Archive 1986 – 2017

LONDON – Tanzania has re-invented itself twice – the first time in 1964 after a bloody revolution had overthrown the Omani-descended Sultan who ruled the neighboring spice island of Zanzibar. Tanganyika, as it was then, persuaded the successful African-led rebels to join their island with the mainland, and Tanzania came into being. This union remains precarious because of latent Zanzibari nationalism after too many years of misrule. The second time was when Julius Nyerere, the founding father of independence, stepped down in 1985 and two successive presidents over the last twenty years have ushered in free market reforms, fundamentally altering the direction of a once moribund socialist economy. But the legacy of the Zanzibari revolution of 1964 and of Nyerere still hang over the country. Nyerere, who died four years ago, had been a teacher and he became what was in fact Tanzania’s headmaster. He was incorruptible, unpretentious but totally...

LONDON – I used to jog down the back roads of Jinja, the old cotton center laid bare by 15 years of murderous civil war. There was a dirt-covered sign pointing to a rutted road: “To the source of the Nile.” I would cut through the long grass and the sweet smell of jacaranda and frangipani, past the long abandoned Mango Café, and arrive at a sharp cleft in the hill. There, nestling below, the headwaters of the Nile burst into view. No wonder, I would think, that Winston Churchill called Uganda “the pearl of Africa, a fairy tale land”. But in mind’s eye I could see the future and now it has arrived. Two hotels have grabbed the spot. And there is a plan, well advanced, to build a dam to provide electricity for Uganda’s rushing economic development. The country’s untamed beauty, preserved by misrule and war, is being...

Summary: From “Only one solution” towards democracy and peace  Kosovo Solution Series # 10    PressInfo # 218  April 7, 2005 By Aleksandar Mitic, TFF Associate & Jan Oberg, TFF director   Kosovo is moving up again on the international agenda. The time to think about the framework, the alternatives and the consequences of the talks on the future status of Kosovo is now. Despite the highly unlikely possibility that Kosovo will be able to achieve in the next few months the key standards necessary to initiate the final status talks, it would be gullible to believe that these criteria will not be once again downsized, shrunk to fit the path to the status talks. Pro-Albanian lobbyists such as the International Crisis Group, Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress argue that “independence is the only option.” However, this option can also be seen as unjust, dangerous, archaic and...

For første gang i verdenshistorien har en president blitt valgt på et program om bruk av aktiv ikkevold. Abu Mazen benyttet hver eneste mulighet under valgkampanjen sin til å argumentere mot bruk av vold i kampen for et fritt Palestina. At han fikk 62 prosent av stemmene på et valgmanifest dominert av Ikkevold er en historisk hendelse, ikke bare i Palestina. Dette er unikt uansett hvilket land man studerer. Ifølge Abu Mazen har den andre intifadaen bare skapt palestinerne en dårligere situasjon for det palestinske folk. Bruken av selvmordsbombere, bilbomber, raketter og andre væpna angrep har ikke ført fram mot den overlegne krigsmaskinen til Israel. Nå er spørsmålene om han får fremganger i sin forhandlingslinje med Israel og om han på alvor vil benytte ikkevoldelige motstand i kampen mot okkupasjonen. Problemene er mange og det er vanskelig å være optimist selv om det er en åpning for flere møter på...

A review of Soros’ book, The Bubble of American Supremacy George Soros must be a disappointed man. In the book, “The Bubble of American Supremacy”, that he published last year he admits that he has usually been rather indifferent between different presidential candidates, but sees the 2004 election in a very different light: “I have made it my primary objective to persuade the American public to reject President Bush in the forthcoming elections” (p. viii). He probably even succeeded in his avowed purpose. The exit polls in Ohio and elsewhere showed Kerry as a clear winner, whereas the official election results proclaimed George W. Bush as the winner. The more detailed figures were analysed by a group of very respected mathematicians and statisticians, and show beyond reasonable doubt that there was gross and systematic electronic election fraud, even if they of course cannot tell exactly who were involved in what ways. If...

Flera författare har frammanat bilder av Jesu återvändande till vår jord och brukar då berätta hur illa han råkade ut, och ett antal goda vitsar föreställer sig kända politiker i samma predikament. Hur skulle det då gå för en filosof? “Platons tilbakekomst” är ett försök av journalisten och författaren Zeljko Vukovic att ge oss en bild av det. Vukovic är väl kvalificerad: som journalist ställde han så många opassande frågor att samtliga grupper i Bosnien blev arga på honom och han tvangs fly till Norge. Flera av hans böcker sedan “Mordet på Sarajevo” (1993) har översatts från serbiska till norska och andra språk. Boken låter Platon dyka upp på ett antal olika platser för att komma i samtal med folk: hos Vita Husets säkerhetsvakt och en saxofonspelande president, i en park med en tysk gymnasial punktjej, i en berömd fransk vänsterfilosofs parisvåning, hemma hos en arabisk arbetare i Marseilles och i en tysk...

