Archive 1986 – 2017

“Pligten er rettighedernes sande kilde.Handling er pligten; frugten er rettigheden.”Mohandas K. Gandhi, der døde for 50 år siden. Forsvaret for de menneskelige rettigheder (MR) er i rivende udvikling. Nationale centre, folkelige bevægelser, kulturpersonligheder, tribunaler og domstole, medier, solidaritetsgrupper, FN og andre mellemstatslige organer kappes om at etablere fakta, overvåge og rapportere, behandle krænkelser og kræve handling og straf samt genemføre projekter, som skal forebygge overgrebene og hjælpe ofrene. Dette er ubetinget godt. Der er til stadighed brug for vågne øjne overalt og for at befæste de normer, der er nedfældet i nationale og internationale aftaler og adskiller civilisation fra barbari. Det er også ukontroversielt idet man ikke kan være for MR-krænkelser. MR-politik bør dog diskuteres. Det forblir problematisk at universalisere de hovedsagligt vestlige MR- normer på tværs af kulturelle skillelinjer. Kan og skal én kulturs norm være gældende globalt eller skal en kærne eller fællesnævner, vi alle kan være enige...

LONDON–Clinton’s sex life in the White House is surely only his wife’s concern. It certainly shouldn’t spill over into the nation’s business and even more certainly it shouldn’t spill over into foreign affairs. And yet we have officials in the Kremlin telling the New York Times that “they were increasingly worried that President Bill Clinton, enmeshed in a deepening scandal at home, would attempt to assert his leadership abroad with a rapid military strike on Baghdad”. Pace, Moscow. There were some good and sound reasons for a military strike long before the scandal broke. If ever there was a case for using military force in the post-communist world this is probably it. There are no doubts about Saddam Hussein’s moral qualms–he has none. He has used poisonous gas not only during his war with Iran but against his own people. There are no doubts about his geopolitical ambitions–he has tried...

LONDON–The split at the top of the British government could not have come at a worst time. Just as Britain is stepping into the presidency of the European Union the unpleasant rivalry, until now sublimated, between the camps of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his effective number two, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has hit the political headlines, threatening to throw Britain’s young Labour government into spasms of internal conflict just as all its attention is needed for what is certainly to be the most difficult task of its period in office, constructing the right relationship with its European partners. The political calendar is turning fast and time is not on Britain’s side. What has been talked and negociated about for many years is going to reach its denouement in mere months. On May 10th a summit presided over by Mr Blair will decide the membership of the European...

LONDON–A circle is closed next week when the long awaited trip of the Pope to Castro’s Cuba finally takes place. 507 years after catholic Spain started the rape of the continent with an historic voyage that began from here, the Church in a new guise leads the charge to usurp the last outpost of Latin dictatorship and render it a member of the continent-wide family of democracies. Five hundred and seven years from Columbus to Castro is a long time to wait for democracy to arrive, especially when measured against the much earlier rapid progress of its northern cousins in the United States and Canada. And for that we have no one to thank but catholic Spain and catholic Portugal. North America was settled by pilgrims, idealists, political and religious refugees. They wanted to create a New World and democracy became the chosen instrument. It was flawed, of course. It...

Go to part B Dear Selected TFF PressInfo Recipient , It’s a pleasure for us to send you this PressInfo aboutthe Iraq crisis. During the build-up of the Iraq crisis, TFF initiatedan international e-mail brainstorm. We asked some 150peace researchers and conflict-resolution practitionersaround the world to respond, within four days, to thefollowing six questions: 1) WHAT IS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS CONFLICT? 2) WHY ARE WE ONCE AGAIN WITNESSING A MASSIVE MILITARY PROJECT THAT MEETS LITTLE DEBATE? 3) WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE UP TILL NOW – MID-FEBRUARY 98 – AND BY WHOM, TO PREVENT IT? 4)WHAT CAN STILL BE DONE TO PREVENT WAR AND BY WHOM? 5) WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CREATE A DEBATE AFTER A NEW WAR THAT WILL FOCUS ON ALTERNATIVES? 6) ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS? Not all, of course, were able to respond within thisshort notice, but...

Go to part A Dear Selected TFF PressInfoRecipient, It’s a pleasure for us to send you this PressInfo aboutthe Iraq crisis. During the build-up of the Iraq crisis, TFF initiatedan international e-mail brainstorm. We asked some 150peace researchers and conflict-resolution practitionersaround the world to respond, within four days, to thefollowing six questions: 1) WHAT IS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS CONFLICT? 2) WHY ARE WE ONCE AGAIN WITNESSING A MASSIVE MILITARY PROJECT THAT MEETS LITTLE DEBATE? 3) WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE UP TILL NOW – MID-FEBRUARY 98 – AND BY WHOM, TO PREVENT IT? 4)WHAT CAN STILL BE DONE TO PREVENT WAR AND BY WHOM? 5) WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO CREATE A DEBATE AFTER A NEW WAR THAT WILL FOCUS ON ALTERNATIVES? 6) ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS? Not all, of course, were able to respond within thisshort notice, but those who...

