On February 19, 2019 the parliamentary session devoted to the fifth anniversary of the armed conflict in Ukraine will be held in Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Because of the duration and the scale of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the problem of its settlement has been long ago included into the agenda of European Union, Council of Europe and numerous international institutions. For that reason, it is planed that the President of the European Council Donald Tusk, MPs, management of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, representatives of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, representatives of the human rights organizations and international experts will take part in the session.

Civil society of the European countries do not stand aside and work actively in the areas of human rights protection, peace building and humanitarian area for solving the issues related to the armed conflict. At that, the civil society actors’ influence on the formation of the recommendations and practical support in settling the conflict in the East of Ukraine is widely used – this potential can and shall be further developed.

Focusing on the role of the public in the peacebuilding efforts, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) applies to the participants and guests of the session on behalf of the international NGO platform CivilM+, which was created in order to facilitate the settlement of the conflict in the East of Ukraine and joined the organizations in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Russia, France and other European countries.

The participants of the CivilM+ are united by the objective of Donbass recovery as peaceful, integrated and developed region of democratic Ukraine. The participants of the CivilM+ have huge practical experience of work with the issues related to the resolving and overcoming of the consequences of the conflict in such spheres as protection of the victims of the conflict, documenting the violations of the human rights and war crimes in the conflict area, development of the education and dialogue initiatives, counteracting the hate speech and war propaganda, work on establishing of the historical truth etc. Expert conclusions of the participants of the platform are based on combination of different approaches and perspectives – this is a special feature of CivilM+.

Interaction of the civil society and governmental bodies increase the chances for the successful development and implementation of the activities aimed at the recovery of stable and long term peace. That is why we apply to the representatives of the Ukrainian governmental structures and MPs with following proposals:

1. To increase the level of civil society involvement in the processes of diplomatic conflict settlement, for example, at the stage of development of the measures and approaches, which can have effective impact on taking the decisions, which will remove barriers in peace building; enhancing understanding in the society of the processes and adopted political decisions, ability to start productive dialogue regarding the opportunities and also fulfilment of the reached agreements.
2. Expand the dialogue formats at the level of the experts with the aim of harmonious implementation of the international experience in the sphere of transitional justice, its legislative recognition as the instrument to overcome the consequences of the armed conflict.
3. To start, together with the non-governmental sector, the development of the state strategy aimed at the comprehensive and unprejudiced work on the triggers and consequences of the conflict taking into account legal, social and economic, historic and other aspects.
4. Strengthen the work related to the recovery and development of the region of conflict and reintegration of the population in this region into the Ukrainian community.

We are sure that involvement of multifaceted practical experience and knowledge, which civil society experts, immediately working in the region and with the topics of the conflict, have and also creative potential of the civil society activists, can facilitate the implementation of the reforms in Ukraine focused on the public dialogue, integration of the Ukrainian society, resuming the rights of the victims of the conflict, work with the memory, maximum prevention of the repetition of the armed conflict in the future.

Understanding the complexity of the implementation of the “human perspective” into the policy, international NGO platform CivilM+ on settlement of the conflict in the east of Ukraine stresses its preparedness for long term and open work, based on the synergy of the civil societies of the common European space.

International NGO platform CivilM+