Archive 1986 – 2017

Den danske diplomat, Søren Jessen-Petersen, er den højeste autoritet i Kosovo. Han er SRSG, FN-generalsekretær Kofi Annan’s særlige repræsentant dér. Alligevel virker hans ubetingede støtte til Ramush Haradinaj – tidligere leder af Kosovos illegale befrielseshær (KLA) og nu tidligere statsminister det Kosovo, der folkeretligt tilhører Serbien og nu anklaget for krigsforbrydelser af domstolen i Haag – ikke at bekymre nogen af de store medier ej heller FN-hovedkvarteret i NewYork. (Alle relevante links findes her) Søren Jessens-Petersens omfavnelse af Haradinaj I en udtalelse i forbindelse med Haradinajs afgang lovpriser Jessen-Petersen ham for hans “dynamiske lederskab, stærke engagement og visioner”. Han siger at takket være dette “er Kosovo i dag nærmere end nogensinde ved at lykkes med sine bestræbelser for at stadfæste en fremtidig status”. Han kalder ham sin “nære partner og ven”. Selv om statsminister Haradinajs omstændigheder tvang ham til frivilligt at tage til Haag, lovpriser Kofi Annans repræsentant ham for...

LONDON – A path being beaten to The Hague war crimes’ tribunal? It has almost become a road, such is the traffic. Since October, 12 alleged war criminals have made their own way to Holland to hand themselves over. They are mostly Serbs, but last week it was the turn of Ramush Haradinaj, the former prime minister of Kosovo, accused of crimes against his territory’s Serb minority. This week the Croatian government will probably be told that it has lost its chance of being considered for European Union membership since it hasn’t persuaded General Ante Gotovina to turn himself in. The penny is beginning to drop that you can’t do such dastardly deeds and strut your stuff in your hometown forever more. Something has profoundly changed in international relations which augurs well for the future of international justice and the diminishing of future conflicts. One lesson is being learnt, but...

Den danske diplomaten Søren Jessen-Petersen är högsta myndighet i Kosovo och är SRSG där, dvs FN:s generalsekreterare Kofi Annans särskilde representant. Trots detta verkar det inte som om det i någon huvudstad, i mederna eller i FN i New York höjs ett enda ögonbryn när han förbehållslöst tar herr Ramush Haradinaj i famnen, denne före detta ledare för den olagliga Kosovos Befrielsearmé (UCK) och före detta premiärminister i det icke-oberoende Kosovo som nu åtalats för krigsförbrytelser av Haagtribunalen. Relevanta länkar här Søren Jessen-Petersen tar Haradinaj i famn I ett uttalande med anledning av Haradinajs avgång lovordade Jessen-Petersen honom för hans “dynamiska ledarskap, starka engagemang och vision” och sade att “Kosovo står i dag närmare än någonsin att uppnå sin strävan att få till stånd en lösning av sin framtida ställning”. Han kallade honom sin “nära medarbetare och vän”. Trots att premiärministern inte hade något annat val än att frivilligt bege...

Det internationella samfundet orar sig, rått uttryckt, för att till slut ställas inför i stort sett samma utmaningar från vännerna efter 1999 som ledarna i Belgrad, fast mycket värre, eftersom Milosevic trots allt aldrig lovade Kosovo något slags oberoende. Skulle du läsa dette just nu om du inte hade nytta av det? Få fler kvalitetsartiklar ifrån TFF i framtiden Det internationella samfundet i allmänhet och säkerhetsrådet i synnerhet kan inte samla sig till en insats, utom i ett avseende eftersom det bidrar till att skyla över det egna misslyckandet: skyll på Belgrad för allt som gått snett de senaste tio åren och lovorda albanerna i rollen som oskyldiga offer. Sådan är den politiska psykologin bakom bakom rubrikerna och uttalandena. Ta parti för den ena och försök hur som haver att se ut som opartisk medlare och förhandlingsledare. Nå, det kan Jessen-Petersen inte längre vara. Hans uttalanden är ett pyramidalt misstag...

Dr. Eisler spoke in Germany at the invitation of Prof. Rita Suessmuth, President of the Bundestag (the German Parliament) and Daniel Goeudevert (Chair of Volkswagen International, who wrote the Foreword to the German Edition of Eisler’s international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade). She was invited to Greece by another TFF Associate Margarita Papandreou (the First Lady). She spoke in Colombia, invited by the Mayor of Bogota, and in the Czech Republic, invited by Vaclav Havel (President of the Czech Republic). She addressed the NGO Forum of the End of the First U.N. Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi, Kenya and was a plenary speaker at the 2004 Barcelona Women’s Forum. She keynoted the Seventh Annual Conference of State Governors’ Spouses. She made a major presentation at the Second Centennial Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, and has addressed a wide range of audiences. In 1999, she spoke at the Club of...

