STEP 5
Position Oneself as a Future Mediator
If active ripening policies fail to attract the parties' attention and produce movement toward negotiation, the would-be mediator can always fall back on a policy of positioning. The mediator should constantly remind the parties that he or she is available to help them out of their conflict and that their path can end only in a stalemate that they cannot win, if they are not there already. Are there occasions in normal diplomatic contacts when the parties can be reminded of the mediator's willingness to mediate? Are there occasions for public declarations and for private assurances that the path to accommodation is ready to be opened? Can the mediator throw in new ideas, new ways of thinking, to keep the parties from remaining stuck in their positions? Can the mediator repeatedly show the parties where their fixed positions are leading them, until they ask what the alternatives might be? Can the mediator get authorization, from the home office or from the UN Security Council, to "just explore a bit" to see what the parties are thinking in informal moments? Are there occasions to indicate to other potential mediators whether their possible entry would be considered an acceptable alternative or whether the positioning party intends to remain the only game in town?
The much-touted success of Assistant Secretary of State Crocker in pulling the rabbit out of the hat in the Namibian conflict was testimony to recognizing and seizing ripeness, but the less-noticed aspect of his success was his patient tenacity in positioning for six years until the ripe moment arrived.
In the El Salvador case, UN secretary-general Xavier Perez de Cuellar began positioning himself to be useful as early as November 1986, when he met with the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, two and a half years before his ro