Archive 1986 – 2017

The white, palatial house of the business dynasty, Birla, stands just a couple of kilometres from Connought Place, a well-known tourist attraction in the greenest area of Delhi. This is the place where Gandhi spent the last 144 dramatic days of his life. The museum in the building reflects his life and death. In the park, the visitor can follow the steps of his last walk. From the door of the plain, white painted room with a glass veranda where he lived there are cement footprints across the park to where he was murdered. Here the visitors go barefoot and silent. In the park, there are colossal trees with abundant birdlife, a sea of flowers, vast lawns, sculptures and a mural relief illustrating the history of India and the achievements of Gandhi. Birla House or “Gandhi Smriti” is an oasis, which is run lovingly in the spirit of Gandhi. Its...

“India cannot possibly make more progress leaning only on the spirit of Gandhi, but neither can it do so without it”.– Jan Oberg, director of TFF. Gandhi was murdered in New Delhi on Friday, the 30th of January, 1948. The next day his body was carried on a gun-carriage to the river Jamuna to be cremated, escorted by 4,000 soldiers, one thousand air force soldiers, and as many policemen. It was not a mere coincidence that the regime of the day “honoured” the country’s father of non-violence in this manner. I also think that there are obvious connections between this and the India of our days, with all its corruption, elitism and its nuclear weapons. I happened to arrive in Delhi on the 29th of January and I went to Rajghat, which is by the Jamuna river, to see the monument, Gandhi Samadhi, a giant cube in black marble with...

Kjell Magnusson, en av Sveriges främsta Balkan-experter, skrev en klok och välinformerad artikel OM konflikten i Makedonien, Baftije Mehmedi ett partsinlägg I konflikten. Bådadera hör hemma i en fri debatt, men bör inte förväxlas. Mehmedis tonläge gör nog karaktären av partsinlägg klart för de flesta. Grundläggande osanningar bör dock påpekas för dem som inte kan alla detaljer. Jag håller mig till Makedonien och låter Kosovo ligga. Uppgifterna om folkräkningar är osanna. År 1991 skattades den albanska befolkningen till 21 procent, vilket var högre än 1981. Den internationellt förberedda och kontrollerade folkräkningen 1994 kom upp till 23 procent. Då etniskt albanska kvinnor föder omkring sex barn och etniskt makedoniska litet över två, kan dagens tal rimligen vara c:a 27 procent. Bägge folkgrupperna har många utlandsarbetare, så eventuella skillnader i relativt antal kan högst förskjuta detta tal c:a en procent uppåt. Det har förekommit omfattande illegal invandring från Albanien och Kosovo, som...

Introduction All of us who share an interest in peace almost instinctively turn to study war in the search for answers that may open our ways to find alternatives, solutions and lessons that may be translated into nonviolence, absence of war and justice. But from where is it that we obtain, construct and weave our images of war? The use of history textbooks, television broadcasts and newspaper articles may be useful to a certain extent, but if our expectations and views ought to be challenged and enriched we should also consider the images of war and peace offered by literature. The Bhagavad-Gita, the exquisite text of Hindu culture, has endured for centuries communicating a deep understanding of mortality through the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. The profound and manifold teachings of the Gita can be taken to other cultures and contexts and can certainly be brought to assist our present concern...

The death from leukemia of eight Italian peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo sparked an uproar in the Italian Parliament, following the leaking of a secret military document to the Italian newspaper La Republicca. In Portugal, the Defense Ministry was also involved in what amounted to a deliberate camouflage of  “the cause of death” of Portuguese peacekeeper Corporal Hugo Paulino. “‘Citing “herpes of the brain’, the army refused to allow his family to commission a postmortem examination.”1 Amidst mounting political pressure, Defense Minister Julio Castro Caldas advised NATO Headquarters in November that he was withdrawing Portuguese troops from Kosovo: “They were not, he said, going to become uranium meat”. 2 As the number of cancer cases among Balkans “peacekeepers” rises, NATO’s cover-up has started to fracture. Several European governments have been obliged to publicly acknowledge the “alleged health risks” of depleted uranium (DU) shells used by the US Air Force in NATO’s...

The plunging airliners, commandeered by terrorists, ripped gaping holes in more than the towers of the World Trade Center. They ripped away the veneer of security that we believed surrounded us. We in America can never again feel secure in the same way.  We were vulnerable before the hurtling planes crashed into the World Trade Center, but we never stopped to think that this could happen to us. Now we understand our vulnerability, and our lives will never be the same.  What madmen seek to kill us? Are the plans for the next attacks already set in motion? Are there more suicidal phantoms, coiled like cobras, in our midst? We remain apprehensive with good reason.  Some Americans are calling for vengeance. But we are fighting phantoms, and our military power is not sufficient to assure an end to future threats. It will not be so easy to find these terrorists...

Imagine this: A Chinese airplane is spying on the United States. In a routine flight, it flies just off the coast of Hawaii, using its sophisticated electronic surveillance capabilities to gather intelligence. Since it is a dangerous world, the Chinese want to know what plans our military are making that might affect them. Naturally, our government is somewhat uncomfortable knowing that we are being spied on like this. Why, we wonder, are the Chinese spying on us? What are their intentions?  US planes regularly intercept Chinese reconnaissance planes, approaching within a safe distance. However, this time, one fighter pilot gets a little overzealous. There is a slight collision. Our plane goes down in the sea. Our pilot is lost at sea. The Chinese plane is damaged and makes an emergency landing on the island of Maui. There are 24 Chinese soldiers aboard the aircraft. They are taken into custody by...

Some have argued that we can never disinvent nuclear weapons and thus will have to live with them as long as civilization exists. But nobody has disinvented cannibalism either, we simply abhor it. We must now learn to abhor equally the thought of incinerating entire cities with nuclear weapons. The abolition of nuclear weapons with thorough verification is a totally realistic goal – we already have treaties banning biological and chemica weapons – and is necessary for human survival. Why ballistic missile defence is not the answer Reagan’s defence secretary Caspar Weinberger, arguing for ballistic missile defence (BMD), inadvertently provided a strong argument against it, saying, “If the Soviet Union got such a system first, we would face a grave danger, because they could launch their missiles without fear of retaliation.” The same, of course, is true in reverse. It is doubtful that such a system would ever work reliably,...

Åbent brev til statsministerAnders Fogh Rasmussen Kære Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Snart skal du holde din nytårstale til den danske befolkning. Vi vil opfordre dig til at se ud over dagen og vejen og fokusere på den store verden, som ligger uden for Danmark og EU. Her giver den uretfærdige fattigdom og de store sociale uligheder grobund for terrorisme, selvom forbindelsen ikke er entydig. USA’s krig mod terrorismen, som din regering har tilsluttet sig, truer både retssikkerhed og humanisme, fordi den bekæmper enkelte terrorister, men ikke terrorisme og dens rødder. Hvis demokratiske rettigheder, menneskerettigheder og medmenneskelighed kan tilsidesættes ved henvisning til, at “vi bekæmper terrorist-trusler”, så vil det lukke dét åbne samfund, der ellers kendetegner de vestlige demokratier. Krigen i Irak har gjort landet til en rede for terrorister. I et spind af uvidenhed, usandhed og politisk manipulation er Danmark blevet indrulleret i en ulovlig og moralsk uforsvarlig krig i Irak,...

It’s only a few months since we launched TNN – the TFF News Navigator. Now we open another new chapter, an online site “TFF Store & Donations.” Here you can do two things: a) Buy TFF and related publications, the whole list since 1986. b) Make donations to help TFF remain a free voice and become people-financed. Our aim is to make it easier for you to buy our publications – books and research reports – and to donate money to our peace research and field work. While we are energetic on Internet, we still believe in the printed word; we also know that many thought it was too costly and time-consuming to acquire our unique peace publications (you can’t buy them anywhere else). We also know that the foundation have thousands of supporters. We expect some of them to be willing to help us now. We must remain a constructive independent...

Bussen går – kanske – ifrån Delhi vid 17-tiden. Passagerarna är av två slag: tibetanska munkar och västliga backpackers. Vägen norrut ifrån Delhi är ett totalt trafikkaos. Tretton timmar senare är jag framme i Dharamsala på 1300 meters höjd i Himalaya, religiöst, politiskt och kulturellt centrum för ett par hundra tusen exiltibetaner spridda över Indien. Det är hur mörkt som helst. Jag sveper in mig i en enorm khadi-filt, inköpt på ett Gandhi-museum med tanke på kylan på dessa höjder. Bergsvägen är smal utan gatuljus och med igenbommade skjul. En sjal-silhuett dukar omärkligt upp och frågar var jag ska. Kashmir House, svarar jag, och fem minuter senare tar en minitaxi mig dit. Det är här jag tillsammans med mina vänner ifrån danska Center for Konfliktløsning ska undervisa unga exiltibetaner i konfliktförståelse och i hur den stora världen – som de har god grund att känna sig svikna av – fungerar....

Many changes in Sweden’s identity Interesting things are happening in Sweden. On November 28, 2000, the Swedish prime minister Goran Persson told Financial Times that Sweden is no longer a neutral country but that it remains militarily alliance-free. That was two weeks before the Swedish Parliament will focus a debate on the issue (December 13). The Social Democratic party program is under revision. Sweden shall no longer be “non-aligned in peace in order to be (able to be) neutral in war.” A main argument is that with the end of the two-bloc Cold War there is nobody to stand “neutral” between and no longer any reason to stand neutral. Only, Sweden will not formally join an alliance and be obliged to come to the rescue should another alliance member be attacked – – see Romano Prodi’s argument in TFF PressInfo 108. In the full glare of publicity the Chief of...