London, 2 February. Dr. José Ramón Cabañas, director of the Centre for International Policy Research (CIPI), participated with other academics as a panellist in the "Peace Processes of the Future" lecture series of the John Porter Centre for Diplomacy at Oxford University. Entitled Healing the Wounds of History: from Lebanon to Europe, from South Africa to Northern Ireland, the event addressed the issues of peacemaking and reconciliation, and how to heal the wounds opened by wars, conflicts and disputes throughout history.
Panelists also included Alexandra Asseily, founder of the Centre for Lebanese Studies; Athol Williams, South African poet and intellectual; and Austrian academic Dr. Katrin Bachleitner, who shared their views on how to achieve peace and what has been learned from previous peace processes around the world. In this context, Dr. Cabañas, a former Cuban ambassador to Washington DC, addressed the negotiation process between Cuba and the United States (2015-2017), and how two of the fundamental principles on which the exercise was based were equality and reciprocity. He also discussed Cuba's important role in the peace process in Colombia and in the peace negotiations in South West Africa in the last century. The panel was moderated by Tom Fletcher, Principal of Hertford College, who then gave the floor to the audience to ask questions to the speakers.
Attached to Hertford College, Oxford University, the John Porter Centre for Diplomacy aims to make a practical contribution to peace processes in the 21st century. The Centre aims to prepare students to be on the front line of a better society.