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.

The Government of Colombia and the ELN agree on international aid to support the peace process

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article from Sputnik (translated by CPNN)

The peace delegations of the Colombian Government and the ELN guerrillas announced on June 6 that they reached a series of agreements at the negotiating table in Ecuador during the second round of talks in that city, including international financing to push forward the peace process.



The new President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, assures that his administration will continue to support the peace process.

“A fund to finance the peace process has been established by negotiators for the Colombian National Government and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Its objective is to mobilize contributions from international cooperation to finance, in a transparent and flexible manner, the expenses for its development, “they said in a joint statement.

They also pointed out that during the first two weeks of negotiations in the second round of talks (which began on 16 May) they reached consensus on issues related to pedagogy and communication for peace.

According to reports, it was possible “to establish a joint team of pedagogy and communication for peace, whose general objective is to promote the construction of a culture of peace through the generation of trust and credibility, which gives greater strength to the work of the Dialogue Table and the agreements being reached. ”

Finally, they highlighted the progress in the creation of the group of countries for support, accompaniment and cooperation with the peace talks (GPAAC).

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(Click here for the original Spanish version of this article

Question related to this article:

What is happening in Colombia, Is peace possible?

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“The GPAAC, initially made up of Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, have defined the terms of reference that will guide their development,” the government and the guerrillas said.

The statement came after the national press reported that 206 people from different rural populations in the municipality of Santa Bárbara de Iscuandé (Nariño, southwest) were displaced last weekend by clashes between the ELN and criminal gangs.

“Community leaders reported that four older adults remain in the area where the fighting took place because of their health problems,” according to the local radio station Blu Radio. They added that the displaced are housed in homes of friends and relatives in a situation of overcrowding.

Neither the Government nor the ELN have yet commented on this situation.

The Colombian Government and the ELN have held public peace talks since last February 8, after the participation of that rebel group with the Executive was supported by sectors that consider that it is only possible to speak of a general peace for Colombia when an armistice similar to that achieved with the FARC is achieved.

The Colombian armed conflict, which has involved guerrillas, paramilitaries, state agents and drug gangs for over half a century, is the oldest war on the continent and has left some eight million victims, as well as 300,000 dead, 45,000 missing and 6 to 8 million displaced, according to official reports.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

Argentina: Participants and Themes Announced for the IV Meeting of the International Peace Observatory

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from El Siglo (translated by CPNN)

The IV International Meeting of the OIP (International Peace Observatory) will be held in Tucumán, Argentina. It is being organized by the CERECO Foundation (Center for Conflict Resolution) in conjunction with the CPNVA (Permanent Councils for Active Nonviolence). The Meeting will be held on June 27 and 28 in the facilities of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences of the National University of Tucumán, a co-organizer of the event.


Click on image to enlarge

The meeting has the support of the Consultative Council of the Civil Society and the Argentine , Ministry of Foreign and Religious Affairs.

Mariela Domenichelli, the president of CERECO, and Ricardo Anibal Lucero, a participant in the event, explained to El Siglo that the meeting aims to open the doors of dialogue, strengthen relations between social actors from different countries with different profiles and histories so that they can share experiences and find ways of working together for a more just, united world. The meeting will make available to governments and civil society the updated state of the art in training methods for conflict prevention and resolution, as well as face-to-face and virtual training for violence prevention.

Participants include delegates of the Observatory from 9 countries (Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Spain, Uruguay, Mexico, Bolivia):

– Diana de la Rua (Buenos Aires) Eugenio President of the Association Respuesta para la Paz (ARP), President of International Peace Research Association Foundation (IPRAF) and Council Member of International Peace Research Association (IPRA);

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(click here for the Spanish version)

Question for this article:

Mediation as a tool for nonviolence and culture of peace

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– Patricia Pérez (Buenos Aires) Coordinator of the Committee on Culture of Peace and Citizenship of the Consultative Council of the Civil Society of the Argentine Chancellery;.

