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Peacebuild is a network of Canadian organizations and individuals engaged in activities related to addressing the causes and consequences of violent conflict.
FEATURED MEMBERMartin Fischer
Martin Fischer is a doctoral candidate at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA). His doctoral dissertation investigates the UN Security Council’s decision-making process on the authorization of UN peace operations to use military force to protect civilians. Martin has worked for a broad spectrum of organizations involved in the prevention and management of conflict. His early assignments were with the Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung in Ethiopia and the Friedrich Naumann-Stiftung in Indonesia. More recently, he was part of an international team tasked by the UNDP’s Crimea Integration and Development Programme to conduct a series of training workshops for members of Crimea’s Human Security Council. His most recent publication, co-authored with David Carment, “R2P and the Role of Regional Organisations in Ethnic Conflict Management, Prevention and Resolution: The Unfinished Agenda”, will appear in the third issue of Global R2P. Within Peacebuild, Martin is involved with the Conflict Prevention Working Group. He is the CPWG's representative to the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict's (GPPAC) Early Warning and Early Response task force.
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Nicholas Street, Tel:
(613) 241-3446 info@peacebuild.ca Should you not wish to receive this eNewsletter, please contact media@peacebuild.ca
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Bashir “Becoming Burden”
A minister with the president’s National Congress Party, NCP, said that members were left reeling by the announcement of an arrest warrant issued against Bashir by ICC judges on March 4 for atrocities in Darfur. “We received the court’s decision [to indict Bashir] in shock and disbelief without having any specific strategy to face it,” said the minister, under conditions of anonymity. He told IWPR (Institute for War & Peace Reporting) that tentative discussions have begun about who should replace Bashir as head of state. “[The party is] trying to appear united in public, but I am afraid this is not the case,” he said. ICC prosecutors allege that for the last five years, Bashir has mobilised the country’s armed forces, intelligence agencies, diplomatic services, media and the justice system in an attempt to destroy the population of Darfur. An estimated 300,000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict, and 2.5 million are living in displacement camps.
War and Peacekeepers Al Jazeera Examines Problems
The UN first came to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960, soon after the country won its independence and the new government asked for the world body's help in restoring order and protecting Congo from outside interference. Currently there are UN peacekeeping operations running in 16 different locations, throughout five continents from Haiti to Timor and 120 countries contribute 100,000 troops who are paid out of the UN’s annual budget of $7.1 billion. Costing more than one billion dollars and known as MONUC, Congo is the organisation’s most expensive mission. The country is larger than Europe, but has no infrastructure and has had no competent army since independence.
Sustainable Security in Afghanistan
Caritas Launches
Access Caritas' Peacebuilding web toolkit
The Impact of Multimedia
Peacebuild currently has four Working Groups and one Forum that bring together members interested in particular thematic areas of activity. The Sudan InterAgency Reference Group and the Afghanistan Reference Group are also key mechanisms for NGO-governmental interaction promoted by Peacebuild.
What Role for Canada in the Americas? On March 25, 2009, CCIC's Americas Policy Group (APG) held a full-day roundtable entitled "What Role for Canada in the Americas? Meeting the Challenges of Human Rights, Democratic Development and Economic Justice in a Time of Global Crisis." Participants came from Canadian NGOs and unions active in Latin America, with speakers from Canadian Afghanistan Reference Group Access to Education in Nothern Afghanistan On March 27, 2009, the Afghanistan Reference Group and invited guests from CIDA and DFAIT met with Marianne Mollman, Advocacy Director for the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch (HRW). HRW had conducted a study on the access of girls to secondary education in Northern
For more information about the CPWG and its activities, please contact Silke Reichrath at: prevention@peacebuild.ca
Ken Epps of Project Ploughshares and member of the Small Arms Working Group traveled to New York on March 6 to attend the week-long First Session of the Open-Ended Working Group on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) at the United Nations. Ken attended as member of the ATT Steering Committee, the civil society network promoting an ATT. Monitoring Bill 301 Project on Mexican Violence
For more information about the SAWG and its activities, please contact Maribel Gonzales at: mgonzales@ploughshares.ca
There Is No Congo An interesting and provocative article by Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills in Foreign Policy Magazine.
