groups such as the lower classes, peasants, women, and otherwise excluded ethnicities and castes on a number of different issues (p. 16). Thus, the Maoists’ demand for a secular state can be seen in a broader sense. The Maoists aspired to make Nepal free from all forms of discrimination on the basis of caste, ethnicity and religion, and the advocacy of a secular state was not only promoted from a religious point of view. Moreover, the rebels’ support for a multifaith Nepalese society can also be interpreted as a wish to ignite their armed movement by attracting people from different ethno-religious groups to join their struggle against the unitary state. The new parliament set up a joint task force comprised of representatives from the seven main political parties, and representatives from the Maoists to write an interim constitution. No pro-Hindi force was asked to attend. Talks were all based on a secular Nepal. A 12-point understanding was reached between the parties that hoped to restructure the Nepalese state by the

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abolishment of the autocratic monarchy and the establishment of a full democracy in Nepal (Nepal 2007, p. 1). On 18 May 2006, the House of Representatives released a declaration that stated Nepal had become a secular state (2006, p. 5). The 2006 CPA did not specify that Nepal had become a secular state; however, the monarchy was effectively suspended until the newly instated Constituent Assembly decided its fate. The Constituent Assembly, established by the 2006 CPA, also voted to abolish the centuriesold monarchy. The conflict essentially became desacralised before the peace agreement was reached, not through it. Yet, to a certain extent, the fact that the religious issue relating to the nature of the Nepalese state had been settled eased the wider process towards peace.

Religious autonomy – Aceh, Indonesia The armed conflict in Aceh in Indonesia between 1976 and 2005 had a religious dimension in the incompatibility; however, it was not related to any of the core demands of the parties but it played a more peripheral role. It was also a conflict between two parties both from the Islamic religious tradition, so in this sense it can be seen as an intrareligious conflict. The conflict was a stateformation conflict with the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or ‘Free Aceh Movement’, (GAM)38 rebels seeking independence from Indonesia. The conflict in Indonesia is interesting as the religious dimension basically got settled before the conflict ended – during the last years there were no basic differences between the perspectives of the two sides regarding the religious issue, since the government had conceded to the rebel side’s demand on the religious dimension. Indonesia declared independence in 1945 and was recognised in 1949 by the Netherlands, who had been attempting to

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re-establish their rule after the defeat of the Japanese in the Second World War. Given the great diversity of peoples included in Indonesian territory, the country was founded as a secular nation, on principles emphasising unity over diversity (Na Thalang 2009). Aceh had been an independent state before it lost in the war with the colonial Dutch power in 1873 (2009). Resistance to Dutch colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had major effects on Acehnese society that need to be taken into account in order to understand the religious dimension of this armed conflict. These include the undermining of the authority of the Aceh uleebalang (the nobility and district chiefs), while simultaneously transforming the Islamic religious leaders into dual religious/ political leaders. This was furthered during the Japanese occupation (1942–45), at the end of which, many of the uleebalang, who had primarily collaborated with the Japanese, were murdered. Education at this time was almost all provided within religious schools, which also taught modern subjects. Thus, political leadership in Aceh by the time of Indonesian independence was almost entirely provided by the Islamic religious leaders, as well as young men taught by them (Schulze 2010). At the end of the Second World War, in 1948, as the Dutch tried to reassert their authority and Indonesia fought for independence, Aceh was granted an autonomous province status by the emerging Indonesian state as part of ensuring Acehnese support and recognising the separate history and culture. This was withdrawn in 1949 and Aceh was merged into the North Sumatra province (2010). The first Aceh rebellion began in 1953, manifesting Aceh nationalism that was motivated in part by a desire for an Islamic state rather than the secularism of Indonesia (Na Thalang 2009). In 1959, as the first civil war drew to a close, Aceh was granted special status, giving the Acehnese autonomy in

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religious matters as well as customary law and education (Schulze 2003). Between 1959 and 1989 there were significant changes in Aceh. Natural gas and oil were discovered in the region and, due in part to the low level of education and development, almost all of the extraction-related jobs went to people who came from elsewhere, creating both great economic inequality and related resentment among the Acehnese. Along with economic changes came important social changes that challenged traditional customs and created another kind of resentment. Changes evident by the twenty-first century have included shortening prayers, the disappearance of some rituals, increased equality between men and women, a decreased respect for elders, and a shift away from mysticism and towards scientific explanations (Nazamuddin et al. 2010). This special status, granting limited autonomy to Aceh, was abrogated in 1989. In 1976, GAM was founded by Hasan di Tiro to fight for the independence of Aceh from Indonesia. His declaration of independence says in part, ‘During the last thirty years, the people of Acheh, Sumatra, have witnessed how our fatherland has been exploited and driven into ruinous conditions by the Javanese neo-colonialists’ (Rist 2010, p. 113, quoted from Tan Ngak Yong 2002). The founding of GAM seems, primarily, not to originate from religious sentiments but to be motivated by economic grievances and the deep inequality of the distribution of income from the resource-extraction industries (Rist 2010). In terms of GAM ideology, Schulze suggests that there are four key elements: ‘First, the revival of a distinct Acehnese identity and history, second, anti-Javanese and anti-Indonesian sentiments articulated as anti-colonialism, and, to a lesser extent, third, anticapitalism, and fourth, Islam’ (Schulze 2003, p. 246). Drawing on historical material from GAM, Schulze suggests that GAM’s early

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vision of an independent Aceh was the re-establishment of the ‘historic Islamic State’ the basis of which was Islamic law. In 1977, di Tiro ‘even went as far as describing GAM as an Islamic movement when he stated that “even our National Liberation Front must be an Islamic Movement in the first place”’ (p. 248). However, it is not clear to what extent the call for Islamic law was a way to mobilise Aceh nationalism and a call to protect traditional culture, rather than expressing a deeply religious motivation. Schulze argues that Islam and Islamic symbols were part of Aceh’s national heri­ tage. GAM’s demands were nationalist in nature. Schulze states that the construction of nationalism as a narrative, by definition, included Islam: ‘Above all, the only indigenous Acehnese historical model for statehood is the sultanate and the only indigenous Acehnese legal code is the Code of Syiah Kuala’ (p. 249). The call for Sharia can therefore be seen as a way to mobilise local religious leaders, who help popularise GAM and the movement for secession. Demands for Sharia law in Aceh were not central to GAM’s aspirations. Interestingly, since the imposition in 1989 of military operations, GAM’s language changed and referred more often to democracy and human rights, rather than the return to an Islamic state or sultanate. The rhetoric of GAM moved away from the earlier generation of the Darul Islam rebels’ religious demands, ‘Though virtually all GAM rebels were Muslim, they based their claims to territorial sovereignty on the construct of a distinctive ethnic, cultural, historical and geographically specific identity and never sought to establish ties with Islamic movements in Indonesia or elsewhere’ (Aguswandi & Large 2008, p. 15). So although there was a religious dimension to GAM’s demands it was not central to the conflict. There was a strengthening of Islam in Indonesia more broadly during the 1980s, which created more widespread support for

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Sharia, or at least a more overtly Islamic government in the Indonesian population. While initially there were relatively low levels of violence in Aceh, this increased quite dramatically in the 1990s when President Suharto responded to increased GAM attacks by cancelling Aceh’s special status in 1989, declaring the region a military operation area. The Indonesian military had a vested economic interest in the Aceh region and pursued a repressive counter-insurgency that included targeting civilians they suspected of cooperation with GAM (Ziegenhain 2010). As the military repression increased, popular support for GAM also increased as a result (Na Thalang 2009). In 1999, after the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, a decentral­ isation process began in order to address the pressures for more autonomy (including the secession of East Timor) in many regions of Indonesia. As noted by Schulze, as Indonesia overall became more Islamic, it was easier for the government to address the GAM demand for Islamic-based governance. In 2001, the Special Autonomy Law on Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) was created in an attempt to address this religious dimension of the conflict. The new law granted special autonomy and was sanctioned by the Indonesian government as part of a further effort to blunt GAM’s call for a separate nation (Ziegenhain 2010). The law, according to an Indonesian public relations document, ‘offers broad autonomy to the Province of Aceh . . . to re-design local government in line with local traditions, and to base the legal system of the province on the Islamic Sharia’ (Indonesia 2001). The new law maintains Indonesia’s central governance authority over Aceh, however it gives the provincial government control over certain areas. The central government would reside over foreign political relations, external defence and monetary affairs, whereas the provincial government was given authority to base civil and

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criminal law on the Islamic Sharia and form its own police force. The law also allowed for ‘local electoral reform giving the people greater control over their own affairs. The governor, regents and mayors will be elected directly by the people, rather than by their local legislators’ (Indonesian Embassy 2001). This created the conditions for the government to implement Sharia in Aceh in line with GAM’s demands; however, the government would not address secession issues (Schulze 2003, p. 251).39 Although the special autonomy status significantly increased the sharing of oil and gas revenues between the central government and the Aceh province and gave the region the right to practise Sharia law, GAM and others did not trust the economic provisions that were in place for sharing revenues. Another reason for their rejection of this conciliatory signal was that it did not call for a reduction of the number of military personnel stationed in Aceh, and thus did not contribute to decreased hostilities (Wennmann 2011). Two ceasefires were signed and broken, and negotiations were underway at the time the tsunami of 2004 hit the region. The enormous destruction caused by the tsunami, the associated weakening of the military in Aceh, and the huge influx of international organisations and international pressure to link aid and peace, seem to have contributed to bringing the negotiations to fruition with the signing of a peace accord in August 2005 (Gaillard et al. 2008). The government, which negotiated the 2005 agreement, was shaken by the secession of East Timor in 2002 and was trying to hold Aceh within the state of Indonesia, as well as struggling with recovery from the tsunami. Thus, in the negotiations they were completely unwilling to consider any previously stated GAM demands for secession (Kingsbury 2010). The major incompatibility was the demand for a separate state; however, another significant incompatibility in the 2005

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negotiations was the issue of local political parties. After the fall of the Suharto regime, Indonesia instituted rules that allowed only national parties to contest elections. The weakening of the government through the fragmentation and infighting between local parties was seen as a major cause of parliamentary breakdown and the rise of the Suharto regime in the 1960s. After 1999, in order to contest elections, parties had to have representation in 60 per cent of the provinces and in 50 per cent of the districts and municipalities in each of those provinces (Hillman 2009). During the Helsinki negotiations in 2005, this was a sticking point that almost ended the process (Kingsbury 2010). Eventually the Indonesian government made exceptions for local parties in Aceh and GAM dropped its demand for a separate state. In the case of GAM, desacralisation can be seen in two different ways. First, there was a rhetorical shift from Islamism to the discourse of human rights in 1989, following a large-scale counter-insurgency in Aceh by the Indonesian military: ‘the human rights violations that accompanied these operations had further alienated Acehnese society from Indonesian rule and created ripe conditions for the regeneration of GAM in the postSuharto era’ (Aguswandi & Large 2008, p. 15). Second, there was special autonomy given by the government to the region, and this largely addressed the religious dimensions of the GAM at the onset of the conflict. It came in the wake of an increased level of Islam within Indonesia itself.

ch a p t e r 4

How do religious issue conflicts get resolved through concessions?

The previous chapter employed a quite ambitious and strict criterion for determining what constitutes conflict resolution in armed conflicts: the reaching of a comprehensive peace agreement that resolved the basic incompatible issues and ended the violent behaviour between the parties. If we widen the scope of analysis, it is possible to detect more cases of the transformation of armed conflicts with religious dimensions towards a peaceful solution. In this chapter, a broader approach to conflict resolution will be utilised. How can the religious factor decrease in significance in armed conflicts with religious dimensions? By examining some examples of peace attempts short of fully fledged peace agreements, this question can be explored and will complement the previous chapter with a broader approach to processes of desacralisation in contemporary armed conflicts. A set of examples where the religious issues were removed from the incompatibilities in the

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conflicts through various unilateral concessions, through transformations of conflicts, or through institutional arrangements is the focus here. This section discusses the constitutional reforms (by SCIRI) as well as the use of religious authority in mediation efforts (by the al-Mahdi army) in Iraq, the unilateral disarmament in Iran, the positional shifts in Afghanistan, the use of amnesties in Egypt and Algeria, the process of de-radicalisation in Libya, and the shift to unarmed methods of protests in Kashmir. Some of these procedures have been intentional steps in regulating religious issues, others followed different, external or internal, dynamics that have as a consequence affected the religious status or significance of the issues in the conflicts.

Constitutional reform – Iraq For over 20 years the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) fought for regime change, for Shia Muslim representation and for Islamic rule in Iraq. SCIRI’s aspirations were partially realised through constitutional reform and politicisation of the party in 2003. The religious identity dimension of this conflict was a cleavage between Sunni and Shia Muslims and the religious dimension in the incompatibility was on the role of Islam in Iraq. The internal conflict was also closely related to an interstate conflict. The Iran–Iraq War saw a struggle for power between the Sunni-Muslim, but largely secular, regime of Saddam Hussein against the religiously mobilised Shia Ayatollah-dominated regime of Iran. SCIRI was supported by Iran. The overthrow of the Hussein regime resulted in a major shift in power dynamics for SCIRI, allowing them space to reassess their aspirations. There was no negotiated settlement in this case because one side of the conflict (the Saddam regime) was defeated, which led to a change in the conflict dynamics.

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SCIRI is an umbrella organisation for several Iraqi Shia groups and was founded in 1982, during the Iran–Iraq War. SCIRI’s original goals were for regime change of the Ba’ath Party and the establishment of a theocratic state in Iraq. SCIRI demanded the secular-state ideology should be replaced with a religiously based one: ‘SCIRI pursued its self-proclaimed political goal of bringing down Iraq’s Ba’ath regime and replacing it with Islamic rule’ (ICG 2007b, p. 3). A proportion of SCIRI was a faction of the traditional Islamic Dawa Party, which was heavily repressed by the secular regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War. Dawa was founded in 1957 with the aspiration of advancing Shia interests of countering both the rising influence of the Sunnidominated Muslim Brotherhood as well as the rising secular trends in Iraq. SCIRI also backed Iran during the interstate war and has been supported and maintained by continuous Iranian support. The leader of SCIRI, Ayatollah Sayed Al-Hakim, left Iraq in 1980. The involvement of SCIRI began as an intrastate conflict between a religious-based opposition with an armed wing (Badr Organization) and a secular regime (Ba’ath) under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. The conflict between the parties then became a factor in the larger interstate war between Iran and Iraq. The religious ideology that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Iran in 1979 was perceived as a great threat to the Iraqi regime. The majority of the Iraqi people were Shia and they could potentially be inspired by the revolution, thereby bringing about similar revolutionary changes in Iraq. For the Iraqi leadership, this was perceived as a deadly threat to the identity of the Iraqi state. Saddam Hussein’s constituency was clearly Sunni-based and, in particular, built around his own family and tribe. Before the Ba’ath Party came to power, the army was dominated by Shia

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soldiers. Religion played a crucial role in this conflict by defining the identity of the parties (particularly the Shia group who only had the religious identity as an identity marker, to differentiate themselves from the Sunni group). The religious aspect took a transnational dimension once co-religious parties from Iran were drawn into the conflict dynamics. One of SCIRI’s main constituencies for recruiting cadres to their cause was among prisoners at war inside Iran. A large proportion of SCIRI fighters were recruited from the Iranian detention centres where SCIRI appealed to their sense of religious solidarity with Shiites in Iran. Therefore, one of the religious dimensions that complicated this internal conflict was the existence of strong transnational religious ties. Two major external events changed the dynamics of the conflict and contributed to the desacralisation of the conflict. One was the end of the interstate conflict between Iran and Iraq, to which the intrastate conflict between the government of Iraq and SCIRI was intimately linked. SCIRI lost its momentum for regime change when Iran and Iraq signed an agreement to end hostilities against each other in 1988. It was not a peace agreement as such, but rather the two countries’ acceptance of UN Resolution 598. After accepting the UN Resolution, Iran withdrew their support for an armed revolution in Iraq. Another major event that led to a shift in conflict dynamics was the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which led to the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath Party (and with that its predominately secular ideology). In 2003, the SCIRI leadership returned to Iraq from Iran and the party signalled a change in its fundamental position regarding the religious institutionalisation of Shia domination in Iraq. This shift has been suggested to be evidence of a ‘lack of ideology’ of

