It was back in 2015 that we reported on a peace agreement in the long war in South Sudan. At the time Nonviolent Peaceforce told us that “While the signing of the agreement is not a guarantee of peace, it is a public declaration of constructive, peaceful and positive intentions to end the war. Having been on the front line of the conflict since the first day, the Nonviolent Peaceforce team is greatly relieved at the signing of the agreement and we want to extend our appreciation and support to the parties as they move into this new phase. We look forward to seeing strong, people centred leadership and action to move into the implementation of this agreement starting with an urgent and immediate cessation of hostilities. Getting to peace is as complicated if not more so than getting to war. The road ahead will be a long one that will take the dedication of all South Sudanese and the support of the international community to engage in reconciliation, justice and reconstruction.

Since then the struggle goes on to make the peace agreement take hold, and we continue to report on whether progress is being made.

South Sudan : Community leaders in Unity state pledge to promote a culture of peace

Sudan: Darfur deal welcomed by UN chief as ‘historic achievement’

Humanitarian community praise Sudan PM’s visit to Nuba Mtns

Churches in South Sudan promote “three pillars of peace”

The women who helped bring down Sudan’s president

Southern Sudanese leaders agree to promote a culture of peace

South Sudanese speak on new peace deal

South Sudan Chapter of African Union Master Plan Roadmap “Practical Steps To Silencing The Guns By 2020”

‘Back to Learning’ education campaign to benefit half a million children in South Sudan

Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan: The extremes of the human spirit

Winners of Youth Innovation Challenge to Engage in Peacebuilding in South Sudan

Beating the drum for peace: A chat with the general secretary of the South Sudan Council of Churches

Peace Agreement in South Sudan

Nonviolent Peaceforce: Urgent Update from South Sudan

Nonviolent Peaceforce: Women’s Peacekeeping Teams incorporated into South Sudan communities

Sudan Open University Graduates Sign Peace Pledge

Children’s Thoughts on Peace: Marking 1 Year of Civil War in South Sudan

– – – – Links for the following articles published prior to 2015 do not work because they were made by a version of PERL programming that is no longer supported. With three easy steps, you can find the article by its number. First, click on it before returning to this page. Your browser will say that the article is not available but in the address listed you can see that it was located at ViewArticle=xxxx where xxxx is the number of the article. Returning to this page, then click here for the listing of all years. Then click on the year that contains the number for the article you seek. It will send you to the page where you can easily search for the article by its title. – – – –

Sudan: Unamid Organizes Cultural Festival in Mellit

How One Agency Is Trying to Bring Peace to Sudan

Emma’s War: A Book Review

February 2019

Recent positive developments concerning the relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have given the global community with more confidence that relations among the two arch-rivals are normalizing.

The United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), and the European Union (EU) are some of the various international actors that welcomed recent positive moves made by the two East African nations that experienced one of Africa’s deadliest wars and the subsequent two-decade-long armed standoff.

October 2019

In according the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019, “the Norwegian Nobel Committee hopes that the Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen Prime Minister Abiy in his important work for peace and reconciliation. Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country and has East Africa’s largest economy. A peaceful, stable and successful Ethiopia will have many positive side-effects, and will help to strengthen fraternity among nations and peoples in the region. With the provisions of Alfred Nobel’s will firmly in mind, the Norwegian Nobel Committee sees Abiy Ahmed as the person who in the preceding year has done the most to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019.”

The Nobel Lecture Given by the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Abiy Ahmed Ali

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2019

Abiy Ahmed Ali, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia laureate of the 2019 edition of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny – UNESCO Peace Prize

Ethiopia: Mystery behind the Peace Accord

Ethiopian President Calls to Work for Peace and Security

Ethiopia Kicks Off “Jegnit” National Campaign. Aims to Establish Women-Led Network for Peace

Eritrea hosts peace meeting between Ethiopia govt and Tigray ‘rebels’

Ethio-Eritrean thaw heading for democratic Horn and stronger IGAD

Eritreans and Ethiopians in Khartoum rally in support of peace deal

Global community responds to recent positive progress in Ethiopia, Eritrea relations

Although there have been advances toward a peaceful reunification of Korea from time to time since the War of the 1950’s, the most significant step forward came in the beginning of 2018 with the joint participation in the Olympic Games of PyeongChang.

Since then, as indicated by the many CPNN articles on the right, progress has continued toward a peaceful reunification.

Pocheon, Republic of Korea – International Cities of Peace

Give peace a chance, says South Korean cardinal

The peace process on the Korean Peninsula must go on

Over 250 prominent women leaders call on President Trump and Chairman Kim to end the Korean War

Korea: PyeongChang Global Peace Forum Calls on Leaders at DPRK-US Summit

UNESCO proposes concrete projects to implement inter-Korean reconciliation

North and South Korea to hold third peace summit in Pyongyang

South Korea reactions after Trump-Kim summit

Singapore Agreement Breaks ‘Last Remaining Cold War Legacy’ – S Korean President

Toward a Truly Indigenous Peace in the Korean Peninsula

Rain or Shine: Dispatch from South Korea

“Our Dreams Are Coming True”: Peace Activists Celebrate as Korean Leaders Vow to Officially End War

(Olympics) Top organizer says ‘world became one’ during PyeongChang Winter Olympics

UN chief in Pyeongchang; Olympic message of peace is universal, beacon for human solidarity, culture of peace

S.Korea receives DPRK’s list of 5-member delegation for high-level talks

Here are the comments of Henry A. Giroux, writing in Tikkun magazine. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy:

“Passing thoughts on the willingness of the politicians and merchants of death who allow the unimaginable to become imaginable, allow financial gain to prevail over the lives of innocent children, and are more willing to protect guns at the expense of the lives of children.

