ANNUAL REPORT 1999
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ANNUAL REPORT 1999
PEACE & SECURITY PROGRAMME TNI's Peace & Security Programme challenges conventional militaristic and nuclear approaches to security. TNI advocates broadening conceptions of security to encompass civilian rather than solely state or geo-political notions of security. Practically this would entail addressing such destabilizing realities as socio-economic disparities and marginalisation; political exclusion and repression; environmental degradation; forced displacement of people due to large-scale 'development' projects; natural resource exploitation by major corporations; and the forced migration that necessarily results from such conditions. Those TNI Fellows working within this programme are working towards a paradigm where the state, military or market-driven agendas are replaced with a comprehensive human security framework. Two dramatic events in the recent past have challenged the established international security regimes. The first was the South Asian nuclear tests, which threw the nuclear non-proliferation regime into disarray. TNI fellows have been active in building the burgeoning nuclear disarmament movement in South Asia and in promoting the campaign on nuclear weapon free zones world wide, which is recognized as one way of achieving nuclear weapon abolition. The second event was NATO's first ever war in Yugoslavia over Kosovo, which took place without UN Security Council approval or illegally in terms of international law, thereby undermining both the UN and recognized international law. Unilateral intervention, particularly on the part of the USA and some of its NATO allies is more than problematic and in this first war justified on 'humanitarian' grounds, radically challenges the established principle of national sovereignty. Over the course of the year at TNI-convened discussions various fellows analysed the implications of NATO's war. At the same time, 'new threats' to security are being defined and constructed by global powers - drug traffickers and organised crime syndicates, Islamicists, and the "rogue" states, often referring to Iraq, North Korea, Libya. The 'need' for new military counter-strategies and new security alliances to address these new threats is used to justify new and continuing weapon production, sales and research. TNI has a major project concerned with the issues of drug trafficking, which addresses the context and implications of a military counter-strategy for peace and stability in much of South America. TNI's Asia project has been concerned with analysing the security dimensions of the arms race in the region, the financial crisis on human security, and security implications for the East Asian regional integration processes. All these issues, and more, were addressed at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference (HAP), which proved to be the biggest international peace conference ever convened, attracting more than 10 000 people from across the world to The Hague in May 1999. TNI, as a member of the international organising committee for the HAP made a significant contribution both to some of the preparatory meetings held in different parts of the world, as well as to the conference programme. Please find below more details on specific areas of TNI work in 1999 including:
THE WAR ON DRUGS IN LATIN AMERICA The 'Drugs & Democracy' (D&D) programme was initiated in 1995 as a joint project of TNI and Acción Andina, a platform of NGOs and individuals working specifically on drug trafficking issues in the Andean region. The project also works in close co-operation with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the European NGO Coalition on Drugs & Development (ENCOD) in Brussels. The aims of the project are to re-assess conventional prohibitive and repressive drug policies and replace them with operational directives and policies based on principles consistent with the commitment to harm reduction, fair trade, development, democracy, human rights and conflict prevention. Twenty researchers, working across sixteen Latin American countries participate in the programme co-ordinated by Amsterdam-based TNI fellow, Martin Jelsma. Also from Amsterdam TNI researcher Tom Blickman generates an invaluable daily electronic news service for the D&D team and other interested subscribers. This information clearing-house and bilingual Spanish-English D&D website provide a comprehensive overview of the latest anti-drugs policies, drug economies, and press coverage from Latin America and around the world and has become one of the most important sources of information for many NGOs, journalists and policy officials world-wide. The first phase of the project ended this year with research on air-bridge interdiction and aerial fumigations of coca crops published. The second phase of the project has focused largely on "Drugs and Peace in Colombia," and the potential for conflict in the Bolivian Chapare region. The Drug War in the Skies The Drug War in the Skies. The US "Air Bridge Denial" Strategy: The Success of a Failure , was published in May with contributions from D&D team members in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil, coordinated by Theo Roncken of Acción Andina. The 'Air Bridge Denial' operation, led by the US military, interrupts the aerial transportation of coca paste or cocaine in the Andean-Amazon region. The 'logic' behind the strategy goes like this: cut the coca paste/cocaine supply (through interdiction) thereby raising the cost of production and also the eventual market value, which will ultimately result in reducing US consumption due to cost and availability. US officials maintain that the military interdiction between Peru and the processing destination Colombia in 1995 was responsible for the momentary market crash causing coca paste to stockpile in Peru. The Drug War in the Skies study meticulously reconstructed the patterns of the illicit drug market over the 1990s, concluding that while these interdictions may have momentarily altered the supply-demand equation of the illicit market in coca, they also stimulated the opening of other routes and means of transportation. Ultimately, supply chains were maintained and the illicit coca market was successfully restored. The air brigade proved a temporary tactical success but ultimately was a strategic failure for the US military when prices levelled. The study also examines the untold social, political and economic costs to the host countries as a result of the militaristic nature of these exercises. The report has been made available to international drug policy officials and reporters. A Spanish summary was published in the journal, Revista Acción Andina, and was reproduced in three subsequent issues of Pulso, a Bolivian weekly magazine. US Forward Operating Locations Throughout the year, the D&D team closely monitored the efforts to establish new US military airbases in Latin America and the Caribbean, following the loss of the Panama-based USSOUTHCOM military infrastructure. In 1999, "Forward Operating Locations" (FOLs), as these airbases are called, started to operate in Ecuador and in the Dutch Antilles islands of Aruba and Curacao, under exclusive US military command. In early 2000, another FOL is to be established in El Salvador. The purpose of the FOL is to monitor and intercept the transportation of illegal drugs, particularly from Colombia. TNI has been engaging the Dutch government, parliament and public on the wisdom of allowing US military bases to operate from Dutch territories. This is tantamount to supporting the US military approach to combating drugs trafficking, and stands in contradiction to the official position of the Dutch government. There is a civil war in Colombia and while the US military makes no distinction between anti-drug operations and counter-insurgency strategies, they also use the FOLs to gather intelligence on the armed guerrilla movements in Colombia. Martin Jelsma and Tom Blickman published a feature in April in the national Dutch newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, questioning the establishment of the FOLs in the Dutch Antilles and the subsequent government support for US military involvement in Colombia's civil war through these FOLs, which was picked up by Amigoe, the major newspaper in Curaçao. Blickman wrote a more detailed report in Dutch in October aimed at Dutch government officials and the public in the Netherlands and in the Antilles stimulating further debate in the media. The report focused on the clear contradiction between Dutch domestic drug policy, based on principles of 'Harm Reduction,' and a foreign drug policy, which supports the highly militarised American FOLs. The issues were further discussed at a special session organised by TNI at The Hague Peace Appeal in May, and at a public meeting at de Balie in Amsterdam during the November TNI 'At the Edge' festival. For the latter, the Aruban, Gregorio Wolff, was brought to The Netherlands, resulting in further discussion on the issue in the Caribbean edition of Algemeen Dagblad. TNI has been educating parliamentarians around the implications of these measures in anticipation of an agreement that will be made in late 2000 regarding the extension of the FOL treaty from one to ten years. The Acción Andina's International Bulletin devoted a special edition to the 'Post-Panama' context of the increased militarisation of anti-drug strategies. The Bulletin published D&D contributions from the US, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and the Netherlands. Re-militarisation, air bridge interdictions and the FOLs were the central themes in debates organized by the Association of Third Word Studies for their annual conference in Costa Rica in October, which had 750 participants. The D&D team members from Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala and Aruba spoke to the conference. Drugs and Peace in Colombia At the end of 1998, a large area of Southern Colombia was demilitarised as part of an agreement between President Pastrana and Manuel Marulanda, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). One of the pressing issues in the troubled peace talks between the Pastrana government and the FARC is how to reach an agreement on the widespread coca and opium cultivation in areas under FARC control including the massive areas of coca cultivation, which exist in the south. This same area is the target of intensive aerial fumigations. Ongoing chemical herbicide fumigations and the pending introduction of a biological eradication agent (fusarium, a coca killing fungus) have been key obstacles to the Colombian peace process. "Drugs and Peace in Colombia" is the central theme of the second phase of the TNI/AA project, which began at the end of 1998. The challenge has been to define and promote alternative "Harm Reduction" policy frameworks that would ultimately