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The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 1
Ploughshares MonitorThe
Intervening in Libya
Peace in Colombia?Ordinary people
make a difference
Armed Conflicts ReportFewer wars and deaths,
more displaced people
A fight for paradiseCivil society tackles
Caribbean violence
Canadian arms exportsOfficial report reveals
gaps and discrepancies
SUMMER 2011 | VOLUME 32 | ISSUE 2
Can air strikes
A quarterly publication of Project Ploughshares • Available online: www.ploughshares.ca
by John Siebert
protect civilians?
War in paradiseCivil society groups take on violence in the Caribbean.by Maribel Gonzales
The Ploughshares Monitor
Volume 32 | Issue 2
The Ploughshares Monitor is the quarterlyjournal of Project Ploughshares, the peace centre of The Canadian Council of Churches.Ploughshares works with churches, nongovernmental organizations and governments, in Canada and abroad, to advance policies and actions that preventwar and armed violence and build peace. Project Ploughshares is affiliated with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies,Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo.
Office address: Project Ploughshares57 Erb Street WestWaterloo, Ontario N2L 6C2 Canada519-888-6541, fax: [email protected]
Project Ploughshares gratefully acknowledgesthe ongoing financial support of the many individuals, national churches and church agencies, local congregations, religious ordersand organizations across Canada that ensurethat the work of Project Ploughshares continues.
We are particularly grateful to The Simons Foundation in Vancouver for its generous support.
All donors of $50 or more receive a complimentary subscription to The Ploughshares Monitor. Annual subscription rates for libraries and institutionsare: $30 in Canada; $30 (U.S.) in the UnitedStates; $35 (U.S.) internationally. Single copiesare $5 plus shipping.
Unless indicated otherwise, material may be reproduced freely, provided the author andsource are indicated and one copy is sent to Project Ploughshares. Return postage is guaranteed.
Publications Mail Registration No. 40065122.ISSN 1499-321X.
The Ploughshares Monitor is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index.
Photos of Ploughshares staff by Karl Griffiths-Fulton, Matt CashorePrinted at Waterloo Printing, Waterloo, Ontario.Printed with vegetable inks on paper with recycled content.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities.
Contents
Cover story
COVER: Women walk through a near-deserted town on the Libyan side of the border with Egypt, close to the Egyptian town of Sallum, in March. David Ohana/UN
Gaps and omissionsCanada’s official report on arms exports lacks transparency.by Kenneth Epps
TimelinePloughshares and the Arms Trade Treaty
A new measure of warThe 2011 Armed Conflicts Report reveals both hopeful
and troubling trends.by Christina Woolner
Colombia’s best hopeCitizens are working to build a culture of peace.by Adrienne Wiebe and Bonnie Klassen
Target: LibyaThe military mission must refocus to protect civilians.by John Siebert
3
6
12
16
20
Summer 2011Kenneth Epps
Maribel Gonzales
Debbie Hughes
Tasneem Jamal
Cesar Jaramillo
Anne Marie Kraemer
Matthew Pupic
Nancy Regehr
Wendy Stocker
Nicole Waintraub Intern
Christina Woolner
John Siebert Executive Director
PROJECT PLOUGHSHARES STAFF
more
Books etc.by Dorothy Friesen, Bruce Muirhead, Metta Spencer, Richard Swift
23
6
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 3
The Caribbean is known for
its pristine beaches. Yet
amid this beauty are com-
munities of violence
where citizens are caught
in a virtual state of war. The region’s
homicide rate of 18.1 per 100,000 inhabi-
tants is more than double the world aver-
age of 7.6 (UNODC 2004). And more
than 70 per cent of the homicides are
committed with guns (Richards 2009).
Deaths due to gun violence in parts of the
Caribbean rival those in many current
armed conflicts monitored by Project
Ploughshares. But no countries in the
Caribbean region are affected by war.
Instead a complex interplay of fac-
tors—illicit trafficking of guns and drugs,
poverty, social exclusion, weakened family
structures, collusion between organized
crime and corrupt officials, and poor gov-
ernance—creates a new landscape of inse-
curity. How can we address violence so
severe that it threatens the region’s demo-
cratic fabric? One response is to mobilize
civil society.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) can
play an important role in preventing and
War in paradise
In the fight against the Caribbean’s gun violence, civil society groups are moving to the front lines
By Maribel Gonzales
ABOVE: Palm trees linea beach in Bequia, St. Vincent and theGrenadines. Nancy
Regehr/Project Ploughshares
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 20114
CARIBBEAN
reducing armed violence. With direct links
to communities and flexible structures,
they are well positioned to supplement
state-sponsored initiatives. They can effec-
tively raise public awareness of the human
toll of violence; they can help citizens do
more locally to identify and repair the
damage resulting from violence; they can
act as mediators and help resolve con-
flicts; they can provide services to sur-
vivors and victims of violence; and they
can advocate for solutions.
Realizing that their problems were simi-
lar and that the drivers of crime and vio-
lence transcend national boundaries, nine
CSOs came together in 2006 to found the
Caribbean Coalition for Development and
the Reduction of Armed Violence
(CDRAV). Today 17 organizations from
14 countries belong to CDRAV. While
most are volunteer-based organizations,
there are also three government or quasi-
government agencies. Many tackle armed
violence from multiple entry points, in-
cluding women and gender, youth devel-
opment, and community development.
While CSOs are key actors in the region’s
development, research suggests they face
technical and human resource constraints in
carrying out their work (Harris 2009). Proj-
ect Ploughshares’ CIDA-funded project
Building Peaceful Communities in the
Caribbean has supported building the ca-
pacity of CDRAV since 2008.
Between December 2010 and March
2011, CDRAV and Project Ploughshares
conducted five training workshops in
Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, and Turks and Caicos
Islands, drawing between 18 and 35 par-
ticipants to each event. Altogether, close
to 150 participants from a diverse range of
organizations, including the public sector,
attended the workshops. CSO participants
represented women’s groups, community-
based organizations, youth groups, and
sports clubs. All worked on reducing vio-
lence in their communities.
Two workshops invited the police to at-
tend. As one participant put it, a key lesson
was “working with the police officers more
closely, and learning that they are not as
bad as the public makes them out to be.”
