Mediating in Iraq, with Boston's help

Conflict Management Group, a non-profit based in Cambridge, has been training Iraqis in negotiation skills since 2006, with promising results. The Iraqi mediators have helped people address disputes ranging from small arguments between neighbors to potentially deadly political battles and kidnappings.

I wrote in the Globe today about this Iraq mediation project, and about the broader mediation industry that has mushroomed in the last 40 or so years in the Boston area.

Negotiating in Diwaniyah, with help from mediators trained by Cambridge-based CMG-Mercy Corps, photo by Sa'ad al-Khalidy

Another view of the negotiation in the Diwaniyah mayor's office in the summer of 2008. Photo by Sa'ad al-Khalidy

There wasn't space for these images of one negotiation in progress, in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, in the summer of 2008. The photos were taken by Sa'ad al-Khalidy, the mediation program coordinator in Iraq for Mercy Corps, which merged with CMG four years ago. They give a clear sense of the interplay between the locak sheiks and tribal officials as they tackle a dispute over a plot of inherited land.

The caption for the main picture illustrating the story omits the nice detail that the current coordinator for the Iraq program at CMG, Arthur Martirosyan, is shown in front of a portrait of Roger Fisher, taken in the stately Roger Fisher House in Cambridge. Fisher is the lengendary Harvard Law School professor who wrote "Getting to Yes" in 1981, the best-selling, user-friendly manual on managing conflict that captured the essence of years of his scholarly thinking. Fisher went on to found CMG in 1984, and has taken part in mediating many global conflicts around the world, from Northern Ireland to Latin America and South Africa.

Arthur Martirosyan, in front of a portrait of Roger Fisher. Photo by Yoon Byun, Globe Staff.