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"For the Children of the World" Peace! If the Third Millennium could begin under the sign of non-violence… It’s the dream of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. They invite you to join them to influnece all governments of the planet. The Appeal of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates "FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD" To Heads of States of all member states of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Today, in every country throughout the world, there are many children silently suffering the effects and consequences of violence. This violence takes many different forms: between children on the streets, at school, in family life and in the community. There is physical violence, psychological violence, socio-economic violence, environmental violence and political violence. Many children – too many children – live in a "culture of violence". We wish to contribute to reduce their suffering. We believe that each child can discover,...

Macedonian Peace Researcher on the situation Macedonian weekly “PULS” April 1999 Q: The military conflict in Kosovo has been underway for three weeks. Could you give us your comment on its effects – both from NATO’s and FR Yugoslavia’s perspectives. A: As an university professor, who has been very proud that Macedonia is the only example among the Balkan countries where there have been established peace studies as an academic discipline, as well as a person with ethical and professional attitude against any form of violence – I am free to say that the effects of Kosovo conflict have been disastrous. The “results” are ruinous for NATO Alliance, which is being preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary with adoption of the new Strategic Concept for the next millennium. Having entered in an adventure, from which is even more difficult to get out – NATO will have to re-think its role...

America and the World at the Dawn of a New Century By Walter A. McDougall Volume 7, Number 12 Foreign Policy Research Institute WIRE December 1999 Walter A. McDougall is the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, Editor of Orbis, and Co-Director of FPRI’s History Academy. His most recent book is Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776,Houghton Mifflin, 1997. This is his eynote address at FPRI 1999 Annual Dinner. “Several people, including our host Ron Naples, whose burden it was to introduce this lecture, have asked me what exactly I meant to discuss this evening inasmuch as my title was hopelessly vague. That, I confess, was by design, so as to leave me free to say pretty much whatever was on my mind, come November 10, about U.S. foreign relations at the turn of the century. And it seemed to...

Av Hans Ebbing* Krigen mot Jugoslavia representerer det fenomenet som filosofen Arild Haaland har kalla teknologisk fascisme. Det teknologiske overherredømet til USA og Vesten har sitt ideologiske uttrykk i ein teknologisk-kulturell arroganse. Denne arrogansen er det sentrale kjenneteiknet i alla former for fascisme: forakten for viekskap. I Filosofi i NATO Den kjende tyske filosofen, Juergen Habermas, har i kronikken Bestialitet og humanitet i Die Zeit og Bergens Tidende i mai 1999 gjort seg refleksjonar over krigen i Jugoslavia. Stykket er viktig fordi det er typisk for den måten mange intellektuelle og politikarar argumenterer på når dei skal rettferdiggjere NATO si bombing — anten dei har lest Habermas eller ikkje. Argumenta er symptomatiske for ein større, men løynd logikk som eg med filosofen Arild Haaland har kalla teknologisk fascisme. Habermas kunne etter 1 månads luftkrig gle seg over at den "offentlige diskusjonen og stemningen i Tyskland ikke er annerledes enn i...

Från fall till fall: Kosovo, men inte Östtimor ALBANSKA EXTREMISTER har nu avslutat en etnisk rensning av omkring 90 procent av Kosovos zigenare, serber och judar. Detta är den proportionellt sett hittills största etniska rensningen på Balkan. Belgrad varken planerade eller genomförde att fördriva 90 procent av albanerna. Nato hävdade att det var oacceptabelt att Belgrad hade 40.000 soldater i området för att bland annat skydda den serbiska minoriteten. Nu finns lika många NATO-soldater i Kosovo. Varför kunde inte dessa trupper med mycket mera avancerad teknik och underrättelsetjänst skydda serber och zigenare från denna förutsägbara humanitära katastrof? Den jugoslaviska militären fick tio dagar på sig att dra sig tillbaka. I strid med Säkerhetsrådets resolution 1244 har den jugoslaviska armén inte fått återvända med gränsvakter. Den albanska befrielsearmén UCK fick 90 dagar på sig för att lämna in sina vapen. Nu har UCK i direkt strid med resolutionen inte bara övertagit...

Phoney War By John Pilger The Guardian, October 19, 1999 Following its attack on the Balkans, the United States is planning a massive intervention in Colombia. The Clinton administration has decided to seek congressional approval for $1bn in military aid to the government of Andres Pastrana in Bogota. This is for a low-level air war, American-planned and “advised”, with Blackhawk helicopters, satellite surveillance and cluster bombs. “It is the same policy,” says Amnesty International, “that backed, death squads in El Salvador in the 1980s.” It is the policy that started the war in Vietnam. Colombia receives more US arms and equipment than any country in the world, apart from Israel and Egypt. Last May, the Washington Post disclosed that 200 American military personnel were playing key parts in the war against the guerrillas of Colombia’s popular resistance, who occupy an area the size of Switzerland. Justifying a frontal attack on...

