Page 36 - EVOLUTION OF THE SUDAN PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT(SPLM),

and certain ‘natural’ interests. Whether and how this tension between nations, ethnicities and emancipation
opens new perspectives productively, or blocks collective and individual potential for development, can
only be determined in detailed analyses of every individual movement and the field of forces within which

it operates.

Recent experience around the world has demonstrated that resistance and liberation movements have become
a defining feature of contemporary political conflicts, and that in the end, reaching political settlements
needs their active involvement and cooperative engagement. The great majority of the past decade’s major

armed conflicts (30 out of 33) have been fought within the borders of single states, between the government
and one or several non-state insurgency movements, engaging in an armed struggle over issues of territory
(9) or governmental power (21) (Harbom and Wallensteen 2008: 73).

If political violence is a tool of both state and non-state actors, replacing it with peaceful methods of
conflict management is essential in building sustainable peace, and resistance/liberation movements have
become central stakeholders in processes of war termination and peace implementation. Since the end of
the cold war, an increasing number of conflicts have been resolved through negotiated settlement, rather
than military victory, and have been followed by a series of post-war peace building programmes aimed at

demilitarising, democratising, developing and reconciling the country. Despite these peace consolidation
programmes, often accompanied by heavy-handed international assistance, many recent peace agreements
have not been fully implemented, and in fact more than one third of armed conflicts ended by negotiated

agreement since 1990 have relapsed into some degree of violent warfare within the following 5 years
(Human Security Center 2008).

These various statistics have prompted political scientists and conflict resolution analysts to focus
recent studies on the role played by so-called “nonstate armed groups” in peace processes and post-war

peacebuilding, exploring their organisational and strategic shifts from armed insurgency in underground
movements towards an engagement in peace negotiations, post-war conventional politics and the acquisition
of (shared) state power (e.g. Ricigliano 2005, Söderberg Kovacs 2007, Sriram 2008, De Zeeuw 2008,
Dayton and Kriesberg 2009). Although these studies provide key insights gathered by thematic and area
experts, very few actually engage directly with insurgency groups themselves to hear their points of view,

rationales, and self-understanding of their environment and courses of action.

Against this backdrop, the ongoing Berghof action research project “Resistance/Liberation Movements
and Transitions to Politics” has brought out some unique and innovative insights on these themes by

inviting leaders members or “advisors” of six resistance and liberation movements to engage in internal
selfreflection and analysis on their respective organisations’ formation, development and experience
in conflict transformation, as well as the strategic, organisational and structural shifts entailed by such
transitions.

In 2008, we published six individual case studies on African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa,
Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19) in Colombia, Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist (CPN-M) in Nepal,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, Gerakan Acheh Merdeka (GAM) in Aceh, Indonesia
and Sinn Fein in Ireland. Depending on the particular case, each study makes a strong argument for the

necessary inclusion of the movement in any future conflict settlement, or documents clearly how such a role
was executed. Each case study has been produced by, or in close cooperation with, leading members of the
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