Forum

LONDON – One can only marvel at the tenacity of those who make a living in Europe and North America commentating, advising, and, if they are members of an official government delegation, negotiating the Israeli-Palestine issue. A year after the failure of Camp David and the beginning of the second Intifada they continue to beaver away, convinced a dam to tide the onslaught of violence can still be constructed, that an interim agreement or two can replace the high hopes of a final settlement, that the most brutal general in Israel’s blood-filled history, Ariel Sharon, now prime minister, can be dissuaded from the use of his iron fists, and that Yasser Arafat, the ruthless, egomaniacal Palestinian president can forever ride the tiger of the Arab street and somehow placate it while signing on for half of what he rejected for understandable reasons a year ago. The deal almost negotiated at...

By Robert C. Johansen TFF Associate The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame announces the publication of its Policy Brief# 7, June 2001: Also available on the web at <http://www.nd.edu/~krocinst/polbriefs/pbrief7.html> In brief U.S. opposition to creating a permanent international criminal court arises from unwarranted fears that U.S. officials might be wrongly prosecuted. Opposition also rests on a mistaken belief that the United States can protect legitimate national sovereignty only by rejecting international legal constraints on criminal abuses of sovereignty. However, the proposed court would serve U.S. interests by investigating the world’s worst international crimes and assigning individual responsibility for them, reducing collective blame for the criminal acts of individuals, discouraging atrocities, and upholding international law while protecting against politically motivated prosecutions. The creation of a permanent international criminal court, designed to hold individuals (rather than states) accountable for failing to obey international humanitarian...

A NATO led military intervention in Macedonia involving American and British special forces “against the NLA rebels” would be a phony operation from the outset.  Amply documented, the NLA terrorists –who are directly linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) —  are armed and trained by Washington. So why would the US intervene under NATO auspices to fight against its own proxy army? This article follows an earlier text focussing in greater length on the military-intelligence aspects entitled: “Washington Finances Ethnic Warfare in the Balkans” (3 April 2001) at:http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/fin.htm. See also “America at War in Macedonia” at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/pipe.htm, also at http://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss5.html. The latter article examines the issue of control over strategic pipeline routes and transport corridors and the strategic role of Macedonia, which lies at the cross-roads of the Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. The US is once more waging a proxy war using the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to fight the Macedonian Armed Forces. While...

I disse dage mindes jeg min samtale i begyndelsen af 1990erne med den første USA repræsentant i det uafhængige Makedonien. To ting stod helt klart: a) ligegyldigt hvilket spørgsmål jeg stillede, var svaret, at USAs politik sigtede mod stabilitet; b) hvis han vidste noget om Balkan i almindelighed og Makedonien i særdeleshed, holdt han det for sig selv. I dag skal vi ikke blive forbavsede, hvis efter-kold-krigs plus-ordet “stabilitet” i virkeligheden skal læses “ustabilitet” eller “destabilisering.” Variation i amerikansk politik: Vi både støtter og fordømmer albanerne ! Den 4. juni fordømte den forhenværende ambassadør William G Walker i Washington Post den makedonske regering for at behandle albanerne som andenrangs mennesker og han sammenligner regeringens militære fremgangsmåde mod den albanske befrielseshær (UCK,NLA) med Milosevic’s. Han taler for et stærkere USA-engagement på højt niveau, der bør tage initiativ til en Dayton-lignende konference (der er ikke et ord om EU) og insisterer på,...

A prelude to military intervention? These days I am reminded of my conversation in the early 1990s with the first representative of the United States to independent Macedonia. Two things came out clearly: no matter the question I asked him he said that the policies of the United States aimed at stability; second, if he had any knowledge about the Balkans in general and Macedonia in particular he kept it to himself. Today, we should not be surprised if stability, the post-Cold War buzz-word, in reality means instability or de-stabilisation. Various U.S. policies: we both support and condemn the Albanians! On June 4, in Washington Post, retired Ambassador William G. Walker, condemned the Macedonian government for treating the Albanians as second-class citizens and, when it comes to its military response to fighting the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), compares it with Milosevic. He advocates a stronger high-level U.S. involvement by...

LONDON – This visit to Europe of this apparently most ignorant of contemporary American presidents will decide whether George Bush has inherited sufficient common sense to dig himself out of the hole he dug for himself in his first 100 days or whether he will ignore the first law of holes: when you are in one stop digging. Bush is discovering that, in William Pfaff’s telling phrase Europe, “is not a used-up civilization”. “For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world-for better or worse. It is convenient and flattering for Americans to assume that this is all over; but it is very rash to do so”. There have been all number of good reasons for the U.S. to regard Europe as washed up, not just the two world-shattering wars of the last century, not just, going back, the political corruption that led to the founding of the U.S.A...

Lund – Der skal et mirakel til for at Makedonien ikke skal havne i krig. EU og andre internationale faktorer fører en zigzag-kurs, og USA støtter de mest militante kræfter. Volden trappes op og statsminister Geogievski overvejer at indføre krigstilstand. Det hele kan lede til endnu en frygtelig krig på Balkan og involvere en række stater på uoverskuelig måde, ikke mindst fordi Makedoniens identitet som stat er svagere end andre landes. Det politisk-militære-mediekompleks prøver endnu  en gang at forklare at en lokal konflikt kun skyldes de lokale: Det internationale “samfund” har, siges det, intet andet motiv end det at presse parterne til at sætte sig til forhandlingsbordet i stedet for at kriges. I denne artikel viser vi de skjulte politiske dagsordener og hvordan de mindsker mulighederne for fred. 1. Det internationale samfund: hovedårsagen til krig Da den politiske hukommelse er kort kan det være på sin plads at opridse hvorfor Makedonien...

Washington’s covert war in Macedonia purports to consolidate America’s sphere of influence in southeastern Europe. At stake is the strategic Bulgaria-Macedonia-Albania transport, communications and oil pipeline “corridor” which links the Black Sea to the Adriatic coast. Macedonia stands at the strategic crossroads of the oil pipeline corridor. To protect these pipeline routes, Washington’s goal is to install a “patchwork of protectorates” along strategic corridors in the Balkans.  The promise of  “Greater Albania” used by Washington to foment Albanian nationalism is part of the military-intelligence ploy.  Amply documented, the latter consists in financing and equipping the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its National Liberation Army (NLA) proxy to wage the terrorist assaults in Macedonia. The development of America’s sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe –in complicity with Britain– supports the interests of the oil giants including BP-Amoco-ARCO, Chevron and Texaco. Securing control and “protecting” the pipeline routes is paramount to the...

LONDON – You can blame part of it on Margaret Thatcher. It was she who brought some of the worst characteristics of the British temper to the surface and made them respectable: parochialism, petty nationalism, distrust of strangers (the Americans excepted), dog eat dog, and that long tradition of petty-bourgeois stoicism, tolerating the second rate in the government and the public sector – hospitals, trains, schools and so on. Her originality was to shake the moribund British economic tree until its leaves fell off, revealing a new hard working, thrifty, go-for-it populace – only 20-30% of the population, but that was enough – that would, by earning more, be able to buy privately what it did not really like in the public sector. All this still lives on after four years of Labour government and will be, doubtless, alive and healthy at the end of another five year term, unless...

Ifrån Surat mot havet Söder om Ahmedabad ligger Surat. Dit kommer jag med tåg och hyr där en bil med chauffören Max, som är svart som en afrikan. Med mig har jag Tom Webers bok om Saltmarschen, min lilla dator samt kameran. Allt måste registreras noggrant. Jag ska köra Marchens sista drygt 50 kilometer längs små vägar, från by till by och besöka de tempel, övernattningsplatser och torg som 78 marschdeltagare och Gandhi passerade för 71 år sedan. Vi lämnar “utvecklingen” och “civilisationen”. Byarna är Indien, inte städerna! Här är pastoralt och fridfullt, luften är ren; jag hör och ser fåglar. I lilla Dharam finns ett enkelt hus, nu bibliotek, med en byst av Gandhi framför. Här övernattade marschdeltagarna. Jag hälsar på i biblioteket. Max pratar med någon och återvänder: “De säger att det här i Dharam bor en vän till Gandhi, som var med på Marchen. Vill du träffa honom?”...

VÆRDIER Er konfliktløsning blot en samling metoder, som kan bruges for at få hvem som helst til at komme på talefod og enes, når problemerne brænder på? Altså en teknik, som er værdifri? Sådan er der nogle, der forstår begrebet. Men en sådan forståelse synes mig risikabel &endash; og uinteressant. Det er nyttigt at overveje, hvad hensigten med konfliktløsning er og at prøve at sætte den ind i en større sammenhæng. Og det er da også, hvad der gøres i de fleste af de centre for konfliktløsning, som i disse år vokser op over hele verden. En forståelse, som giver mening, kunne være: Konfliktløsning er en ikkevoldelig indsats for menneskelige rettigheder og behov i de civile samfund. Her ses konfliktløsning som en del af den filosofi og metode, som ikkevold er, med sine utallige udtryksformer . Konflikthåndteringens opgave er at erstatte fysisk og psykisk vold med klar og direkte kommunikation,...

Penguin published Power’s history of Amnesty International on May 31st “Like Water on Stone”. (See below). LONDON – Amnesty International, founded forty years ago, was almost immediately dubbed “one of the larger lunacies of our time”. The then bizarre idea was to collect information on people incarcerated in prison solely for their political views and then, by means of an army of volunteer activists, bombard the offending governments with massive numbers of letters, postcards and telegrams, calling for the prisoner’s swift release. Other critics called it “subversive” and “an agent of Satan”. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomieni, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and France’s President Jacques Chirac are all heavyweights who have gone into the ring to try and squash it. In the 1990s and the new century the criticism has been subtler. The attacks came not only from government leaders but from sceptics in the...