Scottish Centre for Nonviolence

2002-05-06T23:09:00.000Z

US Renounces Obligations to International Court

The Bush administration, flouting the advice of major allies and outraging human rights organizations, has renounced any obligation to cooperate with the new International Criminal Court.

The decision, formalized in a letter to the United Nations, means the United States reserves the right to ignore the orders of the court, the first permanent world tribunal to prosecute people for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

2002-04-22T13:41:00.000Z

Eclipse: the anti-war review

Eclipse is a monthly internationalist journal of analysis and comment dedicated to uncovering and examining the origins and implications of the world crisis through which we are all living. Eclipse edited and produced by a group of staff and students at University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

2002-04-01T12:12:00.000Z

Christian Peacemaker Teams in Afghanistan

Christian Peacemaker Teams recently sent a delegation to Afghanistan. Their full report and proposal for a peace team is here. They also have a proposal to churches for rebuilding Afghan homes destroyed by the bombing:

We do not understand this proposal to be fundamentally a relief effort. We see this as a way for our local congregations or meetings to think through basic questions that we encountered arising from the bombing in Afghanistan, the absence of a genuine global understanding of what terrorism is and a response to the excessive destruction of Afghan life and property due to September 11, 2001. We were told by one organization with monitoring capability that an estimated 5000 homes valued at $2000 each were destroyed and an estimated 2500 people were killed in four of the thirty provinces near Kabul where careful monitoring has been done.

2002-04-01T10:27:00.000Z

Resources on Israel and Palestine

Gush Shalom is the “hard core of the Israeli peace movement”. Website with latest news and useful links.
Peace Now is the much larger, but less radical, mainstream Israeli Peace Movement.
Bat Shalom is a feminist peace organisation of Israeli women, closely associated with Women in Black. They work toward a just peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours that includes recognition of a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel and Jerusalem as the capital of both.
Yesh Gvul (“There is a limit!”) is an Israeli peace group supporting “refusniks”, conscientious objectors to military service in the Occupied Territories. Seruv is a site supporting the Israeli soldiers (currently 383 of them) who have signed a statement refusing to fight in the Occupied Territories. Includes names of all the signatories and statements from many of them. The War Resisters’ International reports that several have already been imprisoned for their action. Tikkun has the text of the Statement of Refusal and a Story From Refusenik Number 149: Refusing to be a murderer.
The Alternative Information Center (AIC) is a Palestinian-Israeli organisation which disseminates information, research and political analysis on Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while promoting cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis based on the values of social justice, solidarity and community involvement. Their emergency call for action is here.
Christian Peacemaker Teams has a project in Hebron.

Organisations in Britain include:

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign. A very useful website, with up-to-date news, photos, links, maps, and many other resources, including details of the boycott of Israeli goods.
The Scottish Palestinian Forum.
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign also has a new website.

2002-03-29T11:35:00.000Z

International ANSWER

International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) is a coalition that was formed in response to the headlong rush to war and racist attacks following the horrific events of September 11. ANSWER has the support participation of more than 500 organisations and individuals. They have called for April 20 to be an International Day of Protest Against War & Racism. You can download fact sheets, posters and fylers from their website, inlcuding a list of US military interventions from 1890 to 1999 (.pdf format).

2002-03-26T09:45:00.000Z

Israel's plans to topple Arafat

Tikkun magazine has a critique of Israeli policy from a Jewish perspective:

In mainstream political discourse, Israel's recent attacks on Palestinian civilians, villages, and governmental institutions are described as "retaliatory acts," answering the latest wave of terror attacks on Israeli civilians. But, in fact, these "retaliatory measures" are part of a systematic assault on the Palestinian Authority that had been carefully prepared for long before the current "war on terrorism." Already in October 2000, at the outset of the Palestinian uprising and before the terror attacks had started, military circles were ready with detailed operative plans to topple Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.

2002-03-26T09:36:00.000Z

More disinformation about the ground war?

