All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Lula demarcates six indigenous territories in Brazil, the first in five years

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article fromIstoé (translation by CPNN)

President Lula signed, this Friday (April 28), decrees demarcating six new territories for indigenous peoples, the first since 2018 and one of them in a vast territory in the Amazon, during a meeting with representatives of indigenous peoples in Brasília.

These new reserves, which guarantee indigenous people the exclusive use of natural resources while preserving their traditional way of life, are considered by scientists as one of the main barriers against deforestation in the Amazon, whose control is one of the government’s priority objectives.



Video from Terra Livre Camp

“It is a somewhat lengthy process, it has to go through many hands, but we are going to work hard so that it can demarcate the largest possible number of Indigenous Lands”, said the president.

Lula made the announcement on the occasion of the closing of the 19th edition of the “Terra Livre” camp, an annual meeting that brought together thousands of indigenous people from all over the country in Brasília this week.

“It was like lifting a weight off our shoulders, like music to our ears,” Claudia Tomás, 44, from the Baré ethnic group, whose lands were included in the demarcations, told AFP.

No new indigenous lands were demarcated during the mandate of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who had promised, before coming to power, “not to give any centimeter” to the original peoples.

Tehe Pataxó, a 29-year-old girl with her face painted in red and black lines, said she was relieved by the conquest for the native peoples: “It was four years suffering with militiamen in our Pataxó territory in the south of Bahia, where indigenous people were murdered”.

(Article continued in right column)

(Click here for the original Portuguese version of this article.)

Question for this article

Indigenous peoples, Are they the true guardians of nature?

(Article continued from left column)

During Bolsonaro’s tenure, average annual deforestation increased by 75% compared to the previous decade.

The last approval had been on April 26, 2018, under the presidency of Michel Temer (2016-2018), referring to the Baía do Guató indigenous land, an area of 20,000 hectares in Mato Grosso.

Two of the six new approved reserves are located in the Amazon, including the largest, called Unieuxi, intended for 249 indigenous Maku and Tukano peoples, on more than 550,000 hectares in the Amazon.

Two other reserves are located in the northeast of the country, one in the south and the other in the center-west.

Lula signed the decrees alongside prominent indigenous leaders, such as the iconic chief Raoni Metuktire, who thanked him and placed a traditional headdress of blue and red feathers on the president’s head.

“In four years we will do more (for the indigenous peoples) than in the eight years we have already governed the country (2003-2010)”, promised the president.

– New territories –

According to the last census, in 2010, approximately 800,000 indigenous people live in Brazil, the majority in reserves, which occupy 13.75% of the territory.

“When they say that you occupy 14% of the territory, and you think that’s a lot, you need to know that, before the Portuguese, you occupied 100% of that territory”, completed Lula.

It is anticipated that new demarcations will be approved soon.

Last month, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, announced that 14 territories (including the six approved this Friday) were ready to be legalized, totaling around 900,000 hectares.

“We are going to write a new history, for the good of all humanity, of our planet”, said the minister this Friday, shortly before the signing of the decrees.

Latin America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Youth Statement from the Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article from The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 

On 27 April 2023, the delegates of the Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit have presented their joint statement and requests of the G7 leaders for the upcoming Summit. Read the statement in full below. 


Video of event

Esteemed members of the press, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens, warm global greetings from the Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit.

On behalf of all the youth delegates and leaders from all over the world, we are honored to welcome you to the Presentation and Adoption of the Outcome Statement from this Summit. We have gathered in the historically significant city of Hiroshima, a poignant reminder of the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons and the urgent need for disarmament. Over the past week, we have had the unique opportunity to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and meet the hibakusha, the courageous survivors of nuclear weapons. Their stories have moved us deeply, further strengthening our resolve to create a world free from the horrors of nuclear warfare.

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the country of Japan and particularly the city of Hiroshima on which we have gathered for this Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit. We would like to pay our respects to the Elders past and present. We extend that respect to all the community from Hiroshima and also to all the souls who died from the atomic bomb. 



We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the organizations and individuals who have made this event and summit possible, including The Center for Peace at Hiroshima University, ICAN: the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear, Peace Boat, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, ANT-Hiroshima, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the City of Hiroshima, Religions for Peace Japan, and Heinrich Boell Stiftung Hong Kong. This summit is held as part of the Hiroshima University 75+75th Anniversary Project and we are grateful for their support and contributions.

Not only this summit is a way to gather the youth in participation in authentic encounters, together with openness for diversity and acceptance of differences but also a way to use youth voices to call out injustices like the use of nuclear weapons and its consequences.

So please, let me invite you now to listen carefully to the Outcome statement from the Hiroshima G7 Youth Summit.