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the group (ICG 2007b, p. 16). It did constitute a positional shift, a major concession regarding the group’s religious demands. Cries for a holy war and aspirations for a religiously based constitution, after SCIRI’s initial aim of regime change was realised, were replaced with demands of electoral reform. SCIRI also underwent a name change during this period, indicating and illustrating this shift in aspirational positions. The party dropped ‘revolution’ from their title and became the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). This change was due to the new Iraq constitution implemented in 2005, which moderated against the need for revolutionary changes. A new Iraqi constitution was implemented in 2005. This implied that one aspect of SCIRI’s demands – the removal of the Saddam Hussein govern­ ment and regime – was fulfilled. However, the other original demands, relating to the creation of theocratic rule in Iraq, were not. SCIRI went through a transformation and a series of adjustments and concessions in relation to their political ambitions. Interestingly, SCIRI agreed to quite a secular constitution. The change in name was also made in order to distance itself from its Iranian patron, since SCIRI’s ties to Iran had led to mistrust by the United States as well as many Iraqis. The SCIRI case is an interesting example of a group with religious aspirations – creating a religious state – that deemed electoral policies as possible alternatives to the battleground. This opened up the possibilities for the Shia parties to be successful through the ballot boxes. It did, though, also lead to a moderation of demands. The original goals of creating a theocratic state on the model of Iran did change over time to more limited goals such as securing the socio-political situation for the Shia majority. A set of conditions was put in place in the new constitution in order to create shifts from the religious demands. First, increased

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feasibility of electoral policies provided the Shia parties with better opportunities for broad political influence in post-Saddam Iraq. The political path was seen as feasible for SCIRI once the obstacle of Saddam was removed. However, this was not a secure guarantee for SCIRI. The main competition for the Shia constituency support was the political leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The second condition was the decreasing feasibility of armed conflicts and maximalist goals. SCIRI was previously facing the Ba’athist regime of Iraq, but after the US-led international campaign and occupation the Badr forces were forced to disarm (Abedin 2003). Third, the decreasing attractiveness of the Iranian model led to a shift in position by SCIRI. The Dawa Party and SCIRI benefited from being given sanctuary in Iran and there was always discussion within the party about the independence of the Shia Islamic movement versus the integration and cooperation with the regime in Tehran. The politicisation of SCIRI and their influence within the United Iraqi Alliance following Iraq’s general elections in 2005 and the presence of US troops meant that armed conflict was no longer a popular or necessary tool to achieve SCIRI’s aims. The increased level of religious identity politics in Iraqi society decreased the gap between SCIRI and the rest of Iraq. It became possible for SCIRI to express their religious identity and pursue it through electoral politics rather than violence.

Religious mediation – Iraq The Sadrist Movement in Iraq has also had a significant role in the reformation of Iraq following the deposition of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The armed campaign was initially against the Ba’athist regime in Iraq; however, following the US-led opposition, the al-Mahdi Army (also known as Jaysh al-Mahdi [JAM]), the armed faction of the Sadrist Movement, campaigned against

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occupation forces in Iraq. The religious dimension of this conflict centred around the question of the use of Islam to advance issues critical to the future of Iraq and the political process. The role of the Sadrist Movement in Iraq has transformed from the use of violence to advance its aims to becoming an active participant in the political process in Iraq. The transformation of the Sadrist Movement is similar to SCIRI’s: there was politicisation of the main actor in the conflict and a shift in public perception. There was no negotiated settlement in this case, but rather a unilateral move, agreed through mediation of a religious authority, to disband the movement’s militia. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Sadrist Movement, was relatively unknown before the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Following the US-led invasion, Sadr took advantage of the power vacuum to mobilise a following (Cordesman & Ramos 2008, p. 8). Sadr came from a lineage of prominent Shiite religious figures, which influenced his support base in Iraq. His father-in-law and father both played significant roles in developing the well-known, Shia-based Sadrist Movement before their assassinations by the Saddam Hussein regime. Baqir al-Sadr, Muqtada’s father-inlaw, ‘developed the concept of wilayat al-faqih, or government of the jurisprudent, which subjects the government to both the religious scholar’s supreme authority and Islamic law (shari’a)’ (ICG 2006b, p. 2). He was assassinated in 1980 due to his role in the Shiite Islamist party, Dawa, which was in opposition to the Ba’ath and the Communist Party. Following the failed Shia uprising Saddam Hussein ‘sought to re-establish control over the Shi’a population by co-opting specific Shi’a tribes and clerics’ (Cochrane 2009, p. 5). In this capacity the Sadrist Movement emerged as a state-sponsored initiative. However, Grand Ayatollah Sadiq al-Sadr, Muqtada’s father, transformed the group from .

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a silent and peaceful movement to a more active and militant movement: ‘Sadiq al-Sadr built a movement based on Islamic revivalism, Iraqi nationalism and social populism’ (Cordesman & Ramos 2008, p. 6). Sadiq and two of his sons were assassinated in 1999, leaving Muqtada to continue the family movement. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, al-Sadr emerged as a staunch advocate against coalition forces in Iraq. In initial contrast to SCIRI, which chose to participate in the new USsponsored political process (Raphaeli 2004), al-Sadr established JAM and ‘aggressively promoted an anti-Western agenda as well as an application of a strict Islamic regime in Iraq’ (Abouaoun 2011). Al-Sadr did not participate in the political process in Iraq until he joined the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Shia coalition, in the lead-up to the 2005 parliamentary elections. A following emerged after the US-led invasion, and they were supportive of al-Sadr’s views against ‘traditional Shiite leadership, former regime elements, politicians returning from exile and occupation forces’ (ICG 2006b, p. 1). The traditional support base of the Sadrist Movement was the ‘urban Shi’a poor and rural Shi’a tribes’ (Cochrane 2009, p. 5). Support for JAM grew among Iraqis as the US occupation became more unpopular. In 2003, the Sadrist Movement ‘sought to capitalize on the anger and resentment of the Shi’a poor by opposing the Coalition’ (Cochrane 2009, p. 6). The Sadrists hoped to build in Iraq an organisation, not unlike that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, by reopening mosques, resuming Friday prayers, assuming control of local political institutions and providing social services for the community (2009). Al-Sadr opposed the coalition forces and the Interim Governing Council (IGC). He used sermons as a platform to label IGC members as infidels and his newspaper, Al Hawza, published lists of names of those he felt were collaborators of

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the new government. JAM ‘took control of various neighbourhoods; the armed men acted as the police while Sadrist tribunals enforced their version of shari’a’ (ICG 2006b, p. 11). JAM rose to prominence in 2004 after a deadly showdown with US troops. In the same year, when coalition forces shut down Al Hawza, JAM fighters launched attacks in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf and Kufa. One focal point of the contestation was a religious scene: the occupation of Imam Ali Mosque. The mosque marks the resting place of an important Shia prophet and has long been a pilgrimage point for Shia Muslims. JAM seized the mosque in April 2004, but were pushed back by coalition forces several weeks later (Norton 2011). In August, JAM once again launched an offensive from the mosque against coalition forces, the Iraqi police and the provincial government. A ceasefire was mediated by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (Cochrane 2009, p. 2; Norton 2011). Al-Sistani emerged as an influential figure in Iraq following the US-led invasion (Norton 2011). ‘Sistani made it clear that he will not only control populist figures like Sadr in the Shi’i Iraqi community, but will also exert a moderating influence on Iraqi Shi’is to bring a peaceful transition to democracy in Iraq’ (Rahimi 2007, pp. 15–16). Following the violence against the United States in 2004, however, al-Sadr still ‘attempted to reassert their control in the predominantly Shia areas, promoting the same political agenda and using a strong anti-Western discourse’ (Abouaoun 2011). Unlike other militias, JAM was highly visible, ‘erecting checkpoints in Baghdad, enforcing social mores, patrolling neighbourhoods and engaging in social work’ (ICG 2006b, p. 13). In 2005 and 2006 JAM was involved in intrasectarian fighting with SCIRI’s Badr forces (Rahimi 2007; ICG 2008a). In 2006 and 2007 the role of the Sadrist Movement in Iraq was growing. ‘They controlled new territory,

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particularly in and around Baghdad, attracted new recruits, accumulated vast resources and infiltrated the police’ (ICG 2008a, p. i). As JAM grew their actions became increasingly violent. The army was involved in sectarian killings, executing an unknown number of Sunnis, and resorted to theft (2008). Following the increasing brutality of the group, JAM began to dissolve into separate armed factions. In 2007, ‘Muqtada alSadr determined that it was best to disband Jaysh al-Mahdi, as the militia’s activities became completely uncontrollable’ (Bayless 2012, p. 149). In a meeting between the junior cleric Sadr and Sistani in 2007, Sistani persuaded Sadr to return to the parliament following a boycott of the UIA in 2006 (Rahimi 2007, p. 16). In August 2007, following an armed confrontation between Badr forces and JAM members near the Imam Ali Mosque, which led to the deaths of more than 50 civilians and left 200 wounded (Cochrane 2009, p. 29), al-Sadr ordered a six-month unilateral ceasefire (ICG 2008a). In order to maintain authority and standing among his constituency, al-Sadr attempted to recreate the image of the movement by transforming JAM into two nonviolent organisations, Mumahidoon and Munasiroon, while still retaining a small group of elite fighters (Bayless 2012, p. 149). Despite this attempt at change, JAM was involved in armed struggles on two fronts in 2008; both were ended due to a ceasefire. The first fight was initiated by Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Iraqi Security Force (ISF) in response to Shia factions vying for control of oil supplies and port access, and over smuggling in Basra (Cordesman & Ramos 2008, p. 2). The second incident between JAM and the ISF occurred in Baghdad and Sadr City. An Iranian-brokered ceasefire was reached between the Iraqi government and Sadr (Cochrane 2009).

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Following the ceasefire agreement al-Sadr disbanded the fractured militia and concentrated on involvement in Iraqi politics: ‘Sadr emphasized a return to the social services model and sought to transition JAM into a non-violent organization’ (p. 7). JAM’s approach has changed throughout history in order to best achieve its goals. Muqtada al-Sadr has stated this is a strategic way of confronting dynamic societal conditions: ‘The Sadrist movement first resorted to peaceful resistance, then to armed resistance, and finally to political resistance. This does not present any problem: every situation requires its own response’ (cited in Cockburn 2008, p. 165). Muqtada al-Sadr has played an important role in shaping the Iraqi government since 2005. Following the 2005 elections, alSadr joined the rival Shi’ite coalition party, the UIA. During this period al-Sadr acted as a statesman, projecting the role of mediator: ‘Muqtada sought to project the image of a statesman solely concerned with Iraq’s national interests, stressing the need for tighter border controls and denouncing terrorism as well as US mistakes’ (ICG 2006b, p. 16). The Sadrist Movement also ‘performed strongly in the 2009 local elections and made gains in the March 2010 parliamentary polls as the Iraqi National Alliance’ (BBC 2012). The result of the elections gave al-Sadr the role of kingmaker: ‘Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki owed his first term to the surprise support of Mr. Sadr, who then turned against him, and his second term to Mr. Sadr’s decision in the fall of 2010 to throw his political bloc behind him’ (The New York Times 2011). Al-Sadr also played a role in the negotiations for the removal of all foreign troops from Iraq. Politicisation of the group has allowed the Sadrist Movement significant influence in the future of Iraq. The fractionalisation of the army following 2008 and the increased political access experienced by Muqtada al-Sadr led to

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an eventual cessation in violence by the group. Political access has allowed al-Sadr greater influence. The religious dimension of the armed conflict was regulated by the disbanding of the militia. Although the religiously based aspirations were not compromised, the methods for trying to achieve them changed. The desacralisation process, enabled through the mediation of a religious authority, moved the conflict from the battlefield to the political sphere, from fighting with arms to electoral policies and pact making.

Demobilisation – Iran The MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq meaning ‘People’s Holy Warriors’40) was started during the time of the Shah regime in Iran. MEK opposed the Khomeini regime, which sought to create an Islamic state. The MEK advocated for a secular state. The religious dimension of this conflict thus centred on the disputed question of the religious ideology of the state. In 1979 the rebel group began an intrastate conflict and was active until 2001 (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2012c). Since 1997, MEK has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States. This conflict did not result in a negotiated settlement, but the conflict was desacralised through a demobilisation of the armed campaign in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq, and a shift in aspirational positions. Iran’s most active opposition group, MEK, was founded in 1965 as an armed struggle opposing the Shah of Iran, capitalism and Western imperialism. It was ‘based on Islamic and Socialist ideology’ and advocated ‘overthrowing the Iranian government and installing its own leadership’ (Katzman 2001; Country of Origin Research Information 2009, p. 2). The organisation had a political program that combined Marxism with Islam, and which put the party in opposition with both the new Mullah-dominated

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regime in Tehran as well as the Iranian communist party, Tudeh Party. MEK adopted armed struggle in 1971. In 1979 the leader of MEK, Massoud Rajavi, aligned the group with Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. However, after the MEK became involved in the revolution and in the overthrow of the Shah, the new rulers in Iran turned against them: ‘Khomeini suppressed opposition and prevented Rajavi and many MEK members from running for office in the new government’ (Goulka et al. 2009, p. 2). MEK grew rapidly after the Islamic Revolution, and it was considered by many foreign actors to be the ‘largest, most disciplined and heavily armed opposition group to the regime’ (Abrahamian 1989, p. 1). On 20 June 1981, MEK organised a peaceful demonstration attended by up to 500,000 participants, who advanced towards parliament. Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards opened fire, which resulted in 50 deaths, 200 injured, and 1000 arrested in the area around Tehran University (Abrahamian 1989, pp. 218–19). As the main opposition group to the new Islamic Republic, the MEK was targeted by the government from 1971 to 1985, losing 9000 members from June 1981 to 1985 (Abrahamian 1989). The MEK used violence as a political tool, including attacks targeted against the Iranian regime, such as a bombing campaign in 1981 that killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials and the killing of American soldiers in the 1970s. The group’s armed wing, the National Liberation Army (NLA), allegedly received funding and military assistance from the Iraqi regime (CORI Research Analysis 2009). During the Iran–Iraq War, the MEK fought against its own country alongside the Saddam Hussein regime and the organisation moved their base to Iraq. ‘Near the end of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War, Baghdad armed the MEK with heavy military

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equipment and deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, mass wave attacks against Iranian forces’ (USA Department of State 2008, p. 292). Hence, in parallel to the dynamics of SCIRI in Iraq (discussed earlier in this chapter), the intrastate conflict between MEK and the Iranian government was closely linked with the interstate conflict between Iran and Iraq. The acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 598, a ceasefire agreement, in July 1988 signalled an end of hostilities between the two countries; however, the NLA is alleged to have carried out attacks with Iraqi forces a week later on the Iranian border towns of Mehran, Karand and Islamabad-e Gharb (CORI Research Analysis 2009). During the time of the Saddam regime, the MEK helped to violently crush Kurdish and Shi’ite opposition, operating basically as an intelligence source for Iraq, in particular against Shi’ites and Kurds (Katzman 2001, citing Nasar 2007; Frontline 2007; CORI Research Analysis 2009). The settlement of the Iran–Iraq conflict through UN diplomatic intervention altered the dynamic of this intrastate conflict. The MEK remained periodically active until 2001, at which time it officially renounced the use of political violence ‘as part of its effort to overturn the current regime in Iran’; however, they remained armed (USA Court of Appeals 2012, p. 6). Two years later, the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent fall of the Saddam Hussein regime had a significant impact on the role and function of the MEK. The group no longer received financial support from the Iraqi government and the US military disarmed MEK rebels and confined them to their base north of Baghdad, Camp Ashraf. In April 2003 the MEK requested peace. The MEK, in exchange for a ceasefire agreement rather than a forced surrender, ‘indicated a willingness to provide intelligence on Iran and help secure the border with Iran’ (Goulka et al. 2009,