Af Chalmers Johnson* March, 2005 From Japan Policy Research InstituteNo Longer the “Lone” Superpower. Coming to Terms with China by Chalmers Johnson Jeg kan huske for 40 år siden, mens jeg var ny professor og arbejdede med kinesiske og japanske internationale forhold, at Edwin O. Reischauer engang kommenterede: “Den store fordel ved vores sejr i 1945 var et permanent afvæbnet Japan”. Reischauer var født i Japan og historiker ved Harvard med Japan som speciale og arbejdede som amerikansk ambassadør i Tokyo under Kennedy og Johnson. Det føles underligt at konstatere at siden 1991 og specielt under George W Bush, har USA gjort alt, hvad der stod i deres magt for at opmuntre, ja endog accelerere japansk genoprustning. En sådan udvikling fremmer fjendtlighed mellem Kina og Japan, Østasiens to stormagter, saboterer mulige fredelige løsninger i de 2 problemområder, Taiwan og Nordkorea, der blev tilbage efter de kinesiske og koreanske borgerkrige og...

LONDON – It’s the working class who bear most of the cost of absorbing new immigrants, whether it be in France, the U.S. or Malaysia, but it is the middle class who dominate the debate, forging an alliance in its favor across the political spectrum- liberals who want to be multicultural, and conservatives, as Ronald Reagan used to, who argue for the free market and open borders. Two new academic reports challenge the conventional wisdom that immigration is an unalloyed good for the economies of developed societies. George Borjas, a Harvard professor of economics, has published a study for the Center of Immigration Studies in which he argues that when immigration increases the supply of workers the earnings of native-born workers fall significantly. A parallel study by two professors of economics at Colombia, Donald Davis and David Weinstein, shows that the net loss for native-born Americans is $70 billion each...

Kosovo Solution Series # 1 This is the first in a series of TFF PressInfos about Kosovo. It follows PressInfo 208 about the United Nations praising the potential war criminal, former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. Relevant background links for this series here. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As Kosovo these very days marks the anniversary of the massive anti-Serb violence of March 2004, the path towards talks on its final status appears set. The mainly Albanian populated province of southern Serbia has extradited its Prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, indicted for war crimes during the Kosovo conflict, to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Belgrade is doing the same with its own former generals indicted for war crimes during the conflict, thus paving the way for a positive stance by Brussels on its EU Feasibility Study. The roadblocks towards a true, negotiated and long-lasting agreement on Kosovo remain numerous, but should by no means prevent the international...

Fra serien “Løsninger på Kosovo” Dette er den første i en serie af TFF PressInfos om Kosovo. Den følger efter PressInfo 208, om at FN lovsynger den mistænkte krigsforbryder, tidligere premierminister Ramush Haradinaj. Relevante baggrundslinks til denne serie findes her. Officielt resumé I disse dage, et år efter den massive antiserbiske voldsbølge i marts 2004, ser det ud til, at vejen mod samtaler om den fremtidige status er udstukket. Provinsen i det sydlige Serbien, hvor befolkningen er overvejende albansk, har udleveret sin premierminister, Ramush Haradinaj, som er anklaget for krigsforbrydelser under Kosovokonflikten, til det internationale krigsforbrydertribunal i Haag. Beograd gør det samme med de af sine fhv. generaler, der anklages for krigsforbrydelser, hvorved vejen er banet for en positiv tilkendegivelse fra EU om Serbiens adgang til EU. Der er stadig mange forhindringer for en virkelig, forhandlet, langtidsholdbar aftale om Kosovo, men de skal ingenlunde forhindre det internationale samfund og de væsentlige parter i...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 10 Kosovo is moving up again on the international agenda. The time to think about the framework, the alternatives and the consequences of the talks on the future status of Kosovo is now. Despite the highly unlikely possibility that Kosovo will be able to achieve in the next few months the key standards necessary to initiate the final status talks, it would be gullible to believe that these criteria will not be once again downsized, shrunk to fit the path to the status talks. Pro-Albanian lobbyists such as the International Crisis Group, Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress argue that “independence is the only option.” However, this option can also be seen as unjust, dangerous, archaic and anti-European. The option of an “independent Kosova” implies that one of the sides (the Kosovo Albanians) would achieve its maximalist goal and that the other side (Belgrade...

Many models for a future Kosovo  Kosovo Solution Series # 9    PressInfo # 217  April 7, 2005 By Aleksandar Mitic, TFF Associate & Jan Oberg, TFF director   Four ways of making peace By way of starting, some words of caution. What’s the egg and what’s the hen in the question about the future status of Kosovo? What is form and what content, the means and the goals? People who strongly want independence tend to see that as both a means and the goal: “if only we become an independent state, everything will be fine.” There have been enough post-independence and post-colonial conflicts and wars in the world for anyone to see that this is not necessarily so. With the decision-making on the future status – form – moving to the top of the international agenda, it is likely to tilt the general attention away from issues of substance,...