The European Union gives voice to peace in Colombia with community radio

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Jaime Ortega Carrascal in La Vanguardia – translated by CPNN and reprinted for non-commercial purposes.

A survivor of the Bojayá massacre, a FARC guerrilla who is about to leave his weapons or a peasant who stopped cultivating coca are some of the anonymous Colombians who found in the community radios the way to promote the peace thanks to support from the European Union (EU).

The initiative “Community Radios for Peace and Coexistence”, launched in mid-2016, supports 400 of the 627 community radio stations in Colombia to generate a culture of peace in the most remote rural areas, those most affected by the armed conflict.


Photo Resander

“This is very important because community broadcasters disseminate the expressions and feelings of those living in distant territories,” the EU ambassador to Colombia, Ana Paula Zacarias, told EFE.

The EU allocated two million euros (about US $ 2.23 million) to this initiative promoted by the Cooperative Network of Community Media in Santander (Resander) with the support of the Colombian Presidency, the Ministries of Culture and ICT, The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace and the newspaper El Espectador.

“The messages are adapting to the different regions,” added Zacarias, recalling that the “Fiesta Estéreo” station in Barrancas, in the Caribbean department of La Guajira, emits in Castilian and Wuayuunaiki, a language of the Wayú Indians who represent a high percentage of the population of the area and are distributed between Colombia and Venezuela.

In the Wuayuunaiki language curiously there are no words like “peace” and “coexistence”, which is why in these programs they say it in Spanish.

Building peace and providing post-conflict support after the agreement with the FARC guerrillas is the EU’s priority, which also emphasizes issues such as indigenous communities, children, gender equality and environmental protection.

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article

Question related to this article:

What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?

Journalism in Latin America: Is it turning towards a culture of peace?

How can peace be promoted by radio?

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“All the guerrillas of the FARC are committed to the peace process and on our part we do not want to use words as a weapon”, says a guerrilla at the station “La Calidosa”, Policarpa, municipality of the department of Nariño, on the border With Ecuador.

Policarpa houses one of the 26 temporary transitional zones of normalization in which about 7,000 FARC guerrillas will leave their weapons to return to life in society and that is why messages of reconciliation are very important among listeners of ” La Calidosa “.

“We are sure that this project is one of those that is having an impact in the construction, in the transmission of the peace in the territories because the 400 radios can reach an audience of ten million listeners”, indicates Zacarías .

At the same station, Juan, a peasant, tells how “violence has hit very hard” in the area and with his testimony advises listeners to return to traditional crops, such as coffee that for years was replaced by coca, which brought them nothing but misfortunes.

“People came and were infusing what is called the cultivation of illicit uses … we went directly or indirectly, without realizing that we were hurting our families,” he says.

The EU initiative not only opens microphones to the people, but also includes workshops in which 200 community radio journalists have been trained in the elaboration of educational content on peacebuilding, as well as 50 broadcasters receiving technical assistance and donations of recording equipment.

The project is secured until next November, although the EU ambassador is of the opinion that this “does not mean that we can not in the future study other formulas to continue supporting this work of sending messages on peace to the territories” to promote reconciliation between the Colombians.

An example of this is Noel, a singer-songwriter known as “El Negrito del Swing”, a survivor of the Bojayá massacre, the worst committed by the FARC, which on May 2, 2002 caused between 79 and 119 deaths when a bomb launched during a combat against paramilitaries fell in the church of that town of the department of the Chocó where hundreds of people had sought refuge.

“Art will allow us not to forget what happened, it will preserve our memory, and I think that I am contributing (to peace) by not being spiteful and trying to heal,” comments Noel in “Suba al aire” in which he remembers “that we were happy in Bojayá.”

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

U.S. Conference of Mayors Opposes Military-Heavy Trump Budget

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..

An article from World Beyond War (abbreviated)

The U.S. Conference of Mayors on Monday [June 26] unanimously passed three resolutions opposing the military-heavy Trump budget proposal, urging Congress to move funding out of the military and into human and environmental needs rather than the reverse.

The three resolutions are numbers 59 and 60 found on this page.

and number 79 found on this page.

“We are very excited that the entire US Conference of Mayors, from major metropoles such as New York City and Los Angeles to small rural townships, understand that the resources being sucked up by the Pentagon to wage endless wars overseas should be used to address our crumbling infrastructure, the climate crisis and poverty at home and abroad. Congress and the Trump administration should listen to these mayors, as they reflect the needs and hopes of their constituents, not the greed of corporate donors,” said Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK.

“The Peace Council applauds the resolve of major city mayors to dramatically cut the U.S. military budget and to take the funds saved to provide money for jobs, education, housing, transportation, seniors, youth, rebuild our roads, bridges, public transportation much more,” said Henry Lowendorf of the US Peace Council. “The mayors understand how pouring the wealth of our great country into building war machines and waging wars around the globe does not make us more secure. To the contrary, this gigantic military budget is strangling our country and the many unnecessary wars only generate death, destruction and enemies. We fully support the mayors’ call both for inviting the public and city leaders to hearings expressing on how funds saved by cutting the Pentagon budget can be used in our cities and for passing resolutions to our members of Congress demanding that they respond to cities to begin prioritizing the needs of our residents over war profiteering.”

“These three resolutions should be read carefully by every member of Congress,” said David Swanson, director of World Beyond War. “These are the considered statements of the mayors of this country, as prompted by the citizens of numerous cities that moved their city councils to pass similar resolutions and their mayors to support these.”