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p. 11). After several negotiations the ceasefire agreement stipulated the disarmament of the MEK, that all MEK members were to be held at Camp Ashraf, and that they formally renounce the use of violence and terrorism (Goulka et al. 2009, p. 12). Facing a new government in Iraq, that may not have treated them with the same favour as Saddam Hussein, the MEK sought to create new allegiances. This shift in power dynamics contributed to a shift in priorities by the group and led to the desacralisation of the conflict. The MEK/PMOI was a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) a ‘broad coalition of democratic Iran­ ian organizations, groups and personalities, [which] was founded in 1981 in Tehran upon the initiative of Massoud Rajavi, the Leader of the Iranian Resistance’ (Iran 2010). The MEK has had a cult-like leadership culture around the married couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Maryam Rajavi has been the president of the NCRI since 1993. In this position, Maryam Rajavi would be Iran’s interim president if the group took power in Iran (Katzman 2001). There are claims that ‘Former members have given accounts of torture, imprisonment and brainwashing by the PMOI against their own members’ (CORI Research Analysis 2009, p. 3). This case is different from other cases discussed so far because although the MEK/PMOI has deemed itself a legitimate political party, politicisation has not occurred. The MEK has not resorted to violence since the 2003 ceasefire agreement and seeks political inclusion through the NCRI. The NCRI sees itself as the legitimate ruler of Iran; however, it has not been allowed political access due to its exile from Iran and its classification as a terrorist organisation by the United States. NCRI president-elect, Maryam Rajavi, ‘intends to rule Iran for a “transitional period” after the government is “overthrown”’ (Ramsey 2011). The NCRI

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is acting as a parliament in exile and states that its aim is to: ‘establish a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran’ (Iran 2010). The NCRI and the PMOI have led a high-profile campaign to delist the organisations as terrorist organisations. In March 2012, the US Court of Appeal upheld its decision to designate the MEK a terrorist organisation, but the group was removed from the United Kingdom’s terrorist list in 2008 and the European Union’s in 2009 (CORI Research Analysis 2009; USA Court of Appeals 2012). The US Court of Appeal ‘upheld this designation on several occasions because the PMOI engaged for years in terrorist activities in Iran launched from bases in Iraq, including assassin­ ations of high-level Iranian officials and attacks in Iran with heavy weaponry’ (USA Court of Appeals 2012, p. 3). The religious dimension of this conflict concerns the centrality of religion in the government of Iran. The MEK/PMOI in exile has advocated for a democratic, free and secular state, which has been in opposition to the Islamic regime in Iran. However, the delegitimisation of the MEK as a legitimate actor, and its terrorist classification, has not allowed politicisation to occur. The MEK/ PMOI has had a strong support base in the United States fighting for the group to be removed from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, so that the party can become a legitimate actor.

Gradual desacralisation – Afghanistan The present conflict in Afghanistan is an armed dispute between the government of Afghanistan, supported by Western coalition forces, and the Taliban movement, which is seeking to install a new regime. Afghanistan has been one of the most devastating and violent clashes between different religious interpretations

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in recent times. Even if religion is not the only, or perhaps not even the most important factor, it has played a significant role in the conflict. Still, there has been during the last few years the possibility for some sort of peace process, indicating a process of desacralisation in Afghanistan. There have been (hitherto) no formal agreements or even regular negotiations, but there are clear signs of an opportunity for negotiations. Afghanistan is ethnically diverse and the armed conflict has been fought between groups belonging to different ethnic ident­ ities. There are some tensions between the various cultural religious identities as well – the Hazaras are predominately ShiaMuslims and share religious affinity with Iran, whereas the major group, the ethnic Pashtuns, from which the Taliban draws its support, as well as the northern ethnicities, belong to the Sunni Islam faith tradition. Yet, the lines of conflicts have not broken down along a faith tradition, but rather between groups that belong to the same Sunni tradition with different interpretations of it. Approximately 80 per cent of the population in Afghanistan is Sunni Muslim. The Taliban rose to power on a number of factors. Of greatest significance, its members originated in, and are primarily, Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Pashtuns have significant populations in Pakistan as well, facilitating the crossborder support for the Taliban (Cogan 2008). Afghanistan was, and still is, characterised by poverty, ethnic conflict, corruption and huge disparities between urban and rural conditions (Sullivan 2007). Issues such as the relative power between different ethnic groups, the corruption in the state, and the interests in maintaining the lucrative drug trade are some of the underlying concerns of this conflict. The Taliban was able to take advantage of all of these characteristics as well as the extensive violence due

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to the breakdown of any real governance. The Taliban movement grew out of the disillusionment of local Mullahs with both the violence and the lack of Islamic practice in society at the time. Due to the many Islamic schools (madras), many young men were educated in fundamentalist Islam and unemployed. The actual beginning of the Taliban is said to have originated in 1994 when Mullah Mohammed Omar organised about 30 young men in Kandahar, who had studied at a madras in Pakistan (the word Taliban stems from the word for ‘religious students’), to free two young women who had been captured and raped by local warlord troops, and then to free a boy who was to be raped by one of the same warlords (p. 101). Heavily backed by Pakistan, who had an interest in an Islamic state as a neighbour, the Taliban rapidly rose to dominate the other armed groups, taking control of Kabul in 1996. Its dominance until 2001 was fuelled by the religious ideology of an ideal Islamic state that might replicate the time of the Prophet Mohammed. This drew Islamic volunteers from many other parts of the Arab world, which significantly added to their fighting force (Rubin 2002). Pakistani involvement, though, was key to their success (Cogan 2008; Sullivan 2007; Jones 2008; Parenti 2008). The Taliban movement is driven primarily by a religious ideol­ ogy that in its essence seeks to establish a nation under the rule of Sharia law in its most fundamentalist interpretation, helped by Pashtun nationalism (Sullivan 2007, p. 103). The Taliban emphasises not only Islam, but also law and order and good governance. This contributed to public support for the Taliban in the midst of the chaos and violence after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government in 1992 (Rubin 2002). Their religious ideology is based on the Sunni Deobandist movement, which is basically ‘a conservative Islamic orthodoxy that follows a Salafst egalitarian

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model and seeks to emulate the life and times of the Prophet Mohammed’ (Jones 2008, p. 27). It has a political theology that can be interpreted as endorsing violence, as it is ‘a sacred right and obligation to wage jihad to protect the Muslims of any country’ (p. 27). In this light, it is particularly interesting to note that there have been announcements from the Taliban leaders that have addressed the withdrawal of foreign forces and the possibilities of power sharing between ethnic groups in Afghanistan, but they have said very little about religion. For example, a statement from the Taliban leader in November 2011 reiterated the demand for full withdrawal of all invading troops, a complete rejection of continued American bases in Afghanistan, a statement of inclusivity of all ethnicities, and a commitment to be on good relations with neighbouring countries. It stated that the current problems were created by the foreign forces and reiterates a readiness to consider all legitimate options towards establishing an independent Islamic regime (Omar 2011). The statement rejected the Bonn Conference in 2011 as representing what has been previously approved by the United States. It furthermore stated that ‘Afghanistan should have a real Islamic regime which is acceptable to all people of the country. All ethnicities will have participation in the regime and portfolios will be dispensed on the basis of merits; [we] will maintain good relations with regional and world countries on the basis of mutual respect, Islamic and national interests’ (p. 3). The incompatibilities are both religious and political. The Taliban has demanded a withdrawal of foreign troops as a precondition for negotiating, as part of their ideological stand that foreigners are corrupting Afghan society. Some suggest, however, that this also reflects an assumption that the current government

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would fall without the support of foreign troops (Brahimi et al. 2011, p. 44). Another precondition has been the demand for delisting as terrorists and releasing Taliban detainees. While the Talibans ‘do not appear likely to accept the current Afghan constitution, even in a revised form; certainly they would demand a greater role for Islamic law in legislation, and a consequent Islamization of the judiciary’ (Giustozzi 2010, pp. 24–25), they have not made this a precondition for negotiation. In 2009, the ‘insurgents demanded withdrawal of foreign forces, removal of the Karzai government, and a revision of the Afghan constitution to create a “true” Islamic republic’ (Thier 2010, p. 135). The Karzai govern­ ment and its international supporters have set preconditions for negotiation as well. These include severing connections with al-Qaeda, disarming, and accepting the constitution in its current form (Brahimi et al. 2011, p. 54). There is thus some evidence indicating a process of gradual change in the level of religious radicalism in the Taliban movement, a form of gradual desacralisation of the conflict. To some extent, this is driven by factors that have to do with the consequences of local governance (Giustozzi 2010). There have, for instance, been indications of a new tolerance in the Taliban movement for public education and inclusion of girls in education, which could be a sign of Taliban response to public opposition to their previous education policies (p. 22). Likewise, local opposition to the ban on music forced the leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mullah Omar, to allow local leaders to decide on the degree of implementation of this demand (p. 16). No formal negotiations or mediation have hitherto taken place but there have been reports of talks between the government and the Taliban, as well as between the United States and the Taliban. For instance, President Karzai called a National Peace Jirga in June

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2010 to address possible negotiations (Maley 2011). Nothing specific has come from this and, in September 2011, the leader of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated. Moreover, Karzai might have no real interest in negotiations with the Taliban movement as a whole, preferring instead to negotiate with individual leaders in the Taliban network (Giustozzi 2010, p. 26). The Karzai government was elected in 2009, in elections viewed widely as flawed and lacking legitimacy (Maley 2011). The Loya Jirga, a traditional discussion and decision-making forum in Afghanistan that created the current Afghan constitution, which was adopted in 2004, chose to make a highly centralised government with many powers given to the president’s office to try to undermine the power of local warlords, and to try to find a path towards ethnic diversity in the govern­ ment. The 2004 constitution states that Afghanistan is an Islamic republic, and that no law can contradict Islam, ‘no legal political party can have a program “contrary to the principles of the sacred religion of Islam”’ (Brahimi et al. 2011, p. 32). They are banned from practising divisive Islam, and the school curriculum is based on Islam. However, they note that many in the Taliban would see the corruption, lack of modesty and expanded role for women allowed by the current government as clear violations of Islam (pp. 32–33). The religious issue has thus far been less in the forefront of the Taliban movement and at the same time, there have been indications of an opening (from all sides) to the possibilities of a negotiated settlement. The shift may be largely rhetorical rather substantial, and any shift may be reversible once the Taliban has got a strong power base. Yet, these are also signs indicating a gradual desacralisation process in Afghanistan.

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Amnesties – Algeria and Egypt An armed conflict occurred in Algeria between 1992 and 1997. This conflict arose following the 1991 election when the Algerian army staged a coup d’état when an Islamist party was on the verge of winning a majority of seats in parliament. The Islamist political group that was on the verge of winning the majority of seats was the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). The government, with the backing of the military, intervened and cancelled the election in order to hinder an Islamist victory. A struggle for Islamist representation in Algeria subsequently broke out and saw the establishment of armed Islamic militias. The religious dimension in this conflict regarded the role of Islam in the Algerian state. The conflict was not ended through a negotiated settlement but through an offer of amnesty to the militants in 1999. More radical Islamists within the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have continued the armed campaign for an Islamic state, and hence the desacralisation has only been partial and involved just some of the armed groups. The aspiration of the FIS was a return to the election, which the Islamic movement stood a good chance of winning. The FIS developed as the prominent Islamic political party in 1989. By 1990 the movement was mobilising thousands of supporters through local government elections, rallies and demonstrations (Hafez 2004, p. 45). Another faction, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), emerged during this period with the objective of establishing Algeria as an Islamist state (Ashour 2009, pp. 57–58). A bloodless coup d’état was carried out by the military when it became evident the FIS could win the parliamentary election in 1991. The military nullified the election, banned the FIS as a political party in March 1992, and set up detention centres to hold FIS supporters, including 500 mayors and councillors. Estimates for the number of detainees ranges from 6000 to 30,000

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(Hafez 2004). The GIA experienced rapid growth and ‘it became an exclusive organisation bent on a total war against the ruling regime’ (p. 46). The GIA was a more radical group than the FIS and did not accept the parliamentarian system. The conflict in Algeria led to the death of approximately 120,000 people (Hafez & Wiktorowicz 2004). Unity of the FIS and the GIA was proposed in 1992, in which the GIA would act as an armed wing of the FIS. However, following the death of GIA’s leader, Muhammed Allal, the new leader, Abdelhak Layada, rejected the unification as this would mean fighting for the return of the electoral process. Layada felt electoral reform was not a legitimate cause to fight for, or the objective of the jihad (Ashour 2009, pp. 57–58). In response the FIS established a military arm, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS). The aim of the FIS and the AIS concerned the Islamic-based governance of Algeria, and more immediate demands concerned the Algerian people’s right to freely elect their government. Use of violence by the FIS and the AIS was justified as retaliatory to violence perpetrated by the governmental regime after the December 1991 elections (Ashour 2009, p. 58). This religious conflict also experienced an attempt at mediation, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The FIS leaders and a broad spectrum of Algerian political parties met under the auspices of the Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio in order to open up a basis for a negotiated resolution to the conflict. The agreement, known as the Rome Platform, called for an end to the violence and the state of emergency in Algeria, and for a national conference to create a short-term transnational authority to oversee free and pluralistic elections. The agreement also affirmed freedom of religion to all and stipulated the rehabilitation of the FIS as a fully fledged political party. The Rome Platform was

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never applied since the military regime in Algiers never recognised it (ICG 2000, p. 6; Ruedy 2005, p. 266). The Rome Platform was an important step, though, in the sense that the FIS in some way gave up its maximalist position, accepting religious pluralism in return for the possibility of recognition. In 1997, the military leaders of the AIS took over negotiation for an end to the conflict. The AIS felt the FIS had unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate for political access and electoral reform in 1993, 1994 and, finally in the Rome Platform, in 1995. Following the election victory of General Liamine Zéroual in November 1995, the presidential establishment felt that there was no need for dialogue with the political wings of the FIS, and instead employed an ideology of eradication. The AIS took over and implemented a bottom-up approach by initiating talks with military commanders from Algeria’s eastern regions (many of whom had blood ties with AIS commanders in the region). This dialogue, directed away from the political arena, addressed security dilemmas, built confidence measures and demonstrated a willingness for reconciliation from both parties (Ashour 2008, p. 3). A unilateral ceasefire was declared by the AIS in 1997. The AIS also wished to distance itself from attacks against civilians carried out by the more radical GIA. In 1997, the GIA carried out a series of massacres against civilians in villages south of Algiers, killing thousands (Hafez 2004, p. 37). The concept of jihad was becoming tarnished by massacres and intra-Islamist fighting. A large section of the Islamist movement transformed and abandoned the armed struggle: ‘There was consequently no point in continuing the fight against the regime, due to the waning in popular support’ (Ashour 2008, p. 7). The Algerian regime under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika offered inducements to the militants to help the de-radicalisation

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process. A law that gave militants amnesty from prosecution, with the exception of those militants who had been involved in atrocities towards civilians, was offered as a reconciliation attempt by the Bouteflika government. This was signed into effect as the Civil Concord. The law did not initiate a negotiation process between all the Islamists and the authorities on the basic incompatibilities, and appeared to simply allow all those who accepted military defeat to be reintegrated into society (ICG 2001b, p. 8). The religious dimension of this conflict was not addressed through politicisation of the FIS as the group disbanded before the conflict was resolved. To some extent this can be seen as a victory for the government: the FIS were not granted political access that they had aspired to since 1991. The conflict resolution in this case was due to the unwillingness of the main opposition group, the FIS/AIS, to allow more civilian casualties, and consequently the de-radicalisation of the Islamist opposition parties. A rather similar dynamic can be identified in Egypt. A unilateral ceasefire was also declared in Egypt in 1997 by al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group or IG) after decades of fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in Egypt. The conflict between the government and IG claimed hundreds of lives. The ceasefire transformed into a comprehensive de-radicalisation process in 2002 (Ashour 2011, p. 382). The IG grew out of Jama’a al-Diniya (Religious Group or RG), which was established and developed by students in universities mainly in Alexandria, Cairo and Assyut in the 1970s. President Anwar Sadat ‘saw the Islamist student intelligentsia both as a tool for containing a younger generation that was quick to protest and as a source of cultural and moral values’ (Kepel 2006, p. 83). In 1977 the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were allowed to be active on campuses and attempted to recruit members from RG. The

