Fight violence with nonviolence

Unarmed civilian peacekeepers are saving lives today.
By Rolf Carriere and Michael Nagler

Atlanta

Legends relate that Buddha stopped a war between two kings who were quarreling over rights to a river by asking them, "Which is more precious, blood or water?"

Could ordinary people use the same kind of wisdom – and courage – to check the impulse to fight wars today – over oil, water, or identity? Mahatma Gandhi thought so. He created teams of civilians called the Shanti Sena or "Army of Peace" and deployed them in various communities around India where they could avert communal riots and provide other peacekeeping services.

Over the past 25 years nonviolent peacekeepers have been going into zones of sometimes intense conflict with the aim of bringing a measure of peace, protection, and sanity to life there. Rather than use threat or force, unarmed peacekeepers deploy strategies of protective accompaniment, moral and/or witnessing "presence," monitoring election campaigns, creating neutral safe spaces, and in extreme cases putting themselves physically between hostile parties, as Buddha did with the angry kings in ancient India.

Civilian unarmed peacekeeping has had dramatic, small-scale, quiet, and unglamorous successes: rescuing child soldiers, protecting the lives of key human rights workers and of whole villages, averting potentially explosive violence, and generally raising the level of security felt by citizens in many a tense community.

To read the full article from the Christian Science Monitor, click on:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p09s01-coop.htm

Indonesian Defence Minister visits Australia after Indonesian security forces go on shooting rampage in West Papua

26 March 2008

One teenage student is in hospital in a serious condition after being shot in the stomach when Indonesian security forces went on a shooting rampage against local people in the Paniai Lakes region of West Papua two weeks ago. The human rights violation coincides with the visit of Indonesian Defence Minister Sudarsono who is in Australia to attend the East Asia Dialogue Forum. The report from the remote region of Paniai demonstrates the disastrous role that Indonesian combat troops and paramilitary police are having throughout West Papua.

The shooting rampage by the Indonesian security forces was sparked when local people demonstrated outside a local Police station on the 10th of March 2008. Indigenous residents of the remote highland town of Enarotali [1], about 120 km inland of the coastal city of Nabire, gathered at the police station after Police beat a local civil servant, Yavet Pigai.

Local human rights workers at the scene report that the police were supported by Indonesian military forces from the Koramil (district headquarters) and Tim Khusus (Army Special Services). These military forces were described as combat troops from outside the province.

Police and Military personnel are reported to have opened fire on the group. Local sources said the military and Brimob (Police Mobile Brigade) continued shooting for two hours. One report said hundreds of troops were involved and that local people, some of who had been wounded had fled into the forests.

“Our sources described the incident as a terrifying experience for local people. It was clearly an action to intimidate local people and show that the Indonesian police and military were the authority in the region” said Matthew Jamieson on behalf of the Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights (IPAHR).

A total of 9 local people were reportedly wounded. The names of two young men were given to IPAHR by these local sources, both of whom were described as students. Mangki Pigai (aged 18 years) was taken to hospital in a serious condition after a bullet lodged in his stomach. Another student, John Pigome (aged 20 years) was beaten by Police and sustained serious head injuries consistent with being beaten with a gun.

The incident was sparked after Mr. Yavet Pigai, the civil servant, was knocked off his motorbike by an excavator working on road works near a village called Mogokobitadimi.[2] At the time of the incident Mr Pagai, who works for the District Government of Paniai was travelling to a meeting at the local government office in the town of Madi.

Mr. Yavet Pigai was then beaten by police on the road and taken to the police station at Enarotali where he was beaten again. Mr. Pigai sustained injuries to his face and back.

Police and Army personnel had been supervising the work of a road building contractor. The incident is believed to be related to local opposition to road building business in the Paniai region, which are supported by the security forces.

It was reported by Human Rights sources that Paniai’s head of the regional administration Mr. Naftali Yogi told a press conference that the police and army “must apology to the local people and reflect on what they have done”. Mr. Yogi said that, “the police and army should take full of the responsibility on the incident because the case was a simple one but the security forces took a very serious action on trying to kill innocent people there”.