Introduction

Esteemed Leaders and Representatives to the G7 Hiroshima Summit,



We, as youth delegates and changemakers from around the world, are honored to be here in Hiroshima, the city that symbolizes the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons. We gather here with experts and advocates for peace from every corner of the globe to address the existential threats the world faces, including climate change and nuclear weapons. We applaud the G7 countries and civil society for convening this crucial summit and acknowledge the need for immediate action towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.



As emerging leaders of the world, we have a responsibility to ensure that the danger posed and inflicted by nuclear weapons to humanity and the environment is eradicated and remediated. We come together, united in our resolve to achieve a safer world free from nuclear weapons and their devastating consequences.



In Hiroshima, we call on the world to listen to the hibakusha — the survivors of nuclear weapons — and recognize the moral imperative of nuclear disarmament. We urgently demand action on nuclear weapons to honor the lived experiences of the hibakusha and other communities affected by nuclear weapons, and to secure a safer world free from weapons of mass destruction for generations to come.



The possession or use of nuclear weapons is illegitimate as recognized by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and our future security cannot be dependent on distrust among countries or the threat of devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences.



Given the conflicts and crises we face today, we believe that the time for action against nuclear weapons is now. As young people, we champion the TPNW as the most effective path to eliminating nuclear weapons.

Youth Voices and Concerns

As the last generation with the opportunity to directly hear the testimonies from global hibakusha, it is our mission and responsibility to embed their stories in our work and share them with younger generations.



Survivors, their families, and Indigenous communities disproportionately affected by nuclear weapons use, testing, production, and waste continue to suffer from traumatic experiences, devastating land loss, and critical health issues. We have a duty to these communities and ourselves to pursue the complete disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons.



We are aware of the concerns about dumping 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive waste water this year, and support in solidarity with the states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis and see this as an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific.

(article continued in right column)

Question for this article:

Are we seeing the dawn of a global youth movement?

(Article continued from the left column)

Requests to the G7 Countries

As young people working for a world without nuclear weapons, we request that the G7 countries take the following actions:

1. Support and listen to global hibakusha by welcoming their testimonials, attending the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and sincerely committing to steps towards nuclear disarmament;

2. Take concrete steps towards the pursuit of the TPNW including but not limited to the promotion of the TPNW within regional and international organizations, observation of the Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW, and cooperation with TPNW states parties to support treaty implementation;

3. Promote the immediate assessment and research in regions and communities affected by nuclear weapons, so that states, organizations, and individuals may engage in processes of victim assistance and environmental remediation in cooperation with international institutes, civil society and affected communities;

4. Fulfill the legal obligation of nuclear disarmament bound by Article 6 of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), by initiating the discussion in national governments regarding the complementarity between the NPT and the TPNW. 

5. Recognize the legitimacy of and opportunities for processes of irreversibility and verification provided by the TPNW;

6. Uphold the principles of Articles 6 and 7 of the TPNW to promote cooperation for the implementation of the Treaty, and to provide victim assistance and environmental remediation efforts to address the past and ongoing harms of nuclear weapons;

7. Ensure the involvement and genuine representation of marginalized communities based upon race, gender, economic status, and geographical borders, and to include and empower individuals especially from Indigenous or nuclear-affected backgrounds in the decision-making processes of nuclear policies as well as initiatives for peace and disarmament at national and local levels;

8. Restrict spending on weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons, and instead shift funding towards sustainable investments in mitigating the effects of climate change, programs for education, and peacebuilding efforts;

9. Call on countries to take responsibility for past and present nuclear waste disposal and ensure that disposal does not harm surrounding communities and countries;

10. Recognize the value of peace and disarmament education, and ensure funding for the education and empowerment of youth, women, and affected communities to engage in processes of nuclear disarmament;

11. Engage in constructive dialogues to shift the security paradigm away from the immoral possession and valuing of nuclear weapons, commit to a sustainable future by condemning the threat or use of nuclear weapons, and develop new policies which are based on the principles of nuclear disarmament and norms of non-use rather than false deterrence.

Conclusion

Esteemed G7 leaders and delegates, as the torchbearers of tomorrow, we stand resolute in our commitment to the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. We acknowledge the past efforts made by G7 states to pursue shared goals of security and humanity. However, we urge you to take bolder and more decisive actions by honoring our recommendations.



Our generation has the right to choose the future we inherit, and we possess the unwavering determination to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable world — one that is free from the shadow of nuclear weapons. Now, more than ever, we call upon you to join our mission, to heed our voices, and to work together to safeguard our collective humanity and the future of our planet.
 
Closing Remarks:

As we conclude this important event, we urge the G7 leaders to not consider it the end but rather a new beginning in our collective efforts for a world free from nuclear weapons. The experiences we have shared throughout the G7 Youth Summit including our first-hand visit to
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and our engagements with the hibakusha, Ms. Keiko Ogura,  er life and memories of WWII Hiroshima will forever be etched in our hearts and minds, reminding us of the tremendous responsibility we have to advocate for sustainable peace and
harmonious coexistence.