– Ricardo Anibal Lucero (Buenos Aires), veteran of 25 years of fieldwork for the International Organization “The Community for Human Development” in cities of Bombay and Calcutta (India), Morocco, Milan, Madrid, New York, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro and Chile;

– Susana Bartolomeo (Buenos Aires) Trainer and Academic Coordinator of ECO Civil Association (School of Ontological Communication) and Primary Education Coach at Dardo Rocha de Martínez School;

– Mg Walter Fernández Ulloa (Ecuador), Alternate Councilor of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control;

– Dr. Christian Amestegui Villafañi (Bolivia), Trainer in Mediation in the Judicial Branch of the Bolivia government;

– Dr José Benito Pérez Sauceda (Mexico), Doctor of Law, Master of Science at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon;

– Commissioner Jorge Martin Ortega and Dr. Daniel Arnaldo Tolaba (Jujuy, Argentina), community mediators and specialists in gender violence and in suicide prevention. Ministry of Security. Secretariat of Community Relations, Government of Jujuy.

The Observatory sets out three main axes of work:

 – Alternative Methods of Conflict Resolution – Culture of Peace

– Human Rights and Human Security

– Active non-violence – Three ways for change

Registration is available on the website of eventowww.cerecotucuman.wixsite.com/observatoriodepaz, along with further information for the meeting. You may also write to programa.obspaz@gmail.com.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

Korea: 500 Global Students to Hold Peace March near DMZ

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from KBS radio

About 500 students from around the world plan to hold a peace march near the Demilitarized Zone(DMZ) separating the two Koreas.


(Click on image to enlarge)

Gangwon Province Office of Education said on Tuesday that it will hold the 2017 world peace education festival from May 27th to 31st in Gangneung and Goseong.

About 500 middle and high school students as well as teachers from seven countries including Japan, China, Russia and Indonesia plan to participate. 

The event is jointly sponsored by the organizing committee of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and the Asia-Pacific Center of Education for International Understanding under UNESCO.

Participants plan to hold a debate on ways to make a better and peaceful world in Gangneung.

They are then schedule to visit the Unification Observatory located in Goseong and hold a peace march to the nearby DMZ museum. 

(Editor’s note: It is not clear if this is the same initiative as the peace march by 300 youth in the demilitarized zone scheduled for June 23 and sponsored by the U.S.-based International Cooperation of Environmental Youth (ICEY), led by Korean-American environmentalist Jonathan Lee – see article in the Yonhap News Agency).

(Thank you to the Global Campaign for Peace Education for calling this article to our attention.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, East Asia

UK: Surprise, Surprise, Jeremy Corbyn’s Anti-War Policies Turned out to Be a Vote Winner

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Chris Nineham for Stop the War Coalition

Theresa May’s humiliating failure to gain a majority in the General Election is a great boost to everyone who opposes foreign wars. May is an enthusiast for the ‘War on Terror’ and has been one of the political world’s keenest supporters of Trump’s deranged foreign policy since day one. She very publicly backed his provocative attacks on Assad’s forces in April and, during the election period, she threatened to follow up with a British escalation against the Syrian regime if she got a majority. 


(Click on image to enlarge)

Given her dreadful election result a May-led government, if it gets off the ground at all, is likely to be way too weak to pursue any more foreign wars. She may try to do so using her unholy alliance with the DUP, but her fatal weakness makes this much easier to oppose. What is more, the fact that Trump has been forced to call off his planned visit in October for fear of demonstrations is an unprecedented blow against the special relationship as well as being more proof that protests work. Trump says he won’t visit if there are going to be demonstrations and while people do not welcome his visit, so we can safely assume he won’t be coming over any time soon.

This is more than a matter of movement self-congratulation. Britain has been the US’s key political and military ally throughout the ‘War on Terror’. The removal of Britain at least as a public champion of the US is a big foreign policy setback for a regime whose serial aggressions are isolating it further and further on the world stage.  

But there is more heartening news to be extracted from the experience of the election. First, the concerted attack on Jeremy Corbyn over his refusal to promise to ‘press the nuclear button’ failed to make an obvious difference to the election campaign, despite the fact that an ambush was staged against him on the high-profile Question Time ten days before the election. 