  Our most recent publication“Learning Conflict and Teaching Peace in Former Yugoslavia” tells youhow TFF conducted the “Learning Conflict” Program in formerYugoslavia 1996 and 1997 – and what we learnt from workingwith 105 ethnically mixed participants during eight coursesin Croatia, Bosnia (both entities), Yugoslavia andMacedonia. This is a practical account of whatwe did and how we did it, rather than a treatise on thephilosophy and methodology of teaching peace in war-tornsocieties. Many organisations now offer varioustypes of courses and training to NGOs. What we usually seeand hear, if anything, is that these courses are a successand sometimes even contribute to promote the organisationthat delivers them. So too with TFF, we are no different.The level of intensity, comments and the general atmosphereindicate that these courses were a success: our participantsgave the experience as a whole 4,2 of 5 possiblepoints. However, few NGOs take the trouble totell others what we tell you...

PressInfos 1998 No 53 (December 23, 1998)Civil Society in War and Peace – New Report No 52 (December 19, 1998)Be Better Informed About the Iraq Conflict No 51 (November 23, 1998)Support Free Media and Education in Serbia Now No 50 (November 12, 1998)Negotiate a Sanctions Lifting Plan No 49 (October 22, 1998)TFF invited to the 1998 State of the World Forum No 48 (October 11, 1998)Peace Proposal: Forums for Human Rights and Peace Education in Eastern Slavonia – and elsewhere No 47 (October 1, 1998)Questions Before Bombing Serbia No 46 (September 4, 1998)Time To Try True Nonviolence In Kosovo/a No 45 (August 25, 1998)Human Rights In Kosovo/a – Not So Simple No 44 (August 25, 1998)Kosovo/a – Half Truths About How It Began No 43 (August 24, 1998)Kosovo/a – Half Truths About Demography and Ethnic Cleansing No 42 (August 17, 1998)The Kosovo War: No Failure, All Had an Interest In...

COPENHAGEN–The most peculiar aspect of the Asian economic crisis so far is that no one has mentioned the three words, John Maynard Keynes. Yet the response both from national governments (in particular Japan), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington and, now with Monday’s meeting in New York, the commercial banks joined by the securities houses, has been utterly and totally Keynesian–prime the pump. Keynesian economics, intellectually derided by the Chicago school, in particular Milton Friedman, and politically rubbished by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, has had its comeback. “Signs of solution are at last beginning to emerge where it matters most, in Japan”, editorialized the Financial Times approvingly on Monday (but without mentioning the word Keynes), “the use of public funds to support the banking system and a readiness to put fiscal policy on an expansionary track”. Yet, even now, elements of anti-Keynesianism persist in the current economic doctoring. The...

“The future of the Brcko area was the only one not settled in Dayton. Thus, it was either the most difficult of all, or the United States and the parties agreed that it would be better to have their decision concerning that hot spot appear as binding arbitration. The arbitration decision is expected by mid-February. But any solution will antagonise at least one of the groups in the Brcko area, the entities or neighbouring republics,” says Jan Øberg, director of the TFF who recently returned from the TFF’s 24th mission to ex-Yugoslavia, including a fact-finding visit to Brcko. “The Dayton Agreement created a conflict by not defining the area under arbitration, and it will create more now,” he adds. “The three options usually mentioned — give it to the Federation, give it to Republika Srpska, or make it an area under international military control — are zero-sum games and care...

Message from 30th January EventCoordination Committee, India30 Dec 1997 As we approach the end of the 20th century, arguably one of the most violent, mankind is faced with one definite option Nonviolence or Non-existence. The 20th Century produced its share of luminaries who left behind their indelible impression on the sands of time some who will be revered and some who will be hated. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, The Mahatma, was one of the foremost personalities of the century. Born in the later half of the 19th century, 2nd October 1869, he strode across the 20th Century with one philosophy of life, Nonviolence. During the most violent period of the century while the rest of the civilized world was indulging in a mad orgy of violence the Mahatma led two nonviolent movements and achieved success. The equal rights movement for Asian immigrants in South Africa and the movement for freedom in...

LONDON– It’s almost exactly one year since General George Lee Butler made his confessional statement before the National Press Club in Washington–that as commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic Command which controls all navy and airforce nuclear weapons he’d had moral qualms and profound doubts about America’s possession of nuclear weapons. The speech triggered an avalanche of supportive phone calls and letters from all over the world. This led General Butler to conclude that he could “discern the makings of an emerging global concensus that the risks posed by nuclear weapons far outweigh the presumed benefits”. Yet barely a month passed before General Butler realized that for all this initial enthusiasm the heavyweight critics in the political, military and journalistic establishments were not impressed. They had, he said later, “sniffed imperiously at the goal of elimination, aired their stock Cold War rhetoric, hurled a personal epithet or two and settled...