Archive 1986 – 2017

LONDON – Two questions: Do we all accept that present day outbursts of ethnic hatred are due more to leadership manipulation than ancient animosities? And are we prepared, as a counter to this, to subordinate national loyaltiesbefore a law that transcends individual cultures and societies? If the answer is yes to both then common sense suggests there should be no roadblocks in the way of bringing to a speedy conclusion the negociations that opened in Rome this week to finalize the details on the establishment of a World Criminal Court, a body that will have the right to bring the likes of Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Pol Pot and Radovan Karadzic to justice. It is, no less, the most exciting judicial idea to come on the world scene since the writing of the American Bill of Rights in 1791. But we are not dealing with common sense. We are dealing with...

New Book from the United Nations University andthe International Peace Research Association, IPRA,edited by Chadwick F. Alger All desiring to be challenged to think creatively about potential for coping with a growing array of global problems will find this volume to be stimulating reading. Penetrating analyses of past and present experience in a broad array of “laboratories” in the UN system are pointed toward illuminating future potential. Twenty-two scholars from all continents contribute twelve chapters thatencompass prevention of violence, creating economic and social structures that sustain human fulfillment, sharing and protecting the commons and peace education. The search for future potential, based on experience in these twelve “laboratories”, leads to sixty-six recommendations for new institutions and programs on issues that include controlling weapons, humanitarian intervention, collaboration between UN peacekeepers and NGOs, human rights, economic policies, advancement of women, refugees, ecological security, communications, and peace education. These recommendations are brought together...

LONDON– If there had been no president Suharto there would have been no invasion and annexation of East Timor. Now he’s deposed, one of the world’s dwindling number of territorial injustices can be remedied in a week-end’s negociations–the leadership of East Timor is ready and waiting. If President B.J. Habibie, Suharto’s step-in, won’t do it then a newly elected president in the elections now being pushed for early next year will have to, if a new war is to be avoided. Indonesia invaded East Timor, a Portuguese colony in the Indonesian archipelago in December, 1975. It was a massive assault, involving bombers, paratroopers and marines. The army wrecked havoc; there were indiscriminate killings and rape. Later, the Indonesian vice-governor admitted that 60,000 Timorese had been killed–more than a tenth of the population. For too long the sounds of protest have been next to inaudible. But, gradually, the penny has dropped as...

LONDON– The only surprise is why Bill Clinton was surprised. People, even non-expert journalists like myself have seen the Indo/Pakistani bombs coming for a long time. (see columns of April 8th and April 15th). John Kennedy would not be surprised. He foresaw 20 to 30 nuclear bomb powers by the year 2000. Nevertheless, it will go down as one of the great shocks of the twentieth century. It is going to consume the minds and the political energies of the best and the brightest of the twentyfirst century how to avoid a cataclysmic nuclear war between these two antagonistic neighbours who rub elbow to elbow 365 days a year in one of the most densely populated parts of the world and how to avoid a struggle for power and hegemony between the two giants that are going to dominate the world in the future, India and China. Clinton, to my knowledge,...

“Most of what you hear from Croatia and the Balkansnowadays is negative. The good news is that it is possibleto bring young Croats and Serbs together and help themdevelop an atmosphere of trust, tolerance andreconciliation. It gives us hope,” says Jan Oberg, head ofTFF’s conflict-mitigation team, returning from thefoundation’s 30th mission to what was onceYugoslavia. Last month TFF conducted a series of reconciliationseminars in Eastern Slavonia with 120 Croat and Serbgymnasium students from Vukovar, Osijek and Vinkovci. Formost of them it was the first time they left “their” townand met “the other side.” Various techniques such as fishbowl, role play, groups discussions and brainstorming wereused. The students got to know each other and exchangedviews, made friends and sang songs. They cried when anyonewho so wanted told about the hurt and pain and what he orshe had experienced during the war; they did so withstatements like “I experienced, in my family…”...

We have redesigned TFF’s site to achieve shorterdownloading time, easier navigation, increased visualclarity and better print-outs. What has changed?You will find a new basic structure, a cover pageand site map, navigation bars and more illustrations and aconsistent colour design. It’s simply more readable! What has not changed?The high quality and broad scope, the unique TFFimage, the frequent featuring of new materials to make thiswebsite one of the most dynamic in the trade. This comprehensive site has the following sub-divisions: • SITE MAP – easy overview for you: • NEW – updates and links to the leading daily world news sites. • TFF – Associates, projects, results, Newsletters, Annual Report and TFF Friends. • FORUMS with three sub-divisons: MeetingPoint with topical themes and debate; Jonathan Power’sweekly columns and the 10th TFF Anniversary Collection ofarticles on the post-Cold era. • FEATURES – covering interesting activities, appeals and documents from around the world....