In a report tabled at the most recent session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (2008), the Catholic Office of Justice and Peace in Jayapura (SKP) reported 242 documented individual cases of torture and ill treatment by the security forces in West Papua since 1998.

In the course of their human rights investigations SKP found that most of the human rights violations were committed by the police or military were outside of police or military custody.

SKP said that most documented cases were not prosecuted. The only case of torture that was brought to trial was after the Abepura case in 2000 in which the two (Brimob) police officers who charged were acquitted.

Finally, SKP found that the use of torture and cruel and degrading treatment by the security forces towards the Indigenous population was both widespread and formed a culture of violence and racism embedded within the security forces.

Matthew Jamieson, spokesperson for Institute for Papuan Advocacy and Human Rights stated today that, “the shooting in Paniai follows the common pattern of indiscriminate violence against indigenous West Papuans. There is virtual legal impunity from prosecution for police and military forces involved in Human Rights abuses. Indonesian forces are stationed throughout West Papua, right down to the village level. The policy of stationing large numbers of combat troops and paramilitary police in every region is proving calamitous for indigenous West Papuans.”

“There are reports of both police and military at all levels of the command chain being involved legal and illegal business activities. In the Paniai Lakes region this includes road building and construction industries, logging, illegal wildlife rackets and goldmining. These business operations give the security forces a vested interest in generating conflict in order to justify their continued presence in the troubled territory.”

“The presence of senior commanding officers in West Papua, such as Burhanuddin Siagian, who have been indicted for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in East Timor, reinforces the culture of violence and impunity within the Indonesian security forces. “

Reports of police and military violence in Enarotali come in the wake of widespread nonviolent demonstrations in Jayapura, Manokwari, Serui and Sorong protesting the Indonesian government’s decision to ban the Morning Star flag. Several West Papuan leaders arrested in these demonstrations are in custody facing charges of rebellion and subversion.

For further Information contact:

Matthew Jamieson + 61(0)418291998


[1] The Indigenous Mee people of the Paniai Lakes region sustain a large population through intensive agriculture based around pigs and sweet potato. The group has suffered greatly during Indonesian rule in West Papua with many thousands of people killed by Indonesian security forces, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years the main Indonesian government development has been road building to link Enarotali and the interior with the coastal port city of Nabire. The Paniai region is highly prospective for minerals and is adjacent to the Freeport McMoRan/Rio Tinto gold and copper mine, which has been conducting exploration in the region.
[2] There has been a recent history of human rights violations and community decent associated with road building. In January 2006 a young boy, Moses Douw, was shot dead in the community market on his way to school in the village of Wahgette. On three young local people were shot by the military after local people had protested about issues related to road building.

Matthew Jamieson
Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights
PO Box 1805, Byron Bay NSW 2481 Australia
matthew@hr.minihub.org
tel +61(0) 418291998

Kamran Mofid's Palm Sunday Speech

I am delighted and honoured to be here today, making this brief presentation. I wish to thank you for inviting me and to thank you for the generosity of your hospitality and friendship.

I am especially delighted to be in Australia now: a time of change and a time of hope. You, the good people of this beautiful land, decided that you wish to be, once again, a country of hope, a country of justice, peace and compassion, when you voted in your general election a few months back. Since then your new government has taken a few gallant steps, enhancing peace nationally and internationally. We need more governments around the world to be inspired by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and under take similar humane and just policies. I hope that people like Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama are taking notice!

Friends, I can talk much about war and peace in general. But I wish to say a few words about war and peace in the Middle East.

As we all know, the Middle East seems on the brink of overwhelming disaster. Iraq is wrecked by insurgency and sectarian warfare. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is not much different to the disaster in neighbouring Iraq. Israel and Hezbollah have fought to a bloody standstill, a disastrous war for all. The Israeli-Palestinian struggle festers like a raw wound. There is great controversy over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The “Selective” push for “Democracy” –hugely expensive both in material and human life costs- is in ruins.

