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.
There is no indication that Bolivian president Evo Morales would be effectively removed from his post after an upcoming recall referendum, according to a poll by Captura Consulting SRL published in La Prensa. Only 18 per cent of respondents would vote to oust Morales, while 49 per cent would vote to keep him as president.
(...more)I’ve been writing quite a bit recently about war and its unwinnability. I’ve been thinking a lot more about this, and I want to clarify that in those writings I was referring primarily to wars being won or not won in the traditional military sense of “winning”– that is, that the victorious country is able to either destroy or defeat (that is an important distinction, right there) the armed forces of the opposing side and thereby to impose its own political will on the defeated country.
It is that “thereby” that seems increasingly– or perhaps in some cases, completely– unattainable these days.
(...more)IRELAND – The use of mediation and conciliation should become an integral part of the civil legal system, according to the Law Reform Commission.
In a lengthy consultation paper, which will be launched by Mr Justice Peter Kelly this evening, the LRC outlines the theoretical basis and practice of various forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and the experience of it in other jurisdictions where it has been strongly encouraged in recent years.
(...more)For those following the debate around the Lord Chief Justice’s view that there is no reason why Shari’ah principles should not be the basis for mediation in the UK here is a Muslim perspective…
(...more)A tribe in the Philippines has served its own tribal justice on Canadian mining company, TVI Pacific. The Subanen, whose name means ‘people of the river’, live in the forested mountains of Mindanao island. They have invoked their traditional justice authority, the ‘Gukom’, which has found the Canadian mining company TVI Pacific guilty of crimes against the Subanen and their land in the Philippines.
The Gukom has ordered that TVI should leave the area and also pay financial restitution.
The Gukom, which is the traditional justice authority of the Subanen near TVI’s gold mine, found the company guilty of violence against Subanen individuals, violation of their customary laws, abuse of the dignity of Subanen leaders and damage to the environment. The Gukom invited TVI to the hearing but the company refused to attend.
(...more)WOLFVILLE, NOVA SCOTIA – Was there ever a “once upon a time” when we were more tolerant and open towards those we perceive as different?
(...more)COWICHAN BAY, B.C. — The sound of 1,000 handcrafted paddles being beaten in rhythm in the bottoms of more than 100 canoes echoed across Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island Monday evening as the boats were drawn to shore in the shadow of Mt. Tzouhalem, the sacred mountain of the Quw’utsum peoples… more
Also see 2008 Indigenous Games August 3-10
“What is not clear,” Simon Jenkins wrote last Friday of the Beijing Olympics, “is who will win, China or its critics”. We all know what Simon Jenkins means: that China’s Communist party leadership is winning the short-term race to host the Olympics on its own terms, but it may face trouble running the marathon – the longer-term struggle. I broadly agree with this analysis…
[W]e should remember that the vast variation in opinion among the ordinary people who make up China does not make up a monolithic will. The struggle, as it emerges, will not be between “China” and “its critics” – it will be the debate inside China itself.
(...more)BAGHDAD and AMARA, IRAQ – Out of a group of 125 graduates in the class of 2007 at Baghdad University’s economics department, three landed ministry jobs and four enlisted in the Army. The rest are unemployed.
This year, the outlook for the 2,800 students graduating from the university’s economics and business school is not much better. An estimated 1 percent will find jobs related to their fields, says Thaer al-Ani, an economics professor at the school.
As the security situation improves, polls show that Iraqis are more optimistic than they’ve been at any time since 2005.
(...more)GOMA – Six months since the signing of a peace agreement, horrendous violence continues to plague eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a coalition of 64 aid agencies and human rights groups said today.
The new Congo Advocacy Coalition was created in July 2008 to focus attention on the protection of civilians as part of the peace process in eastern Congo.
(...more)The United Nations has named South Africa’s Navanethem Pillay as the world body’s new human rights chief. The 67-year-old lawyer and judge has worked for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Rwanda Tribunal, as well as sitting on the bench of South Africa’s High Court. She succeeds Canada’s Louise Arbour.
(...more)It looms solemnly over the shady corner of a city park, an incongruous emblem of pain amid a happy clamor of picnicking families and children chasing scuffed soccer balls. A granite echo of the Vietnam memorial in Washington, the 300-foot-long lead-colored monument serves as a kind of giant gravestone for the civil war that ripped El Salvador apart in the 1980s.
