That’s what Ishaq was doing when he met at a conflict resolution training sponsored by . Ali, who was growing his organization to its current level of eight staffers, recognized Ishaq to be a bright, well-motivated man, with a kindred spirit. Ali brought Ishaq aboard in 2008 and began training him in mediation skills, restorative justice, conflict analysis and trauma healing.

In the summer of 2010, Ishaq’s old skills in handling natural disasters were suddenly needed again. Flooding affected 20.4 million people in Pakistan — more than the total number affected by the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 hurricane in New Orleans, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

“We diverted all of our funds and ourselves to disaster assistance,” said Ishaq. “You can’t talk to people about dispute resolution when they are in the water!”

On May 13, 2011, JustPeace broke new ground by holding an interfaith seminar, with Hindu, Muslim and Christian participants. The seminar participants all agreed that the treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan was deplorable, but Ishaq said Ali sought to show them how they could work together to ease some of their problems.

For instance, one group of 40 or 50 Christian households was suffering from contaminated water supplies that the authorities refused to fix. Ali said, “Well, how much will it take to fix this problem?”

The answer was 10,000 rupees. And Ali replied, “There are 70 to 80 of us here today. I am putting in 5,000 rupees – anyone want to join me?” Within 25 minutes, about 5,000 rupees had been collected to fix the water supply.

In each village, JustPeace International tries to ensure that the Muslahathi committee, made up of volunteers working from the police station, includes at least one representative of a minority group from the area, along with, if possible: a lawyer, social worker, religious scholar, retired police officer, retired revenue officer, and a number of women, with the goal of having at least one woman for every five men.

One of Ishaq’s favorite cases involved a “punishment” whereby a young boy who did property damage had to read the newspaper to unschooled elders in the (Hujra) traditional community center each evening. After his three-month sentence was over, the boy happily opted to keep reading to the old men.

Ishaq says such interactions may help restore the kinds of community relations he recalls from his childhood 25 years ago: “Each village used to have a community center – basically one open room – where people would often eat together, play cards, games, and music, tell stories, and monitor the activities of the children. A traveler passing through was welcome to sleep there as our guest. I used to love to play marbles there.”

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In late spring 2011, Ishaq came to EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute to take courses on restorative justice and on monitoring and evaluation.

1. Take a multi-prong approach: No single military, development or political solutions.

   

2. Involve every entity with a stake in this matter: Pakistan, India, United States, European Union, NATO, UN, Iran. All of these powers have been interfering in Afghanistan for their own reasons, but all also have a stake in stabilizing the region.
3. Talk to the insurgents: Seek a political solution that wins the cooperation of as many Afghan and Pakistani insurgents as possible. Enlist their cooperation against al-Qaeda, which has a global agenda that may be different than their more local, community-based interests.
4. Commit to a multi-year, long-term international development aid package for regional economic integration, education, and job creation programs in the borderlands between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Quick fixes look cheap initially, but they aren’t, because they don’t work and just leave people feeling more angry and hopeless.
5. Pakistan: Pakistan’s strategic goals in Afghanistan place it at odds not just with Afghanistan, India, and the United States, but with the entire international community. Yet the UN Security Council has hardly discussed Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. The Pakistani army has to put to rest its notion of a centralized state based solely on defense against India and an expansionist Islamist strategic military doctrine carried out at the expense of democracy.
6. Iran: The United States needs to talk directly with Iran, a Shiite Muslim nation. Iran has reacted to threats by aiding insurgents in Afghanistan (who are not Shiites) in order to signal how much damage it could do in response. However, Iran’s real interests lie in seeking cooperation with the United States and the international community against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
7. India/Pakistan: To avoid military stratagems, establish a permanent way for the Indian and Pakistani governments, including their military and intelligence personnel, to consult with each other over complaints and conflicts.
8. Russia/China: To reduce jockeying for influence, address the legitimate concern of Russia and China that the United States and NATO are seeking a permanent Western military presence in countries on the borders of Russia and China.
9. Afghanistan: The Afghans need to evolve a system of governance capable of delivering services to the people and relatively free of tribalism, sectarianism, and corruption. They need to tackle the drug problem themselves and show the world that they will assume responsibility for their nation in the quickest possible time.
10. Central Asian Republics: Peace in the greater region requires stable neighbors – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. All five countries sit atop vast energy reserves, offering the potential for their peoples to emerge from poverty. Yet all are ruled by repressive regimes whose policies have fueled militant Muslim resistance groups, reminiscent of the Taliban. China, Russia, and the United States are waging a “New Great Game” for influence in Central Asia. It is time to stop repeating the historical tragedies seen in Afghanistan and to learn from them: the best guarantee of security for all concerned is laying the groundwork for satisfied citizenry in these countries, as is true elsewhere.

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