Category Archives: DISARMAMENT & SECURITY

As Biden Plans Withdrawal, Analysis Shows Afghan War Cost At Least 241,000 Lives and $2.26 Trillion

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Common Dreams (reprinted according to provisions of a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License)

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement  that he plans to withdraw all regular U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by this year’s anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, experts at the Costs of War Project on Friday released an update on what nearly two decades of war has cost in both dollars and human lives.


An estimated 241,000 people have died as a direct result of the war, and the United States has spent $2.26 trillion  on military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion, according to the project, housed at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.

“These horrific numbers are testament to the costs of war, first to the Afghan people, and then to the soldiers and people of the United States,” said project co-director and Brown University professor Catherine Lutz in a statement. “Ending the war as soon as possible is the only rational and humane thing to do.”

The new Costs of War Project figures are part of a nearly decadelong effort by co-director and Boston University professor Neta Crawford to track the costs of post-9/11 wars in not only Afghanistan and Pakistan but also Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond.

The death tally includes U.S. military and contractors, Department of Defense civilians, Afghan and Pakistani national military and police, other allied troops, civilians, opposition fighters, journalists and media workers, and humanitarian aid workers. The project notes that “these figures do not include deaths caused by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war.”

The financial costs include Overseas Contingency Operations budgets of the U.S. Defense and State departments, the DOD’s base-budget war-related increases, veteran care, and estimated interest on money borrowed to fund the war. It does not included future costs of veteran care or future interest payments.

“The DOD spending, at over $900 billion in Afghanistan, is the tip of the iceberg,” Crawford said. “The costs of the Afghanistan war include its escalation into Pakistan, millions of refugees and displaced persons, the toll in lives of combatants and noncombatants, and the need to care for America’s veterans. The Pentagon’s base budget has increased as well.”

“We report these estimates so that the American people will have a better understanding of the scale of the effort and its consequences,” she explained. “The American people also lost some transparency here. A more comprehensive accounting is yet to be completed. It would include not just money that may or may not have been well spent, but the count of those wounded, those who lost limbs, and the tremendous psychological toll of decades of war on combatants and noncombatants and their families.”

(Article continued on the right column)

Question for this article:

Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

(Article continued from the left column)

The new numbers come after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) argued  Thursday in an op-ed for the Washington Post that the withdrawal should spark reflection upon “the enormous costs” of nearly two decades of war and enable the U.S. to “refocus on diplomacy as our foreign policy tool of first resort.”

“Executing a responsible and comprehensive withdrawal from Afghanistan is an essential first step toward Biden fulfilling his commitment to end ‘forever wars,'” the lawmakers wrote. “But more work must be done.”

Antiwar activists and human rights advocates concur.

Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, noted  Friday that Biden’s announcement “has raised fears that further insecurity may erode important gains in human rights that have allowed Afghans, women and girls in particular, to enjoy greater freedoms and better education and health.”

“The U.S. government should commit to providing vital funding and diplomatic support to preserve and expand on those gains and press for an end to abuses against civilians,” Gossman said.

In addition to boosting assistance for education and health, especially for Afghan females of all ages, “assistance will be needed to improve enforcement of laws protecting women and to ensure that legal aid is available for women prisoners and juvenile detainees,” Human Rights Watch explained.

The group also called for strengthening Afghan human rights groups, particularly the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and said that “the U.S. should provide long-term institutional support to assist independent news media organizations to become self-sustaining. The U.S. should also press the Taliban—which could become an aid recipient under any future peace agreement—to cease all threats and attacks on the media and to pledge to uphold media freedom.”

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies of the peace group CodePink wrote in The Progressive Thursday that “it’s true that a U.S. withdrawal may lead to setbacks in the gains made by Afghan women and girls. But those gains have been mainly in the capital city of Kabul. Two-thirds  of girls in Afghanistan still receive no primary education, and Afghan women will never achieve significant advances while their country remains at war.”

“Ending the fighting and investing a small fraction of U.S. war spending in education and healthcare would do far more to improve the lives of Afghan women and girls,” they asserted. More broadly, the pair filled in some of details that haven’t been a major focus since the president confirmed plans to end the longest U.S. war, writing:

What Biden did not admit is that the United States and its allies, with all their money and firepower, were unable to vanquish the Taliban, who currently control about half of Afghanistan and are positioned to control even more in the coming months without a ceasefire. Nor did Biden admit that, in two decades, the United States and its allies have been unable to build up a stable, democratic, popular government or a competent military in the country.

Benjamin and Davies also noted that “while Biden is being pilloried by some for pulling out too soon, the truth is that he is violating  a May 1 deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal that was painstakingly negotiated under the Trump administration,” and anticipation of that U.S. violation has prompted the Taliban to refuse to join 10 days of United Nations-led peace talks set to start in Istanbul on April 24.

“We must hope that, in the coming months, the U.N. will find a way to bring the warring parties in Afghanistan together and craft a ceasefire and a workable peace process based on power sharing,” they concluded. “After so many decades of war and intense suffering, much of it perpetrated by the United States and its allies, the Afghan people desperately need—and deserve—an end to this war.”

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Mideast, North America,

Latin American Congress of Research for Peace will be held virtually in August

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Proceso, Honduras (translation by CPNN)

UNAH, through the Peace Department of ​​the University Institute on Democracy, Peace and Security (IUDPAS), together with the Multidisciplinary Research Center (CRIM) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), will convene the XII Latin American Research Congress to La Paz in a virtual and free format from August 3 to 7 of this year.


The Latin American Council for Peace Research (CLAIP) also participates as co-organizer of the academic event. The event continues an initiative of more than 100 researchers and specialists who started it in 1977.

Since the founding meeting 44 years ago, CLAIP has contributed to the development of the discipline of peace and conflict studies through various networking proposals, publications, and the organization of meetings and successive congresses.

The XII Congress will promote a dialogue of knowledge that will allow us to overcome the social, political and economic crisis of the continent and the world, which was aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The perverse normality to which we strive to return is even more deadly than the virus. This normality is being ignored while we consume irresponsibly ”, highlighted the Manifesto for a new normality of CLAIP in 2020.

