Keys to achieving conflict resolution are listening, identifying common interests, and refusing to give up, says Ambassador Harry Barnes, director of the Conflict Resolution and Human Rights Programs at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It is important for peacemakers "to stay with the process as long as the parties think it is still useful," and also to "have the trust and confidence of all parties," he says. The Carter Center -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn -- is actively involved in efforts to resolve conflicts worldwide and to promote understanding of the causes of conflict.

Barnes joined the Carter Center in 1993 after 37 years of service in the U.S. State Department. He was U.S. ambassador to Chile, India, and Romania, and Director General of the Foreign Service. Barnes was interviewed by Contributing Editor Wendy S. Ross.

Question: Could you briefly tell us the genesis of The Carter Center -- when and why was it founded and what are its objectives?

BARNES: The Center was founded in 1982 by President and Mrs. Carter because they wanted to continue working on issues that were important to them after they had left public life. That encompassed a range of activities in the areas of improving world health, resolving disputes, and promoting human rights. They felt it was possible for them to do this with the help of other people, who they have assembled as a staff here at The Carter Center in Atlanta.

Q: How large is The Carter Center staff?

BARNES: We now have about 150 people. We don't have overseas operations as such. However, we have people who work overseas for particular purposes for specific periods of time. The work is done largely by the staff in Atlanta, and the people who work in Atlanta may -- as in the case of the Nicaraguan elections -- travel to a region and be there for some time, but they are not stationed there permanently. The exception is the agricultural program, which sends agronomists to some countries in Africa. We also have people who are working on African health issues, but they work primarily out of Atlanta. They spend substantial amounts of time in Africa but are not posted there, because the hands-on work is done almost entirely by the people in a country.

Q: How is the Center funded?

BARNES: Basically it got started through private contributions. Our funding now comes from four main sources: individual contributions, foundations, corporations, and international development assistance agencies.

For example, the work we have been doing in conjunction with the civil war in Sudan has received support from the government of the Netherlands. Our human rights work in Ethiopia was funded by the Danish government. Earlier, some of our programs in Liberia, when we still had an office there, were supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development. But the funding for most of our ongoing programs, as compared to special project work, tends to come from foundations.

Q: Could you comment on the Conflict Resolution Program's efforts to help resolve and prevent conflicts around the world?

BARNES: President Carter has had a strong interest in Africa ever since he was president. For more than a year, he has been involved most intensively in the conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Central and Eastern Africa. He talked at length with the heads of state and government officials of countries in the area about the regional nature of the problems, and his conviction -- which they shared -- is that there has to be a regional approach to many of these problems.

That in turn led to a summit conference in Cairo in November 1995 and one in Tunis in March 1996, at which the then five heads of state -- representing Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire -- agreed on actions that should be taken. In a sense, the direct and very definite involvement of several African heads of state in the Burundi crisis grows out of President Carter's work.

At the moment our involvement is more in the background -- keeping track of what's going on and staying in touch with the parties concerned. But I wouldn't be surprised if President Carter were asked to play a role again.

That is one aspect of our work in Africa. However, some of our other African programs involve efforts that may be of longer duration and take a different approach.

Consider the situation in Sudan where President Carter and other members of the Center's staff have been involved for a number of years. Forces in southern Sudan are insisting on a different direction for the country from that of the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum. This situation is the current variation of a civil war that has been going on for about 20 years.

President Carter was able last year to negotiate a cease-fire with the two sides. He did that by reminding them, or "insisting" you might say -- because he is a very persuasive person -- that, despite all their differences, they remember their common interests, such as the value they place on the health of their families, particularly children.

Because of the fighting in Sudan, The Carter Center could not continue its health-related projects -- such as trying to eradicate Guinea worm, which has been a major plague through much of sub-Saharan Africa, controlling river blindness, and immunizing children. The cease-fire lasted for about six months, and, on the whole, the situation now is somewhat better. We hope that the two parties can get together and start talking again. We are cooperating with others who also are working to resolve this conflict.

Outside of Africa we are involved in other kinds of work. In Estonia, for example, Joyce Neu, the associate director of the Conflict Resolution Program, is involved in a cooperative effort with the Kettering Foundation and the University of Virginia's Institute on the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction.

When the Baltic States regained their independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, each of the states, to varying degrees, found itself with a significant Russian-speaking population. In Estonia, people representing the two communities -- Estonians and Russian-speaking Estonians -- came to the conclusion a couple of years ago that they wanted to get some outside help to sort out the tensions. Joyce Neu and her colleagues have tried to assist in that effort. They are trying to find ways to enable the two communities to talk with each other. Now in its third year, the group organizes a couple of sessions a year in Tallinn with representative groups of Estonians and Russian-speaking Estonians. One of the interesting innovations has been to include university students so that several generations are represented. Some of the participants from Tallinn came to this country last spring. This effort has made some interesting headway.

Q: How does the Center decide which conflicts to address?

BARNES: President Carter has identified a few general criteria that have to be met. First, the parties must want our involvement. Second, we do not get involved if other entities, national and international, already are involved and are doing a reasonable job. And third, we must see some way of covering the expenses of our involvement. Now, having said that, we do monitor, at any given time, from 10 to 20 conflicts, so that if an occasion arises that calls for our involvement, we are prepared to become involved and know something about the conflict.