"Were 3250 bombs dropped on territory that the enemy had already vacated?" asks a recent article on spiked. Operation Anaconda was 'an unqualified and absolute success', said US General Tommy Franks on 18 March 2002, as the US offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the Shah-i-Kot region of Gardez in east Afghanistan finally came to an end (1). But on the same day, UK newspapers reported that 1700 British marines were flying out to east Afghanistan at 'America's request', because, 'despite months of intensive bombing from the air, and weeks of fighting on the ground, the war [there] is far from over' (2).

2002-03-16T21:29:00.000Z

Official Count of Sept 11 Victims

The official count of victims of the September 11 attacks stands at 3,071 (2,838 in New York, including passengers and crew on hijacked planes, 189 in Washington, DC, and 44 in Pennsylvania; numbers include the 19 hijackers on the four planes).

2002-03-15T23:22:00.000Z

Post September 11 detainees deprived of basic rights

Amnesty International reports that, six months on from the September 11 attacks, a significant number of people detained in the USA in their aftermath continue to be deprived of some basic rights under international law, and many appear to have been detained arbitrarily. The full report is based on research including numerous interviews with attorneys, detainees, relatives, and visits to two jails.

2002-03-12T15:29:00.000Z

Imagining the Next War

Phil Agre of the Red Rock Eater mailing list reflects on the changed nature of war (article written 14/11/2001):

When political leaders refer to [the] attacks in New York and Washington as "war", what do they mean? It used to be that our concept of war was defined by a set of boundaries. Nation-states fought wars to defend their borders. They fielded armies, and those armies fought along front lines. Soldiers were separate from civilians, and the military domain was separate from the civilian domain. Soldiers ran the war from day to day; the civilian leadership gave the big orders and sat back.
Those boundaries no longer apply...

He also has an extensive list of links relating to the September 11th attacks. There is also an archive of Red Rock Eater postings.

2002-03-12T10:15:00.000Z

RAWA statement for International Women's Day

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has issued a statement on International Women's Day (March 8):

We look upon the US military campaign in Afghanistan not as an aggression against Afghanistan or a war on the Afghan people, or as an aggression against Islam or the Muslims but as a fracas between patron and ex-protégés.

2002-03-11T14:05:00.000Z

Pledge of resistance

ARROW (Active Resistance to the Roots of War) is a London-based nonviolent direct action affinity group which has launched a pledge of resistance against the "war against terrorism". They invite activists to sign a pledge to take part in nonviolent civil disobedience in the event of a major US/UK attack on Iraq or any other country in the course of the "war on terrorism" (or to support those taking civil disobedience actions). They say that:

The point of signing the Pledge is to create a network of resisters so that we can coordinate our nonviolent direct action against the "war on terrorism", make our resistance as effective as possible, and limit/prevent whatever attacks the US is aiming to launch. By publishing our names, we can show that the resistance extends all over the country, and (if the number of signatories grows large enough) signal to the Government the political cost it faces in terms of terms of nonviolent resistance.

Their site also has anti-war briefings and you can subscribe to the Aftermath mailing lists.

2002-03-11T12:39:00.000Z

US plans to use nuclear weapons?

The Los Angeles Times reports on a leaked "nuclear posture review" document in which the Bush administration has told the Defense Department to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries - China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. The military also was directed to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations. The three contingencies listed for possible use of the weapons were against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, or "in the event of surprising military developments". according to the newspaper. The report says the Pentagon should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and Taiwan, or in an attack from North Korea on the south. They might also become necessary in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbor. Excerpts from the report are here. US officials defended the plans, saying the intent is "to deter other nations from using biological or chemical weapons against Americans".

On the other hand, the report calls for a reduction in numbers of strategic warheads from today's roughly 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,100 (while retaining the option to resume nuclear testing in Nevada). And Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggests that US nuclear policy has been transformed "from an almost exclusive emphasis on ... offensive nuclear forces to a force that includes defensive as well as offensive, and includes conventional strike capability ... and includes a much reduced level of nuclear strike capability".

Itchy fingers on the trigger: Richard Norton-Taylor comments in The Guardian. There's also a discussion forum, "Bush's nuclear hit list - is it justified?"

