In this blog I write about world affairs, presenting a view of the world free from NATO propaganda.
Peace Anthropology and Development Anthropology and History are the tools with which I analyze international affairs, as part of a world-wide web of people working for peace through Transcend, UNIDIR and other agencies. Terrorism? This is largely political propaganda: my EPES Mandala Consulting group specialized in “terrorism” and far more people die each year from road accidents or from the flu, than from terror attacks. A lot of news is fear-mongering and most comes from a small number of corporate and government sources. Investigative journalists are a threatened species.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
Citizen Diplomacy builds international understanding, and the Richmond’s Sister City relationship is intended to build relationships with their twinned cities. In my case, this means primarily Ségou, second city of Mali for which the citizen support group Virginia Friends of Mali was created.
Read MoreWe have created the Sister City relationship between Richmond in Virginia, and Ségou. The idea is that people who know each other, may like each other, gain respect for each other, and promote peaceful understanding.
Read MoreThis text is based on a talk I delivered in Abuja on 20th April 2004 to a conference of senior ambassadors and officials who included the Nigerian Minister of Defense and of Foreign Affairs and the chiefs of staff of all the Nigerian armed forces. Some of it was also published as an opinion piece in The Comet newspaper of Lagos.
Read MoreThis one is a photo I took in Timbuktu on the night of 27th March 1996 when the first-ever Flame of Peace was lit in order to burn 3000 rebel weapons.
Read MoreHere I will consider the SALW situation with regard to ECOWAS and West Africa
Read MoreWhile weapons of mass destruction (WMD) exercise the minds of political scientists, the reality is that small arms and light weapons (SALW) kill tens of thousands of people each year. SALW are the WMD.
Read MoreThere is a general rule that, “Every illegal weapons began life as a legal weapon.” The main source of illegal weapons is government stockpiles: ‘leakage’ is the accepted euphemism, and it covers disappearances by theft (large-scale or individual pilfering), illegal sale across frontiers, diversion of legal imports to covert destinations, and even renting out government rifles for hunting or criminal use.
Read MoreTHE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF HUMANITY
WHERE DID GOD CREATE MAN, IF NOT IN AFRICA?
God created Man in East Africa, in the Great Rift Valley. From there men moved down the Nile. Around two million years ago, some people migrated out of Africa into what is now Arabia, while others wandered with their livestock across the western grasslands where they found the Niger River. We need to remember that the Sahara has only been desert for around three thousand years.
Read MoreThis book wrestles with fundamental questions of practical disarmament and peace building in Sierra Leone. Although they were written prior to the May-June 2000 upsurge of violence in Freetown that led to the arrest of Foday Sankoh, these incidents underline the relevance of the authors' analyses.
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