November 1999

framfart och resenärer Introduktion Globalisering är ett ord som nämns allt oftare i tidningar, på TV och av gemene man. Trots detta är det inte många som vet vad termen globalisering egentligen innebär och vad den verkligen syftar till. Det är inte underligt då sökandet efter den rätta definitionen är i full gång och åsikterna går isär om hur en sådan ska se ut. Det finns heller ingen konsensus om vilka konsekvenser globaliseringen genererar. Vissa talar om homogenisering och andra om fragmentering. Några betonar ekonomiska faktorer som framväxten av transnationella företag och en världsmarknad, medan somliga fokuserar på teknologiska framsteg och ökad kommunikation. Det råder ovisshet och osäkerhet om vad som egentligen händer och i vilken riktning vi är på väg. Vad innebär dagens utveckling för individer, samhällen och nationalstater? Detta är enligt vår mening en viktig och spännande fråga till vilken det dock inte finns något enkelt och tillgängligt...

Nonviolence – forgiveness • We must learn from touching human stories about the will to abandon hate.The road to forgivenessIn South Africa’s Western Cape there is a rapidly growing bakery with the unusual brand name: “Amy’s bread – the bread of hope and peace.” The local communities know its significance. Amy Biehl was a Fulbright Scholar who was murdered in the Western Cape in the run-up to the 1994 elections. The bakery, run by the Amy Biehl Foundation, exists because her parents, Peter and Linda Biehl, from California, decided to walk the road of forgiveness. By Michael Henderson. • How actually did the old Cold War end – and what does it tell about the new emerging Cold War now?How We Ended the Cold WarJohn Tirman reflects in The Nation. “The dominant view of the right and center is that military intimidation was the root of victory, a dangerous axiom then and...

Från fall till fall: Kosovo, men inte Östtimor ALBANSKA EXTREMISTER har nu avslutat en etnisk rensning av omkring 90 procent av Kosovos zigenare, serber och judar. Detta är den proportionellt sett hittills största etniska rensningen på Balkan. Belgrad varken planerade eller genomförde att fördriva 90 procent av albanerna. Nato hävdade att det var oacceptabelt att Belgrad hade 40.000 soldater i området för att bland annat skydda den serbiska minoriteten. Nu finns lika många NATO-soldater i Kosovo. Varför kunde inte dessa trupper med mycket mera avancerad teknik och underrättelsetjänst skydda serber och zigenare från denna förutsägbara humanitära katastrof? Den jugoslaviska militären fick tio dagar på sig att dra sig tillbaka. I strid med Säkerhetsrådets resolution 1244 har den jugoslaviska armén inte fått återvända med gränsvakter. Den albanska befrielsearmén UCK fick 90 dagar på sig för att lämna in sina vapen. Nu har UCK i direkt strid med resolutionen inte bara övertagit...

1. Nuclear weapons were needed to defeat Japan in World War II. It is widely believed, particularly in the United States, that the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to defeat Japan in World War II. This is not, however, the opinion of the leading US military figures in the war, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, General Hap Arnold and Admiral William Leahy. General Eisenhower, for example, who was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, wrote, „I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced [to Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use...

ALBANSKA EXTREMISTER har nu avslutat en etnisk rensning av omkring 90 procent av Kosovos zigenare, serber och judar. Detta är den proportionellt sett hittills största etniska rensningen på Balkan. Belgrad varken planerade eller genomförde att fördriva 90 procent av albanerna.Nato hävdade att det var oacceptabelt att Belgrad hade 40.000 soldater i området för att bland annat skydda den serbiska minoriteten. Nu finns lika många NATO-soldater i Kosovo. Varför kunde inte dessa trupper med mycket mera avancerad teknik och underrättelsetjänst skydda serber och zigenare från denna förutsägbara humanitära katastrof? Den jugoslaviska militären fick tio dagar på sig att dra sig tillbaka. I strid med Säkerhetsrådets resolution 1244 har den jugoslaviska armén inte fått återvända med gränsvakter. Den albanska befrielsearmén UCK fick 90 dagar på sig för att lämna in sina vapen. Nu har UCK i direkt strid med resolutionen inte bara övertagit den lokala administrationen och polisväsendet utan också fått tillåtelse...

Tio frågor som borde ha ställts till president Clinton, när han i tisdags besökte Kosovo President Bill Clinton gjorde i tisdags en blixtvisit i Kosovo. I ett tal manade han albanerna att sluta hämnas på den krympande serbiska minoriteten. Han besökte också de amerikanska soldaterna på den nya Bondsteelbasen. Det finns viktiga frågor som borde ha ställts still honom om Balkan och Kosovo och om USA:s ledande roll i bombningarna av Jugoslavien. Det borde vara en självklarhet att oberoende medier i demokratiska länder låter politiska ledare svara på viktiga frågor. Men ställdes verkligen de viktiga frågorna? Här är några frågor som jag skulle ha ställt ˆ om jag vore journalist och hade fått tillfälle att göra en intervju i tisdags. (1) Mr President! Amerikanska plan bombade i våras Jugoslavien och Kosovo med er som överbefälhavare. Aktionen rättfärdigades av uppgifter om ett folkmord planerat av Belgrad. Dessa uppgifter har nu visat...

