June 2005

This is the first of two columns on the coming discussion on Africa at the G8 Summit LONDON – Never in the history of fundraising had so much been raised so fast. Live Aid was the inspiration of one rock musician, Bob Geldof, the Irish leader of the “Boomtown Rats” who, like millions of others, was moved by Michael Buerk’s BBC television report from famine-struck Ethiopia. Later Geldof was to wonder what would have happened if he’d gone to his local pub in London’s Chelsea instead of staying in and watching television that night. Now twenty years later Geldof is aiming even higher – not just more concerts in more venues, but to change the very political climate towards African development. No longer is it just a question of donating coins and notes it is a matter, he says, of doubling government aid, forgiving outstanding debt and abolishing the multitude...

The World Tribunal on Iraq website Arundhati RoyThe most cowardly war in history Brendan Smith & Zeynep ToufeIs that what they call democracy? Richard Falk:Opening Speech on behalf of the Panel of Advocates: Macro approach to the system; the “moral” responsibility underlying the constitution of the UN; the limits to the exercise of power for the states; violation of international law. Hans von Sponeck:The conduct of the UN before and after the 2003 invasion Johan Galtung, TFF Associate, July 15, 2005 Human rights and the illegal US/UK attack on IraqBy some counts the attack on Iraq is US aggression no. 239 after the Thomas Jefferson start in the early 19th century and no. 69 after the Second world war; with between 12 and 16 million killed in that period alone. All of it is in flagrant contradiction of the most basic human rights, like the “right to life, liberty and...

This is a speech given by Galtung at the international Forum on Development and Peace in Seoul June 23-24, 2005 entitled “21st Century Conflicts, the Korean Peninsula, DMZ and Gangwon-do.” (Subheadings and italics added by TFF). Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, A very timely conference indeed, and thanks for the invitation to place the Korean peninsula in the context of key conflicts in the 21st century. The six most important conflicts and problems facing humankind – and the place of the two Koreas in them The most important problems, by being global with frightening consequences and protracted, are in my view the following six: [1] The hyper-capitalist formation with 125,000 dying daily from hunger and preventable/curable diseases; [2] The killing/exploitation of women through selective abortion, infanticide and general abuse with 100 million missing 1980-1990; [3] The nation-state contradiction, with 2,000 nations yearning for autonomy within 200 states out of which only 20...

LONDON – There is no crop in the world more political than sugar. And no moment in the tenure of the Bush Administration when passing a trade deal through Congress has been more important. Tragically, the political power of the American sugar lobby may well be sufficient to torpedo the ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, in many ways the most important American trade arrangement of recent years. There is no free market in sugar- everybody has a deal. For decades the Cuban economy leant heavily on the over-the-market prices paid by the Soviet Union.The Caribbean and African countries depend on special favors granted by the European Community. For long enough a number of Caribbean and Central American countries have relied on preferential access to the U.S.. Nevertheless, the sugar producers- both southern cane growers and temperate zone beet farmers – that the EU, the U.S. and Japan...

Projekt i samarbete mellan Eslövs kommun, ebo, Polisen i Eslöv, Svenska kyrkan, Försäkringskassan, Den Transnationella Stiftelsen för Freds- och Framtidsforskning (TFF) och Europeiska Flyktingfonden (genom Migrations- och Integrationsverket. Projektsamordnare är Christina Spännar från TFF. Målsättning, metod, medel och perspektiv. Hittills gjorda erfarenheter Målsättningen är att utveckla en modell för hur integration kan underlättas. Utvecklingsprocessen innebär en öppenhet för all möjlig information som kan vara till nytta i modellen, som skall vara dynamisk, d v s öppen för förändringar. Stommen i modellen är ett nätverk, d v s en informations- och kommunikationsstruktur. Det är tänkt att bestå dels av aktörer som i sitt arbete möter flyktingar och andra invandrare, dels av flyktingar som genom sina erfarenheter av mötet med det svenska samhället kan ge en bild av den andra sidan i detta möte. Ett nätverk kan också bidra till en samsyn bland kommunens förvaltningar och andra institutioner och aktörer. Det kan...

My dear nephew and nieces, There you are in Ireland, a living example of the so-called Anglo-Saxon model, in the fastest growing economy of the European Union and here I am with my Swedish family seeing before my eyes, both here and across the bridge in Denmark, the strength of a more socialist model of development that combines rather good economic growth with all the benefits of a super-welfare state, including public hospitals that look to my British eyes like first class hotels. Why the citizens of France, Holland and Germany are flagellating themselves to political death is beyond me. With just a bit more rigor and discipline they could continue with their rather successful social models. The French health service is even better than the Scandinavian and Germany out-exports with high technology every other European country. If they had not made the mistake – and is it really a...

LONDON – What the peace negotiators of Northern Ireland have taught the world with its plethora of ethnic conflicts- albeit many less than a decade ago- is the power of ambiguity. But can ambiguity live forever? Northern Ireland is working out an answer to that question still, eleven years since the ceasefire of the Irish Republican Army in August, 1994, and seven years since the momentous Good Friday peace agreement. Maybe not, but it appears it can live long enough to change the culture of violence. Spain now confronts the same question with the Basque struggle for independence. As Saturday’s mass march organized by the Association of the Victims of Terrorism in Madrid reminded us passions on both side of the fence run very high. The relatively new socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has broken the long-standing logjam of Spanish politics by announcing that it is prepared to...

Till Sofias huvudsida

Dear participants! This is an important conference. The world’s biggest country, based on one of the world’s oldest civilizations, soon also with the world’s biggest economy, is having a serious look at peace studies. A small step for China, but a major one for us who have been working in this field for soon fifty years. We are most grateful to the hosts, Nanjing University and particularly its Department of History, and Coventry University and particularly its Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, for this important international and interdisciplinary dialogue. I have been given the task of reflecting on the field of peace studies, something I will do with the warning that what you get from me is one person’s perspective. Others will have other perspectives. We can enter this field from many angles, and it is important that we do so. Peace studies, like anything else, is...

LONDON – Deng Xiaoping, the former paramount leader, once promised that China would be a democracy by the year 2035. (See his officially published ‘Collected Works’.) Then 16 years ago came the massacre of the protesting students in Tiananmen Square and the world-wide reputation of Deng, until then regarded as the great reformer of the moribund, Chinese command economy, took a dip downward from which he has never truly recovered despite the onward march of the Chinese economy. The big question remains topical: when will democracy arrive in China? There have been, and are, a significant number of would-be reformers in the higher ranks- from the recently deceased, former party chief, Zhao Ziyang who appeared in Tiananmen Square at the height of the protests to tell the students he had come “too late”, to the current premier, Wen Jiabao, who two years’ ago, in a supposedly secret speech, but one...