We, the youth delegates, are determined to commit to the task of carrying the lessons we have learned here in Hiroshima back to our respective countries and throughout the world, and to continue working tirelessly for nuclear disarmament. We call for a renewed focus on empowering victim assistance and protection, for the  increase in nuclear disarmament education and peace education in schools, and to continue expanding opportunities for global citizens to engage with the hibakusha and their invaluable stories, for the sake of sustainable international peace-building.


From the 21st Century and beyond, we are resolved to unite across borders, languages, and local cultures to create a global culture of peace and total nuclear abolition. We believe that we must forge a world not just free from the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons, but one that is constructive and intentional for lasting peace. We are determined to ensure that the sacrifices and stories of the hibakusha willnever be forgotten. We urge the G7 leaders to heed our words and take concrete action for a sustainable and mutually prosperous world. 


Thank you very much

East Asia, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

World Movement of Poetry: for the Culture of Peace

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from Ici Beyrouth (translation by CPNN)

The World Poetry Movement (WPM), an international organization that brings together poets and poetry promoters from five continents, expresses its concern and opposition to the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, whose two sovereign nations are protagonists, and pleads for a peaceful solution. History teaches us that war is not a solution to conflicts, but a scourge that affects humanity as a whole and it is our duty to warn of the real danger of a nuclear escalation, the possibility of which constitutes a imminent threat to life on the planet. As poets, we embrace the word as a means of sensitive creation, but also as a political and social tool for building a fairer, more equitable and more humane world.

(continued in right column)

(click here for the French original of this article)

Question for this article:

How can poetry promote a culture of peace?

(continued from left column)

Therefore, the WPM welcomes the initiatives of China, Brazil and other countries that have come out in favor of a negotiated solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We join the call of the social movements in dialogue as the only method of resolving this conflict and all other international conflicts. It should be noted that, from the ideological point of view, the World Poetry Movement (WPM) is a plural space that unites poets of all different persuasions and positions.

This plurality has not been an obstacle to uniting to defend the cultural and political diversity to which the peoples of the world are entitled. We know from experience that what we have in common can prevail over small differences: the love of life. To paraphrase Saint Augustine, in the face of war, we ask no one how he thinks, but how he loves.

That is why we cannot and do not want to be indifferent to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine or forget that there are currently many other wars in the world that are ignored by international public opinion. The war in Yemen, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the crisis in Myanmar, the situation in Syria, Colombia, among others, are painful events that require equal attention and actions from humanity as a whole to reach solutions. fair and peaceful. It is our duty, as poets, to be witnesses and champions of human values, but also to mobilize poetry and citizens for the construction of real solutions.

Combining words with action is the only way we know to achieve the utopia of a world for peace, for justice and for life, everywhere and for everyone.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, global

Promotion of the Culture of Peace: Salimane Karimou Launches the Project “Youth for Peace in Northern Benin”

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article from Matin Libre (translation by CPNN)

The Minister of Preschool and Primary Education, Salimane Karimou, presided, this Thursday, April 27, 2023 at the Golden Tulip in Cotonou, over the official launch of the project “Youth for Peace in Northern Benin”. Funded by the European Union and implemented by UNICEF Benin in collaboration with the government, this project aims to promote a culture of peace and strengthen the resilience of adolescents and young people in northern Benin by education and vocational training.


During the ceremony that served as a springboard for the official launch of this project, several speeches were made. In the presence of all the parties concerned, the Representative of UNICEF Benin, Djanabou Mahondé, began by thanking all the structures that made possible this tripartite partnership in favor of children, adolescents and young people in the North.

(This article is continued in the column on the right.)

(click here for the French original of this article)

Question for this article:

What is the relation between peace and education?

(Article continued from left column)

She mentioned that”The project, which will be implemented until June 2024 for a value of approximately 2.5 million US dollars, or 1.5 billion CFA francs, places particular emphasis on children out of school, children in Koranic schools, but also girls, and young people looking for alternative education or training, who all find themselves in situations of vulnerability that expose them to risks, but also deprive them of their fundamental rights. Indeed, the launch of this project responds to an important need to work with and for young people, in order to make them agents of positive change and ambassadors of peace, while Benin, like other coastal countries of the sub-region, has been facing the consequences of the Sahel crisis in the northern border areas for several months.”

Following her, Sylvia Hartlief, Ambassador of the European Union in Benin praised the government and particularly the Minister Salimane Karimou for the efforts made in consolidating education in the border departments. “The objective is to provide Beninese children and adolescents with solid educational achievements and essential skills to better integrate into a constantly changing socio-economic environment, and to promote the role of children and young people in the safeguarding peace and social cohesion in the country. An objective of which we all measure the importance and the urgency, when we know that nearly two million children are out of school in Benin, more than half of them in the 4 departments of the North (Alibori, Atacora, Borgou and Donga). The European Union is proud to support you, to accompany you, in partnership with Unicef, whose legitimacy and quality of support in the service of education no longer need to be demonstrated.”

