THE LAST DAYS OF THE DEATH PENALTY ?

In recent weeks a singular destiny has pushed the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assume the role of symbol of both the martyrdom of Africa and the continent\'s ability to resolve its conflicts and actively participate in international civil campaigns like the universal moratorium against the death penalty, writes Emma Bonino, member of the Transnational Radical Party and deputy in the European Parliament. In this article for IPS, Bonino writes, I approached the Congolese president Kabila after the radical movement to abolish the death penalty, Hands Off Cain, selected me to lead a mission to save the lives of his father\'s assassins. We asked him not to sign the warrant for their execution and to join the fight within the UN General Assembly to reintroduce a proposal for a universal moratorium against capital punishment. Kabila responded that a moratorium on the death penalty is an issue for the future parliament, adding that he would not call for the execution before it decided. UN followers estimate that this year the resolution could garner 95-100 \'yes\' votes, 21-26 abstentions, and 62-65 votes against. Thus the victory of the abolitionists is within reach. It will be paradoxical if the West, so generous with its ethics lessons to Africa, betrays the hopes of the 28 African nations that despite the horrors they witness daily have allied themselves against \'\'state homicide\'\'.

SUU KYI MUST BE RELEASED FOR DEMOCRACY TO BE RESTORED IN BURMA

Current events in Burma are deeply disturbing, writes Jose Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and East Timor\'s minister for foreign affairs. Revered monk Sayadaw U Satetara, a high-ranking member of the holy Sangha and strong supporter of imprisoned Burmese opposition leader Suu Kyi, passed away last week from what many suspect were not natural causes. Suu Kyi remains incarcerated and held incommunicado. In this article for IPS, the author writes that leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-- of which Burma is a member -- must keep up the pressure on the Burmese generals. Embarrassed that the international reputation of ASEAN was suffering because of the gross and systematic human rights violations in Burma, the ministers demanded at their recent annual meeting that Suu Kyi be freed immediately. As regional powers, China, Japan, and India, working closely with Indonesia, current chair of ASEAN, must resolve this impasse. Failure to do so will weaken ASEAN and undermine its international influence. In the 1970s, we witnessed regional silence and complicity surrounding the Cambodian tragedy. It will be tragic if the same attitude is adopted with regard to Burma.

SOUTH AFRICA: THE LAND SHALL BELONG TO THOSE WHO WORK IT

It has been 90 years since the government of the newly-formed Union of South Africa passed the infamous Native Land Act, which gave legislative effect to a process of land seizure by white settlers that had been going on since 1652, writes Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. Adoption of this law has brought untold suffering to generations of black people, the author writes in this article for IPS. Through this and other racist legislation, millions of our people were uprooted from their land, their homes bulldozed, and their dignity destroyed. Recognising the importance of the land question to many of our people, the democratically-elected post-Apartheid government passed the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994, which provided a legal framework to address and resolve land claims through negotiations. Land acquisition and its productive use are critical to the success we must achieve in pushing back the frontiers of poverty. We are on the way towards meeting the demand contained in the Freedom Charter, drafted by the ANC in 1955: that the land shall belong to those who work it.

AGRICULTURE AND THE HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC

The silent tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is ravaging many rural areas of developing countries and jeopardising the human right to food of millions of people, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Hunger and poverty, aggravated by HIV/AIDS, create a vicious cycle. Where farmers and their families fall sick, they cultivate less land and shift to less labour-intensive and less nutritious crops; agricultural productivity decreases, and food insecurity and malnutrition rise. In this article for IPS, the author writes that while agriculture offers no cure for the HIV/AIDS infected, it can contribute to prevent and mitigate the crisis. Labour-saving technologies such as lighter ploughs and tools that can be used by older children, women, and the elderly and improved seed varieties that require less labour for weeding need to be developed.

HOW EU AND US FARM SUBSIDIES HURT THEIR OWN FARMERS

The most forceful moral and political justification for agricultural subsidies in the EU and US is that they save small farmers, yet the facts clearly demonstrate they are not doing so, writes Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Ricupero writes that over the past 15 years, as subsidies have expanded relentlessly small farmers in these areas have become poorer and poorer in relation to the rest of the population. Kevin Watkins, Head of Research of Oxfam, writes: \'\'Far from benefiting small farmers, agricultural support goes overwhelmingly to large-scale, capital-intensive agriculture, and for a good reason: support is closely correlated with production levels, or -- in the case of direct payments -- to land ownership. \'\' We should all praise the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and his colleagues in moving away from production and price-linked subsidies. But it is unclear from preliminary reports whether the reforms announced recently will substantially change the current concentration of 80 percent of payments in the hands of 20 percent of the bigger farmers, or to what extent the new system will prove less trade-distorting.

A MARKET-BASED STRATEGY TO DEMOCRATISE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Billions of us watch in apparent helplessness as global corporate and political elites manipulate the world economy to suit their exclusive interests, writes Mark Sommer, an internationally- syndicated columnist and radio host who directs the Mainstream Media Project, a US-based effort to bring new voices and innovative ideas to the broadcast media. But the rest of us are not helpless, the author writes in this article for IPS. We actually hold in our hands levers of power far more potent and effective than those unrepresentative governments offer their disillusioned electorates. Each decision we make to buy a given product or service ripples through the global economy to support certain policies and institutions and not others. In recent years we have seen boycotts produce the desired shift in the policies of numerous brand-name multinationals. To match the scale and power of the global economy, we must apply this strategy worldwide, wielding our collective purchase power through a deft combination of both boycotts and buycotts to penalise irresponsible corporate and governmental policies and reward those that support a healthy economy and society.

BRAZIL: ONE FOOT IN UTOPIA, ONE IN MATHEMATICS

In Brazil, 115 years after the proclamation of the republic, it is as if the monarchy still existed, writes Cristovam Buarque, minister of education for Brazil, ex-rector of the University of Brasilia, and ex-governor of the Federal District. Brazil has still completed neither its republic nor the abolition of slavery. To this day, members of parliament consider themselves nobles, unemployment has replaced forced labour, slaves have been transformed into the poor, and education is for the few. The election of Lula as president completes the republic and the abolition of slavery, Buarque writes in this article for IPS. What is necessary to the completion of abolition is intense, total, and radical land reform. It is also necessary to create jobs to end slavery and the secular Brazilian tragedy of transforming fed and chained slaves into hungry and unemployed free men. To complete the republic, equal access to education must be guaranteed, which is only possible through a free, quality public school system for everyone.

DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA GRAVELY THREATENED BY AIDS

We are now halfway through the 25-year period set in 1990 for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa, writes K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Africa. In this article for IPS, Amoako writes that nothing is more critical than overcoming HIV/AIDS. The epidemic has a clear impact on the first three MDGs: poverty eradication, education, and gender equality. Families afflicted by AIDS are less able to grow food and to withstand shocks such as drought. Girls are being withdrawn from school in order to assist with essential domestic duties, including caring for the sick. The author stresses that women bear the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. They shoulder the burden of caring for people with AIDS and bringing up children orphaned by the disease. They grow most of Africa\'s food. An estimated 58 percent of those infected with HIV in this continent are women. One of the factors driving the AIDS epidemic in Africa is the unequal status of women and their vulnerability to exploitation and sexual abuse. In a vicious twist, it seems that the epidemic itself is intensifying women\'s vulnerability. Overcoming the effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on women is crucial if we are to promote gender equality and empower women.

US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM HEADED FOR COLLAPSE

With its economy stalled and its government mired in a global terror war, the US\'s already overburdened health care system-- the industrial world\'s most expensive and least equitable-- appears destined for collapse, writes Mark Sommer, internationally- syndicated columnist and radio host who directs the Mainstream Media Project. In this article for IPS, the author writes that with a ruling party captive to insurance, hospital, and drug industry lobbies, politicians are likely to do nothing to avert this looming catastrophe. Whatever minimal health care system survives the coming shakedown will need to be substantially reinforced by care based less on money and more on mutual aid built on a revived sense of community. How can communities of mutual caring be created in a society of industrial anonymity? Sommer points to the co-housing model pioneered in Northern Europe and now spreading worldwide, providing private and communal spaces and functions that accommodate needs for both privacy and community.