The New York Times has an editorial, America as Nuclear Rogue:

If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon and contemplating pre-emptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state. Yet such is the course recommended to President Bush...

2002-03-07T16:55:00.000Z

No more innocent victims

Global Exchange is urging people around the US to reaffirm their commitment to peace, justice, and tolerance. Their simple message: "No More Innocent Victims". They are asking we are asking communities to declare themselves a "Hate-Free Zone" and to pledge that they will not blame innocent people for the murderous acts of a few individuals. They have produced a downloadable campaign pack, poster in English and multiple languages and a resource list. They are also calling for the creation of a victims fund for Afghan civilians. You can also subscribe to an email list for the campaign.

2002-03-07T16:04:00.000Z

Anti-war newspaper

War Times is a San Francisco-based anti-war newspaper being produced "to help broaden and deepen the fight against the Bush program by compiling information and analysis, and putting them into the hands of large numbers of readers". A pilot issue is now on the web (.pdf format: Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar required).

2002-03-07T15:30:00.000Z

Reject nomination of Bush and Blair for Nobel Peace Prize

Harald T Nesvik, a Right-wing Norwegian Member of Parliament, has nominated UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize for their "decisive action against terrorism, something I believe in the future will be the greatest threat to peace". If you disagree, you can send a letter to the Nobel Committee.

2002-03-04T14:25:00.000Z

The roots of fundamentalism

Writing in the Guardian, Jonathan Raban traces the roots of fundamentalism as a theology of rebellion.

Karen Armstrong's book The Battle for God is also worth reading on this subject.

2002-03-04T13:55:00.000Z

US uses new thermobaric bomb

The Guardian reports continuing US strikes in eastern Afghanistan, using recently developed BLU-118/B thermobaric bombs which are designed to create suffocating blasts in cave complexes. The 2,000lb laser-guided bombs penetrate complexes and disperse clouds of explosive particles which are detonated by a delayed-action fuse. The blast sucks up oxygen, creating a blast which collapses lungs, breaks eardrums, and pulls out eyes.

Another report describes the bomb, which "produces rapidly expanding shock waves flattening anything near the epicentre of the aerosol fuel cloud, and capable of causing extensive damage far beyond the immediate strike area."

CND has produced a briefing paper which argues that such weapons "blur the distinction between low yield nuclear weapons and conventional weaponry".

2002-02-25T11:21:00.000Z

Church statements on the crisis

The Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland has issued a statement condemning the military action in Afghanistan. The committee has also said it is "distressed and saddened" by reports of the treatment of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, and has written a letter to the US Ambassador urging "the search for justice rather than the desire for vengeance".

2002-02-15T12:46:00.000Z

Afghan civilians still dying as air stikes continue

A special report in the Guardian highlights the continuing bombing, and the difficulty of obtaining accurate casualty figures. Médecins Sans Frontières estimates the number of civilian dead at between 2,000 and 3,000, based on reports from hospitals and field workers around the country. Many of the civlian casualties appear to result from "botched raids on anti-Taliban forces".

2002-02-15T12:36:00.000Z

Britain a "revolving door" for al-Qaida

Investigators in Britain are privately at loggerheads with their US and continental European counterparts over claims that the UK was used as a pivotal base for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in the run-up to the September 11 terror attacks. Documents compiled in Madrid, Milan, Paris and Hamburg and seen by the Guardian indicate that most of the known attacks planned or executed by al-Qaida in the past four years had links to Britain.

2002-02-11T12:41:00.000Z

Armed to the teeth

Is Bush's awesome increase in military spending a reasonable response to the afermath of September 11, or is he creating a force almost too powerful for its own good? Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy report in The Observer.

2002-02-11T12:40:00.000Z

Patten lays into Bush's America

Chris Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of Europe's international relations, has launched a scathing attack on US foreign policy - accusing the Bush administration of a dangerously "absolutist and simplistic" stance towards the rest of the world, writes Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian.

Full text of Bush's "Axis of Evil" State of the Union Address here. Archive of stories on George Bush's America.

2002-02-11T12:15:00.000Z

Pipelineistan

War against terrorism? Not really. Reminder: it's all about oil, writes Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times. Part 2 of the article is here.

