LATEST NEWS FROM PERDANA GLOBAL PEACE ORGANISATION

Daniel Levy
December 18, 2007 12:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_levy/2007/12/the_long_journey_from_paris.html

An international donors’ conference that was convened in order to secure pledges of financial support for the Palestinian Authority closed in Paris yesterday. Eighty-seven countries and international organisations were in attendance, including the host, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, Quartet special envoy Tony Blair and representatives of many Arab states. According to initial reports, pledges of $7.4bn were secured, exceeding the target set for the conference. On the face of it, this is impressive stuff and builds on the momentum of the peace summit held in Annapolis three weeks ago. This is the first pledging conference for the Palestinians of its kind since 1996. And the Palestinian economy is certainly in dire need of help, with per capita GDP falling 40% since 1999, unemployment standing at 23% and the PA expecting a fiscal gap for current and capital expenditures of around $1.8bn in 2008 according to the World Bank. This is also an international vote of confidence in prime minister Fayyad, his Palestinian reform and development plan and the sincere efforts he is making to produce a workable program to improve Palestinians’ economic prospects. But the journey from Paris to Palestine is a long one, the obstacle course is daunting and the lessons from previous failed and similar journeys are in danger of not being learned.

Put aside for a moment the often expectation-crushing nature of such pledging conferences - that contributions promised do not always translate into monies disbursed, that multi-year commitments often can be back-loaded and that existing programs simply get repackaged. The outcome of this conference risks suffering from Palestine-specific and possibly devastating flaws.

The story of Palestine’s economic collapse over the last several years is one of donor assistance being unable to paper over the gaping cracks in a failed political peace process. The rebuttal on display in Paris was that this time it’s different, we have Annapolis, peace is back on the agenda. Except that Annapolis is anything but the kind of robust process that is required - witness already the Israeli announcement of the expansion of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, the escalating conflict between Israel and Gaza, the lack of a visible change in the closure system and, most importantly, the continued American and international impotence in the face of these negative trends.

Palestinian economic prospects will not improve under conditions of a continuing intrusive occupation even if the donor community is full of festive season generosity. A World Bank report, specially prepared for the Paris conference, put it in the following stark terms: “Even with full funding but no relaxation in the closure regime, growth [of the Palestinian economy] will be slightly negative at around minus 2% per year.” Another far-reaching study released by the Crown Centre at Brandeis University and written by Dr Mohammed Samhouri, a Palestinian economist and former official, questions the assumptions behind the current donor strategy and finds them to be hopelessly out of sync with the situation on the ground and past experience. Economic assistance should not continue being a fig leaf for the lack of political will to address the core questions that, in turn, vitally impact the economic reality in the Palestinian territories - agreeing on a permanent border, ending the occupation, dividing Jerusalem. To assume that this time it will be different, while avoiding the real heavy diplomatic lifting that would make it so, is another victory for hope over experience.

To these considerations must be added another unsustainable burden that economic planners are being asked to shoulder, namely that well-targeted assistance will definitively reshape the internal Palestinian political reality. Much of the talk in Paris was about explicitly designing economic assistance in order to return the moderates to power and squeeze out the radicals. If one can demonstrate to Palestinians that Fatah governance can deliver the economic goodies, so the theory goes, then they will turn against Hamas. Part of the plan, therefore, is predicated on exacerbating Palestinian division. But calibrating economic reward and punishment to affect changes in political affiliation, especially of a people under occupation, is far from being an exact science. Such policies often carry unintended consequences, and in this case the irreversible damage being inflicted on the Gazan economy is not only inhumane and painfully shortsighted but is also likely to fuel a greater anger and sense of abandonment among Gazans. The World Bank study points out that economic restrictions have already led to the suspension of 95% of Gaza’s industrial operations.

In fact, as Dr Samhouri argues in his study, the donor assistance strategy should promote “a different and more realistic approach that would help foster Palestinian reconciliation, bring Gaza back into the Palestinian main political and economic fabric and stabilise the fragile conditions on the ground”. The donor nations gathered in Paris are actually divided as regards to the West Bank v Gaza, Fatah v Hamas, framing of current policy. The Paris conference’s co-chair, Norway, along with several EU and Arab states all favour renewed efforts at Palestinian internal reconciliation and dialogue, considering this to be the most propitious route to stability, security, economic growth and a meaningful peace process. The US, Israel and other key European states rigidly adhere to a divide and rule approach that is very likely to bring both economic and political prospects crashing down together.

