Giving Peace a Better Chance

Joyce Neu is leaving her post at Joan Kroc Institute to put herself on the front lines of conflict resolution

By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR

March 23, 2008

As a young Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, Joyce Neu learned early on that everything involved negotiations. Even buying tomatoes.

Walking up to the vendor, she would engage in a conversation that would go something like this:

How are you?

I'm fine.

How is your family?

My family's fine.

I'll give you this much for your tomatoes.

No, I have to have this much.

Eventually, after about 20 minutes, Neu could head home with her kilo of tomatoes in hand.

Later, she would attend graduate school, become a professor and then go into the business of peacemaking. But the lessons she learned decades ago in west Africa still linger.

“That was kind of the start of it, because I started to think, what is it about negotiations that's not about the money?” Neu says. “It's not about the money. It's about human relationships.”

Neu came to San Diego 7½ years ago to head up the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, which was still under construction on a bluff at one end of the University of San Diego campus. Her credentials were impressive: As associate director of The Carter Center in Atlanta, she helped negotiate a cease-fire in Bosnia and helped broker a peace agreement between Sudan and Uganda. For eight years, she worked alongside former president Jimmy Carter, who went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless resolve.

Neu leaves the Kroc Institute this week to head up a new /United Nations mediation team whose mission will be to respond as requested to hot spots around the world and try to help make peace. She says she will continue to serve as a volunteer adviser for the Kroc institute.

“My feeling was at my age, I'm not going to have that many more years left where I'm going to be able to do this amount of traveling,” says Neu, who is a youthful-looking 57.

She says she doesn't want to look back and have regrets about things left undone. “If I don't do it now, I won't do it.”

Besides, she was getting the itch to be in the field. As the peace institute grew and more staff was added, Neu says, the administrative work became increasingly time-consuming. “I guess I feel that I'm meant to be more out doing the work,” she says.

When she read about a team of mediation experts being assembled at the U.N., the temptation was too much to pass up.

Neu was chosen from more than 70 applicants to lead the six-member unit of on-call peace envoys, which includes a security specialist from Zimbabwe, a human rights lawyer from Ireland, a power-sharing adviser from Canada and a constitution-making expert from New Zealand.
Officials were impressed with her range of experience, both in the field and as a trainer, according to Michele Griffin, senior political affairs officer for the U.N.

They also liked something else. “Her personality is very engaging,” Griffin says. “She's not arrogant.”

Griffin says both traits will come in handy. “We needed a team leader who would be a unifying force, somebody who could help everyone work together and make the team more than the sum of its parts.”

She describes Neu's group as a “bit of a SWAT team for mediation.” Its experts will deploy at a moment's notice, as soon as a request is made. “Their sole purpose will be to get on a plane and go to where they're needed,” Griffin says.

Building peace

As the executive director of the Kroc institute, Neu's emphasis has been on building peace rather than making it.

While staff members have helped with conflicts in countries like Nepal and Uganda, the institute is better known for the forums, lectures and other programs hosted at the picturesque Spanish Renaissance building with its 70-foot-high cupola.

The institute has sponsored international and national experts for talks ranging from Iraq and the Middle East to global warming and U.S. human rights. For five years now, it's brought women peacemakers from around the world together to share their experiences and get more training.

Neu says that while the Carter Center's work is more about going out to places, she wanted the institute's work to be more about bringing the world to San Diego.

“I wanted the institute to be different,” Neu says. “I wanted this to be a draw for the San Diego community in the sense of how can we help promote a more-informed citizenry in terms of world affairs.”

Julie Sullivan, USD's provost and vice president for academic affairs, credits Neu with broadening the school's reach. “I think she has a marvelous network around the world, and I think she really has brought USD into that network in a very positive way.”

Having the institute at USD is a “natural fit” for the Catholic school and the church's teachings on social justice, Sullivan says. Dee Aker, the institute's deputy director, will take over as the interim head. Sullivan expects an international search for a new executive director will be launched in August or September.

Neu may look preppy, but Sullivan says she has no doubt that she'll do fine in this new job, where she is as likely to find herself sleeping in tents as a hotel. “She has a background of working in hot spots,” Sullivan says. “She's accustomed to working on the front lines.”

Neu says she doesn't like putting herself in danger and doesn't do so lightly. “But when I have, it's because I know the issues. I know the conflict. And I have the feeling that maybe this can help.”

If anything bad happens, she doesn't want her family to think she didn't know what she was getting into. “I knew exactly what I was getting into and I was willing to take that risk.”

Enlisting women

When she goes into the field to help resolve conflicts, the first thing she does is get as much background as possible – including a timeline, so she can understand the roots and the history. She also likes to include as many people as possible in the negotiation process.

For her new job, she has already e-mailed the women who have participated in the institute's peacemakers program and warned them that she may be needing their help.

Women's voices are important, she argues.

“They represent not only women, they represent children and men,” she adds. “There are very few things that a woman wants, like education, health care, food on the table, that men don't want, too. It's just that men sometimes don't articulate those things because they're caught up in power struggles.”

She also plans to tap voices from trade unions, human rights groups and media in the various countries. “My hope is that we will be able to consult with a broad range of society when we go into these conflicts and not just focus on the political leaders.”

Raised Jewish, she says she shares a belief held by Carter, her former boss and a born-again Christian: “You need to give people the opportunity to be redeemed.”

She says if there is one common thread in conflict, it's this: “Every group feels that they are the victim. No matter what atrocity they're committing, they feel they have a story to tell and they want somebody to tell their side.”

Neu says she believes people are basically good and desperately want peace. “I don't think people are inherently designed to be violent,” she says.

“How often do you actually reach out and hit somebody? Very rarely. So mostly we are pretty good at making peace in our daily lives. We have arguments and we yell at people, but mostly we don't torture them; we don't break their arms; and we don't kill them. Mostly, we don't.

“If I weren't an optimist, I would not be doing this.”

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