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Question related to this article:

How can the peace movement become stronger and more effective?

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Reeling from her manifesto blunders, it was felt by some that the two appalling terrorist attacks in the election campaign would allow Theresa May to play the security card and re-establish her ‘strong and stable’ credentials but this was clearly not the case. In the days after the attacks the media went on a co-ordinated rampage against Corbyn’s record on war and peace. The day before the election the Sun led with a so-called expose on ‘Jezza’s Jihadi Comrades’, the Telegraph claimed ‘Corbyn Ducks Terror Challenge’ and the BBC obediently followed suit with a photomontage of Jeremy Corbyn next to Osama Bin-Laden.  

All this appears to have failed to make much of an impact on the general public. The surge to Labour continued right up until election day and beyond. Jeremy Corbyn had responded to the dreadful attack in Manchester by calling a press conference at which he explicitly argued that Western foreign policy has been one of the drivers of the spread of terrorist attacks and organisation. Despite the media onslaught an opinion poll taken days after showed that the overwhelming majority of the population agreed with him. The ORB survey found 75 per cent of people believe interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have made atrocities on UK soil more likely. Even 68% of Tory voters agreed.

This underlines the growing sense that despite the fact that 70% of the newspapers backing the Tories, the print media is losing what ability it ever had to shape popular opinion. Partly no doubt it was a product of the novelty of a party leader breaking the taboo on discussing the causes of terrorism and putting a coherent and clear argument against the record of the War on Terror. But partly it revealed something deeper.

Despite the failure of the media to engage in a real debate, despite the refusal of the establishment to accept the findings of the Chilcot report and at least four parliamentary investigations into the wars that we have been dragged into, popular opposition to foreign aggression has only deepened over the years. A largely unreported YouGov poll which came out during the election campaign showed that between 43% and 55% of the population disapproved of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya with less than 25% in favour and that more people opposed than supported even the first Gulf war in 1991. 

All this is important for a number of reasons. It is a reminder that we mustn’t make the mistake of reading public opinion off from the people who claim to be opinion formers in British society almost all of whom regard criticism of Britain’s war record as being beyond the pale. It tells us too that those siren voices in the Labour Party who believe that anti war policies are too radical for the British electorate are plain wrong.

It indicates in fact that it is now time to launch a concerted campaign for a fundamentally new foreign policy. Such a new direction is a necessary counter to the right wing vision of a world of more security, surveillance and international retribution.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

English bulletin June 1, 2017

A TREATY TO BAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS

You probably won’t read about it in the commercial mass media, but a very important event is taking place at the United Nations this month. From June 17 –July 7, a conference of the UN General Assembly is scheduled to negotiate a treaty to ban nuclear weapons!

The draft treaty was released on May 22 by Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN, Elayne Whyte Gómez in her capacity as chair of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination. The new draft treaty is based on the proposals put forth in the negotiations of the Conference in March. It would require the states to “never under any circumstances … develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices … use nuclear weapons …  carry out any nuclear weapon test”. States would also be required to destroy any nuclear weapons they possess and be prohibited from transferring nuclear weapons to any other recipient.

The negotiating conference was established after a series of meetings in Norway, Mexico, and Austria with governments and civil society to examine the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.  The meetings were inspired by the leadership and urging of the International Red Cross to look at the horror of nuclear weapons, not just through the frame of strategy and “deterrence”, but to grasp and examine the disastrous humanitarian consequences that would occur in a nuclear war. 

The first session of the ban treaty negotiations took place on Feb 16, 2017, considered procedural matters such as the election of officers, agenda for the negotiations, rules of procedure and participation of NGOs. More substantive negotiations on the proposed ban treaty took place March 27-31.

According to an analysis of votes of the UN Member States, a majority are in favor of the treaty, including the countries of Latin America, Africa, and most of the Arab States and the smaller states of Asia-Pacific.

However, there is still a long road to putting the treaty into practice. All of the nuclear powers (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea) are opposed to the treaty, along with their allies, includiing most European countries.

