What is Self-determination?

Here is a clear text about the right of self-determination, from the website of UNPO. Denying this right is the cause of dozens of armed conflicts around the world.

Essentially, the right to self-determination is the right of a people to determine its own destiny. In particular, the principle allows a people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development. Exercise of this right can result in a variety of different outcomes ranging from political independence through to full integration within a state. The importance lies in the right of choice, so that the outcome of a people's choice should not affect the existence of the right to make a choice. In practice, however, the possible outcome of an exercise of self-determination will often determine the attitude of governments towards the actual claim by a people or nation. Thus, while claims to cultural autonomy may be more readily recognized by states, claims to independence are more likely to be rejected by them. Nevertheless, the right to self-determination is recognized in international law as a right of process (not of outcome) belonging to peoples and not to states or governments.

Does anybody know where Nepal is?

Watch the documentary Reality of Nepal

Nepal is a wonderful country, rich in history and culture, where an ideological revolt is at the end and an interethnic clash is at the beginning.
A very interesting article from BBC gives us an example of how environmental care, peace and private interests can be linked together. I try to summarize it briefly.

Nepal is home to the world's highest mountains and to a rich diversity of flora and fauna, but much of the work to conserve them is embroiled in political controversy.
The National Trust for Nature Conservation was until last year named in honour of a former king, Mahendra, and was chaired by Crown Prince Paras with his father, King Gyanendra, as patron.
An investigation has concluded that Nepal's royal family spent large amounts of the trust's money on themselves, over a period of several years, on travels abroad, lavish parties, and health check-ups for Queen Komal in British clinics.
The investigation was entirely conducted by Maoist former rebels, who are now in government and control the trust, but are not an entirely objective source. The report on the trust's funds comes two weeks before elections to an assembly which is supposed to rubber-stamp the abolition of the 240-year-old monarchy.
If the story is true, it would be an example of the abuses committed by the royal family, causes of the ten-year long ideological war in Nepal, in which an estimated 12,000 to 13,000 people have died from 1996 to 2006.

Read the BIPPI dossier on Nepal civil war

PMC. Mamma mia!!!

I received from MB (for his security I write only the first letters of the name) an essay on the reality of Iraq in 2008, as we Westerners wanted it.

Did Italy ever disengaged from Iraq? (in Italian)
From disengagement of regular troops to the Private Military Companies.

It talks of mercenaries and contractors, the involvement of private companies (Private Military Companies) and the behaviour of these, which is "consonant with the political conduct" of the States involved in the war.
It talks of contracts, mentioning names and figures, facts unknown to many political columnists of the "mission of peace".
It talks of Barbara Contini, governor for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA, the occupying coalition), in the province of Dhi Qar, in the south of Iraq.
It talks of "armed men, independent of any civil or military court, who act with total impunity in a region devastated by war."

An accurate and detailed work, essential reading.

To better understand which kind of culture we are talking about here is the link to the spot of StartSicurezza srl, one of the best Italian private security agency, and here is even the link to Arcoiris TV to see per vedere una big-game hunt to man in Iraq by a small group of American "contractors" from AEGIS, a hyperspecialized private agency.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Updating news

Mohamed Bacar, Anjouan's President-elect

Some small news from the world ignored by the disinformation media.

Approximately 450 Comorian soldiers backed by 1,500 soldiers of the African Union last Tuesday invaded the island of Anjouan, the second of the Comoros islands, and took control. Several supporters of the separatist government have been killed, some officers were captured. The President-elect of Anjouan, Colonel Mohamed Bacar, still hasn’t been located. His re-election in June 2007 has been declared illegal by the federal government of Comoros islands.

The Russian parliament, the Duma, has approved a non-binding resolution that calls on the government to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two filo-russian provinces of European Georgia which are de facto independent.
The Duma stresses respect for the sovereignty of Georgia, while saying that the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo has changed the rules of the game.
In the reasoning of the Russian Duma also enters the filo-russian Transdniestrian region of Moldova, also a de facto independent state.

Another member of Degar ethnicity (the so-called Montagnards) met his death in Vietnamese prisons where he was imprisoned because of his religious convictions. The Degars, former allies of the US during the disaster of Vietnam, are persecuted by the central government for reasons of cultural identity tied to the land they occupy and religion they practice, causes of autonomist pushes.

Taiwan, another de facto independent state but without any international recognition, chose in a referendum not to pursue at the moment the entry into the United Nations, choosing the (economic) meeting rather than the (military) clash with China .

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

You must be the change you want to see in the world

I suppose that education for a culture of peace has a great meaning: discovering in which way we all can make the world better for everybody, how can each of us make a difference.

It's not necessary to be a fundamentalist, our goal must not be perfection because perfection doesn't exist.
But the basic thing is striving to behave in a better way, starting from the knowledge of what happens in the wider world.
The most important thing is being aware of the impact of our actions on the entire world. Then we can choose for the best, according to our opinions and necessities.

The true enemy of peace is the one who leaves to other people the job of building it.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world" Mahatma Gandhi

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Popeye, a man of peace

We are all responsible for what is happening in the world through our choices and our consumption. Inspired by an article in La Repubblica I want to introduce a topic relevant to the Easter holiday: the consumption of meat.

The consumption of meat - especially red meat - is a luxury in terms of resources used for nutrition: one hectare cultivated in grain produces five times more protein per hectare than the production of meat, a hectare cultivated with spinach produces 26 times more protein.
In the world there are 1.3 million cattle, an immense herd which occupies, directly or indirectly, 24% of the Earth's surface and consumes an amount of grain sufficient to feed hundreds of millions of people.
It has been estimated that 1000 grams of vegetable protein is necessary to produce 60 grams of animal protein. That a kilo of beef "drinks" 3,200 litres of water. That it takes 22 grams of oil to produce 1 kilo of flour against 193 to produce 1 kilo of meat.

Cattle are a nutrition source which need tons of water and energy. The result of it is food for only 20% of the global population of the planet. That 20% uses 80% of the world's resources.
If all this were not enough to reduce the consumption of red meat, one must think that a part of the cereal crops needed to feed cattle are cheap-imports from countries where hunger is killing human beings. Children of poor countries do not have enough cereals to let us eat our steak.
Popeye was eating spinach. If we imitate him the world would be better.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

The first lesson that l have learned

The pope, the supreme pastor of the Roman Catholic Church and spiritual leader of about one billion people, called for finding solutions that preserve "the good and peace in regions of the planet troubled from conflict, in which includes Darfur and Somalia, "the martyrized Middle East", the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, "and finally Tibet".
The papal infallibility expressed by Vatican Council I is just about religious doctrine in the strict sense and not about life as we live.
Indeed, the pope was wrong.
He forgot in his appeal the Caucasus, Haiti, Yemen, the Western Sahara, the delta of the Niger, Nepal, Mindanao and all the others and more than 70 places in the world where people kill other people for the right to govern.
Or maybe it wasn’t the pope who was wrong, maybe it was the newspapers and television which remind us the things of the world only when we are closely involved. But are we maybe not all involved in all of world conflicts?
No?
Who sells anti-personnel mines to Morocco for keeping the Saharawis away from deposits of phosphates?
Who supported and supports the Philippine government in attempts to cultural assimilation of Mindanao?
Who benefits from the wide Nigerian resources leaving only crumbs, resulting in the extreme poverty of the local population?
Who provides politic and military coverage to semi-dictatorial kingdoms and emerites of the Middle East?
Who goes to conclude billionaires trade agreements with governments which ignore fundamental human rights?
Whoever invents diminishing synonyms of the word "war" to go and destroy and then rebuild?

Education for a culture of peace, lesson one: we are all responsible, through our choices and our consumption, of all that takes place in a globalised world.
All means each of us!

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)