STEP THREE
Engage with Friends and Conflict Parties
The extent to which a mediator is able to encourage Friends' direct engagement with the conflict parties will vary from conflict to conflict. In the interests of keeping the process confidential and maintaining focus, it may not be advisable to have them at the negotiating table-and certainly not at all times. However, a mediator should seek other means to ensure their diplomatic and material support for the process. Direct involvement in peacemaking brings benefits in the short term. It also may help solidify a Friend's commitment for the long haul of implementation and peacebuilding that will follow a successful mediation.
Seek Support for Mediation Role
Maintaining leadership during a mediation process is a subtle art. One important reason is that this "leadership" is of coure subordinated to positions taken by the conflict parties themselves. These factions will have to make the decisions and implement the agreements necessary to move the conflict forward toward a sustainable peace. Only significant time invested by mediators in cultivating partnerships among Friends and other actors will allow for the development of the trust, respect, and perhaps even a degree of complicity (sometimes employed with respect to each official's parent bureaucracy) required to sustain support and to forestall the appearance of rival initiatives.
As the secretary-general's personal representative charged with the mediation of the negotiations on El Salvador, Alvaro de Soto cultivated an impresarial relationship with the Friends. He would describe himself as the "very authoritarian conductor" of a quintet whose other members were the four Friends.7 This led to a certain amount of grumbling on their part, although the Friends were broadly appreciative of the discretion and skill with which he and UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar worked with them