November 1999

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...

Tio frågor som borde ha ställts till president Clinton, när han i tisdags besökte Kosovo President Bill Clinton gjorde i tisdags en blixtvisit i Kosovo. I ett tal manade han albanerna att sluta hämnas på den krympande serbiska minoriteten. Han besökte också de amerikanska soldaterna på den nya Bondsteelbasen. Det finns viktiga frågor som borde ha ställts still honom om Balkan och Kosovo och om USA:s ledande roll i bombningarna av Jugoslavien. Det borde vara en självklarhet att oberoende medier i demokratiska länder låter politiska ledare svara på viktiga frågor. Men ställdes verkligen de viktiga frågorna? Här är några frågor som jag skulle ha ställt ˆ om jag vore journalist och hade fått tillfälle att göra en intervju i tisdags. (1) Mr President! Amerikanska plan bombade i våras Jugoslavien och Kosovo med er som överbefälhavare. Aktionen rättfärdigades av uppgifter om ett folkmord planerat av Belgrad. Dessa uppgifter har nu visat...

”With e-mail and Internet it has become so much more easy to generate and share ideas instantly. Below you find 53 different ideas about peace in Macedonia from people around the world who responded to our call in the preceding PressInfo. It’s a free gift to anyone who cares to listen and take inspiration – many could also be implemented in Kosovo,” says TFF director Jan Oberg. “Our respondents are not a representative sample but, among other things, this exciting experiment shows that: 1) there are so many ideas out there and an amazing willingness to contribute constructively; 2) people who have not been to Macedonia can share ideas and initiatives that have worked in other conflicts, a general body of knowledge and experiences are developing; 3) they focus much more on the human dimensions of conflict-resolution than governments do; 4) they by and large reject military means in peacebuilding,...

“Given that democratic countries have free and independent media, President Clinton’s visit to Kosovo on November 23, would be a golden opportunity to take stock of the US-lead Western policies to bring peace to the region. Here is a selection of questions with some media advisory. In other words, if I imagine I had been granted an interview as a journalist, this is what I would focus on,” says TFF director Jan Oberg.   (1) Mr. President, US warplanes bombed Yugoslavia and the Kosovo province with you as the Chief Commander of US forces. Does it worry you that the whole campaign was justified and conducted on the basis of what has turned out to be grossly mistaken or falsified information about a genocide planned by Belgrade? [During the campaign, President Clinton, Secretary Cohen, and Secretary Albright are on record with figures of between 10.000 and 100.000 missing and probably...

”With e-mail and Internet it has become so much more easy to generate and share ideas instantly. Below you find 53 different ideas about peace in Macedonia from people around the world who responded to our call in the preceding PressInfo. It’s a free gift to anyone who cares to listen and take inspiration – many could also be implemented in Kosovo,” says TFF director Jan Oberg. “Our respondents are not a representative sample but, among other things, this exciting experiment shows that: 1) there are so many ideas out there and an amazing willingness to contribute constructively; 2) people who have not been to Macedonia can share ideas and initiatives that have worked in other conflicts, a general body of knowledge and experiences are developing; 3) they focus much more on the human dimensions of conflict-resolution than governments do; 4) they by and large reject military means in peacebuilding,...

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...

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...