Letter of Understanding / Lettre de Compréhension

This is to certify that the following has been agreed upon between TFF, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research in Sweden and the Burundian non-governmental organizations listed below which together form the TFF Amahoro Coalition in Burundi.

Background

The current situation in Burundi in general and the forthcoming peace process in particular requires an immediate burden sharing attendance by the international community both in terms of political and financial commitments and resources for capacity building in the human dimensions of conflict-resolution in a broad sense. Under this concept and after having completed a nine days fact-finding and feasibility study, TFF and the below listed organizations have come to the conclusion that the conditions exist to develop a mutually beneficial collaborative research and training agenda.

Purpose

The purpose of the collaboration project is to create synergy and augment the understanding and effectiveness of the Burundians regarding their role in the political, security and human resources development and to mutually assist in the consolidation of the Burundian peace process. The TFF Amahoro Coalition is a joint venture serving to benefit all organizations involved as well as the wider Burundian society. TFF contributes its research and training experience i.e. principles and knowledge in conflict resolution, reconciliation and mitigation and thus provides a common intellectual platform and training philosophy. The Burundian NGOs contribute their knowledge, expertise and experiences and implement commonly agreed programs throughout Burundian society throughout the peace process.

Commitments

It is agreed that this Letter of Understanding forms the nucleus for a future cooperation assuming that necessary financial recourses will be available. In fulfillment of this agreement the following commitments are assumed:

• That TFF, in cooperation with the parties, develop a training and research agenda that is appropriate to the needs of the Burundian society

• That TFF, in cooperation with the parties, finds and allocates the necessary funds, as TFF itself has no program funds of its own.

• That the parties, in cooperation with TFF, produce a comprehensive research and training program with sub-programs and provide all necessary information for fund-raising and, later, the establishment of the program.

• That the parties form today the TFF Amahoro Coalition, which will implement the program(s) together.

• That TFF will assist in implementing the program in all ways it can.

Liaison and coordination

Dr. Sururu Adolphe has been appointed TFF Program Coordinator and Ms. Chantal Mutamuriza as TFF Liaison in Burundi, both serving to the best of their abilities the TFF Amahoro Coalition. If and when funding is secured, one Burundian organization will be appointed to take care of the financial management as required by the donor(s).

Duration

This Agreement should have duration of one year after which the parties may decide a renewal.

This Letter of Understanding is signed at Hotel Amahoro, Bujumbura, December 4, 2003.Lettre de Compréhension

La présente est pour certifier que ce qui suit a été convenu entre TFF, La Fondation Transnationale pour la Recherche de la Paix et du Futur basée en Suède et les Organisations Non Gouvernementales Burundaises citées ci-dessous qui, ensemble forment la Coalition TFF Amahoro au Burundi.

Contexte

La situation actuelle du Burundi en général et le processus de paix en cours en particulier demandent une participation immédiate dans le partage du fardeau par la communauté internationale en terme d’engagement politico-financier ainsi qu’en ressources pour le renforcement des capacités dans les dimensions humaines de résolution des conflits dans un sens large. Dans le même concept et après avoir accompli une étude d’identification des faits et de faisabilité durant neuf jours, TFF et les organisations ci-dessous citées ont abouti à une conclusion qu’il existe des conditions développement d’une recherche collaborative mutuellement bénéfique et d’un agenda de formation..

Objectif

L’objectif de ce projet de collaboration est de créer une synergie et de relever le niveau de compréhension et d’efficacité des Burundais en tenant compte de leur rôle dans le développement politique, sécuritaire et en ressources humaines et de s’assister mutuellement dans la consolidation du processus de paix Burundais. La Coalition TFF Amahoro est une initiative conjointe servant à bénéficier à toutes les organisations impliquées ainsi qu’à la société Burundaise par extension. TFF contribue de part son expérience en recherche et en formation, c’est à dire en principes et en connaissances de résolution, d’atténuation de conflit et de réconciliation et ainsi offre une philosophie commune de plateforme intellectuel et de formation. Les ONGs Burundaises de part leur connaissance, expertise et expériences contribuent à exécuter pour la société burundaise des programmes conclus ensemble à travers le processus de paix.

