IFOR Annual Report
To receive a paper copy of this report, please contact IFOR Communications Officer and Editor Stan Morris. Opening remarks: President of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation 2009 was also the year that IFOR celebrated its 90th anniversary…and many of IFOR’s branches did. After World War I, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation was established by various national fellowships to work together in healing the physical and psychological wounds of the war. Many branches existed and worked already for many years before the international fellowship was erected. From this we can see that reconciliation processes are not only limited to healing wounds after a war, and are not necessarily imposed from top down, but are often initiated at a grass roots level by people reaching out to those they have been told are the enemy. At IFOR we recognize the good work the UN, its regional organizations and national governments are doing for reconciliation. But sometimes this work is too instrumental and doesn’t take more fundamental conflicts into account – i.e. the huge and ever increasing injustice in the world.
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In this annual report over the year 2009 you will read of many activities around the world to address the theory and practice of this more fundamental version of reconciliation. Also the different forms it takes on different continents - like the US FOR’s delegations to Iran; dealing with political, ethnic and religious differences in many African countries; dealing with the past in the Far East; with the occupation in the Middle East and the joint conference held by European IFOR BGAs with partner organizations in Central and Eastern Europe to address the still existing divide in Europe 20 years after the disappearance of the Iron Curtain. For the International Committee of IFOR this worldwide reflection on reconciliation in connection to peace building and disarmament formed a welcome stepping stone in the preparation of the Quadrennial Council which will be held in 2010. An opportunity to exchange different experiences, learn and gain inspiration from each other. Unfortunately, at the end of 2009 we learned that it was not possible to have this Council in Africa as we planned. And so, as organization with ambitions to work world wide for a more fundamental version of reconciliation, we have to reconcile our ambitions more often than we like with the means we have at hand. This is also a valuable educational process, and I’m sure we’ll have a great Council in 2010.Jan Schaake
Previous IFOR Annual Reports
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Read the full 2009 Annual Report in English 
reconciliation processes are particularly necessary and urgent in countries and regions of the world which have suffered or are suffering situations of conflict that have affected and divided societies in their various internal, national and international facets”. In the resolution governments and NGO’s were invited not only to support reconciliation processes but also to promote the concept of reconciliation in educational or scientific activities. 
The 2008 Annual
Report in English, 