For Europeans in particular the post-Annapolis reality contains a further twist of the knife. In Paris the EU and its member states confirmed their historical role as by far the largest donors to the Palestinians; in Annapolis the Europeans were effectively excluded from the political process with the creation of US rather than Quartet follow-up and monitoring mechanisms. We are back to Europe as payer not player. Europeans (and others) are being asked to place their faith and taxpayer dollars in a political process from which they are not only excluded, but not even given the face-saving semblance of having a role via the Quartet. A peace process that was designed to deliver would likely strengthen the Quartet partnership, not emaciate it.

If these flaws are not addressed, then the results of the Paris conference will become the economic accompaniment to the Palestinian state-building process recently described here in Comment is Free by Ahmad Khalidi as one that “does nothing to address basic [Palestinian] needs” and is “largely a punitive construct devised … to constrain Palestinian aspirations”. And that is a recipe for dissatisfaction all around - of course among Palestinians but also for an already fatigued donor community, and even for an Israel whose insatiable appetite for hollow victories is so clogging up its arteries that it threatens self-destruction.

Presentation by Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir
Executive Director, PGPO

International Islamic Fair 2007, Kuala Lumpur

‘Dreaming of Global Peace’

o Mr. /Madam Chairperson, Mr./Madam Moderator, distinguished panellists and friends: Assalamu???alaikum and good morning.

o It is a pleasure for me to be here and to deliver a presentation on an issue that is both, dear to us all, and urgent: global peace.

o The topic that was originally assigned to me was ???Dreaming of Global Peace???. However, I realised that the term ???dreaming?? itself can be problematic when discussing global peace.

o Indeed, it is important to dream. To dream is to have a vision and aspiration. And it is through vision and aspiration for a desired future outcome that we derive a course of action. To dream, therefore, is necessary.

o But we have passed that stage of dreaming, ladies and gentlemen. We already know what we want. We want peace and a civilised world order. Now is no longer the time to dream, but the time to act.

o Nuclear expert, Dr. Helen Caldicott, who was a speaker from the first Conference organised by the Perdana Global Peace Oraganisation here in Kuala Lumpur, said that there is a psychological explanation to the state of apathy within civil society when it comes to issues related to war.

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o The first is what some academics in the field call ???perception of diminished risk??, where people feel that danger ??“ in this case war or nuclear threat ??“ is increasingly distant from their daily lives. For example, for people in the United States and Western Europe in the years following the end of the Second World War. The perception of diminished risk, in other words, creates apathy.

o The second is fear. This is when people are so fearful they simply cannot act. For example, in a case of a terror attack where people become so scared they were virtually paralysed. Perhaps this was the psychological state of Baghdadis that first night the U.S. air force rained its shock-and-awe bombs on their city.

o Lifton, a psychiatrist who studied Hiroshima survivors, also talks of ???psychic numbing??. This is a state where people are not apathetic or frightened. They simply do not care. Interestingly, he associates this state of mind to the continuous exposure of nuclear threat and war in the media.

o To illustrate, allow me to read a few lines from celebrated anti-war journalist John Pilger???s latest article, whose work can be found in the New Statesman ??“

???Orwell???s Nineteen Eighty-Four lexicon of opposites pervades almost everything we see, hear and read now. The invaders and destroyers are “the British coalition forces”, surely as benign as that British institution, St John Ambulance, who are “bringing democracy” to Iraq. BBC television describes Israel as having ???two hostile Palestinian entities on its borders,?? neatly inverting the truth that Israel is actually inside Palestinian borders!

On Iran he says,

???The coming war on Iran, including the possibility of a nuclear attack, has already begun as a war by journalism. Count the number of times “nuclear weapons programme” and “nuclear threat” are spoken and written, yet neither exists, says the International Atomic Energy Agency. On 21 June, the New York Times went further and advertised an “urgent” poll, headed: “Should we bomb Iran?” The questions beneath referred to Iran being “a greater threat than Saddam Hussein” and asked: “Who should undertake military action against Iran first?