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MB recruited the leaders from Cairo, Alexandria and al-Minya; however, they could not convert the leaders from Assyut, Nagih Ibrahim and Karam Zuhd. Ibrahim and Zuhd co-founded the IG. The interference by MB at universities prompted ‘the establishment of a new Islamist movement, less compromising and more puritanical than the relatively pragmatic MB’ (Ashour 2007, p. 606). The aim of the IG was for Egypt to become an Islamic state. The IG differed ideologically and behaviourally to the MB. Ideol­ ogically, the group saw MB’s political pragmatism in relation to Islam as unacceptable. Behaviourally, the IG saw violence as a main tool to achieve their objectives (p. 606). The IG’s relationship with Sadat grew more hostile due to the reorientation of Egypt’s domestic and international politics, such as negotiations with Israel, and his procrastination in implementing Sharia in Egypt. Sadat’s oppression of the IG in the 1970s and 1980s led to his assassination in 1981 by jihad and an increase in the militarisation of Islamic politics (Gerges 2000, p. 593). Following the assassination of Sadat approximately 300 Egyptian Islamist activists were jailed. This imprisonment stage for many of the group’s leaders led to a transformation of the IG (Ashour 2007, p. 607). Following the imprisonment of many members, the group produced literature pertaining to the jurisprudence of violence: ‘This literature and others have provided Islamic-based ideological legitimacy for militarizing Islamist activism and violently confronting political rivals’ (p. 609). The historical leadership of the IG was imprisoned and while in jail it implemented a de-radicalisation process. The leaders declared their intent to de-radicalise the group, produced new literature pertaining to ideological legitimacy of the behavioural changes, attempted to gain support from middle-ranking

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leadership and the grassroots, and informed the public of this shift in behaviour and ideology. In July 1997, the IG declared a unilateral ceasefire. This initiative was initially rejected by some members and in November 1997 the violence culminated with a massacre of 58 tourists and four Egyptians by members of the IG who had not heard about the ceasefire and carried out an operation given to them in 1996 (Ashour 2007). The jailed leaders of the IG attempted to distance themselves from the act of violence and its perpetrators (Hafez & Wiktorowicz 2004, p. 62). Since the end of the insurgency in 1997, the IG has ceased violent activity and ‘produced and published texts revising their beliefs on the use of violence’ (Blaydes & Rubin 2008, p. 462). Leaders of the IG, as part of the process of de-radicalisation, dismantled its armed force (Ashour 2011b). Following this shift in behaviour and ideology within the IG, the group shunned the path of political violence and delegitimised its use (2007, p. 624). By 2007, the IG had published over 25 books outlining theological and instrumental arguments for the delegitimisation of violence (2011b, p. 378). Algeria and Egypt experienced similar desacralisation processes in their conflicts in the sense that they were both carried out in the context of victories for the government side. However, there were also elements of negotiations and concessions, as well as transformation processes of the militant Islamic groups in both behavioural and ideological dimensions. Both are cases of desacralisation of the conflict through a de-radicalisation process of the rebels, through which the rebels gave up much of their radical religious aspirations. The core of these transformation processes was various forms of amnesty stipulations that the government offered to the groups in return for their shifts in ideological aspir­ ations as well as giving up their arms.

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De-radicalisation – Libya Another case of a de-radicalisation process of a rebel group can be found in Libya. From 1990 to 2010 the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) fought against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. The religious dimension in this conflict concerned not differing religious ideologies but the political aspiration for an Islamic state. The religious legitimisation of violence was used as a tool to advance LIFG’s aims. The de-radicalisation of the LIFG followed a similar trajectory to Egypt’s IG; however, the post-conflict dynamic was different. A prominent figure of the LIFG found a basis in the new government in Libya following the Western-supported revolution of 2011. The LIFG was established in the 1990s and from the outset there was a strong Egyptian influence on the group’s ideology (Ashour 2011b). It was founded on the belief that jihad was an individual obligation of every Muslim. From 1990 to 1995 the LIFG built up the organisation. They recruited from among Libyans living in Afghanistan and many of the LIFG fought alongside Algerian jihadists in the Algerian civil war. The LIFG leadership hoped the destabilisation in Algeria would allow them a platform to launch attacks into Libya from the border. LIFG aspired to overthrow the Qaddafi regime by a quick and effective take­over of security and army control headquarters, and other pivotal government agencies. The Islamists did not want a protracted conflict. This plan of attack ‘was modeled along the lines of the Egyptian al-Jihad: secretive, elitist and exclusively paramilitary’ (p. 381). In 1995, though, after an armed confrontation against security forces in Benghazi, the LIFG was forced to acknowledge their existence. Armed clashes between the LIFG ensued and the rebels attempted to assassinate Qaddafi three times during 1995 to 1996 (pp. 381–83). The LIFG was largely

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defeated following a government crackdown from 1995 to 1997. Members fled Libya, many to Afghanistan where some assumed prominent roles within al-Qaeda (Dunne 2010). The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1267 in 1999 listing the LIFG as a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda and outlining their involvement in terrorist attacks in Morocco and Madrid (UN Security Council 2011). A dialogue began between the LIFG and the Libyan regime in 2005. There is contention surrounding who initiated the dialogue, the rebel group or the Libyan government. In 2007, a turning point in the process occurred when Saif al-Islam allowed former LIFG council member, Norman Benotman, to consult with imprisoned LIFG leaders (Rabasa et al. 2010; Ashour 2011b). Leaders were involved in consultation with high-ranking officials and grassroots members. ‘The influence of the leadership on the followers was very strong and the followers showed obedience and respect in changing their positions’ (Ashour 2011b, p. 384). The LIFG leadership consequently had to convince followers the use of armed activism was illegitimate (p. 391). The de-radicalisation of the LIFG and reconciliation was marked by the publication of ideological literature, in which they made a basic revision of their ideological aspirations and explained that they had been ideologically wrong in aspiring regime change, and that their ideology had been formed by a misinterpretation of Islam, and that they renounced violence as a political tool, similar to that of Egypt’s IG (Rabasa et al. 2010, p. 86). This was followed by the release of reformed militants and supporters from prison, and a press conference in which Saif alIslam announced, in regards to the LIFG, ‘The enemy of yesterday is the friend of today . . . It was a real war, but these brothers are free men now’ (cited in Ashour 2011b, p. 377).

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One member who was important in the de-radicalisation process of the LIFG was Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the emir of the LIFG Shura Council from 1995 to 2010. The Shura Council was the highest executive body in the organisation (Ashour 2011b). Belhaj fled Libya and joined forces with the Taliban following the fall of the LIFG. In 2004, Belhaj was arrested and handed over to the Qaddafi regime by the United States’ CIA. He was sentenced to death; however, after being involved in the deal with Saif al-Islam he was released with the other ex-militants in 2010, some of whom were released only days before the 17 February revolution (Sawani 2012). Belhaj’s role in the future of Libya was revitalised after his backing of the National Transitional Council’s deposition of Qaddafi in 2011. Belhaj became the head of the Tripoli Military Council, which led the attack on Muammar Qaddafi’s compound at Bab al-Aziziya in 2011 (Ashour 2011; Khan 2012). ‘Belhaj voiced his support for the 17 February Revolution in the early days of the uprising and is widely seen as a central figure in the liberation of Tripoli’ (Khan 2012). Belhaj was linked to the National Transitional Council, and became part of the political process in Libya (Khan 2012). Although Belhaj’s aspirations are unclear, he has vocalised support for a democratic state in Libya. However, Belhaj has also ‘announced the establishment of the Islamic Movement for Change. This movement has been busy arming itself and forming loyal armed brigades. Its leadership has orchestrated media and political appearances with the aim of defining the national political agenda and imposing some control’ (Sawani 2012, p. 19). The United States has expressed concern over Belhaj’s involvement with the NTC (Nordland 2011). Belhaj denied any role in creating the uprising: ‘The February 17th revolution is the Libyan people’s revolution and no one can claim it, neither secularists nor Islamists’ (2011).

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This process of de-radicalisation in Libya was similar to what occurred in Egypt. The leadership renounced violence and was rewarded by the government with the release of their leadership. The leadership of these groups both played important roles in negotiations with the government. The dynamics shifted significantly with the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in 2011.

People power – Kashmir, India The conflict in Kashmir has been ongoing for over 60 years. In the three interstate wars between India and Pakistan, in 1947– 48, 1965 and 1971, the central issue was sovereignty claims over the disputed territory. The internal armed conflict, which is the focus here, is inextricably related but separate from the interstate conflict between Pakistan and India over the disputed region of Kashmir. Religion has been a peripheral issue to this conflict, since it has been only a minority group that has aspired to religiously defined goals. Since 1989, Kashmir has been involved in a protracted insurgency war with Muslim rebels fighting against Indian forces, some of which have been Islamist oriented (Bose 2007, p. 154). However, the conflict has transformed over time. Given a context of increased military pressure from India and decreased support from Pakistan, a people-power movement has emerged. The Kashmiri conflict therefore represents a case where popular, largely non-violent uprisings in the region are continuing to raise the issue of self-determination, and have partially started to substitute and replace an armed uprising with a religious dimension. The conflict has desacralised through a shift from bombs to banners. The conflict over the Kashmir region began in 1947, when the Maharaja of Kashmir granted accession of Kashmir to India, a decision heavily refuted by Pakistan. During British colonial rule

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of India, Kashmir was a quasi-autonomous state, ruled by feudal arrangements. The overwhelmingly Muslim principality was controlled by a Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh (Wirsing 1998, p. 2). Hindus only make up a small minority of the predominately Muslim Kashmir Valley (Bose 2007, p. 167). The Maharaja’s decision was not based on Hindu ties with India, but rather due to the need for military intervention by India to protect Kashmir from a Pakistan invasion. Although religion was not central to the conflict, there was a religious dimension. The invasion by 4000 to 5000 Pakistani tribesmen was partially motivated by alleged attacks on Muslims in Kashmir during a mass population transfer of Hindus and Muslims across the Radcliffe boundary (ICG 2003a; Schofield 2003). It has been calculated that 12.5 million people made this exchange: ‘one of the largest population movements in modern history and one accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths’ (ICG 2003a, p. 5). Jammu and Kashmir is India’s only predominately Muslim state (ICG 2010d). A protracted insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989 has, for a long time, defined the conflict in the region. The religious dimension for each group has varied over time and been a contentious issue. ‘Like it or not, the Kashmir dispute is, in no small part, a dispute over religion’ (Wirsing 2003, p. 10). In the early stages of the conflict Islamist aspirations were peripheral; the central demand that virtually every Kashmir-based militant group has is some form of separatism for Jammu and Kashmir, either joining with Pakistan or creating an independent Kashmiri state (Bose 2003). Yet, Hiz-bul-Mujahideen is one of the groups in the Kashmir uprising that had an explicit religious agenda. It is one of the largest guerilla groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Hiz-bul-Mujahideen’s primary demand is the cession of Kashmir to Pakistan (Human Rights Watch 2006) and the

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Islamisation of Kashmir (SATP 2001a). They have been characterised as a spoiler in the conflict due to their uncompromising position on separation from India (ICG 2006a). Other Pakistanbased militant groups that have been explicitly Islamist include Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has announced that it aims for the global spread of Islam, and wishes to turn India into an Islamic state, thus extending its aims significantly beyond Kashmir; it is also alleged to be involved in jihadi conflicts in Chechnya and ‘other parts of Central Asia’ (SATP 2001b). These militant groups are frequently made up of non-Kashmiri or Pakistani fighters, including Mujahideen veterans from Afghanistan (Tavares 2008). Another interesting move towards desacralisation can be found in Kashmir. The degree of popular support for the insurgency waned quickly after the start of the uprising due to militants’ abuses against civilians, the length of the conflict, constant insecur­ity and fear, and the lack of representation of the militant groups still operating (Human Rights Watch 2006). Popular support remains strongest for azadi (‘freedom/separatism’) rather than a religious agenda (Rai 2004, p. 297). Instead of supporting armed uprisings, there has been an upsurge of support for popular, largely non-violent uprisings, a kind of unarmed insurrection. Shifts on the battlefront have also been important in this process. The insurgency has significantly decreased in intensity. For the most part the decline in militancy since the early 2000s is due to military pressure from India and loss of support from Pakistan (Chowdhary 2010; Kaul 2011; UCDP 2012b). Protest movements and political activism by separatists largely eclipsed armed insurgency. There has been a noticeable resurgence in popular protest since 2007 when civilians took to the streets to protest police killings (Chowdhary 2010).41 Protests have occurred against Indian rule, alleged mismanagement by

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the Indian government, abuses by security forces, and against the general climate of fear and instability (Chowdhary 2010; John 2011; Kaul 2011). Throughout the conflict there has been coercion from militants to make civilians comply with protests and strikes (Human Rights Watch 2006). Although religion has become less prominent as a conflict issue, it has still been used as a mobilising force. For example, one of the largest protests was in 2008 over plans to change the management of the Amarnath Shrine, a holy Hindu temple in Kashmir, which involved both Muslims and Hindus protesting on opposite sides of the issue (Hussain 2008). Protest movements included women and especially youths, suggesting that the composition is different from the militant groups (Kaul 2011). Protests frequently featured stone throwing by youths, clearly reminiscent of the Palestinian intifada. Despite some involvement by Pakistan and separatist groups in the protests they are more likely to be spontaneous expressions of anger and frustration than an evolution of militant tactics (Chowdhary 2010; John 2011). Chowdhary attributes the increase in popular protest to: a lack of change in conditions on the ground, especially continued abuses by security forces (Kaul 2011); the stalled peace process with militants and separatists, and loss of support from Pakistan and lack of international pressure on India to deal with Kashmir.

ch a p t e r 5

Towards a theory of desacralisation

How can religious armed conflicts be settled peacefully? This chapter will provide a theoretical framework that can describe the solutions and the procedures through which religious issues decrease in significance and status. As we have seen in the two preceding chapters, desacralisation differs from case to case. There are unique features of how desacralisation unfolds in each of the empirical cases studied. Yet, there are also some similarities and general patterns that cut across the different cases. This chapter will offer a descriptive analytical theory that can help us to understand those patterns. Under some conditions religious armed conflicts have been able to be transformed into more peaceful dynamics. How religious aspirations can be redefined in terms of their content is therefore an important area to understand. The way these transformations have been brought about is the focus of this book. This chapter will first discuss and clarify the concept of desacralisation, and then situate the solutions that are discussed in

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chapters 3 and 4 into a framework of the two basic dimensions of internal armed conflicts: secular or religious constitutional arrangements. It will thereafter discuss the procedures of reaching the solutions that have been utilised in the contemporary armed conflicts over religious issues, distilling the way through which religious aspects become less central to conflicts. A short discussion about the aspired empirical reach of this framework, and its inherent limitations will round off the discussion.

A theoretical framework of desacralisation – Solutions and procedures Desacralisation means the process through which religious factors decrease in importance in the context of an armed conflict. You may recall, the term desacralisation was defined as a political or societal process of removing the religious status or significance of a contested issue from an armed conflict. There are four things to point out about this definition. First of all, it is a process that can be either gradual or abrupt, but is usually not a question of either/or. It is rather a movement of emphasis or a shift in the form in which religion manifests in armed conflict. Desacralisation is not necessarily a process that occurs only in conflicts where religion is the sole concern of the parties. It describes a transformation along a continuum. Desacralisation occurs when a religious aspiration moves from central to peripheral, or from being peripheral to rather being non-existent (in terms of political aspirations of an armed actor). Second, desacralisation relates to the issues at stake, not primarily the identity aspect of the parties. A conflict is sacralised once parties have explicitly brought religious concerns and ambitions into the conflict, by expressing religiously framed goals

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and positions in relation to the basic contested resource. Consequently, desacralisation occurs at the other end of this spectrum, when parties disengage from previously held religiously framed positions and goals. Hence, it describes a basic transformation of the incompatibilities in conflicts. Third, it could be political in a more narrow sense of the word, driven by political leaders and actors, or it can be a larger societal shift. Fourth, it is about removing the significant way in which religion manifests in the context of armed conflicts. This means that religion may be removed from the armed conflict, but religious incompatibilities may still remain in the political sphere. Desacralisation is fundamentally a process through which a political, armed actor that has originally appealed to a religious sphere signals that the religious issue or particular aspiration has become less important. The desacralisation enables the conflict to be transformed into a conflict along with other types of political and group-based conflicts, and opens up room for political compromises, negotiations and tradeoffs. The desacralisation therefore represents a shift in the dynamics of the conflict. Even though the conflict was originally framed in religious overtones, desacralisation represents a structural change that enables ordinary conflict-resolution procedures to function.