Speaking of this project, the Minister, Leader of the Ministers of Education informs that it will take place in the department of Atacora in Cobly, Kerou, Materi, Natitingou; in the department of Alibori in Banikoara, in Karimama and in the department of Donga in Ouaké. This program, he said, responds perfectly to the ambition of the government to ensure continuous improvement of access to basic social services and social protection. “Peace education aims to combat a culture of war by promoting a culture of peace. It calls into question the principle according to which violence is innate in humans and aims to put students at the center, able to resolve conflicts without violence, “he said, while reassuring himself that this program will enable impacted children, adolescents and young people to become responsible, peace-loving citizens. He finally proceeded to the official installation of the committee to lead this project.

Africa, EDUCATION FOR PEACE

Leaks Reveal Reality behind U.S. Propaganda in Ukraine

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies in TRANSCEND Media Service

The U.S. corporate media’s first response to the leaking of secret documents about the war in Ukraine was to throw some mud in the water, declare “nothing to see here,” and cover it as a depoliticized crime story about a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who published secret documents to impress his friends. President Biden dismissed the leaks as revealing nothing of “great consequence.”


Leaked document predicts a “protracted war beyond 2023.” Image credit: Newsweek

What these documents reveal, however, is that the war is going worse for Ukraine than our political leaders have admitted to us, while going badly for Russia too, so that neither side is likely to break the stalemate this year, and this will lead to “a protracted war beyond 2023,” as one of the documents says.

The publication of these assessments should lead to renewed calls for our government to level with the public about what it realistically hopes to achieve by prolonging the bloodshed, and why it continues to reject the resumption of the promising peace negotiations it blocked in April 2022.

We believe that blocking those talks was a dreadful mistake, in which the Biden administration capitulated to the warmongering, since-disgraced U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and that current U.S. policy is compounding that mistake at the cost of tens of thousands more Ukrainian lives and the destruction of even more of their country.

In most wars, while the warring parties strenuously suppress the reporting of civilian casualties for which they are responsible, professional militaries generally treat accurate reporting of their own military casualties as a basic responsibility. But in the virulent propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine, all sides have treated military casualty figures as fair game, systematically exaggerating enemy casualties and understating their own.

Publicly available U.S. estimates have supported the idea that many more Russians are being killed than Ukrainians, deliberately skewing public perceptions to support the notion that Ukraine can somehow win the war, as long as we just keep sending more weapons.

The leaked documents provide internal U.S. military intelligence assessments of casualties on both sides. But different documents, and different copies of the documents circulating online, show conflicting numbers, so the propaganda war rages on despite the leak.

The most detailed assessment of attrition rates of troops says explicitly that U.S. military intelligence has “low confidence” in the attrition rates it cites. It attributes that partly to “potential bias” in Ukraine’s information sharing, and notes that casualty assessments “fluctuate according to the source.”

So, despite denials by the Pentagon, a document that shows a higher death toll on the Ukrainian side may be correct, since it has been widely reported that Russia has been firing several times the number of artillery shells as Ukraine, in a bloody war of attrition in which artillery appears to be the main instrument of death. Altogether, some of the documents estimate a total death toll on both sides approaching 100,000 and total casualties, killed and wounded, of up to 350,000.

Another document reveals that, after using up the stocks sent by NATO countries, Ukraine is running out of missiles for the S-300 and BUK systems that make up 89% of its air defenses. By May or June, Ukraine will therefore be vulnerable, for the first time, to the full strength of the Russian air force, which has until now been limited mainly to long-range missile strikes and drone attacks.

Recent Western arms shipments have been justified to the public by predictions that Ukraine will soon be able to launch new counter-offensives to take back territory from Russia. Twelve brigades, or up to 60,000 troops, were assembled to train on newly delivered Western tanks for this “spring offensive,” with three brigades in Ukraine and nine more in Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

But a leaked document from the end of February reveals that the nine brigades being equipped and trained abroad had less than half their equipment and, on average, were only 15% trained. Meanwhile, Ukraine faced a stark choice to either send reinforcements to Bakhmut or withdraw from the town entirely, and it chose to sacrifice some of its “spring offensive” forces to prevent the imminent fall of Bakhmut.

Ever since the U.S. and NATO started training Ukrainian forces to fight in Donbas in 2015, and while it has been training them in other countries since the Russian invasion, NATO has provided six-month training courses to bring Ukraine’s forces up to basic NATO standards. On this basis, it appears that many of the forces being assembled for the “spring offensive” would not be fully trained and equipped before July or August.

