Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch BlogPeacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
Zimbabwe authorities Tuesday released nearly all of the opposition supporters who were detained last week, a Movement for Democratic Change lawyer said. More than 200 opposition supporters were picked up on Friday during raids on the MDC – the main opposition party – and Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) offices in the capital, Harare.
(...more)BAGHDAD — The latest episode in the struggle between the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the Iraqi government unfolded Sunday on the streets of Sadr City, where members of Parliament demonstrated peacefully while clashes occurred a few blocks away.
Several hours later, Shiite militiamen in the Sadr City district took advantage of a huge dust storm that enveloped Baghdad, and kept American aircraft grounded, to fire at least a dozen mortar rounds at the Green Zone, the home of the American Embassy and of many Iraqi government officials.
The mix of peaceful protest and armed attacks is characteristic of the many levels on which the Sadr movement and the government are locked in an all-out fight for political advantage. At stake is the outcome of October provincial elections in which other Shiite parties in the government stand to lose seats to Mr. Sadr’s supporters.
However, for now, members of Parliament from several parties — with the apparent exception of some of the Shiite blocs that rival Mr. Sadr’s — seemed to be trying to transcend the fight for power and focus on the terrible living conditions for residents of Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite neighborhood where militiamen and American and Iraqi troops have fought for more than a month.
(...more)Any chance for meaningful peace in the Middle East hinges on the continued participation of women in the process, a Kitchener audience heard Friday.
“In spite of the horrid terror around them, the Middle Eastern women wherever they are . . . make peace advocacy their priority,” said Aida Faris, former national president of YWCA Lebanon and founder of the Center for Middle East Studies in Buffalo, N.Y.
(...more)This Easter season, Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan received visits to his office from a string of journalists. It happens every year at this time, with reporters wanting to write about the Holy Land during Christianity’s most important annual festival – writes Judith Sudilovsky.
“I feel there is a trend to show that Palestinian Christians are living in a difficult situation,” Bishop Younan told Ecumenical News International. “Of course, there are some cases [of Muslim-Christian tensions] but people exaggerate them, especially on the Christian right.”
(...more)GENEVA – The UN refugee agency’s sprawling regional warehouse in Dubai recently received an unusual shipment of aid supplies – 3 million sanitary pads.
The welcome gift from the Japan office of global consumer goods giant, Proctor & Gamble, came at an opportune time. Due to budgetary constraints, UNHCR agency has been finding it difficult to meet a core commitment to ensure the provision of sanitary materials to all women and girls of concern.
Things have been improving, but the situation remains inadequate. In 2004, the provision of sanitary materials was satisfactory in only 18.9 percent of refugee camps; by 2006 the figure had risen to 34.9 per cent. With UNHCR still facing a credit squeeze, the help of corporate partners is very important.
Many people would probably not consider sanitation when asked to identify the key needs of female refugees and displaced people around the world: things like shelter, food, water and security would be foremost in their minds.
(...more)Since 1970, when rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of gross national income in aid to poorer countries to assist their development, hardly any have ever done so. The last three years are regarded as some of the highest levels of aid since, but only amount to approximately 0.3% of GNI.
Calculating the accumulated shortfall since 1970 reveals a huge aid shortfall of $3.3 trillion, while $2.4 trillion has been given. Even though it is a large amount, most of it does not go to the poorest countries.
(...more)KINSHASA – Three months after a peace accord in east Congo, armed groups are still killing and raping civilians, and fighting between the army and Rwandan rebels who did not sign the ceasefire has displaced thousands more refugees.
Humanitarian organisations are calling on the international community which backed the January 23 Goma peace agreement to take urgent action to ensure it is translated into real security for civilians in Democratic Republic of Congo’s turbulent east.
(...more)MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia – Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said on Saturday he believed progress towards resolving a decades-old dispute over a group of Pacific islands was possible.
“With respect to the territorial issue, I believe we will be able to secure a positive direction,” Fukuda said after talks with Russia’s President-elect Dmitry Medvedev…
“We are continuing dialogue on the peace treaty and will create the necessary conditions for advancement along this path,” Putin said before the talks.
(...more)As Canada watches its government’s once-alarming terrorism case against the “Toronto 18″ gradually shrink, it may be time to assess the threat Islamic terrorists present more generally.
(...more)MANILA, Philippines: A cease-fire between Islamic rebels and government forces in the southern Philippines could falter if Malaysia withdraws dozens of peacekeepers from the region, peace activists and the guerrillas warned Sunday.
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said Thursday his government would start withdrawing its personnel next month. The Malaysians makes up the bulk of a 60-man foreign contingent safeguarding a 2003 cease-fire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been waging a decades-old insurrection.
Rebel negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said Sunday it would be difficult to prevent occasional conflicts between troops and rebels from erupting into full-blown fighting without the foreign peacekeepers.
Other Muslim extremist groups and armed groups opposed to the peace talks could also take advantage of the lack of peacekeepers to launch attacks, he said.
The foreign peacekeepers “have been responsible for bringing down the incidents of violence in Mindanao to almost zero,” Iqbal said, referring to the southern home region of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.
(...more)President Kibaki and Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga took the peace and reconciliation campaign to the South Rift, where the regional leaders called for amnesty for suspected perpetrators of the post-election violence.
