December 2006

• TFF PressInfo is a major opinion-former. • Reach more about 20,000 individuals by e-mail in government, civil society organisations, business, education, research and media around the world. • Alertyou to international conflicts and the future world (dis)order, including civil society organizations, the UN, NATO, and OSCE, covering the local and the global. • Advocate learning about the human dimensions of conflicts, from prevention to post-conflict normalization, reconciliation and peacebuilding – based on non-violence. • Explore ideas and visions for the future in an action-oriented manner. • Never resemble what comes out of mainstream thinking, organizations and media… Send us your comments on anything on your mind. 2006 PressInfo 241, August 15, 2006Assessing the United Nations after the Lebanon War 2006The UN has become in these situations, sadly, more of a geopolitical instrument than an instrument for the enforcement of international law. This regression betrays the vision that the guided the architects of the UN back in 1945, chief among whom...

Om Afghanistan Af Ulla Fasting,TFF Ven og medlem af Det Radikale Venstre Læs også Ulla Fastings “Indtryk fra Afghanistan” Dag 1 Afghanistan ved en ny tids begyndelse I denne uge tager vi til Afghanistan, som jeg har besøgt to gange i sommer og hvor jeg samtidig læste Khaled Hosseinis bog* om sin barndoms Afghanistan. En barndom, hvor drengen Amir vinder den store drageturnering og sin fars anerkendelse, men samtidig svigter sin bedste ven Hassan. Det er dette svigt og vejen til soning, bogen handler om, men den fortæller også om det Afghanistan, som var før den russiske besættelse og før Taleban kom til magten.Det er det Afghanistan, som i dag skyder op hist og her og som mange afghanere forsøger at bygge en fremtid på. Bogen er god at have med sig, for i manges bevidsthed er Afghanistan kun det 6. fattigste land i verden, talebansk mørke, kvinder i burka,...

Af Ulla FastingTFF Ven og medlem af det Radikale Venstre Læs også Ulla Fastings fortælling i Danmarks RadiosVed Dagens Begyndelse Jeg er netop kommet hjem fra min anden rejse til Afghanistan. Første gang var besøget først og fremmest privat med ophold i Kabul, men jeg fik samtidig en invitation til at undervise jordemoderstuderende i Herat for Dansk Afghanistan Komité (DAC). Anden gang var jeg to uger i Herat og et par dage i Kabul for DAC for at interviewe kvinder fra de forskellige kvindeorganisationer om deres arbejde og for at se på sundhedsvæsnet, – hospitaler, sundhedscentre, mobile sundhedsteam og sygeplejerskeuddannelsen. Jeg rejste på egen hånd, men var i Herat altid ledsaget af tolken og kørte med chauffør i en af DAC’s biler. I Kabul kørte jeg alene rundt, men med taxa fra et sikkerhedsclearet taxafirma. I Herat færdedes jeg frit sammen med andre DAC-medarbejdere i byen, når vi skulle handle...

LONDON – After the downs of 2006 surely 2007 can only be up? Don’t be so sure but there is one thing we can all do to save the planet from mankind’s excess – a little more walking. In the days when the International Herald Tribune was on the Rue de Berri, off the Champs Elysees, I would often walk there from my pension in the Marais, three or so miles down the Seine. It is quite remarkable that one can conveniently traverse the length of one of the world’s major cities without having to leave a towpath or back alley, except for the last 500-yard dash up from the river. The same is true in London. Setting off from the hotel on the edge of Kensington Gardens where the guerrilla chiefs of the patriotic Front stayed during the London constitutional conference on Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, it was possible to...

LONDON – The horror of Sudan was on the front page three times last week. The extraordinary economic progress made by Africa, and many other parts of the Third World, as recorded and analysed in a new World Bank report released last Thursday, was mentioned a bare once in a shortish item on the business page. This paper was no different from all the others. This is how news editors are trained to work – don’t report the trains that arrive on time, and feign ignorance about those that arrive early. Only the ones that are late or, better still, crash, are worthy of note. According to the Bank, the developing countries are now in “the driving seat” of the world economy, with GNP growth reaching an average of 7% this year. (Average means, unless we forget, that if the statistical standard variation is normal half are above the mean.) Although the...

