Topic: Containing and De-Escalating Sectarian Conflict
Country: Angola
Delegate Name: William Pettinger
School: Forest Hills Northern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Angola position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Sectarian conflict is conflict between sects of a group. While the denotation of the word can apply to almost anything, the connotation is between religious sects. Primarily the issue now is within Christianity and Islam. Historically Catholics and Protestants have always been in conflict and many countries have had issues with conflict between the two groups. However, in recent years this has calmed down even in the hotbed of this conflict Northern Ireland. The most important sectarian conflict is within Islam. The sects of Shia and Sunni within Islam are in a constant state of conflict in the middle east. It is difficult to find a middle eastern country today where there is not currently conflict between the two sects or there has been conflict within the past ten years.
Angola has had little issue with traditional sectarian conflict. It is a primarily christian and traditional African religions nation. However, Angola has had a long history with internal conflict. It is a country that has known the pain of a 25 year civil war. What kept the civil war going for so long was intervention from other countries on the behalf of the losing parties. Angola firmly stands against intervention and tries to support the popular majority in other countries like Namibia. Although to be honest Angola’s conflict was easier to resolve once intervention was thwarted than religious conflict. Religious conflict is much more difficult to de-escalate as the disagreement runs much deeper. Angola deeply believes that intervention causes the conflict to grow because there can never be a neutral intervention.
An ideal solution to conflict within religious sects is the UN model of peacekeeping. It avoids the traps of intervention such as the one sided nature of it. For a UN peacekeeping mission to be launched, both sides must agree to it. The peacekeepers are not there to do anything other than facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid and put distance between the two sides. The peacekeepers are so neutral that they won’t even prevent the two sides from fighting. If they choose to re-ignite the conflict the UN just packs up and leaves. It allows the two sides to de-escalate in a timely manner. The goal of this topic is to facilitate the de-escalation of sectarian conflicts and the best way to do so is with the consent of the two sides in a UN led mission.
