NARRATOR: Distant wars flicker across our TV screens, the drama and violence making them a natural for the evening news. But what happens once the shooting stops, the TV crews move on? For most war-torn countries, this is when an equally compelling drama begins.

MR. BOOTHBY What do we do once they put down their guns to ensure they don't pick them up again?

MS. MAYNARD: How does the social fabric get put back together?

MR. COLLETTA: What are the needs, what are the opportunities and how can we make something good happen for these people?

ADM EUGENE CARROLL (USN, Ret.): I'm Admiral Eugene Carroll of the Center for Defense Information.

Today there are more than 20 active wars around the world and many other countries are trying to recover from protracted conflicts. With an increasingly interdependent world, instability abroad affects us here at home. In this program, we're going to look at stories from around the world which illustrate approaches to building durable peace following destructive wars.

NARRATOR: Modern warfare: Korea. Vietnam. The Gulf War. Nation against nation, army against army. Right? Try again.

Modern warfare: Somalia. Bosnia. Liberia. Rwanda. Neighbor against neighbor. Societies tearing themselves apart. This is the true face of modern conflict.

MS. MAYNARD: They go into homes, they go into the schools, into the hospitals. They ravage everything.

NARRATOR: As the director of Civil Society Initiatives for Mercy Corps International, a nonprofit humanitarian group, Kim Maynard has witnessed first-hand the extremely personal nature of today's conflicts.

MS. MAYNARD: Very, very difficult under those circumstances where neighbors attack neighbors. How does that begin to reemerge as a new community again under such conditions?

MR. KRITZ: Over 98 percent of major violent conflicts worldwide are not interstate but intrastate, occur within a country, civil wars.

NARRATOR: Neil Kritz specializes in justice and war crimes issues at the United States Institute of Peace, a prestigious government-funded research organization.

MR. KRITZ: And with that change in the nature of conflict, the tools that need to be used to resolve and manage and build after such a conflict need to change accordingly.

NARRATOR: What is post-conflict peace-building? The first image that might come to mind is rebuilding physical infrastructure destroyed in the war.

MS. BALL: There is a certain amount, literally, of rebuilding that has to go on.

NARRATOR: Nicole Ball is an authority on postwar reconstruction with the Overseas Development Council, a private research institute, and is the author of Making Peace Work.

MS. BALL: But I think that it's really important to understand that post-conflict rebuilding has at least a couple of other important aspects. Why do these wars occur? These wars occur because people are arguing about how the country is going to be governed. And very often the kinds of structures, political structures that exist in those countries do not allow everyone to participate very broadly in the political process, so that you have to create new kinds of organizations.

NARRATOR: Today, post-conflict peace-building encompasses a broad array of actions aimed at creating a stable, viable society:

...demobilizing troops and reintegrating them into civilian life

...establishing basic security for all the people

...clearing landmines and aiding their victims

...helping refugees return home

...creating economic opportunity

...fostering an impartial justice system

...reforming the military and police

...encouraging communication and reconciliation between former adversaries

...sponsoring free and fair elections while building democratic institutions

...and dealing with atrocities through war crimes tribunals, so that a society may move forward without forgetting its past.

NARRATOR: The first steps in bringing hostilities to an end are a ceasefire and the signing of a peace accord. This document can act as a road map for a step-by-step peace-building process -- as long as the signatories truly want it.

MS. BALL: There has to be political will and commitment on the part of the parties to make peace.

NARRATOR: In 1992, El Salvador had been at war for twelve years.

MS. BALL: They realized that neither side was going to win through war and they therefore realized that they had to make some compromises. They had to stop fighting and they had to continue on the political plane. They negotiated a very detailed, very good peace agreement which dealt with many of the underlying political imbalances and problems in the country. The challenge for them has been since 1992 and remains actually implementing that agreement in full. But they had an unusual degree of commitment.

NARRATOR: Because of that commitment, coupled with active support by the international community, today El Salvador is looking toward a lasting peace. The outlook is less certain in countries where peace accords were largely imposed by the international community, but where local political will is lacking.

MS. BALL: Places like Cambodia, places like Bosnia, there were negotiations that were aimed at really getting the issue off the international agenda and trying to just get a fix on it, you know? And the parties themselves didn't really buy in, and these are where we see that we have a problems.

NARRATOR: In the late 1980s, Uganda in central Africa was spending far too much on the military, while trying to recover from years of war and dictatorship.

MR. COLLETTA: There's a country that when I first set foot in 1990 you couldn't venture out of your hotel room -- gunshots firing all evening long.

NARRATOR: Nat Colletta directs the Post-Conflict Unit at the World Bank, the single largest lender to developing countries.

