Triennial

When the killing and brutality have largely come to an end, how do you go about
healing both individuals and society? Roberta Bacic, a former member of
Chile's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, reflects.

In October 97, INFOKREIS — a network of Swiss
organisations which have worked with people from former-Yugoslavia — organised
a conference entitled "Building Peace from the Roots". Participants came from
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Chile, Switzerland and South Africa.

Rafa Ajangiz
c/o KEM-MOC, Iturribide 12-1 D,48006 Bilbao, State of Spain. Tel.: +344 415 3772; fax: +34 4479 0383 Roberta Bacic Herzfeld
Los Capullos, 0135 Villa Andalucia, Temuco, Chile. Tel: +56 45 251445 (H), +5645 215263 (W). Albert Beale
c/o Housmans Peace Resource Project, 5 Caledonian Road, London NI 9DX, Britain Reinoud Doeschot
Groene Zoom 12, 2811 VH Reeuwyk, Netherlands Thomas Hackman
Sandgatan I B 25, 00180 Helsingfors, Finland Maggie Helwig
312a Walworth Road, London SE17 2NA Marko Hren

with the approval of the IX International Conscientious Objection Meeting (Cachipay, Colombia) and the XXI Triennial of War Resisters' International (São Leopoldo, Brazil)

Proposal for a series of consultations with armed struggle movements

The proposal is to hold a series of consultations with movements engaged ii' armed struggle or who have recently quit armed struggle. These consultations would he held in different countries, and would be documented afterwards. They would happen over a period of time, say a three-year period, to build up the trust necessary for a real dialogue.

War Crimes and Social Healing

Fadlitator: Roberta Bacic, Chile.

Panelists: Ana Chavez, SERPAJ Argentina: Rob Goldman, CO Support Group (COSG) South Africa; Vesna Terselic, Anti-War Centre, Croatia

Daily violence - Social and urban insecurity

Convenor: Ana Chavez (SERPAJ-Argentina)

Here it is at last: a summary of most of the discussions held at our Triennial Conference last December. This report is not exhaustive, as we could not obtain notes or tapes for all the scheduled events. If anybody has any written summary of one of the meetings not featured here, please send it to the London office so that it can be included in the collection of longer reports that will be available in English and Spanish mid-July.

by Maggie Helwig

"Our daily lives must be visible," says Staša. "They must become international policy. It is my international policy that Haya comes to my house. That is my government."

Staša, from Belgrade, and Haya, from Jerusalem, were both part of the theme group on women's work against violence at the War Resisters International's Triennial in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, held in December 1994. Although the group's conclusions cannot be summed up in any brief form, Staša's words do express a fundamental principle underlying much of what was said.

Preparations for the next WRI Triennial in São Leopoldo, Brazil, are now well under way. The last Triennial Committee meeting on 25 March discussed the main elements of the programme, which consists of a mixture of small meetings and larger sessions.

A central concept for the Triennial in Brazil will be "the chain of violence", a chain connecting everyday experience with the structures which ultimately lead to war and destruction.

Life can be better than this. The most fortunate of us have been crippled and scarred; we are less than we could be. All of us have lived in societies where individuals, groups, classes exert arbitrary power over others. This is the essence of oppression. Women and men who should be able to think and decide and act for themselves are forced to be the obedient instruments of the will of others.

Nor is it the conditions of the present time alone that cripple us. 'The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living' wrote Marx. The history and culture of every society shapes the consciousness of those born and brought up within it, and no culture is without repressions, taboos, and myths which limit the growth of individuals and of society as a whole. Without a profound cultural revolution there is no revolution at all.