Developing Skills for Peacebuilding and Human Rights:
The Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute Experience
Kathy R. MatsuiViolent conflicts are associated with gruesome and terrible violations of human rights and human dignity. Japan colonized
Northeast Asian countries and committed military atrocities during World War II. Japan is still being criticized for not fulfilling its moral
obligation and social responsibility for committing crimes against humanity
in the past. Unless properly addressed by Japan, the harm doer, establishingsincere and lasting relationship with its neighboring countries in the Pacificwould be very difficult. To overcome this difficulty, there is a strong need toreframe diplomatic relations and enhance a mutually-positive and beneficial
environment for both parties. The Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding
Institute (narpi) plays a grassroots role in reframing relations and in enhancing a beneficial environment for countries in Northeast Asia.
Ogawa (2000) wrote thatJapan’s World War II occupation of a substantial part of Asia
left indelible scars. The Nanking Massacre and the plight of the
Korean “comfort women,” stand out among examples of Japanesecruelty during the war era” (page 42).
If human injustice is committed, it is important to restore honor tothose who have been treated in an undignified way. There is a need to callfor basic human rights to uphold the dignity of human life and pursuit ofjustice. Processes of public forgiveness, apology, justice, and reconciliation
are considered instruments for social healing (Montiel, 2002, 221). Thus
one method of reconciliation and retaining justice is for all participants ofNortheast Asia gather to learn and work together for peace in the region.
The mission of narpi is to transform the culture and structure of militarism and communities of fear and violence, into just and peaceful ones
by providing peacebuilding training, connecting and empowering people inNortheast Asia. War is the greatest violation of human rights. Narpi offersa place in Northeast Asia for peace activists and students where they can
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receive practical education and training. Peace education, an interdisciplinary pedagogy which includes human rights education and conflict transformation education, is not widely understood concepts. They must become
known in order to prevent armed conflict in the region.
History of NARPI
Northeast Asia is a subregion of historical, territorial, military and nuclear
tensions. Today, vast amount of human and financial resources support the
militarization of Northeast Asian nations. Transforming the existing cultureof animosity and militarism into a culture of peace and reconciliation is possible through education and a fundamental paradigm shift. However, a void
exists in the area of education and training where people can be empoweredwith the skills, knowledge and resources needed to bring about this change.
This is why narpi is such a necessary institute for this region, to provide
vital training in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
The idea of narpi was born in 2009 from the discovery of needs anddemands from activists and students working in the field of peacebuilding.
Narpi is made up of partners from Northeast Asia and trains participants
primarily from within Asia.
Narpi has been working since 2009 to strengthen and empower people in Northeast Asia through peacebuilding training and cross-cultural
network-building.
The narpi Summer Training rotates to different locations in Northeast
Asia every year, providing the opportunity for first-hand learning about

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the history of conflict and peace in the entire subregion, and also giving achance for more people to participate every year.
NARPI Program
The narpi Program offers two five-day sessions with three days of local
fieldtrip experience. There is a choice of three to four courses for the firstand second sessions. Basically, Conflict and Peace Framework and Theory
and Practice of Peace Education are introductory courses offered every year.
There are courses held annually focused on restorative justice, peacebuilding skills and trauma healing pertaining to the needs of the place where
narpi is being held. Other courses cover local issues and needs. The list of
training courses held, excluding the introductory courses, is given in Table
1 below.
Table 1. NARPI Summer Training Courses
Training

Courses2011
Seoul & Inje, South
Korea

Understanding
Conflict and Peace

Historical andCultural Stories of
Peace

Restorative Justice

Trauma Healing

2012
Hiroshima, Japan

Communitybased Restorative
Justice for Schools

Historical andCultural Stories of
Peace

Critical
Understanding ofConflict & Peace
IssuesPeacebuilding Skills

2013
Inje,
South Korea

Trauma Awareness& Healing

Restorative Justice:
Aiming for Healing
and Reconciliation

Gender, Sexuality
and Peacebuilding

Nonviolent
Communication & Facilitation

2014
Nanjing, China

Restorative
Approach toHistorical Conflict

Arts and Stories for
Peacebuilding– Presenting Our
Histories Justly– Psychosocial
Trauma: Awarenessand Response