“Many people, particularly in politics and the media,seem to believe that peace will unfold when conflictingparties stop fighting and sign a ceasefire or peaceagreement. Nothing could be more wrong. It is sad enough tosee wars raging, but for professionals inconflict-resolution it is almost as sad to see how limitedthe understanding, the philosophy and the general capacityis for overall postwar peacebuilding,” says TFF director JanOberg. “Postwar trust- and peacebuilding has at least two dimensions: 1) Former enemies seek to clarify what happened and why,to find out what it meant to themselves and the others andlearn to live with the harm and pain. In short, notforgetting or concealing but living on with memories,forgiveness and reconciliation. This is basically anindividual process. 2) To develop normal relations, partly re-constructingthe past (e.g. infrastructure and houses) but also buildingsomething new for the future; it is about securing that theold conflict will not return. In short, violence-preventionand...

“Postwar initiatives can help prevent future policies ofrevenge, violence and outbursts of repressed traumas. It ispossible to develop policies of reconciliation andtrust-building and take initiatives which encourage citizensto take steps toward forgiving. One such initiative could bethe setting up of history and school book commissions. Atruthful approach to history is a vital element in shaping afuture together and help the next generations livepeacefully in spite of what happened,” says TFF director JanOberg. In societies which have gone through civil wars, one ormore parties can choose to be triumphalistic, punishing orhumiliating, an option often chosen by winners. They canalso decide to be reconciliatory and tolerant and helpinnocent citizens irrespective of the side to which theybelong and thus set an example for the young who will befuture leaders. Reconciliation speech can replace hatespeech. This choice depends on the types of atrocities committed,on the configuration between winners and losers, if any. Itdepends on...

MADRID–The American columnist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann once remarked that, in politics, there can be no concluding chapter because there is always more future out in front than recorded history behind. At no point is there a pause when all problems, upheavals and conflicts are solved and every good idea finds its proper place. In Asia, with the overthrow of Suharto and the detonation of the Indian H-bomb we have just had another jolting reminder of the truth of this observation. At the same time, barely noticed, in Latin America there is another event afoot that reaffirms the other side of political life, the often successful quest for a more ordered, self-disciplined and farsighted world, that certainly India and Pakistan could benefit from in their own fraught relationship over Kashmir and Indonesia likewise with its continued occupation of East Timor. Very soon one of the world’s last remaining inter-state...

LONDON–Almost a year after the British left Hong Kong this self-contained part of China– the Special Administrative Region to be precise–goes to the polls. Against the din of India’s nuclear explosion, the slow, but probably sure, toppling of Sukarno in Indonesia and the economic crisis in east Asia (which is now spilling over into Hong Kong) the question of how much democracy is going to be allowed to be practised in Hong Kong seems to be on everyone’s back-burner. Even the people of Hong Kong, who not that long ago came out on the streets en masse (one million out of a population of six million) to protest the killings in Tiananman Square, seem subdued- -or resigned. Perhaps this is a good sign. The transition from British to Chinese rule has gone not with a bang but a whimper in large measure because Beijing has been extraordinarily sensitive about not...

LONDON–The centre cannot hold–that has been the received wisdom since in 1921 the protestant bulwark of Northern Ireland was detached from the rest of this catholic- dominated, Irish island and incorporated into the United Kingdom. Now the historic peace agreement between the mainstream protestant unionists and Sinn Fein, the political front of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, will be put to the test in next week s referendum. It is not a simple choice between the ballot or the bullet, for Sinn Fein has long had a dual Armalite and ballot box strategy. Even now the decommissioning of the IRA’s formidable arsenal has been allowed a two year grace period, enough for the IRA to see if it gets anything out of this deal. But the accord has put the ballot box on a higher pedestal than the bullet and reverses a long-standing, almost sacred, position of Sinn Fein/IRA...

LONDON–“Some frontiers are only in the imagination” wrote Jan Morris in her “Fifty Years of Europe”. Prince Metternich used to say the frontier of Asia was at the Landstrasse, the street which ran towards Hungary away from Vienna’s city walls. It is also said that Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of West Germany after World War 2, held similar feelings about Prussia. He was a Rhinelander, and whenever his train crossed the Elbe, on its way eastward to Berlin, he too would groan, “Hier beginnt Asia”, and pull the blinds down. After last week-end’s momentous event, the launching of the single currency, the Europeans now have to consider where they go next. Do they in fact need frontiers within Europe any more? If they can come this far, shouldn’t they let their imaginations work further and complete the journey to a United States of Europe? By any measure of history...