Features

By Majid Tehranian Director Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research December 12, 1998 In their Persian Gulf policies, the time has come for the United States and its allies to do what in diplomatic circles is politely called “an agonizing reappraisal.” The failure of “dual containment” policies of the last few years have now become apparent to everyone except the most obstinate. Iran and Iraq have not been contained. On the contrary, both countries have taken advantage of the emerging rivalries of the post-Cold War era to develop economic and political ties to subvert those policies. Russia, France, and China as well as the U. S. Arab allies are opposing any military action against a recalticerant Iraq, while revolutionary Iran under President Mohammad Khatami is entering into a rapproachment with Europe and the conservative regional powers, notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Why is the United States being isolated in...

Following the dramatic nosedive of the Russian ruble, financial markets around the World had plummeted to abysmally low levels. The Dow Jones plunged by 554 points on August 31st, its second largest decline in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. In the uncertain wake of “black September 1998”, G7 ministers of finance had gathered hastily in Washington. On their political agenda: a multibillion dollar plan to avert the risks of a Worldwide financial meltdown. In the words of its political architects US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown: “we must do more to . . . limit the swings of booms and busts that destroy hope and diminish wealth.”(1). Announced by President Bill Clinton in late October, the G7 proposal to install a 90 billion-dollar fund “to help protect vulnerable but essentially healthy nations” from currency and stock market speculation will go...

Statement by Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic, Director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, at the press conference at the Media Centre in Belgrade on 24 October 1998, following the trial and sentencing of the publishers and editors of the magazine “Evropljanin”  After the temporary ban and the sealing of premises of three Belgrade independent dailies (Danas, Nasa borba and Dnevni telegraf) and several radio stations, followed by the scandalous trial of the publishers and editors of the weekly magazine “Evropljanin”, all speakers at this Conference have with great justification expressed their concern about the alarming situation of the freedom of expression in Serbia following the hasty adoption, on 21 October 1998, of the new Public Information Act. Recent developments have a deeper and more ominous significance. Besides limiting the freedom of opinion and expression, the new Act, as well as the Government Decree which preceded it, represents an immediate danger...

The abridged version of the interview in Serbian was published by “Blic”on July 6, 1998 – http://www.decani.yunet.com/intervju1.pdf The peace and harmony. The sun shines while the monks are working in the fields of Decani Monastery. The church bell calls for communal meal in the refectory. This is a scene which someone could hardly expect only a mile from the town of Decani where serious clashes between the Serbian security forces and the KLA occurred just a month ago. The love and peace which shine on the faces of the abbot and his monks give an impression of an oasis of true peace and Christian blessing. “I would rather devote myself to monastic life, silence and prayer. But I simply cannot close my eyes in front of what is going on before us. Our brotherhood is helping all the people in need here as much as we can. I know that we...

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...

Action Kit from Earth Action If you care about human rights, this may be your biggest single chanceto make a difference. In our time, the world has seen some of the most horrific mass crimes in history. Yet most of the criminals walk free. In 1946, the defeated war criminals of World War II were tried for their crimes at historic tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo. The international community determined that war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and military aggression should never again go unpunished. They talked of setting up a permanent international court to address such horrors and help prevent them in the future. But nothing was done. As a result, military and political leaders responsible for the deaths of millions-such as Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot-never had to fear prosecution for their crimes. Right now, a process is going on at the UN which will, finally, make an...

Until the 1998 financial meltdown (“black September” 1998), the World economy was said to be booming under the impetus of the “free market” reforms. Without debate or discussion, so-called “sound macro-economic policies” (meaning the gamut of budgetary austerity, deregulation, downsizing and privatisation) continue to be heralded as the key to economic success and poverty alleviation. In turn, both the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have asserted authoritatively that economic growth in the late 20th Century has contributed to a reduction in the levels of World poverty. According to the UNDP, “the progress in reducing poverty over the 20th century is remarkable and unprecedented… The key indicators of human development have advanced strongly.” The Devastating Impacts of Macro-economic Reform are casually deniedThe increasing levels of global poverty resulting from macro-economic reform are casually denied by G7 governments and international institutions (including the World Bank and the IMF);...

In late November 1997 following the dramatic plunge of the Korean won on the foreign exchange market, an IMF team of economists led by Mr. Hubert Neiss was rushed to Seoul. Its mandate: negotiate the terms of a “Mexican-style bail-out” with a view to “restoring economic health and stability”. An important precedent had been set: the IMF’s standard “economic medicine” (routinely imposed on the Third World and Eastern Europe) had been launched for the first time in an advanced industrial economy… The details of the economic reform programme, however, had already been decided in advance in consultation with the US Treasury, Wall Street’s commercial and merchant banks as well as with major banking interests in Japan and the European Union. A Letter of Intent (“Memorandum on the Economic Program”) was put together in a hurry on behalf of the government with virtually no analysis of the broader causes of the...

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...

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men”.(Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address, 1933) Humanity is undergoing in the post-Cold War era an economic crisis of unprecedented scale leading to the rapid impoverishment of large sectors of the World population. The plunge of national currencies in virtually all major regions of the World has contributed to destabilising national economies while precipitating entire countries into abysmal poverty. The crisis is not limited to Southeast Asia or the former Soviet Union. The collapse in the standard of living is taking place abruptly and simultaneously in a large number of countries. This Worldwide crisis of the late twentieth century is more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has far-reaching geo-political implications; economic dislocation has also been accompanied by the outbreak of regional conflicts, the fracturing of...

By Dr. Zlatko Isakovic Center for Strategic Studies Survey, BelgradeNovember 1997 NATO enlargement – for what? The process of NATO enlargement has a great potential to influence significantly the security and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, and this trend will probably both continue and intensify in the future. The members of NATO and the Partnership for Peace program exercised a most significant influences upon the conflicts in Yugoslavia and in some of the neighboring countries; these conflicts, on the other hand, effect the security and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. However, it seems that to the extent to which NATO armament alone was not able to stop communism (without a parallel activity of the civic society) on the European continent, it is equally not capable (alone) of eliminating ethnic conflicts (that determine the sovereignty and security of not only Yugoslavia, but practically also of all other states in the Balkans and in Central...

By Seiji Yoshida In April of 1996, the “U.N. Kuwarasuwami Report” by Ms. Kuwarasuwami, the special reporter, was officially approved by the plenary session of the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee held in the U.N. European Headquarter. And my name and part of my book were referred to in Clause 29 of this report for the “Conform Women” of the World War II. During the war, the Japanese army organized “comfort stations” in occupied areas and on the front lines, forcing more than hundred thousand young women to be prostitutes for Japanese officers and solders. Comfort women were caged like cattle and forced to work as sexual slaves, each raped by tens of Japanese solders every day. In the Philippines, the only Christian country in Asia, the Japanese army forced even Catholic nuns into sexual slavery. In 1943 to 1944, I worked as an official for Japan’s labor recruitment organization...