November 2005

LONDON – On its submarines Britain has 48 nuclear warheads, each one eight times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. In other words, Prime Minister Tony Blair theoretically could order the almost instant incineration of 384 large cities around the world. Barely anyone in parliament has mentioned it, much less debated it in the eight and a half years Blair has been in office. But recently, all of a relative sudden, Blair has promised a discussion sometime “in the life of the present parliament” because the U.S., the supplier of the Trident missiles (but not the warheads which are home-made), has made it clear that it will soon be taking a decision on replacing its own Tridents and the UK must decide in tandem what to do with its. As Blair slides gently, but not particularly gracefully, to the end of his term in office it looks...

LONDON – No one is whiter than white in Liberia. Certainly not the new president-elect, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who at one time lent her support to Charles Taylor, Africa’s most bloodthirsty and notorious warlord. But, as one Liberian I talked to in Monrovia’s market said, “we have more than paid for our sins”. Finally after mass murder, mass rape and mass economic destruction the human spirit has shown its amazing ability to somersault and become non-violent. Not a shot has been fired during this election; barely a bad word word uttered, at least until the results came in. Somewhere the good words of the Christian book that the liberated slaves brought back with them from the United States are being recalled and remembered. It is a time for forgiveness, repentance and rebuilding. The churches, at least those still standing, are packed. But this begs the question what to do about Charles...

LONDON – The dust is beginning to settle on Zanzibar’s notorious election. Perhaps we can now look at it with a little more objectivity. Reporters flocked in, lured by the promise of rigged elections in an African tourist paradise where the smell of blood-letting mingled with the scent of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and all the other wonderful things that the spice island grows. Moreover, the Tanzanian balloon was too tempting not to prick – an African country, which incorporated the islands of Zanzibar in 1964, is one of the continent’s success stories: politically peaceful, democratic and exhibiting consistently high rates of economic growth; surely something must be wrong. After days of journalists highlighting the run up to the election with stories and photos of mayhem and murder, intimidation and fraud, the election did take place and the ruling party, the one allied with the ruling party of the mainland, as...

Tio år har gått sedan de storskaliga massmorden på bosnienmuslimska män i den Srebrenica. Stadens namn har för alltid etsats in i samtidens kollektiva medvetande. Jag träffade och intervjuade själv hösten 1995 flyktingar från Srebrenica i den bosniska staden Tuzla, hörde deras fasansfulla berättelser. På tioårsdagen i måndags hade tiotusentals sörjande samlats i Srebrenica för att minnas det som skedde, också ledande politiker från många länder. Serbiens president Boris Tadic deltog i ceremonin och sa att “det är nödvändigt att bryta de onda cirklarna”. Tadics närvaro var viktig. Försoning efter ett krig kräver att parterna erkänner också den egna sidans brott. Det sker inte ofta. Massakern i Srebrenica inträffade den heta krigssommaren 1995, då gränser ritades om med vapenmakt. Omvärlden blev uppmärksam på det som hade hänt första gången när USA:s dåvarande utrikesminister Madeleine Albright en månad senare, den 10 augusti, i FN visade upp bilder, som påstods visa “nyligen...

Den serbiske provins Kosovo, er befolket af en albansk separatist-sindet befolkningsmajoritet, og har ikke imødekommet de krav om at opfylde grundlæggende menneskerettigheder og politiske standarder, som det internationale samfund satte som forudsætninger for statusforhandlinger. Alligevel begynder i de kommende måneder forhandlinger om provinsens fremtidige status. Denne grundlæggende konklusion findes i den længe ventede rapport fra FNs særlige udsending Kai Eide, som blev godkendt af Kofi Annan og som støttes fuldt ud af EU og USA – men rapporten afmystificerer ikke paradokset. For kun to et halvt år siden bestemte det internationale samfund, at forhandlinger om provinsens status ikke kunne begynde før, der var opnået et bestemt niveau af menneskerettigheder. Siden da er det kun blevet klarere, at Kosovos albanske flertal var uvilligt til at imødekomme kriterierne og at FN ikke var i stand til at gennemtvinge dem. Der har været en permanent udvanding af forudsætningerne indtil man nu med hr....

LONDON – The first time I thought Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen bank, deserved the Nobel Prize was twenty years ago, and I said as much in a column in the International Herald Tribune. “Away from the intrigue of Dhaka, with its street battles, armed police and brigades of international journalists something quite wonderful is happening in Bangladesh.” It was for me a road to Damascus. Saturated with covering failure in Africa, Brazil and India there I saw for the first time how the poor could almost literally lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. I recall sitting in the shade of a mango tree, not far from the Himalayan foothills, talking to my host, an ultra ebullient Italian, Sergio Apollonio, the information chief of a small Rome-based UN agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), who had had to twist my arm to persuade me to take...

When someone wants to start a war, there are always arms dealers standing ready. Seemingly unlimited resources are made available.When people decide to put war behind them, media pays no attention and wealthy governments ignore them unless, that is, it is a “strategically important country.Burundi is another name for one of the world’s most impressive and promising peace processes. A good story. But it doesn’t receive a fraction of the small humanitarian aid it needs; more and more Burundian are starving – as can be seen from some of the news articles below. TFF is one of the few organisations that follow and support the peace process in Burundi – through 12 fine civil society organisations in the country. You can read much more here, at our Burundi Forum.Below please find are some of the recent stories out of Burundi. UN Security Council (September)Security Council encourages establishment of ‘Partner Forum’ for...

LONDON – There are 101 small – and not so small – things that are starting to go right in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. But the big thing is not happening – persuading the electorate that after twenty years of gross mismanagement followed by the austere belt tightening and pruning of the democratic rule of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that their lives can be better. Obasanjo is not popular. Only if Obasanjo can turn this negative psychological state around in the coming eighteen months of his final term will Nigeria’s forward momentum into the future be secured. Otherwise his successor will be feel pressured to raid the piggy bank – where Nigeria’s bountiful oil earnings are stored for a rainy day – and buy his/her way into cheap popularity by offering to cut petrol prices, subsidize food, boost civil service employment and all the other wasteful expenditures that Obasanjo has...

Av Catharina Östman, Vasabladet kolumn Med utgångspunkt i Burundis positiva fredsprocess frågar Catharina Östman “Vore det inte på tiden med ett utvidgat nyhetsbegrepp där också det som redan görs för de drabbade i olika länder skulle lyftas fram – inte för att dölja problemen, utan som sporre för oss omkring att engagera oss ännu mer?” – Jag skall skriva en kolumn om Burundi, säger jag. – Om vad då? undrar omgivningen – och ger mig vatten på min kvarn: detta är något som vi inte hör talas om, en dold punkt i nyhetsrapporteringen. Varför berättar ingen vad som händer i Burundi? För att det är historia om hopp? Hopp i ett härjat land som inte längre befinner sig på katastrofens brant anses inte ha nyhetsvärde. Just då när landet skulle behöva omgivningens stöd för att kunna fortsätta på den inslagna vägen till fred och stabilitet. Burundi – det centralafrikanska landet...