reduce the fuelling effect of the drugs factor on the civil war, thus improving conditions to consolidate the peace process. Narco-Trafficking and Armed Conflict Ricardo Vargas Meza of Acción Andina, now a TNI Associate Fellow, was employed this year as a full-time local co-ordinator in Bogotá. In May, his book, Drogas, Mascaras y Juegos: Narcotráfico y conflicto armado en Colombia (Narco-trafficking and Armed Conflict in Colombia), was published in Bogotá by TNI, Acción Andina (AA) through Tercer Mundo Editores. In June, a briefing paper, "The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Illicit Drug Trade", an adaptation of Vargas' chapter in Democracias bajo Fuego (TNI-AA-Brecha, Montevideo, 1998), was released jointly by TNI, AA and WOLA in Washington. Fumigations and Biological Warfare This year the project completed a detailed scientific study on the social and environmental impact of aerial chemical fumigation of illicit crops in Colombia. "Fumigación y Conflicto, Políticas antidrogas y deslegitimación del Estado en Colombia" (Fumigation and Conflict: Anti-Drug Policies and the De-Legitimation of the State in Colombia) by Vargas-Meza was published in December through the project office in Bogotá. The research concludes that the practice of aerial spraying sets in motion a destructive cycle of chemical pollution, livelihood destruction, migration into more vulnerable areas, deforestation of the Amazon, displacement and expansion of the areas of illicit crop cultivation, which then are again fumigated, repeating this cycle over and over. At the same time alternative development projects are aborted, state legitimacy erodes, human rights are violated and peasant support for the guerrilla increases. Ultimately, the study suggests that the choice must be made between two incompatible scenarios. Either:
The D&D programme launched an international campaign this year aimed at shifting the balance toward the second scenario. The objective has been to increase pressure within the international community, specifically from European governments, UN agencies, developmental and environmental organizations, peace groups and mass media bringing to a halt the chemical and biological warfare against illicit drug crops, thereby breaking the vicious circle of fumigation, environmental destruction and armed conflict in Colombia. As part of this effort, a high level conference was organised at the George Washington University in Washington DC in October by WOLA. Entitled, "Counter-Narcotics Policy and Prospects for Peace: Eradication and Alternative Development in Southern Colombia", the conference was attended by 150 people including high-level officials from the United Nations Drugs Control Programme and the Colombian government. Vargas-Meza presented the fumigation research, while project-commissioned agronomist Rodrigo Velaidez presented the results of his case study on coca cultivation, eradication and the environment in the Caguán district. Klaus Nyholm, UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) representative for Colombia and Ecuador explained the background of current UNDCP projects in Colombia. The Colombian Interior Minister Néstor Humberto Martínez presented the large scale, anti-drug and economic reconstruction strategy, better known as 'Plan Colombia', for which the government is seeking major political and financial support from the international community. A press briefing with the Spanish-language press preceded the DC conference, resulting in front-page articles about the implications of the controversial Plan Colombia for the Andean region. The gathering garnered widespread media coverage while particular attention was raised within the Colombian press. Two more conferences were held in Colombia in December addressing "Drug trafficking, Illicit Cultivation and the Peace Process." Intended to stimulate discussion about an integrated alternative drugs policy that could contribute constructively to the peace process, the conferences concluded with instrumental debates, especially within affected local communities. The first conference took place in Bogotá and brought together eighty special invitees from various governmental agencies, including the Colombian Environmental Ministry, the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation, Defensoría del Pueblo, Programme for Alternative Development, the Colombian Police; as well as representatives of NGOs, peasant and indigenous communities from several northern and central Colombian districts. The second conference took place in Florencia, in the southern district of Caquetá. It was co-hosted by CIFISAM (Centro de Información, Formación e Investigación para el Servicio Amazónico), based in San Vicente del Caguán, and the Socio-Political Observatory of the Amazon University in Florencia. Two-thirds of the seventy participants were peasant and settler representatives from various municipalities in the Amazon districts of Caquetá and Putumayo. Caquetá is an area with widespread coca cultivation, largely controlled by the FARC, and has been severely affected by aerial fumigations. This is the district where the demilitarized zone is located, and where the peace talks are taking place. One of the Caquetá municipalities, Cartagena del Chairá (Medio y Bajo Caguán), was the area chosen for the TNI-AA case study, undertaken by Rodrigo Velaidez, on environmental pollution resulting from coca production and the impact of aerial fumigations. Putumayo