McCormack Graduate School professor leads secret Iraq peace talks
September 4, 2007 – After four days of discussions in Finland, 16 delegates from Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq have agreed to a 12-point framework intended to guide Iraq to a lasting peace.
The secret talks were organized by the University of Massachusetts Boston’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and Helsinki-based Crisis Management Initiative. Helping lead the discussions were several veterans of the peace processes in Northern Ireland and South Africa, including McCormack Graduate School’s Padraig O’Malley, holder of the John Joseph Moakley Chair of Peace and Reconciliation.
“The road to reconciliation in Iraq, like in any fractured society, is long and tortured,” said McCormack Graduate School Dean Steve Crosby, “but we hope that Padraig O’Malley can use the expertise that he’s gathered in Northern Ireland and South Africa over the years, and the legacy of Joe Moakley, to get the journey on that road started.”
Congressman Moakley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and served until his death in 2001. In addition to serving as chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, Moakley’s investigation of the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador opened the way to a peaceful settlement between the rebels and the Salvadoran government.
O’Malley, the founder and editor of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies’ New England Journal of Public Policy for more than 20 years, has also authored many books, among them the award-winning Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, Biting at the Grave, and Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, which was published in April.
The framework for peace, titled the “Helsinki Agreement,” includes recommendations on non-violence, independent and effective courts, the protection of human rights, and the creation of a truly inclusive political process—all things, said Dean Crosby, that need to be in place before a nation can move forward.
“This is representational of the kind of work that we think a public policy school should do,” said Crosby. “The university believes that a public policy school should be deeply involved in public policy issues, and this is one of the most profoundly troubling public policy issues, and one, principally through the Moakley chair, that we want to be very much involved in.”
The Helsinki Agreement
1. To resolve all political issues through non-violence and democracy.
2. To prohibit the use of arms for all armed groups during the process of
negotiations.
3. To form an independent commission approved by all parties, its task being to
supervise the process of disarmament of non-governmental armed groups in a
verifiable manner.
4. All parties will commit to accept the results of the negotiations and no party
can be subject to a threat of force from any groups that reject all or part of any
agreement reached.
5. To work to end international and regional interference in internal Iraqi affairs.
6. To commit to protect human rights.
7. To assure the independence and efficiency of the legal and justice systems,
especially the constitutional court.
8. To ensure the full participation of all Iraqi parties and blocs in the political
process and agreed governance arrangements.
9. To take all necessary steps to end all violence, killings, forced displacement
and any further damage to infrastructure.
10. To establish an independent consultative body to explore ways to deal with the
legacy of the past in a way that will unite the nation.
11. All Iraqi parties and blocs have to build Iraq and contribute efficiently to
support all the efforts that would make the political process and Iraqi unity
successful and to preserve its sovereignty.
12. All participating groups must commit to all of the principles listed here as a
complete system of rules.
The John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies was created in August 2003 to recognize the University's strengths in policy studies and develop a signature area of excellence. The school offers a broad range of graduate degrees in public policy, public affairs, and gerontology and teaches students to think and work across traditional boundaries, particularly at the intersection of the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Research centers within the Graduate School focus on State and Local Policy, Social Policy, Women in Politics & Public Policy, Gerontology, Media and Society, and Democracy and Development. For more information, go to www.mccormack.umb.edu.
Established in 1964, UMass Boston prides itself on providing challenging teaching, distinguished research, and extensive public service to Boston and the Commonwealth. Through its six colleges—Liberal Arts, Science and Mathematics, Management, Nursing and Health Sciences, Public and Community Service, and Graduate College of Education –the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, and the Division of Corporate, Continuing, and Distance Education, UMass Boston offers undergraduate and graduate study to 12,400 students in more than 150 fields. For more information, please see www.umb.edu.