Their commitment is not as much to violence as to the goals of social change, which often implies redressing issues of structural violence. Once ex-combatants in violent struggles see that violence is not effective in realizing their goals of greater justice, their commitment and involvement to change can be transformed into different ways of doing things. They also have a unique understanding of the forces driving people to take to violence, and thus a greater ability to prevent this from happening. This goes some way to explaining how a group of ex-soldieries from both sides of a vicious civil war in Nicaragua have become a potent force for peace all over the world. The importance of training and deploying peace promoters was established in the first national culture of peace program me - El Salvador begun in 1994 and the training of women peace promoters is named as a priority in the Women and a Culture of Peace Programme.
People can play a transformative role wherever they are positioned.
International development workers can be peace promoters, a principle recognized in the expanding concept of peacebuilding and supported by the Canadian government's peacebuilding initiative. McMaster University's War and Health programme, as well as the Hedip programme of the World Health Organization have looked at ways that health workers can promote peace. Work is being done in many countries transforming police forces to police services. This is not just a name change. The point is that with retraining and a change of philosophy, police can become peace promoters.