Forum

LONDON- When Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Secretary General of the Soviet Union, the idealistic leader from within who accepted the end of communism, arrived in Berlin earlier this week he said “Now, ten years after, we see the world does not appear as we had hoped”.Commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall compells us to notice the extent to which the high hopes and raised expectations its demise generated have not been realized. The Clinton and Yeltsin administrations, who received a mandate from their Cold War-weary electorates, to navigate their respective superpowers, with the rest of the world in tow, into a safe harbour, have been found bitterly wanting. As both regimes reach their finale we can judge practically the whole performance- a re-birth of mutual antagonism and mistrust, an almost total lack of new initiatives and progress on nuclear disarmament, a reactivation of nuclear posturing and, worst of all, an...

Två delade städer står som symboler för den nya världsordningen efter det kalla krigets slut, det återförenade Berlin och den bosniska staden Mostar som efter kriget blivit en delad stadDet korta seklet har Eric Hobsbawm kallat vårt 1900-tal, som kan sägas ha varat från 1914 till 1989. Seklet föddes i blod då den viktorianska eran gick under efter skotten i Sarajevo. Under och efter första världskriget rasade imperier som korthus, det österrikisk-ungerska kejsardömet, det turkisk-osmanska väldet, de tsarryska och tyska kejsardömena. En världsordning gick oåterkalleligen i graven.För i dag just tio år sedan föll Berlinmuren. Det kalla kriget tog slut. Världen blev en annan. I november 1989 var det lätt att drömma om en bättre och fredligare värld. Det dröjde heller inte länge förrän det delade Tyskland återförenades. Nu håller såren på att läkas också i Berlin, efter nästan femtio år som skärningspunkt för två oförsonliga politiska system. Att Tyskland...

Some comments on the second war, NATO’s propaganda war, and how it was reflected in Western media “Oh what a lovely war!” was the headline of an article in the April 24th issue 1999 of the British magazine The Economist. The NATO bombings of Yugoslavia had then been going on for a month. The magazine published the results of an interesting and in my opinion rather shocking opinion poll, made by the polling firm Argus Reid Group – http://www.angusreid.com – at the request of the magazine. 8.575 people in 17 countries had answered questions related to the NATO bombings. One of the questions was: ” Are you for or against NATO’s decision to bomb Serb military installations?” Croatia was the country in which the largest part of the asked people was in favour of the bombings, almost 80 %. That is maybe what you could expect. But the second highest figure in...

The German Holocaust and the Genocides in Rwanda and Somalia (1999). Love, Holocaust and Humiliation. The German Holocaust and the Genocides in Rwanda and Somalia. In Medlemsbladet for Norske Leger Mot Atomkrig, Med Bidrag Fra Psykologer for Fred, 3 (November), pp. 28-29. (Dr. med. Evelin Gerda Lindner, University of Oslo, Institute of Psychology, P.O.Box 1094 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway, Tel. +47 91789296, e.g.lindner@psykologi.uio.no, www.uio.no/~evelinl) Abstract Historians usually describe the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War (28th June 1919) as ‘humiliating’ for Germany (‘Schmach,’ ‘Schande’) and argue that this humiliation ‘pre-programmed’ Germans for the Second World War (see for example Norbert Elias 1989). The ‘humiliation’ imposed by the Treaty of Versailles was the starting point for my current research project at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Oslo. In this project in the field of social psychology I am studying the genocide in Rwanda (1994) and Somalia...

LONDON- On Saturday, Guatemala will hold its first general election since the signing of the peace agreement in December 1996 which ended a 36 year long civil war that claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, many of them victims of army death squads. For most of the indigenous Indian population, who have been at the brunt end of the violence, it will seem like a non-event. They have a choice between two parties of the right. One is close to business; the other to the army. Turnout is likely to be low. Yet the election is significant. It takes this mercurial country – the one that its Nobel laureate for literature, Miguel Angel Asturias, described in 1920 as “steeped in violence”- one more step away from its terrible past. Of course, so many countries in Latin America have been consumed by violent uprisings and savage army repression over the last...

Reconciling peace and justice in the aftermath of a criminal regime invariably presents difficult choices that can only be resolved within the context of each historical experience. There are no guidelines that can serve societies that have endured a governing process that included Crimes against Humanity and gross abuses of human rights, but are currently making a democratic transition based on constitutionalism and respect for the individual. Fashioning an appropriate approach is rendered more difficult to the extent that the former regime voluntarily gave up power as part of a bargain with the democratic opposition, and yet remains on the scene, even continuing to control the armed forces and internal police apparatus. The Southern Cone countries of Chile and Argentina pose this challenge in its sharpest possible form, but the same type of issue is posed for many other countries, including South Africa and several Central American countries. The complexity...