The longer we wait to abolish nuclear weapons, the harder it becomes. As WILFP (the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) has testified to the UN conference: “All of the nuclear-armed states . . . are investing in the expansion, development, or so-called modernisation of their nuclear arsenals. These programmes are not just about “increasing the safety and security” of nuclear weapon systems, which is what the nuclear-armed states claim. The “upgrades” in many cases provide new capabilities to the weapon systems. They also extend the lives of these weapon systems beyond the middle of this century, ensuring that the arms race will continue indefinitely.”

In addition to WILPF, many other civil society organizations are pushing the UN Member States to adopt the treaty. A forum this month in Brooklyn will include speakers from a number of organizations including Peace Action, MoveOn and the American Friends Service Committee. And on June 17, there will be a Women’s March to Ban the Bomb to the United Nations in New York, a women-led initiative building on the momentum of movements at the forefront of the resistance, including the Women’s March on Washington.

The annual meeting of Abolition 2000, an international organization dedicated to nuclear disarmament, gave support to the Women’s March, and heard reports from their projects, working groups and affiliated campaigns, including De-alerting and nuclear risk reduction, Don’t Bank on the Bomb, Economic Dimensions of Nuclearism, ICAN, Interfaith action, International law and nuclear weapons, Mayors for Peace, Missile control, Nuclear Weapon Free Zones, Nukes Out of Europe, Parliamentary Outreach, Peace and Planet, UNFOLD ZERO and Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. They established a new working group to build support from civil society and governments for the United Nations High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, which will take place in 2018.

As Alice Slater concludes in her article, Time to Ban the Bomb, “We need to get as many countries to the UN as possible this June, and pressure our parliaments and capitals to vote to join the treaty to ban the bomb.   And we need to talk it up and let people know that something great is happening now! ”

      

DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY



Countries for and against the UN resolution to launch negotiations for a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY



Mexico: Colima will host the Meeting of Youth Peace Leaders

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION



Latest News from International Cities of Peace

 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT



Swiss vote in in favor of gradual nuclear phaseout

WOMEN’S EQUALITY


Kenya’s pastoralists look beyond patriarchy to property rights for women

HUMAN RIGHTS


The Palestinian Hunger Strike: “Our chains will be broken before we are..”

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION



Argentina: Meeting with Nobel Peace Laureates

EDUCATION FOR PEACE


Nonviolence Charter: Progress Report 10 (Apr 2017)
d-disarmament

Tel Aviv rally for two-state model

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Deutsche Welle

Some 15,000 Israelis at a Tel Aviv rally have demanded progress on the long awaited two-state solution, almost 50 years since Israel occupied Palestinian land. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said chances had been wasted.


(Click on photo to enlarge)

Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, including the non-government group Peace Now, heard a written message from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that it was time for both peoples to “live together in harmony.”

It was read out at the Tel Aviv rally, where the turnout was 15,000, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“It is time to live together in harmony, security and stability,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

Missed opportunities

Attending Saturday evening’s rally on Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, Israeli opposition Labour party leader Isaac Herzog accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sowing fear and of missing opportunities for apeace settlement based on two states.

Early this week, Netanyahu hosted US President Donald Trump, who also visited East Jerusalem’s Western Wall and Abbas in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, but made no specific mention of the two-state model.

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Question related to this article:

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

(Article continued from left column)

Fifty years ago

In June 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan during the so-called Six-Day War withneighboring Arab-majority states.

Israel’s later annexation of east Jerusalem was never recognized by the international community. Palestinians claim the city’s eastern part as the future capital of their anticipated state.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government has pressed settlement in the West Bank despite international legal objections, raising the settler count to beyond 400,000.

‘Lack of hope’ being perpetuated

Peace Now head Avi Buskila said Saturday’s rally was to protest what he termed “the lack of hope being offered by a government perpetuating occupation, violence and racism.”

“The time has come to prove to the Israelis, the Palestinians and the entire world that an important segment of the Israeli population is opposed to occupation and wants a two-state solution,” Buskila said.

