Speaking for myself, in conflict zones where I've been and where I've worked, you always have to be in negotiations—I wouldn't use the word “ties”—with the different actors, be it armed groups or.... Then there are the local people: the village councils, the teachers, the village elders, the midwives. It's the local civil society, which we may not recognize from a Canadian context, but it's there. There is always a structure inside a village. That's part of the thing that gets destroyed by this conflict, the network of support that is so integral to social progress.
Our colleagues on the ground have to be negotiating and talking all the time. If they weren't, we would not be able to do any of the things we are able to do now. There is a constant negotiation—I don't know if I would say “dialogue”—that has to go on so that we can be sure that we can get to these places that are across lines to provide the aid that is needed. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't be able to do our work.