Peacemaking risky business

Prof Kevin Clements is well aware that being a globetrotting peacemaker comes with a few risks, after two hotels, in Pakistan and Indonesia, where he had recently stayed were later blown up by militants.

After spending many years undertaking conflict-resolution work while based overseas, New Zealand-born Prof Clements became director of the newly-established National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, at the University of Otago, in January last year.

The centre focuses on the nature of conflict, its resolution, and creating peaceful environments.

Prof Clements has been kept busy, not only in teaching and undertaking research through the centre, but also promoting peace in person in some troubled parts of the globe.

Late last month, Prof Clements presented a paper as a New Zealand representative at a Council for Security Co-operation in the Asia Pacific working group meeting in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The meeting involved the "responsibility to protect" people from human rights abuses.

Earlier last month, he also took part in a "Conflict Resolution Across Cultures" meeting in another troubled nation, Nepal.

This gathering brought together emerging leaders from the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation to discuss national and regional conflicts in the subcontinent.

Conflict areas included India and Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.

Prof Clements does not underestimate the big challenges to peace, and reflects that two hotels where he stayed in recent years were later hit by bombs, in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2008, and in Jakarta, last year.

"It goes with the territory. Sometimes there are risks."

He tries to minimise risks to his safety, partly by taking advice from locals, when visiting conflict zones.

However, he emphasises that people of goodwill must keep going there, taking some risks to promote peace.