(Article continued in the column on the right)

Question related to this article:
 
Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

But another document says the offensive will begin around April 30th, meaning that many troops may be thrown into combat less than fully trained, by NATO standards, even as they have to contend with more severe shortages of ammunition and a whole new scale of Russian airstrikes. The incredibly bloody fighting that has already decimated Ukrainian forces will surely be even more brutal than before.

The leaked documents conclude that “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive,” and that the most likely outcome remains only modest territorial gains.

The documents also reveal serious deficiencies on the Russian side, deficiencies revealed by the failure of their winter offensive to take much ground. The fighting in Bakhmut has raged on for months, leaving thousands of fallen soldiers on both sides and a burned out city still not 100% controlled by Russia.

The inability of either side to decisively defeat the other in the ruins of Bakhmut and other front-line towns in Donbas is why one of the most important documents predicted that the war was locked in a “grinding campaign of attrition” and was “likely heading toward a stalemate.”

Adding to the concerns about where this conflict is headed is the revelation in the leaked documents about the presence of 97 special forces from NATO countries, including from the U.K. and the U.S. This is in addition to previous reports about the presence of CIA personnel, trainers and Pentagon contractors, and the unexplained deployment of 20,000 troops from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Brigades near the border between Poland and Ukraine.

Worried about the ever-increasing direct U.S. military involvement, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry to force President Biden to notify the House of the exact number of U.S. military personnel inside Ukraine and precise U.S. plans to assist Ukraine militarily.

We can’t help wondering what President Biden’s plan could be, or if he even has one. But it turns out that we’re not alone. In what amounts to a second leak that the corporate media have studiously ignored, U.S. intelligence sources have told veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that they are asking the same questions, and they describe a “total breakdown” between the White House and the U.S. intelligence community.

Hersh’s sources describe a pattern that echoes the use of fabricated and unvetted intelligence to justify U.S. aggression against Iraq in 2003, in which Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan are by-passing regular intelligence analysis and procedures and running the Ukraine War as their own private fiefdom. They reportedly smear all criticism of President Zelenskyy as “pro-Putin,” and leave U.S. intelligence agencies out in the cold trying to understand a policy that makes no sense to them.

What U.S. intelligence officials know, but the White House is doggedly ignoring, is that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, top Ukrainian officials running this endemically corrupt country are making fortunes skimming money from the over $100 billion in aid and weapons that America has sent them.

According to went to Kyiv to meet with him. Burns allegedly told Zelenskyy he was taking too much of the “skim money,” and handed him a list of 35 generals and senior officials the CIA knew were involved in this corrupt scheme.

Zelenskyy fired about ten of those officials, but failed to alter his own behavior. Hersh’s sources tell him that the White House’s lack of interest in doing anything about these goings-on is a major factor in the breakdown of trust between the White House and the intelligence community.

First-hand reporting from inside Ukraine by New Cold War has described the same systematic pyramid of corruption as Hersh. A member of parliament, formerly in Zelenskyy’s party, told New Cold War that Zelenskyy and other officials skimmed 170 million euros from money that was supposed to pay for Bulgarian artillery shells.

The corruption reportedly extends to bribes to avoid conscription. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel was told by a military recruitment office that it could get the son of one of its writers released from the front line in Bakhmut and sent out of the country for $32,000.

As has happened in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the wars the United States has been involved in for many decades, the longer the war goes on, the more the web of corruption, lies and distortions unravels.

The torpedoing of peace talks, the Nord Stream sabotage, the hiding of corruption, the politicization of casualty figures, and the suppressed history of broken promises and prescient warnings about the danger of NATO expansion are all examples of how our leaders have distorted the truth to shore up U.S. public support for perpetuating an unwinnable war that is killing a generation of young Ukrainians.

These leaks and investigative reports are not the first, nor will they be the last, to shine a light through the veil of propaganda that permits these wars to destroy young people’s lives in faraway places, so that oligarchs in Russia, Ukraine and the United States can amass wealth and power.

The only way this will stop is if more and more people get active in opposing those companies and individuals that profit from war–who Pope Francis calls the Merchants of Death–and boot out the politicians who do their bidding, before they make an even more fatal misstep and start a nuclear war.

Europe, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, North America,

English bulletin May 1, 2023

INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF DIALOGUE FOR PEACE

There has not been very much publicity, but the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed this year as the International Year of Dialogue as a Guarantee of Peace.

The proposal came from Turkmenistan with 68 co-sponsors including all of the countries of Central Asia, reflecting the fact that these countries are menaced by the nearby war in the Ukraine. The resolution was adopted by consensus although reservations were expressed by the United States, United Kingdom and Ukraine.

