PressInfo 2000

Photos © TFF 2000 Read PressInfo 90 “Lift the Sanctions and Bring More Aid to Yugoslavia” See Pictures from Belgrade © TFF 2000 Please reprint, copy, archive, quote or re-post this item, but please retain the source.

“¿Qué significa defender en el mundo actual? ¿Qué significa seguridad? El 99 por 100 de la información pública y la discusión así como la investigación sobre defensa y seguridad omiten todo problema filosófico y se zambullen directamente en temas como qué armas o presupuesto militar debe tener un país El único armamento que el mundo necesita, me parece a mí,” dice el director de TFF, Jan Oberg, “es un armamento filosófico e intelectual en cultura, en política y en medios de comunicación.” POR SUPUESTO, EXISTEN ALTERNATIVAS “Si es verdad que necesitamos defensa militar, esos militares deberían ser fundamental diferentes de los que vemos hoy por hoy. Pero más importantemente, el mundo -“nosotros, el pueblo”- necesita algo que las élites militares y los complejos militar-industrial-burocráticos no pueden entregarnos: modelos innovadores, comprensivos tanto con los componentes civiles y militares estructurados según cada país como con las necesidades de la región, no con...

It’s only a few months since we launched TNN – the TFF News Navigator. Now we open another new chapter, an online site “TFF Store & Donations.” Here you can do two things: a) Buy TFF and related publications, the whole list since 1986. b) Make donations to help TFF remain a free voice and become people-financed. Our aim is to make it easier for you to buy our publications – books and research reports – and to donate money to our peace research and field work. While we are energetic on Internet, we still believe in the printed word; we also know that many thought it was too costly and time-consuming to acquire our unique peace publications (you can’t buy them anywhere else). We also know that the foundation have thousands of supporters. We expect some of them to be willing to help us now. We must remain a constructive independent...

PressInfo # 109 (December 12, 2000)Sweden in the militarisation of the European Union PressInfo # 108 (December 11, 2000)European Union militarisation: Humpty-Dumpty as peace-maker PressInfo # 107 (December 7, 2000)The militarisation of the European Union: A civilisational mistake PressInfo # 106 (December 4, 2000)Kosovo/a independent? Perhaps, but what matters is how PressInfo # 105 (November 23, 2000)Intellectually the Kosovo Commission Report is a turkey and it won’t fly PressInfo # 104 (November 17, 2000)The Online site “TFF Store & Donations” is launched PressInfo # 103 (October 25, 2000)Post-Milosevic dilemmas – and an imagined way out PressInfo # 102 (October 23, 2000)With Milosevic gone, what shall the West do? PressInfo # 101 (October 18, 2000)TNN – the TFF News Navigator – An event on Internet PressInfo # 100 (October 11, 2000)Why Milosevic won’t get to the Hague PressInfo # 99 (October 9, 2000)The Yugoslav Nonviolent Revolution PressInfo # 98 (13 augusti,...

Many changes in Sweden’s identity Interesting things are happening in Sweden. On November 28, 2000, the Swedish prime minister Goran Persson told Financial Times that Sweden is no longer a neutral country but that it remains militarily alliance-free. That was two weeks before the Swedish Parliament will focus a debate on the issue (December 13). The Social Democratic party program is under revision. Sweden shall no longer be “non-aligned in peace in order to be (able to be) neutral in war.” A main argument is that with the end of the two-bloc Cold War there is nobody to stand “neutral” between and no longer any reason to stand neutral. Only, Sweden will not formally join an alliance and be obliged to come to the rescue should another alliance member be attacked – – see Romano Prodi’s argument in TFF PressInfo 108. In the full glare of publicity the Chief of...

Some reflections on conflict management in the 1990s PressInfo 107 dealt with the conclusions the EU seems to draw from the Balkan crisis, Kosovo in particular. The lessons I, a peace researcher with some knowledge about the region, would pinpoint go in the following, quite different, direction: 1. The EU must first of all improve its capacity to diagnose and understand complex conflicts, conduct early warning, early listening and early action and intervene with civilian capacity to create talks, dialogues, brainstorms and negotiations in close co-operation with all conflicting parties. I would suggest that it attempts to reduce national interests and intervene as impartially as it can and attack problems rather than actors. It is essential to understand that the earlier we intervene and the less violent a conflict is, the easier it is to help solve it without politicising the situation and the easier it is to control prestige,...