2002-02-11T10:36:00.000Z

Al Qaida as a sect

Writing in Le Monde Diplomatique, Pierre Conesa suggestes that Al-Qaida is best thought of as, not as a global or national political movement, or representative of an entire religion, but as a millennarian sect.

2002-02-09T20:50:00.000Z

Bush in U-turn over prisoners at Camp X-ray

According to this story (from The Herald), the US has "buckled under international pressure" in allowing Taliban prisoners at Camp X-Ray (but not al Qaeda prisoners) to be covered by the Geneva Convetion regarding POW status. The story hints that the US military has responded to a rather different flavour of "international pressure" to the purely diplomatic and politcal variety...

The Guardian reports that Amnesty International has dismissed the move as virtually meaningless. An Amnesty spokesperson said: "We are dismayed. This partial compliance with the Geneva conventions is a half-measure and continues an arrogant policy of pick and choose with regard to the laws of war."

2002-02-09T17:29:00.000Z

America and the world: an abyss of perception

"President Bush's supremely confident state of the union speech won acclaim in the US heartland. But the rest of the world hears a different tune. There may be trouble ahead," writes Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, in his latest column on the war at the openDemocracy website.

Also on the openDemocracy site: forums on America turned upside down, The search for meaning post September 11, and Travails of faith and modernity.

2002-02-04T15:24:00.000Z

Watching the media

Medialens is a site devoted to "correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media". Many useful links including a which has John Pilger's latest article from The Mirror (January 29, 2002), more articles from Noam Chomsky, and plenty more of interest.

FAIR is a US media watch group, which has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. Their website has sections on Afghanistan and Terrorism & the "War on Terror". Articles of interest include a story on how ABC item on the recent report from Human Rights Watch , which highlighted abuses in Russia, Egypt, Israel, China, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and Uzbekistan, but failed to mention that the report criticised the US for a "troubling disregard for well-established human rights safeguards" and "new laws permitting the indefinite detention of non-citizens, special military commissions to try suspected terrorists, the detention of over 1,000 people, and the abrogation of the confidentiality of attorney-client communications for certain detainees."

MediaChannel has an in-depth analysis (from Project for Excellence in Journalism) of how US media covered the war on terrorism: "heavily favoring official US views and increasingly presenting opinion and punditry rather than facts". Also of interest: an ethical checklist for journalists reporting international news.

2002-02-04T15:10:00.000Z

America and Anti-Americans

"America's war against terror has entered its second phase", writes Salman Rushdie in the New York Times, "a phase characterized by the storm over the status and human rights of the prisoners held at Camp X-Ray and by the frustrating failure of the United States to find Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. In spite of the military successes, America finds itself facing a broader ideological adversary that may turn out to be as hard to defeat as militant Islam: anti-Americanism, which is presently becoming more evident everywhere."

"America itself came under attack. It was deplorable and horrific. But it was also a wake-up call. Those 53 years of uncontrollable rage culminated in one message: US Government – you’re hated," writes Reem Haddad in the New Internationalist. A special edition of NI devoted to the crisis: Twin Terrors: The world holds its breath.

2002-01-25T00:45:00.000Z

Responding to 11 September

The Runnymede Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia has issued a statement on issues arising from the events in America on 11 September. Also, it has published a booklet about resources on the Internet. Click here to see the material to which the booklet refers. For a free copy of the booklet send your postal address to bmicom@freenet.co.uk, or write to the Commission at 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA, or telephone 020 7609 8870.

2002-01-18T12:01:00.000Z

Anti-Terror Campaign Cloaking Human Rights Abuse

The anti-terror campaign led by the United States is inspiring opportunistic attacks on civil liberties around the world, Human Rights Watch warned in its annual global survey released today. Read the press release (January 16, 2002) here.