Information on a campaign to pass resolutions through city councils, and those that have been passed thus far, can be found here: http://worldbeyondwar.org/resolution

Over 20,000 people signed a petition similar to Resolution 59 here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/un-trump-the-budget

Resolution 59 was introduced by the mayor of Ithaca, NY, and had been passed by that city. . . [click here for the resolution]

Resolution 60 was introduced by the Mayor of New Haven, CT, and had been passed by that city. . . . [click here for the resolution]

Sponsors of Resolution 79 were:

The Honorable T.M. ‘Frank’ Franklin Cownie, Mayor of Des Moines
The Honorable Alex B. Morse III, Mayor of Holyoke
The Honorable Ardell F. Brede, Mayor of Rochester
The Honorable Chris Koos, Mayor of Normal
The Honorable Denny Doyle, Mayor of Beaverton
The Honorable Frank C. Ortis, Mayor of Pembroke Pines
The Honorable Geraldine ‘Jeri’ Muoio Ph.D., Mayor of West Palm Beach
The Honorable Helene Schneider, Mayor of Santa Barbara
The Honorable John Dickert, Mayor of Racine
The Honorable John Heilman, Mayor of West Hollywood
The Honorable Libby Schaaf, Mayor of Oakland
The Honorable Lucy Vinis, Mayor of Eugene
The Honorable Mark Stodola, Mayor of Little Rock
The Honorable Nan Whaley, Mayor of Dayton
The Honorable Patrick L. Wojahn, Mayor of College Park
The Honorable Paul R. Soglin, Mayor of Madison
The Honorable Pauline Russo Cutter, Mayor of San Leandro
The Honorable Roy D. Buol, Mayor of Dubuque
The Honorable Salvatore J. Panto Jr., Mayor of Easton

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Questions for this article:

How can culture of peace be developed at the municipal level?

The post-election fightback for human rights, is it gathering force in the USA?

(continued from left column)

The resolution recognized some of the cities that have passed resolutions:

“The United States Conference of Mayors welcomes resolutions adopted by cities including New Haven, CT, Charlottesville, VA, Evanston, IL, New London, NH, and West Hollywood, CA urging Congress to cut military spending and redirect funding to meet human and environmental needs.”

It further resolved (at least as drafted; there were slight modifications):

“NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) calls on the United States Government, as an urgent priority, to do everything in his power to lower nuclear tensions though intense diplomatic efforts with Russia, China, North Korea and other nuclear-armed states and their allies, and to work with Russia to dramatically reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors welcomes the historic negotiations currently underway in the United Nations, involving most of the world’s countries, on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors deeply regrets that the United States and the other nuclear-armed states are boycotting these negotiations; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the United States to support the ban treaty negotiations as a major step towards negotiation of a comprehensive agreement on the achievement and permanent maintenance of a world free of nuclear arms, and to initiate, in good faith, multilateral negotiations to verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons within a timebound framework; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors welcomes the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, introduced in both houses of Congress, that would prohibit the President from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls for the Administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review to reaffirm the stated U.S. goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons, to lessen U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, and to recommend measures to reduce nuclear risks, such as de-alerting, improving lines of communication with other nuclear-armed states, and ending nuclear sharing, in which Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey host U.S. nuclear bombs; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the President and Congress to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement; and . . .

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the President and Congress to reverse federal spending priorities and to redirect funds currently allocated to nuclear weapons and unwarranted military spending to restore full funding for Community Block Development Grants and the Environmental Protection Agency, to create jobs by rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and to ensure basic human services for all, including education, environmental protection, food assistance, housing and health care,

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors urges all U.S. mayors to join Mayors for Peace in order to help reach the goal of 10,000 member cities by 2020, and encourages U.S. member cities to get actively involved by establishing sister city relationships with cities in other nuclear-armed nations, and by taking action at the municipal level to raise public awareness of the humanitarian and financial costs of nuclear weapons, the growing dangers of wars among nuclear-armed states, and the urgent need for good faith U.S. participation in negotiating the global elimination of nuclear weapons.”

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, North America

UN nuclear ban treaty negotiations: transit, threat and nuclear weapons financing

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Alyn Ware from Unfold Zero

United Nations negotiations for a legal agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons resumed in New York on June 15.

The negotiations look set to achieve the adoption of a historic nuclear ban treaty on July 7. However, States in the negotiations are struggling to find agreement on elements of the treaty that could impact most on the policies and practices of the nuclear-armed States.

Nuclear-armed States and those under extended nuclear deterrence relationships, with the exception of Netherlands, are absent from the negotiations. Netherlands is not expected to join the final treaty. This simplifies the negotiations, as they involve getting agreement from non-nuclear States to prohibit, in their territories, weapons which already they do not support, possess or host.

As such, it is expected that the treaty will be concluded and ready to adopt on July 7, the final day of the negotiations.

In general, the treaty will not affect the policies and practices of the nuclear armed States and their nuclear allies, as long as they remain out of the treaty. However, there are a number of proposed elements of the draft treaty which could impact directly on them. Agreement on these proposals is proving to be difficult to achieve. They include proposals to prohibit the transit of, threat to use, and financing of nuclear weapons.

Transit

Some States and NGOs have proposed that the treaty should prohibit the transit of nuclear weapons through their territorial waters and airspace. States supporting such a ban say that it would be contrary to the purposes of the treaty to ban nuclear weapons in general, but then allow nuclear armed ships and aircraft into one’s ports, territorial waters, airports and skies.

States opposing a ban on transit argue that it would be impossible to implement, verify or enforce such a prohibition. They argue that the nuclear armed States are not transparent about which vessels (ships, submarines, airplanes) are carrying nuclear weapons, and whether vessels carrying nuclear weapons are transiting the waters and airspace of other countries.

However, the experience of New Zealand, which prohibited nuclear weapons in 1987, indicates that it is possible to ensure compliance with a nuclear weapons prohibition on ships, submarines and airplanes making port visits or landings in one’s territory, and that a prohibition on transit through territorial waters and airspace could be adopted without requiring verification.

For a more in-depth discussion on this issue, see The ban treaty, transit and national implementation.