The leaders, led by Cabinet minister William Ruto, asked President Kibaki to offer amnesty to suspects arrested in connection with the violence.
“If we want to succeed in our peace efforts, we have to forgive each other first and then release youths who were arrested in connection with the violence,” said the Agriculture minister.
President Mwai Kibaki confers with Roads Minister Kipkalya Kones on arrival at Kipkelion.
Ruto told a peace and reconciliation rally at Kipkelion town that some suspects were innocent. Healing Process
“A number of innocent people are in custody. They should be freed so the healing process can begin,” said the Eldoret North MP.
(...more)We all use excuses – reasonable or not – to get us off the hook. Philosophers Michael Blake, Simone Chambers and Arthur Ripstein join IDEAS host Paul Kennedy to see how and why excuses work and what they tell us about ourselves. Listen. No excuses!
(...more)Publications
ICTJ Publications Catalogue
(publications available for download(
March 2008
Nepali Voices: Perceptions of Truth, Justice, Reconciliation, Reparations and the Transition in Nepal
March 2008
Transitional Justice Reporting Audit: A Review of Media Coverage
February 2008
Against the Current: War Crimes Prosecution in Serbia
January 2008
Census and Identification of Security System Personnel after Conflict: A Toolbook for Practioners
January 2008
Briefing Paper: Iraq’s New “Accountability and Justice†Law
January 2008
Unofficial Translation of Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Law
January 2008
Considering Victims: The Aceh Peace Process from a Transitional Justice Perspective
January 2008
Too Much Friendship, Too Little Truth: Monitoring Report on the Commission of Truth and Friendship in Indonesia and Timor-Leste
January 31, 2008
A Truth Commission for Kenya? Incorporating International Standards and Best Practice
Four Latin American leaders, meeting in Caracas, have agreed on a $100m (£50m) scheme to combat the impact of rising food prices on the region’s poor.
The presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela and Cuba’s vice-president also agreed on joint programmes to promote the development of agriculture.
Global food prices have risen in response to extra fuel costs and increased demand from India and China.
(...more)The United States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union did for the cause of socialism. Not only has the Bush administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world, but its high-profile and highly suspect “democracy promotion†agenda has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent activists.
In recent months, the governments of Zimbabwe, Iran, Belarus, and Burma, among others, have disingenuously claimed that popular nonviolent civil insurrections of the kind that toppled the corrupt and autocratic regimes in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine in recent years – and that could eventually threaten them as well – are somehow part of an effort by the Bush administration and its allies to instigate “soft coups†against governments deemed hostile to American interests and replace them by more compliant regimes.
This confuses two very different phenomena.
(...more)HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s ruling party floated a proposal Wednesday for forming a government of national unity led by President Robert Mugabe as a way out of a political crisis that has dragged on for weeks.
The overture, given a prominent place in the state-owned Herald newspaper, could create room for discussion and diplomacy — but the opposition’s leader rejected any role for Mugabe in a coalition administration for this struggling southern African country.
(...more)The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has welcomed today’s start of the African country’s historic nationwide census, which aims to count all Sudanese people and households in preparation for elections scheduled for next year…
The holding of the census is one of the key elements in implementing the CPA and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement last week calling the event a milestone in the peace process, which is supposed to culminate in elections next year.
(...more)UNITED NATIONS — Britain is circulating a draft U.N. resolution calling for the United Nations to move its Somalia political operation to the conflict-wracked nation, step up efforts to restore peace, and keep planning for a U.N. takeover of peacekeeping from the African Union.
(...more)This morning, Egypt’s prestigious semi-official daily Al-Ahram reported that the much-needed, Egypt-mediated Israel-Hamas ceasefire (tahdi’eh) agreement may be on the point of getting nailed down. Given the extreme reluctance with which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak even got drawn into playing the intermediary role in the first place– and the fact that until just a few days ago his media were still engaging in a heavy anti-Hamas propaganda campaign– this latest news is significant indeed.
(Might it also signal that the key Egyptian mediator, security boss, Omar Suleiman has been doing a few things that push the boundaries of whatever mandate he got from his Prez? If so, that would be potentially even bigger news…)
This negotiation has been going on since mid-February. In the past ten days it has been conducted in parallel with Jimmy Carter’s visits to Hamas leaders and to Israel. Obviously we still need to learn a lot more about the interactions between these two processes, though all sides have been quite clear that Carter has not been involved in the ongoing, Egypt-mediated negotiations on the three topics of the tahdi’eh, the prisoner exchange, and lifting the siege Gaza siege.
(...more)Americans and Iraqis tell two different stories about the war in Iraq. Most Iraqis say that the United States-led invasion and occupation have fueled violence. The dominant American story is that US forces are curbing sectarian violence and making things better in Iraq. This gap in perception severely undermines public diplomacy efforts throughout the Muslim world, necessitating a much greater effort toward understanding the Iraqi point of view.
Recently, I was sipping tea with a group of Iraqi community development workers in Amman, Jordan. The conversation shifted from a focus on their attempts to reconcile Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders in villages across Iraq to the larger question of how to reconcile US and Iraqi narratives about the war.
(...more)
© Peacemakers Trust, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007