Comments on the Final Report of the Tokyo Forum  The Final Report of the Tokyo Forum is entitled, “Facing Nuclear Dangers: An Action Plan for the 21st Century.” The Report, however, is not nearly as bold as its title would suggest. A clue as to why this may be so is found in paragraph 12 of the opening section of the Report where it states, “Terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons has been possible for some time, but serious policymakers have traditionally seen other threats as more pressing.” The members of the Tokyo Forum have aimed their recommendations at influencing such “serious policymakers,” particularly those in the nuclear weapons states. The Final Report ends up being short on vision, and proposes only incremental changes, the kind that might be acceptable to those who have no real desire to change the status quo. The Report recognizes, “the fabric of international...

LONDON- The new war in Chechnya is becoming as pointless, self-defeating and counterproductive as the one before. Now that the peace agreement that was stitched together in time for the last presidential election is undone no one, not even General Alexander Lebed, President Boris Yeltsin’s last saviour, will be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Yet even if this war does rumble eternally on; even if, as reported, the Moslem fanatics from Afghanistan, the Taliban, are sending their young fighters to the anti-Russian cause, the threat it poses to Russia as a whole is minimal. The real danger to the integrity of Russia lies not in this super- obstreperous, but quite tiny region, but in its own massive size, that bridges eight time zones. Any system less centralised than that of the tsars or the communist dicatatorship poses enormous, complicated and unresolved problems of governance. As Martin Nicholson, a former...

Christian HårlemanFd överstelöjtnant, f.d chef utbildningsavd för fredsbevarande operationer i FN,rådgivare till Institute of World Affairs, Washington D.Ce-mail: ch.harleman@crido.pp.se Jan Øberg, fil.dr.Direktör, Transnationella Stiftelsen för Freds- och framtidsforskning, TFF, i Lunde-mail: tff@transnational.live Sverige håller på att installera ungefär 850 soldater i Kosovo som ska delta i KFOR, den militära styrka om 45.000 soldater med tung utrustning, som kom på plats i kölvattnet på NATO:s krig mot Jugoslavien under våren.Kostnaden uppges vara 900 miljoner kronor.Detta är den största enskilda satsning vår regering gör för att bidra till en lösning av de svåra problemen i och kring Kosovo. I jämförelse har Sverige avsatt 84 miljoner kronor år 1999 och år 2000 för civila insatser inom FN:s UNMIK-mission i Kosovo och 170 miljoner till humanitära insatser.Ett genomgående inslag i Sveriges och det såkallade internationella samfundets (fel)hantering av Balkans konflikter sedan 1980-talet har varit att fokusera på ett enda område åt gången och strunta...

LONDON- The legal pursuit of the Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet has reached a defining moment. His legal options have been whittled away, although theoretically he could still on appeal win the reversal of the London magistrate’s decision on October 8th. to allow his extradition to Spain for trial. It now seems clear that his legal team are advising him to change tactics and depend more on clemency than legal manoeuvres. Earlier this week, Chile appealed formally to Jack Straw, Home Secretary in the government of Tony Blair, to release him on the grounds of his deteriorating health. Yesterday the Spanish government, never happy with the action of magistrate Balthasar Garzon, who initiated the action against Pinochet, added its voice to Chile’s, saying it would have no objection if he were now released. It must not happen. The rulings so far- by Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords, and by the...

Publiceret i danske “Aktuelt” i oktober 1999 EU’s og Danmarks USA-afhængige Balkanpolitik vil lede til nye katastrofer på Balkan. Det viser Helveg Petersens ulykkelige konflikt med den jugoslaviske opposition, mener fredsforskeren Jan Øberg. På forsiden af Berlingske Tidende kunne man den 10. september læse at udenrigsministrene Helveg Petersen og Robin Cook stod bag en “storstilet politisk EU-plan” for samarbejde med oppositionen i Jugoslavien. Som modydelse for jævnlige konsultationer, eksperthjælp, støtte til demokratisering, økonomisk hjælp, mulig lettelse af sanktionerne og andre EU-bidrag skulle oppositionen dernede garantere, at når den kom til magten ville den lovgive for og respektere menneskerettigheder, en fri presse og demokratiske valg. På det første møde i Luxembourg den 11. oktober kom ingen af de vigtigste oppositionelle. Begge udenrigsministre mener at alt som sædvanligt er Milosevic’ skyld og at han har truet dem til at blive væk. Dette uaget at det Demokratiske Partis leder Zoran Djindjic da han...

“In voting down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the US Senate acted with irresponsible disregard for the security of the American people and the people of the world. It is an act unbecoming of a great nation. The Senate sent a message to the more than 185 countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the United States is not prepared to lead the global effort for non-proliferation nor to keep its promises to the international community. I urge the American people to send a strong message of disapproval to the Senators who voted against this treaty, and demand that the United States resume a leadership role in supporting the CTBT and preventing further nuclear tests by any country at any time and at any place…The American people should take heart that the Treaty is not dead, and this setback should be viewed as temporary — until they...