Desacralisation solutions In order to describe the nature of the solutions of religious disputes, we need a framework in which we can situate the various conflict-resolution mechanisms. Internal armed conflicts are basically fought over either the formation of the state or its governance. In both, settlement of internal armed conflicts will require some sort of constitutional arrangement, addressing the

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state formation or the governance question. But on what basis can such constitutional arrangements be made, given that religious conflicts are commonly about the underlying ordering principle of the constitution? For a religious militant group, an arrangement on the basis of a secular constitution can to some extent be seen as an anathema, because it is the secular character of the state that is the very question (from a religious perspective) the parties cannot agree about. An important starting point for any conceptual framework for solutions of religious disputes within the context of internal armed conflicts is therefore the two dimensions that can determine the parameters of a solution to a religious issue: a solution on the basis of a predominately secular-oriented constitution or a solution on the basis of a predominately religious-based constitution. The degree to which the solutions fulfilled the religious or secular aspirations represents the basic way in which we can generate a meaningful typology of intrastate conflict resolution of religious issues. In Table 3, the conceptual framework that can help to situate the various solutions that have been utilised in contemporary internal armed conflicts with religious dimensions in their incompatibilities has been summarised. The two axes represent the degree to which the aspirations have been fulfilled on a religious versus a secular basis. For the sake of simplicity, they are dichotomised into whether a solution was reached or not on the basis of either a secular or a religious framework, fulfilling secular or religious aspirations to a high or low degree respectively. This yields four different types of outcomes of religious disputes.

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Table 3 Typology of solutions of religious issues in internal armed conflicts Religious aspirations

Secular aspirations

Low fulfilment High fulfilment Low fulfilment

High fulfilment

1 Secular-based constitution

3 Religious federalism/autonomy

4 No agreement

2 Religious-based constitution

A solution could be reached on a secular basis, and not a religious basis. That would represent cases where parties agree to desacralise the armed conflict through agreeing to continue their interactions within the framework of a secular constitution of the state. This scenario is seen in Table 3 in the upper-left corner, number 1. At the other end of the spectrum, in the bottom-right corner of the table, number 2, there is the possibility for solutions to be built on a religious, not secular, basis. These are solutions where the parties agree to a religious constitution of the state and thereby they solve their religious incompatible claims. There is also an integrative solution, where the settlement is built both on a religious as well as a secular constitutional basis. This can be seen in the upper-right corner in Table 3, number 3. These represent cases of federalism or autonomy, where territorial or denominational distinctions between the contesting parties are utilised in order to separate the applicability of religious and secular laws. In this way, both religious and secular aspirations can be fulfilled within the same solution. Lastly, in the bottom-left corner, number 4, there are potentially solutions where there is no agreement, but the desacralisation has occurred since the dynamics of the whole conflict has shifted.

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The previous two chapters identified a set of desacralisation solutions, showing how the religious issue has been resolved in contemporary intra-state armed conflicts. Table 4 groups the different solutions within the overall conceptual framework. This enables us to make sense of the variation in how the incompatibilities were settled through some constitutional arrangements. Table 4 Solutions of religious issues in contemporary armed conflicts Religious aspirations

Secular aspirations

Low fulfilment

High fulfilment

High fulfilment

Political parties within a secular constitution: Tajikistan, Iraq, Nepal Amnesties within a secular constitution: Algeria, Egypt, Libya

Religious federalism: South Sudan Religious autonomy: Aceh, Mindanao

Low fulfilment

Demobilisation: Iran Substitution: Kashmir-insurgency

Power-sharing on the basis of a religious constitution: Somalia, Afghanistan

First, there are some cases of solutions on the basis of a secular constitution (upper-left corner) where the secular aspirations have been fulfilled to a high degree. A type of conflict resolution is the integration of previously religious actors as political parties within a secular constitution, such as the secular power sharing in Tajikistan (agreed within the framework of a peace agreement), or the constitutional secularism in Nepal (also as part of a peace

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process). In this category there are also the two Shia Muslim groups in Iraq that have been desacralised (SCIRI and al-Mahdi Army) by forming political parties and contesting in open elections within a context of a secular constitution. Libya followed a similar pattern. Thus, religiously based actors abandon armed struggle in order to act as political parties within a secular state. Moreover, desacralisation solutions on the basis of a secular constitutional platform include the cases of amnesties within a secular constitution. The cases of Algeria and Egypt, where the religious militants were given amnesties from the government, and reciprocated with the de-radicalisation of their political-religious message, fall into this category. At the other end of the spectrum (lower-right corner), there is the case of solutions on a religiously based constitution. The case of the religiously based power sharing in Somalia can be sorted under this category. This represents the case where the parties desacralised the conflict on the basis of a peace agreement that emphasised the Islamic character of the Somali state. There are three cases where the parties agreed to solutions that were basically integrative in their nature. Integrative solutions describe situations where an agreement is reached in which conflicting parties’ underlying interests are basically satisfied. These cases occur in the upper-right corner in Table 4 and describe integrative solutions in terms of religious federalism in Sudan, religious autonomy arrangements in the Philippines (Mindanao) as well as in Indonesia (Aceh). Examining these conflicts from a religious perspective, we can classify these solutions as integrative: they are fulfilling both secular and religious aspirations. Lastly, there are some cases where a solution (strictly speaking) has not been reached, but the religious issue has never­theless been desacralised (as seen in the lower-left corner in Table 4): the MEK rebellion in Iran and the Kashmir insurgency have both shifted character and

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dramatically decreased the religious component of the religious aspirations that occurred in these uprisings (in the Iranian case, through the demobilisation under external pressure, and in the Kashmiri case, a substitution of means – a partial turn from violent to non-violent campaigns for self-determination). When examining the empirical variations of solutions to religious disputes, we can observe that the solutions of desacralisation are different in different kinds of conflicts. The cases that involved a religious and secular basis for a solution unfolded in conflicts were there were two different religious constituencies and/or the parties had territorial aspirations. The fact that parties had different religious identities appeared to facilitate solutions of religious intrastate disputes since it opened up the possibilities to divide the application of religious laws following religious lines. In instances where there is both a religious identity and a religious incompatibility conflict, the primary regulating solution has been that of an autonomous character (religious federalism or religious autonomy). The peace agreements in Sudan and the Philippines regulated the religious conflicts between groups belonging to two different religious traditions. The agreements provided clear provisions for Islam; for example, Sharia law was stipulated to be applied to the Muslim population situated in a special geographic area of the country. Similarly, in the Philippines, the peace agreement stipulated the establishment of autonomous regions, which were awarded jurisdiction and autonomous power that enabled territorially bound applications of religious laws, regulations and arrangements. Thus, the difference in religious identities following territorial lines enabled the use of autonomous structures within a territorially defined area within the nation. The fact that territorial and interreligious conflicts over religious issues were conflicts that were fought between two

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communities (as in Sudan and the Philippines) opened up room for territorially based solutions (religious federalism and religious autonomy). This did not apply in a similar way to conflicts where the basic incompatibility involved the whole state or the whole group. The conflict over Aceh in Indonesia represents a case where the parties came from the same religious tradition and the incompatibility concerned territory. The solution was territorial arrangements: a religious autonomy, in which Aceh gained the right to decide over religious laws within their area of control. Hence, the difference between the governance and the territorial dimension seems to be crucial in this regard. It is possible to divide the religious stake if there are distinct groups/constituencies. By contrast, in cases where there was either a religious or a secular basis to the solution, the types of conflicts were different: these were conflicts where the parties came from the same religious tradition and fought over the control of the government. In Tajikistan, Nepal and Somalia, peace agreements have been signed where the parties have basically settled for one or the other (religious or secular constitutional arrangement). In Somalia, that implied having a religious basis as the constitutional framework. Somalia was stipulated to become an Islamic state and therefore religion was to play an intrinsic part in politics and society. In Tajikistan and Nepal, on the other hand, it implied having a secular constitutional setting and secular nationalism, rather than a pronounced role of Islam in the Tajikistan society or constitutional Hinduism in Nepal. The three cases of Somalia, Nepal and Tajikistan show different ways of relating to religion, where the former established an Islamic State and the latter two cases stipulated secular nationalism. Yet these conflicts are also similar in the sense that they are fought over the control of governmental power and with parties from the same religious

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tradition. In conflicts where the religious identities are shared by the contestants, the religious regulations tend to be inclusive of the entire population, since there is no way to separate distinguished constituencies. The other cases of solutions on a secular basis – Iraq, Egypt, Algeria and Libya – follow this pattern as well: they are all governmental conflicts with parties from the same religious tradition.

Desacralisation procedures Up to now, we have discussed the solutions of religious intrastatearmed disputes. Yet one question remains unanswered: How did these solutions come about or, in other words, what were the procedures of desacralisation? As mentioned, desacralisation can be of two different types: political or societal. This is an important distinction since the process leading to desacralisation can be very different in nature depending on whether it is societal or political. Political desacralisation denotes the situations where the political actor – the rebel group or the government of the state – takes initiatives in downgrading that actor’s religious aspir­ations. It is the political actor that signals a shift in the extent to which a contested issue – such as the nature of the constitution of a state, or the religious laws to govern a particular territory of a state – should be shifted. Political desacralisation is driven by three basic political considerations. The first is re-prioritisation, which means that religious issues become more secondary to other concerns. There is no explicit shift in the religious issues, but the concerns of other issues take over in priority to such an extent that the religious issues are decreased in status or significance in the conflicts. We can find some empirical examples of these processes in this study. Religious issues tend to be peacefully settled once religion has become less of

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a central contentious issue for one of the sides. In Sudan, a conflict in which religion was central, is a case in point of re-prioritisation. The oil revenues shifted the priorities of the parties in the Sudanese conflict and the religious considerations (demands for a secular Sudan versus demands for an Islamic constitution) consequently became secondary. Thus, the religious concerns of the parties became less salient towards the end of the conflict, which opened up the possibility for a resolution of the religious issue. The second type of a political desacralisation procedure is reformulation, which means that religious actors redefine the content of the religious message. Just as the religious actors, at the onset of the conflict, appealed to the divine to motivate a particular set of action (take up arms), they can at the other end of the conflict cycle appeal to the divine when they say that religious considerations now demand an end to the conflict (lay down arms). Thus the religious message changes from an appeal to war to one of cooperation, moderation and peace. Algeria, Egypt and Libya represent cases of reformulation, where the religiouspolitical message has been reframed and reinterpreted by the leadership of (former) militant religious groups. The third type of desacralisation procedure can be called repoliticisation, in that the religious issue is shifted to the political sphere and thereby taken out of the armed conflict. Tajikistan represents a case where re-politicisation occurred. The Islamic party maintained a religious agenda, but decided to pursue it through electoral politics. Likewise, SCIRI and al-Mahdi in Iraq saw some promising prospects in gaining influence through elections and democratic engagement, rather than through the battlefield. In summary, the religious issues in the armed conflicts studied here have been transformed, not in the sense that the basis of motivation for the parties or the emotional importance of these issues

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has necessarily decreased but rather that they have shifted forms. The first two of these shifts are related to the positional aspir­ ations, whereas the last (re-polarisation) is related to the way in which these aspirations are to be pursued. Societal desacralisation refers to structural changes that occur outside the realms of the primary parties – the changing (often long term, but sometimes abrupt) dynamics of conflicts. A societal desacralisation process can take three different forms. The first desacralisation procedure is delegitimisation. This can occur when the atrocities of a conflict decrease the appeal of religious aspirations, or when other dynamics influence the legitimacy of the organisation or the cause that they are fighting for. Why do religious aspirations sometimes lose their attractiveness and their ability to appeal? Delegitimisation procedures can pave the way for desacralisation solutions. For instance, the MEK in the Iran war and SCIRI in Iraq both took the side of the ‘enemy’ in the Iran–Iraq war of 1983–88. To a large extent, this meant that the two different organisations lost their credibility and legitimacy with the Iranian and the Iraqi populations respectively. The gap in legitimacy required a rebranding and reformulation of the political ambitions as well as tactics. This can help to explain both organisations’ transformation from armed groups towards political entities with less radical goals in terms of religious aspir­ations. The MEK in Iran transformed from propagating an Islamic agenda towards demanding a secular democracy as well as agreeing to lay down their arms. SCIRI in Iraq decided to abandon ‘revolution’ from its name (although it had not achieved an Islamic state) and to enter into the political party system in Iran. In a similar vein, the Hindu Kingdom in Nepal lost its credibility through two main events that negatively influenced the perceptions of the palace: the royal massacre and the royal coup d’état.

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Some indications from Afghanistan have shown that the strict implementation of Sharia has lost its appeal, and the Taliban may have adjusted accordingly. The atrocities committed in Algeria by the GIA also led to the delegitimisation of violence as a political tool, and contributed to the decision of the Islamists (FIS/AIS) to agree to an amnesty arrangement. A second type of societal desacralisation is fractionalisation, which means that other groups are rising up, challenging existing groups that have raised religious aspirations. The group is then at risk of being religiously outflanked by a more religiously devout group, or alternatively challenged by a secular-oriented group or faction. Similar dynamics occur when there are several different factions that join into an alliance in order to challenge the primary opponent. The other factions within the alliance can then serve to temper the religious motivations of one religious faction. Competition within the Shia-bloc in Iraq can help to explain the importance for SCIRI to change its appeal and rebrand its aspirations. A third type of desacralisation procedure is reconvergence. Reconvergence occurs when the whole society becomes more pious and the gap between the religiously focused actor and the other side narrows or even closes entirely. The case of Somalia, as in the case of Indonesia, highlights that societal sacralisation can be one form of reconvergence: religion is taken out of the conflict in the context of an increasing religious society and the gap between the actors’ religious aspirations are therefore decreasing. This opens up the possibility to agree to a religious basis for a solution by giving in to religious aspirations. Lastly, we should say something about this theoretical framework’s intended field of tenability or, in other words, what can this be used to describe? There are some limitations in the scope

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of this theoretical framework. We will end this chapter by identifying three of those. First, an important limitation is that we are only trying to outline the solutions and the procedures through which religious aspirations are demilitarised in armed conflicts. We need to recall that we are studying a subset of religious contestations: armed conflicts where religions are already a part of the explicit aspirations. Should religious federalism, power sharing, amnesties, and the other types of solutions discussed here be utilised in other processes, even in cases before an armed conflict? Not necessarily so, since what we have been discussing regards the end game in religious violent intrastate conflicts. On the basis of this study, we have to be agnostic about the general applicability of these constitutional arrangements. Second, this framework does not explain why religious actors play a constructive role, only why religious actors play a less destructive role. In other words, the framework sets out to describe the transition for only half of the ‘ambivalence of the sacred’, as discussed in the Introduction. The actors may have utilised the solutions that have been identified in different ways, with varying implications (I will discuss the potentially negative effects on gender equality following from desacralisation solutions, in the next chapter). Likewise, this framework aspires to describe the shift from armed conflict to negative peace, and does not intend to apply to the larger question of the sustainability of peace, or the quality of post-conflict society. Third, the procedures identified here are the immediate factors that drove the desacralisation solutions. We should note that if we want to build and test a full causal explanation – which is different from what we have been doing here – then we need to examine cases where desacralisation occurred and consequently religious conflicts where desacralisation did not occur. That is an important project that needs further research.