Hunger strike ends as Ramadan begins

Saturday’s rally coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the end of a hunger strike by hundreds Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Middle East peace process has been deadlocked since April 2014 when indirect negotiations led by then US secretary of state John Kerry collapsed.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Mideast

United Nations: Time to Ban the Bomb

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Alice Slater for World Beyond War

This week [on May 22], the Chair of an exciting UN initiative formally named the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination” released a draft treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons just as the world has done for biological and chemical weapons.  The Ban Treaty is to be negotiated at the UN from June 15 to July 7 as a follow up to the one week of negotiations that took place this past March, attended by more than 130 governments interacting with civil society.  Their input and suggestions were used by the Chair, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the UN, Elayne Whyte Gómez to prepare the draft treaty. It is expected that the world will finally come out of this meeting with a treaty to ban the bomb!

This negotiating conference was established after a series of meetings in Norway, Mexico, and Austria with governments and civil society to examine the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war.  The meetings were inspired by the leadership and urging of the International Red Cross to look at the horror of nuclear weapons, not just through the frame of strategy and “deterrence”, but to grasp and examine the disastrous humanitarian consequences that would occur in a nuclear war.   This activity led to a series of meetings culminating in a resolution in the UN General Assembly this fall to negotiate a treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons. The new draft treaty based on the proposals put forth in the March negotiations requires the states to “never under any circumstances … develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices … use nuclear weapons …  carry out any nuclear weapon test”. States are also required to destroy any nuclear weapons they possess and are prohibited from transferring nuclear weapons to any other recipient.
None of the nine nuclear weapons states, US, UK, Russia, France, China, Indian, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea came to the March meeting, although during the vote last fall on whether to go forward with the negotiating resolution in the UN’s First Committee for Disarmament, where the resolution was formally introduced, while the five western nuclear states voted against it, China, India and Pakistan abstained.   And North Korea voted for the resolution to negotiate to ban the bomb! (I bet you didn’t read that in the New York Times!)

By the time the resolution got to the General Assembly, Donald Trump had been elected and those promising votes disappeared.  And at the March negotiations, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, flanked by the Ambassadors from England and France, stood outside the closed conference room and held a press conference with a number of  “umbrella states”  which rely on the US nuclear ‘deterrent” to annihilate their enemies (includes NATO  states as well as Australia, Japan, and South Korea)  and announced that “as a mother” who couldn’t want more for her family “than a world without nuclear weapons” she had to “be realistic” and would boycott the meeting and oppose efforts to ban the bomb adding, “Is there anyone that believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons?”

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Question related to this article:

Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

(Continued from the left column)

The last 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) five year review conference broke up without consensus on the shoals of a deal the US was unable to deliver to Egypt to hold a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone Conference in the Middle East.  This promise was made in 1995 to get the required consensus vote from all the states to extend the NPT indefinitely when it was due to expire, 25 years after the five nuclear weapons states in the treaty, US, UK,  Russia, China, and France, promised in 1970 to make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament.  In that agreement all the other countries of the world promised not to get nuclear weapons, except for India, Pakistan, and Israel who never signed and went on to get their own bombs. North Korea had signed the treaty, but took advantage of the NPT’s Faustian bargain to sweeten the pot with a promise to the non-nuclear weapons states for an “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory. North Korea got its peaceful nuclear power, and walked out of the treaty to make a bomb.    At the 2015 NPT review, South Africa gave an eloquent speech expressing the state of nuclear apartheid that exists between the nuclear haves, holding the whole world hostage to their security needs and their failure to comply with their obligation to eliminate their nuclear bombs, while working overtime to prevent nuclear proliferation in other countries.