Prof. Stiglitz (a Noble Prize winner in economics) and his colleague, Bilmes , in a recently published book, have identified and estimated the economic and monetary cost of the Iraqi adventure to America - just America - at conservatively estimated $3 trillion. The rest of the world, will probably account for about the same amount again.

This month America will have been in Iraq for five years - longer than it spent in either world wars. Daily military operations (not counting, for example, future care of wounded) have already cost more than 12 years in Vietnam, and twice as much as the Korean war. America is spending $16bn a month on running costs alone (ie on top of the regular expenses of the Department of Defence) in Iraq and Afghanistan; that is the entire annual budget of the UN.

By way of context, Stiglitz and Bilmes list what even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century. America, says Stiglitz, is currently spending $5bn a year in Africa, and worrying about being outflanked by China there: "Five billion is roughly 10 days' fighting, so you get a new metric of thinking about everything."

To understand the magnitude of this disaster to all better, let us look at the figures once again:

$16bn The amount the US spends on the monthly running costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - on top of regular defence spending

$138 The amount paid by every US household every month towards the current operating costs of the war

$19.3bn The amount Halliburton has received in single-source contracts for work in Iraq

$25bn The annual cost to the US of the rising price of oil, itself a consequence of the war

$3 trillion A conservative estimate of the true cost - to America alone. The rest of the world, will shoulder about the same amount again

$5bn Cost of 10 days' fighting in Iraq

$1 trillion The interest America will have paid by 2017 on the money borrowed to finance the war

3% The average drop in income of 13 African countries - a direct result of the rise in oil prices. This drop has more than offset the recent increase in foreign aid to Africa.

At times like these, it is easy to despair. But somehow, for the sake of humanity and the enlightened self interest, the cycle of violence and inflicting inhumanity on each other must be broken. Here the wise words of Martin Luther King rings true as ever, “Sooner or later, all the peoples of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love”.

By now everybody should clearly know that, force begets force; hate begets hate; toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. All of us collectively must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.

Some timely questions at this time in our history are: What now for the Middle East? How can Middle East’s broken heart be healed? How can we, East and West, Muslims, Christians, Jews- All the Children of Abraham- work together for the common good to bring peace, justice, freedom and prosperity for all to the region?

Moreover, what can we do about this? What role can we play as individuals and collectively as humanity? The ageless wisdom teaches us that humanity has a very significant role to play in founding the” Kingdom of Heaven on Earth”. In order to fulfil this most sacred role, however, we must first heal and transform ourselves. This is our responsibility; this is our destiny.
Below are my suggestions:

I believe that, there will be no path to peace in the Middle East without engaging the religious traditions of the region and in turn enabling the faith communities to get behind the process of economic and business development. Many people in the Middle-East and around the world express their highest hopes and aspirations for what it means to be human through religion.
Religion, after all, is a powerful constituent of cultural norms and values, and because it addresses the most profound existential issues of human life (e.g., freedom and inevitability, fear and faith, security and insecurity, right and wrong, sacred and profane), religion is deeply implicated in individual and social conceptions of peace. To transform the conflicts besetting the world today, we need to uncover the conceptions of peace within our diverse religious, spiritual and cultural traditions, while seeking the common ground among them.

The people of the Middle-East have the resources for doing so within the Abrahamic faiths. We have to insist that the lives of an Iraqi civilian, an American or British or Australian soldier, an Israeli teenager in a café, and a Palestinian child all carry the same inherent value. Here again we can be inspired by the wisdom of our religions if we note what they say about love and its true meaning and value.

