APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 12 12 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL Transformational theories and practices are also concerned with how oppressive structures and regressive leadership contribute to or escalate conflict and prevent transitioning to peace.48 Transformational methods have been developed to systematically analyze and help constructively bring about change in relationships and the structures of oppression. These approaches and the values of nonviolence, respect, human security, dignity, and growth that inform them are meant to empower people at all levels of society. A deeper, more comprehensive peace results from this process. Conflict resolution, in theory and practice, examines and attempts to meet the underlying needs of people and deals with systemic issues of a specific conflict. Its methods are also meant to stabilize a conflict situation, allowing people to continue their relationships, do their jobs, and move beyond the immediate difficulty. Unlike conflict transformation, however, conflict resolution interventions do not fully address historical harm or current structural injustices. Conflict resolution may also result in cooptation, important issues being ignored, or a cover up instead of implementation of the real changes needed.49 Furthermore, conflict resolution processes may be used because no other methods are known or made available. Though Somaliland customary law does not always transform conflict, its practices often reflect elements of the transformational model. In the following example, elders engaged in the research project explain the reasons for and methods used to resolve longstanding, ten-to-twenty-year-old conflicts between clans: The solution came for different reasons: The clans may be tired of fighting and they are ready to agree to peace [mainly brokered] by another clan. This intervention would be by a third clan’s ergo [a committee of elders sent to pacify the conflicting parties]. If the fighting was still going on, the first step was for the ergo to go to each side and tell them they should stop the fighting. Second, the warring parties were told to disarm and place the weapons far from the fighting zone. Third, both parties [fifty elders on each side] swore not to wage any attack during the process of talks. Fourth, each side listened to the other.50 Once an agreement is reached, the following process is used to deal with the damage that occurred during the fighting: 1. Any contested or visible property is returned to its owner (e.g., horses, camels, guns, and so on, because the conflict will not stop when someone sees his property that had been taken by force in the hands of an aggressor). 2. The loss of something is dealt with in a number of ways: 48. L. Schirch, ‘Trauma, identity and security: How the U.S. can recover from 9/11 using media arts and a third approach to human security’, in Hart, Peacebuilding in Traumatized Societies; V. Volkan, Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror (Charlottesville, Virginia, Pitchstone Publishing, 2004). 49. John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation (Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Good Books, 2003). 50. Elders from three regions of Somaliland—Marodi-Jeh, Togdher, and Awadal—were interviewed along with focus groups of elders and other clan members. Data were gathered on traditional methods of conflict resolution and mediation processes. Interviews from the elders validated one another, with minor contextual and substantive differences. For example, in eastern Somaliland, conflicts related to water and pasture sharing are the most prevalent, while in the western part, rural land disputes that involve farming issues are the most common.