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Peace and Conflict Resolution in Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, as any other region of the world, where many political and social disputing issues remain unsolved, is a subject to a third party mediation. It is believed that such meditation can result in both arguing parties to come to their senses. Those international institutions that promote this as an ultimate tool for dealing with political disputes, insist that only mediation can resolve problems. But is it really so? If we look at this issue from broader point of view, itll appear that third party meditation cannot be considered as panacea. The example of negotiations between Palestinians and Jews in Israel show us that they had only escalated the conflict Those whore involved in conflict know perfectly well that when third party gets involved, it only gives them time out, and as soon as it pulls out from negotiations, hostilities renew with even more ferocity.
The biggest dispute in Southeast Asia at this time, are territorial claims of many countries over the same sections of South China Sea that are potentially rich with oil. Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia are the key players in this dispute. Sometimes its even gets funny Vietnam's government has troops on numerous atoll islands, which are just suppose to stand there and wave Vietnamese flag, thus proving Vietnamese sovereignty over them. Every country that participates in this dispute has large populations that grow rapidly and they need hard currency to insure the growth of their economies. It is no secret that by year 2080 worlds oil recourses are going to be largely depleted.
At this time, prices for oil will get skyrocketed. That is why countries in Southeast Asia would rather have many people killed, if it comes to an armed conflict over disputed territories in South China Sea, than reconsider their claims. People have always been an expandable category in this region. This especially appears to be the case when we talk about China.
Loosing people in military conflicts will actually benefit China, as this country is already being overpopulated. Thats why when European and UN mediators come to the region and try to convince participating sides in finding a peaceful solution to this dispute, it causes nothing but laughter. Scott Snyder in his article The South China Sea Dispute admits that: Given the nature and complexity of the various legal claims to the islands and concerns about the regional balance of power, no purely legal process is likely to be sufficient to achieve a settlement But I dont agree when he says that: Military conflict would threaten the interests of all parties to the dispute, since the political costs of military escalation would be higher than any single party is currently willing to bear Quite contrary, only military way of resolving this conflict can be final, like its being happening throughout the history. Napoleon Bonaparte once said: The God is on the side of larger battalions There are other, mostly ethnically based, conflicts in Southeast Asia. For example, there is a great ethical tension in Malaysia over countless number of Chinese pouring into is country. Malaysian government had adopted a discriminative immigration policy that simply forbids any more Chinese from coming.
This helped a lot to release the tension a bit. Yet, there are third party mediators like UN officials that wanted to get involved right away, saying that such policy is undemocratic and has to be reconsidered This goes to show, that mediators can often cause more harm then good. This is the reason why countries in Southeast Asia exercise caution when it comes to some supreme arbiter offering them its helping hand to settle conflict. Why there werent any mediators interested in settling conflict between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda? Because there were no valuable natural resources at stake In my opinion, no mediation can produce stable positive results the best it is capable of is delaying conflicts that are bound to happen sooner or later. Bibliography: Snyder, Scott The South China Sea Dispute: Prospects for Preventive Diplomacy.
Aug. 1996. Special Report 18. United States Institute of Peace. 20 Nov. 2004. web Solomon, Richard and Jiemian Yang Political and Security Outlook 2003: Asian Geostrategic Trends 2003. Trends in Southeast Asia Series. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. 20 Nov. 2004.
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Research essay sample on Peace And Conflict Resolution In Southeast Asia
