FORWARD! The army and the construction of peace

The end of the military order is now placed in the long-term in the path to democracy of our societies, of all our societies. It is not about a beatific vision of a dreamed evolution, but of a reality based on a slow construction that we must constantly encourage: to create the conditions of a security that doesn’t only depend on an imposed force but rather on the permanent search of a balance between the different actors of a group of which the ultimate aspiration, whatever we say, rather aims at an appeasement of the social relations and the public life.
We have just done the demonstration of it by gathering for the first time an international group of officers to have a reflection on this question, last October 6-10 in Chile, in a place where the project would have appeared to be impossible a few years ago. This opens to promising perspectives.

This international meeting gathered former Argentinean, Chilean, Uruguayan and Venezuelan officers – of which some were in prison, or even were tortured –, Brazilian, Colombian, Ecuadorian officers, but also Germans, Spanish, French, Indians and Pakistanies, who participated to this international meeting organized in Santiago - by the Ecole de la Paix de Grenoble (School of Peace of Grenoble) and the Foundation Charles Léopold Mayer for the Progress of Human being, and as Chilean partners, the Corporación AYUN and the Center of strategic Studies of ARCIS university - on the theme: "The Army, Peace and Democracy ".

Main ideas:
 consensus on the role and the function of the army dedicated to the exclusive service of the State to guarantee the defense and the security of the community.
 necessity to establish a permanent dialogue between the actors of the security sector and the civil society and its representatives.
 Illustrations of this reconciliation (example of the French-German couple, of the pacific coexistence between an Indian chief of staff and a Pakistani general)
 Common objective: cooperation in two main directions:

• the practice of different complementary civil parts (legal, economic, financial, constitutional, etc.) on a global plan for a long term crisis end and an exchange with the civil society;
• a regional integration on the security questions (ex: case of Europe). The promotion of the regional integration of the Latin American countries is an indispensable condition for development and peace in the subcontinent.

Largely positive assessment: there is an increasing consensus in the world on the democratic conditions of the use of strenght of the and by the army, on their role in terms of defence and security and also on their limits. The exchange networks between the involved sectors must be developed in order to deepen the reflection on these concepts of global security, regional integration and international co-responsibility.
Other meetings are wished in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, or even in North America. Of now and already, the major success of this meeting, by redefining the responsibilities of the different actors, military, political and from the civil society, was to recall that peace and democracy are the business of each and require an intense work of collaboration of all.

Complete text in French.