MR. COLLETTA: They took our policy prescriptions and medicines and things still weren't turning around. And finally, we got into the business of addressing some of these underlying issues of security and demobilization, demilitarization. And Uganda in the last couple of years has had the highest growth rate in Africa.

NARRATOR: In Mozambique, a peace accord signed in 1992 ended 16 years of civil war. At this World Bank-sponsored camp for ex-combatants, demobilization day has arrived. They receive a stipend, some basic supplies, and head off for new lives as civilians. Elsewhere in the camp, the faces of these young men reflect the hardship they have endured.

INTERVIEWER: How old are you?

MAN: Twenty-three.

INTERVIEWER: How long have you been in the army?

MAN: Since 1985.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do before joining the army?

MAN: I was a shepherd.

NARRATOR: Increasingly, children have been forced to take on roles as combatants in modern wars.

MR. BOOTHBY: The estimate is about 450,000 children under the age of 15 are involved in carrying guns in armed conflict in various ways.

NARRATOR: As a child psychologist and Senior Coordinator for Refugee Children with the United Nations, Neil Boothby has witnessed the growth of this disturbing trend.

MR. BOOTHBY: Unless we're able to break the cycle of violence, unless we're able to focus on this teenage population specifically, then if things go wrong in the economy, if things go wrong in the political system, it'll be the teenager who picks up a gun and starts the next cycle.

NARRATOR: In Mozambique, Antonio was dragooned into war by rebel troops.

ANTONIO (through translator): I ran away from the village to hide in the bush. They found me, they took me.

NARRATOR: Antonio and other children, some as young as seven, were taken to indoctrination camps where their captors sought to erase their former identities. Forced into violence against his own village, Antonio is now considered "contaminated" and is isolated from his community.

ANTONIO: When they look at me, they see nothing. They see shit. The only people I come across say hello to one another, then go on their way because they see me as an animal.

NARRATOR: The bishop of the local church carries out a cleansing ritual.

BISHOP: With your energy, God, please bless him. Give him peace. You clean him and everything else he has, because no one else can do it but You. Amen.

MR. BOOTHBY: The child has to come to some point in which he or she realizes that he was also a victim and forgive himself or herself. And then the other act of forgiveness has to be community or collectively. If you can bring those two things together, then I think the act of healing can at least begin.

NARRATOR: Cape Haitien, Haiti. These new policemen are learning techniques for nonviolent crime-fighting from UN specialists. During 30 years of brutal military dictatorship, Haiti's police were part of the criminal element themselves, and were widely feared by the general population.

MR. COLLETTA: You can't have development, you can't even have reconstruction without peace and security.

NARRATOR: Haiti's new policemen now practice community involvement as a means of crime prevention. At this protest, rather than swinging nightsticks, they attempt to "reframe" the conflict while acting as mediators.

In many violence-ridden countries, where the police and military have been part of the problem, international peacekeepers can make substantial contributions.

MS. BALL: Their roles should not be limited to what we traditionally think of as peacekeeping roles. In other words, separation of the parties, disarming them, hopefully. The military has to be involved in a wider variety of roles and be prepared to stay longer than not just US policymakers, but many other policymakers would like them to stay.

NARRATOR: One role for peacekeeping forces in the arrest of alleged war criminals, demonstrating that large scale human rights abuses will not go unpunished. Another key role is in reforming local security forces.

MR. KRITZ: You can't have the army calling the shots on the street in civilian society. And that requires training and that requires, in many case, military-to-military discussions and assistance with respect to the role of the military in a democratic society. It requires reforming police and other security forces to make sure that their role is properly understood and limited.

NARRATOR: Another threat to security in almost every war-afflicted country is the presence of millions of anti-personnel landmines. Lying in wait for years, these hidden weapons kill or maim an estimated 26,000 people a year, mostly civilians. Landmines also impede resettlement, transportation and farming, making all development difficult.

MR. COLLETTA: Landmine action for us is not simply the removal of the mines, it's also mine victim assistance. It's also the prior -- even the mapping and identification of mines. And even before that, or along with that the whole process of mine awareness and mine education.

NARRATOR: Perhaps the most famous war crimes tribunal was the one held in Nuremberg at the end of World War II, in which 21 perpetrators of the Holocaust were tried for their roles in the genocide of six million Jews. Today, war crimes tribunals and "truth commissions" are recognized as valuable tools for countries seeking to recover from conflict.

At the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, witnesses testify while the accused looks on.

MR. ALLICH (through translator): There were people who were taken out and beaten and beaten. There was no way you could tell the parts of the body, they were so beaten up.