The XII Latin American Congress of Research for Peace will have as its motto “A new normality is possible and necessary” and is conceived as a space for exchange and reflection on the normality preceding the outbreak of the pandemic, as well as a space for reflection , ideas and proposals aimed at promoting the development of “a new normality” that restores the value of life and guarantees attention to the material needs of the population as a whole, promotes respect and care for Mother Earth, and encourages the emergence of cultures of peace on the continent.

(Article continued in right column)

(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article.)

Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(Article continued from left column)

The director of the IUDPAS, Julieta Castellanos, indicated that like the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), as the co-organizing entity of the congress, reaffirms the commitment to minimize violence and contribute to the construction of peace.

The coordinator of the IUDPAS Peace Area and the event in Honduras, Esteban Ramos, pointed out that «the XII Congress of Research for Peace is sponsored by more than 50 important institutions, social organizations, study and research centers, CLACSO working groups and hundreds of academics and activists committed to peace in Latin America, Portugal and Spain ».

Ramos explained that people interested in participating as congress listeners should register through the claip.org website, where they will find all the information related to the event.

The registration of the papers will be enabled during April and must be done through the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8u9UwnMTE6ZgkGpsuTzN8Vw9iokeqJ7ghnqIPYQ_UcLHEw/viewform?usp=sf_link.

The proposals for papers can be presented in Spanish, Portuguese or English and must be related to any of the fields of knowledge linked to the following 9 thematic axes:

1. Climate change and environmental sustainability.

2. Peacebuilding, conflict transformation and violence minimization.

3. Access to justice and human rights.

4. Culture of peace, education and communication for peace, art and sports.

5. Participatory governance, public policies, the state and corruption.

6. Economic system and alternative economies.

7. Pandemic, health and wellness.

8. Gender.

9. Diversity and vulnerabilities.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Latin America

Interview with Chas Freeman on US-China policy

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

Excerpts from an interview conducted by Sam Kolitch and published in the Brown Political Review

Ambassador Chas Freeman is a retired career diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-1994, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989-1992 during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1986-1989 during the Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola and the U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa, Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at Bangkok from 1984-1986 and at Beijing from 1981-1984, and Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981. In 1972, he was the primary American interpreter for President Nixon’s trailblazing visit to China.


Image Credit: The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs

Ambassador Freeman is the author of America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East, Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, America’s Misadventures in the Middle East, The Diplomat’s Dictionary, Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy, and Cooking Western in China. He has also published in prestigious academic journals such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Harvard International Review. Prior to becoming a Visiting Scholar at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Ambassador Freeman served as President of the Middle East Policy Council and Co-Chair of the United States China Policy Foundation. He speaks Chinese fluently, Spanish and French at the professional level, and Arabic conversationally, in addition to several other languages. Ambassador Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and he earned a JD from the Harvard Law School and an AB magna cum laude from Yale University. . . .

SK: Before we discuss China, how do you define “good diplomacy”? 

CF: The basis of diplomacy is empathy. It is the ability to understand how and why someone else sees things in order to persuade them of your position. Good diplomacy is all about persuading others to redefine their interests in order to conform with yours. It is also about forming relationships with people so that you can make them want to cooperate with you—not oppose you. This allows you to draw on people at a moment of crisis to gain access or to be heard. Diplomacy is also negotiation. It is about trying to ensure that bad things that could happen don’t happen. Very often, diplomats don’t get credit for what didn’t happen. But a lot of things don’t happen because skillful diplomats have prevented them from happening. So good diplomacy is complex and requires a lot of skill. 

SK: What is the root cause of the United States’ desire to confront China? 

CF: I think the rudimentary driver of the United States’ confrontation with China is psychology, not strategy. We became the world’s largest economy sometime in the 1870s. That’s 150 years ago. Now we’ve either already been eclipsed, or we’re about to be eclipsed, by China. So we’re afraid of not being number one and we’ve decided that we will hamstring the rise of China. No one on the American side has described where this confrontation is supposed to take us—it’s just an end in itself. Also, we have exercised military primacy in the Asia-Pacific region since 1945. Now, we confront the return of China to wealth and power in the region. And our position in the Asia-Pacific is precarious. What does that mean? It means that we object to things like China’s anti-access and area denial weapon system (A2/AD), otherwise known as defense. The Chinese now can stop us from running through their defenses. So this is a threat: we’re not all-powerful anymore. We are in danger of losing primacy. 

But there’s not much evidence of China wanting to replace us. They are displacing us in some spheres because they’re big and growing and successful. Do they want to take on our global dominion and hegemony role? No, but we assert that they do. We posit that China thinks and behaves like us: “We had Manifest Destiny and it took us across the Pacific to the Philippines. Therefore, China must have a Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny in mind.” This is wrong. Things don’t work like that. So I would argue that we have inhaled our own propaganda, and we are living in the appropriately stoned state that that produces. If we have sound policies, we can out-compete anyone. But we’re not looking at sound policies; we’re looking at pulling down our competitor. 

(Article continued on the right column)

Question for this article:

Is there a growing danger of war between US and China?

(Article continued from the left column)

SK: Isn’t the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) indicative of China’s desire to expand its influence, if not “replace” our hegemonic role on the global stage?

CF: The initial impulse of the Belt and Road Initiative was that China had a surplus capacity in steel, cement, aluminum, and construction capability—and it extended these resources abroad. Then China looked at what it was doing and said, “Actually, it would be really good if Lisbon was connected to Vladivostok efficiently, and Arkhangelsk was connected to Colombo. Maybe we could throw in Mombasa, too. This would create a huge interconnected area in which trade and investment could flow smoothly.” So, actually, a major part of the BRI is an agreement on tariffs, customs barrier treatment, transit, and bonded storage. It is the construction of roads, railroads, airports, ports, industrial parks, fiber optic cables, et cetera, over this huge area. 

And the Chinese assumption—not aspiration, but assumption—is that as the largest and most dynamic society in that area, they will be the preeminent force in it. But this is an economic strategy, it’s not a military one. So the problem we have conceptually is that the only way we, the United States, know how to think about international affairs is in military terms. Our foreign policy is very militarized and is driven by military considerations. 