Some of the conflicts we address are situations where we had been involved before and still maintain an interest. And the whole broad range of questions related to non-proliferation requires that we watch what is going on in certain parts of the world -- the Indian subcontinent, for example. In addition, we get faxes and phone calls and letters asking us to help out in certain conflict areas.

I happened to be involved in President Carter's mission to Bosnia in 1994. That mission came about because a letter from an attorney in Los Angeles conveyed to us a message from Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic inviting President Carter to come to the Serbian part of the former Yugoslavia. There were a lot of quick consultations, including telephone discussions between President Carter and President Clinton before we ended up in Bosnia a week later.

Q: Are you still involved in the Bosnian situation?

BARNES: Not at the moment. Other than general monitoring of the situation, we don't see any particular role for ourselves at this stage.

Q: You also direct the Center's Human Rights Program. How does this program relate to the Conflict Resolution Program?

BARNES: Clearly, one could argue that many, if not most, conflicts are ones that either produce human rights abuses, or are caused by them. So there is a very intimate link between the Human Rights Program and the Conflict Resolution Program. The two initiatives are so interrelated that it makes sense to have one person in charge of both.

At the same time, there is a tension here as well. For example, when one is asked to define a typical "human rights" position, from the viewpoint of people who are trying to resolve conflicts, there is the tendency to believe that human rights activists are overly judgmental; they have to consider international conventions, treaties, and so on, and thus are more interested in seeing that justice is done, rather than in stopping the fighting.

But if you turn that around and consider it from the perspective of the people who are working in the human rights field, there is the tendency to say that people working on conflict resolution are interested in stopping the fighting at any price and don't care about what happens afterward.

One of our interests has focused on working with people in the human rights and conflict resolution fields to try to help the two communities better understand each other's concerns and the reasons for them. We have had a couple of discussions here at the Center with that in mind, trying to promote a better comprehension of this while recognizing that the two roles are different but also very strongly linked.

Q: Could you describe some of the most effective methods of conflict resolution that are used at The Carter Center. What works?

BARNES: I have some reservations about resolution. I think conflict is inherent in human society. I think nonviolent conflict very often can be useful. It's a way of sharpening alternatives and trying to reach decisions that recognize the interests involved. What you can do is ameliorate conflicts, promote understanding of the causes of conflict, and help people find ways of developing their own appropriate mechanisms for handling conflict. With that philosophical introduction, let me try to answer your question.

It is very easy, at one level. If I told you one of the most important things is to listen, you would wonder why I have to say it because it is so obvious. But let me point to a somewhat dramatic incident involving President Carter. It's not that nobody had thought about ways out of the impasse with North Korea in 1994, but nobody had decided it was important to talk to then North Korean President Kim Il Sung. What President Carter did was to listen to what Kim Il Sung had to say in a very basic way. On the basis of those discussions, President Carter was able to move toward a better understanding of how to approach problems that were having an impact on the world community as well as the North Koreans.

A second important aspect of achieving conflict resolution -- again in the realm of the obvious -- is to look for ways to identify where there are common interests, or even better, common values. That is sometimes hard, particularly where the antagonism is very deep and where the historical memory is part of the present reality. But it is necessary to help the sides learn to talk with each other by identifying what is important to each.

And there are various ways of doing that. Some people use role playing; some simply work initially with one side and the other, without insisting on bringing the two sides together. President Carter used that approach at Camp David a number of years ago.

The third essential component in conflict resolution is persistence: Don't give up too easily. Remember that the people who are inviting you to get involved are probably doing it because they are very frustrated because they haven't found any other way to resolve the conflict. Also, it is important to recognize that the frustration is very real, the grievances are very real. If you are playing a mediating, facilitating role, just keep at it. And remain willing to stay with the process as long as the parties think it is still useful.

The last element is again in the area of the obvious. You have to have the trust and confidence of all parties and be perceived to be neutral -- not in the sense that you have no feelings or values -- but in terms of the particular dispute, where you are not judging the position of one side or another, but are there to listen and try to understand. At some point, your judgment may come into play and it may be essential, but your initial role is that of listener, of facilitator.

Q: Does President Carter spend much time at the Center?

BARNES: Both President and Mrs. Carter spend about one week a month here. They are directly involved in various activities at the Center. For example, President Carter is chair and Mrs. Carter is co-chair of our International Human Rights Council, which is associated with the Human Rights Program. When they are not in Atlanta, they stay at their family home in Plains, Georgia, which has very good communication links with the Center. Even when he is not in Atlanta, President Carter stays in close touch with the Center and the decision-making process here. At the present time, he is on a nationwide tour to promote his new book, Living Faith.

Q: Is he involved personally at the moment in any particular conflict situation?

BARNES: He is involved -- although not as actively as previously -- in the situation related to the Great Lakes Region (of Africa). Not very long ago, he was in touch by telephone with former president Julius Nyerere of Tanzania who is doing some mediation in the Burundi situation. Also, President Carter has been very involved in trying to mediate a dispute initiated by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua related to the election.