President Trump listened recently to the impassioned testimony of parents and children who have seen their children and friends killed in gun shootings. He responded by advocating that teachers be armed and trained to have concealed weapons.

Instead of confronting the roots of violence in America, he followed the NRA line of addressing the issue of mass violence, shootings, and the ongoing carnage with a call to arm more people, putting more guns into play, and stating that violence can be met with more violence. This logic is breathtaking in its insanity, moral depravity, refusal to get to the root of the problem, and even advocate minor reforms such as banning assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and expanding background checks.

There are 300 million guns in the United States and since the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School of 20 young children and 6 teachers a decade ago, 11,000 more children have died of gun violence.

There is no defense for putting the policies of the NRA ahead of the lives of children. Criminal acts often pass for legislative policies. How else to explain the Florida legislature refusing to even debate outlawing assault weapons while students from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School sat in the galleys and watched this wretched and irresponsible act take place. How else to explain that the House of Representatives – reduced to an adjunct of the NRA – voted to pass the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R.38) which would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons across state lines. These are the people who have the blood of thousands on their hands.

The power of money in politics has morphed into a form of barbarism in which financial gain and power have become more important than protecting the lives of America’s children.

I find it extremely difficult to watch the debates about gun violence on the mainstream media. The call for reform is so limited as to be useless. Instead of banning assault rifles, they celebrate Trump for suggesting that he raise the age to 21 in order for people to buy a weapon of war. Instead of preventing violence from engulfing the country and schools, he calls for arming teachers and the press celebrates his willingness to entertain this issue. Instead of speaking about justice and allowing people to speak who are against deregulating laws restricting or abolishing the merchants of death, the media allows an NRA hawk to speak at the town meeting and rather than calling her out for being a spokesperson for violence rather than justice, they congratulate themselves on promoting balance.

The corporate media has become a normalizing force for violence because they lack the courage to challenge the corporations that control them. They also benefit by peddling extreme violence as a spectacle. They refuse to begin with the issue of money in politics and start instead with what one parent called non-starters. Guns disappear from the conversation and appeals to fear and security take over. Young people have to lead this conversation and move beyond the mainstream media. And when they do appear they have to flip the script and ask the questions they think are important.

Children no longer have a safe space in America, a country saturated in violence as a spectacle, sport, and deadly acts of domestic terrorism. Any defense for the proliferation of guns, especially those designed for war, is criminal. This is the discourse of political corruption, a government in the hands of the gun lobbies, and a country that trades in violence at every turn in order to accrue profits at the expense of the lives of innocent children.

This debate is not simply about gun violence, it is about the rule of capital and how the architects of violence accrue enough power to turn machineries of death and destruction into profits while selling violence as a commodity. Violence is both a source of profits and a cherished national ideal. It is also the defining feature of a toxic masculinity. Gun reform is no substitute for real justice and the necessary abolition of a death-dealing and cruel economic and political system that is the antithesis of democracy.

What are we to make of a society in which young children have a greater sense of moral courage and social responsibility than the zombie adults who make the laws that fail to invest in and protect the lives of present and future generations. First step, expose their lies, make their faces public, use the new media to organize across state lines, and work like hell to vote them out of office in 2018. Hold these ruthless walking dead responsible and then banish them to the gutter where they belong. At the same time, imagine and fight for not a reform of American society but a restructuring along the lines of a democratic socialist order.”

ABC News Report Claims No Past Mass Shooters Have Been Veterans; At Least 31% Have Been

‘We Refuse to Go On Like This’: US Students Walk Out to Demand Gun Control

Biden asks Congress to ban ‘weapons of war on our streets’ as he uses 3rd anniversary of Parkland shooting to demand gun control

Global Human Rights Movement Issues Travel Warning for the U.S. due to Rampant Gun Violence

U.S. students walk out again to protest gun violence

March For Our Lives wins International Children’s Peace Prize 2018

USA: Update on March For Our Lives

USA: March For Our Lives: Road to Change

USA: Meet The Students Who Dreamed Up Friday’s National School Walkout

U.S. student anti-gun activists to keep momentum alive over summer

USA: The Missing Link in the Gun Debate

In pictures: ‘March for Our Lives’ Rallies Demand Stricter US Gun Controls

‘No more’ or we vote you out: students lead huge U.S. anti-gun rallies

USA: Branford High Students Find Their Voice

2018 Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence

‘It’s Time To Take Action’: Students Lead Protest to Change Gun Laws

First National Bank dumps NRA, will no longer issue NRA Visa card

Women-led initiatives promote nonviolence in the US

– – – – Links for the following articles published prior to 2015 do not work because they were made by a version of PERL programming that is no longer supported. With three easy steps, you can find the article by its number. First, click on it before returning to this page. Your browser will say that the article is not available but in the address listed you can see that it was located at ViewArticle=xxxx where xxxx is the number of the article. Returning to this page, then click here for the listing of all years. Then click on the year that contains the number for the article you seek. It will send you to the page where you can easily search for the article by its title. – – – –

USA: Educator unions reject guns in schools

Please Watch ‘Bowling for Columbine’ With Me This Saturday Night

Rays of hope in Newtown (United States)

US Senator to Introduce Gun Control Bill

Culture of peace, present in “Goodbye to guns. Contraband at the borders”

Cultura de paz, presente en “Adiós a las armas. Contrabando en las fronteras”

Bowling for Columbine: A great bang for your movie buck