Nuclear deterrence and the threat to use nuclear weapons

The threat to use nuclear weapons is central to the policies and practices of the nuclear armed States and their allies.

Nuclear weapons have not been used in wartime since 1945. Indeed, nuclear armed States have affirmed that the core function of nuclear arsenals is not to use these weapons, but to prevent their use through nuclear deterrence, i.e. the threat of their use. A nuclear ban treaty which is silent on the legality of the threat to use nuclear weapons would therefore provide little challenge to nuclear deterrence policies of the nuclear armed States and their allies.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Despite (or perhaps because of) this, there is reluctance by a number of the negotiating States to include in the treaty a prohibition on the threat to use nuclear weapons. The initial draft of the treaty did not mention threat of use.

Advocacy by some governments and NGOs, including the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), has managed to get an affirmation of the illegality of the threat to use nuclear weapons into the preamble of the revised draft. (See IALANA: Ban treaty should affirm the current illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons).

However, it is uncertain whether a prohibition on threat to use nuclear weapons will make it into the principal obligations in the final treaty. On June 22, IALANA released a Lawyers’ Letter on the abolition of nuclear weapons, endorsed by over 400 members of the legal profession, highlighting the need to codify in the ban treaty the illegality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons.

Financing of nuclear weapons production – stopping the nuclear arms merchants

UNFOLD ZERO, PNND and the Basel Peace Office are campaigning to include in the ban treaty a prohibition on the financing of, and investments in, corporations manufacturing nuclear weapons and their dedicated delivery systems.

Nuclear-armed states currently spend US$100 billion collectively on nuclear weapons programs annually. The corporations manufacturing the weapons and their delivery systems are a major driver of the nuclear arms race. They actively lobby their parliaments and governments to continue allocating the funds to nuclear weapons. And they support think tanks and other public initiatives to promote the ‘need’ for nuclear weapons maintenance, modernization or expansion.

Many non-nuclear States support this through public funds which invest in nuclear weapons corporations, and by permitting banks and other financial institutions in their countries to also invest in these corporations.

If all of the Sates joining the nuclear ban treaty divested their public funds from these corporations, and disallowed banks from investing in them, it could radically change the economics of the nuclear arms industry. It would damage the credibility of and investor confidence in corporations manufacturing nuclear weapons. And it would give support to efforts of parliamentarians and civil society in the nuclear arms States to cut the exorbitant nuclear arms budgets and re-direct these funds to health, education, jobs, environment and sustainable development.

A number of States participating in the nuclear ban treaty negotiations have supported the proposal that the treaty prohibit financing of, and investments in, nuclear weapons. However, other States argue that this would be too difficult to implement, despite the fact that a number of countries (Lichtenstein, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland) have already implemented nuclear divestment policies.

UNFOLD ZERO, PNND and Basel Peace Office submitted a working paper to the UN negotiations on this issue. In addition, we held a press conference and addressed an informal session of negotiating States at the UN in Geneva on June 1-2, and gave an Intervention on financing of nuclear weapons to the UN negotiations in New York on June 19.

The final ban treaty, which we expect to be adopted on July 7, will provide support for nuclear divestment regardless of whether it includes a specific prohibition on financing of nuclear weapons production, or a more general prohibition on assisting nuclear weapons production. We therefore plan to launch a global nuclear weapons divestment campaign following the adoption of the treaty.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Innsbruck, Austria: 2017 International Institute for Peace Education (IIPE)

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

Announcement from the International Institute for Peace Education

The 2017 International Institute for Peace Education (IIPE) will be held in Innsbruck, Austria at the Grillhof Seminar Center from August 27 to September 2, 2017. This year’s institute is being organized in partnership with the IIPE Secretariat, members of the Faculty of Education and Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge, and the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck.

The peoples of Earth, our planetary home, are caught in a set of unprecedented, interrelated, existential and ethical crises. Confronting the great divide and deficits in human needs and the potential planetary collapse requires new and unprecedented learning to navigate the global politics of survival. This convergence of crises include climate change, environmental destruction, and loss of biodiversity; the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; the emergence of cyber warfare with the potential for mass destruction and disruption; the rise of worldwide political fascism tearing at the fabric of democracy; human rights violations; intractable civil wars and humanitarian disasters; gender oppression; and extreme poverty, among many other threats. The 2017 IIPE theme “Aesthetic Peaces: Social, Political & Embodied Learning – Responses for Human & Planetary Survival” compels us to ask:

What contribution can peace education and peace learning make to the transformation of the emerging crises threatening existential and social survival?

What must we learn, and how might we learn it in order to save our planet, eliminate “the scourge of war,” and achieve universal human dignity as the fundamental basis of a viable and just global society on a healthy planet?

Within this crucial problematic, IIPE 2017 seeks to explore peace education and peace learning as a multidimensional transformative process, with a special emphasis on affective and embodied learning and the arts, as well as contemplative practices, moral and ethical-political discourse, and approaches to trans-rational conflict transformation as modalities and content of peace learning and civic action.

We propose that the pathway to this transformation is political in the sense that it involves politics as learning: peace learning for responsible citizenship through civic action and, reciprocally, civic action as peace learning. With this in mind, we invite and encourage applications from practitioners, researchers and activists from the fields of peacebuilding, international education, conflict transformation, community development, artists and healthcare to join the weeklong co-learning community. Through this learning community encounter, we hope to expose educational professionals to novel concepts of peace, peace education, and peace research, and to inspire scholars, artists, and practitioners to endeavor toward intercultural understanding and cooperation in various educational communities.

Four primary streams of inquiry and peace pedagogy will be engaged in the institute:

– creativity and art-making;

– embodied learning and contemplative practices;

– trans-rational conflict transformation;

– and moral and ethical-political thinking.