The Kosovo Solution SeriesBy Aleksandar Mitic & Jan ObergOn March 24, 2005 it was six years since NATO bombs to create peace began to fall. What peace is there today? What will there be tomorrow? PressInfo 209-218, April 8, 2005The Kosovo Solution Series – all in one place10 analyses of the future of Kosovo.Referred to by Reuters as the place you can learn more. And on top of Transitions Online, TOL. PressInfo 209-218, April 27, 2005 The Kosovo Solution SeriesAll the 10 articles, 58 pages, 340 KB in pdf formatNow widely featured in Balkan media, posted or mentioned on leading European sites, Reuters, Transitions Online, EUActive, EuropeanVoice, etc. It circulates European embassies and international organisations. The pdf edition is free but please make an honour payment here when you download and print it out. Feature Collection, March 2005 and ongoing The Accumulating Crisis in KosovoMany links to evidence of the crisis, to...

LONDON – Fifteen white Zimbabwean farmers, their land taken from them in one of the most badly conceived land reform programs ever enacted, announced recently that they have been invited to start farming in Nigeria where land is both plentiful and, by tradition, reasonably fairly distributed. Land reform has been given a bad name in Zimbabwe where the most modern and productive farmers have been summarily stripped of their titles for no other reason than the color of their skin. In Venezuela, likewise, a typical Latin American country still mired in its feudal division of land, its mercurial president, Hugo Chávez, is stirring the issue of land seizures, a policy that is more beholden to his short term electoral needs than to any long term thought-out policy for diminishing rural poverty and inequality. Yet careful land reform is an absolute must in many countries – in Nepal where a dangerous...

LONDON – How is the ordinary mortal able to make up his mind on whether Iran is developing nuclear weapons or not, and if so whether this poses a serious threat to Israel or other neighbors? After all, as Hans Blix, the UN’s former chief nuclear weapons’ inspector, famously said about Iraq’s supposed nuclear armory, there was nothing to stop Saddam Hussein hanging up a sign “Beware of the dog”, even if there was no dog. Moreover, even if Iran does have or almost have the capability to build a few nuclear weapons who would they use them against in a real life situation, as opposed to the make believe scenarios that game playing strategists love to create? Against Israel, Europe or the U.S.? But these putative antagonists all have enough submarines, hardened silos and nuclear missiles to ensure a second strike ability that would wipe Iran off the face...

In an interview on CNN on 2. January, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Colorado was asked the question on everyone’s mind: Why was no warning issued to the countries that were hit by a tsunami after NOAA detected the strong earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra on 26. December? He responded that first of all, there was no warning system in place, there was nobody in those countries to receive the message. Second, NOAA did not have a precise model of the tsunami and could not have known how many need to evacuate. It does not take an expensive warning system to suspect that this magnitude 9 earthquake under the sea might be followed by a tsunami, and that thousands of people’s lives along the densely populated coast lines facing the epicenter could be in danger. A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Lituya Bay...

Det udstiller falskheden i militærets retfærdiggørelse af sig selv som “forsvarer af liv”. Skyder man en politibetjent i USA, står man til dødsstraf. Men det, at have ansvaret for en stor del af de næsten 250.000 som døde under tsunamien ved at tilbageholde livsvigtig information fra dem betragtes ikke nu som en forbrydelse, selv om det er langt mere alvorligt. Nogle af dem, der har mistet en slægtning eller en ven i tsunamien, burde anlægge en retssag mod dem, der vidste besked, men undlod at informere de mennesker, der var i fare, inklusive den militære øverstkommanderende på Diego Garcia og måske endda Pentagon. Der er ikke store chancer for at de ville vinde retssagen, men den ville få en masse opmærksomhed og således hjælpe med at styrke debatten om militærets rolle i vor verden. Den følgende artikel argumenterer for, at selv uden et officielt tsunamivarslingssystem i Det indiske Ocean, så...

Se även MSNBCs nyhetsrapport “Tsunamin skonar Amerikansk bas på ön Diego Garcia”, och Eric Widells “Varför blev vi inte varnade?”, samt dessa frågor från en professor i journalistik på Independent Journalists Online. Dessa rapporter slår fast att den amerikanska militärbasen på Diego Garcia tog emot en varning om den stundande tsunamin men höll inne med informationen. Det är nu klarlagt att denna varning inte blev vidarebefordrad. Detta brott av aldrig förut skådat slag måste avslöjas. Diego Garcia som alltså är en Amerikansk Flottbas ingår i Stilla Havets tsunami-varningssystem, trots att den är förlagd i Indiska Oceanen. Varningssystemets medlemmar blev informerade om tsunamin i Indiska Oceanen av USAs Nationella Havs- och Atmosfärsadministration (NOAA) i Colorado, men att den inte skulle innebära någon fara för Stilla Havsområdet. (Se John Pilgers 56 minuter långa video om Diego Garcia, “Stealing a Nation”. Ön har spelat en central roll för de militära aktionerna mot Afghanistan...

The hard facts of the scandal Here is an article by TFF Associate Michel Chossudovsky that shows that “Washington was aware that a deadly tidal wave was building up in the Indian Ocean.” It forms an important part of Richard Norton-Taylor’s article here in The Guardian. There is also this news report by MSNBC, Tsunami spares U.S. base in Diego Garcia. And, finally, read Eric Wadell’s Why weren’t they warned? These reports confirm that the US military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean received a warning of the impending tsunami, but civilians did not. As we know now, the warning was not passed on. This is a crime of unprecedented proportions and should be exposed.* Diego Garcia, as a US Navy Base, is a member of the PACIFIC tsunami warning system, even though it is located in the Indian Ocean. Its members were informed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Colorado that there...