Engagements

Il est convenu que cette lettre de compréhension forme le noyau d’une future coopération supposant que les recours de financement nécessaires seront disponibles. Pour matérialiser cet accord, les responsabilités suivantes doivent être assumées:

• TFF, en coopération avec les parties, développe a un agenda de formation et de recherche approprié aux besoins de la société Burundaise.

• TFF, en coopération avec les parties, cherche et alloue les fonds nécessaires, comme TFF n’a pas de programme de financement propre.

• Les parties, en coopération avec TFF, établissent un programme de recherche et de formation compréhensible avec des sous-programmes et délivrent toute information nécessaire pour la recherche de fonds et pour le prochain établissement du programme.

• Les parties forment aujourd’hui la Coalition TFF Amahoro, qui exécutera ensemble le(s) programme(s).

• TFF supportera l’exécution du programme dans la mesure du possible.

Liaison et coordination

Ont été nommés Coordinateur de Programme TFF; Dr. Sururu Adolphe, Liaison TFF au Burundi; Mlle. Chantal Mutamuriza, tous les deux serviront avec le meilleur de leurs capacités la Coalition TFF Amahoro. Si et quand le financement serait assuré une Organisation Burundaise sera désignée pour prendre en charge la gestion financière telle que requise par le(s) bailleur(s).

Durée

Cet accord devrait avoir une durée d’une année après laquelle les parties pourraient en décider le renouvellement.

Cette Lettre de Compréhension est signée à Bujumbura le 04 décembre 2003 à l’Hôtel Amahoro.

List of Parties – Les Signataires

……………………………………………..

Charles Ndayiziga, coordinateur,

CENAP, Centre d’Alerte et

de Prévention des Conflits

…………………………………………….

Alexis Sinduhije, directeur,

RPA, Radio Publique Africaine

……………………………………………

Joseph Ntiruhungwa, Président et fondateur

APDH, Association Pour La Paix et

Les Droits de L’Homme,

………………………………………….

David Niyonzima, Président

THARS, Trauma Healing and

Reconciliation Services

…………………………………………

Cyprien Ndikumana, Coordinateur

Maison de la Presse

………………………………………….

Patricia Ntahorubuze, coordinatrice

AFJ, Association de Femmes Juristes

………………………………………….

Christophe Sebudandi, Président

OAG, Observatoire de l’Action Gouvernementale

…………………………………………….

Sinarinzi Mamert

CAP, Compagnie des Apôtres de la Paix

………………………………………

Sururu Adolphe, professor

The National University of Burundi

TFF Program Coordinator

…………………………..

Christian Harleman

Chair, TFF Board

…………………………………………….