In his opening remarks at the launch ceremony in January, Vepa Hajiyev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, said, “Currently, these principles and goals are particularly relevant against the background of the existing systemic problems of international relations. In this context, we see a common task in turning the International Year of Dialogue as a Guarantee of Peace into a powerful constructive process designed to provide an incentive for dialogue, cooperation, and mutual understanding”. Other speakers at the launch ceremony considered the year as implementation of the 1999 International Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.

Concerning the war in Ukraine, a new proposal from China insists that “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported. The international community should stay committed to the right approach of promoting talks for peace, help parties to the conflict open the door to a political settlement as soon as possible, and create conditions and platforms for the resumption of negotiation. China will continue to play a constructive role in this regard.” 

According to the analysis of the French Mouvement de la Paix, the Chinese proposal was supported by many commentators in the Global South, while it was dismissed by the United States and its European allies. Some Asian countries, however, remarked that China should live up to these principles with regard to Taiwan.

Dialogues for peace are ongoing through the auspices of the International Parliamentary Union, including between opposing sides of the conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine and Cyprus.

Another important voice for peace through dialogue is that of Pope Francis. In a video distributed worldwide on February 6, the Pope states that, “The time has come to live in a spirit of fraternity and build a culture of peace.” In recent years the Pope has stressed dialog for peace with other religions, such as in his meeting with the grand imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt in 2019 and his voyage this year to Africa with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

In Africa, a continent torn by many armed conflicts, there are important voices for peace through dialogue.

Speaking at a Global Security Forum, General Djibril Bassolé, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso, caused a sensation by saying “We must dialogue with armed terrorist groups . . . In any case, dialogue is one of the typically African means of settling conflicts and easing tensions. I think that as Africans we must find our own ways to resolve the crises that have undermined our societies.”

With regard to African traditions for settling conflicts, a recent homage to the great poet of Madagascar, Jean Joseph Rabearivelo, underlines that “Through cultural diversity, which should be nurtured by a permanent dialogue without ulterior motives, we are rich in our differences!”

A broad approach of dialogue is being supported in Burkina Faso by the NGO Search for Common Ground. More than 500 participants, including local authorities, religious and customary leaders, and representatives of eight communities took part in an event in March. The strong participation of women, with 300 present, underscored their crucial role. The neighbouring country of Niger has made dialogue with violent extremist groups an important part of its strategy. By including dialogue in its counter-terrorism efforts, Niger is experimenting with an approach similar to those in Algeria  and Mauritania , which underpin their decade-long protection against jihadist violence.

In Latin America, where dialogue made possible the peace accords in Colombia, another step forward was taken this month when the dissident rebel group, Estado Mayor Central (EMC), finally agreed to begin peace talks with the government.   And in Mexico, also torn by violence, a national peace conference was convened in March by 175 organizations and groups. “We want to talk to each other, listen to each other, understand each other, support each other. We want to imagine and build all possible safeguards to face violence and find all the paths to peace.”

In Europe, where Greece and Turkey have long been in conflict, a new commitment to dialogue was made by the defense ministers of those countries following a joint visit to the areas of Turkey devastated by the earthquake in February.

In Asia, it seems that dialogue for peace can be dangerous. As explained by Al Jazeera, “under South Korean law, citizens are prohibited from contact with North Korean people or organisations unless they receive government permission.” Despite this, South Korea’s two biggest trade unions, the KCTU and the FKTU, signed a joint statement last fall with their sibling trade union in North Korea, opposing US war exercises. The South Korean government responded with a crackdown. In January the national intelligence service raided KCTU offices. Multiple organizers and union leaders were charged under the anti-communist National Security Law, accused of being spies for North Korea.

In a world where there is increasing danger of a nuclear war that could destroy all human civilization, the need for peace through dialogue is greater than ever. Let us hope that all world leaders will engage in this dialogue.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION



United Nations International Year of Dialogue as a Guarantee of Peace, 2023 

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY



Pope’s Video: “Let Us Develop A Culture Of Peace”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT



BRICS: A New Leader’s Big Banking Opportunity to Improve Global Development

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY



Mouvement de la Paix: Chinese Peace Plan
  

WOMEN’S EQUALITY



Women peace-makers call for a holistic and sustainable peace

EDUCATION FOR PEACE



Brazil: Lula creates working group to combat violence in schools

HUMAN RIGHTS



The State of the World’s Human Rights: Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2022/23

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION



Search for Common Ground – Burkina Faso Promotes Community Resilience through Dialogue and Peace Initiatives in Ouahigouya
d-information, d-united nations

FARC dissident group says to start peace talks with Colombian government in May

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION . .

An article by Julia Symmes Cobb published by Reuters

Dissident FARC rebels who rejected a landmark peace agreement in 2016 said on Sunday (April 16) they are ready to set up a dialogue with the government on May 16 to begin peace talks to bring their group, the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), out of the armed conflict.


Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, alias Ivan Mordisco, head of the Central General Staff of the FARC dissidents, attends a meeting with peasant communities in Yari, Colombia April 16, 2023. REUTERS/Mario Quintero

Leftist President Gustavo Petro – a former member of the urban guerrilla group M-19 – pledged to end six decades of an armed conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead by signing peace or surrender agreements with rebels and criminal gangs, in addition to fully implementing the pact with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The EMC is one of two breakaway factions of the FARC and is made up of former leaders and fighters who did not accept the peace deal, which allowed in 2016 the reincorporation into civilian life of 13,000 people who formed a political party and received 10 seats in Congress.

(continued on right column)

Questions related to this article:

What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?

(continued from left column)

“We announce before the whole world that our delegates to the dialogue table with the Colombian state, headed by the national government, are already ready for May 16 of this year,” Ángela Izquierdo, spokeswoman for the armed group, told journalists.

There were no immediate comments from government officials.

Attorney General Francisco Barbosa suspended arrest warrants against more than 20 EMC members in early March, which facilitated the start of peace talks to be held in the Llano del Yari, on the border between the departments of Meta and Caqueta, in the south of the country.

The group, made up of 3,530 people – 2,180 combatants and 1,350 auxiliaries – has maintained a bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government since the beginning of the year.

The other dissident FARC faction is the Segunda Marquetalia, which in August 2019 returned to the armed struggle, claiming that the state failed to comply with the peace agreement.

Petro’s government reestablished peace talks with the rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the two parties seek to advance towards a bilateral ceasefire agreement in a third round of talks to begin soon in Cuba.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

What is the contribution of BRICS to sustainable development?

In an interview with CGTN (in April 2023), the new President of the Bank), Dilma Rousseff explained her goals with the BRICS Bank:

It is very important to me that New Development Bank, the bank of the BRICS, acts as the tool to support the development priorities of the BRICS and other developing countries.

We need to invest in projects that contribute to three fundamental areas:

First, we need to support the countries with regards to climate change and sustainable development goals.

Second, we should promote social inclusion at every opportunity we have.

And I believe we should finance their most critical and strategic infrastructure projects.

That said, we want to promote quality development.

Developing countries still don’t have the necessary infrastructure. They don’t have enough ports, airports, and highways to meet their needs. And many times, the ones they have are not adequate.

They still have to build alternatives and more modern models of transportation, for instance.

I see China, a country that has developed capability for alternative transportation at the scale and quality it needs.

NDB has to support the other countries to also build their quality infrastructure as well, like high-speed trains.

It is very important to invest in technology and innovation, invest in universities for example.

Our countries will not overcome extreme poverty if we don’t invest in education, science, and technology.

When asked what challenges the BRICS and NDB face, Rousseff replied:

The world now is under the threat of high inflation and restrictive monetary policy, particularly in developed countries.

Such monetary policy means a higher interest rate, and therefore a higher probability of reduction in growth and a higher probability of recession.

This presents an important question for the BRICS. We need a mechanism, a so-called anti-crisis mechanism, which must be counter-cyclical and support stabilization.

It is necessary to find ways to avoid foreign exchange risk and other issues, such as being dependent on a single currency, such as the US dollar.

The good news is that we are seeing many countries choosing to trade using their own currencies.

China and Brazil, for instance, are agreeing to exchange with RMB (renminbi) and the Brazilian real.

At the NDB, we have committed to it in our strategy. For the period from 2022 to 2026, the NDB has to lend 30% in local currencies, so 30% of our loan book will be financed in the currencies of our member countries.

That will be extremely important to help our countries avoid exchange rate risks and shortages in finance that hinder long-term investments.

Here are the CPNN articles on this subject:
d-sustainable

BRICS: A New Leader’s Big Banking Opportunity to Improve Global Development

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Marco Fernandes from Transcend Media Service

The first event of President Lula da Silva’s long-awaited visit to China in mid-April 2023 is the official swearing-in ceremony of Dilma Rousseff as president of the New Development Bank (popularly known as the BRICS Bank) on April 13. The appointment of the former president of Brazil to the post demonstrates the priority that Lula will give to the BRICS countries (Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa) in his government.

In recent years, BRICS has been losing some of its dynamism. One of the reasons was the retreat of Brazil—which had always been one of the engines of the group—in a choice made by its right-wing and far-right governments (2016-2022) to align with the United States.

A New Momentum for BRICS?

After the last summit meeting in 2022, hosted by Beijing and held online, the idea of expanding the group was strengthened and more countries are expected to join BRICS this year. Three countries have already officially applied to join the group (Argentina, Algeria, and Iran), and several others are already publicly considering doing so, including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, and Mexico.

The BRICS countries occupy an increasingly important place in the world economy. In GDP PPP, China is the largest economy, India is third, Russia sixth, and Brazil eighth. BRICS now represents 31.5 percent of the global GDP PPP, while the G7 share has fallen to 30 percent. They are expected to contribute over 50 percent of global GDP by 2030, with the proposed enlargement almost certainly bringing that forward.