The major religions of the world prescribe the unselfish love and service of others. Only when this love extends to all humanity without exception can a dignified and peaceful human future become possible. God is love and love is God. St. Paul wrote, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs”. Judaism teaches that “those who are kind reward themselves”. The Quran reads, “My mercy and compassion embrace all things”. In these and other traditions, unselfish love is deemed a Creative Presence underlying and integral to all of reality, participation in which constitutes the fullest experience of spirituality.
People everywhere, given a chance prefer to be compassionate, spiritual and caring. They want to be able to practice their religions freely. More and more, they also want to see that their religious values have a bearing on their economic systems and structures. This philosophy is nowhere stronger than in the Middle-East, whose people by and large are very spiritual, religious, hospitable, informed and cultural.

I hope with your help and prayers and actions we will witness peace in the Middle East and indeed every where in the world.

I now will conclude my talk by reciting a prayer and a poem; both have had a major impact on my thinking. First, Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;where there is sadness, joy;
O Master, grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Second, a poem by the Persian, Sufi sage and philosopher, Molana Jalal-e Din Rumi, very relevant and timely, given today's world situation:

What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognise myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.
I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heaven.
I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.
I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsin.
I am not of the kingdom of ’Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan
I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell.
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.
My place is the Placeless; my trace is the Traceless;
’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.
I have put duality away; I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.
He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;
If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,
From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.
If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds; I will dance in triumph for ever.

May this prayer and the poem be a source of inspiration to all those who are dividing and separating God's people for their own selfish, arrogant reasons.

In all, when I am inspired by something so powerful, I feel renewed in my hope for this world that has long turned in the darkness of greed, anger, revenge, fear, confusion, and pain.

Peace, justice, love, vocation, service, altruism, volunteerism, faith, hope and charity, these are the true values of our religions. With Easter just around the corner, this may be a good time for peace builders all over the world to join hands, be inspired by the teachings of their religions guiding us all to the chosen destination: the promised “city of peace”.

In conclusion and summing up, I wish to invite you to participate at the 7th Annual International Conference of GCGI, which this year will take place from 30th of June to 4th of July in Melbourne at Trinity College, where these and other relevant issues will be discussed and debated, so that together we may built a world that is free, just, peaceful and prosperous for all God’s people.

Thank you and God bless.

Kamran Mofid
Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (UK)
www.globalisationforthecommongood.info

Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings

Ed Pilkington in New York

The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.

The head of the Pentagon's medical assessments division has told USA Today that he wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War syndrome.

To read the full article from The Guardian, click on:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/usa.iraq

Nations working to ban cluster bombs

Hugh MacLeod

...

In a report released last month, Human Rights Watch said Israel dropped 4.6 million cluster bombs on southern Lebanon, more than in recent wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

Last month, 122 nations met at a Cluster Munition Coalition meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, to work out final discussions for an eventual treaty banning cluster bombs. The draft, which has been endorsed by 82 nations, would bar signatory nations from producing, using or stockpiling cluster bombs.

Supporters say the final treaty, which is expected to be signed in Oslo, Norway, later this year, would be the most significant advance in disarmament since the 1997 ban on anti-personnel mines.
...

To be sure, cluster bombs have been used in warfare since World War II and are standard air-dropped bombs for many nations. At least 14 countries and a small number of nonstate militias - Hezbollah, for example - have used cluster bombs in at least 30 nations and territories, while at least 76 nations have stockpiles, according to Human Rights Watch.

Cluster bomb manufacturers say the failure rate is typically between 10 and 15 percent. But the United Nations says it is between 20 and 30 percent and was even higher in southern Lebanon due to Israel’s use of Vietnam War-era and Chinese bombs, whose date of effectiveness had long since expired.

“By their nature, cluster bombs are very likely to fail,” said Farran, the U.N. spokeswoman. “They are not accurate and not reliable.”

Farran said the mine removal campaign in Lebanon is far more daunting than that in Kosovo, an area comparable in size. “In a 2 1/2-year program, (the U.N. Mine Action Service) cleared 25,000 submunitions, and that was 90 percent of the problem,” she said. “In Lebanon, in a year and a half we have cleared 137,000 submunitions.”

To read the full article from The San Francisco Chronicle click on:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/17/MNGMV7SGR.DTL