Violence-prevention

36 were carried out in the post Cold War 1990s. The number of international conflicts decreased quite significantly. Russia and China and other former socialist countries, despite differences in their political systems, were integrated into one global and financial economic system. Several attempts were made to legally formalize the new balance of power –

In the middle of the Middle East is Israel, harboring dreams of an Israel even greater than King David’s. Israel has 5 neighbors: Lebanon-Syria-Jordan-Palestine (recognized by 135 states)-Egypt. This first circle of neighbors borders on a second circle of 6: Cyprus-Turkey-Iraq-Arabia-Sudan-Libya. The second circle of neighbors borders on a third circle with 8: Greece-Iran-Kuwait-Bahrain-Qatar-United Arab Emirates-Oman-Yemen. Adding up to 1+5+6+8 = 20 states; covering greater Middle East. Israel has no ally among the 19, has been at war, with or in, the first circle, Iraq in the second, working for a US+ attack on Iran in the third. Greater Israel, from Nile to Euphrates would absorb the entire first circle and much of Turkey-Iraq-Arabia from the second. Next: In the middle of post-World War I Europe was Germany, harboring dreams of a Germany even greater than Bismarck’s Second Reich: a Third Reich more like the First, the Holy Roman Empire...

/04/tff-pressinfo-319-burundi-early-warning-and-violence-prevention/”>PressInfo 319 was an early warning. PressInfo 320 dealt with some hopes and possible outcomes – in which a coup d’etat was predicted. However, neither hopes nor denials make a policy and certainly don’t save lives. The international so-called community’s response so far has, no exception, been woefully inefficient. The African Union which ought to have action capacity and serve as mediator came out with the usual diplomatic appeals to all sides about showing restraint (echoing an equally lame UN Secretary-General). Incredibly, it condemned only the coup makers but not the massive brutality with which Burundi’s political and military leadership have attacked every citizen-democratic protest the last weeks – protest against the President’s arrogant violation of both the Arusha agreements and the Burundian constitution. The UN Security Council at least “condemned both those who facilitate violence of any kind against civilians and those who seek to seize power by unlawful...

By Jonathan Power According to BBC World in a broadcast yesterday morning its considered opinion is that the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed rebels battle US-backed Ukrainian forces, is working. There are still too many skirmishes, too many guns and mortars being fired but the big guns are largely silent. President Vladimir Putin said the other day that both sides have been guilty of transgressing the cease-fire. Both the Russians on one side and the US and Nato on the other have been playing with fire with their support of the two sides. And who suffers?- the ordinary inhabitants of the eastern provinces. However pro-Russian they were before all the fighting began they are now largely convinced the rebels killing in their name no longer represent them. The businesses they work for or own are working at half power or less. Unemployment has soared. Homes have been decimated. Pensions...

Words Against the Grain While reporting to the UN on Israel’s violation of basic Palestinian rights I became keenly aware of how official language is used to hide inconvenient truths. Language is a tool used by the powerful to keep unpleasant realities confined to shadow lands of incomprehension. Determined to use the rather modest flashlight at my disposal to illuminate the realities of the Palestinian ordeal as best I could, meant replacing words that obscure ugly realities with words that expose as awkward truths often as possible. My best opportunity to do this was in my annual reports to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the General Assembly in New York. My courageous predecessor as Special Rapporteur, John Dugard, deserves credit for setting the stage, effectively challenging UN complacency with language that looked at the realities lurking below the oily euphemisms that diplomat seem so fond of. Of...

/10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] /04/tff-pressinfo-319-burundi-early-warning-and-violence-prevention/”>PressInfo 319 of April 29, 2015. Everyone who cares will see all the red lamps and hear the alarm bells. We have a history of genocide in this country and neighbouring Rwanda just a few years ago. There is something to build our early warnings on. But who is listening? Who is taking action, serious political action? There have been meetings in the capital Bujumbura, regional leaders, the UN Envoy and a US Ambassador have met with the president and put pressure, urged, expressed concern or appealed. Unfortunately, it seems to be a display of powerlessness and lack of real political will. This tired diplomacy might even convince the Burundian president that he can safey continue his stubborn policies because – and that’s his advantage – the country called Burundi is of so little real interest to anyone that those who could do something turn their heads and pretend...

. But it was an American state, Michigan, that in 1846 that became the first jurisdiction in the world to abolish permanently the death penalty. In 1863 Venezuela became the first country. Amnesty International recently reported that the number of countries still executing people fell from 41 in 1995 to 22 last year, while the number of states which have abolished the death penalty climbed from 59 to 98. Abolishing-minded governments are often ahead of their own public opinion. Even in Europe, the word’s pioneer in abolition, if there has been a particularly gruesome and heinous murder polls often show an upswing in support for its re-introduction. In Hungary last week the prime minister proposed re-instating the death penalty following the stabbing of a young tobacco store clerk.

/10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] /05/tff-pressinfo-320-what-hopes-for-burundi-now/”>See also TFF PressInfo 320. The world’s leading countries are busy with ongoing conflicts and wars in areas of strategic importance to them. Organisations that work with humanitarian issues and post-war healing have exhausted their capacities long ago. It’s repair work but it must be done. So there is hardly any capacity in the world to do what would be much more productive: Prevention of violence (yes, not of conflict but of violence). For decades there has been talk of early warning – but if it works at all, there is little or no early listening and even less early action. If it all worked as it ought to, the world would have a violence-prevention machinery in place and it would, these very days, plan what to do before a catastrophe descends upon a small, beautiful African country – poor, mal-developed and of no strategic significance to bigger powers....

President Barack Obama made a deal with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to cut their respective arsenals of strategic missiles by one third the US Congress, as the price for its ratification of the deal, decreed that Obama and future presidents be held to spending 355 billion dollars on updating and modernizing America’s massive arsenal. There is an organization called Global Zero that boasts among its supporters former US secretaries of state and a deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with – off in the wings – support from Henry Kissinger. It has pushed to fast cut the level of nuclear weapons down to zero. But the rock won’t budge. As soon as a deal is made over Iran’s nuclear industry, which could happen quite soon, let us return to putting things into perspective. Forget Iran’s supposed effort to build one bomb and focus on the other 16,000. Recently,...

/10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] The refugees in the Mediterranean The European Union members states are trying to look as if they are doing something serious to care for the poor, catastrophe-stricken people who flee from war zones to Europe under the most risky and inhuman conditions. Apart from the lack of genuine humanism and compassion and the cynical intention to uphold the ”deterrence” factor – other features surround these tragic events. In various media reports and political statements the word ”refugee” is increasingly being replaced by ”migrant” – hardly just a coincidence given the fact that the number of refugees, internally displaced persons and asylum-seekers passed 50 million fellow human beings worldwide last year. Migrants and refugees A migrant, according to the UN, is a person who is engaged in (seeking) a remunerative activity in a state of which he or she is not a national. A refugee is an entirely different person...

Double standards A coalition led by Saudi-Arabia and supported by Western leaders has been bombing Yemen for about a month; it’s a clearcut international aggression and an extremely a-symmetric conflict. But we’ve heard no calls for a ‘humanitarian intervention’ by NATO or a no-fly zone to prevent the now more than 1500 bombing raids from contining and hitting also civilian targets. It’s not that international law is blatantly violated; sadly that has been seen before. It is the roaring absence of a clear condemnation by the UN, EU/NATO countries – usually calling themselves ‘the international community’ – and by the Western mainstream media. Substance plays a minor role. What is right or wrong depends on who is doing what. This war is OK because the Saudi dictatorship and its coalition members are Western allies and armed by NATO countries. The convenient but wrong narrative Furthermore, the narrative has twisted this...

Washington’s support for Yemen’s former dictatorship — and of Saudi efforts to sideline the country’s nonviolent pro-democracy movement — helped create the current crisis. As a Saudi-led military coalition continues to pound rebel targets in Yemen, the country is plunging into a humanitarian crisis. Civilian casualties are mounting. With U.S. logistical support, the Saudis are attempting to re-instate the country’s exiled government — which enjoys the backing of the West and the Sunni Gulf monarchies — in the face of a military offensive by Houthi rebels from northern Yemen. None of this had to be. Not long ago — at the height of the Arab Spring in 2011 — a broad-based, nonviolent, pro-democracy movement in Yemen rose up against the U.S.-backed government of dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. If Washington and Saudi Arabia had allowed this coalition to come to power, the tragic events unfolding in Yemen could have been prevented....