SK: China has rejected the U.S. State Department’s characterization of its treatment of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region as “genocide.” Do you agree with this characterization?

CF: I think what is happening to the Uighurs is awful—no doubt about it. We do not, however, know exactly what’s happening to them. There are terms like genocide being thrown around, which may not fit the case. But I think it is entirely appropriate that we express the view that the treatment of the Uighurs is appalling. What are we going to do about it? It is a complicated situation. I hate to keep coming back to American hypocrisy, but why does the Muslim world not line up with us on the Uighur situation? Because when was the last time we said anything about the Palestinians, Kashmiris, or Chechens? There are Muslims being oppressed all over the world, and we don’t say anything. So selective outrage isn’t very effective.

SK: China continues to defend its crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong. How will this impact U.S. foreign policy toward China? 

CF: What I expect will happen, now that ‘one country’ has been established, is that politics in Hong Kong will evolve to address some of the domestic problems in Hong Kong that have been neglected—housing, education, and social welfare, for example. So I don’t think there’s an easy answer to the Hong Kong issue, but I think that people who have written off the idea of any kind of democracy are wrong. Hong Kong’s democracy will not be focused on secession from China; it will be focused on problems inside Hong Kong. And it may or may not be effective. 

We need to get real about these problems. If we really care about the Uighur and Hong Kong situations from a humanitarian point of view, we need to try to find a way to chip away at them—not just condemn them. Condemning things doesn’t do anything but make people angry and less receptive to your arguments. These issues ought to be addressed seriously. 

SK: How does China view Taiwan’s continued push for independence?  

CF: The Chinese government sees Taiwan as a continuation of a foreign sphere of influence on Chinese territory. They see it as a continuation of warlordism, which means local independence from central control. The Chinese see an independent Taiwan as a challenge to their legitimacy. 

SK: With that in mind, do you think that we are heading toward a military confrontation with China in the Taiwan Strait? 

CF: There is no framework for keeping the peace in the Taiwan area anymore. And I think it’s pretty clear that we’re heading into a war. We seem to be heading toward a bloody rendezvous with Chinese nationalism—and I don’t think that’s too smart. We’re talking about contesting the territory of a nuclear power. Does anybody think about that? There is an underlying assumption, probably born from the thirty years since the end of the Cold War, that we’re invulnerable and omnipotent. I don’t have any problem with the use of force. But I do have a problem with the foolish use of force by picking fights you’re going to lose. Let’s pick a fight, but let’s make sure it’s one that we can win. So I think that instead of trying to bring China down, which we won’t be able to do, we should be trying to leverage its growing prosperity to increase our own prosperity.

SK: How do we do that—leverage China’s prosperity to further our own interests? 

CF: China has the world’s best technology for building infrastructure. We have infrastructure that is falling apart. Maybe their technology can be licensed. Maybe bonds could be issued against tolls on repaired roads or traffic on revamped rail lines. Maybe ports could be rebuilt. There’ve been a whole series of international meetings in recent years about the problem of American infrastructure—our ports can’t handle traffic and they’re not being modernized. I think, actually, our country needs to come to a point where we rediscover what made us great in the beginning: an openness to foreigners, foreign ideas, and best practices from abroad so that we can apply them at home. We should not be approaching the world with the attitude that we have all the answers.  

We should be cooperating with China on broad, planet-wide international problems like climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, environmental remediation, and so forth. We should be cooperating in order to bring a peaceful end to the confrontations with North Korea, Iran, and others. Lastly, we should not be pushing Russia and China together, which is what we are doing. The one maxim of diplomacy is “divide your enemies”—and we are doing the opposite. 

(Thank you to The Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research for calling out attention to this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia, North America,

Biden’s Announcement That Trump Got Military Spending Just Right Is Dead Wrong

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by David Swanson

President Joe Biden is proposing a level of Pentagon spending so close to that of Trump’s last year in office that Bloomberg  calls it a 0.4% reduction adjusting for inflation while Politico  calls it a 1.5% increase and “effectively an inflation-adjusted budget boost.” I call it a disgusting violation of the will of the public spent in the hypocritical name of a grand battle against autocracies by so-called democracies, driven in reality by the influence of war profiteers and contempt for the fate of the planet and the people on it.


The U.S. public, according to polling, would reduce military spending if it had something resembling a democracy.

Just five weapons dealers poured  $60 million into U.S. election campaign bribery in 2020. These companies now sell more weapons abroad than to the U.S. government, with the U.S. State Department acting as a marketing firm, and with U.S. weapons and/or U.S. military training and/or U.S. government funding going to the militaries of 96%  of the most oppressive governments on earth.

U.S. military spending is $1.25 trillion  per year across numerous departments. Even just taking the $700 billion and change that goes to the Pentagon and stands in for the full amount in media coverage, U.S. military spending has been climbing for years, including during the Trump years, and is the equivalent  of many of the world’s top military spenders combined, most of which are U.S. allies, NATO members, and U.S. weapons customers.

Still using that artificially reduced figure, China is at 37% of it, Russia at 8.9%, and Iran is spending 1.3%. These are, of course, comparisons of absolute amounts.  Per capita  comparisons are extreme as well. The United States, every year, takes $2,170 from every man, woman, and child for wars and war preparations, while Russia takes $439, China $189, and Iran $114.

“Takes” is the right word. President Eisenhower once admitted it out loud, saying, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

(Article continued on the right column)

Question for this article:

Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

(Article continued from the left column)

When a mere $30 billion could end  starvation on earth, there is no question that militarism kills first and foremost through the diversion of funds from where they are needed, while of course risking  nuclear apocalypse and driving  environmental collapse,  justifying  secrecy,  fueling  bigotry, and degrading  culture.

The madness of militarism is not new, but it is always newly happening in an environmentally riskier world in more desperate need of a redirection of resources, and is happening now in the midst of a pandemic. Meanwhile President Biden proposes to pay for things he wants to spend money on with slight corporate taxes over 15 years, as if no other expenses will come up between now and 2036.