2002-01-11T16:05:00.000Z

Appeal for Afghan refugees

GreenNet is coordinating an appeal for Afghan refugees. Money is urgently needed for flour, cooking oil, powdered milk, lentils (beans), clothes, blankets, quilts, thick plastic sheets and sleeping bags, and medicines (first aid kits/anti-malaria/ diarrhoea). Even small donations represent a substantial amount when converted to local currency. Money collected will support an NGO initiative, the Pakistan Citizen's Support Initiative for Afghan Refugees is coordinating with the Afghan Women's Network (AWC) and the Afghan Women's Educational Centre (AWEC) in Peshawar to undertake humanitarian relief to Afghan refugees who are moving into Pakistan. Women Living Under Muslim Laws has a page with more information about Afghan women's organisations.

2002-01-11T15:52:00.000Z

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan.

2002-01-11T13:44:00.000Z

Email mailing list

Canadian email list hosted by Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) to discuss, organise and announce nonviolent responses to the Afghan war, the new Cold War and the criminalisation of dissent. To subscribe, send a message with the text "subscribe no_to_nato" to <majordomo@flora.org>. Read the list archives here.

2002-01-11T13:38:00.000Z

A War in the Planning for Four Years

Uzbekistan was forcefully mentioned by President George W. Bush in his address to a joint session of Congress just days after the attacks of September 11 as the very first place that the US military would be deployed. Major deployments of U.S. and British forces had taken place before the attacks, and the US Army and the CIA had been active in Uzbekistan for several years. This article by Michael Ruppert (from From The Wilderness Publications, November 2001) presents evidence that what the world is witnessing is a cold and calculated war plan - at least four years in the making - and that the World Trade Center attacks were just the trigger needed to set the final conquest in motion.

2002-01-11T13:27:00.000Z

Diverging world views

New briefing paper from the Oxford Research Group on diverging world views of the United States, Europe and the majority world in the light of the terrorist attacks on 11 September.

2002-01-11T13:21:00.000Z

Resources from the Kroc Institute

In response to the events of September 11, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame has organized several major campus events, and faculty fellows have been actively engaged in media outreach. Links to many of these editorials, interviews, background materials, and other resources related to the current global situation are now available on their webpage, After September 11: Initial Responses from the Kroc Institute. Includes an essay by John Paul Lederach, Quo Vadis? Reframing Terror from the Perspective of Conflict Resolution, presented at the University of California, Irvine, Townhall Meeting, October 24, 2001.

2002-01-11T12:21:00.000Z

What does Noam Chomsky say about terrorism in light of the World Trade Center and Pentagon Attacks?

A bibliography of resources, including articles about the recent attacks and statements made about previous terrorist activity. Also an article from Z Magazine on The War in Afghanistan.

Update 11/3/02:Latest interview with Chomsky (from the Asheville Global Report).

2002-01-11T12:13:00.000Z

Arundhati Roy on the "War on Terrorism"

"The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place." The Algebra of Infinite Justice: on the immediate American response to the events that followed the attack on the World Trade Center (from the Guardian, 29 September 2001). Brutality smeared in peanut butter from the Guardian, 23 October 2001.

2002-01-11T11:34:00.000Z

Direct Action Training with Starhawk

Wendland, Germany, June 6 to 12 Learn in-depth principles and techniques of nonviolent direct action. Share methods to bring creative, vibrant magic to demonstrations and to community work. Brainstorm political innovation! Sponsored by the newly formed REA (Reclaiming Earth Activists) in Germany and Austria. There are three successive classes (beginners, advanced, trainers) who meet for two days any one time. But it's also possible to book the whole week and become fully experienced in magical and political activism. There's a wide sliding-scale, trying to make the trainings also accessible for people with little money. Cost will be about 150-350 Euro for six days. This is all inclusive (dorm room, three meals a day). Scholarships available, especially to those who can camp and prepare their meals by themselves. For more information email Moira.

2002-01-11T11:21:00.000Z

Only Poetry Can Address Grief

Californian activist Starhawk writes on moving forward after September 11th.

2002-01-11T11:13:00.000Z

Who Is Osama Bin Laden?

Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa has written this well researched and well documented article outlining the recruitment and training of Bin Laden and the Taliban by the CIA. Plus updated coverage of the war in Central Asia and on the Implications of 9-11 at the home page of the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG).