Tag Archives: Conflict Resolution

In Indonesia, @America / North Korea Talks / Journalism in the USA

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There’s a new place for cultural exchange in Indonesia. North Korea’s recent provocative action has jeopardized peace and stability in Asia, the U.S., Japan and South Korea say. In Haiti, the U.S. is working to end the cholera outbreak. A new trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea will help both countries. Russian and U.S. authorities join forces in fighting drug trafficking. Jordanians get a lesson in conflict avoidance negotiations. We’ve got a climate control update from COP-16. And, finally, a report on the Edward R. Murrow program for international journalists.

In Indonesia, @america
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In Indonesia, Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy Judith McHale, right, recently attended the opening of the new U.S. cultural center — @america. The center aims to expand engagement between young Indonesians and young Americans through interactive games and live events. McHale described @america as “what we hope will be the first of a new generation of American cultural centers.” 
 
 

New Condemnation for N. Korea
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Recent provocative action by North Korea has jeopardized peace and stability in Asia, foreign ministers from the United States, Japan and South Korea say. Above, left to right, Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan jointly declared that Pyongyang’s “provocative and belligerent behavior … will be met with solidarity from all three countries.”

Fighting Cholera in Haiti
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U.S. officials are “working vigorously” with the Haitian government and international relief agencies in a joint effort to stop Haiti’s cholera outbreak from spreading and to treat the thousands of people already infected.

New U.S.-South Korea Trade Deal
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The proposed U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement helps the United States balance its economy with greater exports and also helps South Korea foster economic growth, President Obama says. At the White House, Obama says the deal will boost U.S. exports by $11 billion and support 70,000 jobs.

U.S., Russia Joint Drug Busts
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In the past year, some notable drug busts have grown out of bilateral cooperation through the Counternarcotics Working Group of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. An important component of resetting the relations between the U.S. and Russia has been in the area of drug trafficking, says Gil Kerlikowske, Director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Learning How to Negotiate
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William Ury, an experienced negotiation adviser and mediator, recently discussed conflict negotiation and mediation with Jordanians via digital video conference. One of the biggest challenges to negotiations, he says, is finding a way to say no that still achieves positive results.

The U.S. Climate Commitment
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Nearly a week into the COP-16 climate conference in Mexico, the U.S. delegation maintains that the United States stands by its commitments from last year’s Copenhagen Accord and remains prepared to move forward. Most important, they say, the United States is showing in real dollars and actions that it is addressing climate change at home and overseas.

International Journalists in the USA
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As part of the U.S. Department of State’s Edward R. Murrow Program for Journalists, 150 journalists from 100 nations spent three weeks in the United States. During their trip, the journalists, left, visited ABC News and had discussions with members of the network’s investigative reporting unit, its main nightly news program and its late-night newsmagazine.

 

Remembering What’s Important

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Statues of weary U.S. soldiers of the Vietnam War watch the tourists reading the names of the fallen from that conflict inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

Statues of weary U.S. soldiers of the Vietnam War watch the tourists reading the names of the fallen from that conflict inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

The National Mall is a place of remembrance – a fact that is impressed upon me every morning as I walk to my office. My daily walk takes me past the National World War II Memorial, the World War I Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln National Memorial, and, of course, the Washington Monument, which dominates the skyline. They all remind me that so many people lived and died to preserve liberty.

That most of the memorials are to those who died in wars leads to the question, “Is war inevitable?” Some scholars say no, and that the spread of democracy has actually reduced the number of wars. What’s important to remember is that even though millions have died in the cause of liberty, today millions can live in liberty. Better global communications, increased educational opportunities, and increased emphasis on human rights, understanding and cooperation are among the modern tools that can preserve peace and freedom.

Challenges to Democracy: Thailand's Example

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Like any political system, democracies face challenges.  Corruption, political apathy, and gender inequality are just some of the issues that can hurt the strength of a democracy. 

Thailand’s democracy is facing challenges of its own recently, with clashes between protesters and the government resulting in violence in the streets, and even some deaths.  No one can be certain where this will all lead, or when it will end.  What will be the result?  Will Thai democracy survive?  And what will it look like on the other side?

Democracy here in the United States has faced tough times as well.  There have been presidential assassinations, a civil war that nearly broke the country apart, and an electoral system that excluded women and African-Americans.  But Americans have worked through these challenges and our democratic system has survived.     

Can upheaval happen anywhere?  And why do some democracies survive the challenges while others do not?

Rival Power-Sharing

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I have been watching, with great enthusiasm, as British politicking has led to the formation of a new government with Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative party and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat.

The two have long been rivals. Cameron admitted he once answered, when asked what his favorite joke was, “Nick Clegg.” And yet, thanks to a power-sharing deal, they are now the team to lead their country.

It makes me wonder, how would American politics be different today if the president had to share power with his former electoral rival? Imagine if John McCain were Barack Obama’s vice president?

It initially was supposed to be that way. The second place finisher was to become vice president. It didn’t work out so well. In 1796, Federalist John Adams became president and Thomas Jefferson of the Democrat-Republican party won the vice presidency. In office, Jefferson saw his role to be that of an opposition leader and spent much of his time planning his campaign against Adams in the next election – which he won.

Jefferson didn’t have it much easier when he was president. His vice president, Aaron Burr, though of the same party, was not a fan of Jefferson, having lost the presidential race to him. One of the few constitutional duties of the vice president is to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Angry with Jefferson, Burr cast tie-breaking votes that went against the president’s wishes.

In 1804, Jefferson led the effort to pass the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which requires presidential and vice presidential candidates to run together on a ticket.

It will be interesting to see how British politics unfolds under this new leadership. Do you think Cameron and Clegg can put their rivalry aside for the sake of governing?

Burma's NLD: One Month to Live?

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[image src="http://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/3234/Week_2/041410_AP09092705364_300.jpg" caption="NLD party members welcome guests to a 2009 anniversary celebration wearing trademark T-shirts bearing a white star and fighting peacock. " align="left"]

The Burmese public received an official apology from the country’s leading pro-democracy political party, the National League for Democracy, which is led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.   We want to “officially apologize to the public for our failed policies in the struggle for democracy,” an April 6 NLD statement said, attributing its failure to unilateral oppression by the military authorities.  Now the party faces dissolution under controversial election laws set by the ruling military junta.

Founded in 1988, the party won a landslide victory in Burma’s last general election, which was held in 1990.  However, the country’s military regime refused to let the NLD take power, and ever since its members have faced persecution from the regime, ranging from intimidation to arrests.  Suu Kyi herself has been held in jail or under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.

The military regime announced laws for a new round of elections set for later this year, but Suu Kyi and thousands of other dissenters have been barred from participating.  The NLD announced March 29 it would not register to participate in the election, citing “unfair and unjust laws” surrounding the process.

The 22-year-old movement faces a critical dilemma.  It can revisit its decision and participate in an election that is almost certain to be unfair, and risk giving the results some legitimacy, or it can continue on its path to boycott the process and be forced to go completely underground.  The junta has declared that any party that does not register for the election before May 7 faces dissolution.

Rank-and-file NLD party members are apparently divided upon what to do.  Some may decide to form a separate pro-democracy party in order to contest seats in the election and have continued, if limited, official sanction to operate, while others say they want the party to continue its work outside the political sphere through social welfare activities, humanitarian aid work, and cooperation with opposition allies.  It will also be working to urge voters to boycott the proposed vote.

The NLD says it wants to continue its nonviolent advocacy for Burmese democracy.  What would you advise it to do?

The Storm of a Century: A History Lesson

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We here in Washington, D.C., are still crawling out from under one of the worst winter storms on record for the area. As of last Wednesday, the winter of 2009-2010 broke the record for snowfall in the greater D.C. area. The previous record was 54.4 inches (1.38 meters) during the winter of 1898-1899.

Given how much hassle we’ve had getting the city back up and running in 2010 — the federal government was officially closed for four days last week due to snow conditions — it made me think about what was happening in D.C. 111 years ago during that previous record-holding season.

A quick trip to the Internet helped jog my memory of American history, and it turns out the winter of 1898-1899 was actually pretty important. William McKinley was halfway through his first term as president (though elected to a second term in 1901, McKinley was assassinated shortly thereafter and did not get to serve much of it), and the country was at war with Spain.

A sketch of the U.S.S. Maine explosion

A sketch of the U.S.S. Maine explosion

On February 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded while docked in Havana harbor, killing 266 American sailors. The press at the time publicly blamed Spanish officials for the explosion and fueled a reactionary public with sensationalized stories of atrocities committed by the Spanish in Cuba. These stories were part of the “yellow journalism” of the time that favored rumors, exaggerations or even outright lies to generate eye-catching headlines.

One popular story about the role the press played in stirring up public sentiment for the Spanish-American War has William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New York Journal, telling his correspondent in Cuba, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” That story is probably more legend than truth, but it encapsulates the spirit of the runaway yellow press nicely.

But in the winter of 1898, presumably between blizzards, representatives from the United States and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, and the U.S. Senate ratified it February 6, 1899. The treaty ended the Spanish-American War, with Spain ceding Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to the United States.

The Maine incident, incidentally, had also helped push a joint resolution through Congress earlier in the year annexing Hawaii. There were many petitions protesting annexation, and the effort had already failed under the previous president, Benjamin Harrison — but you can read more about that history elsewhere.

Obviously, there were larger geopolitical strategies in play here, and the colonial policies that came out of the Treaty of Paris created many problems. Still, one year in which the United States took over Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii? A year that set a snowfall record that would not be broken for 111 years? Maybe the politicians of the late 1890s were just looking for a warmer place to get away from the winter weather. I know I sure am.

United and Now Stronger, Their Loss Is Now Our Gain

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(I’m listening to “A Few Good Men” by the Dropkick Murphys)

The World Cup 2010 draw is out as of December 4, and fans of the qualifying national teams will begin to closely assess the strengths and weaknesses of the others in their group in an effort to predict if they will make it past the first round.

International football and globalization are intertwined, with some of the most talented players and coaches leaving their homelands for opportunities in faraway lands. As an American, I definitely can’t complain. For example, the LA Galaxy got David Beckham, along with his wife, Posh Spice. It was like a two-for-one deal for us. As for “exports,” American Afshin Gotbi was picked to coach Iran’s national team back in April.

But in the World Cup, everyone gets repatriated back home, and the usual regional and internal football rivalries take a back seat to the full-scale international competition. It’s not just an interesting time for football. It’s also a great time to be an amateur political scientist, witnessing the interplay of nationalist and patriotic fervor in the fans.

The World Cup is a “war game,” says Swiss anthropologist Fabrizio Sabelli. But that’s not a bad thing, he says. Societies sometimes need to rediscover “a sort of collective feeling shared at a celebration and above all the thought of a potential victory.” And after the World Cup is over, “no one talks about it anymore and people get back to their daily lives.”

Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomes the national pride spurred by the World Cup and wants to see it channeled into improving human development indicators in each country.

However, during the last World Cup in 2006, Expatica.com journalist David Gordon Smith was alarmed at expressions of nationalism and patriotism. There is a “blind unquestioning loyalty” toward the state at work here, he says, and history has shown that the state will effectively tap into that reservoir when it wants to wage war. Plus, in this age of globalization, if you are a non-citizen, you automatically become an outsider whenever you are surrounded by patriotic fervor.

Tufts University Professor Daniel Drezner offers arguments in favor and against World Cup patriotism in his 2006 Washington Post article. The University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy likewise sees the sport as having “the power both to unite the people of the world in a shared passion, and to divide citizens of opposing countries in unfettered nationalist zeal.”

What do you think? Is the patriotism that gets fueled every four years by the World Cup a good or a bad thing? Is it just a game, or when England, the former U.S. colonial master, plays the United States in the first round, should we fans be looking to somehow avenge either the 1781 Battle of Yorktown or the 1814 burning of Washington, DC?

The Art of Democracy

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Last week I had the opportunity to interview a truly inspirational figure: Congolese journalist Chouchou Namegabe. As part of my background research, I attended a staged reading at the Kennedy Center of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Ruined,” by Lynn Nottage, hosted by the Enough Project. It was a very powerful piece of theater.

It got me thinking about the power of art and artists to stand outside a situation and bring a unique lens to certain aspects or issues we otherwise overlook. Sometimes, that lens can help focus attention when we grow complacent. Sometimes, it is a lens powerful enough to change the world.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin immediately leaps to mind. Her novel depicted the cruelties and inhumanity of slavery so vividly that it shocked many Americans into taking up the cause of abolition. Supposedly, when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe after the onset of the Civil War he said, “so this is the little lady who made this big war.” Pablo Picasso’s Guernica depicting the trauma to civilian life under the Franco regime in Spain is another famous example of art as social criticism and an incitement to change.


“Ruined” tells the story of women living amidst the chaos and violence of the ongoing civil war and rebel conflicts in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the title refers to the female characters who have been the victims of rape and violent sexual mutilation, the story is also about survival and human resiliency in situations of indescribable horror.

One scene underscores the idea that democracy as an ideal and democracy in practice are very different things. Elections alone are not enough to ensure the safety and freedom of people. DRC actually held internationally-endorsed elections in 2006 that were largely non-violent and without major irregularities. Fighting continues today, however, and the elected government faces overwhelming political and security challenges.

Of course, the real power of the play and the lens Nottage brings to the conflict in DRC is the stories of the women fighting to scratch out an existence, however meager, in the middle of what the U.N. has termed the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” I point you to this gut-wrenching monologue from one of the characters in the show describing her assault, and this piece, which gives more background on the play and the conflict in DRC. Do you have other examples of particularly moving pieces of art, theater, or literature as a force for change in your country?

Realizing the Dream

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It’s self-promotional time for me: When I was in Bosnia last month, I wrote this story about a segregated school in the town of Stolac. It was one of the most difficult stories I’ve written, because it is wrought with political complexities, so I want to make sure lots of people read it.

There has been a lot of international interest in Stolac’s school, despite the fact that for many in the town, segregated education is fine with them. Martin Luther King III, son of famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., visited Stolac and spoke with education officials and students about their school.

I recently spoke with Biljana Meskovska, who works with Realizing the Dream, a nonprofit organization King III founded. I asked her why anyone outside of Bosnia should care about Stolac. “There is no society that is stripped from problems, especially ones of discrimination, segregation, in one form or another,” she said.

It’s a good point. In the United States, segregated schools were ruled illegal in a famous 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. Of course, in reality, segregation doesn’t just suddenly end because a law declares it so. The debate about equal access to education continues today.

“The level of globalization makes it necessary for us to care not only about what is happening in our own societies and countries, but throughout the world as well, as our own well being depends more than ever on the well being of our neighbors,” Meskovska said. Do you agree?

Harmonizing for Humanity

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This month, several of my co-workers and I will join musicians around the world in the 8th annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days. Since 2002, individual concerts every October have commemorated the birthday of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by extremists in Pakistan four months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pearl’s untimely death moved his family to create the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which seeks “to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music and innovative communications.” To this end, the foundation supports journalism fellowships, youth initiatives, lectures and interfaith dialogues — as well as the annual musical performances.

Although Pearl was known for his work as a journalist, he was also a mandolin player and a classically trained violinist who used his love of music to make friends across cultural and religious divides. As Michelle recently observed in Kosovo, music has a remarkable power to bring people together. President Obama also recognized this in an October 1 message marking the start of this year’s World Music Days:

“Music has been called a universal language that transcends cultures and borders,” he said. “Its power to move us, touch our hearts, and speak to our souls enriches our lives. Through artistic creativity and expression, music can build bridges between individuals and communities thousands of miles apart. This month-long event to celebrate music and honor the legacy of Daniel Pearl is a fitting tribute to a man who promoted respect and dialogue throughout the world. On this occasion, we recommit ourselves to tolerance, compassion, and ‘Harmony for Humanity.’”