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This chapter has identified the solutions and procedures of desacralisation in internal armed conflicts with religious incompatibilities. We have also built a framework that helps us to situate the empirical cases of desacralisation solutions that have occurred in contemporary armed conflicts within states. We will now turn to discussing the wider implications of this study.

ch a p t e r 6

Implications

This study has several important implications for both policy and the theoretical debate. Most importantly, it shows that parties in armed conflicts are able to regulate the religious dimensions of armed conflicts through peace agreements. As empirical evidence, this is a hopeful sign. But it is an exception to a general rule. The religious dimensions of armed conflicts tend to make conflicts more intractable and less amenable to negotiations and other types of conflict-resolution processes. If the issues are religiously framed and, in particular, if those issues are central to the concerns of the parties, then the chance of a negotiated settlement is lower than if they are not. However, there are two important qualifications to this general intractability enhancing quality of religion. First, this does not apply to the religious identities of the parties. Conflicts where parties have different religions are not more difficult to settle than other types of conflicts. It is not the identity

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dimension of religion that makes armed conflicts difficult to resolve, but the issue dimension (and in particular, the centrality of the religious issue). Much of the previous research on religion and conflict has focused on identity conflicts but, as we have seen, the identity dimension is of less importance than the issue dimension: it is not increasing over time, it does not decrease the chance for negotiated settlement, and there are several mechanisms for regulating the religious identity aspect. Second, as already mentioned, there are exceptions to the general rule that conflicts in which the issues are religiously framed are less amenable for negotiations and other types of conflict resolution. Some conflicts with religious incompatibilities have, in fact, been regulated through negotiations and agreements, or through unilateral concessions. There are even cases (however rare) where the religious issues have been central, but the parties in conflict have nevertheless been able to work out solutions to their religious disputes. Behind this is a simple yet pivotal empirical observation: desacralisation – that is, de-escalation of the religious tensions – works. It is rare (as we have seen in the empirical analysis of the larger set of cases) since most conflicts where parties have raised religious aspirations do not end through conflict-resolution processes. But still, there are some exceptions that have been noteworthy and that have been the focus of our attention in this study. One conclusion from this analysis is that religious dimensions exist in contemporary armed conflicts, but they should not be overemphasised. We have seen that religious issues represent only a minority of the contemporary armed conflicts, and if they are attracting more attention nowadays it is probably because their relative proportion has increased over time (as other conflicts have tended to decrease in frequency) rather than in absolute numbers. Moreover, in none of the cases were the parties expressing

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religious concerns and aspirations as their sole ambitions. In the context of armed internal conflicts, the issue space is always multidimensional or, in other words, there is generally a set of disputed questions that the parties need to resolve. The religious factor comes into the mix of these sets of issues to a varying degree in the different conflicts. Religion is seldom the only contentious issue, and is, as has been shown, rather one important but still marginal issue among a larger web of complex conflicting issues. In some conflicts, the religious aspect is more central than in others, but even in those conflicts where the religious concern is central, it has not been the only concern of the parties. More­over, even if the religious aspects may obstruct conflict resolution, it is important to point out that intransigence has not necessarily been found on the side of the religious actors. For instance, during the Rome talks with most of the parties from the conflict in Algeria (except the government), it was the secular-oriented government that rejected the peace feeler, not the Islamic rebel groups. Moreover, in Sri Lanka, it was the nationalist-secular LTTE that was the one that broke out from the peace process. Even if we should not exaggerate the religious dimensions, we should not go to the other extreme and neglect them. We have seen that religious incompatibilities do significantly decrease the chances for conflict resolution, and we saw in the analysis of the peace process in Sri Lanka how the religious dimensions (religious actors, ideology and politicisation of religion) can partly account for the failure of the peace process. The religious factor, if correctly conceptualised, can help us to explain the dynamics of armed conflicts, but it is and remains one among many explanatory factors. As we have seen, religion generally enters late in the conflict dynamics. The first Chechnyan war was predominately a

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national-ethnic uprising, whereas the second took the form of an Islamic-inspired uprising. Likewise, in Sudan during the second civil war (1983–2005) religion definitely had a more central place than in the first civil war (1956–76). Moreover, the insurgency in Pattani in southern Thailand had two major episodes. In the first one (1960s to the 1980s), religious aspirations were much less articulated than in the second (the conflict escalated in 2004 and is still ongoing). In a similar vein, in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the ideology and aspirations of the Palestinian side have shifted over time: the Palestinian insurgency was initially associated with nationalistic and Pan–Arabic appeals. After the conflict escalated, new groups expressing religious claims emerged and gained strength. As the conflict was ‘increasingly being seen as an ethno-religious struggle instead of a nationalist conflict’, the intractability of the conflict has increased (Telhami 2005, p. 261). The relatively late entrance of religious contentious issues and efforts to utilise religion as a mobilising tool carry important implications. If conflicts are settled earlier rather than later, then the risk that religion will complicate a peaceful solution would be minimised. An implication of this study is therefore that measures aiming to prevent conflict actors from expanding their demands into the religious realms should be emphasised and developed. Since conflicts involving parties that make religious demands are more intractable than others, it is pivotal to prevent such escalation. This study can also serve to moderate the picture of Islamic conflicts as being particularly unresolvable and unsuitable for conflict regulation. The academic interest in Islam has increased immensely, creating an asymmetric research agenda with a heavy focus on this particular faith tradition (Hassner & Horowitz 2010, p. 205). In that research, Islam is portrayed largely as

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a problem. By contrast, this study shows another side complementing the picture, which holds the potential of generating a more balanced account. Islam is the most frequently regulated religion in the peace agreements explored in this study. Tajikistan, Sudan, Indonesia and the Philippines are cases of regulation of religious issues where at least one side of the belligerent parties has been from the Muslim tradition. In religious conflicts in Muslim countries such as Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Algeria and Libya, desacralisation has occurred. The prevalence of parties from the Muslim tradition even in the limited exploration of peace settlements carried out here is also an indication of the fact that Islam dominates as one of the world religions involved in religious civil wars (Toft 2007).42 Yet, lifting up the fact that peace settlements have been reached with warring Muslim actors is by itself important in order to counter prejudices and misconceptions about the Muslim tradition. Exploring in further detail and depth the conflict-regulating mechanisms in these settlements may also enable other conflict actors, as well as third parties, to find new ways of mitigating armed conflicts with religious dimensions. In particular, this book offers several examples of instances where parties within the Muslim tradition have worked out novel conflict-regulating mechanisms in order to address religious disputes – generating experiences that potentially could also be fruitful in other circumstances. This study can serve to illustrate the potential dilemmas between different policy goals that do not necessarily support each other: to achieve democracy and freedom, on the one hand, and to manage the conflict and reach peace, on the other. Previous research has pointed to a tension between religious nationalism and democratic values (Juergensmeyer 2008). We have seen that religious issues have been regulated on the basis of a religious

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constitutional framework in Somalia and in (the northern part of) Sudan, as well as in Mindanao and Aceh. Given the potential tension between religious nationalism and democracy, such regulations can be problematic. Regulating religious nationalism can institutionalise the predominate role of a particular religious interpretation in the postwar society and thereby hinder the development of a robust and pluralistic democracy. Seen from this perspective, the regulation of religious issues in a manner that stipulates a persistent role for religious nationalism would not be preferable. Yet, a counterargument would suggest that it is better to challenge religious nationalism in times of peace than in war, and that therefore to end a war through negotiations should be the priority. Transformation to democracy can then be initiated once the country is more stable. The regulation of religious issues can be seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for religious conflicts to end. As we have seen in the conflicts in (South) Sudan, Indonesia (Aceh), and the Philippines (Mindanao), the religious issues were settled through various forms of religious federalism or autonomy structures, but still the conflicts continued. In the Sudanese case it took from 2002, when the parties reached agreement on a basic formula of Islamic law applied in the North and secularism in the South, up to 2005 to end the war, and the last years of the negotiations focused on other contentious issues, such as wealth sharing, power sharing and security arrangements. In the Philippines, the more religiously inclined of the two main rebels, the MILF, continued the peace negotiations but also the armed struggle. Hence, the MILF continued the conflict although the government had made an agreement (with the more nationalist-oriented MNLF) to regulate the religious issues and give a certain degree of religious autonomy to the territory of Mindanao, including the right

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to implement Sharia laws. Thus, desacralisation and conflict resolution of religious issues are usually necessary but not sufficient conditions for reaching sustainable peace in internal armed conflicts. This, once again, illustrates a general pattern: religious dimensions are important, but they are only one part of the overall puzzle, and although it is essential to solve this dimension, it will seldom be enough to find a resolution to the overall conflict. What avenues for future research can this book help to open up? One implication of the present study is the need to bridge the gap between research on religion and conflict. These two fields have so far been separated. In particular, empirical peace research has not sufficiently incorporated religious dimensions in their analysis. Regularly reporting on conflict trends does not report on the religious dimensions of armed conflicts (Harbom & Wallensteen 2009; Human Security Report 2010; Marshall & Cole 2009). One implication for research is therefore the need for the research community to monitor and empirically measure the occurrence, frequency and trends of religious dimensions of armed conflicts over time and space. Existent systematic analysis on conflict data needs to incorporate the religious dimension into the analysis. This would enable more comprehensive studies of the connection between religious dimensions, on the one hand, and the initiation, escalation, diffusion and resolution of armed conflicts on the other. The systematic study of religion and international peace-related issues is very much at its beginning (Hassner & Horowitz 2010). In particular, it is important to try to develop better analytical tools to measure and describe the religious issues in armed conflicts, in order for the field to be able to work out better explanations. Expertise on religion needs to be consulted and refined measures of religious aspects need to be developed. The measurements used in this study have shown

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important trends that can help to inform our policies as well as our theoretical explanations. There is also some very promising work on disaggregating the religious dimensions to even finer dimensions than the three dimensions (identity, issue and centrality) that have been studied here (Basedau & De Juan 2008; Basedau et al. 2011). There is a clear need to bring the study of religion into the study of conflict processes.43 Hopefully, this can pave the way for research in that direction. Another important direction for future research is to explore the question of why religious conflicts are more intractable than others. This study has evolved around the ‘how’ and not the ‘why’ of desacralisation. The empirical analysis cannot discriminate between the causal explanations for why religious conflicts are difficult to resolve, since all three lead to the same conclusion: conflicts with religious components are less likely to be settled through rational bargaining. A natural continuation for future research is therefore to clearly develop how indivisibility, asymmetrical time horizons, religious outbidding and other explanations, relate to each other, and try to tease out different observable implications that could be tested in order to see which one of these explanations has the most explanatory power. A third important research area for the study of desacralisation of armed conflicts has to do with effects. As the first study on the subject of regulation of religious intrastate-armed disputes, this book shows that desacralisation exists and describes the mechanisms utilised. Yet, increased attention should be given to the effect of regulating contentious religious issues. It is beyond the ambition of this study to explore the long-term effect of regulation of religious dimensions. It is up to future researchers to explore the effects of desacralisation on societies in conflict, and it is my hope that by identifying the cases and procedures of

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desacralisation, we can pave the way for such an important avenue of research. In such an enterprise, one would take into account the extent to which regulation of religious issues contributes to enhanced durability and self-sustainability of peace settlements, as well as the effect that regulation of religious dimensions has on the development of pluralistic democratic structures and political cultures. I will end by briefly commenting on three questions involving pertinent policy issues that are related to the theme of this book: gender implications, the design of peace processes and religious peacemaking. These questions highlight the complexity of the policy implications and the need to seriously discuss issues such as the tradeoff between peace and justice, and short-term solutions of religious conflicts versus the quality of the postagreement society and the type of peace that follows. What are the policy implications for gender issues? It may very well be the case that desacralisation has negative effects on the rights of women and the relative power distribution between men and women. Incorporating religious laws, for instance, can serve to empower religious militants through giving them institutional tools and influence. This is one of the problems of regulating religion in the context of armed intrastate conflicts: it may bring illiberal practices into politics, making a permanent space for religiously based intolerance and patriarchal power relationships, instead of creating a pluralistic postwar society. This is an important and serious dilemma. However, what is needed here is more work on incorporating gender perspectives in peace processes. Incorporating gender perspectives can be done by including more women in peace negotiations, but the important thing here is not the inclusion of women primarily, but the inclusion of a particular perspective that may, or may not, be

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advanced by women representatives. The Sixth Clan initiative in Somalia – where women were organised in order to get a female perspective represented at the negotiation table – is an interesting example of women empowerment in the context of a religiously framed conflict. What are the policy implications for the design of peace processes around the world? For instance, we could ask the counter­factual question of whether the process in Sri Lanka could have been designed in any other way, so that the religious obstacles could have been overcome? We saw in the study of the Sri Lankan case (Chapter 2) that religiously based parties played a small but crucial role in hindering the progress of the peace process, that political parties tried to appeal to religious sentiments, and that the whole discursive environment was shaped in a Sinhala–Buddhist mindset that limited the room for solutions that would create self-determination for the Tamil minority. Although the Norwegian team also put in place a procedure of consulting with the Sangha (Hayward 2011, p. 195), the ‘Norwegian team had largely steered clear of the Sangha (the Buddhist monastic order)’ (Sørbø et al. 2011, p. 122). A more inclusive approach, bringing more of the Buddhist representatives in as stakeholders in the peace process, could have been beneficial in this regard. But there is also a larger question of transformation of the normative structures of conflicts. In many ways, a process of desacralisation would have been necessary before the parties embarked on a comprehensive peace process, to create enough room for conflict resolution later down the road. What is the role of religious peacemaking – in particular faith-based mediation – in bringing about desacralisation? Can actors representing faith communities play a particular role in facilitating processes that resolve religious disputes? Religious

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peacemaking seems to play a role primarily in conflicts where religion did not play a big role. For example, the World Council of Churches in Sudan, during the first civil war in Sudan, helped to facilitate the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 (Assefa 1990). Likewise in Ivory Coast, a conflict that did not have a religious dimension in the incompatibility, the religious actors played a significant role in de-escalating the conflict and contributing to peacemaking (Vullers 2011). In Algeria, the Catholic community, Sant’Egidio, tried to mediate a platform that turned out to be, however, unsuccessful. The case of the al-Mahdi army in Iran stands out as an exception to the rule: here a religious actor Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani did play an explicit role in mediating, utilising his religious authority and thereby desacralising the armed conflict. Yet, overall religious peacemaking has been primarily oriented towards conflicts that have not become sacralised. This might be because interreligious dialogue has been dominating as a major concern and preoccupation for actors involved in faithbased peacemaking. Yet, given the risks for intractability, there is a case to be made for redirecting energy towards religious issue conflicts rather than focusing primarily or exclusively on the relatively less intractable interreligious conflicts. To sum up, several important ramifications for policy as well as the theoretical debate have been discussed. First, and most importantly, it shows that religious disputes can be desacralised and peacefully resolved. At a basic level, this is a sign of hope. Although armed internal conflicts with religious issue dimensions are, in general, difficult to resolve through negotiations, agreements or unilateral concessions, this study shows that there are exceptions to the general trend. Hence, in some instances the belligerents have, despite the intractability-enhancing capacity of the religious dynamics in conflicts, been able to regulate

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contentious religious issues. If we can start to understand more about how desacralisation works, religion can become less of a tool for war, and instead more of a tool for peace.

Acknowledgements

It has been a privilege to be based at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, in New Zealand while writing this book. In particular, I want to express my gratitude to Professor Kevin Clements, the Director of the Centre, for his encouragement and inspiration. Several research assistants have aided me throughout various parts of this project in the collection of data. I wish to thank Lindsey Weber, Catrin Rosquist, Lisa Minnhagen, Emily Harding, David Rangdrol, Nicola Strong, Ellen Furnari and Jonathan Sutton. Courtney Wilson made a superb contribution as research assistant during the last months of this project. People who have read and commented upon various drafts are thanked warmly, in particular, Peter Wallensteen, Timo Kivimäki, Barbara Einhorn, Ann Hassan, Kevin Clements, Kristine Höglund, Ellen Furnari, Johan Brosché, Prakash Bhattarai, Elvira Bobekova, David Rangdrol, Patrick Mbugua, Christopher John (SSF), Ragnhild Nordås, Stein Tønnesson, Erik Melander, Desirée Nilsson and Susanne Schaftenaar. I also want to thank Mats Hammarström and Karen Brounéus for advice and stimulating discussions throughout this process. This study has been able to be implemented partly by the generous support of several funders. Donations by the Aotearoa

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New Zealand Peace and Conflict Studies Centre Trust Te Whare O Rongo enabled me stay at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies while writing this book. For examination of mediation in the most difficult cases (Project: ‘The Luxury of Choice’), funds were provided by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. For the analysis of the Sri Lankan case, I benefited from previous support from Sida (‘Third Parties in Armed Conflicts: The case of Sri Lanka’; with project leader Kristine Höglund). I have also benefited from the research within the program East Asian Peace (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, project leader Stein Tonnesson) to write the sections on the East Asian cases. Moreover, I acknowledge support from the Folke Bernadotte Academy. Charlotte Brown at the Library of the University of Otago, as well as Gunnel Thorén at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at Uppsala University, provided superb assistance with gaining access to relevant research literature. This book would not have been written without the encouragement and warm support from my wife Kristina. This book is dedicated to our lovely children: Elias, Johanna, and Kaspian.

