Sustained Dialogue was attempted to address a conflict that had seen no movement toward resolution nor showed any promise of doing so in the 7 years following a ceasefire that ended violent fighting in 1994. It took one and a half years and nine days of meetings for participants to get sufficiently past the need for “venting” or giving voice to difficult losses and deep hurts before they became ready to engage in the deep listening that finally enabled the transformation of relationships and the application of their joint creativity to resolve this “frozen” conflict. By the 9th meeting and 24 days of dialogue over 6 years, the group had produced a Framework for a Peace Process in the region to which all dialogue participants were able to agree and commit to implementing.

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