(...more)British academics will be encouraged to conduct research with their Israeli peers in an attempt to heal fractured relations between UK and Israeli universities.
Gordon Brown has signed up to a £740,000 academic exchange scheme during his trip to Israel today.
The government has been keen to promote links between the two countries to play down attempts by British academics to boycott Israeli academics over the treatment of Palestinians.
(...more)Members of the 19th US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravan returned to the US today after challenging the US blockade on travel to Cuba and delivering nearly 100 tons of humanitarian aid to that island nation. When they crossed through Mexico and reached the US border at Hidalgo, TX today, the members of the caravan were processed through US Immigration and Customs.
Responding to constant pressure from communities all across the US, US officials then returned to the caravan the 32 computers that had been seized on July 3.
“It’s difficult for even the US government to enforce the blockade against us, since they know that we are acting on the basis of our moral principles — principles which are supported by the great majority of the US people,” said Rev. Thomas Smith, president of the board of directors of IFCO/Pastors for Peace.
(...more)As part of the International 16 Days of Activism Campaign to End Violence Against Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) developed a multimedia campaign to capitalise on the commitment of Timor-Leste’s leaders to end violence against women (EVAW). Launched in November 2007, this campaign features male leaders giving voice to EVAW through a series of printed posters, and radio and television public service announcements (PSAs), which are designed to reach all 13 districts in the country. The advocacy campaign focuses on the 2 western border districts of Covalima and Bobonaro, where – according to UNIFEM – there is a prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) due to geographical isolation and substantial economic disadvantages and hardship. This campaign is part of a larger, 2-year programme designed to foster community-based responses to SGBV and to promote women’s engagement in local conflict reconciliation and peacebuilding initiatives.
(...more)This review assessed the effectiveness of programmes seeking to engage men and boys in achieving gender equality and equity in health….The review analysed data from 58 evaluation studies (identified via an Internet search, key informants and colleague organizations) of interventions with men and boys….
(...more)Reconciliation doesn’t come easily, but it does come.
Laura Waters Hinson has seen the process firsthand.
The 26-year-old Florida native who graduated from Furman in 2004 has spent the past three years working on a film about the process of reconciliation in the wake of the genocide in Rwanda.
Last month, the film won the Gold Medal Award for Documentary at the Student Academy Awards, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences… full story
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See the trailer on You Tube:
More information about the film:
Hinson, Laura Waters, Producer and Director. As We Forgive Those: Reconciliation in Rwanda. Videorecording. Narrated by Mia Farrow. Washington, DC: Laura Waters Hinson, 2008. 53 minutes.
PUNE, INDIA – They are in India and they are searching for Gandhi. The 14 professors of philosophy, history, psychology and English from the US are on a five-week tour of India. The Fulbright scholars are going around the country visiting places where the Gandhian philosophy is practised even today. The subject of their scholarship is titled ‘In search of Gandhi in India’.
In Pune for four days, the scholars began their quest at the Yerwada central jail where they interacted with the authorities and inmates. Asim Sarode, a human rights activist, who had accompanied them to the prison later had a discussion with them on how the Gandhian thoughts help in solving the legal cases.
Madhuri Deshmukh, who teaches English at Oakton Community College near Chicago, said they chose the subject of scholarship because “Gandhi is more relevant today that he ever was with the rising violence and war around the world. Gandhian philosophy of non-violence looks practical .â€
(...more)ROME – When George Bush visited Rome last year, he wanted to see everybody who mattered in world affairs: Pope Benedict, the leaders of Italy—and members of the Sant’Egidio community.
Started by a high-school student in 1968, this Roman Catholic fellowship now has 60,000 members in 70 countries. Its founding ideals were prayer, mission and solidarity with the poor. But it has also become the leading player in a crowded sector, that of faith-based peacemaking…
Since the early 1990s, Sant’Egidio mediators have helped broker deals in places like Mozambique, Guatemala, Kosovo and, most recently, Côte d’Ivoire. Africa and Latin America are the main fields that Christian peacemakers plough. What many world leaders want to know is whether such groups bring anything unique to the business of reconciliation.
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