Peacebuilding Skills:
Transformative Mediation

2015
Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia

Peacebuilding
and Sustainable
Development

Restorative Justice:
A New Lens for
Justice

Applied Theater in
Peacebuilding

Conflict Transformation in Organizations

2016
Jinshan & Taipei,
TaiwanRestorative Justice:
A New Lens for
Justice

Trainer’s Training

Nonviolent Struggle
for Social Change

Optimizing
Peacemaking by
Ending Generational
Trauma2017
Nago, Okinawa

Identity-based
Conflict

Restorative Justice:
Rebuilding Identity,
Community, andHistory

Nonviolent
Response to
Militarization

Optimizing
Peacemaking by
Ending Generational
Trauma

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All the courses offer active learning and experiential method of learningwhere participants experience the cognitive phase of awareness and understanding; the affective phase of being concerned, responding and valuing;
and after returning to their respective countries they experience the active
phase of taking practical action for change. In other words, narpi offers anexperience where participants think, feel and act for change.
Every training program has human rights content in relation to the
topic areas offered. The program adopts the perspective that reforms in theinternational system would contribute to the protection of human rights
and the establishment of a just legal system that maintains a peaceful worldorder. Narpi sees that the major learning comes from acquiring knowledge
and skills needed to develop the legal norms for, and cultivate the social
values of, a culture of peace. Such learning calls for an inquiry into the relationship among responsibilities, rights, and law, on the one hand, and theinstitution of war on the other. Narpi offers an educational experience that
explores the values and principles associated with human rights and international humanitarian law in order to demonstrate how educating for human rights provides tools for the transformation of the current war systemand culture of violence into a culture of peace. Furthermore, learning abouthumanitarian and human rights law and institutions is preparation for therealization of social justice. To assure peace, human rights must be protected. Many issues in Northeast Asia constitute human rights violations andobstacles to the fulfillment of international human rights standards such as
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Rights of theChild, and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (cedaw).
Simulation activities are conducted to foster the study of the ongoingprocess of the International Criminal Court and War Crimes Tribunals dealing with violations committed in the wars such as Military Sexual Slavery(Comfort Women Issue) and Nanjing Massacre. As therapy for the humanrights violations, learning activities that build skills such as Ho’oponopono(Hawaiian Circle Process of Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation)
are held to provide means to reconciliation and healing.
Another aspect of human rights education is to develop a broader understanding of what is meant by human security. Learning about the process
by which victims of human rights violations seek justice is important. In
the restorative justice courses and field trips, participants meet and hear

Developing Skills for Peacebuilding and Human Rights: The NARPI Experience111

survivors who give testimonies on the experience of hurt done to them. The
participants conduct further investigation that includes the needs of boththe victims and the perpetrators. A process that follows the stages in humanrights learning adapted from The Bells of Freedom,1 a training manual usedin Ethiopia, is employed:
1.

Developing respect for dignity and fair rules. All human rights are
based on the value that respects the universal dignity of all persons;
2. Making links between human rights and social responsibility.
Global citizenship education is offered to develop active citizens
who can realize human rights for all and take responsibility to assure that rights are protected and fulfilled by the state and othercitizens;
3. Seeking justice; using analysis. Human rights education advocates
education for empowerment and action. Participants are taught tovalue justice, to critically analyze situations of injustice and the potential of human rights standards.
The training includes inquiry into specific ways of developing proposals to implement recommendations or assure the realization of the international human rights standards.

