b) Victims’ Testimony We propose a broader victims’ testimony component in the peace negotiations. As the Colombian experience demonstrates, the instrument of testimony can bear transformative impact on peace negotiators and victims alike. In Colombia, many victims have said that the testimonial process transformed them and their views about the conflict actors. It can also contribute to the recognition of victims across society to emerge as important peace actors and help shift public opinion, creating greater space for conflict protagonists to reintegrate as legitimate actors into their communities and thereby contribute to the durability of the peace process. In Afghanistan, where there are so many competing narratives of the conflict, victims’ testimony will provide an important platform for substantive engagement between representatives of victims from different categories and regions of the country with negotiating delegates and the primary conflict actors. This will be the platform where the victims will get the opportunity to share their individual stories, pain and experiences of victimhood and help draw the negotiators’ diverse understandings of the conflict closer together. Victims of war and their survivors currently remain excluded from the recently established negotiation delegation. It appears that the yet to be announced High Reconciliation Council does not represent victims either. There is no technical committee allocation to victims within the framework of Ministry of Peace. It is now being genuinely feared that victims could be excluded from the overall peacebuilding process. If this is the case, it will have disastrous consequence for sustainable peacebuilding. Sustainable peacebuilding will not take hold without victims’ participation and more specifically without embedment of an accountability framework in the peace agreement. IV. Who Are Victims? a) Categories of Victims For our purpose, reflecting the specific circumstances of the Afghan conflict, individuals affiliated with the following categories, and harmed in one way or the other at the hands of conflict parties, are victims of war: • Civilians, any individuals who have not been a member of a conflict party and had no active/ direct role in the conduct of hostilities. • Medical and religious personnel who worked to support conflict parties but had no direct participation in conduct of hostilities. • Individuals who contributed to the conflict parties as labourers, contractors, supplied food items, delivered messages etc. but did not participate in actual hostilities, and; • Individuals who worked in public and private offices but had no direct participation in hostilities. Victims as defined above represent all individuals harmed by all conflict parties in Afghanistan. The key conflict parties are the Afghan government, its armed forces and associated paramilitaries, the Taliban and its associated networks including the Haqqani Network, Hizb-e Islami faction of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, the international militaries and their allied Afghan paramilitary units. Victims cut across the conflict divisions and alignments. Representation of interests and demands victims have will transcend the conflict fault-lines of Afghan government versus the BUILDING A LASTING PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN: PARTICIPATION OF VICTIMS OF WAR IN PEACE NEGOTIATIONS |7|