Bilateral trade between BRICS countries has also grown robustly: trade between Brazil and China has been breaking records every year and reached $150 billion in 2022; between Brazil and India, there was a 63 percent increase from 2020 to 2021, reaching more than $11 billion; Russia tripled exports to India from April to December 2022 compared to the same period the preceding year, expanding to $32.8 billion; while trade between China and Russia jumped from $147 billion in 2021 to $190 billion in 2022, an increase of about 30 percent.

The conflict in Ukraine has brought them closer together politically. China and Russia have never been more aligned, with a “no limits partnership,” as visible from President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow. South Africa and India have not only refused to yield to NATO pressure to condemn Russia for the conflict or impose sanctions on it, but they have moved even closer to Moscow. India, which in recent years has been closer to the United States, seems to be increasingly committed to the Global South’s strategy of cooperation.

(Article continued in the right column)

(Click here for an article in Spanish on this subject.

Question for this article:

What is the contribution of BRICS to sustainable development?

(Article continued from the left column)

The NDB, the CRA, and the Alternatives to the Dollar

The two most important instruments created by BRICS are the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The first has the objective of financing several development projects—with an emphasis on sustainability—and is regarded as a possible alternative to the World Bank. The second could become an alternative fund to the IMF, but the lack of strong leadership since its inauguration in 2015 and the absence of a solid strategy from the five member countries has prevented the CRA from taking off.

Currently, one of the major strategic battles for the Global South is the creation of alternatives to the hegemony of the dollar. As the Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio confessed in late March, the United States will increasingly lose its ability to sanction countries if they decrease their use of dollars. Almost once every week, there is a new agreement between countries to bypass the dollar, like the one recently announced by Brazil and China. The latter already has similar deals with 25 countries and regions.

Right now, there is a working group within BRICS whose task it is to propose its own reserve currency for the five countries that could be based on gold and other commodities. The project is called R5 due to the coincidence that all the currencies of BRICS countries start with R: renminbi, rubles, reais, rupees, and rands. This would allow these countries to slowly increase their growing mutual trade without using the dollar and also decrease the share of their international dollar reserves.

Another untapped potential so far is the use of the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (totaling $100 billion) to rescue insolvent countries. When a country’s international reserves run out of dollars (and it can no longer trade abroad or pay its foreign debts), it is forced to ask for a bailout from the IMF, which takes advantage of the country’s desperation and lack of options to impose austerity packages with cuts in state budgets and public services, privatizations, and other neoliberal austerity measures. For decades, this has been one of the weapons of the United States and the EU to ensure the implementation of neoliberalism in the countries of the Global South.

Right now, the five BRICS members have no issues at all with international reserves, but countries like Argentina , Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ghana, and Bangladesh find themselves in a bad situation. If they could access the CRA, with better conditions for repaying the loans, this would mean a political breakthrough for BRICS, which would begin to demonstrate their ability to build alternatives to the financial hegemony of Washington and Brussels.

The NDB would also need to start de-dollarizing itself, having more operations with the currencies of its five members. For instance, from the $32.8 billion of projects approved so far at NDB, around $20 billion was in dollars, and around the equivalent of $3 billion was in Euros. Only $5 billion was in RMB and very little was in other currencies.

To reorganize and expand the NDB and the CRA will be a huge challenge. The leaderships of the five countries will need to be aligned on a common strategy that ensures that both instruments fulfill their original missions, which won’t be easy. Dilma Rousseff, an experienced and globally respected leader, brings hope for a new beginning. Rousseff fought against Brazil’s civil-military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s and spent three years in prison for it. She became one of President Lula’s key ministers in the 2000s, and she was elected Brazil’s first female president and then won reelection (2010 and 2014). She was in office until she was overthrown by a coup based on fraudulent grounds by Congress (2016)—which has already admitted the fraud. She just returned to political life to run one of the most promising institutions in the Global South. After all, President Dilma Rousseff has never shied away from huge challenges.

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Celebrating Rachel Corrie

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

Excerpts from the website of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on 26 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

Her 44th birthday was celebrated on April 10, 2023 at the Rachel Corrie Foundation in Olympia with speakers and discussion to remember her and the commitment of the Foundation to continue her work for Palestine.

(continued in the right column)

Question for this article

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

How can just one or a few persons contribute to peace and justice?

(continued from the left column)

Rachel’s parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, who established the Foundation, were the special guests at a virtual discussion March 22 on their fight for justice fo Rachel over the decades.


Video of event Remembering Rachel 20 years later

(Editor’s note: In a related development, a new Gallup poll shows that for the first time more American Democrats sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis.)

Mideast, North America, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY,