(Speech delivered by Dr. Ayesah Uy Abubakar at the Panel Discussion 2: Peace – Reality or Illusion?during the Launch of the AICHR Thematic Study on the Right to Peace, held on 1 July 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Abubakar of Mindanao is Associate Professor at the Albukhary International University and Malaysia’s Representative to the ASEAN Women Peace Registry)
Thank you to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) Malaysia, for organizing and inviting me as one of the panel speakers.
Dr. Muhadi Sugiono (Universitas Gadjah Mada) talked about peace theory and international norm making. This time, I will discuss about the operational definition of what is peace.
Peace is not as simple as social harmony or regular commemoration and declaration of peace as part of advocacy. Peace, for a start, is about the acceptance and normalization of the existence of conflict in many facets of our communities and the public domain. Conflict exists because of historical antecedents, social inequality and imbalance within our power structures in a relationship- this can be either “between those who are in power vs those who have less power- this, as vertical type of conflicts; or amongst different sectors and groups of various identity, in our society—or what is known as horizontal conflicts.
Therefore, to achieve peace, is to face and accept conflict. However, peace scholars such as Adam Curle, Johan Galtung, John Paul Lederach and the Bradford Peace Studies Programme, emphasize that what is more important is HOW DO WE DEAL with conflict. This leads us to an understanding that peace is a process in as much as it is a goal. This is where the idea and mantra of “peace by peaceful means” has also been started. The reality is that, we live in a time of conflict and violence, within our countries, and that there is always a tendency towards escalating this within our borders. As peace scholarship developed, we have also gained a more profound understanding on the idea that, “conflicts can be transformed” – to bring about social change, social equality and national development.
Entrenching the Right to Peace in ASEAN is a good start and ASEAN has made more commitments in relation to human rights and peace. Within the ASEAN community, and more specifically in the civil society, ASEAN’s “peace boat” has commenced as early as 1999 when the Southeast Asian Conflict Studies Network (SEACSN) was organized by peace researchers and NGO workers, with the idea that peace and conflict issues in the region should be led by Southeast Asian civil society—building their capacity and making them “agents” of conflict transformation in the process. As Professor Zam, the regional coordinator of SEACSN once said, “Peace has to be built in the soil of the conflict.” Hence, this has been the basis of SEACSN in building the expertise of peacework in the region.
The SEACSN was hosted at the Research and Education for Peace, at Universiti Sains Malaysia (REPUSM) and this was funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) until 2004. This was the time that SEACSN conducted numerous research, trainings, seminars and conferences in all ASEAN member countries-involving more academics and NGO workers. SEACSN brought about the emergence of a regional “peace constituency” in ASEAN for the first time. This was also the start of the promotion of the idea of “scholar-practitioner” among Southeast Asians in the field of peace and conflict studies.
Soon after SEACSN, there also emerged the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The GPPAC headquarters is based in the Netherlands but its Southeast Asian office-is hosted at the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), an NGO based in Davao City, Philippines. It was later that more groups came, like, the Southeast Asian Human Rights Network (SEAHRN) and the collaboration of SEAHRN with the ASEAN University Network (AUN) to form the programme on Strengthening of Human Rights and Peace Education in Southeast Asia (SHAPE-SEA)- this as a network among academics, students and civil society groups. Both networks were initiated by Ajarn Sriphrapha Petchamesree who is joining us today.
Apart from these bigger networks, there were also smaller groups like the Asian-Muslim Action Network (AMAN) based in Bangkok; the Action-Asia based in Siem Riep, Cambodia, and later, also from Siem Riep, Cambodia, rose the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS). CPCS has been active in doing regional peacebuilding activities and supporting and training peacebuilders from around the region.
To the question posed for this panel, “is peace a reality, or an illusion for ASEAN?” I will share some snippets of stories with you…
In Ambon, Indonesia, a religious conflict occurred in 1999-2002 that spread in other parts of Maluku province, but there was the Baku Bae Movement. A peacebuilding movement that made use of local wisdom and religious values to bring conflict parties towards conciliation, and it did PREVENT the spread of more violence and conflict.
In the conflict story in Aceh, for many years, before the tsunami devastated the island in December 2004, the civil society groups in Aceh were constant in doing their peacebuilding activities. These groups encouraged both the government and the Free Aceh Movement to pursue the more peaceful peace negotiations. So, when the peace talks were mediated by the Crisis Management (CMI) in 2005, this did not come out from nowhere, the peacebuilding and peacemaking environment has already been built by the civil society groups in Aceh. Notable among this CSOs, is the Flower Aceh, or the women’s peace movement. Establishing Flower Aceh and doing its work, is, an act of bravery in an environment of conflict and violence that is male centred and male dominated.
Working for peace is not for the faint of heart. Not only it is a risky work, but it is filled with adversarial situations and relationships. When one works for peace, it is impossible not to be in a confrontational relationship when the objective is to be the conciliator or mediator, to be the peacebuilder, especially when conflicting parties are in polarized positions.
The Philippines peace processes with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and succeeded by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is now recognized as the more successful peace process in the region. However, this success did not happen like magic. That peace process started in the late 1970s and culminated in 2014 with the peace agreement between the MILF and the government of the Philippines. This is a peace process that has been successfully mediated by the government of Malaysia.
Furthermore, upon the lobbying of civil society groups in Philippines and in Malaysia, Malaysia was also encouraged to organize and deploy the International Monitoring Team (IMT) as the peacekeeping mission in Mindanao while the peace negotiations were ongoing in Kuala Lumpur. The IMT, together with the cooperation of both conflict parties was very successful that before the deployment of the IMT—in 2003-the ceasefire violations reached the highest number of 698 violations in a year, but with the presence of the IMT in 2004, this drastically went down to only 16 violations. In the year 2012 up to 2014—when the peace agreements were signed- there was Zero incidence of ceasefire violations. Mindanao, then, had been successful in achieving negative peace. And it was on its way to achieving positive peace with the implementation of the peace agreements that we witness till today in the new Bangsamoro region.
The Philippines peace process and its peacebuilding history is replete with many stories of how various civil society groups contributed to the hard-earned peace. There is mindanews.com, that has pioneered peace journalism, the Mindanao Peaceweavers—a consortium of NGOs all over Mindanao, Philippines; the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City that started peace education at the soil of the conflict; Miriam College that has built peace education, in Manila — far from the conflict – mand built bridges between the peoples of Mindanao and Manila. The Bishops-Ulama-Forum in the Philippines that worked hard to ensure that the conflict in Mindanao does not become a religious conflict — as outsiders (especially those outside the region) would sometimes paint it as a Muslim-Christian conflict or ethnic conflict.
In Malaysia, we have also contributed to the peacebuilding in Mindanao through a programme known as Consolidation for Peace (COP) for Aceh, Mindanao and Southern Thailand. This programme allowed for civil society groups to directly engage with the peace negotiators in a constructive dialogue. The COP was then based at the Research and Education for Peace, Universiti Sains Malaysia and co-organised by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) during the period of 2007-2014.
I think at this point, I wish to highlight that third parties within the region—whether they are states, such as Malaysia, or civil society groups, these are good examples of infrastructures for peace that is being practiced today.
In Southern Thailand, the public and private universities there, once upon a time, formed the Southern Thailand Universities for Peace—this, as a peacebuilding journey among academics and students. This was a proactive response soon after the violence that occurred in Tak Bai, in October 2004. At that time, the violence in Southern Thailand was escalating. From a state of threat, this became an opportunity to do peace education among youths and to prevent the deterioration of relationships among ordinary Thais—be it Buddhists or Muslims. The Deep South Watch was also set-up at Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani—to monitor and document the conflict and violence. Another entity that was born was the Peace Resource Centre (PRC), also based in Pattani. PRC was built by Dr. Norbert Ropers with the aim of providing a safe space for discussion and equipping ordinary people to understand the conflict and provide them the capacity to be part of peacebuilding. Just this Sunday, 29 June 2025, we learned that Dr. Norbert Ropers passed away in his home in Hamburg, Germany. For many peacebuilders in Thailand, while he is not a Southeast Asian, nonetheless Dr. Norbert Ropers will be remembered well as one of those that has been patient in accompanying the people of Thailand in the journey of peacemaking and peacebuilding in this region.
There are many more stories of working for peace that is ongoing in every part and corner of communities with ASEAN, in Myanmar, in Timor Leste. And even in relatively peaceful Singapore and Malaysia where peacebuilding activities are in the form of interfaith dialogues and community-based mediation. Peace is being built with bare hands by students and researchers, academics, NGO workers, community leaders, religious leaders, indigenous groups, marginalized sectors, the women, youths, and more ordinary peoples from all walks of life. They are all part in the peace advocacy, trainings, education and actual peacebuilding work of dialogue and consultations, mediation, and economic and political empowerment. These groups work among different sectors of the society, reaching out to government leaders, political leaders and yes, even to non-state armed groups. To all of these “agents of peace,” PEACE is never an illusion.
It is timely that ASEAN is making another commitment—this commitment to the right to peace. We hope that, with this, ASEAN does not only recognize the peacemakers, peacekeepers and peacebuilders but must also pave the way for them to become partners in many of its efforts.
The conflict, violence and security challenges that we have today can be very different to what we have 20 years ago. Even our younger generation, the youths are very independent-minded, and they know more than we think. This is why for ASEAN to be RELEVANT, it needs to be fully engaged with its communities.
The challenges of peacebuilding, peacekeeping and peacemaking is constantly evolving given the kind of conflicts and security issues that we have today. However, at the same time, the challenges of women for them to be able to take part in peace processes—continues to be a main challenge in many of our societies in ASEAN.
To change this, it will require a foundation for peace education, advocacy and the actual peace work to be done not only by governments but by networks and social movements of people in ASEAN. It is the ASEAN peoples and communities that will invest courage and time to achieve peace-however, difficult and risky it may be. It is them who is making this peace a reality.