The choice was US. Israel or Neither country, so tick your favourite bombers.??

o In other words, we are overdosed by news and pictures of armed conflict, as well as the imminent threat of nuclear war, so much so that we become numb to the issues ??“ and if I may say, the real threat and how really close we are to an all-out global conflict.

o While we???re in this state of psychic numbness however, the industrial-military complex apparatus continues to produce and develop weapons of mass destruction, therefore perpetuating a global arms race.

o The Wider Asia-Pacific area is again engaged in a renewed quiet jostling for political influence, belligerent military posturing, and hard nosed economic negotiations. The US is again pulling the strings. Also, the recent Indian Navy???s joint exercises with its Asia-Pacific counterparts seem to suggest the activation of a once powerful but then dormant power.

o Those recent naval manoeuvres are just the latest in what has been a series of power projection developments in the last few months pointing to a new round of power balancing that is shaping a new, highly competitive multi-polar regional security order.

o Thus, the effect is that multilateral agreements arrangements signed and sealed by many nations in the Asia-Pacific area promising them greater security could be seriously undermined.

o The signs of a new ???power play??? encompassing both the Asian land mass and its maritime peripheries are numerous. Naval and military exercises are reported everyday in the mainstream media.

o The United States is now moving aggressively to resuscitate its postwar bilateral alliance system in the region into a so called ???axis of democracies???.

o The U.S. India civil nuclear agreement and enhanced intelligence cooperation between those two countries, stepped-up security collaboration between Australia and Japan and the expansion of U.S. counterterrorism cooperation with a number of Southeast Asian States (Including and in particular Malaysia) all underscore Washington???s effort to incorporate the region into its global strategic posture that emphasises victory in a ???long war??? against perceived terrorist threats and anti-democratic forces.

o It also illuminates an enduring American tendency to apply the geometry of Realpolitik as its preferred means for realising its other great strategic interest in the region: to prevent a China growing ever stronger from realising uncontested hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.

o The US is seeking to contain China into a position of ???responsible stakeholder??? if you like in a world order that Washington still maintains and supports.

o The present scenario with India, however, as the region???s ???other rising power??? that many believe will soon be capable of balancing Chinese power or hegemony in Asia. India???s old elite and new middle class are enjoying being courted again. We remember that it was only in the 1950s, when Jawarharlal Nehru was in his prime and V. K. Krishna Menon gave marathon speeches at the United Nations, on India???s ???non-alignment??? commanded interest around the world (much to the sighs of soporific despair from Western diplomats). But after India???s defeat by China in the 1962 war, India remained at the background of the international stage.

o For more than 30 years, India was marginal to international politics and economics. The rise of China, however, has put India back to the centre of a stage it occupied with China in the 1950s and early 1960s.

o The recent exercises in eastern waters with navies from Japan, Russia, the USA, the Philippines, Vietnam and even China are welcome recognition that India is ??“ and revels in being - a genuine world power. Those exercises have also enabled India???s chief external-affairs bureaucrat, Shiv Shankar Menon, to point out that he ???needs more people???: the Chinese are out-negotiating India around the world so India needs a larger foreign service. New Dehli has developed a keen sense of appreciation for the advantages of smoothing integrating ???hard power??? in the form of military prowess and economic clout with ???soft power??? attributes provided by concerted diplomacy. Its ability to drive a hard bargain with the U.S. on the two countries with regards to the civil nuclear power agreement is a case-in-point.

o Therefore, without doubt, India and China are super-powers in the making and are being played in a geo-political game puppeteered by the US. Hegemomy by proxy is the name of the game for the region.

o The flaming quagmire that is Iraq fired up by the wisdom among neoconservatives are now blaming Bush???s incompetence for the failing state.

o They are pointing the finger of blame towards the Bush administration’s operational mistakes and bureaucratic dysfunction to explain why things went awry. More troops are needed argue some while, returning Iraqi exiles, presumably such as Ahmad Chalabi, should have been handed power straight away, argued others.

o Well it is convenient to lay the blame squarely on the Bush administration’s implementation of its Iraq policy. However, to try to make such a clean distinction between an idea and its execution is misguided. There was complete incompetence and miscalculations from the onset. This is now a proven fact. The miscalculations were the product of a conceptual failure about how the Middle East’s political landscape could be altered by the projection of military force to serve U.S. interests in the region. The conceptual failure has its basis in false assumptions, lack of understanding about the region itself, arrogance and the disregard for the sanctity for human life.

o After the 9/11 tragedy, the Bush administration took the worldview chanted by neoconservatives that projecting military power into the heart of the Arab world to reassert U.S. dominance, beginning with an invasion of Iraq was necessary to reshape the new world order. With Saddam Hussein overthrown, America’s other enemies , in and around the so called ???axis of evil??? that ruled Iran and Syria as well as alleged terrorist cells/organizations such as al-Qaida, Hamas, and Hezbollah ??“ could be wiped off from the face of the earth. A new order would emerge out of the subsequent political vacuum, characterized by the empowerment of a pro-American democratic polity favourable towards U.S. strategic interests.

