Peace &
nonviolence
•
Peace
is the most powerful weapons that we posses, says
Mandela
"There is danger in
military actions such as we saw in the case of Iraq
and Kosovo when powerful nations acted unilaterally
and in defiance of international convention. To the
extent that world peace depends on respect for the
authority of our international institutions, such
actions are indeed a danger to peace because they
undermine that authority. They send a message that the
powerful will police the world. From there it is only
a step to chaos in world affairs, as power is
substituted for the security of collective and
democratic decision."
•
Browse
this interesting site, with a new exciting CD about
Gandhi.
Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal - a very comprehensive site. A
Multimedia CD on Mahatma Gandhi: Interactive
Multimedia, over 550 Photographs, 30 minutes of film
footage, 15 minute of Gandhiji's voice, Collected
works of Mahatma Gandhi, more than 50,000
pages.
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Militarism
- a Facilitator for Globalization
A peace organization like WILPF has to renew its
commitment to the principles of anti-militarism and at
the same time develop further concrete proposals for
the establishment of an international peace order. To
get involved in the expansion of instruments of
peaceful conflict resolution and collective security,
so conflicts can be dealt with on an international
level in a civil way. The search and demand for a
constructive peace, as an integral structure of a
sustainable international order, becomes more and more
important. It is essential to think about the
conditions for peaceful settlements of conflicts
within states and on international level.
•
The
2000 Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. A
World Conference
On nuclear disarmament, at the UN in New York, April
24 - May 29. The Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom is working through this initiative
to support and encourage effective preparation for and
participation in the 2000 Review Conference of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty at the UN. This is a
comprehensive, very professional site!
•
Women
and a Culture of Peace
The Women and a Culture of Peace Homepage - with links
also to many Culture of Peace sites, UN resolutions,
Manifesto 2000, news and intercultural dialogues.
•
The
Millennium
Forum
in New York, three weeks from now.
Official website of the "We the Peoples..." summit in
New York, May 22-26, 2000. See also the UN Special
Millennium website http://www.un.org/millennium
and the UN Secretary-General's report http://www.un.org/millennium/sg/report/.
•
Coalition
for Global Solidarity - WSSD+5
For one week in Geneva, June 2000, the World Summit
for Social Development+5 will bring together
representatives of the UN and other international
bodies, heads of state and government, and NGOs and
citizens groups in a forum in which people from all
levels of society, from all around the world, will
come together to address the core challenges to
social, cultural, political and economic development
and human security at the dawn of the new millennium.
Their goal, to work together to seek ways to overcome
poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion, globally,
and within each country of the world. The Norwegian
People's Aid's (NPA) site.
Armament and the
new Cold War
•
The
United States WANTS Russia to keep its nuclear
warheads
Great talking points on the ABM Treaty and the
National Missile Defense (NMD) system that Clinton
insists on developing. From the highly respected
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which says: "You
would think that 10 years after the end of the Cold
War, the United States would be doing everything it
could to get Russia to reduce its bloated, aging, and
dangerous arsenal of approximately 6,000 deployed
strategic nuclear warheads. You would be wrong..."
•
India
is not the most dangerous in the
world
The Times of India takes a look at the annual report
of the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
IISS, in London. "The latest survey has lost some of
the earlier optimism of the institute experts who were
seeing a glimmer of light after the end of the Cold
War and the collapse of one of the two superpowers.
Thus if one goes by the assessment, the world as a
whole is becoming a more dangerous place."
•
The
Weekly Defense
Monitor
The latest issue of this service from the Centre for
Defense Information deals with what the objectives of
U.S. foreign policy and military interventionism
should be; with the price of a limited missile
defence, and reflects on the parallels between the
Korea and Vietnam wars.
Globalization -
imperialism
•
Samir
Amin's turn-of-the century analysis - a must read in
the age of
"globalization"
The ratio used to measure inequality in the capitalist
world (1 to 20 toward 1900; 1 to 30 in 1954-48; 1 to
60 at the end of the post-war growth spurt) increased
sharply: the wealthiest 20 per cent of humanity
increased their share of the global product from 60 to
80 per cent during the two last decades of this
century --globalization has been fortunate for some.
For the vast majority --notably, for the peoples of
the South, subjected to unilateral structural
adjustment policies, and those of the East, locked
into dramatic involutions --it has been a disaster.
(Takes some time to access).
•
United
Nations Development Programme, UNDP "Governance
Tools"
An excellent gateway to capacity development,
globalization and debt, gender in governance, human
rights, conflict-resolution, reconciliation,
accountability, global resources network, governance
in post-conflict situations, etc.
•
Make
you views known about globalization and
poverty
A month-long electronic conference begins mediated by
the Panos Institute and the World Bank.
It can only happen if you make your view known...
The Balkans and
Kosovo/a -
•
Rugova,
moderate Albanian leader, warns war and wants Greater
Albania
Moderate Kosovar leader Ibrahim Rugova warned the
Yugoslavian province could find itself again at war if
it is not granted independence, in an interview with
Der Spiegel magazine. The ethnic Albanian leader also
backed the controversial notion of a "Greater
Albania." But:
•
Balkans
Contact Group backs "substantial autonomy" for
Kosovo
The six-nations Balkans contact group gave its full
backing Wednesday to UN Resolution 1244 which
stipulates that Kosovo should have "substantial
autonomy" within Yugoslavia.
•
International
War Crimes Tribunal in Berlin in
June
See its webpage with documentation, the complaint,
international law aspects, etc.
•
British
diplomats train elite-in-waiting to take over after
Milosevic.
British diplomats are training a Yugoslav
élite-in-waiting to oversee the country's
transformation to a civil society after the Milosevic
regime falls. Senior Serbian figures in professional
fields such as the military, law enforcement and
academia are being brought to Budapest in
neighbouring Hungary to design a blueprint for
post-Milosevic Serbia, and prepare for the country's
re-integration into Europe. The New Serbia Forum, an
initiative funded by the Foreign Office.
•
How
it is done: Taking over the Trepca mines: Plans and
Propaganda
Comparison of two documents, a November 1999
International Crisis Group (ICG) paper on the Trepca
mining complex, and a February 2000 article in the
Toronto Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein,
provides an exceptionally clear glimpse into the
workings of the "international community." By Diana
Johnstone (2-28-00).
•
Doubts
over UN 'blending zone' plan for
Mitrovica
The United Nations hopes to create an "ethnic-blending
zone" in the centre of the divided city of Mitrovica
in the latest attempt to overcome the hostilities
between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. Deep divisions:
ethnic tensions run high in the city of Mitrovica The
initiative is part of an ambitious plan that envisages
returning ethnic Albanians to the Serb-held north and
constructing a new footbridge across the front-line
River Ibar.But leaders of the city's Serbs gave
warning that there would be "war" if any Albanians
returned, and a Nato officer said the plan was
unworkable. By Julius Strauss in Mitrovica.
•
West
abandons dream of unified Kosovo and
coexistence
A year after Nato's intervention, the West's dream of
Serbs and Albanians living together in Kosovo is dead.
Diplomats openly concede that monoethnic cantons are
the only solution to the province's intractable
hatred.
•
Stratfor's
eminent "Kosovo One Year Later"
Analysis
Nine months after the war, the West faces a choice. It
can increase its grip on Kosovo, committing more
troops and confronting the KLA, or the alliance can
resign itself to losing control of Kosovo.
What was the truth
then? What is it today?
•
Media
Channel's "Covering Vietnam" - the media's role
then.
The a Channel has brought
together an excellent selection of authors on
"Vietnam: Perception, Revisited" - Philip Knightley,
Danny Schechter, Edward Herman, Gilbert Manda, Peter
Arrnett. How do they look back upon what happened and
what we were told happened?
What is war reporting then and now? What do you think
we will say 25 years ahead about what we were told
about, say, the bombing of Yugoslavia?
•
Virtual
lessons of the bombing of
Yugoslavia
One year on, what are the lessons of Kosovo, asks
Michael Ignatieff? If future wars are virtual wars,
requiring not mobilization and sacrifice, but virtual
consent in the name of virtual values, then
increasingly democracies may be willing to fight. This
is why we need proper checks and balances to ensure
the legitimacy of such wars.
The US as a world
order problem
•
Edward
Said reflects on American
injustice
It is the organized,
legalized cruelty and injustice of the American system
that many of the country's citizens actually cherish
and, in this electoral season, want their candidates
to defend and support, not just the cynical machismo
of its random acts of violence like the gratuitous
bombing of Sudan or last spring's sadistic offensive
against Serbia. Consider the following: a recently
released report reveals that, with five per cent of
the world's population, the US at the same time
contains 25 per cent of the world's population of
prisoners. Two million Americans are held in jails, of
whom well over 45 per cent are African American, a
number that is disproportionately higher than the
black population itself...
•
Oscar
Arias' Harsh Words for the
US
I tell my friends in Washington that it is time for
the United States not only to be the military
superpower it is, or the economic superpower it is,
but also the moral superpower that it should be. . . .
And it is not [a moral superpower] because its
value system is wrong. That is for the U.S. to deal
with: . . . so much greed, so much cynicism, so much
hypocrisy, so much individualistic values. These
values need to be replaced by more solidarity, by more
compassion, by justice. . . . I don't think we can
really enjoy a more peaceful 21st century with the
value system of the 20th century. Certainly, if you
want to be that city up on the hill for the rest of
the world to look at you with admiration, you need to
change your value system.
Humanism, human
rights and "humanitarian" intervention
•
Compassionate
killing. Can wars be fought for humanitarian
reasons?
Somalia 1992 . . . Haiti 1994 . . . Bosnia 1996 . . .
Kosovo 1999 . . . The "humanitarian" military campaign
has become a distinctive feature of U.S. foreign
policy in recent years. But is it really humanitarian?
Not at all, writes Noam Chomsky in his new book, The
New Military Humanism (Common Courage
Press).
•
Sudan
- The human price of
oil
Massive human rights violations by Sudanese security
forces, various government allied militias and armed
opposition groups, are clearly linked to foreign
companies' oil operations, Amnesty International
stated as it released its report Sudan: The human
price of oil today. "The civilian population living in
oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately
targeted for massive human rights abuses -- forced
displacement, aerial bombardments, strafing villages
from helicopter gunships, unlawful killings, torture
including rape and abduction," said Maina Kiai,
Amnesty International's Director for Africa. "Foreign
companies* are turning a blind eye..."
•
It
could soon affect the whole
world...
Falling water tables in China May soon raise food
prices everywhere. Alert from the Worldwatch
Institute's director Lester R. Brown. Ask yourself how
many more people around the world would NOT be able to
buy more expensive food...
WIRE Editor
Jan Oberg with TFF
Associates
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