intervening in libya - project ploughshares · (cdrav). today 17 organizations from 14 countries...

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 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.


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.

[email protected]


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


$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 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



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



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-


Kenneth Epps

is Senior

Program

Officer

with Project

Ploughshares.

[email protected]


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.



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 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


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



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.


John Siebert

is Executive

Director

of Project

Ploughshares.

[email protected]


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 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.”


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


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


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


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.

[email protected]


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.


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,�

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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�

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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.

PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40065122

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intervening in libya - project ploughshares · (cdrav). today 17 organizations from 14 countries...

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