The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs withdraws organisational support for TFF, without prior consultation, motivation or documentation but with immediate effect. We intend to survive! September 22, 2000Jan ÖbergTFF’s global constituency and presence on Internet Reflections on the Support Campaign in the year 2000 September 22, 2000TFF SupportersIn their own voiceWhat people around the world wrote to and about TFF September 22, 2000Jan ÖbergAnalys av UD:s beslut om att slopa organisationsbidrag till TFF för år 2000 TFF PressInfo # 98Support Appeal Svensk Stödappell TFF PressInfo # 95Action Request – How You Can Help TFF Now TFF PressInfo # 94The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deprives TFF of Its Annual Organisational Grant – and Allocates Millionswithout Documentation TFF PressInfo # 94 (in Swedish)UD slopar stöd till TFF – och fördelar miljoner utan redovisning Arbetets ledarsida 26 maj 2000Mot en snävare debatt Arbetet 6 juni 2000Socialdemokratin svek idealen, idag jamsar man med –...

It was quite predictable that the EU would militarise itself. In fact, one of the world’s leading peace researchers, TFF adviser Johan Galtung, predicted that in his book about the EU from 1972, “A Superpower in the Making.” It is not in the nature of big powers to see greatness in nonviolence, dialogue, tolerance or in playing the role of one among many. The EU – – whose main players are former colonial powers and present nuclear powers and/or culturally violent – – began their militarisation some ten years ago with the French-German military co-operation, and it got another boost with the French-British agreement in 1998 in Saint Malo. And today’s EU Nice Summit is likely to put the militarisation of EU on an irreversible path, most likely to a new Cold War. Today it is the so-called Eurocorps which is formally in charge of NATO/KFOR in Kosovo. Internally, the EU struggles...

(Erratum to PressInfo 105 after this text) The main proposal in the independent international Kosovo Commission’s report is that Kosovo should be given conditional independence. This PressInfo deals with this proposal and a few other aspects of the report. THE FIRST PARAGRAPH The very first paragraph of the report’s executive statement states: “The origins of the crisis have to be understood in terms of a new wave of nationalism that led to the rise of Milosevic and the official adoption of an extreme Serbian nationalist agenda. The revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989 was followed by a Belgrade policy aimed at changing the ethnic composition of Kosovo and creating an apartheid-like society.” Here are some simple counter arguments: a) nationalism alone certainly can not explain the conflicts in the region; b) not only the Serbs used nationalism, so did Bosnian Muslim, Croats, Macedonians, Slovenes and Albanians at the time; c)...

We expect soldiers we send to the front to have some military education and training. As patients we hope the doctor has studied medicine. And who would write a constitution for a new state if not professionally educated lawyers? But not so when it comes to conflict-analysis, mediation or peace-making. In this field it seems that neither specific education, practical experience nor knowledge about the conflicting parties and their cultures is of any importance. The important thing is that you want to do good. Last year, Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden took the initiative to establish an independent international commission tasked with analysing the equally enigmatic and tragic Kosovo conflict and NATO’s bombing as well as outline the lessons to be learnt. He appointed Richard Goldstone, the well-respected South African judge and former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal to chair it together with former Swedish education minister, Carl...

Based on the analysis in PressInfo 102, here follow some examples of the cul-de-sac created by the Milosevic/West symbiosis: Kosovo options 1. Declare it an integral part of Serbia/Yugoslavia. If so, it can’t be excluded that hardline Albanians would begin to attack KFOR, UN, OSCE, and NGO staff. The risk of losing lives would scare the West, the US in particular. The Albanians are perfectly right in interpreting US and other Western actions the last years as a policy of strong support to their struggle for Kosova as an independent state. The KPC could quickly become KLA again. And if Serbs and other chased-out people came back to Kosovo we would see much more violence. 2. Declare Kosovo an independent state. That is incompatible with UN SC resolution 1244. More important, no democratic government can be elected in Belgrade on “let’s give Kosovo away forever.” If a democratic government actually did so...

The Milosevic-West symbiosis In handling the Balkan crisis the last ten years, the United States and European countries could have chosen a pro-active policy based on conflict analysis and a fair, principled implementation. They could have avoided today’s intellectual, political and moral cul-de-sac and avoided the bombing last year. They would not be de facto protectors of Bosnia and occupiers of Kosovo/a. Most Western actors grossly underestimated the complexities of the Balkans, they were occupied with the end of the Cold War, they chose to perceive it all in simplified black-and-white terms. They never acted to only help the parties solve their problems, but were guided by their own more or less nationalist, competing interests in the Balkans. And then, above all, there was the “Milosevic factor.” The West is cosmologically burdened with a tendency to write simplifying, fail-safe recipes for the solution of extremely complex economic, constitutional, historical and...