War-related Stress and the Cycle of Violence

The extent and duration of many conflicts, as well as the repeated occurrence of mass violence in certain regions, suggest that large-scale violence occurs within cycles. The risk for new conflicts has been found to be higher in regions with a history of recent conflict, compared to regions that benefited from peace and stability for many years (Collier, 2003). Opportunity factors, like the availability of weapons, cannot fully explain this relationship; rather, psychological and societal consequences of war have to be taken into account. Where ex-combatants fail to reintegrate into society, the consequences are far reaching for the entire post-conflict region (Keen, 2008). It is

71 well-known that good economic and societal conditions and the participation of large parts of the population as active members of civil society are important for political stability and peace.

A most likely, but largely unstudied, driver of the cycle of violence might be the detrimental impact of massive violence on individuals’ psychological functioning and the related social dynamics and consequences for communities. Reconciliation and peace-building might be impeded or blocked by the psychological problems of a critical mass of individuals. In particular, large-scale violence may cause distorted patterns of emotional and cognitive processing, which might feed into further violence. War-related severe stress, even though transient, indelibly changes an individual on various levels (Elbert, et al., 2006). On a cognitive level, traumatic experiences shatter the most fundamental beliefs about safety, trust, and self-esteem, which lend instability and psychological incoherence to the individual’s internal and external worlds (Janoff-Bulman, Berg, & Harvey, 1998). As a consequence of a shattered belief system, the world is perceived as basically unsafe, frightening, and evil. Victims feel weak, dependent, and without the control and competence that is vital for the psychological and cognitive coping with the environment.

Furthermore, war-related psychological stress has a profound impact on individuals’ view on reconciliation and feelings of revenge. Bayer et al. (Bayer, et al., 2007) showed that former Ugandan and Congolese child soldiers with PTSD were less open to reconciliation and had more feelings of revenge than former child soldiers who did not suffer from PTSD. A recent epidemiological survey in Rwanda (Pham, Weinstein, & Longman, 2004) also confirmed a relationship between exposure to traumata, PTSD, and specific attitudes towards violence and reconciliation: Respondents with PTSD were less likely to trust the community and socially interact with other ethnic groups. In former Yugoslavia, Basoglu et al. (2005) also found that PTSD severely impedes processes of reconciliation and reintegration: War survivors, who were exposed to war-related traumata, displayed stronger emotional responses to perceived impunity of those held responsible for the trauma, including anger, rage, distress, and desire for revenge, than those who did not experience war. Moreover, traumatized survivors showed less belief in the benevolence of people and reported demoralization, helplessness, pessimism, fear, and loss of meaning in and control over life.

Although unstudied, individuals with PTSD might be especially vulnerable to accepting simplistic models of ‘good versus bad,’ a black and white worldview, which is a known cognitive distortion.

72 First support of this idea has been reported by our group in interviews with former child-soldiers, who had been formerly abducted by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (Glöckner, 2007) . We found that children’s identification with the armed group was stronger the more time they spend in abduction; time spent in the bush was also a predictor for psychological suffering.

Furthermore, there is evidence that traumatic experiences not only affect the individual, but can also be transferred to the next generation. For survivors of organized violence such as the Jewish Holocaust in Germany or the Turkish-Armenian genocide in the early 1900s, the impact of traumatization was evident even in the second and third generation (Rowland-Klein & Dunlop, 1998; Shmotkin, Blumstein, & Modan, 2003; Sigal & Weinfeld, 1987; Sorscher & Cohen, 1997).

However, there is a lot of controversy around these hypotheses (Kellermann, 2001; van Ijzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Sagi-Schwartz, 2003). Also, the transgenerational influence of trauma on reconciliation and the feelings of revenge has not yet been studied, except some reports on psychological distress in children. Daud et al. (2005) showed that children of torture survivors presented with attention deficiency, anxiety symptoms, as well as non-adaptive behavior, and depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Similarly, Yehuda et al. (2008) emphasizes that the transgenerational transmission of trauma cannot only manifest in PTSD symptoms, but in depression and other disorders, such as anxiety and substance abuse. However, understanding the mechanisms of transgenerational transmission of trauma-related psychological disorders requires further research.

The bodily and cerebral alterations caused by repeated frightening and life-threatening experiences may become engrained in the genetic regulation: epigenetic factors that regulate the potential for anxious behavior and its inhibition may be set during pregnancy in the off-spring, if the mother was confronted with chronic stressful or life-threatening events. The structure and functioning of the brain, including the immunological and hormonal stress-response systems of the offspring, seem to be tuned to a mode of ‘survival preparedness’. Once a distinct epigenetic pattern has been set, it may persist across future generations, even if they develop under safe conditions (Meany & Moshe, 2005).

In summary, research suggests that the psychological consequences of organized violence will obstruct post-war recovery and feed into new cycles of violence for current and future generations.

73 3. Attempts to Cope with Psychosocial Problems in DDR

Today, most DDR programs aim to address vulnerable groups, as well as the mental health of all DDR participants. The table in the appendix covers six major DDR programs, which taken together account for two-thirds of all beneficiaries in 2005 (Caramés, et al., 2006). All these programs had separate components for people with disabilities, female, and under-age ex-combatants. Only Eritrea did not demobilize child-soldiers, because the DDR program focused on its own army, and Liberia did not have a special program for ex-combatants with disabilities.

Other programs, however, which did have components for people with disabilities, did not always recognize severe psychiatric conditions as a disability. All programs offered psychosocial modules.

Most programs include some form of programmatic responses to the ex-combatants’ inability to make use of the standard reintegration tools, such as using pension schemes or increased monetary support in the reinsertion or reintegration phase for those with disabilities. In most cases, the additional benefits granted to ex-combatants with disabilities are typically not sufficient to provide for sheer survival. In countries where the general population lives in extreme poverty, the assistance paid to ex-combatants is typically not thought to put them in a better economic position.

Psychosocial counseling is often implemented in the context of DDR. This refers to a ‘talking intervention’ by specially trained staff (‘counselor’ or ‘therapist’) to assist individuals or groups of individuals (‘clients’) by listening to their problems, providing emotional support, and giving information. Typical topics for counseling are orientation talks to prepare for periods of transition (e.g., career change), HIV/AIDS, managing one’s DDR benefits or even psychological problems, like PTSD or drug abuse.