Training focused on practical and effec-
tive organizational and program manage-
ment skills. Eight modules of
instructional material were prepared and
organized into a training manual by Nelcia
Robinson, a veteran community educator
and co-ordinator of the Committee for
the Development of Women, a CDRAV
member. Planning and execution of the
training workshops were performed by
the hosting CDRAV member in each
country (two cohosts in Jamaica). Six
CDRAV members from five countries
produced proposals for workshops, which
were funded on a rolling, first-come, first-
served basis to the limit of available fund-
ing and if requirements had been satisfied.
Preparing the proposals was in itself a
practical training exercise. The CDRAV
Secretariat and Project Ploughshares pro-
vided a proposal template and technical
support throughout the process. The host
agency of each workshop chose the mod-
ules to be delivered and made modifica-
tions as needed. They were also responsible
for selecting the local trainers, inviting par-
ticipants, organizing logistics, preparing
budgets, and managing the funds. Costs per
participant ranged from $169 (U.S.) in
Turks and Caicos Islands to $60 (U.S.) in St.
Vincent and the Grenadines.
The process for developing the training
The region’s homicide rate of 18.1 per
100,000 inhabitants is more than double
the world average of 7.6.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 5
ensured a standard of quality in the train-
ing content, while providing flexibility for
each agency to make modifications.
Caribbean culture has a strong oral tradi-
tion. Stories and poetry were used to com-
municate the local context of armed
violence. A participant opened the Turks
and Caicos workshop with a poem written
for the event, “Mortgaged Prisons,” which
decried the contrast between the islands’
beautiful beaches and the growing insecu-
rity among its citizenry. In Jamaica, a
teenager did a monologue on the violence
affecting inner-city youth. In St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, participants per-
formed a play on domestic violence writ-
ten by a police constable.
Remarkable energy and commitment
Several agencies supplemented the instruc-
tional material. Using examples of housing
schemes, workshop participants in
Grenada analyzed the link between poor
housing conditions, lack of adequate recre-
ational facilities, and violent behaviour
among youth. The St. Lucia host added
material on financial management. Two
workshops included community walk-
abouts in violence-affected communities.
The energy and commitment of host
agencies and participants were remarkable.
At the first workshop in Grenada, there
was a group of enthusiastic participants in
spite of tight timelines and upcoming
Christmas holidays. Noting the decrease in
availability of training opportunities in the
region, CDRAV members proclaimed the
value of these workshops.
CDRAV members have identified rela-
tions with funders as their greatest chal-
lenge (McFee 2010). The training aims to
develop skills that will help CSOs im-
prove their prospects of securing funds.
But, in reality, most CSOs, except perhaps
those in Haiti, are facing significant de-
clines in funds because of changes in
donor priorities and broader economic
crises (Babb 2011; McLean 1999, p. 5).
This factor, coupled with the reliance of
most CSOs in CDRAV on a largely vol-
unteer workforce, can challenge the
longer-term sustainability of CDRAV and
its members. Quite often, such opera-
tional costs as office rent and staff
salaries are ineligible for funding. In this
respect, Project Ploughshares’ CIDA-
funded project to support CDRAV is un-
usual. Providing for core funding should
be considered in projects to build the ca-
pacity of CSOs.
Increased funding does not, of course,
ensure better performance. Organizational
cultures of CSOs need to accommodate
the increased accountability required by
donors. Yet our own project experience
has shown that documenting expenses,
measuring performance, and meeting con-
tractual obligations can be difficult for
CSOs. Enforcement of accountability
standards, along with ongoing training and
mentoring to develop the required compe-
tencies, will be needed.
It should be noted that the potential to
generate funds at home, either through in-
come-generating activities or by fundraising
aimed at the general public and the busi-
ness sector, is largely untapped. This is a
possible direction for future capacity-build-
ing assistance to CSOs in the region. �
References
Babb, Cecilia. 2011. Speech delivered at “Creating Sustainable Partnerships with Civil
Society in a Time of Economic Crisis,” a policy forum hosted by the Caribbean Policy De-
velopment Centre, March 8, Bridgetown, Barbados.
Harris, Margaret. 2009. Capacity Development in Barbados and the Eastern
Caribbean. Report No. 1 Executive Summary and Major Recommendations.
McClean, Maxine. 1999. A Situational Analysis of the Funding of Caribbean Non-Gov-
ernmental Organisations. A report commissioned by Caribbean Policy Development Cen-
tre and Caribbean Development Bank.
McFee, Deborah. 2010. CDRAV Membership Survey.
Richards, Peter. 2009. High tech systems trace influx of illegal arms. Inter Press Serv-
ice, January 26.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2004. homicide statistics.
CARIBBEAN
Maribel
Gonzales
is a Program
Officer
with Project
Ploughshares.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 20116
The latest official report on
the export of military
goods from Canada re-
veals “business as usual”
for the authorization,
shipment, and tracking of Canadian
weapons supplies to other states.1 During
the three-year reporting period 2007–2009
Canada shipped the bulk of arms exports
to NATO members or other allied coun-
tries such as Australia and New Zealand.
Yet shipments also continued to countries
hosting armed conflicts and to govern-
ments where there were substantial risks
that military goods would be used against
civilian populations. These included
weapons exports to several Middle East
and North Africa states experiencing re-
cent political upheaval.2
Significantly, the report omits most
Canadian arms exports. The U.S.,
Canada’s largest arms customer, is ex-
cluded from the report. Other relevant
military export data is also absent. These
basic reporting failures illustrate the mis-
match between existing Canadian arms
transparency standards and the anticipated
standards of an Arms Trade Treaty, which
Canada supports.
Published in March 2011 by the Export
Controls Bureau of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade Canada (DFAIT), the
report states that Canada exported military
goods valued at $326-million in 2007,
Gaps and omissionsThe latest official report on Canadian arms exports reveals
considerably weakened transparency standards
By Kenneth Epps
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 7
$558-million in 2008, and $542-million in
2009. While experiencing some fluctuation,
reported annual values of Canadian arms
exports have averaged $529-million3 each
year since the first report for 1990.
DFAIT publications on military exports
fail to report data on weapons shipments
to the U.S. As a result, the largest recipient
of Canadian weapons is missing from the
2007–2009 report. Under the U.S.-Canada
Defence Production Sharing Agreement,
Canadian weapons shipments to the U.S.
are exempt from the export permit
process and DFAIT relies on export per-
mits to create its arms trade data. Yet re-
cent estimates of Canadian military
exports to the U.S. are more than four
times reported global shipment values.4
With the bulk of Canada’s arms exports
omitted, DFAIT reports present a grossly
truncated picture of Canadian participa-
tion in the international arms trade.