THE ISRAELI PEACE CAMP IN TIMES OF TERROR AND HOPE

These are startling days for Israeli domestic politics. For the first time in history, the leader of the nationalistic right wing is talking in public about \'\'the need to put an end to the occupation\'\', stating \'\'the time has come to divide the land between us and the Palestinians\'\', writes Sarah Ozacky-Lazar, a Middle East historian and co-director of the Jewish-Arab Centre for Peace at Givat Haviva, Israel. In this article for IPS, the author writes that while most Israeli leftists doubt Sharon is serious about peace and interpret his sudden change as merely a tactic to avoid open crisis with the Bush administration, they have to support Sharon\'s moves to prevent the ultra-right from blocking the renewed peace process. The Israeli left and what remains of the peace camp now find themselves in a contradictory situation: their major rival, Sharon, is in the process of implementing their own ideas. They doubt his sincerity but cannot oppose him because he is doing exactly what they have been preaching for ages. They strongly oppose the harsh security measures taken by the Israeli army but cannot protest because the suicide bombings continue. The irony is that if and when any peace agreement is achieved, it will be credited to the right wing that has opposed it for years, while the left wing will be left out of both the history books and political power, despite its long stubborn struggle for mutual recognition and the right of the Palestinians to freedom and statehood.

ATTENTION EDITORS AND CORRESPONDENTS: WE ARE DISTRIBUTING BELOW A NEW COLUMN BY VANDANA SHIVA ON IRAQ AND THE TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION BECHTEL. THE FIRST COLUMN WAS DISTRIBUTED ON 21.05.03.: WAR AS GLOBALISATION BY OTHER MEANS

Little more than two months from the start of the war against Iraq, the real victor is emerging: Bechtel, with its 680-million- dollar contract for \'\'rebuilding\'\' Iraq, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. In a period of declining economic growth and a slowing of the globalisation juggernaut, war has become a convenient excuse for enlarging corporate rule, Shiva writes in this article. In essence, Bechtel was given a license to make money in a closed-door process restricted to a handful of politically-connected US companies. The Bechtel contract and the Iraq war which created the opportunity for \'\'reconstruction\'\' profits highlight the lack of democracy, transparency, and accountability in the way economic and political decisions are made by a US administration which has become indistinguishable from US corporations. A regime in which government becomes the instrument of corporate interests is no longer a democracy.

G-8 ECONOMISTS IN RETREAT

The G-8 Summit is no longer just about economics, as seen in the agenda of the recent Evian meeting, yet the economics profession still bestrides national policy, writes Hazel Henderson, author of \'\'Beyond Globalisation\'\', \'\'Building a Win-Win World\'\', and co-developer of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. In this analysis for IPS, Henderson writes that economics is politics in disguise. Cost-benefit analysis or a carefully crafted economic impact statement can squelch any government reform or new social or environmental initiative, emphasising the costs of change to existing interests while down-playing the current costs of the status quo on other actors, the environment, or future generations. Economics was always based on patriarchal values, ignoring the work of women in child rearing, caring for the old, community volunteering as \'\'uneconomic\'\'. It did not predict the rise of socially-responsible investing, now at USD 2.3 trillion in the US alone. Nor did \'\'inflation-hawk\'\' economists foresee the new threat of worldwide deflation. Today, the chinks in economists\' armour are becoming more evident. As we witness the debacles in Asia, Russia, and Argentina, economist-ridden governments clearly need no longer defer to these defrocked priests.

CURE FOR CRIMINALITY: REPRESSION OR INCLUSION ?

Latin America is in the grip of a crime epidemic, writes Bernardo Kliksberg, general coordinator of the Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development and the author of \'\'Towards an Economy with a Human Face\'\' . In this article for IPS, the author writes that the most popular approach to the new wave of crime is the \'\'strong hand\'\' -- the strengthening of repressive actions. The risks of this approach are evident. In Latin America, there is an emerging tendency to criminalise poverty, which can open the way to more extreme phenomena, like the extra-judiciary execution groups. In sharp contrast to the \'\'strong hand\'\' approach is the preventive approach, which holds that youth crime should be recognised as a different phenomenon, the roots and structural causes of which must be understood and confronted in a different way. The author argues that the real solution to youth criminality lies in devoting more resources to job creation, opportunities in sports, culture, or leisure for young people, strengthening family ties, and increasing the levels of education.

EIGHT

On May 9, the European Union commemorates its \"Declaration of Interdependence\", writes Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami. In this article for IPS, Roy writes that on that day in 1950, the foundational document of the EU was presented, formulating a unique proposal to pool the coal and steel industries of France and any democratic West European nation. The objective was not to expand free trade but to \'\'make war unthinkable and materially impossible\'\'. Like it or not, the EU is still a French proposal that one cannot refuse and that Germany will by necessity accept. Eight French leaders and statesmen have contributed in their own ways to European integration. The eighth French statesman is President Jacques Chirac. Free from running in the next elections, Chirac has a golden opportunity to lead the way, anchor France at the centre of European integration, serve as a bridge between the \'\'new\'\' Europe and legitimate national interests, and be faithful to the legacy of Monnet and Schuman.

BECHTEL AND BLOOD FOR WATER IN IRAQ

The introduction into Iraq of Bechtel, a company which has a history of aggravating water conflict, is a recipe for disaster and long-lasting water wars, writes Vandana Shiva, author, international campaigner for women and the environment, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993. Its 680-million-dollar contract for rebuilding Iraq includes but is not limited to \'\'municipal water systems and sewage systems, major irrigation structures, and the dredging, repair and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport\'\'. In this article for IPS, the author writes that if we go by the record of the company\'s water privatisation experience in Bolivia, Bechtel will try to control the water resources, not just the water works of Iraq, claiming ownership of the Tigris and Euphrates. The executives at Bechtel have thirsted for control over Iraq for over 20 years. In 1983 Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan administration \'\'special Middle East envoy\'\', met with Hussein to discuss a massive pipeline project proposed by Bechtel. Hussein eventually rejected the Bechtel proposal. Now again Donald Rumsfeld has \'\'taken care of business\'\' for Bechtel. As secretary of defence, he has overseen the war to remove the obstacle and Bechtel is rolling in.

US-CENTRAL AMERICAN TRADE PACT: NEW BANANA REPUBLICANISM

United States banana republicanism is alive and well, and coming back to Guatemala, the US\'s first banana republic, writes Raj Patel, Policy Analyst at Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, based in Oakland, California. From May 12-15, United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will be negotiating a new deal with Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua known as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In this analysis for IPS, the author writes that farmers in the region vehemently oppose the agreement. They recognize that they stand little chance of being able to compete against the massively -subsidized US agribusiness machine. The 2002 US Farm Bill apportioned USD 180 billion in new subsidies over ten years; the total GDP for all five countries last year was just under USD 140 billion. The loudest cries of protest have come from the agricultural sectors in these economies. But the luxury of dissent isn\'t one afforded to the five CAFTA countries: if they agree to CAFTA by the end of the year they will simultaneously commit themselves to the FTAA. At a time when criticism of US foreign policy is deemed \'\'giving comfort to the enemy\'\', the grievances of the least powerful are likely to be swept under the rug. Protests by farmers in Central America continue to be censored, ignored, or met with retribution.

PEACE BREAKS OUT IN SOUTH ASIA

Suddenly, after years of hostility and mistrust, peace seems to be breaking out all over the South East Asian subcontinent, writes Kunda Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. In this analysis the author writes that India and Pakistan are, once more, trying to make up, a fragile ceasefire in Sri Lanka has now held for more than a year, and in Nepal the government and Maoist rebels are trying to find a negotiated settlement. The olive branch appears to have come from Indian prime minister Vajpayee\'s effort to go down in history as a man of peace and not someone who oversaw a wasteful nuclear arms race with Pakistan and the rise of Hindu revivalists. When he dramatically announced in parliament last month that he was willing to give peace \'\'a third and last try\'\', the offer was immediately seized upon by the Pakistani side.

THE USA/UK-IRAQ WAR: HOW ABOUT PEACE JOURNALISM?

There is a Latin proverb that reads, \'\'audiatur et altera pars\'\' -- listen to the other side too, write Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. The failure to do so was the fundamental mistake of the US and UK and lead to their misjudging the likely course of their war against Iraq. They became victims of their own propaganda, the authors write in this article. Peace journalism starts with two questions: what is the underlying conflict about? And are there any possible peaceful solutions to that conflict? Could a solution be a Kurdistan based on a confederation of autonomies in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey? With double citizenship and passports for Kurds? How about giving more reality to the ten nation Economic Cooperation Organization, extending from Turkey to Afghanistan, 12 million square kilometres, maybe 400 million inhabitants, with enormous potential?

PROFITS OF DOOM: TO THE DESPOILERS GO THE SPOILS

If anyone outside the US harboured lingering doubts about the motives behind the invasion of Iraq, they were surely put to rest recently by the shameless profiteering of Bush administration officials and their extended financial family in both the destruction and reconstruction of Iraq, writes Mark Sommer, internationally-syndicated columnist and radio host who directs the Mainstream Media Project, a US-based effort to bring new voices and innovative ideas to the broadcast media. In this article for IPS, the author writes that the double burden of bearing massive reconstruction costs for Iraq while enduring the deconstruction of their own schools, hospitals, roads, police and fire protection can\'t help but produce severe cognitive dissonance even in the sleepwalking centre of American politics. The United States is rich, but not so rich that it can sustain both an empire and a democracy. Facing such public pressures, and never much interested in reconstructing anything Iraqi other than its oil fields, the Bush team may quietly abandon the effort altogether. We need only consider its last conquest, Afghanistan, to see a nation \'\'seduced and abandoned\'\' by an empire too busy making new messes to clean up its old.

‘ROAD MAP’ TO PEACE — OR TO ENDLESS STRIFE?

The formation of a new Palestinian government complies with one of the conditions imposed by President Bush for presenting his \'\'road map\'\' for peace in the Middle East envisaging a separate Palestinian state by 2005, writes Kaare Willoch, former Prime Minister of Norway. But even this plan cannot produce lasting results if it breaks earlier promises to the weaker party, the author writes in this article for IPS. There is reason to fear that the \'\'road map\'\' in the first round will call only for the removal of settlements established after March 2001 and an end to all further expansion within the occupied territories. But keeping the earlier Israeli settlements will make it impossible to establish a Palestinian state within borders that could render it viable. Accommodating Israel on this point is a certain path to lasting conflict. Under such circumstances, demands to make all further advances conditional on a complete cessation of violence will give the extremist groups veto power over peace. The Americans do not seem to realise that such demands represent a flight from reality.

IRAQ, THE DOLLAR AND THE EURO

In even the best-laid human plans, events rarely unfold as predicted, even by experts. One surprise scenario is rooted in the close relationship between oil, dollars, gold, and the euro, writes Hazel Henderson, author of \'\'Beyond Globalisation\'\', \'\'Building a Win-Win World\'\', and other books. In this article, the author writes that countries that formerly held mostly US dollars in their currency reserves have begun to diversify into euros, where they perceive less risky fundamentals. What happens if global investors continue pulling out of the US and the dollar keeps falling? What if OPEC decides to officially re-denominate their oil in euros, since most of the their customers are in Europe anyway? The US, heavily dependent on imported oil, benefits considerably from OPEC\'s US dollar pricing.