Archive 1986 – 2017

Är det inte otroligt att de nya utrikespolitiska moralister, som anser sig förespråka mänskliga rättigheter, demokrati och fred, och som spenderade obegränsade summor på krigföring, idag inte bryr sig om att frambringa det minimum av finansiella medel som krävs för återskapandet av fred i Kosovo? Detta är vad FN:s “UN Wire” rapporterade den 3 februari, 2000 &endash; bara ett år efter “freds”-processens började i Rambouillet. Detta vittnar, ännu en gång, om hur detta inter-cyniska samfund verkligen fungerar. “UNMIK har inga pengar, säger Kouchner. FN har inte råd att betala sina tjänstemän i Kosovo, meddelar FN administratören Bernard Kouchner idag. I ett samtal i “Japan Press Club” i Tokyo med journalister hävdar Kouchner att FN-missionen i Kosovo (UNMIK) står inför en total krissituation, punkt. Vi måste betala tjänstemännen.” Somliga av arbetarna har inte fått lön i flera månader, och “det finns 0.00 D-mark i budgeten för Kosovo år 2000”, fortsatte Kouchner....

We are leaving behind a century with a horrible reputation. There have been many manifestations of occidental fundamentalist faith in truths that justify killing, repressing, exploiting and alienating millions, even billions: the colonialism/imperialism spearheaded by this country; genocidal hitlerism and stalinism; the blind forces of world, particularly american capitalism now even presenting itself as “globalization”; the (also occidental) islamic, counter-fundamentalism; and some similar practices in Japan and China. There has been an increasing litany of war and violence, some of it today even presented as “humanitarianism”. There were shining lights. Two geniuses, Freud and Jung, penetrated the individual and collective human subconscious. A third genius, Gandhi, followed by King Jr and Mandela, explored the enormous potential of nonviolence. The first two, both Westerners, probed the roots of evil in the darkest recesses of the soul; the other three, none of them western whites, expanded the perimeters of the soulforce of...

With Steve Marks (now the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health) professor Burns Weston has recently published: “The Future of International Human Rights” (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 1999). The book can be purchased directly from our publisher, Transnational Publishers, Inc., in Ardsley, New York either by phone (1-800-914-8186) or via their Web site (http://www.transnationalpubs.com) at the list price of $115. The book was conceived as a way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UDHR and seeks to envisage the future of international human rights through both an analysis of existing human rights norms, institutions, and procedures, and the projection of preferred future trends in these realms. It consists of 13 provocative essays plus a foreword by UNHCHR Mary Robinson and a poem by award-winning Iowa poet Marvin Bell (“The Dead Have Nothing to Lose by Telling the Truth”). The authors and...

LONDON- Couldn’t the contestants in the U.S. presidential primaries toss us in the rest of the world just one crumb? For example, in this foreign policy starved contest, a serious discussion about whether they are planning, if elected, to make a unilateral abrogation of one of most important international treaties in existence, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. It was negotiated and signed on behalf of the U.S. and the Soviet Union by presidents Nixon and Brezhnev and described ever since by presidents on both sides as “the cornerstone of the strategic relationship”. One would perhaps think that the electors of the world’s single superpower might press the candidates on this point, not just because a good part of the rest of the world is hanging on an answer, but because it will profoundly affect their own country’s relationship not just with Russia but with China and Europe. Indeed, one could add...

“Isn’t it amazing that the new moralists who profess to protect human rights, democracy and peace and who spent unlimited funds on warfare now don’t even bother to provide the UN with the minimum funds to bring peace to Kosovo? The UN urgently needs US$ 102 million. That equals what Sweden spent on sending 860 soldiers to Kosovo. This is what the United Nations Foundation “UN Wire” reported on February 3, 2000 – about a year after the Rambouillet “peace” process began. It is yet another proof of the inter-cynical community’s mode of operation,” says Jan Oberg. – – – – – – “UNMIK Out Of Money, Kouchner Says The United Nations has no money to pay its civil servants in Kosovo, UN administrator Bernard Kouchner said today. Speaking to reporters at the Japan Press Club in Tokyo, Kouchner said the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is “facing an emergency,...

NATO’s two main justifications for bombing Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds have been refuted by the Western alliance’s own official figures and documentary evidence. These justifications rest on two central premises:1) the alleged indiscriminate mass killings of Albanian civilians (premise number one);2) the implementation of a deliberate policy of mass deportations or “ethnic cleansing” (premise number two). “Premise number one” has been invalidated by the FBI and European forensic teams working under the auspices of the Hague Tribunal (ICTY). The forensic and police investigators have uncovered several hundred bodies in grave sites in Kosovo as opposed to the 10,000 to 100,000 civilian massacres claimed by NATO and Western governments as a pretext for waging the War. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had announced that President Milosevic was “set on a Hitler style genocide equivalent to the extermination of the Jews during World war II”.1 “We’ve now seen about 100,000 military-aged men...

Soft conflict-resolution power is what distinguished columnist JONATHAN POWER writes about in his recentcolumn which you can find every week on TFF’s website https://transnational.live/ So much has gone wrong when governments intervene the hard way – or do nothing – in conflicts around the world. Opinion leaders increasingly know we have to find alternatives – that the last ten years have not brought peace and that the remedy is not more militarisation as the US, NATO, Russia and many others will have us believe. Fortunately there ARE philosophies, concepts, methods and institutions which point in the direction of impartial conflict analysis, soft approaches, respect for local civil society peace-makers. There are nonviolent methods and there are experts who listen to what all parties to a conflict have to tell and respect everybody’s fears and suffering. Many begin to see that World Bank loans and authoritarian ‘missions’ or ‘protectorates’ full off soldiers...

LONDON- Any advantage acting Russian president Vladamir Putin might have gained from being seen as the successful strongman is being whittled away by the day, as the war in Chechnya moves from its heroic phase of revenging the bombing of innocent civilians in Moscow and becomes one more drawn out, slog-in-the-mud, war of attrition, with not much prospect of quick victory. Once again, as before the last election, Chechnya is in danger of becoming an election albatross. Putin either has to have an immense stroke of luck in Chechnya or he has to announce that Russia has got what it wanted with the capture of Grozny and given the terrorists a smack on the nose they’ll never forget. So he is withdrawing his troops and switching off the spotlight. Who knows, he may even ask Alexander Lebed to fix it for him. The election issue is not going to be the...

Yet another evidence of TFF’s rapidly increasing international prestige is its opinion piece on CNN’s new “In Depth Special on Kosovo” – See http://europe.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/kosovo/stories/present/kfor/. It’s the third time TFF’s expertise is called upon by CNN; first during NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia and then before New Year, a longer conversation about the international community’s peacebuilding failure in today’s Kosovo/a. And now with this website feature “Misguided motives led to the chaos in Kosovo” under CNN*s heading “Missed Opportunities.” In the article TFF director Jan Oberg summarizes the Kosovo crisis through the 1990s and the foundation’s experience with conflict-mitigation there begnning 1991. In a few points, he outlines why NATO’s KFOR mission, the United Nations’ UNMIK mission and the OSCE are unlikely to succeed with building genuine peace in the Balkans. Writes Oberg: “The international community — a euphemism for a handful of top leaders — has historically been an integral party to...

LUND- It’s only a mom and pop shop, and it lives precariously on the edge of financial oblivion, but it is one of the very rare organisations of its kind. Like King Canute, from whose ancient capital it works, it attempts with one hand to hold back the waves of violence, conflict and war, and, with the other, the creditors. The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, (TFF), based in the ancient ecclesiastical and university town of Lund in the south of Sweden, combines research into the origins of human conflict and practical application as mediators in some of the high profile dramas of our age, first and foremost in ex-Yugoslavia, but also in Georgia and, most recently, in Burundi. The creation of an ex-academic political scientist, Professor Jan Oberg and his sociologist wife, Christina Spannar, it runs on a modest budget of $50,000 a year, but with a group...