Global Truth and Reconciliation Commission

thomas daffern on September 18, 2001 at 23:43:22:

thomas daffern

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PEACE STUDIES AND GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY

We at the IIPSGP wish to express our grief and profound dismay at the recent
terrorist outrage in the USA. Our Multifaith and Multicultural Mediation
Service and its accompanying MMMS Research Service would welcome the
opportunity to engage in dialogue with other peace organizations, interfaith
groups and educational and religious institutions on both long term and
short term solutions to the challenge set for the global community by these
tragic events, and together to work on answers to the following questions:

1. Which organisation can be responsible for this outrage - what is their
ideology ? Why and how and when could they have planned this ?

2. What sort of international response is appropriate ? Proceedings through
the new International Criminal Court ? Proceedings through the International
Court of Justice in The Hague ? Or, as a last resort, internationally
approved and UN sanctioned and authorized military response, with key
appropriate allies and a hopefully universal and inclusive international
coalition of countries all of whom abhor such terrorist action ?

3. Once, and if, those responsible are identified (or come forward in horror
at what they have done to confess, which we would strongly urge) which
international court would be best to try them ? What international
legislation is in place for such an unprecedented legal challenge (see 2
above)

4. If, as is being discussed, the perpetrators of this act are from a Middle
Eastern and / or "pseudo-Islamist" background, and the intention behind this
deed was to highlight the grievances felt by sections of the Islamic and
Middle Eastern communities against the West and the USA in particular,
notwithstanding the tragedy of this act, are there any just issues which
need resolving at heart and which have motivated their actions, and if so,
what can the international community best do to address them ? (e.g. Israel
/ Palestine conflict, or Afghanistan's ongoing civil war)

5. How can the world's educational, interfaith, artistic, cultural and peace
communities work even better together to tackle at root the various ongoing
violent conflicts in the world - how have we all failed so dismally over the
years to reach out in ways that could have prevented this catastrophe ?

6. Specifically, what actions and research can the interfaith community and
its several leading international bodies (the World Conference on Religion
and Peace, the World Congress of Faiths, the Temple of Understanding, the
United Religions Initiative etc.) undertake in a cooperative spirit to help
tackle at root source the causes underlying such terrible actions, to ensure
that all religious men and women on this planet and all people of faith send
a clear and definitive signal to all their millions of followers worldwide
that terrorism of any kind, let alone on such a mammoth scale, is never
acceptable for any cause ?

7. If 4 is accurate, (as would seem to be the case following the tracking of
Muhammad Atta as one of the pilots involved, and the release on September 14
by the FBI of 18 names identified as terrorists on the 4 planes involved,
all of whom appear to be of Middle Eastern origin; 7 had trained as pilots
in the USA and many have lived for a time in the USA, in Florida,
Massachusetts and New Jersey) then how can the world's genuine Islamic men
and women, including Imams, educators, scholars, philosophers, theologians,
Sufis, mystics, intellectuals, political leaders etc. come together to make
sure that such actions are strongly condemned and exposed and those who
perpetrate them isolated and outcast from the Islamic faith community - what
sanctions exist inside Islam for those who break the moral and legal codes
of Islamic on war and violence (non harm to non combatants, non harm to the
environment etc. as laid down in the Koran and Hadith) ?

8. How can the world create the lasting conditions of a sustainable peace
civilisation in which resort to terrorism or inter-state violence is seen as
a totally and absolutely unacceptable way of dealing with conflict, and in
which arbitration, mediation and conflict resolution procedures are instead
applied to tackle and solve all those remaining situations or violent
conflicts involving cultural and religious dimensions (e.g. Israel /
Palestine, Northern Ireland, Spain/Basque, Kashmir, Tibet, Macedonia etc.)
How can the various agencies, actors, and institutions, which promote such
remedies, be better strengthened and supported and empowered to get on with
the job ?

The IIPSGP pledges its ongoing research and action resources towards these 8
goals and would be keen to collaborate with all other educational,
interfaith and peace organisations worldwide similarly interested in working
on a common response programme for peace to these tragic and terrible
circumstances. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have
suffered in this outrage. Our thoughts and prayers go out also to all those
in other global situations of conflict who are likewise victims of terrorism
or violent conflict or injustice. We urge the international community to
take up the challenge to build a global programme of peace based on justice
and for us all to have the vision, compassion, intelligence and foresight to
respond to this enormous challenge with the maturity and wisdom the
situation demands. All comments and offers of collaboration on this work to:

International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy,
Camlad House, Forden, Welshpool, Wales, U.K. SY21 8NZ
Tel. & Fax. (+44) (0)1938 580319
iipsgp@clara.net

N.B. IIPSGP arose out of cooperation between International Philosophers for
Peace and a group who conducted a feasibility study at the University of
London into creating there a new international peace research institute. It
is now an independent research and education institute specialising in the
resolution of interfaith and inter cultural conflicts and peace education.
It was launched during the Gulf War in 1991 when it organised emergency
seminars in London bringing leading spokespeople together from all cultural
and religious communities in the Middle East to review the conflict. From
1993-2000 it organised over 30 seminars in the House of Lords in London on
Ethics and Peace. It is currently working with UK Parliamentarians to
establish an All Party Peace and Reconciliation Group among other projects.
It supports the call by a USA Congressman to establish a US Dept. of Peace
as a parallel to the Dept. of Defence and urges UK political leaders of all
persuasions to support a similar scheme for the UK involving the creation of
a Department for Peace. It stands for the possibility of resolving conflicts
and disputes through the exercise of human intelligence, compassion and
imagination rather than through brute force and violence.

NOTE FOR PRESS PURPOSES:

The Director of IIPSGP, Dr. Thomas C. Daffern, served as Secretary General
of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (UK) from 1990-1998; taught at
the Muslim College from 1992-1994; has lectured extensively on religious
studies and comparative philosophy at the Universities of London and Oxford,
teaches RE in secondary schools in Wales, has extensive contacts with senior
Islamic scholars and Sufis of the highest calibre world wide (as well as
other religious leaders), and initiated the MMMS after a congress of World
Religions for Peace at the Vatican in 1995. It remains one of the very few
conflict resolution services active in the world today specialising in
applying intelligent spirituality to the resolution of multifaith conflicts.
It works alongside other existing conflict resolution organisations. Dr.
Daffern is available for press interviews about this work by contacting at
the above address.

the idea that the truth must be flushed into the light
as a precursor to any healing/future restitution, is
sound

In Reply to: A SUGGESTION TO GALVANISE A WORLDWIDE PEACE MOVEMENT
TO DEAL WITH THE CRISIS BY SETTING UP A UNITED NATIONS GEO-POLITICAL
RECONCILIATION COMMISSION TO SETTLE ALL OUTSTANDING TERRITORIAL
DISPUTES. PLEASE SEND IN YOUR IDEAS. posted by fraser. on September 18, 2001
at 00:30:53:

Subj: [media-squatters] GEO-POLITICAL RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
Date: 9/19/2001 7:30:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: jules@xs4all.nl (Jules Marshall)
Reply-to: media-squatters@yahoogroups.com
To: media-squatters@yahoogroups.com
CC: fraser@parallel-youniversity.com

I confess my knowledge of the details and results of SA's process is
rather vague, but the idea that the truth must be flushed into the
light as a precursor to any healing/future restitution, is sound, I
think. It would need to be a committee with teeth - hence my call for
obscenely rich individuals and families to be made to account for
where they got those riches, and their removal if the answer is
unsatisfactory. Call it a Truth, Reconciliation and Restitution
Committee.

For example, what is the true dollar value of the minerals extracted
from Africa, and what have the people who actually dug the stuff out
of the ground received? How many people died digging it out and how
were their families compensated? If unions were violently
discouraged, why? And on whose orders? How much have the shareholders
of Rio Tinto Zinc received, by contrast, or the De Beers family, or
the corrupt presidential puppets that allowed this continent-wide rip
off?

How have commodities markets been rigged to keep the actual producers
of the West's Starbuck economy impoverished?

Records exist; we can find out the real magnitude of our
neo-imperialistic profiteering.

What is being done (in America's name) even now in Columbia? Can we
be sure that the next suicide bomber won't come from latin America as
a result? Who stands to gain if war in Afganistan goes regional
(hint: the former Soviet countries to its North - all those funny
-istans - just happen to contain the largest unexploited oil reserves
left on the planet).

We need something akin to South Africa's Truth
and Reconciliation Committee, on a global scale.

Oy.......we have five neatly bound volumes, spent millions, and the poor and
destitute are no better off than they were. As a cathartic excercise, it had
some value, but, like the racism conference, dare I say it, more of a PR
>excercise than anything really meaningful/useful.

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