These streams reflect the work of the organizers. Together we propose to explore their relationships to each other and their best applications to the current global-local crises. We aspire to cross-fertilize participants’ experience both regionally and in our roles as peace-oriented educators, activists, researchers, and artists.

For teachers and health-care practitioners, the body – as site, memory, channel, possibility – is so often relegated as an afterthought in the mind/body Cartesian divide of teaching and learning. Here we begin with the hyphenated body-mind (rather than the divided mind/body) to explore the ways in which the body feels, understands and fosters reflection and action for transgressive and transformative learning. This strand focuses on the alternative and elicitive mediums of learning that scholars, practitioners and artists joining IIPE have used in their own educational practices, such as breathing exercises, meditation, Qi Gong, yoga, Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre for Living, and body work to foster critical action for social and political change that takes account of the body. With the elicitive shift, practitioners are understood as facilitators engaged in the art of creating and holding spaces in which transformation and unfolding can take place. This strand relates closely to concerns for contemporary migration and mobility in reference to the challenges educational practitioners face in working alongside participants who have recently experienced war and trauma.

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Question for this article:

Peace Studies in School Curricula, What would it take to make it happen around the world?

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For researchers, embodied methods of research take account of the researcher as a holistic, subjective being. In order to counter the cultural and structural violence inherent in the idea that a researcher speaks from a ‘disembodied head’, and to acknowledge that research participants are very much embodied in their gender, ethnicity, class, and war trauma, peace researchers engage with autobiography, feeling and subjective aspirations. In this strand, IIPE participants may explore alternative research modalities, such as auto-ethnography, photography, performance and arts-based methods. These methods seek a horizontal research relationship, and promote the involvement of researchers and participants alike in a process of creative meaning-making alongside each other. Here, researchers and participants relate research itself as a method of resistance and social activism to disrupt hegemonic norms of knowledge-making. To this postmodern notion trans-rational methods of research furthermore add the understanding of the researcher as resource to be tapped during the research process. The researcher is here no longer just perceived as locus of biases or intersectional meeting point of axes of class, race, gender, but in humanistic fashion as creative and embodied source of holistic knowing.

For activists, the IIPE community offers an opportunity to reflect and engage in alternative modes such as Theatre of the Oppressed/for Living and engagement of moral and ethical-political thinking as means of exchange with other like-minded peacebuilders from other global-local contexts. Through energetic, active body work and critical reflection, new insights and frameworks may illuminate struggles of larger body politic and contemporary global issues especially affecting the European region. IIPE will provide activists with a dialogic and experiential learning community in working toward conflict transformations.

Art and art-making arouses and cultivates subjective awareness that capacitates one to see reality and to act authentically. Art provides an opportunity and moves participants to reflect upon themselves and their relations to others. This reflective capacity is a kind of being – not only doing – an authentic apprehension of self and the world. Art promotes a heightened sensitivity and awareness entailing an intensified realization of meaning. Art enhances our capacity to perceive, to be aware, to be present to ourselves, others, and the world. Thus, art has significant ethical value in that it is a means for the development of the capacities of moral imagination and moral attention, the ability of seeing and feeling the moral situation/context with clarity and nuance free of obtuseness. As we face a conflicted globalized world, reflection on the value of art to ethically informed political engagement is of critical importance.

In conclusion, the diverse educational encounter of IIPE Innsbruck in 2017 will weave together theoretical, experiential and methodological contributions of participants to:

– build upon foundations of educational thinking and participant expertise to illuminate the applications of peace theory to educational practice;

– examine the intersections between aesthetic peace, affective learning and arts & body, and ethical-political work in educational practice;

– explore cross-cultural understanding;

– assess the possibilities for practical steps toward addressing global crises through peace education research and praxis; and,

– focus on learning how to think rather than what to think by engaging in diverse peace education methodologies.

Special Excursion: The IIPE features a special excursion day to facilitate hands-on and direct experiences with local peace education efforts that address the annual them. In 2017 we will spend a day at the Native Spirit Wilderness School at the River Inn in Tirol. The Native Spirit is dedicated to integrating nature and spirituality, it offers intensive courses as well as shamanic experiences to diverse groups of children, adolescents and adults. Additionally, seminars at the Native Spirit are part of the MA Program in Peace Studies at the University of Innsbruck. In this postgraduate course, students from all over the world learn in an embodied manner about transrational peace approaches.

During the visit, IIPE participants will have the opportunity to learn some outdoor and basic survival skills, connect to nature, get to know selected shamanic techniques and elements of meditation. Self-discovery and self-reflection will be in the foreground of the day trip as a fundamental element of peace (education). In line with the conference’s theme on Aesthetic peaces we hope to make the best out of the Native Spirit’s commitment to an equilibrium among body, mind and spirit to discuss innovative elements of peace education.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Europe

The Climate Movement Charges On, Even without the USA

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam, reprinted by Transcend

President Donald Trump has proved again how beholden our politics are to the interests of the super-rich elite. The conniving, rich oilmen that were so desperate to prevent and frustrate the Paris Agreement  found cheerleaders in Mr Trump and his party. They choose to protect their profits from a flailing fossil fuel industry over human lives and a clean, inclusive future for us all.


The Eiffel tower is illuminated in green with the words ‘Paris Agreement is Done’, to celebrate the Paris UN COP21 Climate Change agreement in November 2016. [Jacky Naegelen/Reuters]

The Paris climate agreement threw people of the world a lifeline, and the United States played a vital role in getting us there, not least by working closely with China to clear the decks to a global deal. The world agreed on what needed to be done. One hundred ninety-five nations pledged to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.

Now, we remember how frayed that lifeline is, mostly for people in the global South. The emission cuts pledged still put the world on track for three degrees of warming. If you’re living in a low-island state? That’s too high for the prospect of a future. For the 13 million people in the Horn of Africa going hungry today, the Agreement is already too late. Climate change has worsened their suffering. They pay for a crisis they did not cause.

