Ideas and plans for self-organised workshops during the conference

Post-war peacebuilding operations: an abused concept

Howard Clark, Jill Sternberg?

Day 2: Militarism and Globalisation

Riders for Peace

Angela Kemper

Day 2

Riders for Peace In this workshop the group "Riders for Peace" will present itself and its activities. Once a year we go for a political ride in various parts of Germany. In the towns and villages passed on the way we carry out a variety of imaginative actions concerning the subject of peace. Here the horses play an important role in winning the affection of the people. After the theoretical and practical presentation of our work, all participants will be engaged in a creative workshop. The aim is to find and produce symbols from various materials and create something that may be used in the work for peace at home. The workshop will take place outside if the weather is fine.

Armament and Social Welfare

Joachim Schramm

Day 2

Weltweit wird wieder aufgerüstet, werden immense Geldbeträge für Waffen und Soldaten ausgegeben. 2003 erreichten die Rüstungsausgaben die Höhe von 956 Milliarden US-Dollar! Steigerungen ergeben sich vor allem durch eine Zunahme von Rüstungsprojekten in den Industriestaaten. Doch auch arme Länder rüsten auf und verwenden z.T. fast 25% ihres Bruttosozialprodukts für Rüstung. Dieser Verschwendung von Geld und Ressourcen stehen der neoliberale Abbau von staatlichen sozialen Leistungen auf der einen Seite und bei den Industriestaaten die Nichterfüllung von Entwicklungshilfezielen auf der anderen Seite gegenüber. Der Workshop will diese Entwicklung aufzeigen und diskutieren sowie Aktionsbeispiele zur Thematik darstellen. Language: German

flipchart, overhead projector

Nonviolent strategic planning for globalization from below groups

Stellan Vinthagen?

Day 4: For a nonviolent strategic framework

Commonwealth People's Forum

Gernot Lennert

Day 3 (not at the same time as Africa WG)

Participation of WRI and WRI affiliates from Commonwealth countries in the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Uganda 2007 (and in Trinidad 2009) The workshop is to address primarily WRI members from Commonwealth countries, from Zimbabwe and from WRI’s Africa Working Group. My proposal: I suggest that WRI and/or WRI members participate in the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Uganda in 2007 (and in the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Trinidad 2009) in order to - present WRI and to spread its ideas - establish and intensify contacts with activists and NGOs from 53 countries, in case of the 2007 meeting especially with people from Uganda and Commonwealth Africa (including Zimbabwe), in case of the 2009 meeting especially with people from the Commonwealth Caribbean. Workshop language: English

flipchart, overhead projector

Europe without Army?

Kai-Uwe Dosch, kai-uwe.dosch@hammkomm.de, Rene Burget, rene.burget@free.fr

Day 4?

This workshop will inform about the militarization of EUrope. We will present the EUropean constitution, armament agency, intervention troops and battle groups as well as international ‘operations’ as steps towards militarization. We can discuss resistance against nuclear weapons, arms trade or security policy as steps towards demilitarization. We want to focus on the regional between the global and national level as field of both military and pacifist activities. Our intention and proposal is a ‘structured cooperation’ or exchange between european pacifist organisations (WRI affiliates?) and an multilingual e-mail-list.

Research and Action

Stellan Vinthagen

Lawless world ?

Holger Schmidt

Day 4

The workshop starts with an overview of the history of the International Law. Then we speak about the present competition between the institutional bodies that have jurisdiction over international crimes.On the one hand there are the ad-hoc-tribunals, established by the United Nations Security Council resolutions and on the other hand the hybrid tribunals, composed of national as well as international staff, which presently operate in different forms all over the world.It will be shown how these different institutions work and especially how they relate to each other. The workshop gives an account of the Pinochet- and similar cases and of the creation of the international Criminal Court. Finally we ask for the relationship of the International Law and the german law and the relationship between the pacifist movement and the International Law. Languages: german and english

OHP

Nonviolent resistance to nuclear power and weapons

???

Day 2

"International presence/accompaniment - a nonviolence method in armed conflicts"

Kerstin Bergeå, Martin Smedjeback, SweFOR

Day ?

The workshop will present accompaniment/international presence; a historical overview and how it is used today. A case study on accompaniment/international presence in Israel/Palestine is made to show how the method is used today in a particular context. The participants try out how it can be to work with the method by using Hassle lines. A group exercise on the ABC-triangle and International presence/accompaniment is made to analyse the method and for everyone to have inputs on the method’s pros and cons. Language: English

Nonviolent communication according to M Rosenberg

Heike Laschinski; Bärbel Mätzold-Kirstein

Day 2 + 3 + 4

“Wars are tragic impressions of unmet needs” So Marshall Rosenberg says: “Changing the world that means: The love to live we are feeling in us to bring it out into the world”, because we know: Peace starts in our hearts. How can we find a way out of our thinking in terms of winner and looser, competition, prejudices and enemy images? The way of non-violent communication leads us back again to our empathic nature and to our lost language, in which it is authentic to do good to each other. In this workshop we will focus on your individual experiences e.g.: In resistance, demonstrations, bargaining between different groups. Introductionary session:

       Communication that blocks empathy
       Four steps of non-violent communication
       With which ears do I listen to?
       Four possibilities to act   

Workshop language will be German, hopefully there will be an interpretation.

3 flipcharts

Avoiding Military Service as a Political Movement

Sergeiy Sandler

Day 4

Draft evasion and other forms of avoiding military service (even where there is no conscription) are rarely viewed as a movement at all, and in many cases are ignored by organisations focusing on conscientious objection and by the broader movement. This workshop will try to explore the possibilities of viewing this phenomenon as a movement, as a political movement, and as a political movement with a vast potential for fostering social change.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in the Age of Globalisation

Dorothy Naor

Day 3 or 4

The workshop will consider the similarities and differences between the terms ‘boycott, divestment, sanctions’ (bds), emphasize their non-violent nature, and will furnish a brief historical background of given instances in which such means were used to pressure governments, and how they contributed to getting results. The focus will be on possible uses of these means to pressuring Israel to end the Occupation of Palestinians and their lands.

Africa WG

(Matt Meyer, Jan van Criekinge)

not same day as women

This workshop will begin with selected reports on current topics in African peacemaking, resistance to compulsory armed service, and nonviolence. We will then have a chance for a dialogue on the challenges in building awareness of African resistance movements within WRI, and awareness of the work and resources of WRI within Africa. The workshop will conclude with concrete suggestions for the future direction of the WRI Africa Working Group.

Peace movement publications

???

WRI and Asia?

Simo Hellsten

Day 4

Some WRI-affiliates have special focus for some Asian regions or countries and there are some member organisations as well. It might be a good time to look whether it makes sense to use WRI as a tool for networking for some of the work in Asia - or on the other hand other Asia-related networks and projects to supply WRI-network information about militarism/antimilitarism etc. in countries where there are no members.

• What kind of projects and cooperation WRI and affiliates have in Asia?
• Do WRI member organisations have networkig within the region?
• Would it make sense to start an Asia working group?

(also: coming up Asia Europe People's Forum in Helsinki at the same time with IPB triennial)

Nonviolence needs Anarchism! Where and Why.

(Lou Marin)

Day 3 or 4

Four examples in this workshop will show the necessitiy of thinking anarchism and nonviolence together: 1) Within strategies of nonviolent direct action there is a profound neglection of spontaneous upheavals without arms or very low-level-violence. Mass movements like the successful french students movement against CPE in march this year show the strength of spontaneous nonviolent mass campaigns (f.e. slogans like: „Etudiants nonviolents“). The concept of revolt by Albert Camus will be presented here to show a different vision of the course of social movements like the one based on many nonviolent training concepts. 2) The concept of „national pacifism“ adopted by the WRI during the beginning of the nineties by the group „Slovenia without army“ was one of WRI’s failures. The concept was just a trigger for state-building. Former activist Janez Jansa soon became defence minister and conducted an army. The slovenian war of freedom served as role model for the other Ex-Yugoslav nations in their warfare and state-building. With an anarchist approach this desaster could have been forseen. 3) Today in Eastern Europe concepts of nonviolent direct massaction are integrated in Western European or US-interest strategies in order to topple dictatorial governments and replace them by governments of even the same dictatorial quality that will serve the strategic interests of western states, especially oil-interests, which is why Azeri-dicatorship at Baku is out of question. By these strategies the military powers try to avoid expensive wars like in Iraq, but to have the same results. Some „professional“ activists in Eastern Europe take their money and serve these interests instead of taking contact to WRI. Why? 4) Within the war-troubled region of Israel and Palestine there occured youth groups like the nonviolent „Anarchists Against the Wall“ and gave examples of common nonviolent direct actions of Israeli acitivists within the palestine resistance of villages like Bilin against the building of the Wall. A Film (DVD on CD) will show their approach.

Videobeamer conducted by a notebook or computer

Militarismo y Antimilitarismo en Chile y Cono Sur

Pelao Carvallo

Militarism and antimilitarism in Chile and the Southern Cone of Latin America

"Between war and peace in DR Congo: challenges for the peace movement"

(Jan Van Criekinge, Emanuel Matondo (?), participants from the Great Lakes region (?))

not the same day as Africa WG

"The war that caused the death of 4 million people since 1996 in the greatest country of Central Africa is still not over. On 30 July there will be elections under supervision of the UN, but the plundering of the country is going on and war criminals are members of the transitional government or/and are candidates at the elections. The UN mission in the DRC, MONUC, is the most expensive UN operation ever, but what will be the result? Even the EU is sending troops (under German command). The civil society, that was very active and used nonviolence as a strategy in the ninthies, is now also demanding the formation of a 'national army that can defend republican values' as a solution for stability in the future. What are the challenges and possibilities for a nonviolent and antimilitarist approach?

Neocolonialist Military Intervention Policy of EU and NATO in Africa

Tobias Pflüger MEP

day 3

Seit Anfang Juli sind EU-Truppen in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo stationiert, offiziell zur Absicherung der Wahlen am 30. Juli, aber längst ist klar, dass es um mehr bei diesem Einsatz geht: Absicherung von Rohstoffquellen und Handelswegen. Der bereits in Erwägung gezogene EU-Militäreinsatz im Sudan, dann gemeinsam mit der NATO, ist prototypisch für künftige Einsätze der neu geschaffenen schnellen europäischen Eingreiftruppen, den sogenannten Battlegroups. Denn die Stabilisierung so genannter fehlgeschlagener Staaten, die von neoliberaler Politik in Armut und Konflikte gestürzt wurden, ist essentiell, um Handelsinteressen auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent zu wahren. Der Vorsitzende des EU-Militärkomitees Gustav Hägglund bezeichnet das so: "Ausufernde Unruhen und eine Regierung, die ihren eigenen Staat nicht im Griff hat, sind Gift für profitablen Handel." Der Workshop mit dem Europaabgeordneten Tobias Pflüger (Vorstandsmitglied der Informationsstelle Militarisierung/IMI e.V.) soll die Interessenspolitik der EU und NATO auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent anhand einiger Beispiele beleuchten. Language: German

Narmada Struggle

Daniel Mazagaonkar

Day 3 or 4

1. Introductory remark: how I came closer to this struggle, my brief background 2. Some details about the whole issue of Dam basic facts- genesis. 3. What happened in March 06 and what are the signals that are received by campaign people after the Delhi fast and various steps govt. took. 4. What is the way for all the peaceful/non-violent struggles, when all the democratic options/openings are tapped and the result is zero. My assessment, thoughts.