Peacemakers 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.
An interesting new series of reports has been released exploring informal, community-based dispute resolution practices in Afghanistan. The qualitative research project was conducted by Deborah Smith and colleagues from the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit with funding from the United Kingdom Department for International Development…
A zipped up package of 3 pdfs provides the following…
- A Holistic Justice System for Afghanistan (Policy Note), by Deborah J. Smith and Jay Lamey
- Community-Based Dispute Resolution in Nangarhar Province (Case Study), by Deborah J. Smith
- Community-Based Dispute Resolution in Bamiyan Province (Case Study), by Deborah J. Smith and Shelly Manalan
[A]n online project using new and social media to overcome negative stereotypes in the South Caucasus entered a second stage last week…
The project aims to promote positive examples of ethnic groups coexisting peacefully in a volatile region riven with frozen conflicts in an attempt to provide an alternative to what is usually a partisan local media that not only self-censors, but also spreads misinformation and negative propaganda…
Professor Richard Falk describes himself as an American Jew, but it is his support of Palestinian rights that has earned him the profile and abuse that is threatening to overshadow five decades of achievements as a lawyer, an academic and an author. One year after Israel’s war on Gaza, Al Jazeera talks to the UN special rapporteur on Palestine and asks him about his views on that war, the impact of the Obama presidency and the future of the peace process.
Filed under: Art of Peacework — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 10:07 UTC
News source:
originally published 14 December 2009
Institute for Policy Studies
By Split This Rock. Edited by Sarah Browning
This Rock, the national organization of socially engaged poets and presenters of the biannual Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness (March 10-13, 2010, Washington, DC), offers the following poems for your vigils, demonstrations, and actions…
In Afghanistan, possibly the least peaceful or secure place on earth, it’s time for Obama to shift the balance of U.S. troops from soldiers to armies of doctors, midwives, engineers and arborists, [Kavita] Ramdas [CEO of the Global Fund for Women] said, addressing the University of Washington School of Global Health earlier this week [October 2009].
“Stop feeding the beast,” she said. “We have too many guns and way too little butter.”…
Almost everywhere, a large presence of troops correlates with high incidences of rape, prostitution, domestic violence and other problems, she said. “Survival sex” is common — organizations working in such situations report that girls are often resorting to sex for food.
Conversely, where women’s health and education is improved, and more females enter the workforce, countries achieve rapid reductions in poverty.
The only thing these two movies have in common is that I recently saw each movie. Both of these movies also have some interesting and vastly different views of dispute resolution. Avatar is the classic tale of corporate/colonial greed at the expense of a native population… It is not an awe-inspiring example of how to engage in cross-cultural negotiation…
In contrast, Invictus is a film that shows wonderful examples of the potential of dispute resolution and reconciliation. It is the true story of Nelson Mandela, the South African Rugby Team, and the 1995 Rugby World Cup…
Peace It Together is a three-week camp that unites Palestinians, Israelis, and Canadians as they make a film together. The camp aims to empower youth to promote peace through dialogue, film-making, and multimedia production.
Film-making is the chosen avenue to reach these goals because the film-making process requires participants to make deep inquiries, collaborate, and compromise with one another. Their film work provides the youth with a common purpose. “Peacing It Together” is a 30-minute documentary that follows the youth as they work together.
The documentary is now available on DVD and includes seven short films made by the students at the camp.
Peace It Together is a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower youth to promote peace.
YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps.
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sshutts. (2009, December 11). \’Peacing It Together\’ Unites Israeli and Palestinian Teens . Retrieved December 30, 2009, from YES! Magazine Web site: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/peacing-it-together-unites-israeli-and-palestinian-teens. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License(...more)
Filed under: News Watch Blog — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 14:14 UTC
News source:
30 December 2009
Peace and Collaborative Development Network
By Craig Zelizer
I wanted to put together a list of 10 possible recommendations to help make the world more peaceful and encourage others to contribute their own lists.This list has been revised from earlier postings…
Today, Cristina Fernandez welcomed the international team from the World March for Peace and Non-Violence in the presidential office. In the meeting, which lasted close to half an hour, they discussed international military conflicts and investment in weapons, among other topics. The activists said they felt very satisfied with the president’s reception.