At times like this, I remember my uncle, a farmer in rural Uganda. It would take him 180 years to register the same emissions as the average American would in a year (pdf)! Why must he and his family suffer because of the excesses of others?

What’s most painful is that the Paris Agreement was already compromised with concessions to the US. Despite being the world’s largest historic emitter, the US put forward only a fifth of their fair share to cut emissions.

READ MORE: Paris climate agreement – What you need to know

Contrast this to what developing countries have put forward: 125 percent of their fair share. This is where the good news starts. With every move, the pendulum of climate leadership swings further and more decisively towards the global South.

The spirit of Paris charges on, even without the US government, and with it the palpable hope of a better world.

Recent forecasts show that China and India are on track to beat their emissions reduction targets. At the most recent global climate talks last November, 48 developing countries vulnerable to the impacts of climate change committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

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Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

(continued from left column)

That’s not all. A transformation is taking hold in global energy markets. The cost of wind and solar has dropped by up to 80 percent in the last six years and unsubsidized solar is beginning to out-compete coal and natural gas on a larger scale.

In the US, the solar industry is growing, creating “jobs, jobs, jobs” over 15 times faster than the economy norm. At home in Africa, I’m energised by the growth of off-grid solar at such a pace that it could soon outstrip the rate at which people are being connected to the grid. These solutions are connecting people to power and giving them control over their energy resources.

Far from putting America first, President Trump’s move puts the US last in the race to build a more sustainable economy.

OPINION: In defence of science – Making facts great again

Developing nations are joined by mayors of cities around the world, and businesses that finally stepped up in Paris to challenge vested interests in the fossil fuel industry. More companies than ever before are racing to commit to renewable power, 100 percent. Businesses, investors, mayors and academics, together representing $6.2 trillion of the US economy recently signed a pact to continue fighting climate change. They know that pulling out of Paris puts American workers at an economic disadvantage.

I trust that people in the US will not let their government get away with this. People fighting climate change around the world are in solidarity with our friends in the US as they organise nationwide marches and rally to block coal plants and pipelines from being built.

The climate movement is re-energised. The move to a zero-carbon future is unstoppable. Despite the injustice of Mr Trump’s decision, our only response must be to redouble efforts everywhere else and strengthen the lifeline that Paris offered.

Nor can our world rely any longer on this outdated global governance which privileges richest nations at the expense of developing nations. Southern governments have taken on more responsibility for our world: this should be reflected in their power and position in the institutions of global governance.

The oilmen who fuelled this crisis are still there – doing their dirty business as usual – because the system perpetuates their wealth and power. The richest one percent today own more than the 99 percent combined; eight men own as much as the bottom 3.6 billion. Political institutions march to the tune of powerful corporations and the super-rich. Tackling the extreme gap between rich and poor and tackling climate change is part of the same struggle.

The spirit of Paris charges on, even without the US government, and with it the palpable hope of a better world.

 

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

USA: United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) conference

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Popular Resistance

We just returned from the weekend-long United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) conference in Richmond, VA. This is the fourth UNAC conference since its founding in 2010 to create a vibrant and active anti-war movement in the United States that opposes all wars. The theme this year was stopping the wars at home and abroad in recognition that we can’t end one without ending the others, that they have common roots and that it will take a large, broad-based and diverse movement of movements to succeed.


(Click on image to enlarge)

Speakers at the conference ranged from people who are fighting for domestic issues – such as a $15/hour minimum wage and an end to racist police brutality and ICE raids – to people who traveled from or represented countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Korea, the Philippines, the Congo, Iran, Syria, Colombia and Venezuela, which are some of the many countries under attack by US imperialism. At the end of the conference, participants marched to an area of Richmond called Shockoe Bottom, which is an African cemetery close to a site that was a central hub for the slave trade, to rally with activists with the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality who are fighting to protect the land from gentrification and preserve it as a park.

The War at Home

The “US Way of War” – a brutal form of war that requires the total destruction of populations, targets the most vulnerable and wipes out their access to basic necessities such as food and water – has raged since settlers first stepped foot on the land that is now the United States and brutalized the Indigenous Peoples in order to take their lands and resources to build wealth for the colonizers and their home countries using the slave labor of Africans and indentured servants. The US Way of War continues in the same form today on both domestic and foreign land.

There are daily reminders of the war at home, which overwhelmingly targets people of color, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, the poor and workers. Over 1,000 civilians are killed by police, security personnel or vigilantes every year in the US. Black young men are nine times more likely to be victims than any other group, but, as in the case of Philando Castile, few of the killers are held accountable. Despite clear evidence that Castile was murdered by Officer Jeromino Yanez in front of his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter during a traffic stop, Yanez was acquitted this week. Within hours of the verdict, thousands of local residents marched against the injustice and some shut down a major highway.

Black Lives Matter Chicago and other community groups filed a lawsuit this week asking for federal oversight of their police. They accuse the mayor of trying to cut a backroom deal with the Department of Justice to water down oversight of the police after a DoJ investigation “found widespread constitutional violations by the Chicago Police Department.” And recently, though Take Em Down NoLa was successful, after years of efforts, at removing several confederate statues in New Orleans, structural racism is still rampant in the school and law enforcement systems. Ashana Bigard explains, a DoJ investigation found “98.6 percent of all children arrested by the New Orleans Police Department for ‘serious offenses’ were black.”

Ralph Poynter, the widower of the great attorney-activist Lynne Stewart, spoke at the UNAC conference about the many political prisoners who have been jailed in the US for decades. He described the organizing efforts to release Stewart and the public sympathy that she was given, in part, for being a white woman. There are many people who deserve equal organizing efforts, such as Major Tillery who, after 33 years, is appealing his murder conviction. Indeed, many from the black freedom struggle of decades past remain imprisoned. Let us not forget them.

