4th Anniversary of UN SC 1325 Will Be a Low Key Commemoration for Women's Peace Groups

October 28, 2004 - (femLINKpacific) "The 4th anniversary celebrations has been postponed as there is still no funding," said an email from Helen Hakena, of the Leitan Neihan Women's Development Agency in Buka, Bougainville. She was referring to the plans that had been collectively drawn up by the Women, Peace and Security Board members in Bougainville on Friday 8th October, however the WPS Board is still keen to stage the regional level commemoration, as soon as funds were available, according to Pamela Meura who is the current Executive Coordinator of the Bougainville Provincial Women's Council, also a member organisation of the WPS Board.

The overall theme for the "1325 commemoration" is Bougainville Women United for Peace and Security. It aims to ensure a combined approach to build on women’s peace initiatives to date and work collectively towards the future of Bougainville. During the initial planning meeting the WPS Board agreed that the celebration would feature a tri-colour scheme for unity and peace i.e. Blue (representing the Bougainville flag), White as a symbol for peace and Red to show a united concern to combat HIV/Aids.

The “1325 Anniversary” will take place in 3 regional centres (Buka - North, Arawa - Central and Buin - South) over 3 days bringing together all the
stakeholders, women’s initiatives and programmes to a central location to focus on preparations for the future Reconciliation Programme. Each regional event will also include a series of bring and buy stalls to assist participating women’s groups in their own fundraising.Invited guests will include all relevant administration officials, district managers, Chairmen of the Council of Elders, all UN representatives, church leaders, women from the No Go Zone, and the media.

Each regional centre, would also invite appropriate resource persons, to facilitate a peace discussion which will centre on the theme “Reconciliation – Building on our Peace Initiatives”. The workshop session will then also involve the 45 participants contributing to the production of peace banners which will be displayed at the Combined Peace Service where representatives from each church will be invited to participate in the programme, which will include a Young Women’s Prayer for Peace.

In order to stage the 3 events in the Northern, Central and Southern regions, the WPS Board of Bougainville needs to raise at least 45,000US!
What a huge amout you may well exclaim - but aside from the positive investment in supporting the women extend their peacebuilding initiatives, in reality, two of the biggest costs that the women have to contend with are transport and communications.

Forget about picking up the phone and ordering a taxi or booking a bus! You first actually have to find the transport that will be able to negotiate
the rough terrain and negotiate the many rivers to cross.

Forget the ease of email access, you need to travel to and from the women, to effectively communicate the plans for any activity ... So here's hoping the WPS Board will soon be able to stage this event - a first of its kind, a collective response bringing together the members of the WPS Board, reflecting the women's network across Bougainville. The Bougainville WPS Board, chaired by Elizabeth Momis, includes members from the Leitana Neihan Women’s Development Agency, Bougainville Provincial Council of Women, Bougainville Inter-Church Women’s Forum, United Church Women’s Fellowship, The SDA Women’s Federation, Bougainville Catholic Women’s Association and the Women in Business Association in Buka.

Meanwhile, in Suva, Fiji Islands, the monthly capital city broadcast of femTALK 89.2fm "women speaking to women for peace" will coincide with the
31st October anniversary, and throughout the day, femLINKpacific will be highlighting information both from the UN Secretary General's report as well as the NGO Working Group alternative report. Once again, the femTALK 89.2FM volunteers will be contributing their time to the day long broadcast (9am to 6pm) which will be staged at the ECREA office: "Everyone is being so generous with their contributions - from ECREA giving us free space to broadcast from - the technical support we have received, even the fact that our student broadcasters give up half their Sunday to do this means there is genuine commitment to the cause. This Sunday we also plan to broadcast presentations that we will record at a public forum that is being coordinated by UNIFEM Pacific on Friday 29 October. The forum's theme Promotiong Peace in People's Lives' is a joint commemoration for UN Day as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and will feature speakers from a broad spectrum of society, from academia to community workers. Speakers include Dr Steve Ratuva, Mrs Rachel Bhagwan, Aisake Casimira and Suliana Siwatibau," says femLINKPACIFIC Coordinator, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls.

Even though these initiatives maybe low-key, nonetheless it is an important step towards creating greater visibility of the fact that gender is a
relevant dimension in peace building and that conflict is a gendered activity, and to build on commitments to ensuring women's equal participation in decison making.

One could argue that it would happen even without "1325". Certainly, but now with "1325" as an additional commitment from the UN and from the member states to the women of the world, it is a vital tool for the women working for peace in the Pacific region to ensure effective implementation has to take place at national and regional levels, and to bring into consideration of the defence and security sector, that women have a stake in the Pacific Plan for Peace and Security as well! We may not be ex-combatants - we may not be defence personnel or academic experts, but we can assist you in implementing the objectives of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

Clearly this is a point that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan makes in his REPORT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1325.He noted that, while there has been a positive shift in international understanding of the impact of armed conflict on women and girls and the importance of women’s participation as equal partners in all areas related to peace and security, the real test of the adequacy of these efforts is, however, in their impact on the ground: “ In no area of peace and security work are gender perspectives systematically incorporated in planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting. The peacekeeping and humanitarian arenas have seen the most dramatic improvement in terms of new policies, gender expertise and training initiatives. An outstanding challenge is increasing the number of women in high-level decision-making positions in peacekeeping operations. In the areas of conflict prevention, peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction, women do not participate fully and more needs to be done to ensure that the promotion of gender equality is an explicit goal in the pursuit of sustainable peace.”

It has to happen, the words need to be transformed into effective and responsive policy action to include women, who despite facing the full brunt
of their wars and conflicts or political upheavals, which throw everyone's lives into disarray, who despite limited or no resources at all, are still working to ensure there is sustainable peace, all they are asking for is equal access, appropriate and effective space to contribute to post conflict
reconstruction.