A bill in both houses of Congress called the ICBM Act would move funding from intercontinental ballistic missiles to vaccines. Dozens of Congress Members say they favor moving funding from militarism to human and environmental needs. Yet, not a single one has made a public commitment to voting against any bill that fails to reduce military spending, and not a single one has introduced a war powers resolution to end a single war, now that Trump’s veto cannot be relied on to render such an action harmless.

It is a real shame that President Biden is not a member of the Democratic Party whose 2020 Platform reads: “Democrats believe the measure of our security is not how much we spend on defense, but how we spend our defense dollars and in what proportion to other tools in our foreign policy toolbox and other urgent domestic investments. We believe we can and must ensure our security while restoring stability, predictability, and fiscal discipline in defense spending. We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy. We spend five times more in Afghanistan each year than we do on global public health and preventing the next pandemic. We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less.”

It’s just bad luck that President Biden does not subscribe to the religion professed by the Pope who remarked  last Sunday: “The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for the poor. Nonetheless – and this is scandalous – armed conflicts have not ended and military arsenals are being strengthened.”

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. military arsenal is being strengthened in a proper progressive manner: “The $715 billion Pentagon ‘topline’ is likely to be presented as a compromise to Democrats pressing for cuts in defense spending, as some of the money would be slated for the Pentagon’s environmental initiatives.”

With friends like the Pentagon, the environment has no need of enemies, real or imagined.

According to Politico, wildly out-of-control military spending that Biden believes Donald Trump got just about exactly right is actually a demonstration of restraint because “Pentagon budgeteers” have been hoping for more. Let us weep for them in our own private ways.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Activists Block Rail Route for General Dynamics Armoured Vehicles Bound for Saudi Arabia, Demand Canada Stop Fueling War in Yemen

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from World Beyond War

Members of anti-war organizations World BEYOND War, Labour Against the Arms Trade, and People for Peace London are blocking railway tracks near General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, a London-area company manufacturing light armoured vehicles (LAVs) for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


The activists are calling on General Dynamics to end its complicity in the brutal Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen and calling on the Canadian government to end arms exports to Saudi Arabia and expand humanitarian assistance for the people of Yemen.

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led, Western-backed coalition’s intervention in Yemen’s civil war, leading to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

It is estimated that 24 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance – some 80% of the population – which is being thwarted by the Saudi-led coalition’s land, air, and naval blockade of the country. Since 2015, this blockade has prevented food, fuel, commercial goods and aid from entering Yemen. According to the World Food Program, nearly 50,000 people in Yemen are already living in famine-like conditions with 5 million just a step away. To add to the already dire situation, Yemen has one of the worst COVID-19 death rates in the world, killing 1 in 4 people who test positive.

(Article continued in right column)

Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

(Article continued from left column)

Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic and calls from the United Nations for a global ceasefire, Canada has continued to export arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2019, Canada exported arms valued at $2.8 billion to the Kingdom—more than 77 times the dollar value of Canadian aid to Yemen in the same year.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Canada has exported over $1.2 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, the bulk of which are light armoured vehicles manufactured by General Dynamics, part of a $15 billion arms deal brokered by the Government of Canada. Canadian weapons continue to fuel a war that has led to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis in Yemen and heavy civilian casualties.

The light armoured vehicles manufactured by General Dynamics in London, Ontario are being transported by rail and truck to port where they are loaded onto Saudi ships.

“Since the multi-billion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia was first signed, Canadian civil society has published reports, presented petitions, protested at government offices and weapons manufacturers across the country, and delivered several letters to Trudeau in which dozens of groups representing millions have repeatedly demanded Canada stop arming Saudi Arabia” said Rachel Small of World BEYOND War. “We’ve been left with no choice but to block the Canadian tanks headed to Saudi Arabia ourselves.”

“Workers want green, peaceful jobs, not jobs manufacturing weapons of war. We will continue to put pressure on the Liberal government to end arms exports to Saudi Arabia and work with unions to secure alternatives for arms industry workers,” said Simon Black of Labour Against the Arms Trade, a coalition of peace and labour activists working to end Canada’s participation in the international arms trade.

“What our community needs is government funding for rapid conversion from military exports back to production for human needs, as these plants used to do,” says David Heap of People for Peace London. “We call for immediate public investment in much-needed green transport industries that will ensure good jobs for Londoners while protecting peace and human rights in the world.”

Follow twitter.com/wbwCanada and twitter.com/LAATCanada for photos, videos, and updates during the rail blockade.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Civil society in northeast Syria promotes women’s role to fight extremism

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Akhin Ahmed in the Al-Monitor

The Democratic Solutions Organization  (Demos), a civil society organization operating in northern and eastern Syria with the aim to build a democratic state to fight extremism, wrapped up its first annual conference on Feb. 17 in the northern Syrian city of Qamishli. 

Some 42 public figures, including 15 women, in addition to activists, media professionals, politicians, representatives of civil organizations and community leaders, took part in the conference to discuss the results of Demos’ project dubbed “Promoting Positivity of Life to Counter Violent Extremism.”

The project was launched a year and a half ago and directly targeted about 13,000 people and indirectly targeted many more across Hasakah, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. 

Abbas Ali, the project manager, discussed with Al-Monitor the goals of the project, saying, “Our project aims to boost the steadfastness of local communities in the cities of Hasakah, Qamishli, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor against extremism.” 

He noted, “The project also aims to strengthen the role of women, youth and the displaced in fighting violent extremism through a number of workshops Demos held in the past year and a half as part of its project.”

Abbas added that through its project, Demos focuses on several topics, most notably countering violence against women’s rights and promoting pride in cultural identity.

(Continued in right column)

Question related to this article:

Islamic extremism, how should it be opposed?

Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

(continued from left column)

Mirna Namis, one of the participants and supervisors of the Demos workshops, told Al-Monitor, “In the absence of a role for women in fighting extremism and terrorism, we sought — through our [Demos] project — to support women in this field. We sought ways to engage women in ensuring the safety and security of their families and protecting them from terrorism and extremism. We also discussed ways to involve women in confronting negative forces in society and the effective role that they can play in their surroundings, whether inside or outside their homes, in order to instil a culture of peace as an alternative to hatred.” 

