How do you get sworn enemies to talk to each other? "By
being quiet about it," French businessman Jean-Yves
Ollivier would say.
What does a businessman know of brokering peace in one of
the most complex, intricate, and volatile regions of the world? Well, they seem
to know about delivering results. That's what 'Plot for peace', the upcoming
documentary produced by two-time Emmy documentary film-maker Mandy Jacobson, reveals through the story of Jean-Yves
Ollivier, a quiet helper of the liberation of Nelson Mandela and the end of
Apartheid in South Africa.
Most bilateral and multilateral officials tasked to deal
with conflict prevention and negotiation in various regions of the world, and
particularly in Africa, would agree that the earlier the intervention in a
mediation process, the better your chance of success. Past a certain level of
tension--when all channels of communication between the conflicting parties
have been broken--it is pretty much a lost cause.
For communication to resume, political leaders need a
private space that gives them room for honesty and flexibility. Away from the
public eye, they are less pressed to stick to one, inflexible party-line on
sensitive topics. Few diplomats, bureaucrats, or politicians are able to create
such spaces for discussion. Jean-Yves
Ollivier has been able to create such spaces.
That is because access to and trust from all parties cannot
be achieved through diplomacy, bureaucracy, or politics. It is reached through
personal relationship and friendship.
Friendship between a white, western business man and African
leaders tends to look suspicious in the public eye. Jean-Yves Ollivier arrived
in Southern Africa as a businessman--a position that inevitable led him to meet
political leaders in the region. He developed genuine friendships with them as
a free, uncensored, neutral agent, interested in results rather than political
allegiances.
These long-term friendships and the trust they implied, allowed
Jean-Yves Ollivier to bring together sworn enemies to discuss the possibility
of breakthrough a deadlock. Discussions which culminated in the swapping of
prisoners between Angolans and South Africans on the tarmac of Maputo's airport
in September 1987. The prisoner swap opened the way to further talks and,
eventually, the liberation of Nelson Mandela in 1990.
Along with personal relationships, secrecy was the other
factor to Jean-Yves Ollivier's success as a de-facto peace broker. His involvement
stayed an absolute secret until the late 1990s. It is being brought to light fully
in an upcoming documentary produced by two-time Emmy award winner Mandy
Jacobson.
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