The Ban Treaty draft provides that the Treaty will enter into effect when 40 nations sign and ratify it.  Even if none of the nuclear weapons states join, the ban can be used to stigmatize and shame the “umbrella” states to withdraw from the nuclear “protection” services they are now receiving.    Japan should be an easy case.   The five NATO states in Europe who keep US nuclear weapons based on their soil–Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey– are good prospects for breaking with the nuclear alliance.  A legal ban on nuclear weapons can be used to convince banks and pension funds in a divestment campaign, once it is known the weapons are illegal.   See www.dontbankonthebomb.com

Right now people are organizing all over the world for a Women’s March to Ban the Bomb on June 17, during the ban treaty negotiations, with a big march and rally planned in New York.   See https://www.womenbanthebomb.org/

We need to get as many countries to the UN as possible this June, and pressure our parliaments and capitals to vote to join the treaty to ban the bomb.   And we need to talk it up and let people know that something great is happening now!    To get involved, check out www.icanw.org

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, United Nations,

Argentina: Conference on the Culture of Peace

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An announcement by the Commission of the Culture of Peace and Citizenship

Conference on the Culture of Peace: PRACTICAL FORMS OF IMPLEMENTING UN RESOLUTION 53/243. “Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace”

Organized by the Commission of the Culture of Peace and Citizenship of the Consultative Council of the Civil Society of the Argentine Chancellery.

OPENING:

• Patricia Pérez
Director of the ILAPyC and Coordinator of the Culture and Peace Committee of the CCSC.

• Fernando Lorenzo
Special Representative for Integration and Social Participation. General Coordinator of the Consultative Council of Civil Society. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Argentine Republic.

EXHIBITORS:
• Alicia Cabezudo, Argentina – “The Peace Process in Colombia”
Member of the Pedagogical Team of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Prizes. Responsible for the Training and Training Area of ​​ILAPyC. Member of IPB – International Peace Bureau.

• Domen Kocevar, Slovenia – “Auschwitz Project”
Founder and Director of Theosophical Library and Reading Room of Alma M. Karlin. He is currently working on the creation of the One Humanity Institute in Auschwitz.

DATE AND TIME

Mon. May 29, 2017
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. ART
Add to calendar

LOCATION

Press Room, Palacio San Martín
Esmeralda 1231, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Argentina

Confirm attendance.

(Click here for the original version of this article in Spanish)

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

Argentina: Meeting with Nobel Peace Laureates

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article from Rosario Net (translated by CPNN)

For the first time in Argentina, a unique meeting will be held that will bring together 5 Nobel Peace Laureates in one city. The reason: La PAZ. An initiative of the Foundation for International Democracy. VOYXLAPAZ is an action for the construction of a less violent world.


The meeting, on will include sessions, work panels and a public event that will bring together world peacebuilding activists along with leading exponents from diverse disciplines to raise awareness about the fact that peace can be promoted by ordinary people as well as Nobel Peace Prize winners and social activists.

FRIDAY JUNE 9

Panels with the 5 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. Place: Rosario Stock Exchange.

9:00 “Education for Peace”. Rigoberta Menchú Tum

11:00 “Memory, peace and forgiveness”. Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

14:00 “Transparency, democracy and peace”. Oscar Arias Sánchez

16:00 “The role of women in peacebuilding”. Shirin Ebadi

18:00 “Work, democracy and peace”. Lech Walesa

The event is free subject to limited accreditation by room quota.

Accreditations (http://nannini.com.ar/acreditacion/paz/)

Panelists accompanying the Nobel Prize winners:
Emilio Pérsico, National Secretary General of the Evita Movement.
Dr. Facundo Manes, Neurologist, Neuroscientist.
Susana Trimarco, Mama of Marita Verón, president of the María de los Ángeles Foundation.
Rosario Lufrano, Journalist.
Marcelo Colombo, Protex.
Rafael Pérez Taylor, Director of Anthropological Research at UNAM.
Ramsés Vargas Lamadrid, Rector Autonomous University of the Caribbean

SATURDAY JUNE 10

15:00  Grand closing event at the National Flag Monument. Free admission.

With the live performances of:

Leon Gieco, Juan Carlos Baglietto, Jairo, Patricia Sosa, Peteco Carabajal, Hilda Lizarazu and Raúl Porchetto. Musical Direction and Artistic Production: Lito Vitale.

The five Nobel Peace Prizes will share a microphone with singers, athletes, exponents of the arts, culture, science and education.