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H U M A N R I G H T S E D U C AT I O N I N A S I A - PA C I F I CFieldwork Experience
From the field trip experience and the sharing by guest speakers, participants learn the value of the stories and activism work of victims – both at
the national and personal levels - in the local areas where the narpi session
is being held. Each field trip highlights incidents of violation of human dignity and rights that all members of humanity should be aware of and reflect
on to prevent such incidents from being repeated in the future.
The August 2011 and 2013 field trips consisted of visit to the House of
Sharing and the Demilitarized Zone (dmz) in South Korea which offered
first-hand experiential learning for the participants. The House of Sharing
is a museum and a home to former “Comfort Women” survivors of sexual
slavery at the hands of the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War(1932-1945).
Narpi participants visited the House of Sharing and talked to women
who survived sexual slavery at the “comfort stations” of the Japanese military during World War II. The victims of Japan’s military sexual slavery havecarried the hurt and shame for more than sixty years (Coday, 1988; Mackey,2005). It was a military institutionalization of sexual violence during the war.
The victims were women who were abducted and confined to sexual slavery
facilities.2

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The victims and the civil society organizations that supported them
filed lawsuits demanding that the Japanese government apologize and pay
state reparations.
In the group debriefing held after the visit, participants processed what
they learned through drawings and sharing of their reflections.

There are also evening events that included discussions on various topics, presentations about non-governmental organization (ngo) activities inthe subregion, personal stories, and movie screenings. One of the participants wrote on the final evaluation form,
There was a big impact on my thinking and [study] about
peace in nea [Northeast Asia]. I was also able to deepen myunderstanding on the present situation in Korea regarding the“comfort women” issue, the Jeju Island issue (construction of a
US military base), and the dmz.
In the August 2013 field trip, participants spent time visiting Hiroshima
Peace Museum and Peace Park and Okunojima, the site of poison gas manufacturing by the Japanese Army during World War II. At the Peace Museum,
Sadae Kasaoka, a Hiroshima Hibakusha (survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing) shared her painful story of the devastation of the A-bomb. Though she
had difficulty each time she told her story, she would still do so in orderto “personally and urgently appeal for a peaceful world without nuclear
weapons.”
The August 2014 training, the fourth annual narpi Summer
Peacebuilding Training, was held at Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
The field trip on 14-15 August 2014 consisted of visits to Nanjing MassacreMuseum, John Rabe House Museum and other historic and cultural sites.

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The field trip enabled the participants to experience the horrors of war.
Narpi helped the peacebuilding participants process this terrible incident
and envision a positive way forward by proposing what they could do tochange this cycle of violence and hatred.
The lived story of a Nanjing Massacre Survivor was shared. The Nanjing
Massacre happened in 1937 in Nanjing, China where the Japanese militarycommitted the genocide of 50,000 to 300,000 victims (according to scholarly research the lowest estimate is 50,000 and the highest estimate is 300,000
given by the Chinese government). A survivor met by the participants wasan eight-year-old girl in 1937. She and her four-year-old younger sister were
the only survivors in her family. The Japanese soldiers forced their way into
their house and killed her father immediately. A Japanese soldier took her
youngest six-month-old sister from her mother and threw the baby on thefloor. Her mother was killed. Her grandfather and grandmother led her, twoolder sisters and a younger sister to the room at the end of the hallway andhid them in a closet. In no time, the Japanese soldiers rushed into the roomand shot her grandparents. When the soldiers tried to drag her older sisters out of the closet, the survivor bravely tried to stop them, and she wasstabbed three times in different parts of her body. She fainted and woke up
to see one of her sisters naked on the table and the other naked on the bed.
Both of them were dead. Her younger sister was saved by hiding inside a box
and gradually recovered. She and her younger sister both lived a hard life.
Her sister was taken to an orphanage. She was brought up by her uncle andaunt. She withstood all hardships and lived to tell the story.
The records of the cruel history were displayed at the Nanjing MassacreMuseum. The walls with 300,000 names to commemorate the victims were
the first sight that caught the eyes of the participants at the entrance hall. All
the visitors paid respect to the people named on the wall. The museum wasfilled with records of inhumane atrocities that took place in Nanjing.
During the subsequent briefing session, the participants (young
Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians and Japanese who have taken peace education and peacebuilding courses) all thought deeply of the museum visit andresponded in solidarity: What we need to do is to design peace educationand human rights education programs that would enable present and future
generations to find nonviolent ways to resolve conflict and change the structure of the world from the culture of war to the culture of peace. Having
taken the peace building and education sessions, they felt that their attitudes

