Sustaining the Peace Process:Power Sharing Among the Contending Ethnic Groups

Abstract

The global socio - political scenario in the 1995, is painted with high intensity conflicts with latent potential to escalate into full blooded inter-state wars. The onset of the detente has brought the inter - state conflicts, hitherto contained by the Cold War dynamics, to the fore. The United Nations is now acti vely invol ved in peace keeping operations than it had been ever before. Director, Western Campus University of Colombo. This is a modified version of an article presented to the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, in June 1995 as an end of the project programme papers. Mrs. Regina Mulaty - Parakh (M. A., M. Phil., Ph. D.) is a research scientist attached to the Centre for International - Politics Organization and Disarmament, School of international Studies. Jawahalrlal Nehru University, New Delhi. India. Most conflicts of the third world are ethnic in nature and demand power sharing with the dominant ethnic group, However the definition of ethnicity may vary from one continent to another depending on their past experiences. The following definition of ethnicity is applicable to the South Asian region which has a common historical and social experience: the term ethnicity encompasses varied elements like cultural markers' i.e. language, religion, customs and traditions, historical memories, values and race. The identification by a group, irrespective of its numerical size, to some or all of these elements creates an ethnic identity. Ethnic groups that use ethnicity to make demands in the political arena for shifting their status, in their economic well being, in their civil rights or educational opportunities are engaged in a form of 'interest group' politics. The greater the demands for equity, the greater is the potential of a problem turning into a crisis and escalating into an armed struggle, the intensity of which depends on the mobilization of the majority and minority groups to realize their dominant and suppressed status.