Grassroots Reconciliation Stories from Post-conflict Nicaragua

How do actors formerly involved in violent conflict reconcile, particularly in the absence of a government-led top down effort? This article analysing grassroots reconciliation efforts during the fifteen years following the civil war of the 1980s in Nicaragua. As a result of extensive rounds of interviews with actors and opinion leaders from both sides as well as members of the international community in volved in the peace building process, the study concludes that today, after two decades of peace, many Nicaraguans have advanced from negative coexistence to full reconciliation. Faced with the absence of effective 'trickle down' policies on the elite level to help this process along, Nicaraguans have found their own ways of reconciliation. Examples for both, the successes as well as the failures to reach reconciliation, are presented.