Archive 1986 – 2017

(Denna text skrevs före inledningen av bombningarna i Afghanistan) Statsminister Göran Persson sände den 12 september ett kondoleansbrev, omedelbart efter terrorattackerna den 11 september. Sverige deltog också i EU:s uttalande. Det dröjde emellertid ända till den 22 september innan statsministern gjorde följande uttalande: Det är korrekt att FN:s säkerhetsråd erkände den konstitutiva rätten till individuellt och kollektivt självförsvar i enlighet med Stadgan i resolution 1368 den 12 september. Det betraktade också terrorhandlingarna som ett hot mot internationell fred och säkerhet. Resolutionen betonar vidare att de som är ansvariga för att hjälpa, stödja eller ge skydd åt förövarna, organisatörerna eller sponsorerna av dessa handlingar kommer att hållas ansvariga. I detta syfte uttrycker det at det – Rådet – är redo “att vidta alla nådvändiga åtgärder för att svara på terroristattackerna…” Men inte med ett ord ger resolutionen Förenta staterna någon rätt att svara på terrorattackerna genom att inleda ett “krig mot...

The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs withdraws organisational support for TFF, without prior consultation, motivation or documentation but with immediate effect. We intend to survive! September 22, 2000Jan ÖbergTFF’s global constituency and presence on Internet Reflections on the Support Campaign in the year 2000 September 22, 2000TFF SupportersIn their own voiceWhat people around the world wrote to and about TFF September 22, 2000Jan ÖbergAnalys av UD:s beslut om att slopa organisationsbidrag till TFF för år 2000 TFF PressInfo # 98Support Appeal Svensk Stödappell TFF PressInfo # 95Action Request – How You Can Help TFF Now TFF PressInfo # 94The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deprives TFF of Its Annual Organisational Grant – and Allocates Millions without Documentation TFF PressInfo # 94 (in Swedish)UD slopar stöd till TFF – och fördelar miljoner utan redovisning Arbetets ledarsida 26 maj 2000Mot en snävare debatt Arbetet 6 juni 2000Socialdemokratin svek idealen, idag jamsar man med...

May 31, 2010 Chaiwat Satha-Anand [Published in The Bangkok Post as “The effect of violence on the future of reconciliation”, May 28, 2010: op-ed.] That the military would succeed in defeating the UDD, also known as the “red shirts”, and in securing the city space occupied by many who came from rural Thailand was never in doubt.  In fact, some from within the security community might regard this operation as a success given the resulted “low” number of casualties. What certainly is , however, is how the military solution chosen by the government and violent methods incorporated by some UDD leadership will shape the form of continuing political conflict in this society. This article is an attempt to understand the violence effect of the “May 19 incident” on Thai society, especially on future reconciliation efforts.  I would argue that any future reconciliation effort with some hope of success would have to begin...

May 8, 2009 Farhang Jahanpour During their first meeting on the margins of the G-20 conference in London on 1st April 2009, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the start of negotiations on a new strategic arms-control treaty that would cut each nation’s long-range nuclear arsenal further than previous agreements. In his first major foreign policy speech in Prague, the president went further and introduced an ambitious vision of getting rid of all nuclear weapons, although he said that this might not happen in his lifetime. He rightly stressed the danger of the existence and ultimate use of nuclear weapons. He also set a four-year target for ‘locking down’ all loose nuclear material scattered around the world to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. While the president referred to North Korea’s satellite launch and Iran’s nuclear programme, he significantly failed to mention Israel’s nuclear...

and the international law.’ Strangely, EU’s President has to defend his Union against critics who maintain that its mission called LEX – meaning law! – is not established according to international law. Unfortunately for Barosso, they are right and have read and understood Resolution 1244 of 1999 (after NATO’s bombing) in which the members were: – “Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region, as set out in the Helsinki Final Act and annex 2,” and – “Reaffirming the call in previous resolutions for substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration for Kosovo.”  Indeed, what is there to discuss? If 1244 were respected by Western law-breaking governments, EULEX could only have been established in agreement with Serbia/Belgrade as were all other international missions in Kosovo since 1999 – and by the local authorities and...