UNICEF Recruits Teenagers To Promote Peace in Columbia UNICEF launched a campaign in Colombia this week that aims to bring together more than 2 million Colombians to promote peace, reports Bogota’s El Pais. The "Manos a la Paz" (Hands For Peace) campaign, which began Monday and runs through Sunday, has recruited 100,000 youth between the ages of 14 and 18 to act as "peace builders." After receiving training, the youth deliver messages on peace building to families, schools, businesses and unions in more than 1,000 towns. According to its promoters, the campaign supports the Colombian peace process and is intended as a "push" to resolve the Colombian conflict with negotiations. It also teaches "tolerance and respect for others, reconciliation, solidarity and participation" (Ignacio Tena, Bogota El Tiempo, 4 Nov, UN Wire translation). At least 35,000 Colombians have been killed in just the last decade of Colombia’s 40-year civil war. "Kidnappings...

From Roswitha Jarman,who has been amongst Chechen people many times. The Chechen people of the North Caucasus suffered terribly from the first Russian bombardments of December 1994 to August 1996. Family and social bonds were deeply damaged and the beautiful Chechen capital of Grozny was devastated. Today again Chechens in Winter cold and damp track along muddy roads clutching children and bundles of possessions. Again they squat in fear at closed borders not knowing when the Russian forces will shell them. Since August 1996 small steps had been taken to rebuild their lives in the wretched economic and social situations. Some Chechens, mainly men, felt unable to cope. Retaining automatic weapons they became kidnappers or followed extreme Islamic leaders as a means of survival. Chechens, remote from Brussels and Strasbourg, even more remote from the USA, feel abandoned by the world community. After the first war, Chechens asked why did...

Computer Warfare Used in Yugoslavia Associated Press, Friday October 8 By Robert Burns AP Military Writer NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – The U.S. military conducted a form of computer warfare against Yugoslavia as part of NATO’s air war last spring, the military’s top officer acknowledged for the first time. Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the remark during an interview Thursday in which he discussed the Pentagon’s decision to assign U.S. Space Command the responsibility of coordinating both the defense of military computer networks and attacks on enemy networks. Asked broadly if U.S. information “weapons” were used against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo campaign, Shelton replied, “You can assume that we in fact employed some of our systems, yes.” He said the “systems” were offensive in nature, but he would not be more specific about how they were used. A defense official said later that...

Macedonia’s President Mulls Future Yahoo! News World Headlines Thursday October 28, 1999 http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991028/wl/macedonia_elections_1.html AP Photo By Jovana Gec Associated Press Writer SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) – As presidential elections approach, Macedonia’s outgoing president fears nationalism and ethnic intolerance sweeping the Balkans may endanger the future of the nation he led peacefully to independence eight years ago. Voters in this landlocked nation of 2 million people will choose a new president Sunday to succeed Kiro Gligorov, 83, who led Macedonia to independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. In doing so, this ethnically mixed country of Slavs, Albanians, Gypsies and others became the only former Yugoslav republic to leave the Belgrade-led federation without bloodshed. Macedonia’s long-term future, however, is far from assured. Many Macedonians fear that the recent bloodshed in Kosovo and the continuing political turmoil in Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic, may engulf their country once Gligorov has left office. In an interview...

For U.S. Peacekeepers in Kosovo, a ‘Disneyland’ Bunker By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Service Paris, Wednesday, October 6, 1999 CAMP BONDSTEEL, Yugoslavia – The United States is building a bunker community here in south-central Kosovo, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, to house its peacekeeping troops in a little bit of home – complete with fast food and American candy bars. The purpose of the installation is to safeguard the bulk of the U.S. military stationed in Kosovo in a sealed environment with as much comfort as possible and maximum protection against terrorist attack. The scale of the 775-acre (314-hectare) site and the substantial construction under way, which raises immense clouds of dust over the war-damaged surroundings, suggest that the United States plans to have its troops hunkered down in Kosovo for a long time. The base, east of Urosevac, seems to do justice to the...

U.S. Officials Expect Kosovo Independence The emphasis, national security adviser Sandy Berger says, is on creating democratic model in Kosovo. (Susan Biddle ˜ The Washington Post) By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Foreign Service September 24, 1999 PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 23 ˆ Senior U.S. officials have privately dropped their opposition to Kosovo’s independence from Yugoslavia and say the Clinton administration increasingly sees the province’s secession as inevitable. Officials say the emerging consensus, which amounts to a major shift for the United States, is already having a significant impact on the international peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. The United States has become a leading advocate for the creation of independent institutions and legal structures that tend to isolate the fledgling United Nations protectorate from Yugoslavia’s manifold economic problems and political troubles. U.S. officials deny that the administration’s approach is meant to engineer the further breakup of Yugoslavia, as the Belgrade government claims....