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LONDON– We should indeed “cry for Argentina,” in fact for all of Latin America, when the news, apparently imminent, is announced that the Clinton administration has decided to remove long-standing U.S. restrictions on selling high-tech weapons to South American countries. Just at the moment that South America, after years of slithering and sliding, has finally got itself out of the mud of economic malaise, its spendthrift generals supposedly relegated to the outer fringes of decision making, this change in American policy could throw the balance of power between civilian and military in exactly the wrong direction. The last thing the generals need to be tempted by are expensive items of once forbidden fruit. Take Argentina–although only in degree is it possessor of a worse record in destabilising military interference than its neighbours. The last time western arms salesmen were regularly satisfying every whim of South American generals the country picked a...

LONDON– Perhaps there is an important political moral in the tale of the American baloonist, Steve Fossett, who earlier this week had to cut short his attempt to fly around the world, running out of fuel over India after being forced to detour Libyan airspace–that attempts to isolate so-called “rogue-regimes” can, if allowed to fester unresolved for too long, curdle all sense of proportion, by both perpetrator and object alike. If the Libyan regime has looked at this high flying baloon with ridiculously sour eyes then the U.S. and its western allies are also at fault for seeing Libya and other rogue states, Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Iraq as irredeemably outcast, not as manageable problems but as all-consuming threats. This is really to overdo it. All are basket-case economies. All are diplomatically isolated. All are bordered by states possessing great military potential. As the editor of Foreign Policy, Charles Maynes,...

IntroductionInterestingly, when the current state of the Gandhian legacy is discussed, the examples tend not to come from India. And this appears to be not merely a cultural misappropriation – Indian Gandhians will often say to foreign inquirers that Gandhi has been forgotten in India, that he is being re-imported from the West. In these conversations names such as that of Attenborough and Schumacher loom large. But there are still a great many dedicated Gandhians carrying on the work of the Mahatma in Bharat and in any discussion about the position of Gandhi today it would be instructive to examine their perspective. The Gandhians do not necessarily speak with one voice. The differences, over and above those of individual characteristics, often depend on the ideology of the individual, whether his or her world view has been coloured more by Vinoba Bhave or Jayaprakash Narayan, and whether they believe that the...

With the Dayton Agreement for Bosnia time has come for well-intentioned and impartial actors to help the Serbs and Albanians to solve their conflict in the province of Kosovo. The recent recognition of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FRY, by a series of European states &emdash; overdue, as some would think &emdash; implies that Kosovo remains an integral part of Serbia. The pragmatic non-violent policies of the Kosovo-Albanians under Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosova is bound now to come under stronger pressure: the majority of the two million Albanians their will ponder why their promised land seem to remain a dream and turn to more militant policies &emdash; something Serbian nationalists will know to exploit in their struggle against Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. Another scenario is this: the so-called international community’s increasingly crisis-ridden Dayton process in Bosnia may accumulate such pressures on Serbia and...

Krisen i provinsen Kosovo i det nya Jugoslavien står efter Daytonavtalet åter i fokus. Konflikten är gammal och känsloladdad. Det finns inga bra lösningar. Ändå måste något göras, eftersom alla förlorar på ett krig, som därtill kan spridas till grannländerna. Fredsforskaren Jan Øberg ger här ett konkret förslag på vad det internationella samfundet skulle kunna göra i våldsförebyggande syfte, bland annat genom utplacering av en civil FN-styrka. Förslaget bygger på fyra års arbete och dialog med parterna. Efter Dayton-avtalet om Bosnien har Kosovo-frågan fått ny aktualitet. Kosovo är en region inom Serbien och med många staters, även Sveriges, erkännande av det nya Jugoslavien har man tagit ställning för att så ska det förbli. Kosovo-albanernas moderata, icke-våldspolitik under Dr Ibrahim Rugova, president för den självutropade Republiken Kosova, kommer nu att utsättas för ett ökande tryck; en majoritet av de 2 miljoner albanerna frågar sig varför den utlovade Kosova-republiken förblir en symbol...

Efter Dayton-aftalen om Bosnien har Kosovo-spørgsmålet fået fornyet aktualitet. Kosovo er en region inden for Serbien og med mange staters, herunder Danmarks, anerkendelse af det nye Jugoslavien har man taget stilling for at det skal den forblive at være. Kosovo-albanernes moderate ikkevoldspolitik under Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, præsident for den selvudråbte republik Kosova, blir nu udsat for et voksende pres: en majoritet af de to millioner albanere spørger sig selv hvorfor den udlovede Kosova-republik forblir et symbol snarere end en realitet. Det kan lede til en omlægning i retning af en mere militant holdning; dén vil serbiske ekstremister vide at udnytte i forhold til præsident Slobodan Milosevic’ moderate politik. Man kan også tænke sig et andet scenario: udviklingen i Bosnien og det internationale samfunds håndtering af den kan efterhånden medføre et sådant pres på Serbien at borgerkrigslignende forhold opstår. I en sådan situation kan albanske og serbiske yderliggående grupper i en...

By Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and author of The Globalization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. The author is also TFF adviser. In preparing the Seattle Millennium meetings, Washington in consultation with Brussels and the WTO in Geneva, is set on weakening and dividing social movements and citizens’ groups which have converged on Seattle from all over the World. Meanwhile, local organisers are busy –together with the FBI and the Seattle Police Department (SPD)– in carefully planning “security arrangements” for the official venue. An extensive police apparatus has been set motion. Special Forces from the FBI, the CIA and other federal agencies will be on the scene. “Trouble-makers” are to be held at bay, well equipped riot police are on hand including Gang Squads and SWAT teams of the Tactical Operations Divisions...

Visit to Chiapas This report is based on a visit to San Cristûbal de las Casas and Acteal in the state of Chiapas, in the Mexican Republic, during the month of July of 1999. It accounts for my experience, views and encounters with different sides of the ongoing conflict in this part of the country. To share these observations and conclusions is an attempt to seek peace in Chiapas and a concern for peace in the world. We have to unlearn we are disempowered, realize the importance of our resources and the responsibility we have toward peace as individuals, citizens, researchers, activists, and, most importantly, as human beings. “Our power to empower is perhaps the most important role we can play in the 21st century. The more individuals who feel empowered to work in their own systems for peace and conflict transformation, the closer the world comes to that critical...

Ethno-social wars in Europe as a challengeto citizens’ movements and peace research 1. The issueThe peace and citizens’ movements are confronted with new challenges if they today deal with war and bloodshed in Europe and possible remedies. Actual politics face the same dilemma: the two dominant war scenarios of the past, inner-state or civil war and war between sovereign states, do not fit to what happens in former Yugoslavia or in the Caucasus. The established main instruments to deal with the threat of war, on top the system of the United Nations, are geared towards the full-fledged nation states. There are no provisions to handle a militant situation in decaying states, such as Somalia, or to stem warfighting against the emergence of new states, such as Bosnia. Also the most recent inventions in this field, e.g. the Vienna CSCE centre for the prevention of conflict, have no mandate to deal...

Kerstin Schultz, fredsforskare knuten till COPRI i Köpenhamn, har besökt Kroatien tio år efter krigsutbrottet 1991 och rapporterar här i 4 artiklar särskilt om hur kriget bröt ut. Artikel 1 Varför blir det krig? Kroatien år 10 Hur kan det bli krig? Hur uppstår krig? Vad händer med människor i övergången från normalitet och fred till rädsla och krig? Tillsammans med två amerikanska forskare har jag arbetat med frågor om varför det blev krig. De förklaringsmodeller vi vanligtvis använder har ett uppifrån perspektiv och ger inga förklaringar till hur människor som så uppenbart levt tillsammans som vänner och grannar så snabbt kunde bli fiender. Vi studerar krigsutbrottet ur civilbefolkningens perspektiv. Hösten 2001 är jag tillbaka i Pakrac, en liten stad 12 mil sydöst om Zagreb i Kroatien. Det är tio år sedan krigen i Jugoslavien började och många menar att det var här allt började när serbiska polismän i mars...

“Indien kan inte utvecklas bara med Gandhis spinnrock – men inte heller utan den” skriver Jan Öberg, TFF direktör. Gandhi mördades i New Delhi fredagen den 30 januari 1948. Påföljande dag fördes hans kropp för att kremeras till floden Jamuna på en kanonlavett, eskorterad av 4.000 soldater, tusen flygsoldater och lika många poliser. Det var ingen slump att den tidens regim “hedrade” landets ickevålds-fader på detta vis. Jag tror också att det finns tydliga samband mellan detta och dagens Indien, dess korruption, elitism och kärnvapen. Jag råkade anlända till Delhi 29 januari och for ut till Rajghat vid Jamuna-floden för att besöka minnesmärket, Gandhi Samadhi, den stora svarta marmorkuben med den eviga flamman och inskriptionen med hans sista ord: He Ram! – – Åh Gud. Kuben har placerats på en enorm gräsmatta. Det är en estetisk kylig minnesplats, pompös i omvänd proportion till Gandhis enkelhet. En vakt talar om att det...

IntroductionAt its core, nuclearism is the belief that nuclear weapons and nuclear power are essential forms of progress that in the right hands will protect the peace and further the human condition. Nuclearism is a dangerous ideology — as dangerous as the technologies it has unabashedly and unreservedly promoted. In this belief system, “the right hands” have generally been synonymous with one’s own country, and “to further the human condition” has generally been synonymous with benefit to oneself, one’s country or one’s corporation. The key elements of nuclearism are: 1. The belief that nuclear weapons keep the peace, and are a necessary evil. 2. The belief that nuclear power is a safe, reliable and inexpensive source of energy, and that the nuclear power industry is an absolute good. 3. The belief that, despite the expansion of the nuclear power industry, the diversion of nuclear materials from the nuclear fuel cycle...