And the Trump administration is ramping up deportations. This week, ICE Director Thomas Homan asked Congress “for more than a billion dollars to expand ICE’s capacity to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.” Homan also indicated that he would increase deportations, saying “‘no population of persons’ in the country illegally is safe from deportation.” In this interview, Ingrid Latorre describes how the Sanctuary Movement is working to protect immigrants.

Juneteenth is a Time to End the War at Home

Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when black slaves in Texas learned they were freed – two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is a little known holiday that is being celebrated this year through efforts to end racial disparities on many fronts of struggle. A coalition of organizations is working to raise awareness of the injustice of cash bail in the US. They raised over a million dollars and are using that to bail out black fathers and “black LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming people, who are overrepresented in jails and prisons and are likely to experience abuse while incarcerated.”

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Question related to this article:

The peace movement in the United States, What are its strengths and weaknesses?

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Other groups are organizing in cities across the country to “Take Back the Land” and call for reparations after centuries of oppression. They write:

“We are a people who have been enslaved and dispossessed as a result of the oppressive, exploitative, extractive system of colonialism and white supremacy. In this system, our labor and its products have been forcefully taken from us for generations, for the accumulation of wealth by others. This extraction of wealth – from our labor, and from the land – formed the financial basis of the modern globalized world economy and has led to compounded exploitation and social alienation of Black people to this day.”

Jessicah Pierre explains that despite more than 150 years of ‘freedom’, black people still have a long way to go. A report called “The Ever Growing Gap” found that if we continue on the current path, “black families would have to work another 228 years to amass the amount of wealth white families already hold today.”

Wealth inequality is growing globally. Paul Bucheit explains that the five richest men in the world have almost the same wealth as the bottom 50% of the world’s population, which means each one of them has the wealth of 750 million people. Bucheit also explains that they didn’t earn it, they effectively stole it. More and more, we view the US as a kleptocracy. One idea to recapture that lost wealth and share it more equally is a Citizen’s Wealth Fund . Stewart Lansley writes that they “operate like a giant community-owned unit trust, giving all citizens an equal stake in a part of the economy.”

Ending the Wars Abroad

It would be impossible to discuss all of the wars abroad in this one newsletter (our Memorial Day newsletter discusses war further), but it is important that people in the US understand how the US Way of War is being waged around the world and its domestic impacts. Much of that was discussed at the UNAC conference, which you can watch here. Here are a few items that we suggest checking out.

This week on Clearing the FOG, we spoke with FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and journalist Max Blumenthal about “Russiagate” and the way it is being used to trick progressives into supporting conflict with Russia. We also recommend watching Oliver Stone’s series of interviews with Vladimir Putin, even though the government and even Rolling Stone urge you not to watch these excellent interviews. Abby Martin of The Empire Files traveled to Venezuela to witness the protests firsthand and the violence being perpetrated by the right wing opposition that is funded by the US. And as President Trump sheds more of his responsibilities as Commander in Chief and hands them to generals such as Masterson and Mattis, who wants to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, it is important to read this excellent analysis, “Afghanistan: From Soviet Occupation to American ‘Liberation“, by Nauman Sadiq.

At present, more than 130 countries are negotiating a treaty at the United Nations that would prohibit all nuclear weapons. The US, which holds the largest nuclear arsenal, is not participating but North Korea is. Diana Johnstone writes that the dangerous belief at the Pentagon is that in a nuclear war, the US “would prevail.”Will the rest of the world be able to prevent a nuclear war? A positive sign was the “Woman Ban the Bomb” marches that took place in more than 170 cities worldwide.

It’s up to us as people to organize a peace movement in our communities. People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey and their allies are one example of what we can be doing. They are proposing monthly actions that educate the public about the connection between the wars at home and abroad.

Kevin Zeese spoke at the opening plenary of the UNAC conference about Moral Injury that is done to an individual and to a people who engage in war. He closes with this thought:

“If we do not awaken the US government and change course from a destructive military power to an exceptional humanitarian culture aiding billions who suffer – a heavy price will be paid. We should expect it.

Our job is to turn moral injury into moral outrage and transform the United States into an exceptional humanitarian nation that is a member of the community of nations that lifts people up, rather than creates chaos and insecurity around the world.”

There are opportunities right now to organize for peace in your community no matter what issue you work on. Let’s understand that the wars at home cannot end if we do not also end the wars abroad. As we build this movement of movements, let’s remember this fact and include the abolition of war and the creation of a peace economy in our list of demands.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

UN Conference Concludes First Reading of Draft Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from the United Nations

President Presents Revised Preamble, Noting Proposed Addition of New Paragraphs

Delegations considering an instrument that would prohibit nuclear weapons concluded their first-read through of the entire draft this morning [June 21], before proceeding to informal discussions in the afternoon.

prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, resumed its consideration of Articles 11 to 21 (document A/CONF.229/2017/CRP.1).

 Having begun the discussion yesterday afternoon, delegates continued to present their positions, making amendments and suggesting revisions to language in the draft.

Ecuador’s representative, noting the “legal confusion” contained in the draft instrument under consideration, emphasized that the negotiations currently under way and the outcome instrument were not intended merely to complement prior agreements.  “We came here to negotiate a separate instrument, even though it is still related to the wider architecture of disarmament.”

Indonesia’s representative reiterated a sentiment expressed yesterday about Article 11, concerning “amendments”, underlining the need to clarify who exactly could make changes to the final instrument.  On another note, he said that although it was the sovereign right of each State party to withdraw from any instrument, provisions must be put in place to ensure that was done in the “most proper way”.  Any withdrawal must be taken very seriously, he added.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Fiji’s representative echoed statements made by several other Pacific delegations throughout discussions in pointing out that nuclear testing had unfortunately come to define the region.  Expressing “utmost faith” that the draft instrument would be a “game-changer”, not only for the Pacific but also the entire world, he voiced support for Article 17, which states that the articles are not subject to reservations.  Such a clause would make the instrument most effective, he said.