(Article continued in the column on the right)

(Click here for the original version of this article in Spanish)

Question related to this article:
 
Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

NOBEL PARTICIPANTS AWARDS:

Shirin Ebadi (Iran) Nobel Peace Prize 2003
Iranian lawyer and human rights defender. She was one of the first women to be a judge in her country and had to seek exile after the Islamic revolution. Ebadi founded the Association for the Support of Children’s Rights and provided free legal advice to persons accused of political, ideological and religious motives. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work on democracy and human rights, especially for women and children.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum. (Guatemala) Nobel Peace Prize 1992
Indigenous Guatemalan. She was a victim of discrimination and devoted her life to peacefully combating attacks on the indigenous population. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her struggle against inequality and her role as an advocate for the rights of indigenous communities and women.

Óscar Arias Sánchez (Costa Rica) Nobel Peace Prize 1987
Costa Rican politician who assumed the presidency of his country in 1986, critical period for Central America due to the conflicts that were developed in countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador. He worked on structuring a peace plan for the region, known as the “Plan Arias,” signed by all Central American presidents on August 7, 1987. The consolidation of the peace process earned him the Nobel Prize in 1987 .

Lech Wałęsa (Poland) Nobel Peace Prize 1983
Polish politician and trade unionist. He was one of the leaders of the workers’ mobilization of 1980 and president of the union “Solidarity” during the communist period. Their struggle focused on improving the political and economic conditions of the working class. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his work to solve the nation’s problems through negotiations and joint work without violence and won the presidency of Poland in December 1990.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina) Nobel Peace Prize 1980
Argentine activist, defender of human rights and the right of free self-determination of peoples; Defender of non-violence and of the peaceful struggle for justice and freedom. He is president of the Honorary Council of the Peace and Justice Service of Latin America, executive president of the Argentine Peace and Justice Service, the Provincial Commission for the Memory of Buenos Aires, the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, the International Academy of Environmental Sciences, of the International University Foundation of La Pau de San Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona), and of the Academic Council of the University of Namur, Belgium.

This is the way. Let’s start building PEACE. Step by step.

FOUNDATION FOR INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRACY

The Foundation distributes its efforts in 3 main areas of work:

-The design of the first Museum of Private Democracy in the world to be inaugurated in Rosario.

– Culture of Peace Program, which aims to generate social awareness about the importance of peacebuilding and the idea that peacebuilding is born of an individual decision and contributes to a collective construction.

– The struggle against contemporary slavery and similar practices: research, design and promotion of public policies and fieldwork.

Its president, Guillermo Whpei, was recently honored in Guatemala by the 1993 Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu ​​Tum for “his impetus to place at the center of the world agenda the abolition of all forms of urban violence and contemporary slavery. Among the world’s leaders for peace.” Awarded by the Secretariat of Peace of the Presidency of the Republic of Guatemala, and the 2016 International Maya Award (Madrid).

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America

Countries for and against the UN resolution to launch negotiations for a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A synopsis of the analysis made by the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons.

In addition to the vote on resolution 71/71 last December, the following analysis is based on whether or not a country is participating in the ongoing negotiations for the treaty and whether or not it has made a public commitment in favor of a ban on nuclear weapons.

FOR THE TREATY

The treaty is supported by all of the African countries except Mali (unclear), all of the Latin American countries except Nicaragua (unclear), and all countries of the Arab region except Morocco, Sudan and Syria (all unclear). No country from these regions is clearly against the treaty. With the exception of the nuclear countries, Japan and South Korea, the other countries of South and East Asia are for the treaty, as well as countries of the Pacific other than Australia and Micronesia.

AGAINST THE TREATY

Here are the countries that are clearly against the treaty:

All of the nuclear countries: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States

Most European countries: Albania, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine.

Other allies of Europe and the U.S.: Australia, Canada, Japan, Micronesia, South Korea, Turkey.

Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland are the only major European countries that are not clearly against the treaty. Austria, Ireland and Sweden clearly support the treaty. Netherlands and Switzerland abstained from the vote and, unlike most other European countries, they are participating in the ongoing negotiations.

UNCLEAR POSITION

Many former republics of the Soviet Union are unclear about their position: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan

Other countries that are unclear about their support are Andorra, Finland, Mali, Monaco, Morocco, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria.

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