April 2000

Setting the Stage: Understanding Security Recent events have shown the failure of traditional approaches to security and security guarantees. Conventional conceptions of security, focussing upon the security of the ‘State’ and freedom from the threat or use of force, have proved inadequate to address the diverse range of challenges faced by the world community at the dawn of the 21st Century. From environmental devastation– resulting in wide-spread flooding, deforestation, and depletion of the ozone layer–to limitations upon the human rights and freedoms of individuals and communities and the rising number of intra-state wars, new security issues are constantly arising. Though what is actually considered a ‘security’ issue varies widely depending upon the approach and perspective taken, the fact that the concept of security used during the era of the Cold War is no longer suf ficient for the world of today cannot reasonably be denied. While many of the factors...

The book by Johan Galtung and Carl Gustav Jacobsen, with contributions by Finn Tschudi and Kai Frithjof Brandt-Jacobsen, SEARCHING FOR PEACE: THE ROAD TO TRANSCEND (the most complete account so far of TRANSCEND theory and practice) has now been published by PLUTO, London. Drawing on the TRANSCEND approach to peace-making, Searching for Peace provides a comprehensive guide to conflict resolution. The TRANSCEND method, now used by the UN as a guide to future conflict resolution approaches, applies to all conflict constellations. It has been applied to more than 40 recent and current violent conflict arenas, charting found and yet-to-be-found paths to conflict resolution and transcendence. Searching for Peace provides a wide-ranging survey of past and present approaches to violent conflict prevention. The book’s extensive analysis of the emergent conflict dynamics which, if not resolved, threaten an even more violent twenty-first century, is as important as its comprehensive look at past...

Photo © TFF The Leadership Academy, Pristina Universitywhere some of the training took place,13 C inside in February A huge task – on Women’s Day, in Mitrovica The day after a violent clash with several people wounded, from the UN as well as Albanians and Serbs I arrived in Mitrovica, described in Western media as “the most dangerous European city”. The first people I met were some happy youngsters jumping on the road waving hello. Then I was addressed by a Kosovar with a friendly “Congratulations”. When I looked confused another man explained, “Don’t you know, today is March 8th, the International Women’s Day.” I was in Mitrovica invited as a TFF associate by IOM, the International Organization for Migration, to give lectures as a part of a training program for members of KPC, the Kosovo Protection Corps, most of whom are former KLA soldiers, now transformed to a civil...

April 2000 – A year ago, on March 23, 1999, NATO commenced a massive bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Supporters of the attack described it as “humanitarian intervention,” and defended bypassing the UN as justifiable so as to coerce Belgrade to end its severe abuse of the Albanian majority population in Kosovo. Although it remains too soon to draw definitive lessons, it begins to be possible to suggest some of the major effects of this military undertaking, which is doing more to define the post-1989 world order than has any other event, including the Gulf War. Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait was a stark instance of international aggression, yet it was anomalous. In contrast, the ethnic conflict raging in Kosovo has emerged as the prototypic form of political violence of the current era. Chechnya, East Timor, Kashmir, Sierra Leone are examples of ongoing intrastate conflict that illustrate the...