Conference President Elayne Whyte Gómez (Costa Rica) presented a revised version of the preamble to the draft instrument, noting that a total of three dozen new paragraphs had been proposed.  She said that, in trying to address all suggestions, she had incorporated proposals that could take the preamble towards consensus, adding that she had also tried to consolidate proposals that would ensure strict avoidance of repetitions in the text.  The preamble must be as short as possible in order to be similar to that of related legal instruments.

Highlighting some of the most significant changes, she said that she had tried, in paragraph 2, to incorporate the risk posed by nuclear weapons to people, health and humanity’s very survival.  Paragraph 3 had been expanded to incorporate the disproportionate impact of nuclear-weapon activities on indigenous peoples.  A paragraph on relationships with other instruments had also been consolidated by the addition of a reference to the pillars of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  Also added to the last paragraph of the draft preamble — as suggested by several delegations — were references to the role of civil society and academia in furthering the principles of humanity.

Also speaking today were representatives of Mexico, Venezuela, Singapore, Thailand, Nigeria, Philippines, Peru, Guatemala, Malaysia, Argentina and Brazil.

Others addressing the meeting were speakers representing the following entities:  the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Pace University, the International Disarmament Institute and the Centre for International Security and Policy Studies (Kazakhstan).

The Conference will reconvene in open session at a date and time to be announced.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Banning landmines taught us how to bring about real change in the world, now we’re sharing these lessons to ban nuclear weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An email from Mines Action Canada

Our humanitarian disarmament partners in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) are currently working hard at the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.

In a process inspired by the Ottawa Process banning landmines, states with support from civil society and international organizations are negotiating a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons from 15 June to 7 July 2017.

After 20 years of work on the Ottawa Treaty and other efforts to address the humanitarian impact of indiscriminate weapons, we have learned a lot and have considerable experience we are sharing with our colleagues. In that spirit Mines Action Canada has drafted three documents for states to review during their negotiations.

First, we submitted a new Working Paper to the negotiating conference. Our paper on The Disproportionate Impact of Nuclear Weapons Detonations on Indigenous Communities is available on the United Nations website. It follows on some themes from our Working Paper submitted with ICAN to the March session of negotiations.

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Second, we have a new Frequently Asked Questions document about victim assistance in the draft treaty text. This FAQ aims to help states and civil society ensure that the provisions regarding assistance to affected persons in the final treaty support existing norms around victim assistance.

Third, we co-published a paper on sustainable development and the draft text of the treatywith the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University. Our work has shown that indiscriminate weapons are lethal barriers to development.

We are pleased to offer these papers for free but please consider supporting Mines Action Canada work to ensure that we can continue to promote humanitarian disarmament in Canada and internationally.

Over the next three days, MAC staff will be attending the negotiations and speaking at a briefing event on positive obligations in the treaty on Wednesday June 21, 2017 to further outline lessons learned from previous disarmament treaties. For more on the negotiations please visit ICAN's website at www.nuclearban.org, follow @MinesActionCan on Twitter plus the hashtag #nuclearban on social media.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

Eliminating sexual violence in conflict through the International Criminal Court

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article from the Coalition for the International Criminal Court

19 June marks the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. It is the second time this International Day is celebrated, and this year’s theme “Preventing Sexual Violence Crimes through Justice and Deterrence” commemorates the advances that have been made through international justice, not in the least through the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to eradicate these heinous crimes.


The documentary “The Uncondemned” profiles the Rwandan women, lawyers and activists who helped bring about the first prosecution of rape as a war crime © The Uncondemned

SGBV: A conflict strategy

Conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a widespread weapon of war—seen in conflicts in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Darfur and Syria, to name but a few. It is used to terrorize, to degrade, to punish communities and to ethnically “cleanse.” Women and girls are predominantly the victims; but men and boys are also targeted and suffer. Survivors are often marginalized and stigmatized, with little hope of seeing their attackers brought to justice.

“Sexual violence is a threat to every individual’s right to a life of dignity, and to humanity’s collective peace and security. … Let us therefore use this day to rededicate ourselves, on behalf of every survivor, to ending sexual violence in conflict and providing peace and justice for all.” — UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

The Rome Statute: Prosecuting the perpetrators

Encouragingly, the past four years have seen much more visibility for SGBV on the international justice, peace and security agendas since the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2106 in June 2013, which recognizes the centrality of ending impunity for the prevention of SGBV in conflict and encourages states to strengthen accountability at the national level.

Adopted in 1998, the Rome Statute was one of the first international treaties to extensively address conflict-related SGBV as crimes against humanity, war crimes and, in some instances, genocide. From the beginning of her term in office, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has been proactive in addressing the gender-justice gap and made the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes a priority as witnessed by her Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes, the first ever such document for an international court or tribunal.

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Question related to this article:

Protecting women and girls against violence, Is progress being made?

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“The message to perpetrators and would-be perpetrators must be clear: sexual violence and gender-based crimes in conflict will neither be tolerated nor ignored at the ICC. We will spare no effort to bring accountability for these crimes and in so doing, contribute to deterring the commission of such heinous crimes in the future. As a matter of policy, the Office will systematically include relevant charges in its cases on the basis of evidence of criminality.” – ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda

The Rome Statute also contributes to accountability and redress for SGBV through its catalytic effect at the national level. This means that if a state ratifies the Statute and incorporates its far-reaching SGBV provisions into domestic legislation, these crimes can be prosecuted by national courts. By supporting the universality of the Rome Statute and the incorporation of Rome Statute crimes into domestic law, states and civil society can help ensure that the perpetrators of such crimes are held accountable. Many have argued the potential for such a shift in domestic legal culture to promote gender equality more broadly by strengthening women’s rights and increasing their access to justice.