Chantal Mutamuriza, Président & Founder

ACAT, Action By Christians Against Torture

TFF Liaison

………………………………………………

Jan Oberg

TFF director & founder

Notes of 04.01.02 /ch

– Two originals exist – one in English and one in French

– List of Parties – single column in the originals

END

Peace & future researcher + ‌Art Photographer

Related Posts

LONDON – So far so good, at least on the wider level. While internally Iraq seems on the edge of chaos, the much heralded clash of civilizations between the Muslim and Judaeo-Christian worlds has yet to become apparent. We have anger and despair aplenty in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But very little rushing to the standard and there was no great pilgrimage of warriors to join the fight, as happened when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan twenty years ago, and then, having driven the Red Army out, were left to ferment in that mountainous redoubt. With the armaments supplied by the CIA the mujahidin were transformed into Al Qaeda that became, for a relatively brief moment as these things go, ‘the greatest threat to the homeland that America has ever known.’ Nevertheless a ‘Cold War’ between much of the Muslim world and the West is certainly in full swing. Winston...
The Challenge of Nuclear Weaponsin the Twenty-first CenturyA Path Forward The peoples and governments of the world face an urgent challenge relating to weaponry of mass destruction and particularly to nuclear weaponry.  At the crossroads of technology, terrorism, geopolitical ambition, and policies of preemption are new and potent dangers for humanity. Despite ending the nuclear standoff of the Cold War era, nuclear weaponry is again menacing the peoples of the world with catastrophic possibilities.  We recognize the need for any government to pursue its security interests in accordance with international law; and further, we recognize that distinctive threats to these interests now exist as a result of an active international terrorist network having declared war on the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, we reject the assessment of the current US administration that upgrading a reliance on nuclear weapons is in any sense justified as a response. We find it...
By Karin Wegestal MP, the Social Democratic Partyon behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with the Yugoslav People During the last decade, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from the province Kosovo and Metohia. For a country with about ten million inhabitants, such an influx of homeless people is obviously a very heavy burden – even under peaceful conditions. But in addition to that, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been the subject to sanctions from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure was badly hurt through Nato’s intense bombardment during 78 days in 1999. The result of all this is that Yugoslavia, once the most developed industrial country in Eastern Europe, is today the poorest country in Europe. In Serbia excluding Kosovo, with about ten million inhabitants and...

Recent Articles

Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...

TFF on Substack

Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack

Most Popular

Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...
Read More
girl-5894831_1280
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
Nobel-Prize-Plaque
Jan Oberg TFF director October 13, 2026 According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded: ”to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” Further down, he also expresses how the prize for the “champions of peace” shall be decided: “that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. Alfred Nobel’s will is remarkably short and clear. But few seem to have read it. Nobel did not say that the committee itself should consist of members of parliament. He entrusted the Storting with appointing five persons. In principle, it could have selected diplomats, mediators, peace researchers, conflict-resolution specialists, or other individuals with recognised expertise in matters of peace from around the world. Instead, the Storting gradually...
law-419057_1280
The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...
images-2
Advocates of nuclear disarmament are regularly dismissed by the champions of nuclear deterrence as naïve and unrealistic, utopian or even irresponsible. Yet this ‘doctrine’ of deterrence, regarded by France as the ‘cornerstone’ of its national security, is based on quasi-religious beliefs, a theory that cannot be proven, risky gambles and fragile assumptions. So much so that one might legitimately ask which side the ‘Care Bears’ are on. Marc FinaudVice-President of Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament (IDN) October 9, 2026 This article was originally published on Pressenza When it comes to these things being treated as religious concepts, look here. Idealists and realists It was Hubert Védrine, François Mitterrand’s former Foreign Minister, who repeatedly coined the phrase: ‘Europeans are a sort of Care Bears who don’t realise they’re living in Jurassic Park’. He applies this reference to the cartoon for well-behaved children not only to what he regards as weakness or idealism...
8824b09f-33a5-43f9-9fd0-550f28cda24d_1536x1024
What the West Borrowed from Asia and What It Left Behind Jan Krikke October 8, 2026 The article was originally published here In the late 1960s, the musical Hair announced that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Its opening anthem promised a transformation of human consciousness: an era of peace, harmony and understanding. Half a century later, a familiar echo of that promise is a meditation app offered by your employer. You can find it in the same list of benefits as the pension plan and the gym discount. How did a spiritual revolution become an employee benefit? The answer lies in the history of the movement known as New Age: where it came from, what it borrowed from Asia, and why the meaning of what it borrowed changed in the process. Two definitions will help. New Age is a loose label for a wide range of spiritual practices and...
Screenshot 2026-10-04 210142
Small and different + among the 10% most active + 9,000 texts + 150 Associates + 60 000 a day — and a stubborn belief that peace is smarter and must be secured by peaceful means. In 2026, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) turns 40. On Monday, October 5, 2026, a new TFF homepage will go live — a new gateway to more than 9,000 articles, analyses, research papers and other contributions produced over four decades of independent peace research. But this is not simply a new website. For four decades, TFF has worked from a simple conviction: peace is smarter than militarism and can be brought about by peaceful means. This is not merely an aspiration. It is the principle expressed in the UN Charter and the Gandhian tradition that has guided our work from the beginning. TFF is a research-based, independent and people-financed foundation....