According to the report, Canada ex-
ported military goods to 108 states and
territories in the three-year period, with a
majority of shipments concentrated on a
few recipients. The largest 10 importing
states received goods worth $957,735,368
or about two-thirds (67.15 per cent) of
total reported shipments (see Table 1).
Recipient state 2007 2008 2009 3-year total
Algeria 6,922,135 1,937,997 375,000 9,235,132
Egypt 7,083,575 1,413,469 431,693 8,928,737
Iraq 38,418 0 0 38,418
Israel 2,480,195 1,266,807 1,468,695 5,215,697
Jordan 0 1,361 9,697 11,058
Kuwait 0 9,900 23,646 33,546
Lebanon 77,996 1,348,188 42,768 1,468,952
Libya 0 0 86,682 86,682
Morocco 0 0 2,024 2,024
Oman 8,056,945 24,390,849 10,666 32,458,460
Qatar 44,290 6,936 0 51,226
Saudi Arabia 9,006,436 54,601,552 16,387,581 79,995,569
Tunisia 969,011 0 2,811 971,822
United Arab Emirates 798,920 1,703,786 424,944 2,927,650
Yemen 735,006 248,600 80,050 1,063,656
Total 36,212,927 86,929,445 19,346,257 142,488,629
Table 2: Value of Canadian military goods shipped
to Middle East and North Africa (in current dollars)
Rank Importing state Value
1 United Kingdom $295,765,576
2 Australia $153,332,581
3 Saudi Arabia $79,995,569
4 New Zealand $72,449,807
5 Norway $71,832,082
6 Germany $71,334,392
7 France $69,733,566
8 Malaysia $49,879,786
9 South Korea $47,318,387
10 Belgium $46,093,622
Table 1: Ten largest reported importers 2007 to 2009
CANADIAN MILITARY EXPORTS
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 20118
The latest arms shipment values to
Middle East and North Africa states re-
ported by DFAIT are given in Table 2.
Canada has supplied military equipment
to the region for decades, with shipment
volumes demonstrating significant peaks
and troughs approximately every decade.
Over the past 20 years, reported Canadian
weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia alone
have totaled almost $2.4-billion,5 making
Saudi Arabia the largest documented re-
cipient of Canadian arms. The UK comes
second, at $1.8-billion.
Although missing U.S. data is the most
significant gap, it is not the only one.
From industry and other sources it is pos-
sible to identify deliveries of Canadian
goods to non-U.S, military end-users that
don’t show up in the DFAIT report.
These deliveries generally fall into three
categories:
• Transfers of military goods reported
by other sources in a year when a
“zero” entry appears in the relevant
goods category in the DFAIT report
(for example, 2007 deliveries of bomb
disposal robots to Brazilian security
forces);
• Military transfers not reported be-
cause they were routed through the
U.S. (for example, the 2009 delivery of
Bell 412EP helicopters to Chile); or
• Dual-use goods for military end-users
that are classed by DFAIT as civilian
(for example, aircraft engines for mili-
tary trainer and patrol aircraft).
From the available data it is not possi-
ble to accurately calculate the full volume
of such exports. Estimates based on re-
ported examples suggest an annual mini-
mum value of $125-million. If these
exports were included, the value of re-
ported sales would increase by at least 25
per cent.
Less than close control
The 2007–09 report documents Canadian
authorization and shipment of significant
volumes of military goods to countries
that are nominally “closely controlled”
under Canadian export control guidelines.
The guidelines call for close control of
arms shipments to states “involved in or
under imminent threat of hostilities”
(DFAIT 2011, p. 2). Table 3 identifies nine
recipients of Canadian military exports
valued in excess of $1-million during the
period 2007–2009 that experienced armed
conflict, as reported in Project
Ploughshares’ Armed Conflicts Report.6 Five
CANADIAN MILITARY EXPORTS
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 9
additional states hosting armed con-
flicts—Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines,
Russia, and Sri Lanka—received Canadian
military goods of less value.
Canada’s export control guidelines ad-
ditionally call for close control of arms
shipments to states “whose governments
have a persistent record of serious viola-
tions of human rights of their citizens.”
All 13 states listed in Table 3 were cited
for systematic and serious human rights
violations. Other governments cited for
serious violations of human rights, includ-
ing China, Guatemala, and Libya, received
arms shipments of less value from
Canada.
The Canadian authorization of arms
exports involves consultations among
DFAIT experts and “case by case” assess-
ments of the risks associated with particu-
lar export requests. In cases where
governments have records of serious
human rights violations, authorization is
provided only if “it can be demonstrated
that there is no reasonable risk that the
goods might be used against the civilian
population” (DFAIT 2011, p. 2). Occa-
sionally, the government assessment of
the risks associated with weapons ship-
ments can be independently reviewed and
challenged. In most cases, however, the
level of reported detail precludes an inde-
pendent assessment of risks. For example,
reported military exports to Saudi Arabia
during the period include more than $4-
million in goods grouped under Canada’s
Export Control List item 2-1, the ECL
item that corresponds most closely to the
UN small arms category. However, the re-
port provides no information on the num-
Export Destination Total shipment value 2007–2009
Hosting armed conflict
and serious human rights violations
Algeria $9,235,132
Colombia $13,466,847
India $1,212,849
Israel $5,215,697
Kenya $1,640,548
Nigeria $3,992,000
Thailand $10,459,200
Turkey $10,691,970
Yemen $1,063,656
Hosting serious human rights violations
Brazil $16,721,674
Egypt $8,928,737
Saudi Arabia $79,995,569
South Africa $33,594,678
Table 3: Recipients under close control*
*Recipients of shipments with value in excess of $1-million
CANADIAN MILITARY EXPORTS
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201110
ber or nature of the 2-1 goods – whether
they include automatic firearms, for exam-
ple. It is impossible, therefore, to deter-
mine the risks of their use by Saudi armed
forces.
Inadequate reporting standards
As noted earlier, the published data does
not present the full picture of Canada’s
military transfers and their contribution to
the global trade in conventional arms.
Transparency standards established by ear-
lier reports have also declined. While earlier
editions provided data 12 to 18 months
after the calendar year in which shipments
occurred, the data bundling of recent
multi-year reports has significantly delayed
the release of some information. In the lat-
est publication the reported details of 2007
Canadian arms shipments are over three
years old. In contrast, several supplier states
report arms sales within 12 months—some
within three months—of delivery (SIPRI
2011, Table 5, p. 7).
The 2007–2009 report also extends the
recently introduced practice of publishing
inaccurate trade figures. Since 2003 the
most detailed table (Table 5 in the latest
report) has contained repeated shipment
values across two or more categories of
goods. Although the report acknowledges
that the tables “contain some double-
counting,” it makes no attempt to explain
how the repeated figures are useful.
Current double-counting practices are
in contrast to those used in annual reports
prior to 2003. These provided accurate
category shipment values that, when
added together, equaled the total value of
shipments to each state. Double-counting
calls into question the utility of reported
aggregated values and precludes substan-
tive analysis of Canadian trade by
weapons category.
During the period 1995–2002 DFAIT
reports provided brief descriptions of the
military goods shipped to each country
and reported all shipments as “weapon
systems and munitions,” “support sys-
tems,” or “parts.” This more descriptive
information has been omitted from all re-
ports since 2003.
Canadian policy contradictions
The report on the export of military
goods from Canada for 2007–2009 re-
flects a dichotomy in Canadian policy. In
multilateral settings Canada advocates
stronger arms trade controls. Canada sup-
ports the negotiation of an effective inter-
CANADIAN MILITARY EXPORTS
Kenneth Epps
is Senior
Program
Officer
with Project
Ploughshares.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 11
national Arms Trade Treaty and improved
national standards to control global arms
transfers. But at home Canada has made
no visible recent effort to improve its own
national export control standards and, in
the area of reporting at least, has consid-
erably weakened standards to which it
once adhered.
There are measures that Canada can
take to square existing and anticipated for-
eign policy commitments on transparency
with domestic practice. These require im-
provements to standards of reporting on
Canadian military exports. In particular:
• To close the most glaring gap in au-
thorization of, and reporting on, Cana-
dian arms transfers, Canada should ini-
tiate discussions with the U.S. aimed at
licensing and recording all military
trade between the two countries.
• Military export controls and report-
ing should apply to all major equip-
ment destined for military end-users.
Canada should report not only exports
of controlled dual-use goods, but also
other equipment shipments to foreign
military services.
• Reporting transparency should be
timely and sufficiently detailed to allow
assessment of possible human rights
and other concerns related to interna-
tional obligations. �
Notes
1. Project Ploughshares has commented on government documentation of the export of military goods since before the first formal DFAIT re-
port was released in 1991. The analysis includes On the Record: An audit of Canada’s report on military exports 2003-05.
2. For a more detailed analysis of the 2007-2009 DFAIT Report go to the Ploughshares website at www.ploughshares.ca.
3. Adjusted for inflation by using constant 2009 Canadian dollars.
4. See “Creating arms transparency,” The Ploughshares Monitor, Spring 2011, pp. 18-19.
5. Adjusted for inflation.
6. The Armed Conflicts Report can be found at www.ploughshares.ca. Armed conflict is defined as “a political conflict in which armed combat
involves the armed forces of at least one state (or one or more armed factions seeking to gain control of all or part of the state), and in which at
least 1,000 people have been killed by the fighting during the course of the conflict.”
References
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. 2011. Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada 2007-2009.
Stockholm InternationalPeace Research Institute. 2011. National reports on arms exports, March.
CANADIAN MILITARY EXPORTS
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201112
In the space of a few short weeks
in February and March 2011 the
United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) took the leap from
diplomatic and economic pre-
ventive measures to sanctioning military
intervention in Libya based on Responsi-
bility to Protect (R2P) principles. Toma-
hawk cruise missiles launched from U.S.
and British ships started hitting strategic
sites in Libya on March 19, with jet fight-
ers from France and the United States fol-
lowing close behind, in the first stage of
setting and enforcing a no-fly zone.
Canada joined this international mili-
tary coalition with six CF-18 fighter jets,
two CP-140 Auroras for surveillance, and
HMCS Charlottetown, for a total reported
direct involvement of 515 Canadian
Forces personnel (Pugliese 2011a/b). A
resolution of the Canadian House of
Commons in support of this action was
unanimously supported by all four federal
parties on March 21, with the proviso that
the mission be reconsidered by Parliament
if it lasted more than three months.
On June 14 the House passed a motion
extending Canada’s role in the mission to
September 2011.1
The Security Council prominently in-
fused Resolutions 1970 on February 26
and 1973 on March 17 with the language
of the international community’s “respon-
sibility to protect” vulnerable civilians,2
while paying heed to the precautionary
principles embedded in R2P.
Target: LibyaIf the military mission is to stay true to R2P principles,
it must be restrained by the primary goal of protecting civilians
By John Siebert
ABOVE: Members ofHMCS Charlottetown'sboarding party conductdrills on the flight decken route to Libya inMarch. Chris Ringius/DND
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 13
The 2001 International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) report codified a stream of inter-
national norms and practice from what
was then called “humanitarian interven-
tions.”3 Non-intervention in other states is
embedded in the UN Charter as a valid
means of protecting the weak from the
predations of the strong. The R2P
framers elevated international humanitar-
ian law to a level similar if not equal to
that of sovereignty. If a state is unwilling
or unable to protect its citizens from im-
manent peril, then the international com-
munity has a responsibility to
intervene—if certain conditions are met.
The first and most important threshold
for an R2P military intervention is “just
cause.” The ICISS report (2001, p. 29)
states explicitly that “for military action
ever to be defensible the circumstances
must be grave indeed.” Only genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes, and
ethnic cleansing, real or apprehended, can
trigger an R2P military intervention.
Verifiable facts in Libya do not clearly
prove the situation had reached the “just
cause” threshold by March 17. What
began in February as apparently peaceful
civilian protest quickly devolved into a
civil war. Serious threats of attack and the
violation of civilians’ human rights by
government forces were observed.
It is difficult to establish from reliable
public sources the number of people actu-
ally killed in Libya in the lead-up to the in-
ternational military intervention.
Commentator Juan Cole (2011), consider-
ing the numbers of dead reported by the
Transitional Authority in Benghazi, con-
cludes, “If 8,000 was an exaggeration,
simply ‘thousands’ was not.” Stephen
Zunes (2011), an opponent of the inter-
vention, writes that “some estimates run
as high as 8,000, some as low as 1,000, but
most estimates put the number of civil-
ians killed during the five weeks between
the start of the uprising and the Western
intervention at approximately 1,700.”
Roland Paris (2011) helpfully points to
the necessity and difficulty of measuring a
what if: “If [a military intervention]
works, a potentially devastating event has
been averted. Paradoxically, however, it
becomes impossible to prove that the dev-
astating event would necessarily have tran-
spired if not for the intervention.” Paris
quotes White House official Dennis Ross,
who reportedly said in a private meeting
that there is “the real or imminent possi-
bility that up to 100,000 people could be
massacred and everyone would blame [the
U.S.] for it.”
The principle of “right intention” by
the international community in interven-
ing also is open to interpretation in the
Libya case. The ICISS report made al-
lowance for mixed motives, but required
that the primary motive for a military in-
tervention be to “avert human suffering.”
Zunes (2011) says in blunter language
what the ICISS report concluded about
mixed motives: “Hypocrisy and double
standards regarding military intervention
does not automatically mean that military
intervention in this case is necessarily
wrong.”
It is not possible now to know what the
impact on civilians might have been had
Libyan troops advanced further on Beng-
hazi and other insurgent-held cities. They
might have stopped short of massacre
and only targeted opposition combatants.
The diplomatic sanctions and proposed
alternatives might have taken hold and re-
Air strikes are not the neat, precision
instruments they are touted to be when the
TV news shows tanks being obliterated.
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201114
strained the Libyan military. On the other
hand, to stop a slaughter in Benghazi, mil-
itary intervention might have been the last
and only option.
“Right authority” as defined by the
ICISS was certainly secured through
UNSC Resolutions 1970 and 1973. With
the passage of the resolutions, the legality
of the military intervention is settled.
Chapter 7 of the UN Charter has been in-
voked to “use all available means” to re-
spond to this threat to vulnerable civilians
and to international peace and security.
Legitimacy is related to legality, but is
not the same thing. Early support from
the Arab League for the imposition of a
no-fly zone against one of its own mem-
bers contributed to the mission’s legiti-
macy.
One of the most difficult issues about
the Libyan intervention arises from the
R2P operational principles that “rules of
engagement fit the operational concept”
and “force protection cannot become the
principal objective.”
The Achilles heel in this military inter-
vention is the focus on air assets and the
uncertainty they lend to the primary stated
mission, which is the protection of vulner-
able civilians. Air strikes are not the neat,
precision instruments they are touted to be
when the TV news shows tanks being
obliterated. Bombs are a very present dan-
ger to civilians and quite imprecise in their
effects. The virtue of an air war to the in-
terveners is that there is very little threat to
the bombers once air defences have been
neutralized. The ICISS report (2001, p. 63)
put its finger on the problem when consid-
ering “force protection” or keeping the in-
tervening military force safe: “Where force
protection becomes the prime concern,
withdrawal—perhaps followed by a new
and more robust initiative—may be the
best course.”
Veteran human security advocate Mary
Kaldor (2011) focuses on the weakness of
an air approach to protect civilians in
Libya. While she praises the “huge
achievement” of the UNSC for acting
“just in time to prevent Gadhafi forces
from overrunning Benghazi,” she rejects
the Resolution 1973 principle that ex-
cludes “a foreign occupation force of any
form on any part of Libyan territory.” She
argues that international intervention
should focus on providing robust security
for vulnerable civilians in UN-protected
areas or safe havens.
Kaldor responds to the politically ex-
pressed hope of many for Gadhafi’s re-
moval from power with the caution to stay
focused on protecting civilians rather than
ABOVE: Thousandsgather in a no-man'sland on the Libyan sideof the Libya-Tunisia bor-der in March. A. Duclos/UN
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 15
degrading or defeating Gadhafi’s military
forces. Ultimately, what the military inter-
vention achieves in protecting citizens in
Benghazi or elsewhere must also set the
stage for a sustainable peace in Libya. The
removal of the current regime could usher
in a prolonged period of instability and
entrenched violence: “If the Gadhafi
regime is overthrown by force, the divi-
sion is likely to persist, leading to a ‘new
war’ rather than democracy.”
Kaldor well knows that the prohibition
on foreign troops entering Libya is almost
universally supported—in Resolution
1973, by the intervener nations in the
coalition, by the Arab League, and by the
armed opposition in Libya. She counters
that “our knee-jerk reaction to crisis is air
strikes because that is what we have the
capability to do.” The need for properly
established and defended safe havens re-
mains. The troops on the ground could be
Arab or African rather than American or
French. They would be peacekeepers and
not invading troops.
UNSC Resolution 1973 makes interna-
tional military action in Libya legal, but
the results of the military intervention
over time may put a spike in the mission’s
legitimacy. The decisive actions of the in-
ternational community under R2P princi-
ples likely prevented the massacre of
many vulnerable civilians in Benghazi and
elsewhere in Libya, but we cannot know
for certain.
Concerns about the primary use of air
assets to protect vulnerable citizens are
genuine. To remain consistent with R2P
principles the ongoing conduct of military
operations must be restrained by the pri-
mary goal of protecting non-combat-
ants—not focussed on regime change or
support for one side in a civil war.
Significant diplomatic initiatives within
the African Union and among Western
powers and Russia are attempting to find a
resolution to the underlying conflict in
Libya. Kaldor’s warnings should be heeded.
Reliance on air power must be coupled
with the requirement to anticipate how the
military intervention can best enable condi-
tions for a sustainable peace in Libya.
Canadian support for a diplomatic solution
to the conflict in Libya should be equal to
or greater than Canada’s military contribu-
tion to the international coalition. �
Notes
1. See Project Ploughshares Briefing 11-2, “Libya and R2P: The failure of bombing raids to protect vulnerable civilians,” June 2011.
2. Previous UNSC resolutions referring to R2P have used the oblique reference of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Outcome Document of the
World Summit in 2005, rather than the language of R2P as outlined in the ICISS report. See, for example, Resolutions 1706 and 1769 on Darfur,
Sudan.
3. In the course of the ICISS hearings humanitarian agencies strongly objected to the use of the word “humanitarian” for any type of military activ-
ity. As a result, the term “humanitarian intervention” has generally been dropped from use.
References
Cole, Juan. 2011. An open letter to the left on Libya. openDemocracy, March 27.
Falk, Richard. 2011. Gaddafi, moral interventionism and revolution. Aljazeera.net, March 23.
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. 2001. The Responsibility to Protect. Ottawa: International Development Re-
search Centre.
Kaldor, Mary. 2011. Libya: War or humanitarian intervention? openDemocracy, March 29.
Paris, Roland. 2011. Intervention in Libya flawed, perhaps, but better than inaction. Globe and Mail, March 28.
Pugliese, Dave. 2011a. Sending Auroras to Libyan campaign won’t affect surveillance of Canadian territory according to MacKay. David
Pugliese’s Defence Watch, Ottawa Citizen, March 24.
———. 2011b. 515 Canadian Forces personnel involved in Libyan campaign. David Pugliese’s Defence Watch, Ottawa Citizen, March 30.
Zunes, Stephen. 2011. Libya: “R2P” and humanitarian intervention are concepts ripe for exploitation. Foreign Policy in Focus, Blog, March 26.
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT
John Siebert
is Executive
Director
of Project
Ploughshares.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201116
Colombia has the dubious
distinction of being the
only country in the Amer-
icas identified by the Proj-
ect Ploughshares Armed
Conflicts Report for 20101as experiencing
armed conflict. For over 50 years, this
country of rugged mountain ranges and
tropical lowlands has suffered from a
complex, and seemingly perpetual, internal
armed conflict.
The key players in this multifaceted
armed conflict are the state and its military
apparatus, various left-wing guerrilla
groups, drug cartels, right-wing paramili-
tary groups, the U.S. government, and in-
ternational corporations with strategic
economic interests in Colombia. Accord-
ing to Nelson Berrio,2 a Colombian peace
and human rights activist, although drug
trafficking was not a root cause of the
armed conflict, it is now a critical factor:
“The money produced by drug-trafficking
in Colombia is what continues to feed the
players in this conflict: the government,
military, guerrillas, and paramilitary.”
The guerrilla movements reached a
peak of strength and popular support in
While guerrillas and paramilitaries grab global attention,
ordinary people are taking peace into their own hands
By Adrienne Wiebe and Bonnie Klassen
Colombia’s best hope
ABOVE: Indigenouschildren from the Em-bera people, displacedby armed conflict, play in Rio Suchio, Colombia.Mark Garten/UN
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 17
the 1980s and early 1990s. During this pe-
riod, there were several unsuccessful at-
tempts to achieve a negotiated peace
between the guerrilla movements and the
government. Since then, the strength and
popularity of the guerrilla groups have de-
clined rapidly, largely because the general
population is disillusioned with the un-
ending violence and instability and by the
guerrillas’ use of kidnapping and drug
trafficking to finance their operations.
The administration of President Uribe
(2002-2010) rejected any possibility of a
negotiated peace and, with U.S. support,
undertook to overcome the guerrillas mili-
tarily. The strategy has had some success
in terms of decreasing the strength of the
insurgents and the territory they control,
although the price has been extremely
high in terms of displaced people, deaths,
and cost. President Juan Manuel Santos,
the former Defence Minister, was elected
in June 2010, and has continued the previ-
ous government’s goal of military victory
over the guerrilla forces.
The biggest losers are 45 million ordi-
nary citizens, rural communities, and the
environment. But it is with the ordinary
citizens, the “losers,” that the best hopes
and possibilities for peace in Colombia are
emerging.
Colombia has been the focus of U.S. at-
tention in Latin America for the past sev-
eral decades. Initiated in 1999, the
infamous Plan Colombia originally pro-
posed by Colombian President Pastrana
included social aid and institutional re-
form. However, in negotiations with the
U.S., it quickly became essentially a pro-
gram of counter-narcotics and military aid.
In October 2010 the U.S. announced that
Plan Colombia would be ending and that a
“High-Level Partnership Dialogue” would
advance the U.S.-Colombia relationship.
The Canada-Colombia relationship is
also in transition. Until last year, Canada
was a significant recipient of refugees
from Colombia. Now Canada is in the
process of signing a free trade agreement
with Colombia, implying that peace and
democracy have returned to the country,
so Canada will no longer be accepting as
many refugees. The free trade agreement
has led to a rapid increase in Canadian
corporate interest in Colombia, mainly in
the oil, gas, and mining sectors.
While political and military efforts to
end the war in Colombia have been un-
successful, the potential for highly prof-
itable investment in Colombia is creating
international pressure for an end to the
armed conflict. In fact, according to a re-
cent news article, the armed conflict has
ended, and Colombia is now relatively sta-
ble politically and open for business. Ac-
cording to Robert Doyle of Medoro
Resources, a gold exploration company
operating in Colombia, “the country has
become a mecca…for the next big find. A
lot of people have discovered that Colom-
bia is a great jurisdiction for mining…. It
has a good, clean, democratic govern-
ment” (Gordon & Rocha 2011).
According to the UN Refugee Agency
(UNHCR 2010), Colombia has the largest
internally displaced population in the
world. CODHES (2010), a nongovern-
mental monitoring agency, estimates the
total number of internally displaced peo-
ple at 4.9 million,3 or about 10 per cent of
the total population of Colombia. Each
year, 250,000–350,000 people are dis-
placed from their homes, mostly in rural
communities threatened by guerrilla or
paramilitary groups (CODHES 2010).
Afro-Colombian and indigenous persons
COLOMBIA
“It is time to confront our history,
empower ourselves and search
for the mechanisms.”
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201118
are disproportionately over-represented.
Most settle in the larger cities, but between
500,000 and 750,000 Colombians have
fled to neighbouring countries, where they
are largely invisible and unassisted.
When rural residents abandon their
communities because of the violence, a
form of “disaster capitalism” occurs.
Powerful economic interests convert
abandoned land to large-scale agriculture
production, such as African palm planta-
tions.
The situation for Colombia’s majority
poor has been exacerbated by the decades
of armed conflict. According to 2007
data, 16 per cent of Colombians live on
less than $1.25 per day, the international
definition of extreme poverty (UNDP
2009, p. 176). Although the percentage of
the population living below the national
poverty line fell from 60 per cent in 1995
to 45.5 per cent in 2009, income inequality
grew in the same period. In fact, Colom-
bia now has one of the highest levels of
income inequality in Latin America (World
Bank 2010).
The increasing gap between the haves
and have-nots is also evident in land tenure.
In 1984, 4 per cent of landowners pos-
sessed 31 per cent of the land. In 2009, 4
per cent of landowners possessed 70 per
cent of the land (World Bank 2010).
Clearly, five decades of violent conflict
have created a climate of distrust and fear
in Colombia. The social fabric of society
has been critically torn. Communities are
fragmented and polarized. Youth feel that
they have no future, so they choose to
“live well but short lives” and turn to
gangs, drug trade, and the armed groups,
legal and illegal. The conflict has elimi-
nated much of the social leadership of
civilian society. A significant number of
widows and women head households.
And Colombia continues to have one of
the worst human rights records in the
world (Amnesty International 2010).
The decades of armed conflict and de-
struction of communities have created en-
vironmental as well as social damage.
Fumigation of illicit drug crops has dam-
aged agricultural land, as have chemicals
used in growing coca. The shift from
small-scale peasant farming to large-scale
plantation agriculture, mining, and energy
resource development also degrades the
land.
Building peace from the ground up
“International attention is on the key play-
ers, such as the government, guerrillas,
and the paramilitary, but not on the ordi-
nary people,” according to Ricardo
Pinzon, Executive Director of MEN-
COLDES, the Colombian Mennonite
Foundation for Development.4 Yet, these
ordinary people, involved in countless
grassroots actions, may be the best hope
for peace.
“A culture of violence has taken root in
Colombians,” according to Ricardo
Esquivia (2010, pp. 11-12), Director of
Sembrandopaz, a community peacebuilding
organization in the northern coast region.
“In order to ensure that these cycles are not
repeated, we have to work to transform this
culture of violence into a culture of
peace…. Based on this principle, various
organizations from different sectors have
united and joined forces to build peace
from the perspective of transforming a cul-
Sewing Dreams of PeaceIn an exercise to heal and
recover, a group of women in
Mampuján, Colombia, calling
themselves Women Sewing
Dreams of Peace, create textile
quilt tapestries that depict the suffering of their community.
Photo: Charlie Geiser
COLOMBIA
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 19
ture of violence into one that privileges
more peaceful and sustainable relations.”
The strategy aims to rebuild the social
fabric of communities, creating spaces for
dialogue and joint action by bringing to-
gether various elements, including Afro-
Colombians, indigenous peoples, women,
displaced people, farmers, young people,
various church groups, teachers, and mu-
nicipal officials.
“In response, the churches and reli-
gious institutions of Colombia have been
working to transform the realities of injus-
tice and violence with seeds of hope, jus-
tice, and durable peace through different
sectors of society at local, regional and na-
tional levels,” according to Alejandro
Perez, Coordinator of Seed. In this pro-
gram of Mennonite Central Committee 12
young people from all over the Americas
work for two years in reflection, service,
and advocacy throughout Colombia.
In October 2010 the UN Development
Programme sponsored a Peace Exposition
in Bogotá. Over 80 regional initiatives for
peace presented their work and were able
to exchange experiences, strengthen al-
liances, and share tools in the work for
peace.
Colombians have begun to declare their
communities zones of peace. The rural
community of San Jose de Apartadó en
Antioquia was destroyed by military at-
tacks twice in 1997. With the support of
international observers, it has rebuilt itself
as a community of peace. The Teusaquillo
neighbourhood of Bogotá and the munic-
ipality of Soacha have declared themselves
“Territories of Peace” (JUSTAPAZ 2009).
Displaced communities are also assert-
ing their rights through the new Victims
Law. They are holding President Santos to
his promise that people will be able to re-
turn to their lands. Ten years ago, when
residents of Mampuján were displaced,
that part of Colombia was highly con-
flicted. In April and May 2010, official
hearings were held with community mem-
bers and paramilitary leaders. As a result,
reparations, including land and financial
compensation, were awarded to the com-
munity. Unfortunately, reparations have
not yet been made (Lester 2010).
Over the past couple of years, the
women of Mampuján have been working
on their own process of recovery and
healing, through the creation of textile
quilt tapestries that tell the story of their
community and its displacement. These
Women Sewing Dreams of Peace (Mu-
jeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz
2010) say, “It is time to confront our his-
tory, empower ourselves and search for
the mechanisms…. We start by showing
that women not only know how to cook,
wash, sew, and look good, but we are also
smart, prepared to heal others with our
best weapons: love and faith.” �
Notes
1. For more information about the conflict and its background, please see Project
Ploughshares Armed Conflicts Report. www.ploughshares.ca.
2. Personal interview with Nelson Berrío, Bogotá, October 20, 2010.
3. This figure is cumulative over the last 25 years.
4. Personal interview with Ricardo Pinzon, Bogotá, October 27, 2010.
References
Amnesty International. 2010. Amnesty International Report 2010: The State of the
World’s Human Rights, pp. 108-112.
CODHES. 2010. Boletín informativo de la Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y
el Desplazamiento. No. 76.
Esquivia, Ricardo. 2010. Hechos del Callejón. Número 56, PNUD, Colombia.
Gordon, Julie & Euan Rocha. 2011. Canadians heading to gold’s ‘new frontier’: South
American country’s dormant industry has stirred after a decade of political instability.
Vancouver Sun, February 2.
JUSTAPAZ. 2009. La Llamada Profética, Reporte 5.
Lester, Maria Pierson. 2010. Reparations process and Colombia’s armed conflict. A
Common Place, Fall.
Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz. 2010. Mampuján: la memoria en tapices.
Hechos del Callejón, Número 56, PNUD, Colombia, Oct-Nov.
United Nations Development Programme. 2009. Human Development Report 2009:
Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development.
United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 2010. Tendencias Globales 2009. Junio
15, tables, pages 29-36.
World Bank. 2010. Data by Country. Colombia.
Adrienne
Wiebe is Latin
America Policy
Analyst,
Mennonite
Central
Committee.
Bonnie
Klassen
is Country
Representa-
tive,
MCC
Colombia.
COLOMBIA
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201120
In 2010 there were 24 active
armed conflicts worldwide, a de-
crease of four from the previous
year. After no change in the num-
ber of active armed conflicts be-
tween 2008 and 2009, this decrease marks
a return to the prevailing downward trend
that started in 2000.
No new conflicts were added in 2010,
and conflicts were deemed over in Nepal,
Burundi, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. In 2006,
both Nepal and Burundi signed peace
agreements that now seem to have taken
root. While violence flared up in Burundi
in 2008, for each of the two consecutive
years since, the total number of direct
conflict-related deaths in Burundi has
been fewer than 25. In Nepal, while
human rights abuses and incidents of vio-
lence continue, especially in the Terai re-
gion, this violence lacks a political agenda;
the number of combatant deaths resulting
from conflict between political actors has
fallen below 25 a year for several consecu-
tive years. Sri Lanka’s civil war came to a
decisive end in July 2009 when the gov-
ernment militarily defeated the main rebel
group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam. The end to Sri Lanka’s war marks a
rare instance of military victory; the over-
whelming majority of conflicts since the
1990s have ended through some type of
negotiated settlement. Although Northern
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
continues to commit violence in neigh-
bouring Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Central African
Republic, no combat-related deaths have
occurred on Ugandan soil in a number of
years, and it seems unlikely the LRA will
The number of armed conflicts and deaths are down,
but the number of displaced people is steadily rising
By Christina Woolner
A new measure of war
2011 ARMED CONFLICTS REPORT
ABOVE: Children poseon a hill overlooking theOmiya-Anyima internallydisplaced persons campin Kitgum District, Northern Uganda.Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 21
ARMED CONFLICTS REPORT
be active in Uganda again.
Although the removal of four coun-
tries from the Armed Conflicts Report this
year is a positive development, a look at
trends in forced displacement reveals a
less hopeful story.
After dropping from record-high levels
in the early 1990s, the number of dis-
placed people across the globe has steadily
increased and is fast approaching the lev-
els seen in the wake of the Cold War. In
2009 (the last year for which statistics are
available), there were a total of 43.3 mil-
lion displaced people across the globe:
15.2 million refugees, 27.1 million inter-
nally displaced persons (IDPs), and almost
one million asylum seekers.
This upward trend in forced displace-
ment suggests two things. First, because
the top 10 refugee- and IDP-producing
countries are all on the 2011 Armed Con-
flicts Report, it would appear that more
and more civilians are being forced from
their homes as a result of armed violence.
Second, the fact that the number of dis-
placed people is rising despite a decreasing
number of armed conflicts suggests that
it is taking years, even decades, for people
to return home—if they ever do. The im-
pact of armed conflict even after wars
have ended cannot be overstated.
Another sobering observation about
the 24 armed conflicts active in 2010 is
the fact that the overwhelming majority of
these conflicts are well over a decade old.
Of the 24 conflicts active in 2010, only
five were added during the last decade:
Thailand, Ethiopia (Ogaden), Iraq,
Christina
Woolner is a
Project Officer
with Project
Ploughshares.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 201122
ARMED CONFLICTS REPORT
Yemen, and Turkey. However, earlier or
different phases of the last three were
recorded in previous Armed Conflicts Re-
ports. Conflicts in the Ogaden region of
Ethiopia and southern Thailand are also
by no means new. Somalia and Ethiopia
fought a full-blown war over the Ogaden
in the late 1970s and unrest in southern
Thailand dates back to the 1960s. While
on the one hand it is encouraging to see
that very few new conflicts have erupted
in the last decade, this trend also illustrates
the protracted nature of all current armed
conflicts and the difficulty in bringing
them to an end.
Examining Armed Conflicts Reports for
the last decade reveals interesting patterns
about where armed conflicts take place.
While the number of active armed con-
flicts in both Africa and Asia dropped by
two in 2010, these two regions continue to
host three-quarters of the world’s con-
flicts. Europe, the Americas, and the Mid-
dle East combine to host the remaining
quarter.
Still, both Africa and Asia have made
significant gains over the past 10 years.
Since 2001, 14 conflicts in Africa have
come to an end. While three new conflicts
emerged or re-emerged, only the one in
the Ogaden region of Ethiopia is still ac-
tive. Asia also saw significant net gains,
with nine conflicts coming to an end and
four emerging, only one of which (Thai-
land) is still active.
In Europe one conflict ended and no
new conflicts emerged.
The Middle East has seen the least im-
provement: while six conflicts ended, four
conflicts began or re-emerged, three of
which are still active. Given the events of
the “Arab Spring” that have turned violent
in some countries, it is likely that the Mid-
dle East’s share of global armed conflicts
will increase again in next year’s Armed
Conflicts Report. �
Regional distribution of armed conflicts
Asia37.4 %
Africa37.4 %
Middle East17 %
Europe
4% Americas4%
Top ten countries producing refugees and IDPs
For full descriptions of armed conflicts, an interactive map,
supplementary data on military spending, peacekeeping,
forced displacement, and more, visit www.ploughshares.ca.
The Ploughshares Monitor | Summer 2011 23
This collection of articles, speeches, and letters by GeneStoltzfus recounts his journey of Christian peacemaking. The founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams,
Stoltzfus served in the post from 1988 until 2004.
Books etc.
Create�Space�for�Peace:
Forty�Years�of �Peacemaking,
Gene�Stoltzfus,�1940-2010
Dorothy Friesenand Marilen Abesamis, editorsTrimark Press, 2011To order: www.cpt.org
IDRC:�40�Years�of �Ideas,�
Innovation,�and�Impact
Bruce Muirhead and Ronald N. HarpellWilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010Paperback, 402 pages, $39.95
The International Development Research Centrewas established in 1970 with a conscious attempt toavoid “research imperialism.” This book highlightsthe decisions, ideas, and practices that flow fromthis basic premise.
Sociology professor and editor-in-chief of Peace Magazine,Metta Spencer describes the groups, forces, and individu-als that worked to liberalize the totalitarian Soviet Union,and recounts the subsequent political and militarychanges that occurred in Russia.
The�Russian�Quest�
for�Peace�and�Democracy
Metta Spencer Lexington Books, 2010Hardcover, 346 pages, $84
Gangs
Richard SwiftGroundwood Books Ltd, 2011Paperback, 144 pages, $18.95
This book by journalist Richard Swift offers an examination of the social context of poverty and inequality that is proving to be such fertile breedingground for gangs of armed young people around the world.
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