NARRATOR: On June 18, 1992, Mekmid Allich watched in horror as his son Enver was attacked by camp guards.

MR. ALLICH: He said to me, "Father, look after my children, take care of my children."

MR. KRITZ: An individual emerging from massive trauma or abuse, if they're going to proceed to a healthy future, needs to in some way come to terms with and grapple with that painful past instead of simply trying to repress it. Societies in many ways arguably function the same way. They similarly need to come to terms with past abuses if they're not going to have them come back in surprising ways and haunt their future.

NARRATOR: In 1994, Rwanda was gripped by an orchestrated genocide in which up to a million people were slaughtered in just 100 days. Now an international tribunal is prosecuting the genocide's planners, while 130,000 people suspected of participating in the killing are crowded into Rwandan prisons awaiting trial in domestic courts. While some observers criticize the situation, Neil Kritz argues it needs to be put in perspective.

MR. KRITZ: I give high marks to the efforts undertaken to date by Rwandan society to deal with the overwhelming devastation of the genocide. The courage that has been seen by saying we're going to try to change the culture of this society, we're going to establish the rule of law, we're going to establish notions of accountability so that genocide does not occur again here, I think is impressive.

NARRATOR: Each new tribunal has taken lessons from previous ones. While Latin American tribunals offered blanket amnesties, South Africa's Truth Commission requires perpetrators to apply for amnesty and provide detailed accounts of their crimes. However, it does not require them to apologize, often leaving their victims frustrated.

In Rwanda, amnesty was not deemed an acceptable response. Instead, an expedited trial and reduced penalty are offered to those admitting guilt.

MR. KRITZ: In the Rwandan model, if individuals who are guilty of participation in the genocide are to receive the societal grace through confession, a confession is required to also include an apology to their victims, so the victims can more easily accept this notion of leniency, and so that this entire process can hopefully contribute more constructively to a process of reconciliation of society.

NARRATOR: Ideally, each country's approach to dealing with past abuses should be homegrown, thereby imparting to the process a sense of domestic ownership, so that extremists cannot discount it as outsider meddling. The international community can support this by listening closely to local voices.

On a recent visit to Rwanda, Kritz met with field workers for the prosecutor's offices, who told him...

MR. KRITZ: "What we need most is to be able to go into a village and we need a folding table and folding chairs and a pen and a pencil, so that victims and other witnesses have an opportunity to come forward and tell their story and so we can make that part of the file." Even down to that level, the international community needs to be attentive and make sure to have those resources available.

NARRATOR: In addition to addressing past abuses, a major goal of peace-building is preventing future ones. Since many wars stem from the failure of government to protect all sectors of the population, programs aimed at strengthening political institutions are critical to postwar stability.

In Rwanda, international assistance is helping train a new generation of judges, lawyers and law enforcement officers -- a slow and difficult process, but essential if Rwanda is to avoid repeating its past.

NARRATOR: Civil wars damage society at the most basic level -- that of the individual. While traditionally, aid has gone to governments, now donor groups are providing funds to individuals, with the goal of jump-starting the economy at the local level. Guatemala was racked by 36 years of conflict, leaving many women like Feliciana Pollon on their own.

MS. POLLON (through translator): I loved my husband so much. Five years ago, he was killed by the soldiers. For no reason, they broke into our home, shot him in our bed, and stole everything. Suddenly, I had to be the provider for my family, and this scared me.

NARRATOR: Although a peace accord was signed in 1996, poverty still limits the aspirations of most Guatemalans. CARE, one of the world's largest international development and relief organizations, helped found a women's community bank in Feliciana Pollon's village.

MS. POLLON: For poor people like us, getting a loan is almost impossible and interest rates are very high. This was the opportunity we thought would never come. Since the beginning, I have received several loans, each time investing in something different. I leased a small plot of land to farm and bought fertilizer and seeds. I bought some animals to raise and sell. My daughters got a loom, so they can weave fabrics to sell at the market. Most importantly, two of my boys are now enrolled in school. These past years, I have overcome a lot.

MS. MAYNARD: Conflict can be seen as an opportunity to go beyond where they've been before. So, it's not just getting back to where they were and get back on their feet, but actually use it as a stepping stone to a better life, better communities.

RADIO BROADCASTER: "It is imperative for Burundians to sit around the table and speak to one another."

NARRATOR: In civil wars from Bosnia to Rwanda, power-hungry leaders have used mass media propaganda to scapegoat a certain sector of the population, often inciting violence. But mass media can also be used to demonstrate what adversarial groups have in common.

Search for Common Ground, a nonprofit organization promoting conflict resolution, has produced a 13-part television series about Africa with support from the US Government's Agency for International Development, as well as from South Africa and the Netherlands. This series, broadcast across the African continent, highlights positive stories originating from African countries recovering from conflict.