Namis praised the prominent role of education and the press in rejecting the culture of extremism and violence. 

She added, “Our project directly targeted about 13,000 people and was implemented in Hasakah, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The participants in the conference included decision-makers in the region, in addition to politicians, civil society activists and representatives of civil organizations, independent figures and media professionals.” 

Rakan Dargham, a civil activist from Raqqa who participated in the conference, told Al-Monitor, “The conference included sessions on the role of the internet in spreading violence and extremism on the one hand, and its role in combating extremism on the other.”

He explained, “Our project addressed the role of the internet as a double-edged sword. The internet is used by militant groups to influence the minds of young people and recruit them.

The Islamic State  [IS] and other radical groups have used the internet in their recruitment process. But the internet and the media are also used to expose the true intentions and plans of these radical groups, such as IS, that influence and lure a large number of youth and convince them to commit crimes.”

In regard to the possibility of women serving as a catalyst in the peace process in Syria, Abbas said, “Women can play a key role in instilling peace by preventing their husbands, sons  or brothers from participating in wars and armed conflicts and getting involved in the activities of extremist groups. Women are inherently peace-loving and their awareness of the importance of peace reflects positively on the environment in which they live. They can be a catalyst in the peace process in the country.” 

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Mideast, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

United States: Who Is Clare Grady and Why Should We Care that She is in Federal Prison?

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Jeremy Kuzmarov from CovertAction Magazine

On April 4, 2018—a date symbolically chosen because it is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination—Clare Grady and six other activists broke into the Kings Bay Submarine base in St. Mary’s, Georgia, the largest nuclear submarine base in the world. 

They carried hammers and baby bottles filled with their own blood. Their purpose? To symbolically “beat swords into plowshares,” as prophesied in Isaiah 2:4, by disarming one of the world’s deadliest swords—the Trident nuclear submarine. 


Plowshares 7 congregate outside courthouse during their trial for breaking into the Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia. Martha Hennessy, Kathleen Rumpf (co-defendent in another Plowshares case), Mark Colville, Clare Grady, Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill, Liz McAlister. (July 12th, 2019)  [Source: beyondnuclearinternational.org]

It was no walk in the park

First, using a bolt cutter, this unlikely commando team of 60-, 70- and 80-year-old priests, grandmothers and grandfathers squeezed themselves through a remote gate on the base. Then they trekked, slopped, and splashed through two miles of notoriously inhospitable Southern Georgia swampland, swarming with ticks, fire ants, earwigs and mosquitoes—not to mention poisonous rattlesnakes—as well as venomous scorpions only an inch in length but whose sting can be fatal, and alligators, of which Georgia boasts a population of more than 200,000.

Finally, as reported by World Socialist Website, they reached a location “where they prayed, read from Scripture, splashed bottles of their own blood onto a wall, spray-painted messages against nuclear weapons onto a sidewalk, hammered on parts of a shrine to nuclear missiles and hung protest banners.”

As agreed in advance, all seven participants—Clare Grady, Father Stephen Kelly, Mark Colville, Martha Hennessy, Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick O’Neill, and Carmen Trotta—remained at the site, peacefully awaiting the police, so they could explain the reason for their actions. They were arrested, tried, and then convicted on October 24, 2019, in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Georgia for the crime of conspiracy, destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, and trespass.

Clare Grady was sentenced to a one-year prison term in Alderson Federal Prison in West Virginia, which began on February 10th, 2021. 

As for the other six activists: Carmen Trotta was sentenced to 14 months; Patrick O’Neill to 14 months followed by two years of supervised probation. (He has appealed the sentence.); Steve Kelly to 33-months less time served and three years of supervised probation; Martha Hennessy to 10 months; and Elizabeth McAlister to time served, which was the 17 months she had spent in prison awaiting trial. (She was also sentenced to three years of probation.). Mark Colville will be sentenced in April.

“Festival of Hope” in Celebration of Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7

Going to prison has not discouraged Clare Grady, nor will it deter her from continued opposition to the makers of war and mass death who control our national government. To celebrate Clare Grady’s resilience and determination, and that of her six companions, the antiwar group Code Pink  hosted a “Festival of Hope” webinar in honor of Clare and the Kings Bay Plowshares 7  on February 7, 2021, three days before the start of Clare’s prison term.

Try watching this video on www.youtube.com

Many who spoke at this virtual convocation are long-time activists who have spent their lives in the service of world peace and universal community. They include: 
* Agnes Williams, a Seneca leader working in western New York;
* Leona Morgan, a Diné leader from the Navajo Nation, working in New Mexico and Arizona to stop uranium production and dumping on their lands;
* Clare Daly, Irish Parliamentarian and a co-defendant in an Irish trial of civil resistance to U.S. warplanes refueling at Shannon Airport;
* Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor who has worked tirelessly to end nuclear weapons and has been instrumental in the enactment of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that went into force last week;
* Professor Russell Rickford, Cornell University historian of the Black Freedom Struggle and the Black Radical Tradition and an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America;
* Emma O’Grady, writer, and actor from County Galway, Ireland;
* Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Detroit theologian, author, nonviolent community activist and civil resister to water shut-offs, who offered a closing prayer.

Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima bomb survivor voiced her support for Grady and the Plowshares 7 in a pre-recorded statement that was played at the “Festival of Hope.”

In the statement, Setsuko described in vivid detail her experience in Hiroshima on the fateful day of August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped.

At the time, Setsuko was on an excursion away from her school. Suddenly, she said, she was “blown into the air” and felt herself “floating” before she woke up to find herself in darkness under a collapsed building.

After hearing a male voice telling her “not to give up,” a soldier helped free Setsuko from the building, which was now on fire.

Outside, the air was filled with particles, and people moved on the streets as if they were ghosts, with their hair standing up to the sky, and their skin and flesh burned.

Some of the people had their intestines bulging out while others had their own eyeballs in their hands.

Setsuko escaped to a hill which was packed with dead bodies and people were begging for water.