LONDON- In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, the great detective Sherlock Holmes lectures his faithful assistant, Watson, on the unlikely subject of free trade. Says Holmes: ” Capital article this on free trade. Permit me to give you an extract from The Times, ‘You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or your own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it stands to reason why such legislation must in the long run keep away wealth from the country, diminish the value of our imports and lower the general condition of life in this island.'” “What do you think of that, Watson?” cries Holmes in high glee, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. “Don’t you think that is an admirable statement?” That was written in 1901. At century’s end the intellectual battle for this central point in economic life is being fought...

”With e-mail and Internet it has become so much more easy to generate and share ideas instantly. Below you find 53 different ideas about peace in Macedonia from people around the world who responded to our call in the preceding PressInfo. It’s a free gift to anyone who cares to listen and take inspiration – many could also be implemented in Kosovo,” says TFF director Jan Oberg. “Our respondents are not a representative sample but, among other things, this exciting experiment shows that: 1) there are so many ideas out there and an amazing willingness to contribute constructively; 2) people who have not been to Macedonia can share ideas and initiatives that have worked in other conflicts, a general body of knowledge and experiences are developing; 3) they focus much more on the human dimensions of conflict-resolution than governments do; 4) they by and large reject military means in peacebuilding,...

”With e-mail and Internet it has become so much more easy to generate and share ideas instantly. Below you find 53 different ideas about peace in Macedonia from people around the world who responded to our call in the preceding PressInfo. It’s a free gift to anyone who cares to listen and take inspiration – many could also be implemented in Kosovo,” says TFF director Jan Oberg. “Our respondents are not a representative sample but, among other things, this exciting experiment shows that: 1) there are so many ideas out there and an amazing willingness to contribute constructively; 2) people who have not been to Macedonia can share ideas and initiatives that have worked in other conflicts, a general body of knowledge and experiences are developing; 3) they focus much more on the human dimensions of conflict-resolution than governments do; 4) they by and large reject military means in peacebuilding,...

“Read the farewell interview with Macedonian President Kirov Gligorov and the analysis by TFF’s Macedonian adviser Dr. Biljana Vankovska on our site and you will understand how fragile Macedonia’s stability and peace is. Why not try a citizens’ ‘early warning’? We invite you to send us your ideas on how we can help Macedonia avoid violence and move towards peace in spite of all the obstacles,” says director Jan Oberg. “After the Kosovo war, all citizens of Macedonia go through very difficult times; presidential elections take on October 31. If there is one lesson from Kosovo, it is this: the earlier we deal with the problems, the more options there are, and the easier it is to solve conflicts without resorting to violence. It is a safe prediction that, unless various types of violence-preventive measures are taken and taken in time, Macedonia is likely to slide into chaos. If citizens...

Links to Facts & Views Beauty and nonviolence, and International Day for Tolerance Let’s begin this Transnational WIRE with a text on beauty and on how we could learn from appreciation of beauty that violence is a bad idea• Does beauty really equal truth?Philosopher Elaine Scarry defends beauty from politically correct critics. Here is one of her beautiful thoughts: “One of the reasons that violence has in our own era been so easily anesthetized is precisely because we’ve gotten unanchored from beauty.” November 16 was the UN-declared International Day for Tolerance. Here is how UNESCO’s new Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura, observed this important day:• Tolerance – a dynamic world valueAnd the UN Secretary-General promised to make tolerance a priority:• We can advance tolerance every day, says Kofi Annan. The old Cold War – and the New… On the occassion of the end of the Cold War:• CIA warned of Gorbachev’s fallWhat did CIA think it...

LONDON- The West has gone uncannily calm about last month’s military take-over in nuclear-armed Pakistan. Could it be embarrassment, that it hasn’t delivered on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty – an essential ingredient in the grand bargain of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that states that the old established nuclear powers will make significant progress in disarmament in return for the rest of the world – 95% of it in fact – abjuring manufacture of their own nuclear weapons? Or is it just carelessness that takes its cue from President Bill Clinton’s lack of conviction on the urgent necessity for nuclear disarmament? It is a quite extraordinary silence. Nowhere else in the world does the military – so blatantly at least – have its finger directly on the nuclear trigger. There has always been, right through the darkest days of the Cold War, the buffer of civilian authority. Even when the Soviet...