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had changed. Some Chinese participants said that they were brought up to
hate the Japanese, but the five-day training completely changed their mindset to more cooperative and accepting attitude. They eased their ill feelings
as they worked together with the Japanese and learned about peacebuilding.
This change of attitude is the hope of the future. The young generation
can learn how to make decisions and find positive ways to go forward. Peace
education and human rights education focus on the learning of values, attitudes and behaviors to learn to live together in a world of diversity andpluralism.
In August 2015, narpi held its training in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Experiential learning included tasting cheeses, curds, horse milk, and theoverflowing mounds of meat of the local cuisine, entering the comfy ger ofa nomadic family, and learning about the history, culture, and current issues of Mongolia. These were all part of a community-based peacebuilding
movement that was still a new field of practice and academic concern inMongolia.
The Victims of Political Persecution Memorial Museum is a littleknown museum in Ulaanbaatar. The museum was formerly owned by Prime
Minister Genden. Though initially backed by Stalin, he was arrested byagents of the then Soviet Union for speaking out against the destructionof institutional Buddhism in Mongolia and for his increasing nationalism.
He was executed on 26 November 1937, Mongolia’s Independence Day. His
daughter initiated the idea of converting their house into a museum.
The participants learned about the political victims of the Stalinist repression (1937-1952) at the museum. During the repression period, many of
the intellectuals, nationalists, wealthy people, and especially those practicing Buddhist Monasticism were targeted for being anti-Soviet. 22,000 to
33,000 Mongolians were believed killed under Soviet and Stalinist influence. After visiting the museum one participant raised a question: “How canhumans be so cruel?” Also, many of the Mongolian participants admitted
that they had never taken the time to think about their history despite theirknowledge of what had happened. The time spent at this museum was truly
meaningful as all of the participants, both Mongolian and non-Mongolians,
reflected on the history of Mongolia and of Northeast Asia.
Once again, the field trip reminded the participants of the gruesome record of the past of Mongolians including Mongolian Buddhist monks being
brutally massacred, a grave violation of human rights and dignity. The expe-

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rience touched the heart of the participants and triggered their determination to continue their work for peace so that such genocide would not recur.
The narpi Summer Peacebuilding Training took place in Taiwan for
the first time on 7-20 August 2016. Week 1 courses were held at the Jinshan
Youth Activity Center in Jinshan, New Taipei City, along the northern coastof Taiwan. Week 2 courses were held at three different venues near the
Taipei Teachers Hostel.
The three-day narpi field trip provided a deeper understanding of
Taiwan’s history. The 228 Memorial Museum tells the story of the clash between soldiers sent from Mainland China after the Japanese Imperial Armyleft Taiwan and the people living in Taiwan. It started with an argument
about contraband cigarettes on 27 February 1947, during which one officer
shot and killed a bystander. Violence escalated quickly, and the troops from
Mainland China under Chiang Kai-shek started a widespread massacre.
The following era of suppression of political dissidents was called “WhiteTerror,” which lasted until 15 July 1987.
The Jing-Mei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park was the siteof the Jingmei Military Detention Center, where accused political dissidents were held and tried in military courts during the White Terror period.
There, three former political prisoners shared their personal stories and also
gave a tour of the memorial. It was a deep honor for the participants to meetthese individuals who suffered under the most violent faces of war, including
imprisonment and torture, and who lived with a passion to ensure that thenext generations in Taiwan would protect human rights.
In addition to witnessing the history of Taiwan, a great example ofcurrent peace work happening in Taipei was introduced by Jiazhen Wu, arepresentative from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (taedp).
She shared the struggle of human rights ngos in Taiwan against the death
penalty policy.
Throughout the field trip, the key phrase that appeared often in bothsessions on Taiwanese history and on current ngo work was “human rights.”
The participants learned that along with democracy and freedom, respecting human rights was one of the main values of the Taiwanese society. These
learnings are reflected in the narpi courses.
In August 2017, the narpi summer training was held in Nago, Okinawa.
During the field trip, the venue was moved from the isolated mountain-top
Nago Youth Center to the more urban Naha International Youth Hostel.

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During the field trip, there was invaluable first-hand learning through threefull days of stories, site visits, and history discussions. The theme of the firstday was “Feel the present,” with a focus on the presence of U.S. militarybases in Okinawa. The second day focused on history, specifically the Battleof Okinawa - “Touch the past.” And the third day was more forward-looking- “Imagine the future.”
The participants heard stories from four survivors of the Okinawa
Battle. The survivors shared their memories during the war as children, andthe impact of the experience on them till the present. One memorable experience of a male survivor was the hiding in a cave of thousands of villagers
while Japanese soldiers searched through the wreckage of destroyed homes
and buildings.
On the second day of the field trip, the participants visited AbuchiraGama, a natural cave in southern Okinawa area where soldiers and civilians
hid and students of a girls’ school tended to the wounded during the Battleof Okinawa. The cave was used as hospital, lodging area, and supply storage.
The back cavern of the cave was used as a place where wounded soldiers

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were left alone in the dark to die because the Japanese army had lost thecapability to take care of them. We also saw the abandoned attempt to create
an alternative exit to the cave. One of the chilling moments during the visit
to the cave was when the guide asked everyone to turn off their lights. The
participants all stood together under the weight of the impermeable darkness thinking of the soldiers and civilians who were in the cave surroundedby the dark damp rock walls during the Battle of Okinawa. While the cave
has a heavy past, these days it has become a peace education site for students and other people.
On the third day of the field trip, the session focused on imagining thefuture of Okinawa. There were five small groups, and each group heard fromlocal peacebuilders and discussed ideas related to their topic. The issues discussed were:• How to put an end to crimes related to the U.S. bases – Solidarity
between women victims in Okinawa and throughout Northeast
Asia;• How to win social justice – A trial that reviewed data and facts toevaluate the need for the existence of the U.S. Marines;• How to connect the past with the future – Aging survivors andyoung successors;

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How to overcome divisions and conflicts among community members – Utilizing a process of making multicultural community forpeacebuilding;
How to engage “ordinary” citizens in protest movements – Changing
political-based movements to non-political-based movements.

Some groups had stimulating dialogue about the political climate inNortheast Asia; others heard moving stories of oppression, while others discussed possibilities for the future of peacebuilding in Okinawa.
The NARPI Participants
Since the first Summer Training in 2011, over 250 people from the subregion
have joined the narpi trainings and have shared a common vision for transforming this subregion.
The narpi participants consist of the following:• ngo/npo staff and interns;• Peace educators and activists;• Teachers and professors;• Students (high school graduates, university and graduate school
students);

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H U M A N R I G H T S E D U C AT I O N I N A S I A - PA C I F I CGovernment officials, military and police;
Community leaders;
Religious leaders;Anyone interested in peacebuilding in Northeast Asia.

The participants have a commitment to peacebuilding and ability toparticipate in workshops conducted in English.
Narpi has acted as a “safe space” where participants of different backgrounds and nationalities can truthfully share, listen, and learn from eachother and be trained and empowered as peacebuilders. Together they experience peace. However, peace, though sought by all, is often forgotten, overshadowed by the surrounding political reality. At the end of the training,participants return home with conviction, vitalized by the knowledge of thehuman capacity that they experienced at narpi. Peace is the way.
Conclusion
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peace and human rights in their communities and with more skills to equipthem. Some participants found new directions for their future through thecoursework. One of the participants shared,
There was a learning opportunity far greater than what I had
expected. I am determined to study more, get more experienceand become a restorative justice practitioner.

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Some participants shared about personal change resulting from theircoursework. One participant wrote, “I can decide my way because of narpi.
The Trauma Healing class really helped to find the real me and to choose
my future direction.” Others shared that their experience at narpi will help
them to mediate conflict, whether it is in their daily life or on the scale ofcommunity or region and that meeting people from all over the world andunderstanding the dream of peace that they have in common is what they
liked best about narpi.
Many of these individuals took ownership of the vision of narpi.
These are some of the ways that narpi alumni are working toward theirvision of peace:• Giving peace building trainings in their home communities;• Pursuing study or work in peacebuilding areas;• Staying in touch with other narpi alumni by sharing knowledge
and resources and visiting each other to find out more about different peacebuilding efforts in the region.
These are some ways that narpi alumni are supporting narpi:• Sharing about their narpi experiences with family, friends, andcolleagues;• Continuing to join the narpi Summer Peacebuilding Training;• Recruiting participants for the narpi Summer Training each year;• Giving small donations to narpi.
Both participants and narpi people learned and were reminded of themany important aspects of peacebuilding in Northeast Asia during the 2017training in Taiwan. They rediscovered that all were influenced by the same
history of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. They also re-realized that the mission of their generation was to find ways to respond differently and creatively to this history of past generations.
In 2018, narpi will be held in Jeju Island, Korea. There is an expectationof another successful training in developing facilitators for peacebuilding.
References
Action Professionals’ Association for the People. 1996. The Bells of Freedom (Addis
Ababa).

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Ahmed, A. R. 2004. “The shame of Hwang v. Japan: How the international community has failed Asia’s “‘Comfort Women’.” Texas Journal of Women and the Law,
14, 121-149.
Coday, D. J. 1998. “I cannot die without an apology: Korean women forced into sexual slavery await words that will ease torment.” National Catholic Reporter, 14, 15.
Mackie, V. 2005. “In search of innocence: Feminist historians debate the legacy of
wartime Japan.” Australian Feminist Studies, 20(47), 207-217.
Matsui, Y. 2000. Women’s international war crimes tribunal on Japan’s Military
Sexual Slavery. Retrieved from http://www.globalaging.org/elderrights/world/
women.html on June 19, 2006/
Montiel, C. J. 2002. “Sociopolitical Forgiveness.” Peace Review, 14:3, 271-277.
Ogawa, S. 2000. “The difficulty of apology: Japan’s struggle with memory and guilt.”
Harvard International Review, Fall 2000, 42 – 46.
Kathy R. Matsui, Ph.D. is a professor at the Department of Global CitizenshipStudies, Seisen University (Tokyo, Japan) and teaches courses on conflict resolution and peace-related subjects. She received a doctorate degree from Leadership
Studies Program, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington. Her research concerns
are development of capacities for conflict resolution and reconciliation. She works
with peace researchers and educators internationally in the International Instituteon Peace Education and Global Partnership for Prevention of Armed Conflict. Asa peace educator, she recently focuses her activities on Northeast Asia Regional
Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), which is held annually for participants from
Northeast Asia to study conflict transformation and practice building a culture ofpeace. She is currently an advisory board member for Hague Appeal for Peace and
the Global Campaign for Peace Education. She also actively participates in interreligious dialogue and cooperation for world peace as a member of the Women’s
Executive Committee, Peace Research Institute and the Reconciliation Education
Task Force of World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP), Japan.

Endnotes
1 Action Professionals’ Association for the People (Addis Ababa, 1996).
2 Yayori Matsui (2000, para. 2) reported that “Japan’s military sexual slavery[the so-called “comfort women” system] before and during the Second World War
was one of the most horrendous forms of wartime sexual violence against women
known to this century.” About forty-five years after World War II in 1990, the Korean“comfort women”, victims of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery, spoke for the first timeto unveil these atrocities. This revelation was followed by victims from China,
Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands.
Matsui (2000, para. 4) further informed:
At the Fourth UN World Women’s Conference in Beijing, the Platform for
Action was adopted which clearly stated that systematic rape, sexual slavery andother forms of violence against women in armed conflicts are war crimes and crimes
against humanity; and that governments and international organizations should in-vestigate, and prosecute alleged war criminals to the end of offering full redress tovictimized women.
Ahmed (2004) further described that “despite the tireless work of legal scholars in articulating the principles of international humanitarian law throughout thetwentieth century, the unresolved cases of the ‘comfort women’ make it painfully
clear that these principles are still far from being realized” (page 122). This is a crime
against humanity or violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.