Among the thousands of innocent people killed on that day were nine members of Setsuko’s family, including her aunt, uncle, sister and four-year-old nephew, whose small body became unrecognizable.

Setsuko stated that “this is what nuclear war does; it results in indescribable mass killing and suffering. Today, the weapons are even more destructive than in 1945, and could kill a million people in a quick moment.”

Standing up for Humanity

Setsuko’s warning was heeded by other speakers at the webinar who further emphasized the health hazards of nuclear energy and its contamination of the environment.

Clare Daly, a member of the European parliament who was jailed for protesting against U.S. military planes flying out of Shannon Airport in Ireland, stated that the “stance taken by Clare [Grady] was absolutely moral and courageous, she is a beacon to activists around the world. Clare joins people like Julian Assange in going to jail for standing up for humanity.”

Grady’s daughter, Leah, read a letter from Plowshares 7 activist Martha Hennessy, currently serving out her ten-month sentence at the Danbury Correctional Institution in Connecticut, who recalled how she and Clare had been imprisoned together for protest acts in the early 1980s and that Clare had taught her how to be a role model to other incarcerated women.

Patrick O’Neill, who is serving a 14-month sentence, sent a message from the Elkton Correctional Institution in Ohio that Clare will be a “light in the darkness” for women in her next stop, “a den of oppression and despair.”

At the trial, Plowshares 7 attorneys had tried to argue that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 protected the protest because the seven were motivated by their faith  and that nuclear weapons are illegal, as an indictment Hennessy taped to the door of the base alleged.

When Hennessy attempted to show the jury photos of bodies at Hiroshima, the judge objected.

At their sentencing, Plowshares activists invoked the Nuremberg principle, stating that it was their duty to try to stop another nuclear holocaust, and that those who “say nothing in the face of evil, are contributing to evil by their collective silence.”

Steve Kelley, who is a Jesuit priest said that he considered himself a “prisoner of conscience for Christ,” preaching against  “the sin that flourishes in weapons of mass destruction.”

Grady stated at her sentencing that the weapons she had tried to sabotage were “not private property, they belong to the people of the United States, they belong to me, to you, to us.”

(continued in right column)

Question for this article:

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

How can just one or a few persons contribute to peace and justice?

(continued from left column)

These weapons kill and cause harm in our name, and with our money. This omnicidal weapon doesn’t just kill IF it is launched, it kills every day. Indigenous people are, and continue to be, some of the first victims of nuclear weapons—the mining, refining, testing, and dumping of radioactive material for nuclear weapons all happens on Native Land. The trillions of dollars spent on nuclear weapons are resources STOLEN from the planet and her people.”[1]

History

Most members of the Plowshares 7 are affiliated with the Catholic Worker movement which is committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken.

Art Laffin, co-editor of Swords into Plowshares—Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament explained  that “the main symbols used in plowshares actions are hammers and blood. Hammers are used to literally begin the process of disarmament that thousands of talks and numerous treaties have failed to accomplish. The hammer is used to take apart as well as create, and to point to the urgency for conversion of war and weapons production to products that enhance life.”

Liz McAlister has been an anti-war activist since she and her late husband, Philip Berrigan, destroyed draft cards during the Vietnam War, and Martha Hennessy is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement founder  who is on her way to being canonized as a saint by the Vatican.

The Plowshares group has carried out more than 100 civil disobedience acts to protest the U.S. warfare state since September 1980 when eight peace activists—including Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who had been known for their antiwar activism in the Vietnam era—entered the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where the nose cones for the Mark 12-A nuclear warheads were manufactured.

With hammers and blood, the eight enacted the biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) to “beat swords into plowshares” by hammering on two of the nose cones and pouring blood on documents. 

The Plowshares 8’s subsequent legal battle was recreated in Emile de Antonio’s 1982 film In the King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen  and featured appearances by the Plowshares 8 as themselves.



Since the Plowshares 8 action, others have entered military bases and weapons facilities and symbolically and actually disarmed components of U.S. first-strike nuclear weapons systems: the MX, Pershing II, Cruise, Minuteman ICBMs, Trident II missiles, Trident submarines, B-52 bombers, P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft, the Navstar system, the ELF communication system, the Milstar satellite system, a nuclear capable battleship and the Aegis destroyer.

Combat aircraft used for military intervention, such as the F-111 fighter bomber, the F-15A fighter, the F-18 bomber, the A-10 Warthog, the Hawk aircraft, as well as combat helicopters and other conventional weapons, including aircraft missile launchers, bazookas, grenade throwers, and AK-5 automatic rifles, have also been targeted.

One of the most successful actions took place at the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear facility in July 2012  when Mike Walli, Sr., Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, poured blood and spray-painted antiwar messages on it. Because of so-called security issues, this action prompted authorities to close what has been called the “Ft. Knox of Uranium,” for an unprecedented three weeks.

According to William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, the limited mainstream media coverage of the Oak Ridge protest and Congressional reaction—as with the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 action—“were more about how to protect the weapons from protesters than to protect us from the weapons. This rhetoric about safety and security of the weapons complex, and protecting ‘special materials’—a euphemism for ingredients for bombs that can end life as we know it—distracts from the real issue: These are weapons of mass slaughter that must be eliminated before they eliminate us.”

Kings Bay Base

When the Plowshares 7 cut through a padlock and entered the 17,000 acre Kings Bay Base on April 4, 2018, they were equipped with crime-scene tape, banners reading “The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide” and “Nuclear Weapons: Illegal—Immoral,” and an indictment charging the U.S. government with crimes against peace, along with the hammers and blood.

One of their main challenges was to avoid detection from the guard towers as a loudspeaker overhead blared: “Deadly force is authorized!”

After splitting up, the activists went to three sites on the base: the SWFLANT administration building, the D5 Missile monument installation, and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers.

Patrick O’Neill attached a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr., to a mock-up of a Trident II D5 ballistic missile at the welcome area, commenting afterwards: “I mean, my God, you’re gonna build a statue for something that if it’s used would blow up a whole city full of people. This is your idea of welcoming people? I mean, it’s sick.”

