Archive 1986 – 2017

In every conflict there are some local people who have the guts not to pick up a gun, but take the harder route of nonviolence to try and solve the problems their communities face. This unglamorous, unsung work at the grassroots is just beginning to be recognised as an essential component of any successful peace process. FIFTY PER CENT of ‘top down’ peace agreements do not stick. Why? Because they have been negotiated without the participation and understanding of all those involved in the conflict – the people on the ground. Governments are just beginning to learn that local people know what works best to prevent war – or stop war – in their own backyard.     Take Sami Velioglu for example. Sami is a British Iraqi who returned to his hometown of Kirkuk two months after the invasion. He was shocked to see people standing in line all day in...

Lund, Sweden Within a few days, Europe is host to the G20 in London, NATO’s 60th Anniversary in Strasbourg-Kehl and the Alliance of Civilizations in Istanbul. What shall we make out of these frantic travels,meetings and meticulously edited press conference sound bites by world leaders? Here is the firstof two dissident analyses. C5 – Five huge crises coming together The world is facing five hugely complex crises simultaneously: Economic (system breakdown).Environmental (global warming +).Cultural (intolerance, clash of religions, Western cultural dominance).Political (democratic deficits everywhere, lack of hope and political interest in media and amongyoung). Security (drug-like, ever increasing military expenditures to satisfy the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC yielding ever less human security). Five crises coming together = C 5. In this perspective, watching these leaders, Western ones in particular, deliver self-congratulatoryspeeches and answers to journalists on the outcomes of the G20 and the NATO Summits is almostunbearable. Apart from the reflective,...

by the greatest economist of all time, John Maynard Keynes. The mechanism for doing this is to expand the issue of what the IMF calls Special Drawing Rights, what Keynes considered to be “paper gold”. At Thursday’s summit of the G 20 in London this is one of the important items on the agenda. SDRs could be a major contribution to the world’s crisis of liquidity and lack of demand. Moreover, some members of the G 20 are going to support the revolutionary suggestion made earlier this month by Zhou Xiaochuan, the boss of China’s central bank, to use SDRs as a worldwide reserve currency to replace the Dollar and the Euro, at present the two most important world reserve currencies. What do the fairies have to do with it? SDR’s are created almost literally at the stroke of a pen – an accounting transaction within a ledger of accounts...

This April the US-American radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal will celebrate his 55th birthday – the 27th on death row. For 27 years he has been struggling to get the legal possibility to be able to prove his innocence.Amnesty International has dedicated one of their rare personal reports to his case in 2000, listing one hair-raising judical scandal after the next, and in consequence ending the repot with the strong demand for a new trial – a demand the organisation is emphazising to this day. The never-ending story is finally reaching the fringes of it’s end.As the very last legal possibility Abu-Jamal’s case is waiting at the US Supreme Court to be allowed to be heard. The prosecution, however, is not giving in and has demanded the re-installment of the death penalty, lifted in December 2001, and have Abu-Jamal executed without further legal examination. Please sign the new online petition to...

29 november, 2009 Replik till artikel om kriget i Afghanistan av Jens Orback, Generalsekreterare för Olof Palmes Internationella Center,Aftonbladet 11. november 2009 Efter massmordet den 11 september 2001 måste USA:s president (vem han än hade varit) för att överleva ta en fruktansvärd hämnd. De flesta av gärningsmännen, inklusive den förmodade ledaren, var saudiska och aktionen hade planerats i Tyskland, men inget av de länderna gick att bomba, så det blev Afghanistan som blev offret. USA utpekade Osama bin Laden som ledare och Afghanistan som hans tillhåll (dock utan att framlägga några bevis) och fick säkerhetsrådet med på en resolution som ställde krav på Afghanistan, men inte på någon resolution som bemyndigade krig. NATO:s medlemmar uttalade samstämmigt sitt stöd med hänvisning till NATO-stadgans paragraf 5 om att ett angrepp på en är ett angrepp på alla. USA hade två år tidigare vid angreppet på Jugoslavien lärt hur besvärligt det är att...

The Satyagraha Centenary: New Delhi, 29-30 January 2007 Today 59 years ago a bullet put an end to the physical life of that genius grown out of Indian soil. A spiritual earthquake shook us all. And far away from Birla Gardens, in Norway, a 17 year old boy, almost ignorant of Gandhi, was weeping, something he rarely did. The boy was me, and that was my spiritual birth. I became a Gandhi scholar, a peace researcher and peace worker, and the comments on our session’s topics is a mini-payback. Gandhi gave us that invaluable gift, satyagraha, to cling to satya. For Gandhi satya was an essence bridging the concepts of God, Love and Truth, uniting the spiritual, the emotional and the cognitive–not putting them in separate compartments as we do in the West, banning the first two from research and science. How can this guide us to the essence of...

