ABSTRACT
Building peace after destructive conflict is never easy. Violence impacts societies in a number of ways. These include militarization, increased ethnocentrism, residential isolation, the enemy image, demonization, a sense of alienation, and economic and political underdevelopment. There are problems of short-term thinking based on political expediency and there is the human tendency to resist complexity and ambiguity. The intercommunal conflict on the island of Cyprus remains one of the most intractable in the contemporary world. It has, to date, resisted the best efforts of the United Nations (UN), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (both Greece and Turkey are members), and numerous track-2 initiatives. Wolff notes the successes of this process: the creation of new political institutions; significant demilitarization; a large decrease in violent incidents; police reform and prisoner release; an increase in the number of intra and cross-communal institutions; and more optimistic perceptions about the security situation.