The ICC: Inclusive gender justice

Another example of the Court’s catalytic effect is the vastly under-reported and misunderstood SGBV against men and boys in conflict. It is very difficult to even just talk about SGBV related issues in any culture, an issue that is exacerbated when such violence targets men and boys. The ICC’s Rome Statute, which is explicitly gender-neutral in its description of what constitutes sexual violence, is seen by many as a potential leader is bringing this conversation home to the domestic level.

While there are encouraging signs that conflict-related SGBV is finally getting the attention it so badly deserves, civil society will continue its efforts to ensure the eradication of sexual violence in conflict remains at the top of the international agenda. Commitments made at the UN and elsewhere need to turn into action and accountability. States need to provide greater support to stakeholders in addressing the root causes of gendered violence, strengthen efforts for redress for victim-survivors and ensure that women and gender perspectives are always part of prevention and peace processes.

And the ICC is doing its part. The Court handed down its first conviction for rape as a war crime and as a crime against humanity in March 2016 – against former Congolese rebel militia leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. By developing international jurisprudence on SGBV, the ICC is showing that sexual violence can no longer be treated as a collateral crime; helping destigmatize victims; and working to deter the future commission of such heinous acts.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

global, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

Uganda has benefited from peace journalism

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Gloria Laker Aciro for D+C /E+Z D+C Development and Cooperation

Uganda has a history of conflict and violence. In particular, the strife caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda from 1995 to 2004 made peace efforts necessary. At the time, a strong foundation for peace journalism was laid. Its principles are of lasting relevance in view of unrest in border regions and the refugee population which is growing due to civil war in neighbouring countries.


Peace journalists from Uganda and South Sudan

After years of failed military interventions and series of futile peace talks, the Ugandan army opted for peace journalism in order to try to reach out to LRA insurgents. In 1998, the first peace radio was established in Gulu, a town in northern Uganda. It was called Radio Freedom. The army used it to communicate not only with displaced people, but even the rebels, inspiring hope among child soldiers that demobilisation might be possible.

After the media highlighted atrocities collectively, international attention turned to the LRA conflict. Donor agencies started to consider radio programming and professional media work as a way to promote peace and later to reduce tensions in the post-conflict situation.

Important principles of peace journalism are to avoid hate speech and involve voices from all sides of a conflict. Balance, fairness and factual accuracy matter very much. The idea is to convey an understanding of a conflict’s reasons, history and possible non-violent solutions rather than to fan the flames. Attention must be paid not only to acts of violence, which are easy to report, but also to longer term developments in society, which are harder to cover.

Effective peace reporting does more than merely report events. It puts them in context, by engaging communities. Various approaches matter, including social media, local discussions and drama performances. They all serve to enhance the news reporting, talk shows and public service announcements.

Successful approaches

From 1999 to 2002, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) fully backed the use of persuasive radio programmes to urge rebels to abandon fighting. DFID funded the establishment of Mega FM radio in Gulu. The station went on air in August 2002, covering parts of Uganda as well as of southern Sudan and eastern DR Congo. It broadcasts general information on conflict and development as well as specific items geared to conflict resolution and promoting the peace process in the region.

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Question(s) related to this article:

African journalism and the Culture of Peace, A model for the rest of the world?

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In a surprising innovation, Ogena Lacambel, the host of Mega FM’s flagship programme Dwog Paco (which means “come back home” in Luo), invited former child soldiers to share their stories on radio. They were assured free passage. Today, Mega FM still has several peace-building programmes including Kabake (“community dialogue”) and Teyat (“stakeholders’ debate”). Open dialogue and call-ins with community members and rebel LRA soldiers have contributed to several abducted children returning home.

Over 22,000 child soldiers and commanders responded to the appeal and abandoned the rebellion, significantly weakening the LRA. In short, the LRA conflict could only be ended after the intervention of peace journalism.

Today, the LRA has retreated into the Central African Republic. The Ugandan army is still using the come-back-home radio format, as Innocent Aloyo, host of Mega FM’s Kabake programme, reports. The host is flown into the CAR to interview child soldiers there.

Since the LRA was defeated in Uganda, local community radio stations have been reaching out to the public through peace reporting with a focus on development. The next crucial step is for media houses to adopt in-house policies and guidelines. Many radio hosts in rural areas are not aware of what peace journalism requires, and even some who are aware have proven unable to handle people who call in by phone to incite hatred.

International agencies that promote media development such as Internews and DW Akademie have trained hundreds of local journalists in peace reporting. The impact of trainees on the peace process has been assessed. A number of community radios were set up with a commitment to peace journalism and are still active today.

Today, the sensitive issue in Uganda is reporting about refugees. Even though the country hosts thousands of refugees, the matter is under-reported. The point of view of the refugees is rarely included. When Chris Obore, a well-known journalist, highlighted the plight of a Burundian refugee girl, his reporting changed the girl’s life for the better.

Peace journalism must give marginalised people a voice. Moreover, these efforts must transcend national borders. Since refugees from South Sudan, the DRC and other countries live in Uganda, conflicts spread to the border region.

It therefore makes sense for Ugandan and South Sudanese journalists to cooperate on covering refugee issues. Speak FM, a small community radio in Gulu, is doing just that. Station manager Jane Angom says that “exiled South Sudanese journalists contribute important information about the refugee community in northern Uganda, which our radio otherwise would not be able to access”. Language matters, after all.

In 2005, the media were a key player in the Juba peace talks that led to the signing of a cessation of violence and hostilities agreement (CPA) in South Sudan. Traditional leaders who were active in the peace and reconciliation efforts point out that peace journalism as a tool was “useful in mobilising people and reaching out to rebels”.

Africa, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION