Odyssey Network Campaigns for “A Million Minutes for Peace”
By Juontel White
The United Nations has declared September 21 as the International Day of Peace. Odyssey Networks, the nation’s largest coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups “dedicated to building bridges of understanding through media” has launched a multimedia campaign titled “A Million Minutes for Peace.”
The national television component consists of one-hour documentary films about peace-building to be aired every Sunday at 7 a.m. ET/PT through September 20 on the network’s Hallmark channel.
These documentaries include public service announcements, one of which features messages from young survivors of war.
The online campaign is focused on securing one million pledges to pray for peace. Individuals are invited to visit the website and pledge that at noon on September 21, they will pause for one minute and pray for peace.
In addition, there is a special youth-oriented page with the theme “I Pledge Peace” on Facebook.
And the website contains blogs from notable peace activists, discussion forums, original webisodes and several videos produced by the United Nations, available for viewing at Odyssey’s Video Peace Festival.
http://www.odysseynetworks.org/Causes/Peace/tabid/178/Default.aspx
Israel and Egypt’s Collaborative Efforts
By Juontel White
Israel and Egyptian tensions have amounted to a “cold peace” according to a Jerusalem Post columnist. “An Israeli is not the type of person that you want all your neighbors to know you’re dating,” chuckled former Israeli negotiator and Bar-Ilan University political science professor, Menachem Klein, according to the Jerusalem Post. But the mutual desire of containing Iran’s nuclear abilities is the common ground on which the two countries are seeking to collaborate.
Israel and Egypt: Closer than expected
By ASHRAF KHALIL
Israelis like to call it the “cold peace.” Egyptians would rather not call it anything at all because that would be like admitting there’s actually something there to name.
For years the exact extent of political and economic cooperation between the two neighbors has been a subject of hot-button speculation and the occasional press campaign in Cairo. The government of President Hosni Mubarak, whose predecessor Anwar Sadat signed the 1978 Camp David Accords, generally tries to keep the specifics of the two countries’ relationship low-key, only admitting it when things become too obvious to deny.
“An Israeli is not the type of person that you want all your neighbors to know you’re dating,” chuckled Menachem Klein, a former Israeli negotiator and Bar-Ilan University political science professor.
Several years ago, a former Egyptian agriculture minister fended off a prolonged opposition media campaign calling him a secret normalizer for his ministry’s working relationship with its Israeli counterpart.
Popular reaction was straight out of the movie Casablanca: people were shocked to discover something that most regional observers already saw as patently obvious. More recently, the local press has accused the government of selling natural gas to Israel for sweetheart prices.
Egyptians in general do know that there are extensive economic and agricultural ties with Israel, but prefer not to think too hard about it. (A personal example: when I first moved to Jerusalem in February 2008 as a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, my Egyptian relatives were genuinely curious as to what route I used to visit Cairo. They honestly had no idea that there are multiple EgyptAir and El Al flights every week between Cairo and Tel Aviv.) But now, something seems to be changing in the usual don’t ask/don’t tell nature of the Egyptian-Israeli partnership. It’s becoming harder for Cairo to hide the fact that its foreign policy interests are more in line with Tel Aviv than ever. The main source of common ground is a mutual desire to contain Iran’s regional and nuclear ambitions.
Both governments have arrived at this place via different routes.
Israel fears an Iranian nuclear capability will challenge its own (nominally secret) nuclear arsenal and open the door to a devastating attack on the Jewish state. Egypt doesn’t fear Iran militarily, but dreads the gradual expansion of revolutionary Shi’ite ideology into the Sunni sphere.
Egypt’s own bilateral relations with Teheran are fraught with tension -partially stemming from Iran’s insistence on glorifying Sadat’s assassins. “The way Iran acts has actually pulled [Egypt and Israel] closer together,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Israeli political analyst.
This common interest has already produced some interesting public displays of cooperation. Earlier this summer, an Israeli submarine passed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, touching off a weeklong media firestorm in Egypt. Israeli warships have traversed the canal for years, but this was the first submarine passage. The hype surrounding the event was only intensified by the fact that no one seems to know for sure the exact capabilities of the German-made Dolphin class sub.
Egyptian officials were generally tight-lipped, saying that the two countries have a peace treaty and the canal is open for all nations.
But Israeli media openly declared the passage a coordinated message aimed directly at Teheran. “They want Iran to realize that nothing is impossible,” Javedanfar said. Does that include a scenario where Egypt actively assists an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran? Nobody is sure and Javedanfar says that is exactly how both governments want it.
The submarine passage was far more than a symbolic show of cooperation. Usage of the Suez Canal would enable the Israeli navy to quickly get in position for a naval strike or blockade against Iranian ports. Without the canal, Israeli ships would have to make a weeks-long voyage around Africa in order to attack Iranian shores.
Emad Gad, an expert on Israeli policy with Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, warns not to read too much into the submarine incident. “There may be some Egyptian cooperation,” with Israel, he says. “But it hasn’t reached the level of joint planning.” Gad believes Egypt’s permitting the submarine to use the canal, “was more for the Americans than for the Israelis”.
The two countries still have just as many points of conflict as they do areas of common interest. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a sore spot, with each government seemingly pulling in opposite directions. Egypt has worked (unsuccessfully) for years to produce a reconciliation and unity government between Hamas and Fatah – something that Israel staunchly opposes.
Earlier this month, President Mubarak lobbied US President Barack Obama to push Israel for an immediate jump to final-status negotiations with the Palestinians. That would essentially be a direct repudiation of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to delay final status talks for years while building up the economy and infrastructure of the occupied West Bank.
Paul-Andre Wilton is a Program Assistant for SFCG Africa
Power to the People: Struggles for Democracy and Electricity in Guinea
On his latest album – Radio Libre – the Ivorian musician Tiken Jah Fakoly sings about the nightly power cuts in the Guinean capital, and the stoical response of the local people. “Conakry: Electricity;” he muses, “Everyone has their turn – like going to the hairdressers.”
SFCG team at a radio station in Macenta, Guinea
His song, both humorous and sad also captures another key sentiment among the Guinean people: awareness. Things should be a lot better in this country and people know it.
“I’m sick of hearing about how things are going well in Burkina Faso, or Mali,” said one participant at an SFCG governance training in June, “we should be one of the richest countries in the region. In Guinea it’s always about good plans, but we never get the results, and we all know why.”
The “why” is a history of state corruption, nepotism and a massive theft of public finances by the ruling elite. In January 2007, this exploded into popular protests and a national strike, which led to clashes with security forces and left more than 100 dead. The word on everyone’s lips then was ‘Changement!’ – (change).
It was what people desperately wanted but could not get. And then suddenly in December last year things did change – or so it seemed. The old president who represented the worst of the country for over two decades died in his sleep, and the military took power in a coup.
Since then, the question everyone has been trying to answer is whether the change is real or simply cosmetic. The military junta led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara took power promising only a caretaker government with plans to organize free elections before the end of 2010 and a hand over to civilian rule.
Overview of Macenta, Guinea
Facing an outcry from the international community and resistance from the new political parties, a revised timetable for elections before the end of this year was proposed by civil society and accepted by the government in March, but since then very little has happened to make these elections a reality.
Instead, the government has focused on raising concerns about security, first by highlighting the very real networks of drug traffickers that had corroded the state over the past decade then talking up the threat from foreign back rebel groups, and even Al-Qaida. So far none of these claims have been verified by independent observers.
The choice between security and elections, increasingly discussed in Guinea, is a false one. There is a fear in Guinea that if a civilian government to take charge, the army would fracture into splinter groups, each looking to collude with drug traffickers for easy money, or worse—arm themselves and lunge for power bringing to Guinea the type of long and brutal civil war that nearly destroyed her neighbors in the region.
This threat is real, but without a government that is accountable to the people, there is no guarantee that the security and safety of the people can be ensured, and there is no recourse to remove a government that chooses not to put the best interests of the population first.
Legitimacy is not just important because it opens a country up to international financial support as seems to be the thought among African rulers, but it is crucial because it means a government has the mandate to carry out reforms, often against the interests of powerful individuals and groups.
Moreover, it means the priorities for change have been validated for action, conferring power and moral authority on the government to get things done. For governments to be legitimate however, elections alone are not enough.
What is also required is a real choice, an informed electorate, and public and private institutions strong enough to ensure that the choices favored by the people are realized.
SFCG in Guinea is heavily involved in helping prepare the country for elections and so has a clear position when it comes to the question of whether polls should occur and how they should take place. Our preference is for dialogue between the civil society and the state so that a realistic timetable for a transition to democracy can be agreed upon and fears that the junta will hold onto power can be allayed.
This is not, however, just about a conversation between elites. In my time here I have been struck by how hungry ordinary people around the country are for real political debate. A boom in private radio over the past three years has created new opportunities for public discourse and SFCG and other NGOs have worked hard to ensure that the space and information exists for ordinary voices to be heard discussing the challenges their country faces.
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Crowds returning from a Pro Government rally in N'Zerekore July 4, 2009
Guineans need little encouragement to take part. Working in the forest city of N’Zérékoré recently, I heard an animated discussion between young men drinking coffee on the day of a large government rally.
While one was praising the new president for being a strong man ‘sent by god’, others were pointing out that whatever his personal abilities, the country needed a civilian government to focus on development, leaving the military to focus on doing the job they’re hired to do.
Apart from the depth of the debate, what impressed me most was the manner in which it was conducted. The men often passionately disagreed with another, but nonetheless gave each other the time to express themselves. One even took it upon himself to play the role of moderator, hushing those who would interrupt someone before they had a chance to explain their point of view.
What this showed me was, just as the United States was infused with a burst of energy around the 2008 presidential elections, Guinea is ready for a revitalised political life. The comparison between the situations is not lost on Guineans either. Like in much of Africa, Obama has become a folk hero, with restaurants, cafes, hair salons and bars all named after him. No Guinean politician can claim to have that kind of popular appeal just yet.
Real frustrations remain about the quality of the political class, riddled with cronies of the former president and dizzyingly hard to fathom with over 80 political parties to sort through. Nevertheless what is clear is that after long years of dictatorship the public knows it’s time for them to have their say about the direction their country takes. The lights have come back on, “Conakry: Electricity”…this time its Guinea’s turn.
Sophie Tholstrup is an intern with Search for Common Ground Rwanda
The Power of Media in Promoting Peace—Part 1
This summer, I was lucky enough to attend a release ceremony at Mutobo demobilization camp in northern Rwanda. The Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) is responsible for the camps, which prepare combatants to return to civilian life.
After years of fighting in the eastern Congolese forests, several hundred ex-combatants had completed three months of training intended to prepare them for civilian life. That day they would return to the villages they had fled after the 1994 genocide, in order to live and work peacefully alongside neighbors of all ethnicities.
In a corrugated iron barn, the ex-combatants stood in neat rows. On command, they pumped the air with their fists and shouted in unison: “Genocide ideology: we fight it, destroy it and send it to hell!”
Most of those present today fought for the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a militia composed largely of Hutu refugees who fled Rwanda in the final days of the 1994 genocide. Some feared retribution for committing crimes of genocide, others had been forced across the border to act as a human shield.
It is difficult to imagine these people who now laugh, dance, and sing, earnestly affirming their commitment to lead peaceful lives in the service of Rwanda–once fighting in a militia that used rape and mutilation as weapons of war and which aimed to overthrow the Rwandan government.
While some of the ex-combatants were captured and brought here by force, many chose to return to their native Rwanda voluntarily.
Brigadier General Jerome Ngendahimana, deputy commander of the recent joint operations between the Rwandan and Congolese armies, is himself a former FDLR general. He explained that the major challenge in the ongoing repatriation efforts is the misinformation propagated by genocidaires in the FDLR. FDLR commanding officers often discourage their troops from returning home, tell them that will mean imprisonment, social exile and even death.
“These people (the genocidaires) know they have much to lose if they return – they will be tried for their crimes during the genocide” he said, “so they try to keep their troops there around them, like a shield.”
Rwanda continues its repatriation efforts, using radio broadcasts as well as encouraging the recently repatriated to communicate with those still in the Congo, in hopes of countering the misinformation and convincing combatants that returning to Rwanda is a safe and viable option.
Read Part 2 here.