is currently one of the most volatile areas of the country with both a guerrilla and paramilitary presence, daily violence and where, for the moment, coca production is booming. It is also the first target zone for the new US-trained and financed anti-narcotics army battalion, which will begin operations in 2000. The key focus next year will be the controversial Plan Colombia, for which the Colombian government is seeking international financial support. Developed in consultation with the USA, Plan Colombia has two contradictory elements. Aid for military operations used to forcibly eradicating illicit crops contradicts and undermines any direction for the aid intended to support alternative development or crop substitution programmes. Coca Cultivation and Conflict Prevention in Peru and Bolivia The third are of D&D's project this year has been the on-going development of conflict prevention scenarios for Peru and Bolivia. The research in Peru examines historically the relationship between coca cultivation and the presence of guerrilla groups, especially Sendero Luminoso, and the development of military counter-drug strategies. The D&D researchers are analysing the unprecedented levels of corruption and are also asking the question as to how the military eventually monopolized drug trafficking in Peru during the period 1992 to 1996. The Bolivian research focuses on the increasingly tense Chapare region, where illicit coca cultivation is concentrated, and where many fear forced eradication will result in armed conflict. The central issue for both settler and indigenous communities in the region is land and territorial rights. A case study is currently being undertaken in Chipiriri, one of the most conflict-prone areas. Coalition-Building in Europe TNI is involved with coalition-building in this area and has continued playing a lead role in the European NGO council on Drugs and Development (ENCOD) and in supporting the International Coalition of NGOs Working for a Just and Effective Drugs Policy (ICN). The D&D website hosts ENCOD's home page, maintains ICN's mailing list and provides information to a range of environmental, human rights, media, governmental, parliamentary and other groups in Europe and worldwide. NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT For decades, TNI has argued that nuclear weapons create insecurity, not security; that nuclear deterrence is deeply flawed, unreliable, highly fallible, and strategically irrational, and therefore nuclear weapons should be abolished. At the end of the Cold War, there were high hopes that this would come to pass but instead, we have seen India and Pakistan confirm their nuclear weapon statehood through open declarations and the 1998 tests, throwing post-World War II nuclear containment strategy into disarray and bringing the issues of nuclear weapon proliferation and the terrible threat of nuclear war back to centre stage. In 1999, the real danger of nuclear weapons was highlighted during the Kargil crisis in the states of Jammu and Kashmir. Then, in October 1999, the US Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, discrediting the USA's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. At the same time, there have been some positive developments including the burgeoning anti-nuclear movement in South Asia, the establishment of the civil-society-driven Middle Powers Initiative, the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the (il)legality of nuclear weapons, and the New Agenda Initiative of eight countries calling for implementation of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which commits nuclear weapon states to the abolition of nuclear weapons. In the face of negative trends of the past few years, defending, preserving, nurturing and strengthening the nuclear disarmament momentum has now become vitally important. This can be achieved through the pursuit of both comprehensive agendas for total disarmament and though incremental measures such as the establishment of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ). While TNI proposes simultaneous strategies, the Institute has chosen to focus on promoting the concept of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs) as one contribution to the global movement for nuclear disarmament. Such zones ban the manufacture, deployment or transportation of nuclear weapons within countries party to the zone. Nuclear weapon states sign on to the zone treaty and agree not to target such zones with nuclear weapons. The whole of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia are already official NWFZs, with Central Asia currently negotiating such a treaty. Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Project TNI's India-based fellows and committed nuclear disarmament activists, Achin Vanaik and Praful Bidwai, proposed in 1997 that TNI take on a new project aimed at promoting the establishment of new NWFZs in South Asia, Northeast Asia, the Middle East and Central Europe. A joint project was subsequently established by TNI, the Dag Hammarsjkold Foundation in Sweden, the International Network of Engineers and Scientists against ProIiferation (INESAP), the Japanese Congress against A&H Bombs (Gensuikin) and the Peace Research Depot in Japan. The project took on an entirely new meaning following the 1998 nuclear tests in South Asia. Over 1999 partner meetings were held in Geneva, Uppsala, The Hague, Amsterdam and New Delhi. Efforts were geared towards a major international seminar planned by the project to take place in Uppsala in September 2000. Experts, activists, diplomats and academics from all continents of the world have been invited. The project organised a session on new NWFZs, attended by 400 people, at the May Hague Appeal for Peace Conference. Another such session is being planned at the International Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) annual conference in Stockholm in June 2000. South Asia on a Short Fuse Meanwhile, Bidwai and Vanaik have been writing prolifically on the nuclear weapon development front in South Asia. They published South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (Oxford University Press) this year alongside the US edition out with Olive Branch Press, Interlink as New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Disarmament with an introduction by Arundhati Roy. They argued that the 1998 South Asian nuclear tests have increased regional tensions, transformed Kashmir into a potential nuclear flashpoint, increased poverty, vastly distorted definitions of international status and influence while fuelling a conventional and possible nuclear arms race far beyond the borders of the two countries. These volumes are the first definitive analysis of the Indian-Pakistani tests, which also offers a powerful critique of 'the reliance' on nuclear weapons for security. Their analysis is theoretical and empirical, ethical and political, and is considered within the context of the emergence of a belligerent, exclusivist, communalist nationalism in both India and Pakistan. The books have been extremely well received in India, Pakistan, Europe and North America. Both high profile journalists writing regularly for numerous Indian newspapers and international magazines, Bidwai and Vanaik deplored the missile tests conducted by India and Pakistan in April; closely monitored the crisis over Kargil in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir state in May; and analysed the implications of the October military coup in Pakistan for worsening insecurity in the region. Vanaik also deconstructed India's Draft Nuclear Doctrine (DND), which was formulated by the National Security Advisory Board and released in August 1999, marking a further hardening of India's nuclear posture since the second round of tests at Pokharan. If implemented, he predicts that the DND will ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia, as well as grievously damage prospects for global disarmament. The doctrine is yet to be adopted, but it is clearly driven by the government's need to legitimate the systematic development and deployment of a nuclear weapons system. Vanaik concludes his analysis by reiterating his view that the Indian government's decision to 'go nuclear' was determined neither by any changes in threat perceptions, nor by any degradation of national security. Instead, he argues that it has to do with the ruling party's obsession with nuclear weapons as a 'status symbol,' and 'power currency,' regardless of the costs to the nation or the people. Vanaik's analysis was published by the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND), of which Bidwai and Vanaik are founding members. They continued to help build MIND this year linking Indian activists to similar groups in Pakistan, regionally and internationally. They addressed innumerable meetings in India and Pakistan, including the February Pakistan Peace Conference in Karachi attended by 500 delegates from across the country, and the Asian preparations for the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference. They also helped organise the 1000-strong Global Peace March in India on 16 August 1999, the anniversary of Hiroshima. Asia-Pacific Alternative Security Network Bidwai and Vanaik are also active in the Asia-Pacific Alternative Security Network, established in 1997 at the initiative of another TNI fellow, Walden Bello. Hiro Umeyabashi, director of Peace Depot in Japan, one of the partners in the NWFZ project, is also a member of the network, which calls for a NWFZ to be established across the region. The Asia-Pacific Security Network is a key resource for the work of the Asia-Europe People's Forum, which is attempting to develop alternative security proposals to put to the inter-governmental Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). THE POLITICS OF HUMANITARIAN ACTION Until the end of the Cold War, emergency humanitarian action and co-operation for development were considered separate endeavours. The former occurred largely as relief operations in response to "natural" disasters, which were considered circumstantial and neutral, as was the allocation of aid. Emergency action as a rule occurred only at the invitation of the government of the land concerned so as not to violate the established principle of national sovereignty, and thus tended not to occur in cases of civil wars. At the end of the Cold War, everything became more complicated. Firstly, international non-governmental aid organisations began to understand the consequences of natural disasters as being largely "man-made", making the link between emergency relief and the need for long-term investments in development which would mitigate the impact of natural disasters. Then they were confronted with having to respond to the human misery resulting from the unprecedented incidence in the outbreak of civil wars. Those in the field call this the arrival of "Complex