Sustainable Peace: a dream or reality?
4-19-05
Pictured are the "Scholars of International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution" of UNC University Chapel Hill and Duke University, Durham, NC.
With all the civil strife, genocide, and ethic cleansing going on around the world one may ponder if there could ever be hope for at least a semblance of peace. Has the leadership of free democracies over the past century learned anything about how to deal with these horrendous atrocities? Regardless of where intervention is needed, where is the political will to stand up for human rights -- to protect innocent beings from the evil carnage now ongoing in Africa and other places? The article included herewith (below) in part chronicles some of past and current atrocities and government’s ineptness (or lack of will) to deal with them.
However, there can be some hopefulness for a more peaceful world. This past Saturday I attended one of Rotary International’s Studies in peace and conflict resolution conferences held at the University of North Carolina. Rotary’s Foundation sponsors seven (7) of the studies in peace and conflict resolution throughout the world where young brilliant scholars have demonstrated a keen desire to make a difference – and are devoting their talents to find genuine solutions to a sustainable peace. Rotary selects up to seventy students each year for the master-level degree program, which began about two years ago. This year’s conference of the Duke University and University of NC students covered such topics as: * Challenges of Conflict Prevention * Democratizing Education (Iraq) * Conflict Prevention and the OAS * Power Sharing in Sudan: a Recipe for Stability and Democracy * Conflict Prevention * Post Conflict Reconstruction * Sustainable Development for Peace
Realistically of course, all conflicts can’t be prevented. The need for military defense can’t be eliminated. But just possibly, when the focus is directed more at root-cause, as is much of the peace scholar study, and governments begin to put a portion of their military budgets toward prevention and conflict resolution – sustainable peace in many areas will become reality.
Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution:
1. Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
2. International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
3. Sciences Po, Paris, France
4. Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina
5. University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
6. University of California-Berkeley, California, USA
7. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Rotary has been at the forefront of world peace initiatives for many years. In 1945 about fifty Rotarians help draft the United Nation Charter. One of Rotary’s four objectives is: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
As we celebrate Rotary’s centennial year, I believe the peace scholar program is one of the most important initiatives Rotary has ever implemented. Learn more about the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Program.
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April 17, 2005
NY Times ---OP-ED COLUMNIST
Mr. Bush, Take a Look at MTV
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
When Turkey was massacring Armenians in 1915, the administration of Woodrow Wilson determinedly looked the other way. The U.S. ambassador in Constantinople sent furious cables to Washington, pleading for action against what he called "race murder," but the White House shrugged.
It was, after all, a messy situation, and there was no easy way to stop the killing. The U.S. was desperate to stay out of World War I and reluctant to poison relations with Turkey.
A generation later, American officials said they were too busy fighting a war to worry about Nazi death camps. In May 1943, the U.S. government rejected suggestions that it bomb Auschwitz, saying that aircraft weren't available.
In the 1970's, the U.S. didn't try to stop the Cambodian genocide. It was a murky situation in a hostile country, and there was no perfect solution. The U.S. was also negotiating the establishment of relations with China, the major backer of the Khmer Rouge, and didn't want to upset that process.
Much the same happened in Bosnia and Rwanda. As Samantha Power chronicles in her superb book, "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," the pattern was repeated over and over: a slaughter unfolded in a distant part of the world, but we had other priorities and it was always simplest for the American government to look away.
Now President Bush is writing a new chapter in that history.
Sudan's army and janjaweed militias have spent the last couple of years rampaging in the Darfur region, killing boys and men, gang-raping and then mutilating women, throwing bodies in wells to poison the water and heaving children onto bonfires. Just over a week ago, 350 assailants launched what the U.N. called a "savage" attack on the village of Khor Abeche, "killing, burning and destroying everything in their paths." Once again, there's no good solution. So we've looked away as 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur, with another 10,000 dying every month.
Since I'm of Armenian origin, I've been invited to participate in various 90th-anniversary memorials of the Armenian genocide. But we Armenian-Americans are completely missing the lesson of that genocide if we devote our energies to honoring the dead, instead of trying to save those being killed in Darfur.
Meanwhile, President Bush seems paralyzed in the face of the slaughter. He has done a fine job of providing humanitarian relief, but he has refused to confront Sudan forcefully or raise the issue himself before the world. Incredibly, Mr. Bush managed to get through recent meetings with Vladimir Putin, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and the entire NATO leadership without any public mention of Darfur.
There's no perfect solution, but there are steps we can take. Mr. Bush could impose a no-fly zone, provide logistical support to a larger African or U.N. force, send Condoleezza Rice to Darfur to show that it's a priority, consult with Egypt and other allies - and above all speak out forcefully.
One lesson of history is that moral force counts. Sudan has curtailed the rapes and murders whenever international attention increased.
Mr. Bush hasn't even taken a position on the Darfur Accountability Act and other bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback to put pressure on Sudan. Does Mr. Bush really want to preserve his neutrality on genocide?
Indeed, MTV is raising the issue more openly and powerfully than our White House. (Its mtvU channel is also covering Darfur more aggressively than most TV networks.) It should be a national embarrassment that MTV is more outspoken about genocide than our president.
If the Bush administration has been quiet on Darfur, other countries have been even more passive. Europe, aside from Britain, has been blind. Islamic Relief, the aid group, has done a wonderful job in Darfur, but in general the world's Muslims should be mortified that they haven't helped the Muslim victims in Darfur nearly as much as American Jews have. And China, while screaming about Japanese atrocities 70 years ago, is underwriting Sudan's atrocities in 2005.
On each of my three visits to Darfur, the dispossessed victims showed me immense kindness, guiding me to safe places and offering me water when I was hot and exhausted. They had lost their homes and often their children, and they seemed to have nothing - yet in their compassion to me they showed that they had retained their humanity. So it appalls me that we who have everything can't muster the simple humanity to try to save their lives.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
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