Home to more than 1,000 enlisted and civilian government workers and their families, Kings Bay houses at least six nuclear submarines, each armed with 20 Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) variety. Each missile contains numerous nuclear warheads, providing a thermonuclear force multiplier and overwhelming first-strike capability as part of the U.S. nuclear triad.

According to the Navy, the ballistic missile submarines serve as a launch platform for intercontinental missiles that are designed specifically for stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads.

If the Trident were ever launched, it would cause 100 times more damage than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

Patrick O’Neill called it “the most insidious and evil weapon of mass destruction ever constructed.”

The Kings Bay site was opened in 1979 during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the former Governor of Georgia and a Navy veteran and submarine officer who promoted a naval buildup.

The decision to base the Trident submarines at Kings Bay started the largest peacetime construction program ever undertaken by the U.S. Navy. It took nine years to build at a cost of $1.3 billion.

In preparation for the arrival of new submarines mandated under a trillion dollar nuclear weapon modernization program, a major renovation is coming to the Kings Bay waterfront.

The project, estimated to cost more than $840 million, will include $500 million in upgrades to the dry dock and other infrastructure, as well as a $138.6 million nuclear regional maintenance facility, which makes the Plowshares work ever the more urgent.  

In the Shadow of the Berrigan Brothers and Oscar Romero

Reverend Bill Wylie-Kellerman situated Clare Grady and the Plowshares 7 at the “Festival of Hope” in the tradition of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and Oscar Romero, El Salvador’s archbishop who was murdered by death squads in 1980 after he spoke out against the ruling oligarchy and for the poor and oppressed.

Cornell University historian Russell Rickford compared Grady to Mae Mallory, an antiwar and Black Power militant who was close with Malcolm X.

Flattered by such comparisons, Grady reiterated at the “Festival of Hope” that she had been motivated by “religious principle and the desire to oppose violence and the normalization of killing; the unrepentant killing that hardly raises eyebrows anymore.”

Grady noted that “the U.S. government plans to spend $100,000 per minute for the next ten years on nuclear weapons and has 800 military bases.

The cost to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for one year is one million dollars, and the cost to keep a prisoner in prison for one year is up to $70,000 while the cost to keep a student in college for a year is far less.”

While dreading going back to prison—or what she calls the belly of the beast—Grady said she has encountered some of her best teachers of resistance in prison, and was inspired by inmates in St. Louis who broke out of their cells and broke windows and threw furniture but did not engage in violence in pressing for more humane conditions.

Grady’s sister Mary Ann, as the last speaker at the webinar, compared the present moment to 1979 when the anti-nuclear movement was just getting off the ground. By the end of the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had worked together to reduce the nuclear stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia, which is urgently needed today.

With the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock sitting at 100 seconds to midnight, Grady said that the peace movement should continue pushing for divestment from nuclear-weapons’ producing companies—which New York’s City Council has recently proposed—while supporting acts of civil disobedience along the model of the Plowshares 7 who will have left their mark on history.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, North America

The African Continental Free Trade Area as a contribution to the culture of peace

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A synthesis by CPNN based on recent articles in The Africa Report (based in Paris), This Day Live (Nigeria), The Herald (Zimbabwe), The Independent Online (South Africa), Euractiv (Belgium), Southern Times (Namibia), and the United Nations News Service quoted here in CPNN

In March 2018, African countries signed a landmark trade agreement, the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA), committing the countries to remove tariffs on 90 per cent of goods, progressively liberalise trade in services, and address a host of other non-tariff barrier.” Following a summit of AfCFTA in December 2020, the agreement began operation on January 1, 2021.


Forty-four African countries signed an agreement establishing the AfCFTA in Kigali. (Xinhua/Gabriel Dusabe) Credit:CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/1803221658

This may become an important contribution to the culture of peace. According to The Africa Report , “The AfCFTA, if well implemented, would no doubt transform conflicts across the continent by reducing the incentives for participating in conflicts, via the creation of jobs.”

Addressing the recent AU Summit of Heads of State and Government, incoming President Tshisekedi said his priorities would be tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and fostering peace and security on the continent.

The agreement has the potential to promote women’s equality in Africa. In remarks to the AU Summit, outgoing President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that AfCFTA should ensure financial inclusion of women for the trade pact to deliver sustainable and meaningful development. As cited by the Southern Times, President Ramaphosa said state parties would report annually on progress made in strengthening women’s participation in continental trade matters. “This includes tailor made financial products for women with reliable means to save, access, transfer and borrow money,” he expounded. “As the AU, we should also develop a decade action plan to help member states develop key flagship activities towards women’s economic empowerment.” He called for a “women-led Peace Forum to be attended by Heads of State and Government and to implement decisions of the Peace and Security Council to institutionalise the office of the special envoy on women, peace and security.”

According to the World Bank, as quoted in This Day Live, the . . . agreement will create the largest free trade area in the world measured by the number of countries participating. “The pact connects 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 trillion. It has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, but achieving its full potential will depend on putting in place significant policy reforms and trade facilitation measures.

(article continued in right column)

Question for this article:

Can the African Union help bring a culture of peace to Africa?

(article continued from left column)

“The scope of AfCFTA is large. The agreement will reduce tariffs among member countries and cover policy areas such as trade facilitation and services, as well as regu­latory measures such as sanitary standards and technical barriers to trade. Full implementation of AfCFTA would reshape markets and economies across the region and boost output in the services, manufacturing and natural resources sectors.

This will be a major change because at the present time as indicated by According to The Africa Report, intra-African trade accounts for only 18% of overall trade across the continent.

In a related development, the newly-elected head of the World Trade Organization is an African woman, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. As indicated by The Herald (Zimbabwe), “For strategic reasons, the appointment could not have come at a better time for Africa . . . With an anticipated economic boon following the operationalisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the continent stands in a better position to lobby for an increase in its world trade share because it can now do so as one single unit and get a sizeable share.”