Information technologies are having a sweeping impact not only on how we do business, but on what our business is.
For Pheidippides’ run from Marathon to Athens, to Paul Revere’s ride through the Massachusetts countryside, to the installation of the so-called “Hot Line” from Washington to Moscow during the Cold War of the 1960s, diplomacy has continued to adapt itself to the latest developments in technology…
Peace Brigades International (PBI) would like to express our deep concern regarding the contents of the article “The FARC and the ‘Peace Community‘” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady (Americas, Dec. 14). PBI emphatically rejects the article’s assertion that the leaders of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó are collaborators with the guerrilla organization known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
We find it especially troubling and irresponsible that the only evidence for this accusation, despite its profound implications for the safety of members of the Peace Community, are statements made by Daniel Sierra Martinez, alias “Samir,” a demobilized member of the FARC.
The Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó was founded in 1997 as an effort to resist violence from all sides of the internal armed conflict and to prevent forced internal displacement.
At this season of celebration and goodwill, it may sound unduly cynical to suggest that because Jerusalem is holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, their adherents find it especially difficult to get along there. Even the internal conflicts within each religion are more dramatic in the Holy Land than elsewhere…
Despite obvious difficulties, serious efforts are being made in different quarters to create a climate of religious coexistence in the Holy Land.
Rawya Hamam was watching her son deteriorate. Hisham wouldn’t sleep, clung to her incessantly, and said he wanted to go back into her belly so he’d be safe. “Grandma is lucky she died so she doesn’t have to live here now,” the boy told his mother.
It’s not a normal statement to expect from a five-year-old child, but neither were these normal times. A year ago, at the outbreak of war between the militant Palestinian group Hamas and Israel, anything resembling a normal life disappeared into a violent maelstrom that wreaked unprecedented destruction on the Gaza Strip…
… Estimates from several organizations hold that between 30 and 40 percent of the Gaza population is suffering from signs of PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A study by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme in June found that two-thirds of Gaza’s children have exhibited abnormal levels of anxiety, and 61.5 percent of Gaza’s parents reported the emergence of unusual behaviors among their children.
Ms. Hamam considers herself one of the fortunate ones, in that she’s recently been trained in the use of new tools to help others she works with professionally – as well as her own children. Last week, she completed a second, advanced training program in Gaza that is part of the Healing the Wounds of War (HWW) program, launched by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, based in Washington.
The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia faces a full implementation challenge. The report itself forms the basis of promoting national peace, security, unity and reconciliation in Liberia, as contained in the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of August 2003, which formally ended the 14-year Liberian civil war. But the prospects of fully implementing the final TRC Report are very bleak considering cardinal issues as lack of consensus among TRC commissioners; lack of prosecuting power by the TRC; and lack of inherent legislative and judiciary powers, as well as a multitude of competing interests and perceived biases contained in the report.
By Uppsala University // Department of Peace and Conflict Research
Abstract : What lessons can be learnt from peacemaking in contemporary peace processes? This report assesses practical and theoretical challenges from three comprehensive peace processes: Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Dayton Agreement (1995), Liberia – the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2003), the North-South conflict in Sudan – ‘The Naivasha Agreement’ (2005)…
RANMALA, India – The villages of Ranmala, Nandagane, Shirgaon and Mengdewadi, in Pune, Sangli and Satara districts, western India, have one thing in common.
They are all headed by female sarpanches (village chiefs), and what a difference it has made.
Some years ago I attended a conference outside London run by a Buddhist organisation who wanted to know why the Western media had dozens of war correspondents on their staffs but not a single peace correspondent.
It was a simple, fair and important question and although we argued about it for hours no satisfactory answer emerged. As far as I know the Buddhists are still looking.
 They will be greatly helped by a new academic study published in Media, War and Conflict (Sagepublications.com) which draws on a six country study of viewers of CNN International, BBC World and Al-Jazeera English to see whether broadcasters foster cross-cultural understanding or a clash of civilisations.