Notes

1. A similar conceptualisation is found in Nordås’ work (2011), where religion is defined functionally as encompassing ‘three general components: (1) beliefs about the sacred or tradition of such beliefs, and (2) belonging to a group, that are (3) translated into specific behaviour’ (p. 11). 2. The study on identities and issues in Chapter 2 has utilised a narrower time period (1989–2003). 3. One particular type of territorial conflict is that of ‘extra-systemic’, or colonial, conflict. According to the UCDP (2012), an extra-systemic conflict ‘is a conflict between a state and a non-state group outside its own territory’. Yet, the last extra-systemic conflict ended in 1974, and this category does therefore not occur in this study (with the time period starting in 1975). 4. This is calculated utilising the conflict-dyad year as the unit of analysis. There were in total 1784 conflict-dyad years in the time period 1975–2010. 5. For a recount of the mediation process in 1994, see Svensson & Wallensteen (2010). 6. This statement was made by the ONLF official Abdulrahim Osman Hassen in February 1996 (cited from conflict description in the UCPD database). 7. There have been eruptions of tensions and violence between the AlbanianMuslims and the Macedonian-Orthodox in 2012. Yet, the leader of the party of the Albanian rebel movement, Ali Ahmeti, has been included in government and the likelihood of a return to armed conflict looks low. 8. Although the group was religiously defined – they aspired to combine Islam and black power doctrines (Canada 1994) – it did not express any religious aspirations in this conflict. It is therefore classified as a religious identity conflict, not as a religious incompatibility conflict. 9. For analysis of the religious dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict, see Grant 2004; Ganiel & Dixon 2008.

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10. For analysis of religious dimensions of the Bosnian conflicts, see Schenk 1993; Sells 1996, 2003; Johnston & Eastvold 2004. 11. A conflict dyad represents a conflict with a government on one side and a non-state rebel group on the other, with at least 25 battle-related deaths during at least one year. 12. There were 504 conflict-dyad years where at least one side has made explicit religious aspirations. 13. These countries are (without any order of significance): Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Mauritania, Algeria, Thailand, Myanmar, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Sudan, the Philippines, Russia, India, Ethiopia, Eritrea, United States of America, Syria, Iraq, Indonesia, Congo, Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, China and Uganda. 14. In mid August, the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was passed mandating a peacekeeping mission and establishing a ceasefire. 15. Beyond the time period, the data used in this study differentiates itself from Toft’s study (2006) in the two ways: I use the more precise unit of analysis a conflict dyad, rather than conflict; and I include minor armed conflicts as well as conflicts with more than 1000 battle-related deaths. 16. The withdrawal of Soviet troops led to a period of turmoil, when Muja­ hedins continued the fight against the regime of Najibullah. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet-backed regime of Najibullah no longer received support and fell in 1992 (Sullivan 2007). With the fall of the regime, the United States, which supported the Mujahedins, discontinued its support for the various Mujahedin, who then fought each other for control. An internal civil war between different warring factions put the country in an extremely chaotic situation. 17. The full name of the Northern Alliance is the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Jones 2008). 18. In 52 per cent of the religious incompatibility conflicts, parties come from different religious traditions; in 48 per cent they belong to the same religious tradition. 19. There were 367 conflict-dyad years in which a religious issue was central (although not necessarily the most important), and 137 where it was peripheral. 20. For an account and analysis of the 1979 conflict in Saudi Arabia, see Chapter 8 in Hassner (2009). 21. Pattani is standard spelling in Thailand and refers to one of the three provinces in the far south; Pattani also refers to the historical Malay kingdom and is the term favoured by insurgents.

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22. The main group alleged to be carrying out violent attacks is the BRN-C (National Revolutionary Front–Coordinate) (Askew 2010; ICG 2010c), a splinter group of the BRN, which was active during the 1960s to the 1980s insurgency. The PULO (Pattani United Liberation Organisation) has taken part in ceasefire negotiations but is seen as having a limited role in on-theground operations (ICG 2010c). 23. Including the Islamic Liberation Front of Pattani, National Revolutionary Front and the Pattani United Liberation Organisation and over 60 other armed groups. 24. The first statement of a religious aspect of incompatibility was not a public declaration but in the form of a booklet entitled ‘Waging struggle/holy war in Pattani [Berjihad di Pattani]’ discovered on the body of a militant at the Krue Se Mosque, which was used for spiritual preparation by the 28 April attackers. It employed the language of jihad and martyrdom to justify the violence (ICG 2005b). This was the first and one of the most evident indications of the Islamic aspect of the insurgency (Liow 2008). The Berjihad is an example of an approach to the conflict that is seeking ‘to cast the separatist struggle in explicitly religious terms’ (Sugunnasil 2006, p. 128). 25. Pearson chi2(1) = 7.6784; Pr = 0.006 – that is, the statistical relationship is significant at the 0.01 confidence level. 26. The Tamil side self-identified during the conflict primarily in terms of language and culture, not religion. 27. Christians were found on both sides of the religious–ethnic divide. The Muslims in Sri Lanka represent a group that was politically, but not militarily organised, and that was partly excluded from the peace process. 28. For analysis of the implication of the government’s military victory on the underlying conflict dynamics, see Höglund & Orjuela (2011). 29. There has been a number of descriptions and analyses on the onset of the Norwegian-facilitated peace process (Höglund & Svensson 2003, 2009; Martin 2006; Sørbø et al. 2011), and this has also been described from the LTTE perspective (Balasingham 2004). 30. For an excellent overview of the previous research on the political role of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, see Uyangoda’s introductory chapter in Religion in Context (2007). 31. My list of successful peace agreements basically overlaps Kreutz’s (2010), although there are some adjustments. I do not include Afghanistan 1995, Congo 1999 and Uganda 2006, because I see these as ceasefire agreements rather than comprehensive peace agreements. Likewise, I do include Algeria 1999 as an example of a peace agreement but deal with that case in

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Chapter 4, where I discuss amnesties. Also in contrast to Kreutz, I include Somalia as a case of settlement through peace agreement. 32. The violent conflict was not entirely ended through the peace settlement as in 2012 there were violent border confrontations between South Sudan and Sudan, representing a case of interstate conflict. 33. Note that a separate conflict began in 2003 when fighting erupted in the Darfur region in western Sudan, which is not covered here. 34. This does not mean that religion was the only, or even the most important, issue in the conflict, only that it was central to the concerns of the parties. Since this book concentrates on the question of religion, it is beyond the scope of this section to give the overview of the whole conflict, which previous research has described in depth and width (Prendergast & Mozersky 2004; Woodward 2004; Toft 2007; Brosché 2009; Brosché & Rothbart 2012). 35. Turabi, an Islamist philosopher, has been a key actor in the Islamisation of the Sudan (Viorst 1995; de Waal & Abdel Salam 2004). 36. Other factors beyond the mediation process also significantly influenced the development towards peace, not at least, a partial unification of the rebel movement towards the end of the 1990s, as well as discoveries of oil resources and implications of the post-9/11 international campaign against Islamist terrorism (see Chapter 7 in Brosché & Rothbart 2012 for an overview of the Sudanese conflict including the peace agreement). 37. An overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence of South Sudan, which was declared in July 2011. 38. Also known as Aceh Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF). 39. There have been suggestions that the implementation of Sharia law in Aceh was introduced by the Indonesian government to undermine the rebels’ demands, rather than as a concession (Smith 2002, p. 69). 40. The group is also known as People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). 41. Although, Kashmir has a history of popular protest dating back to the 1931 riots mentioned earlier. 42. Note that this does not imply an inherent proneness towards violence in Islam. Toft’s (2007) argument is basically focusing on why religion becomes central in some conflicts and the explanation centres on the notion of religious outbidding. 43. In particular, it would be interesting to include parties other than the primary ones. In this book, we have been concentrating on the primary parties, a necessary limitation in terms of the scope of this project, but also a limitation that is important to keep in mind when interpreting the

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results. Primary parties are those that have stated the incompatibility and been involved in the fighting. This study does not include secondary parties, although this could be an interesting avenue for further exploration.

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Index

Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 102–3, 110 Aceh, 168 desacralisation of conflict, 125, 165–6 Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) (GAM), 119, 121–5 historical background, 119–21 religious autonomy case study, 119–125 Sharia law, 122–4 Special Autonomy Law 2001, 123 tsunami 2004, 124 Addis Ababa Agreement, 87–8, 91, 185 Afghanistan, 14–15, 17, 37–40, 165–6, 172 American invasion 2001, 14–15, 38–9 desacralisation, case study 141–7 ethnic diversity and tensions, 142 Northern Alliance, 38 Soviet invasion 1979, 37–8 Taliban, 14–15, 33, 38–9 Africa, 31 Bunda dia Kongo (BDK), 31 Congo, 35 Uganda, 35 Ahmed, Sharif Sheikh, 99–100 al-Assad Basher, 13 al-Assad Hafez, 14 al-Bashir, General Omar, 89, 94–5 al-Maliki, Nuri Kamal, 135 al-Nimeiry, General Jaafar, 88

al-Qaeda, 14, 35, 89, 101 al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 16, 36 9/11, 38, 95 al-Sadr, Baqir, 132 al-Sadr, Muqtada, 131, 132–7 Al Hawza, 133–4 Sadrist Movement, 132–7 al-Sadr, Grand Ayatollah Sadiq, 132–3 al-Shabaab, 16, 97–8, 100 international networks, move toward, 101 al-Sistani, Grand Ayatollah Ali, 134, 185 al-Turabi, Hassan, 89–90, 95 Alawites, Syrian, 13–14 Algeria, 33, 40, 185 al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 16, 36, 147 amnesty case study, 147–50, 152–3 armed conflict 1992–97, 147 Armed Islamic Group (GIA) 147–50, 172 Civil Concord, amnesty to militants, 150 desacralisation of conflict, 152–3 Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), 147–50 Rome Platform, 148–9 Allal, Muhammed, 148 ambivalence of the sacred, 2 amnesties, 166 Algeria and Egypt case studies, 147–53

Index 209

Arakan, 27, 32 armed conflicts decrease in frequency, 25, 48 internal, settlement of, 162–3 intrastate see intrastate armed conflicts meaning, 10, 56 religion as factor in, 1, 31, 48 non-reporting of, 181 research required, 181–3 religious see also religious conflicts Azerbaijan, 1991, 24 Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, 24 Ba’ath regime Iraq, 18, 128 Syria, 14 Bakayev, 42 banking system Mindanao, implementation of Islamic, 107 Sudan, implementation of dual, 94 Barre, Siyaad, 97 Belhaj, Abdul Hakim, 155 bin Laden, Osama, 89 Bitsangou, Frédéric see Ntoumi, Pastor Boko Haram, 15–17, 21 Bosnia, 24 conflict between Muslim dominated government and non-Muslim minorities, 26–7 Bouteflika, President Abdelaziz, 149 Buddhism, 8 Myanmar, 18, 27, 29, 32 Sri Lanka, 32, 72–80 nationalist ideology, 75 Camp David peace agreement, 37 Catholic, 18 Croats, 24, 26, 29 Northern Ireland, 29 Caucasus, 42 Caucasus Emirate, 31, 35 centrality of religious issue, 66 central, where issue is, 40–2 Chechnya, 42–3, 177

Iraq, 43–4, 141 Saudi Arabia, 42 character of conflict, 70 identification of, 67 intensity of conflict, effect, 69 intractability, 67, 176 negotiated settlement of, 68–9, 81 other issues, intertwining with, 68 weight compared to other issues, 68 Chechnya, 32, 42–3, 177 first war 1994–96, 42–3 Ichkeria, Republic of, 42 Christians and Christianity, 8 Christian minorities against governments of other faiths, 28–9 East Timor, 28 India, 28 Lebanon, 28–9 West Papua, 28 inter-sectarian conflicts, 29 Northern Ireland, 29 marginalisation in Iraq and Egypt, 14 sub-groups, major, 18 Syrian, 13–14 civilisation fault lines, 50–1, 59–60 ‘The Clash of Civilisations’, 50, 60–1 Cold War, 23–4, 60–1 Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM), 24–7 Comprehensive Peace Agreement Nepal, 114, 119 Sudan 2005, 92 banking, dual system, 94 judicial system, creation of autonomous, 93 protection of rights and freedoms, 92 conflict causes, 9–10 intrastate see intrastate armed conflicts religious see religious conflicts religious element of, 1 resolution see conflict resolution; negotiated settlement

210 Ending Holy Wars

termination phase see termination phase of conflict conflict resolution case studies, 85–125 conflict management and, 69 constitutional reform by, 127–31 negotiated settlement see negotiated settlement religion as a force for, 3 religion as an obstacle, 3, 50, 175 civilisation fault lines, 50–1 indivisibility, 51, 70 political theology and religious independence, 52–3 religious nationalism, 54 religious outbidding, 52, 70 time horizons, 53 Congo, 35, 44–5 Bunda dia Kongo (BDK), 31 National Resistance Council, 44–5 Ntsiloulous, 44–5 constitutional reform internal armed conflicts, of, 163 Iraq case study, 127–31 contested territories religious conflict related to, 32 convictional aspect of religion, 6, 17 armed conflict, in context of, 19 religious incompatibility conflict, 19 Cote d’Ivoire, 26 Croatian Catholics 24 cultural dimension of religion, 6, 17–18 predominance, 18

Iraq, 137, 165–6 Kashmir, 158–9, 165 Nepal, 114–19, 165 Somalia, 101–2, 165 Sudan, 90, 94–6, 165 Tajikistan, 114, 165 further research, 182–3 intra-religious conflicts, where, 168 meaning, 161, 165 political, 169 reformulation, 170 re-politicisation, 170 re-prioritisation, 169 procedures, 169–74 process of, 161–2 societal, 171 delegitimisation, 171 fractionalisation, 172 reconvergence, 172 solutions, 162 contemporary armed conflicts, in, 165 different types, 167 integrative, 164 religious aspirations of, 163–4 secular aspirations, of, 163–4 theoretical framework, 172–4 types, 169 di Tiro, Hasan, 121 Djibouti Agreement, 96–101 Decision of the High Level Committee, Djibouti Agreement, 96

demobilisation Iran case study, 137–41, 165–6 de-radicalisation Libya case study, 153–6 desacralisation of armed conflicts, 5–6, 11 amnesties, 166 case studies– Aceh, 125, 165 Afghanistan, 141–7, 165 Algeria, 152–3, 165–6 Egypt, 152–3, 165–6

East Timor, 28 Timor-Leste, establishment, 28, 124 education Mindanao, implementation of Islamic, 107 Egypt, 34, 37 al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (IG), 150–3 deradicalisation, 151–2 amnesty case study, 150–3 desacralisation of conflict, 152–3 Muslim Brotherhood, 150–1 Eritrea, 35

