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by Arjuna Ranawana

An oslo highway scene

Why would a well-off, peaceful people living thousands of miles away in the northernmost reaches of Europe be concerned with creating world peace? This is the question many foreigners, particularly those from countries where Norway is involved in resolving conflicts ask of the Norwegians.

Norway was Europe's rural backwater until a few decades ago. In 1971 huge oil and gas reserves were found and this propelled it from being a mainly rural country dependant on forestry and fisheries to one of the world's wealthiest nations.

Last year alone revenues from oil and gas were in the region of forty billion US dollars or four thousand billion rupees. This is for a population of just over four million who have nearly 400,000 square kilometres to live in.

With space and cash, it is no wonder it is a pretty conflict free society.

There were only 5 violent crimes per thousand people last year and Norwegians can usually afford to spend 12 percent of their considerable incomes on culture and leisure.

So why bother about Middle-Easterners, Rwandans, Eritreans or Sri Lankans slaughtering each other. Vidar Helgesen, Norway's Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) for Foreign Affairs and point-man for the Sri Lankan Peace Process says his country's involvement with foreign countries dates back to the time when Christian missionaries worked in Africa.

Then came prosperity and Norway's extended work with NGOs in a number of developing countries. "This brought us into contact with non-state actors as well as state governments," Helgesen said. Most times Norway's peace-making efforts have begun through informal channels that involved non-state actors, civil society and NGOs.

Norwegians are a hardy people. They have to be, the weather is appallingly cold and their proximity to the North Pole makes them tolerate endless nights in winter and long days in the summer when the sun shines even at mid-night.

In days of yore they were the Northern Vikings who travelled West carrying with them a fearsome reputation.

Their only fear those mythical four-foot, long-nosed Trolls who inhabit the bottom and dark side of the forests.

(I wondered why these Norwegians feared the Trolls anyway because these terrible creatures can only reach up to the knee of the average man or woman.)

This prelidiction for exploration runs even among modern Norwegians, Thor Heyerdahl of Kon-Tiki fame being the best known.

So although they are a small nation in terms of numbers the Norwegians have reached out far and wide.

Through the Cold War, Norway's proximity to the Soviet Union and it's highly strategic waters placed the country in a delicate situation where it learnt to handle tricky international political situations without being trampled by the Big Powers. After the Cold War when the many internal conflicts of the world came to the world community's notice, Norway, says Helgesen, saw opportunities where they could help. "Norway's consistent efforts at peace around the world and the fact that we have no Colonial heritage has made us accepted as faciliators and mediators," claims Helgesen.

Stein Tonnesson Director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo says Norway being a small country and having good relations with the Western Powers is also not seen as a threat by countries who ask for Norway's help.

There came several opportunities. In Rwanda the Norwegians were involved in the settlement.

They are also involved in peace-making in Eritrea and have recently been asked to help cut a deal between the government of the Philippines and Muslim rebels. Norwegian officials say there are more requests but they would get involved only if they felt they had sufficient contacts and also where they saw considerable commitment from the parties involved in the conflict.

The most famous effort was however in the Middle-East when the Norwegians were involved in a long and highly secret process that eventually saw Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sign a deal. Most of the talks were held behind closed doors at the Radisson Plaza hotel in downtown Oslo where the Sri Lanka peace talks were also held.

The Oslo Accords, as they came to be known, however failed, and for Norway it was a set-back in their peace making efforts. "One of the problems was that the deal was signed by the two parties and was presented to their peoples as a completed process," observes Helgesen.

He also says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sees a number of external actors playing important roles. The deal did not involve forces such as Hamas who are also carrying on a struggle against Israeli occupation and the Israelis broke the accord by continuing to establish new Jewish settlements on lands claimed by the Palestinians as their homeland.

"The process was not discussed in public before the accords were known to the people," he says. That, he says, is an important difference between the Middle-East peace process and the Sri Lankan effort. In the case of Sri Lanka every step of the way is being reported in the press and debated in public by society.

"In this way the Sri Lankan peace process is very transparent," Helgesen observes. The Norwegian involvement in Sri Lanka also came through long-time contacts with non-state actors. The primary contact was Arne Fjortoft, the head of the WorldView NGO. He had contacts with the Tamil NGOs and first met President Chandrika Bandanaraike Kumaratunga when she came to Norway as a back-packing young student in the 1970s.

Fjortoft knew Erik Solheim, now the Special Adviser to the Sri Lankan Peace Process, from their university days and once when the politician wanted to take a break and write a book, invited him to Sri Lanka to stay with him.

The rest, as they say is history. The Norwegians are also armed with a directness and simplicity we Sri Lankans don't have. Their Constitution, a slim easy to read document, was worked out in 40 days of consultations by a constituent assembly that met at Eidsvoll in May 1814.

Of course theirs is a Monarchy and King Harald is over-all head of everything, Church, State and Armed Forces, but he has the freedom to cycle around the Park. He cannot exercise executive power except through Cabinet, which is referred to as the Council.

He also has to turn to Parliament for advise on all appointments he makes.

With the King on a bike and Ministers travelling to work by public transport, Norwegian informality is complete.

They also address each other, and even their guests, without honorifics and even a "Mister" which sounds almost rude, but that is their way.

In Parliament the different political parties do not sit separately. There is no "Right" and "Left" and no centre aisle. Instead the seats are marked according to their constituencies and are set in alphabetical order in a semi-circular arrangement. Once you become a Minister you have to leave your seat and sit separately in the front row and the candidate who garnered the next closest number of votes occupies the seat as the Member representing the constituency.

So why would these people bother about us?

"You definitely cannot win elections by saying you are helping Sri Lanka or any other place find peace," says Solheim, a well-known maverick Leftist politician in his own country. "The ordinary people are interested in taxation and utilities and education," he adds.

So then what?

"It is raising Norway's international profile in no uncertain terms," says Helgesen. Explains Tonnensson, "for a small but wealthy country, the peacemaking efforts are vital to make us a little more important in the eyes of the world."

He says the peacemaking has "opened doors for Norway that would have been shut forever. Our international acceptance has grown significantly and has given us 'soft' power."

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