Political Emergencies," occurring predominantly in countries with fragile states. A further shift in thinking occurred as the international agencies started to investigate the root causes of conflicts, in the process making the link between conflict and poverty, environmental degradation, skewed natural resource allocation, and alienation of citizens by undemocratic governments. This led them to a continuum between the provision of emergency relief to refugees and the need to invest in development or post-conflict reconstruction, including efforts in building civil society. End of National Sovereignty The principle of respecting national sovereignty was over-turned within a few years. This had implications beyond the provision of emergency aid, and extended to military intervention (peace-keeping forces) to defend civilian populations in attempts to "keep the peace". In swift succession, the new thinking was put to the test in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda and later, in Kosovo. After the experience of Somalia, when the US withdrew after the murder of 18 soldiers, it became clear that military/peace-keeping intervention would be a politically selective operation. The United Nations could barely muster any support for intervention from the Security Council when the genocidal tragedy in Rwanda occurred although France did intervene militarily after the fact. The relationship between international NGOs providing relief and the international military force broke the principle of neutrality decisively as the international NGOs found that their 19th century principles and conceptions of war were not sufficient to deal with these complex political situations. Finding themselves in compromising situations they unintentionally aided the warring protagonists and helped to fuel, in many cases, the very conflicts there were there to help mitigate. Urgent Need to Learn Lessons The confusion and tragic errors of the past decade demand an urgent and serious attempt to develop workable principles for humanitarian intervention - whether on the part of international (relief and development) NGOs, international governmental bodies or national governments committed to humanitarian action where it is demanded morally. To date, there has been some effort made to learn from the lessons of the recent past as well as some leaps in analysis regarding complex political emergencies and the role of relief aid, co-operation for development and democratisation, and military intervention in situations of humanitarian disaster. TNI fellow, journalist and director of the, Centre for Peace Studies (CIP), in Madrid, Mariano Aguirre, initiated a joint project with Duesto University in Bilbao and Doctors without Borders in Spain in 1998. The project involved another TNI fellow, aid specialist David Sogge, who concentrated on the ostensible beneficiaries of the interventions, as well as English and Spanish scholars concerned with the ethical and juridical dimensions of humanitarian interventions. The Spanish sections of Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross critically reflected upon their negative experiences with 'complex political emergencies' or civil war situations, resolving that there is a need for greater co-operation among agencies, and more explicit codes of conduct to guide international NGOs. Challenging the uncoordinated, short-term, reactive interventions of the international community the authors make a strong case for pre-empting crises by addressing underlying causes of conflict. Such causes include, environmental degradation, economic marginalisation and poverty resulting from structural adjustment, and undemocratic systems of political representation. The studies undertaken in this project all point to the need for a re-orientation of approaches to international humanitarian action. During the final stages of preparing the publication, the NATO intervention in Kosovo began marking the first war justified on 'humanitarian grounds.' A foreward addressing the significance of this was inserted just prior to printing Los desafios de la acción humanitaria (The Challenge of Humanitarian Action), which was subsequently published by the project partners through Icaria Editores. The book was launched in Madrid in October and again at the TNI Festival of Ideas in Amsterdam in November. The English edition will be co-published by TNI and Pluto Books as Reflections on Humanitarian Action: Principles, Ethics and Contradictions in April 2001. The Kosovo War Phyllis Bennis, TNI fellow and journalist based at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, warned that the unilateral bombing of Iraq since December 1998 by the USA, supported by Britain, flouting international law and undermining the UN, would profoundly impact the international system. The truth of this became evident with events in Yugoslavia a few months later. The unilateral NATO intervention in Kosovo challenged the hitherto internationally accepted principle of the inviolability of national sovereignty and undermined the authority of the UN Security Council. The implications were hotly debated at the TNI Fellows' Meeting and at sessions organized at The Hague Peace Appeal Conference, both convened in May at the height of the war. Questions were raised as to:
Bennis subsequently wrote a damning piece in Middle East International entitled "Iraq and Kosovo: Two Regional Wars and a Global Pentagon Budget" and other articles for the Middle East Report, Le Monde Diplomatique and US newspapers on what she calls "The Law of Empire". She criticised the US for setting the UN up to take the blame in both Kosovo and Iraq, thereby justifying the USA's arrogant unilateralism. An extended version of this argument constitutes a new chapter in the second edition of her much acclaimed book, Who Calls the Shots: How Washington Dominates the UN, due to be published by Interlink at the end of April 2000. Other TNI fellows, notably Mariano Aguirre, Walden Bello, Jochen Hippler, Praful Bidwai, Achin Vanaik, Dan Smith, Hilary Wainwright also published critical analyses of NATO's first war since it was established in the aftermath of WW II. Hippler looked particularly at the effect of Germany's involvement in the war vis a vis the Green Party's credibility. The issues were revisited in various sessions on NATO, Humanitarian Intervention and US Hegemony at the TNI Festival of Ideas held in Amsterdam in November 1999. Deadly Sanctions on Iraq's People An estimated 1.5 million people have died as a result of UN sanctions against Iraq, a quarter of them infants under the age of five. TNI fellow, Phyllis Bennis, has campaigned tirelessly for lifting the UN economic sanctions against Iraq, arguing that these are not 'smart sanctions,' targeting Saddam Hussein's government but that they bolster the dictator and actually target the civilian population causing incalculable suffering. Early in 1999, Bennis undertook a punishing 22-city national US speaking tour with former UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday, who quit his post as Humanitarian Co-coordinator in Iraq in protest of the UN sanction regime. Later in the year, Bennis led the first delegation of US Congressional aides to Iraq on a fact-finding mission to assess the impact of sanctions. The report is due to be published in 2000. She also contributed a chapter to a new book, Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, due to be published by Pluto Books in 2000, and has written prolifically on the subject for US, Dutch and Middle Eastern publications. Middle East Peace Process Meanwhile, Bennis and Mariano Aguirre have continued to follow the Middle East peace process, publishing articles in US and Spanish newspapers and journals, as well as commenting regularly on radio and television. Resolving the Turkey-Kurdish Conflict The report from a collaborative project in which Jochen Hippler represented TNI was published this year addressing issues of peaceful resolution in the long-standing conflict between the Kurdish minority and the Turkish government. The report, which lays out a set of policy recommendations and a model of conflict resolution for this specific conflict, is aimed at the Turkish government, representatives of Kurdish political organisations, the German Foreign Ministry, the European Commission, NATO and the media in Europe and Turkey. Initiated in 1997, the project was jointly undertaken by TNI, Schweizerische Friedensstiftung (Bern), Instituto de Estudios Transnacionales (INET, Cordoba), Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden (Bonn), the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (Bonn), and the Gustav Stresemann Institut (Bonn). The project recommended Turkey work toward a system of decentralised local governance. Hippler, along with another TNI fellow, Dan Smith, published a number of more general articles on conflict prevention and resolution in the course of 1999, with Smith also concentrating specifically on the Balkans. War and Media The role of the mass media in reflecting protagonists in conflict situations, threats to security, and international crises demanding intervention is an ongoing matter of concern. The media shapes public perceptions and thereby has some influence on government policy, but there is also an acute awareness of how the media is, itself, manipulated by political forces. Various TNI fellows reflected on issues over 1999 in relation to the role mass media plays in contemporary society. Mariano Aguirre, in his contribution to Los desafios de la accion humanitaria (Icaria), questioned the power of the media in directing humanitarian intervention. A highly regarded journalist himself, in Spain, Aguirre examined the role of the media in identifying and characterising humanitarian crises, mobilising public funds for the humanitarian aid market, and mobilising public opinion in support of international intervention. Contrary to most analyses of the role of the media, he suggests that the media is more of a pawn in political games than it realises. Aguirre argues for a greater role for local media in helping to de-activate conflicts, favouring reconciliation between protagonists, and reflecting critically on the outside views of powerful political actors, in particular, foreign governments. Constructions of Islam as the Next Threat Jochen Hippler, another journalist within the ranks of TNI, has been analysing the relationship between the mass media, Western perceptions of Islam and Western foreign policy towards the Middle East. He explored these issues in a contribution to a new book by Kai Hafez (ed), Islam and the West in the Mass Media: Fragmented Images in a Globalising World (Hampton Press). The Islamic threat in the west, or the "Green Peril", exists as a sentiment and a policy tool, but he argues, it rarely drives foreign policy, as it is most relevant within the domestic policy milieu. Useful for producing colourful news in the media, the "Green Peril" is utilised to drum up support for a foreign policy, but the policy is often determined for quite different reasons. Occasionally, decision-makers share a particular version of anti-Muslim ideology, but they tend to be driven by more practical considerations and more specific factors. For example:
These 'practical interests,' he concludes, make it impossible to deal with the Middle East and Islam in an ideological way. Muslim governments are very often within the Western camp and it would be quite foolish, for those westerners within this camp, to wage ideological wars against them. In France, Germany and Spain for example, he suggests that negative perceptions of Islam have not been engineered by political elites, but have grown from below, often with media reinforcement. Fred Halliday contributed to a new analysis of media coverage during the 1990 - 1991 Gulf War in a book edited by Tim Allen and Jean Seaton, The Media of Conflict: War Reporting and Representations of Ethnic Violence (Zed). Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik also wrote on media representations of the antagonists during the Kargil crisis in Kashmir, highlighting the tendency of the Indian ruling BJP party to use the media in constructing Islam as the next great threat. ALTERNATIVE SECURITY PARADIGMS In the context of the Post-Cold War era and with new insecurities generated by globalisation, a concerted effort is being made to extend security conceptions beyond military and international relations, towards a more comprehensive and proactive framework, which includes addressing the root causes of conflict:
TNI fellows working within the Peace and Security Programme base their approach from this starting point. The articulation of this alternative security paradigm has been an explicit part of the work of TNI's project on Asia-Europe relations through the Asia-Europe People's Forum (AEPF). Addressing Roots Of Conflict During the May Hague Appeal for Peace programme, TNI organised two special sessions on 'Roots of Conflict'. 'Globalisation as a Root of Conflict', was the first discussion hosted by TNI fellows Susan George, John Cavanagh and Walden Bello with more than 500 in the audience. The second session, equally well attended, addressed 'Environmental Insecurity as a Root of Conflict,' and was chaired by TNI fellow and Director of the Centre for Peace Research (CIP), Mariano Aguirre and included Ricardo Soberón, (TNI/Accion Andina D&D), who has been linking environmental insecurity and conflict in his research in the Andean region. Linking Arms-Asia & Europe The Asia-Europe People's Forum (AEPF) prioritises the concept of 'alternative security' as outlined above. The original stimulus for the creation of AEPF, which is a coalition of civil society organizations in East Asia and Europe, was the inter-governmental Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process, which began in 1996. ASEM was considered the focus around which to build a broad regional coalition of organisations concerned with issues of conflict and poverty, human rights, sustainable development and democratization in Asia. Greater regional and inter-regional solidarity would be built through the AEPF with more effective external pressure brought to bear on repressive or unresponsive Asian governments. Twenty-five countries plus the European Commission are party to the ASEM process. They include the 15 European Union states, China, Japan, South Korea and seven members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN): Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ASEM meets as a whole once every two years, alternately in Asia and Europe. Its agenda covers a wide remit including political and security co-operation, economic relations, and cultural exchanges. Not surprisingly, the main emphasis until now has been on trade and investment. TNI co-organised, with Focus on the Global South, the European Network Against the Arms Trade and the American Friends Service Committee of Japan, a series of five workshops on the topic in May at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference. Among other issues, the participants considered the global context for peace and security paying particular attention to US military hegemony; the impact of the financial crisis on human security in Asia; official Asian security concerns; the state of Asian peace movements; the implications of the expansion of NATO, including out-of-area operations; and the potential of grassroots organisations engaging with the OSCE (Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe), the Asian Regional Forum and ASEM around an alternative security agenda. Resolving that both regions must deal with the role of US military power and the huge arms trade from Europe to Asia some of the key issues emerged included:
A booklet, the third in the TNI/Focus series on ASEM, was subsequently published: Linking Arms: Asia-Europe Cooperation on Alternative Security Strategies (Focus on the Global South, Thailand 1999). The booklet will be used for popular education purposes including at the People's Forum during the 3rd ASEM inter-governmental meeting in Seoul in October 2000. Meanwhile, a fourth booklet, Up in Arms, will be published in time for the 2000 People's Forum. It will focus on the European arms trade with Korea and the impact on peace and security in the region. |
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