Tal i Umeå Statskyrka, 16 december 2006 – 4 januari 2007 Inför detta tal har jag funderat på vad som gör mig optimistisk inför framtiden och det som gör mig mer pessimistisk. Jag har också funderat på vilka steg jag tror vi måste ta för att få fred och en värld utan våld. Låt mig börja med det som gör mig optimisk. Detta utgörs normalt av de fantastiska människor jag har förmånen att träffa i mitt jobb. Denna höst har jag lärt känna Birgul Özbaris. Hon är en ung turkisk journalist. I Turkiet har hon skrivit flera artiklar om vapenvägran där hon har varit kritisk mot sitt land på grund av de hårda straff som man får om man vägrar göra militärtjänst. På grund av dessa artiklar har hon och hennes familj krakaserrats av myndigheterna och hon har flera rättsfall mot sig där hon riskerar att få över 20 år...

LONDON – The arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London in October, 1998, was a bolt from the blue. It can be said with near certainty that it never had crossed the mind of senior members of the British judiciary who were soon to be landed with untangling the legal intricacies. Indeed, it was such an impossible idea that until almost the very last moment it never occurred to the ex-dictator himself that he could be vulnerable in the very country where his great friend and supporter, Margaret Thatcher, had been prime minister. But when Baltazar Garzón, a senior Spanish magistrate, is on your tail you have to watch out. He has bested Felipe González, the former socialist prime minister, for having been party to the use of a police cell to assassinate leaders of ETA , the violent Basque group. He has also had great success in bringing to quick...

Peace is a dynamic process of nonviolent social interaction that results in security for all members of a society. Peace is not a subject matter taught in many schools. I have often heard it said that the curriculum is too full to add more, but what could be more important than learning about making peace? I think the “full curriculum” is a justification for not wanting to challenge the status quo and teachers are not rewarded for bringing new material into the classroom. I am a proponent of bringing peace into every classroom. Basic questions need to include: How can this problem be solved peacefully? Or, how could this problem have been solved peacefully? Blase Bonpane, who received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2006 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, suggested that when students study wars in history the only meaningful question is: How could this war have been avoided? We need...

I. Metaphor and the Politics of Despair In addressing the General Assembly back in 2003 on the urgent need for UN reform, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, resorted to a frequently quoted metaphorical trope: “Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded.” He explains the rhetoric by saying “[n]ow we must decide whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed upon or whether radical changes are needed.” And further, Annan notes that he had earlier “drew attention to the urgent need for the [Security] Council to regain the confidence of States, and of world public opinion—both by demonstrating its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues, and by becoming more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as the geopolitical...

LONDON – In a speech the other day one of Tanzania’s new breed of remarkable entrepreneurs, Ali Mufuruki, chairman of Infotech Investment Group, made a withering public attack on African defensiveness about its appalling economic record: • “If the excuse is colonialism then compare the experience of Africa with that of Korea, which after decades of the most brutal form of colonial oppression, exploitation and humiliation, plunged into a civil war that killed more than one million of its people and split the country into two parts. Today South Korea is the tenth biggest economy in the world.”    • “India was long colonised by the British. Today Indians are the third biggest investors in the UK.” • “If the excuse is civil war or liberation war then look at Vietnam. Three decades ago it was split in two, its infrastructure completely destroyed and millions killed. Today it is one of the...

“Främjar EU freden?Analys, kritik och alternativ” Svensk resumé av liten skrift på danska och engelska Ofta betecknas Europeiska Unionen som ett fredsprojekt, men vad menar man inom EU egentligen med fred?I denna rapport analyserar den dansk-svenske freds- och konfliktforskaren Jan Øberg EUs politik beträffande försvar, utrikespolitik, konflikthantering och fred. Också den överordnade principen i förslaget till författning för EU analyseras. Oavsett vad som händer med författningsförslaget, är det viktigt att analysera innehållet i detta dokument, som ju är beslutat av samtliga regeringschefer i EU och av EU-parlamentet. Jan Øbergs rapport visar att i författningsförslaget och andra centrala EU-dokument finns en fredsuppfattning som ensidigt lägger huvudvikten på militärt dominerat försvar och säkerhet. Enligt denna uppfattning finns det ’gott våld’, som ska balansera eller utrota ’ont våld’. Däremot spelar konflikthantering och problematisering av våldet som sådant i stort sett ingen roll. Jan Øberg diskuterar två motstående fredsuppfattningar i relation till fyra dimensioner,...

A year or so ago, it was still possible to avoid the worst in Iraq. It made sense for the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, and use its leverage to encourage Iraqi political rivals to seek an accommodation as the alternative to a bloody civil war that might have either lasted indefinitely or produced what would have amounted to an oppressive re-Baathification of the country. It is still likely even now that if the American and British forces leave Iraq over a period of some months one of these two alternatives will shape the future of the country. But with each passing month and regional conflagration the more positive outcome of accommodation becomes less likely, civil war has already become a fact of life in Iraq, and a wider regional conflagration can happen at any time. If this is so, Iraq probably faces a long violent political...