Retailer helps diverse groups seek peace in Iraq
Cabot House's Robert Bendetson plays key role in Iraq Project
Gary James -- Furniture Today, August 21, 2008
AMESBURY, Mass. - Massachusetts furniture retailer Robert Bendetson has played a key role in the Iraq Project, a series of groundbreaking reconciliation meetings that has brought together Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and other Iraqi leaders with political leaders instrumental in resolving sectarian strife in Northern Ireland and South Africa.The latest session was held in Baghdad in late July.
Among the participants were Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and a former Irish Republican Army leader; Lord John Alderice, chairman of the Northern Irish decommissioning body; and Mac Maharaj, a longtime prisoner along with Nelson Mandela in South Africa, former secretary of the negotiation team of the African National Congress, and a cabinet minister in South Africa's first democratic government.
 Furniture retailer Robert Bendetson, right, has been instrumental in bringing leaders together for reconciliation meetings in Iraq and Finland. Shown following a briefing last month in Iraq are Faud Massoon, left, of the Kurdish PUK party; South Africa’s Mac Maharaj; Ireland’s Lord John Alderice and Martin McGuinness; Iraq President Jalal Talibani and Vice President Abd Al-Mahdi; Padraig O’Malley of the University of Massachusetts Boston; and Bendetson. |
Bendetson is president of the 18-store Cabot House retail group, based here. His involvement in global peacemaking initiatives began in 2006, when a group of black and white South Africans and other residents of conflict areas around the world came to Tufts University, where he is a trustee and chairman of the advisory board of the Institute for Global Leadership. The group participated in a university symposium called "The Politics of Fear."
During the symposium, Bendetson renewed his friendship with Padraig O'Malley, his former economics professor at the Institute for Global Leadership now teaching at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
A Dublin-born expert on the issue of reconciliation, O'Malley helped broker agreements between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. As part of his work, O'Malley organized conferences in 1992 and 1996 that brought together members of the African National Congress with Irish leaders to help resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland.
At the Tufts conference, "We were able to bring together some of the negotiators and perpetrators from the apartheid years in South Africa to discuss the difficult yet peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy," said Bendetson. "After four days of breaking bread and seeing how people from divided societies could be civil and discuss many issues together, it made a dramatic impression."
And, he added, it became clear that it was "absolutely necessary to begin a dialogue on Iraq."
In January 2007, a delegation of Iraqis came to Tufts for a three-day Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Public Policy Initiative called "Iraq: Moving Forward." As part of the event, Bendetson and his wife invited the initiative's participants to their house for a reception "so that people would relax and get to know each other," he said.
After that visit, Bendetson, O'Malley and Maharaj had a brainstorm: What if Iraqi leaders were to come together with leaders from other divided societies who have overcome their differences? Perhaps sharing such perspectives could help the Iraqis find common ground.
"The three of us formed a committee to make the idea a reality," said Bendetson. "As you can imagine, there were many hurdles we had to overcome, including finding a country where the group could safely meet. The support of Finland's Crisis Management Initiative was critical in helping us to manage these difficult logistics."
The first meeting of Iraqis, Irish and South Africans, held in Finland in September 2007 with the assistance of the CMI, resulted in the development of the Helsinki Principles. The principles range from a renunciation of terrorism and factionalism in government to respect for an independent judiciary.
According to the organizers, the participants represented the most influential group of Iraqis ever to go abroad to talk about the peace process.
"Our goal is to provide an atmosphere for discussion so that differences can be resolved," said Bendetson. "The facilitators facilitate, they don't mediate. The Iraqi representatives are the ones who determine the agenda, goals and processes."
He added that the Irish and South African leaders taking part have been "at the very top level. They are giants in this field, as big as you can get."
A second meeting of an even more diverse, higher-level group of Iraqi leaders was held in Finland in April. At that meeting, all 36 Iraqi delegates adopted the Helsinki Principles, along with a set of implementation mechanisms.
Last month, the group convened again in Baghdad to announce the principles and mechanisms that would enable them to reach a broader consensus.
"This represents a huge step forward," said Bendetson, who has hosted all of the talks in addition to providing financing. "The goal now will be to implement the principles they have agreed on and keep the discussions going."
He added that the latest meeting marked the first time that foreign facilitators have been invited to Iraq to discuss ways to achieve political reconciliation.
In an interview with National Public Radio that aired shortly before last month's meeting, O'Malley said none of the meetings would have happened without Bendetson's support.
"Bobby had a vision of possibility in Iraq," said O'Malley. "And to make that vision realizable, he was prepared to put whatever amount of money it cost to make it possible. (He's) the living embodiment of what a moral life is."
"America has been very good to my family in many ways, and you just need to give back to society," said Bendetson. "How can one turn away?"
Cabot House was founded by Bendetson's great-grandfather in 1912. Robert Bendetson succeeded his father, Norris, as president in 1995.