According to This Day Live, “The rubrics, goals and objectives of the AfCTA aren’t incompatible in anyway with those of the WTO, and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala could help pilot it towards more support for the continent. That could be in offering technical help, trade analysis and policy expertise, turning the dream of free trade across Africa into reality. In addition, she will possess the moral capacity to pressure African political leaders to design and implement sensible trade policies that support growth.”

AfCTA is a major component of Agenda 2063, the 50-year master plan established by the African Union. As described in the Southern Times, the Agenda also includes “the construction of an integrated high speed rail network connecting African capitals; the formulation of an African commodities strategy that unlocks the value of our resources, and creates value chains based on local value addition; and the realisation of an African passport for promotion of free movement of people across our continent. Other flagship programmes are development of 43,200MW Grand Inga Dam; a single African air transport market; and establishment of African financial institutions such as the African Investment Bank, Pan-African Stock Exchange, the African Monetary Fund and the African Central Bank.”

China and the European Union, major trading partners with Africa, have welcomed the AfCTA. The new Ambassador-designate of the People’s Republic of China to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong, as quoted by Independent Online, stated, among other things, that the AfCTA can contribute to peace and to sustainable development. “China and Africa fought side by side against imperialism, colonialism and apartheid, and the yearning for peace has long been in the blood of the Chinese and African people. The AU Agenda 2063 emphasises that Africa shall realise peace and security, and Africa’s road to modernization is bound to be one of peaceful development.” “The AU Agenda 2063 advocates building a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development, which speaks volumes about Africa’s pursuit of harmony between man and nature in its modernization process.”

In a new report adopted on 28 January, as quoted by Euractiv, the European Union called for “long-term EU financial and technical support for African countries to boost climate adaptation; EU support for African regional integration to help reduce dependence on foreign imports; and for the EU to support the new African continental free trade area which was launched in January.”

Africa, DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

African Union Office of the Youth Envoy: Winners Announced for Youth Silencing The Guns Awards

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An announcement from the African Union Youth Envoy

As part of Youth Silencing the Guns Campaign “Advancing Youth Roles and Capacities to Silence the Guns” launched by the African Union (AU) on 24th July 2020, the Office of the Youth Envoy (OYE) in collaboration with partners provided grants to youth projects through Youth Silencing the Guns Awards to celebrate, elevate and recognise youth impact in the communities with concrete support to grassroots efforts, as well as amplify young peacebuilders initiatives and stories through wide platforms. A total of Four Awards issued under five categories granting each winner $5,000.


Silencing the Climate Crisis Award
to project Ibn El Bitar (Algeria)

Congratulations to Ms. Sakina Benabdelkader from Algeria for winning the Award for Silencing the Climate Crisis. Her project, Ibn El-Bitar, focuses on protecting natural resources and wildlife linked to medicinal and aromatic plants and their transformation into Bionatural products. The projet is protecting the regional natural resources of North African medicinal and aromtic plants by cultiating and practicing beekeeping on the same agricultural land, contributing to the protetion of regional bees.

Silencing Gender-Based Violence Award
to #ShutItAllDown movement (Namibia)

The #ShutItAllDown is a citizen led, owned and organized movement demanding radical and substantive action in curbing the prevalent ocurrance of sexual and gender based violence in Namibia. To date, the movement has protested ten times nation wide, emphasizing the demands of the Shut It All Down Petition. The first of these protests were attended by one thousand young women and men in the capital city, Windhoek. In response, young women and men of the movement ha several meetings with the President of Namibia, the Minister of Justie, and the Peace and security corps. These interventions are targeted at addressing and narrowing the rape crisis in Namibia.

(article continued in right column)

Question for this article:

Can the African Union help bring a culture of peace to Africa?

Can a culture of peace be achieved in Africa through local indigenous training and participation?

(article continued from left column)

Silencing Corruption Award
to Citizens Gavel Foundation for Social Justice (Nigeria)

Project lead: Nelson Olahipekun. Gavel is a not for profit non-governmental organization that increased the pace of justice delivery through access to justice, digital technology and citizens’ engagement. Since inception, Gavel has worked on over 2000 cases and provided legal support to the #ENDSARS movement in Nigeria with over 400 human rights abuses documented.

Silencing Youth Unemployment Award
to Garden of Hope Foundation (Kenya)

Project Lead: Victor Odhiambo. This Leadership and Entrepreneurship Project equipped vulnerable youth with sustainable skills that help them secure employment or start their own income-generating initiatives. The project targeted youth who have dropped out of school and who couldn’t continue with their education, including youth at risk of joining violent extremist groups or local gangs In addition to youth who are sometimes used by politicians to cause political violence. Since he inception of the project, over 1,000 youth have been trained, mentored, and funded to start their business ventures. This enabled the creation of sustainable social and economic opportunities for youth who are living in urban slums and rural communities.

Africa, DISARMAMENT & SECURITY

Book review: African peace: Regional norms from the Organization of African Unity to the African Union

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Political Settlements Research Programme

A book by Kathryn Nash published in 2021 by Manchester University Press

African regional organizations have played leading roles in constructing collective conflict management rules for the continent, but these rules or norms have not been static. Currently, the African Union (AU) deploys monitors, authorizes peace support operations, and actively engages to resolve internal conflicts. Just a few decades ago, these actions would have been deeply controversial under the Organization of African Unity (OAU). What changed to allow for this transformation in the way the African regional organization approaches peace and security?

(article continued in right column)

Question for this article:

Can the African Union help bring a culture of peace to Africa?

(article continued from left column)

African peace examines why the OAU chose norms in 1963 that prioritized state security and led to a policy of strict non-interference – even in the face of destabilizing violence – and why the AU chose very different norms leading to a disparate conflict management policy in the early 2000s. Even if the AU’s capacity to respond to conflict is still developing, this new policy has made the region more willing and capable of responding to violence. Nash argues that norm creation largely happened within the African context, and international pressure was not a determinant factor in their evolution. The role of regions in the international order, particularly the African region, has been under-theorized and under-acknowledged, and this book adds to an emerging literature that explores the role of regional organizations in the Global South in creating and promoting norms based on their own experiences and for their own purposes.

Africa, DISARMAMENT & SECURITY