Much of Congo's intractability stems from a vast territory that is sparsely populated but packed with natural resources. A mostly landlocked expanse at the heart of Africa, Congo comprises 67 million people from more than 200 ethnic groups. The country is bordered by nine others -- among them some of the continent's weakest states. A local Kiswahili saying holds, "Congo is a big country -- you will eat it until you tire away!" And indeed, for centuries, this is precisely what Congo's colonial occupiers, its neighbors, and even some of its people have done: eaten away at Congo's vast mineral wealth with little concern for the coherency of the country left behind. Congo has none of the things that make a nation-state: interconnectedness, a government that is able to exert authority consistently in territory beyond the capital, a shared culture that promotes national unity, or a common language. Instead, Congo has become a collection of peoples, groups, interests, and pillagers who coexist at best. Congo today is a product of its troubled history: a century of brutal colonialism, 30 years of Cold War meddling and misrule under U.S. ally Mobutu Sese Seko, and more than a decade of war following his ouster in 1997. That conflict, which embroiled much of southern Africa, brought rebel leader Laurent Kabila, a one-time revolutionary colleague of Che Guevara, to power. Kabila was assassinated just a few short years later, leaving his son, Joseph Kabila, in office in Kinshasa, Congo's ostensible capital...continue For more information about the POWG and its activities, please contact Clare Morris at: powg@peacebuild.ca Resources to Support Youth Engagement
Contact: Linda Dale, CAP Director, ldale@web.ca For more information about the Forum and its activities, please contact Guillaume Landry at: g.landry@ibcr.org.
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Despite their united front, some Sudanese politicians are saying privately that President Omar al-Bashir is becoming a burden for the country since being indicted by the International Criminal Court, ICC.
There is a fundamental mismatch between the civilian and military aspects of American power—a mismatch that undermines the pursuit of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the effective implementation of foreign assistance programs across the spectrum of conflict. The Center for American Progress sponsored a simulation exercise to assess the impact of various foreign assistance reforms on the ability of the U.S. government to stabilize countries in crisis, choosing Afghanistan as the crucible. Approximately 20 experts with significant experience in development assistance around the world and in Afghanistan were invited to participate. The exercise was designed to test the hypothesis that reforming key aspects of America’s foreign assistance architecture would significantly improve the government’s ability to foster a stable environment in Afghanistan
Do the changes in technology and user profiles influence the way in which the media report on conflicts - or do they directly influence the way in which a war is fought? What about the impact on peace-building processes and conflict prevention strategies? What are the main challenges for the international media during this technological revolution? How have the expectations of viewers, listeners and users changed, and what is the best way to reach them in the digital age? Deutsche Welle's Global Media Forum 2009 will bring together media users and producers, peace building and conflict prevention specialists, representatives from the fields of media technology and security, public relations, the military, the arms industry as well as members of government and political parties to network and discuss the challenges and solutions for the future. The second Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum will be taking place from June 3-5, 2009 in Bonn, Germany.
and Latin American NGOs and governments. The keynote speakers were Victor Báez, Secretary General of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, and David Abdulah, Chair of the Organizing Committee for the IV Peoples' Summit. From a CPWG perspective, a continuous theme throughout the presentations was the conflict between international business, strengthened by various Free Trade Agreements and government support, and peoples' organizations, including unions (for labour conflicts) and indigenous and other community groups in opposition to mining explorations and other large business projects. The criminalization of protest was highlighted specifically for Mexico, with displacement and assassinations identified as a particular problem in Colombia. Demands were made for human rights protection and for consultation with local populations when business projects are planned.
Afghanistan. The study found that secondary education is important because it allows students access to university, but also to facilitate health literacy and political participation as girls leave primary school barely literate. Only 8% of girls (and 16% of boys) enrol in secondary school, and many girls drop out. Contrary to Western perceptions, Afghan families and communities value girls' education and see it as very important. The main reason for girls' lack of attendance at secondary school are that few girls' or co-ed schools are available, coupled with concerns about safety, appropriate routes for girls to walk, and access to washrooms during the walk (which might take several hours). Other concerns relate to early marriage and having 'trusted' teachers (not necessarily female, but known to the community). Recommendations pointed, among other items, to community consultations about the location of schools, measures to retain teachers long enough to become 'trusted,' staggered hours to open more existing schools to girls, secondary-level classes at primary schools, and outreach to married girls. An in-depth discussion followed about experiences with girls' education, women's rights vs. development approaches to promoting female education (and other rights), and the merits of prioritizing secondary education in contexts where primary education is far from universal. 
The international community needs to recognize a simple, albeit brutal fact: The Democratic Republic of the Congo does not exist. All of the peacekeeping missions, special envoys, interagency processes, and diplomatic initiatives that are predicated on the Congo myth -- the notion that one sovereign power is present in this vast country -- are doomed to fail. It is time to stop pretending otherwise. 
Children/Youth as Peacebuilders (CAP) recently completed a project to support youth engagement and public education on UN Security Council Resolution 1612. With the assistance of the Human Rights and Participation Division at the Canadian International Development Agency, CAP supported young people in Colombia and Northern Uganda to design and implement a variety of public education activities to raise awareness and understanding of 1612. This included skits, art projects, street theatre, school debates, rap, demonstrations – there was no shortage of enthusiasm and imagination. This project and work also proved to be an effective tool for education work on children’s rights and the introduction of basic concepts and principles of human rights. CAP has produced a website and small publication to support the continuation of this work in other conflict situations.  |