British military intervention in Northern Ireland precluded escalation of the conflict to genocidal proportions, or even any kind of systematic ethnic cleansing. Outside intervention would have been possible in Rwanda, but the two powers able to take such action, the French and the Americans, refused. When different ethnic groups do not view each other as uniform, communal blocks, but see each other as consisting of many individuals with a large variaty of views, conflict is les likely, and if it occurs, it is less threatening. Democratic societies, even very imperfectly democratic ones like south africa under the apatheid regime, when only whites had full potential rights, are more likely to be able to achieve some kind of reconciliation because different options can be discussed, and opposing groups will have some potential leaders who argue for reconciliation. But democracy is not enough, and in some cases, as in yogoslavia in the early 1990s, it increased tensions as electorates voted for extremists.
Reconciliation requires former enemies to reject revenge, and in many cases, to forego justice.
Reconciliation will mean that many of those responsible for past atrocities will not be punished. The psycho-social and structural commonalities between cases in the same categories, and the differences between the various categories can be studied more systematically to arrive at useful, scientifically sound conclusions about those conditions that lead to greater or lesser conflict. It is naive to think that human beings are inherently peaceful and that conflict is unatural. On the other hand, conflict and war, particularly ethnic war, can be avoided or controlled. If we recognize the structural conditions that bring out conflict, we might be able to set up a world match to warn us of potentially dangerous situations likely to escalate.