MR. MATSHIKIZA , series host : "Traditional journalism usually focuses on the drama of conflict itself. We will focus more on resolving conflict: people grappling with problems, rather than with each other."

NARRATOR: In South Africa, commanders of two opposing factions team up to produce a "video dialogue" about the violence in their community.

...In Liberia, thousands of small arms are decommissioned by a West African peacekeeping force.

...In Burundi, a radio station brings together members of both major ethnic groups.

As the information age connects increasing numbers of people, support for unbiased, alternative media can serve to foster community while giving expression to previously unheard voices.

NARRATOR: Post-conflict peace-building is supported by a broad range of players -- government agencies, the United Nations, a growing host of private voluntary organizations, and large international development institutions such as the World Bank. In July 1997, the bank established the Post-Conflict Unit, handing it a broad mandate to redefine the bank's role in countries seeking to recover from war.

MR. COLLETTA: The board said we need to have some kind of a policy or at least a policy framework on our involvement in these countries and that this is different than post-World War II.

NARRATOR: The World Bank was established in the wake of the Second World War to support the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Since then it has traditionally provided large development loans to Third World governments. With 10,000 employees and approximately $20 billion a year in new lending, the bank has often been accused of promoting large industrial projects with little sensitivity to local conditions or needs.

Seeking to shed its image as a vast, stodgy bureaucracy, the bank has gone to the airwaves with public service announcements on CNN and MTV.

NARRATOR: The new Post-Conflict Unit, with a staff of 14, also represents an effort on the part of the bank to change with the times.

MR. COLLETTA: The conditions in Bosnia necessitated all kinds of adjustments in our normal regulations and procedures. I would say that probably the greatest benefit in the long term here is going to be the Post-Conflict Unit as a kind of instrument of bank transformation.

NARRATOR: The bank's charter prohibits involvement in the political affairs of the countries to which it lends. This has sometimes translated into loans to countries with a history of human rights abuses, such as Indonesia and China, as long as economic performance was on track. In some countries shattered by war, there simply is no government in charge.

MS. BALL: Many of the economic programs I think that we all know that the bank has been involved in have a very political content. They help define who's in and who's out, and so on and so forth. So, they strengthen this group, they weaken that group.

So, I think that anybody who wants to make the argument that the bank is -- you know, never can be involved in any kind of activity that has political overtones just doesn't understand how the bank has operated.

MS. MAYNARD: The fact that the bank is beginning to get much more grassroots-oriented or beginning to focus more on a community level -- let's put it that way -- is helping it. It begins to look at some of the social issues and the political issues, but on a lower level, rather than just having to deal with the state government.

NARRATOR: One of the most frequent criticisms of peace-building efforts is that they become an alphabet soup of international donors and relief agencies, often working at cross-purposes with one another. Some see the World Bank with its vast resources well-positioned to take a leadership role in organizing the international community's efforts.

MS. BALL: The bank ought to be making an effort to help develop a strategic framework, the overview of what needs to happen in a country. What we want is the bank to make sure that the right things are on the agenda, and then others can actually take up the actual implementation of some of those things.

NARRATOR: But it's too early to tell if the Post-Conflict Unit will change the way the World Bank does business overall. But regardless of how much expertise outside groups can bring, the most important actors are the people of the country whose future is at stake.

"Liberian people, we are tired of war.

Liberian people, we don't need no more war."

MR. COLLETTA: Rather than treat people as the objects of development assistance, they should be viewed as the owners and subjects of their own development. Ultimately, it's going to be the people themselves that have to pull the country up and put it back together. We can only try and help.

MAN #1: To be able to be together and reconstruct our nation, we have to be united. Can you break these sticks?

MAN #2: I will try, old man.

MAN #1: Look at him and look at yourself.

MAN #2: Old man, no way.

MAN #1: No way? Why?

MAN #2: Because these sticks are together.

MAN #1: I want everybody to say 'these sticks are together.' So I got one message for you: Reconciliation in Liberia is a must.

ADM CARROLL: Most of the war victims you saw suffered not at the hands of foreign troops, but in vicious battles with their own countrymen. In the United States, we have been spared the horror of civil war since 1865. We are fortunate to have a long tradition of democracy. We can continue to make democracy work by participating as concerned citizens dedicated to the principle of "liberty and justice for all."

Perhaps the greatest contribution we can make to world peace is to lead by example, by remaining true to our democratic ideals.

For "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Admiral Eugene Carroll.

NARRATOR: Special funding for this program was provided by the Winston Foundation for World Peace.