Hans Blix – pålitlig som en Volvo Hans BlixAVVÄPNA IRAKÖversättning Ulla DanielssonBonnier Fakta, Stockholm 2004 Få svenskar har spelat en så framträdande roll i den värld som följde efter det kalla krigets slut som Hans Blix, under en dramatisk tid chef för UNMOVIC, FN:s vapeninspektörer i Irak. Många minns säkert hans dramatiska framträdanden i FN:s säkerhetsråd under början av 2003 i offentliga möten, globalt direktsända i TV. Den gången vägdes hans ord på guldvåg. Skulle Blix tal innehålla den “rykande pistol”, det bevis på dolda massförströrelsevapen som världen fruktade – eller förväntade sig? Den 30 mars utkom på svenska hans “Avväpna Irak”, en skildring av det dramatiska förspelet till kriget, sett ur Blix’ perspektiv. Boken ger intrikata inblickar i det diplomatiska och politiska spelet bakom kulisserna, inte minst av hur en del politiker i Bushadminstrationen på olika sätt försöker manipulera vapeninspektörerna för att få stöd för ett krig som man...

Jan Oberg – TFF director and co-founder April 19, 2011 Part I It is a safe assumption that people in general neither like nor love war. They prefer peace, and major organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union state that their highest aim is world peace. There are distinguished prizes for peace, and peace people like M. K. Gandhi, Luther King Jr., Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela to name a few are revered by everyone. There is nothing similar for those who bomb, kill and rape. In consequence all wars and security and defence policies are legitimated by noble motives, among them the wish to maintain or create peace. In the recent case of Libya surprisingly few have protested compared with, say, the war on Iraq. From right to left, men and women, human rights and peace movements as well as scores of intellectuals have – admittedly...

With regard to the latest US presidential elections, like many times before, we as a public remain introvert and autistic in Macedonia. The only matters that Macedonians care about consist of the “name issue” (the dispute between Macedonia and Greece over the name), partisan and ethnic divides as well as European integrations. That is where our interest for the rest of the world ends. The presidential elections were followed as far as they concerned the White House’s attitude towards Macedonia. Quite typically for a weak state that turns away from its responsibility to face the ugly truth about its being accomplice in the worst war crimes Bush left behind as his legacy, Iraq for instance. Thus it’s hardly surprising that Macedonia has been spared the wave of Obamamania and the faith in the “new dawn”, which is expected to bless this sad and ugly world. Unlike in the rest of...

December 15, 2010 Farhang Jahanpour The latest batches of WikiLeaks files do not reveal anything unexpected or exciting, or anything that most people who have an interest in international politics did no already know. All that they do is simply to confirm some open secrets. In her ground breaking 1963 work, Eichman in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil the late Hannah Arendt talked about the “banality of evil”. She showed that when you see the evil monsters who have committed untold atrocities in flesh and in the dock, not only do they not look very impressive and imposing; on the contrary, they look like a bunch of miserable and pitiful cowards. In the same way, the new documents reveal the banality of politics and of most politicians. Many people have a rather rosy and exaggerated view of their politicians, thinking that although they may not be honest, at least they are...

Hans von Sponeck, Annabel McGoldrick, Richard Falk, Vicky Rossi, Christian Hårleman, Annette Schiffmann, Jan Oberg, Christina Spännar Mr. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-GeneralThe United NationsS-3800, United Nations,New York, N.Y. 10017, USA Strengthening the UN Charter’s norms and ethics Post-Cold War warfare, interventionism and the war on terror have caused an unprecedented erosion of the norms and values of the Charter and thus weakened the UN. The first sentence of the Charter Preamble – “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” – can be interpreted as an argument for the abolition of war. Article 1.1 states that peace shall be brought about by peaceful means; military means can be used only when everything else has been tried in vain. Further, Article 99 and 100 provide your office with special powers and the right of neutrality. It is of great importance, we believe, that the world be reminded once again of the independence of your office and that policy...

Marianne With Bindslev, Poliiken.dk, 19 december 2003EU mister folkelig gejstStrid om blandt andet Irakkrigen har blotlagt EU som en institution med mange ord og lidt handling, og det smitter af på befolkningens tillid til unionen. Poul Husted, Politiken.dk, 19 december 2003Iraks nye hær i opløsningMenneskeretsgrupper kritiserer de irakiske dommere for ikke at have den fornødne baggrund. Anders Jerichow & Adam Hannestad, Politiken.dk, 19 december 2003Dansk plan for atabisk demokratiRegeringen gør op med årtiers tilbageholdenhed over for arabiske lande. Nu skal 100 millioner kroner fremme reformer, støtte en fri presse og sikre menneskerettigheder. Henrik Kaufholz & Thomas Lauritzen, Politiken.dk,19 december 2003EU-veteran: Et lykkeligt sammenbrud for EuropaBritisk EU-ekspert mener, at unionen står i en meget alvorlig krise. Vibeke Sperling, Politiken.dk, 19 december 2003Vinde på anklagebænken i HaagMilan Babic, leder af et blodigt forsøg på at løsrive Krajina fra Kroatien, har vidnet imod Milosevic, men onsdag indledte Haag-domstolen en sag imod ham. Marc...