Tal i Umeå Statskyrka, 16 december 2006 – 4 januari 2007 Inför detta tal har jag funderat på vad som gör mig optimistisk inför framtiden och det som gör mig mer pessimistisk. Jag har också funderat på vilka steg jag tror vi måste ta för att få fred och en värld utan våld. Låt mig börja med det som gör mig optimisk. Detta utgörs normalt av de fantastiska människor jag har förmånen att träffa i mitt jobb. Denna höst har jag lärt känna Birgul Özbaris. Hon är en ung turkisk journalist. I Turkiet har hon skrivit flera artiklar om vapenvägran där hon har varit kritisk mot sitt land på grund av de hårda straff som man får om man vägrar göra militärtjänst. På grund av dessa artiklar har hon och hennes familj krakaserrats av myndigheterna och hon har flera rättsfall mot sig där hon riskerar att få över 20 år...

September 14, 2010 Chaiwat Satha-Anand In the corner of a Sunday comic strip titled “Pastor Jones goes to New York”, there is a small character saying “ Your fifteen minutes are up reverend.” (Bangkok Post, September 12, 2010) That may be true about Terry Jones’ personal fame since a month ago no one this side of the globe has heard about him or his tiny Protestant church in Gainesville, Florida, nor his 2010 book: Islam is of the Devil. But when he announced the “International Burn a Koran Day” from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. to be held on September 11, world attention descended upon him. Outcry against his proposed act from religious leaders around the world notwithstanding, world leaders from President Obama, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to David Howell Petraeus, a former professor of international relations, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton, and now the commander of...

Seven years after the terrible terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and on the Pentagon the time has come to study those events dispassionately, to find out what really happened, and to see whether the response to that tragedy has been a correct one, or whether we could have followed a different path. What is certain is that those events have drawn attention to radical Islam as never before, and they have also given rise to a ‘war on terror’ that has continued non-stop for the past seven years and may continue for a long time to come. There are certain terms such as Shari’a, ayatollah, fatwa, jihad, madrassa, etc that have come into the English language, but with new and often menacing meanings, not to mention anything about insulting terms such as Islamism, Islamo-fascism, rogue states, etc. As the saying goes: ‘Beware of truth simplified!’ However, there is no...

November 28, 2007 Jan Oberg Written for and © by IPS We seem to live in an age in which spin and deliberately distorted information threaten to replace knowledge. Politicians, journalists and many people, including left-wingers and peace activists, talk about the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) as if it were mainly about defence. It is not. BMD is based on the perverse wish that the United States shall be able to start, conduct and win a nuclear war – a Nuclear Use Theory (NUT). BMD is a fundamental break with the logic of nuclear deterrence, or Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that the world has lived with since 1945. Undoubtedly a provocative statement, here is the philosophy of MAD and NUT. Imagine two nuclear parties, A and B, pitted against each other. They have their arsenal of nuclear weapons in silos on the ground, under the wings of planes and on submarines...

At a large manifestation with thousands of participants on the national day, May 26, the opposition parties of the South Caucasus republic of Georgia escalated their accusations against the Saakasvili regime for ruling the country on the basis of electoral fraud and suppression of alternative opinions. Levan Gachechiladze, who came second at the presidential election in January this year, threatened that the opposition will refuse to take the few seats they won according to the official result of the parliamentary elections some days earlier – May 21st – and prevent the new parliament from convening ”if necessary by force”. If this really comes true it would be an ironical repetition of the method the present regime used to take power through the ”Rose Revolution” in November 2003. Then angry representatives of the opposition of that time, considering their loss at the parliamentary elections a couple of week earlier to be...

July 17, 2008 Jonathan Power LONDON – “Come home, America” said U.S. presidential candidate George McGovern during the Vietnam War, whilst going down to a bad defeat against Richard Nixon. But these are the words Senator Barack Obama should be uttering today, if he wants to live up to his credo. The Republicans – and some Democrats – will try to tear him apart for this, tarring him with the brush of isolationism. But it is not isolationism. If handled with perception and commitment for the long haul it is engagement with the world and its problems. It is merely a different way of going about the cause of greater political order and more individual freedom. It can be charactarised as a policy of substituting the carrot for the stick but this is to simplify it. The carrot should be offered but with it a reciprocal sense of self discipline and...

LONDON – The non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are pushing at an open door. Even the Pentagon has begun to look at their value in situations of conflict and political impasse. In the news today is the essentially non-violent struggle of the opposition in Zimbabwe to push aside the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe. Despite all the provocations of the police and the army the opposition (unlike in Kenya) has turned the other cheek and in doing so won over almost 100% of the foreign opinion that counts. Exiled Iranian opposition activists are studying and training in the techniques of non-violent conflict, emulating the success of the recent movements for change in the Ukraine and Serbia. One shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events. The twentieth century is rightly described as the bloodiest century of mankind. But it was also the most creative in terms of...