Index 211

Ethiopia, 27, 36 Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), 27 Somalia, withdrawal from, 100–1 Fatah, 28, 61 GAM, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement), 119, 121–5 ideology, 121–2 Garang de Mabior, John, 87, 94–5 gender issues, 183–4 Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) (GAM), 119, 121–5 ideology, 121–2 Good Friday Agreement, 61 religious freedoms, regulation of, 61 Hamas, 31, 34 Hezbollah, 34 Hindus, 8, 18 Kashmir, 1989 uprising, 22, 32 Nepal, 31, 33 secularisation case study, 114–19 Punjab conflict, 18, 32 Sri Lanka, 72 Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, 22, 157 Huntington, Samuel, 24, 50, 59–60 ‘The Clash of Civilisations’, 50 examination, 60–1 Hussein, Saddam, 18, 127 India, 32, 32, 34 Kashmir, 1989 uprising, 22 Nagaland and Tripura rebel groups, 28 Punjab conflict, 18, 32 indivisibility, 51, 70 sacred spaces, 51 Indonesia, 172, 179 Aceh, case study, 119–25, 165–6 Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) (GAM), 119, 121–5 historical background, 119–20 Aceh, of, 120–1 Islam, strengthening, 122–3

religious autonomy case study, 119–125 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), 86, 91 Declaration of Principles, 91 international relations, religion in, 1 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 38 inter-religious conflicts, 7 Christian minorities against governments of other faiths, 28–9 different religious tradition, from, 7 frequency, 25, 39 inter-sectarian see inter-sectarian conflicts Muslim dominated governments and non-Muslim minorities, 26–7 Muslim minorities against governments of other faiths, 27–8 negotiated settlements of, 58–60 outnumbered by intrareligious, 22 inter-sectarian conflicts, 22–3 Christian– former Yugoslavia, 29 Northern Ireland, 29 Muslim– Bahrain 2011, 29 Iran, 29 Shias and Sunnis, 29 intra-religious conflicts, 7, 39–40, 168 Aceh case study, 119–25, 165–6 frequency, 25, 39 outnumber interreligious, 22 intrastate armed conflicts frequency and location, 57 inter-religious, negotiated settlement of, 58 meaning, 57 Iran, 29, 33, 37, 165–6 demobilisation, case study, 137–41 Iraq, end of hostilities, 129, 139 Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), 137–41, 166, 171 Iraqi government support, 139

212 Ending Holy Wars

National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), 140 Tajikistan, 112 Iraq, 18, 32 American invasion 2003, 129 constitutional reform case study, 127–31 desacralisation of conflict, 137 Iran, end of conflict with 129, 139 Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM), 131, 133–5 post-Saddam insurgency, 43–4, 127, 131 religious mediation, case study 131–7 Sadrist movement, 131–7 Shia Muslims, 18, 133 Shia/Sunni differences, 129 Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 18, 34, 127–131 Iran, support from, 128 overview of, 128 politicisation, 131 Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), change to, 130 United Iraqi Alliance, 133 Islam, 8, 31 academic research, 178–9 banking system– Philippines, 107 Sudan, 94 education– Mindanao, 107 extremist groups, 35–6, 89–90 fundamentalist groups, 39 resistance groups, 42–3 sub-groups, major, 18 Islamic Courts Union, 33 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 35–6 Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), 21, 111–14 Israel, 28, 31–2, 34, 37, 61, 178 Israel-Palestine, partial peace agreements, 62 Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah uprising 2003–4, 16

Janjalani, Abdurajik Abubakar, 102 Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM), 131, 133–5 jihad, 153 jihadist networks al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 16 al-Shabaab, 16, 97–8, 100–1 Palestine Islamic Jihad, 34 Jonathan, Goodluck, 16 Judaism, 8, 18 judicial systems Sudan, creation of autonomous, 93 Juhaiman Saif al Otaibi, 42 Karen National Union (KNU), 18, 29 Karzai, Hamid, 15, 33, 39, 145–6 Kashmir, 32, 156–7 desacralisation of conflict, 158–9 Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, 22, 157 1989 uprising, 22, 156–9 popular movement for selfdetermination, 156–9 people power, case study, 156–9 Khartoum, 90, 92, 95 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 128, 138 Kosovo, 20 Kurdistan, 32 Kurds Iran, 29 Syria, 13–14 Lebanon, 28–9, 34 Hezbollah, 34 Libya de-radicalisation case study, 153–6 Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), 153–6 de-radicalisation, 154–6 recruits to, 153 Macedonia, 27–8 Machakos Protocol, 90–2, 96 Malaysia Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM), 24–7

Implications 213

Maoists, 31, 33 Nepal, 116–19 Marcos, President Ferdinand, 105 Mauritania al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 16, 36 Mengistu Haile Mariam, 87 Mindanao, 39, 102–10, 165–6, 180 see also Philippines historical background, 103–4 Mindanao Final Agreement 1996, 107 Islamic banking system, 107 Islamic education, 107 Sharia law and courts, 107 Mindanao Independence Movement, 105 Muslim people, marginalisation of, 104–5, 107 religious autonomy case study, 102–10 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 102–10, 180 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 102–10, 180 territorial focus, 105–6 Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), 137–41, 166, 171 Iraqi government support, 139 National Liberation Army, 138 overview, 137–9 mujahedins, 38 Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, 22, 157 Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), 137–41 Muslim, 31–2 Bosniaks, 24 conflicts between Muslim dominated governments and non-Muslim minorities, 26–7 Bosnia 1992–5, 26 Cote d’Ivoire 2002–04, 2010, 26 former Yugoslavia 1993–4, 1992–5, 26 conflicts between Muslim minorities against governments of other faiths, 27–8

Ethiopia, 27 Macedonia, 27–8 Myanmar, 27 Trinidad and Tobago, 28 desacralisation of conflicts, 179 inter-sectarian conflicts, 29 Bahrain 2011, 29 Iran, 29 Shia see Shia Muslims Muslim Brotherhood, 14, 34 Egypt, 150–1 Sudanese branch, 89 Myanmar, 18, 27, 29, 32 Karen National Union (KNU), 18, 29 Nation Islamic Front, 88–91 National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), 140–1 listed terrorist organisation, 141 nationalism, secular and religious, 54 negotiated settlement, 54–7 case studies, 85–125 central, where religious issue is, 68–9 criteria for, 56 dyadic pairs, government and nongovernment, 66 inter-religious conflicts of, 58 meaning, 56 measurement of conflict resolution, as, 55–6 peripheral, where religious issue is, 68–9 religious freedoms, regulating, 61–2, 179 religious incompatibility conflicts, of, 63–4 difficulties, 63–5 peace agreements reached, where, 83–5 Sri Lanka, case study, 71–80 resolution without, 55 type reached, 55 whole conflict, resolution of, 55 Nepal, 31, 33, 165, 168, 171 Comprehensive Peace Agreement 2006, 114, 119

214 Ending Holy Wars

historical background, 115 Hindu Kingdom, traditional, 115 Panchayat system, 115–16 Maoists, 116–19 secular state, demands for, 118 royal family, mass murder 117 secularisation, case study, 114–19 Nguesso, Denis Sassou, 44–5 Nigeria, 15–16 Boko Haram, 15–16, 33 Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah uprising 2003–4, 16 9/11, 38, 95 Northern Alliance, 38, 112 Northern Ireland, 29, 61 Good Friday Agreement, 61 Ntoumi, Pastor, 44–5 Ntsiloulous, 44–5 oil industry, Sudan, 90, 95 Omar, Mullah, 145 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Philippines, 106 Orthodox Christians, 18 Serbians, 24, 29 Pakistan, 34, 38–9 Afghanistan, 38–9 Kashmir and, 157–9 Pashtun population, 38–9 Palestine, 28, 32, 178 Israel-Palestine, partial peace agreements, 62 Palestine Islamic Jihad, (PIJ), 34 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), 28 Pashtuns Afghanistan, 142 Pakistan, 38–9 Pattani, 32, 178 peace agreement see also negotiated settlement religious dimension conflicts, where, 83–5 case studies, 85–125

peace research, 11–12, 184 peace processes, design of, 184 religious peacemaking, 184–5 people power Kashmir, case study, 156–9 peripheral where religious issue is, 44–7 Congo, 44–5 negotiated settlement of, 68–9 Thailand, 45–7 Uganda, 47 Philippines, 32, 39, 102–10, 165–6, 168, 179–80 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 102–3, 110 desacralisation, partial achieved, 110 Jabidah massacre, 105 Mindanao, 39, 102–10 historical background, 103–4 Mindanao Independence Movement, 105 Muslim people, marginalisation of, 104–5, 107 Mindanao Final Agreement 1996, 107 Islamic banking system, 107 Islamic education, 107 Sharia law and courts, 107 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 102–10, 180 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 102–10, 180 territorial focus, 105–6 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), 106, 109 peace negotiations, pattern of, 109 religious autonomy case study, 102–10 political desacralisation, 169 reformulation, 170 re-politicisation, 170 re-prioritisation, 169 political institutions nature of and conflict resolution, 53 ‘religionising’, 54 Tajikistan, case study, 110–14 political theology and religious independence, 52–3

Implications 215

politicisation Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), of, 131, 166, 171 Tajikistan, case study, 110–14, 165 Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS), 76 power sharing Somalia, case study, 96–102, 165–6 Protestant, 18 Punjab conflict, 18 Qaddafi, Muammar, 155 Qaddafi regime, 153, 156 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 146 Rajavi, Maryam, 140 Rajavi, Massoud, 140 Rakhmon, Emomali, 111 Ramos, President Fidel, 107 religion ambivalent nature in conflict, 2 armed conflicts, factor in, 1, 181 research required, 181–2 categories of research of, 3 convictional identity, 6, 17 cultural identity, 6, 17 international relations, factor in, 1 mobilising force, as, 46 nature of, 6 peacebuilding force, as, 3 religious peacemaking, 184–5 role of, increasing, 1–2 study or, approaches, 6–7 religious autonomy, 167–7, 180 Indonesia, Aceh case study, 119–25, 165–6 Philippines/Mindanao case study, 102–110, 165–6 religious conflicts armed, regulation of, 4 aspects of– interreligious, 7, 22 intrareligious, 7, 22 civilisation fault lines, 50–1 core or peripheral, 21–2

different religious tradition, conflicts with parties of, 22–3 difficulty in resolving, 5, 64–5, 175 frequency, increase, 37 inter/intra-religious nature, 39–40 identity see religious identity conflicts incompatibility see religious incompatibility conflicts inter-sectarian conflicts see intersectarian conflicts intrastate see intrastate armed conflicts meaning, 9 mobilising force, as, 46 multi-dimensional aspect, 177 parties to, defining, 17 peace negotiations, 5, 83–5 case studies, 85–125 religious element, over-emphasis, 177 resolution see conflict resolution; negotiated settlements settlement see ‘desacralisation of armed conflicts’ types of, 16–17 religious discrimination, 3 religious extremism, 3 religious federalism, 167–8, 180 Sudan, South Sudan case study, 85–96 religious fractionalisation, 3, 172 religious freedoms negotiated settlements regulating, 179 Comprehensive Peace Agreement Sudan, 92–3, 95–6 protection, guarantees for, 61 safeguarding significant events, 62 safeguarding significant places, 62 separation of religion from state bodies, 62 religious fundamentalism, 3 religious identity conflicts, 22–30, 175–6 frequency of, 23–5

216 Ending Holy Wars

inter-sectarian conflicts see intersectarian conflicts negotiated settlement of, 61, 65 religious incompatibility conflicts, 19–21 central, where issue is, 40–2, 66–8, 176 contested territories, related to, 32 creation of new religious state, 32 extra-territorial aspirations, 35–6 frequency of, 37 global nature of, 31 government, demands relating to, 19 government motivated aspirations, 33 identity see religious identity conflicts negotiated settlement of, 63–4, 176 case studies, 85–125 difficulties, 64–5 number, 68–9 percentage of armed conflicts, 30 peripheral, where issue is, 40–2, 44–7, 66 rebel motivated aspirations, 33, 66 religions involved, 31 requirement for stated demand, 19–20 state formation, challenge to, 32 variation in type and form, 48, 66 religious issues, regulation Comprehensive Peace Agreement Sudan, 92–3, 95–6 constitutional framework, by, 180 religious mediation Iraq, case study, 131–7 religious militancy, 3 religious nationalism, 3, 17, 52–3, 180 democratic values and, 179 ethnic, 54 Sri Lanka, 72 religious outbidding, 52, 70 Roman Catholic, 18 Russia, 32 Caucasus Emirate, 31, 35, 42 Chechnya, 42–3 Tajikistan, 112

sacred place/space, 51 centrality of issue, 67 safeguarding significant places, 62 Sadat, President Anwar, 150–1 Sadrist movement, 131–7 see also al-Sadr, Muqtada Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM), 131, 133–5 politicisation of, 136–7 United Iraqi Alliance, 133 Saudi Arabia Afghanistan, 38 1979 uprising, 42 Sayed Al-Hakim, Ayatollah, 128 secularisation Nepal case study, 114–19 Serbia, 29 Orthodox Church, 20, 24, 29 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 26 settlement see negotiated settlement Sharia law Aceh, 122–4 Afghanistan, 15, 33 Mindanao, 107, 181 Nigeria, 15 Pakistan, 34 Somalia, 100–2 Sudan, 88–90, 93–5 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and, 93, 95 penal code, application of, 88 Shia Muslims Iraq, 18 Syrian Alawites, 13–14 Sikhism, 18 Punjab conflict, 18, 32 societal desacralisation, 171 delegitimisation, 171 fractionalisation, 172 reconvergence, 172 Somalia, 33, 165–6, 168, 171 al-Shabaab, 16, 33, 97–8, 100 Decision of the High Level Committee, Djibouti Agreement, 96

Implications 217

‘desacralisation of armed conflict’, 101–2 Djibouti Agreement, 96–101 Ethiopia’s withdrawal from, 99, 101 humanitarian crisis, 98 Islam in, nature, 96–7 Islamic Courts Union, 33, 97 Sharia law, 100–2 Transitional Federal Government, 96–100 charter, 97 Soviet Union Afghanistan, invasion 37–8 Sri Lanka, 32, 39 peace process 1999–2006, case study, 71–80 monks, role of, 76–8 Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS), 76 Sinhalese, 32, 72–80 state-based conflicts, 10 challenges to formation/existence, 32 Philippines case study, 102–10 creation of new, under religious rule, 32 government aspirations to religious nature of state, 32 intrastate see intrastate armed conflicts Sudan, 20, 32, 168, 178–80 Addis Ababa Agreement, 87–8, 91, 185 ADF, funding, 47 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, 92, 95–6 banking, dual system, 94 judicial system, creation of autonomous, 93 protection of rights and freedoms, 92 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), 86, 91 internal armed conflict, 85–96 Islam or secularism, 86 Machakos Protocol, 90–2, 96

Muslim Brotherhood, 89 Nation Islamic Front, 88–91 negotiated settlement, basis, 86 oil development 90, 95 phases of– civil war 1962–72, 87 democracy, period of increased 1985–89, 88–9 desacralisation and negotiation 2000–05, 90, 94–6 Islamisation, period of increased, 89–90 September Laws, 88 Sharia law, 88–90, 93–5 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), 86–9 World Council of Churches, 185 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A), 86–9 Suharto regime, 123, 125 Sumbeiywo, Lazaro, 91 Sunni Muslims Iraq, 18, 142 Syrian, 13–14 Muslim Brotherhood, 14 Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 18, 34, 127–31, 166, 171 Iran, support from, 128 Islamic rule in Iraq, aspiration for, 127 overview of, 128 politicisation, 131 Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), change to, 130 Syria, 13, 16 Alawites, 13–14 April 2011 uprising, 13–14 Christians, 13–14 Kurds, 13–14 1979 Hama uprising, 14 Sunni Muslims, 13–14 Tajikstan, 21, 35, 168, 179 civil war casualties, 110

218 Ending Holy Wars

desacralisation of conflict, 114, 165 General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord, 113–14 Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), 21, 111–14 politicisation, case study, 110–14 United Tajik Opposition (UTO), 21, 111–14 Taliban, 112–13, 142–4, 172 Afghanistan, 14–15, 33, 38–9, 142–4 demands of 144–5 desacralisation of conflict, case study 141–7 Pakistan, 34 Tamils, 32, 72–80 termination of conflict, 58 religion, impact of, 4 terrorist organisations, 141, 154 Thailand, 32, 45–7 Krue Se Mosque incident, 46 Pattani conflict, 45–6, 178 time, religious traditions and, 53 Trinidad and Tobago, 28 Jamaat al-Muslimeen, 28 tsunami 2004, 124 Uganda, 35, 47 United Iraqi Alliance, 133

United Nations Somalia, 98 Tajikistan, 113 United States Afghanistan, 14–15, 38 Iraq invasion 2003, 129 Philippines, grant of independence, 103 Sudan, 91 War on Terror, 95 9/11, 38 United Tajik Opposition (UTO), 21, 111–14 Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), 9, 19 armed conflict, meaning, 10, 56 Uzbekistan, 35 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 35–6 West Papua, 28 World Council of Churches, 185 Yemen, 35 Yugoslavia, former conflicts between Muslim dominated governments and non-Muslim minorities, 26–7 inter-sectarian conflicts, 29 Yusuf, Mohammed, 16