o In a speech in August 2002, Vice President Richard Cheney encapsulated the broader ideological rationale the Bush administration used for invading Iraq. He stated that: Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. . . . When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. . . . Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

o It was as if neoconservatives thought the assortment of West Asian bad guys were all on the same team, and taking out the coach– Saddam Hussein — would demoralize the rest of the players: hardline Iranian clerics, Syrian Baathists, Palestinian and other Sunni Arab militants and terrorists, and Lebanese Shiite extremists

o And so it was devised that with a more aggressive Middle East policy in place, the strategic leverage of the United States would be greatly enhanced in a region that possesses two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves. Israel’s strategic advantage would be heightened as well, forcing the Palestinians to make peace on Israel’s terms. Inherent in the application of this theory of fallacy is the belief that U.S. military superiority confers a moral authority for the United States to use such power projection as it deems fit. And when it is exercised the desired results will follow.

o The harsh reality is now dawning upon the Americans. Might is not right.

o Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as: “Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including… wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, …taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”

o In Iraq, we see elements of all these things. The willful nature of the occupying forces to kill and destroy a sovereign nation. Every day, 100s die in car bombs and roadside shootings. The U.S has reduced Iraq to a country where its citizens die on the way to the market and mosques. They have reduced a country which once was the cradle of civilization to rubble in their quest for oil.

o Today, we have almost forgotten that Afghanistan was bombed to bits by the Americans just 6 years ago. There is no system there, there is no government in the legal sense. All there is are American soldiers who have no idea what they???re doing. They shoot and blow up everything in their way, as their superiors have given up on Afghanistan. They???ve been looking for Osama bin Laden, a man with no functioning kidneys for 6 years, and every 3 months, they show the world a video by Osama to indicate that he is still a danger to the world.

o No doubt, the Geneva Convention is a fabulous piece of legislation. It is exhaustive, but unfortunately, it is not effective. What is the use of us having a set of rules that apply as and when the superior nations intend to use it? Why is it that this legislation fails to prosecute soldiers who rape and kill civilians in an illegal war? Why is it that its words do not mean anything to people like Bush and Blair who have wantonly created a world where might is right?

o After World War 2, the allied forces agreed that the Axis countries were to be tried for war crimes. The London Charter set down the laws and procedures in which these war criminals were to be tried. Three categories of crimes were defined, war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.

o This led to the Nuremberg trials, where some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice.

o A little known fact however is that the U.S had secretly imported Nazi rocket scientists from Germany to work on NASA projects instead of sending them on trial. Around 118 Nazi rocket engineers came to the United States after the war. The scientists included Wernher von Braun, the father of the American rocket program and Arthur Rudolph, a key figure in the Apollo Project at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s principal installations.

o It is indeed a mockery when people???s courts for justice are called kangaroo courts, when the first war crimes commission was a bias attempt at justice. Of course, scores of Nazi soldiers were prosecuted, but what about these scientists whose brains were obviously more valuable to the allied forces.

o We at Perdana Global Peace Organisation have initiated a public effort, to create and observe a war crimes tribunal and commission. At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that an individual can be held responsible for the actions of a country or that nation’s soldiers. We need all the support we can get to make this initiative a success. It does not matter, that the war criminals will never physically stand trial in the people???s courts, what is important is that they go down in history as criminals and not saviours.

o

o Many feel that a people movement on anti-war is bound to fail. Many look at it with a sarcastic tone. I can???t start to tell you how powerful our voices can be. Just this month, Bush had issued a presidential Executive Order entitled ???”Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq”.

o This essentially means the Executive Order provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of whoever opposes the US led war. The Executive Order criminalizes the antiwar movement. It is intended to “blocking property” of US citizens and organisations actively involved in the peace movement.

o This goes to show just how worried and shaken up the American administration is about the anti-war movement. They are trying to put up all sorts of legal barricades to stop and frighten people from opposing the war. The existence of this order is in itself a victory to the people. It goes to show that their actions and voices are forcing these war criminals to resort to desperate policies.

o Ladies and gentlemen, if Al Gore can inspire us to halt global warming, why can???t we aspire instead to fight for the end of all wars?

o In a person???s lifetime, there aren???t many chances to make a truly defining moment that impacts on the lives of others. For each and everyone of us, let that moment be today in which we commit ourselves towards the struggle to put an end to all wars.

o I???d like to conclude with this famous line by Edward Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing