By Dr Eyal Mayroz, University of Sydney

The event, hosted by the Sydney Peace Foundation with support from USYD Faculty of Medicine and Health, was very timely—or more accurately, long overdue.

To be sure, many of us have been passionate and dedicated to addressing other man-made catastrophes, particularly the horrors in Gaza (my own tally of invited media engagements has been 140 on Israel-Palestine, compared to one only on Sudan). However, absent greater public attention to Sudan, the three-way dependency between media, audiences, and policymakers will remain at a standstill, allowing countless innocents to be massacred invisibly.

Now entering its third year, the war has reportedly claimed 150,000 lives, displaced 13 million people, and left 30 million (more than half the country’s population) fully dependent on humanitarian aid.

The term “civil war” is actually misleading, as we are witnessing a protracted power struggle between two brutal generals and their forces, both sides guilty of numerous mass atrocities against innocent civilians (though one side bears significantly more responsibility).

In the worst-affected western province of Darfur, an area the size of France, intermittent genocide has been taking place…since late 2003.

And the world remains silent.

Global media attention, and consequently public interest, has focused elsewhere, allowing governments to do what they do best—make moralizing statements of condemnation while committing vastly insufficient funds for humanitarian aid.

Under-resourced and understaffed NGOs—the few still operating on the ground in Darfur (most having withdrawn due to high risks to their staff)—are struggling against a fresh wave of mass killings, displacement, rape, insecurity, and enormous difficulties in bringing lifesaving aid into the war zone.

The absence of food, water, medicines, and other essentials led the UN to declare a state of famine in North Darfur, a year ago already. Yet, without political will to stop the fighting, conditions continue to deteriorate.

Three weeks ago, most of the 500,000 African-Sudanese inhabitants of Darfur’s largest IDP camp, Zamzam, were forced to flee for their lives after a long-warned-about assault by the RSF, a reincarnation of the original Janjaweed responsible for the 2004-2005 genocide. This is another ethnically targeted campaign of mass destruction, murder, and rape.

The use of the word “mass” can easily hide the fact that these are individual persons, women, children, elderly, and men, all with names and faces, and families who love them, if they are still alive, so important to try to keep that in mind.

I could continue on and on, but to keep this post concise, I’ll refer you to the highly authoritative update by Nathaniel Raymond, Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, who for the past two years has been “satellite tracking” and alerting the world to the unfolding mass atrocities. Nathaniel’s recent webinar is titled: “Watching a Genocide Unfold from Space: Monitoring Attacks on Civilians in Sudan.“

It is incumbent on all of us to pay more attention, make much more noise, and push more media to cover the situation in Sudan. Let’s show our Sudanese brothers and sisters, both here and in Sudan, that for us Australians, innocent Black lives matter as much as Brown and White.

Eyal Mayroz

PS. The UAE, Australia’s main trading partner in the Middle East, is the primary weapons supplier to the murderous RSF. Sudan recently took the UAE to the International Court of Justice on charges of aiding genocide, but the case was dismissed earlier this week due to jurisdictional issues (a matter of legal constraints unrelated to the merits of the case itself).

Despite well-documented evidence linking the UAE to the RSF and the prolonging of this war, we have yet to hear any response from Canberra on this troubling relationship.

The post Don’t Look Away From the Genocide in Sudan appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

For eight agonising days, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) repeated the same haunting words: “Their fate remains unknown”.

For eight days, I searched feverishly, refreshing news pages for updates, desperately seeking answers. We cannot simply bear witness. We must honour Mostafa Khufaga, Saleh Muamer, Ezzedine Shaath, Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed Al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed Al-Sharif, and Rifaat Radwan, who paid the ultimate price, for the good of humanity.

Rules exist everywhere, even in war. The international rules-based order was founded on the promise that even in war, humanity would prevail. The wounded would be treated and people who save lives would be protected, not deliberately targeted.

But in Gaza, that promise lies in ruins. The medic massacre of eight PRCS workers is not merely a war crime; it is an assault on the very essence of international humanitarian law and justice. It is an attack on humanity itself, marking one of our darkest hours.

First responders take tremendous risks to reach the injured and the vulnerable. Yet, the PRCS has been obstructed by Israeli forces long before October 2023. Israeli tanks block their passage, and checkpoints force them to undergo searches to delay and deny them entry—obstacles no other ambulance service in the world faces.

On March 23, 2025, when the news first broke that PRCS teams had been besieged in Rafah, time froze. My heartbeat increased, my anxiety escalated, and yet, after bearing witness to atrocity after atrocity, nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming grief and mourning that would envelop me.

As Palestinians, we have been trapped in a constant state of grief and mourning. Israel had just unilaterally shattered the ceasefire and increased the scale of its genocide against Palestinians. Emboldened, my worst fears grew, and eight days later, reality shattered me.

It was far worse than I could have possibly imagined. Eight heroic PRCS volunteers were brutally massacred in a direct attack on medical workers, the Geneva Conventions, and International Humanitarian Law. They were found shot at point-blank range, buried under sand in a mass grave, some with their hands tied. Four ambulances were destroyed. Alongside them lay six Gaza Civil Defence members and one UN worker.

This is the largest massacre of humanitarian workers in modern warfare.

Since October 2023, 30 members of the PRCS have been killed. Each time they respond to an emergency, they know they are a target. They leave their homes with smiles, and some never return – killed in their own ambulances.

Yet, they endure – for the good of humanity.

The footage Refaat Radwan recorded of the massacre before his own death shook me to my core. The medics, knowing their fate, recited the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith. One asks, “Forgive me, Mother. Mother, forgive me. This is the path I chose. To help people. Forgive me, Mother. By God, I only chose this path to help people. Forgive me.”

This is what broke me. The raw, gut-wrenching truth. There are no words.

Hassan Hosni Al-Hilla was too sick to take his shift that night, so his 21-year-old son, Mohammad, covered it. Little did he know, it would be his last.

I ask: What could be more selfless than the men and women of PRCS—often entire families volunteering together—enduring the same brutal conditions as the rest of Gaza, yet risking their lives against a genocidal military, all to provide urgent, life-saving care?

The Red Cross and Red Crescent are universal symbols of hope, protection, and humanity. They are internationally recognised emblems of neutrality and protection during peace and conflict. They are meant to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers. Yet, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the PRCS has continually been targeted.

Though neutrality remains a contested concept, it is crucial to ensuring humanitarian workers can deliver aid and maintain access in crises like this.

Last November, as a member of the Sydney Peace Prize Jury and Council, I proudly awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to the 16 million-strong network of volunteers and staff of the International Federation and Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. When awarding the 2024 Prize, the Jury particularly acknowledged the PRCS, which, operating in the most dangerous conditions, has been attacked, tortured, or forcibly disappeared, with ambulances and facilities damaged or destroyed. The jury was determined to honour their courage, determination, and resilience.

The PRCS has been working day and night to provide life-saving aid to two million women, men and children in Gaza, enduring relentless bombardment, displacement and starvation by Israel in what Amnesty International and the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese have determined to be genocide.

Emergency Medical technician Hanadi says she has witnessed colleagues leave smiling only to return killed in their own ambulances. She knows they are a target whenever they are on a mission. They visit a site that has been struck, knowing they may well be struck too.

The Red Crescent symbol emblazoned on their ambulances and on their uniforms should guarantee their protection. They should never be a target.

The Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants, defining the rules of war. Yet in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, international law has been defied over and over – horror after horror, war crime after war crime.

Civilians, humanitarians, medical workers and journalists are specifically protected, but no one and nowhere is safe in Gaza. Homes, schools, shelters, hospitals, and places of worship have all come under attack or been destroyed.

While we once debated who struck Al-Ahli Hospital in October 2023, today, the entire medical system in Gaza has collapsed.

Furthermore, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, remains imprisoned.

We must demand justice. We must ensure that the perpetrators of the Gaza medic massacre, one of the most shameful periods in modern history, are held accountable. They must be brought to trial and face justice.

We must defend the Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems. We must protect the brave, selfless teams that embody the best of us. We must uphold International Humanitarian Law and the promise of the Geneva Conventions because, for the good of humanity, we cannot afford to fail.

Mohamed Duar is a member of Sydney Peace Prize Jury and Council. He is also Amnesty International Australia’s Occupied Palestinian Territory Spokesperson. He holds a Master of Human Rights from the University of Sydney.

The article was originally published in The New Arab: The Gaza medic massacre is an attack on all of humanity on 25 April, 2025

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It is demonstrating in real-time what equality and equity looks like for complete populations, and what happens when vulnerable people in society are set aside for too long. We are living through a global lesson of how we can work together on a whole of society approach.

We must transfer these lessons in a collective response to climate change so that humanity can survive and prosper.

Climate crisis is an immediate threat. The impact of rising temperatures threatens human rights, peace and justice. Climate change and extreme weather events, environmental degradation, and water stress lead to hunger, famine, loss of livelihoods, displacement, and irregular migration. Unless climate change is addressed, millions of people will be denied food, water, housing, health, work and life.

Extreme weather events cause resource scarcity and make land inhabitable, intensifying inequality and conflict. Climate change has a disproportionate impact in conflict-affected and developing countries that depend on agriculture for their prosperity. Climate action is the most pressing peace work of our time.

As we are witnessing, and living through with COVID-19, equality for all needs to be at the centre of our global response to climate change. The virus is reframing our world perspective and it is up to all of us to learn from this experience, support each other through it, and transfer these lessons into our response to climate change. If we collaborate, we can achieve real outcomes on climate change.

When we get through this period, we will know that the changes needed to address climate change are possible – humanity can adapt through innovation and consolidation of our attitudes and behaviors.

Susan Biggs is Executive Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation

The post Transferring the lessons from the response to COVID-19 to the climate crisis appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

‘The risks associated with climate-related disasters do not represent a scenario of some distant future. They are already a reality for millions of people around the globe ……. We cannot lag behind. We must act now, with a sense of urgency and a commitment to place people, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, at the centre of our efforts.’ (UN political affairs chief DiCarlo).

Where there is lower capacity for states to respond, adapt to and recover from climate-induced disasters, marginalisation and local grievances will intensify. Climate change disproportionately impacts economic development in conflict-affected countries that depend on agriculture for their prosperity.

The impacts of climate change wear away the capacity of states to prevent conflict. Erratic weather patterns and extreme weather events cause resource scarcity and render land inhabitable, intensifying inequality and conflict.

Climate change is transforming the security landscape. The 2019 Global Peace Index factored in, for the first time, climate change as a considerable threat to global peace in the next decade. ‘Research is clear that changes in the natural environment impose stress on human societies.’

Environmental degradation and water stress lead to hunger, famine, displacement, migration and conflict. These connections are already impacting lives in the Pacific, Middle East, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan. ‘Since 2008, an average of 26.4 million people per year have been displaced from their homes by disasters brought on by natural hazards. This is the equivalent to one person being displaced every second. The number and scale of huge disasters creates significant fluctuation from year to year in the total number of people displaced, while the trend over decades is on the rise’. (Global Estimates 2015, IDMC).

Climate change is not a future problem. It is already destroying ecosystems, livelihoods and lives. Imagine a future where these impacts are even more profound!

Inaction on climate change is an affront to justice and the most severe risk to peace in our time. In commitment to our goal of promoting peace with justice, in 2020, the Sydney Peace Foundation sheds light on solutions to address this crisis, and on the need to act immediately.

To provide peace and security, strengthen governance and justice systems and ensure a future where peace is still a possibility, we need to act now. Climate change is an urgent threat and we are not acting fast enough.

If we do not act, then change is coming by design or by disaster. We must forge alliances and work together to demand change and build a better system before it is too late.

Change is something we must demand from our leaders to support peace. We need to act – together, now.

The post Climate change and peace: the Sydney Peace Foundation to focus on climate change in 2020 appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

At a recent public forum organised by Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney to mark the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination at which Senior Alyawarr/Arrente woman Rosalie Kunoth-Monks spoke along with other Aboriginal leaders in support of a treaty between Indigenous peoples and the Australian government, which would guarantee the right to self-determination.

We support this call.

As actress Kylie Belling says in a recent campaign video calling for a Treaty presented at the forum:

“We are Sovereign peoples, who have never ceded our land.
We want to take control over our lives and determine our futures… the time is long overdue for governments to sit down with Aboriginal people across Australia and negotiate agreements and return to us our rights.”

In addition, the Sydney Peace Foundation enthusiastically supports the present move towards constitutional recognition and considers it an important step on the road towards a meaningful treaty.

The post Statement of Support to Aboriginal people in Australia appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

Australia’s federal government is considering abandoning their long-held responsibilities by cutting essential funding to these especially vulnerable areas? Surely the Commonwealth’s commitment to Homelands and Outstations was sealed by the 1967 Referendum?

It is quite clear that state governments do not have the resources to simply replace Federal funding. Mr. Barnett in Western Australia has responded by indicating that he will close up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities by simply cutting off their essential services – water, power etc. Arrangements with the South Australia government are still to be determined but at this stage the outstations fear their fate will be similar to those in the West.

The results of such actions are perhaps too great to contemplate, just as there is no real attempt to understand the cultural implications of moving people from their traditional homelands.

What does closure mean?

The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and their lands is acknowledged but little understood. The connection to land is the embodiment of Aboriginal cultural identity. It totally embraces a sense of belonging without which there is a life long sense of grieving and loss. It is only on your own land that you have rights – once you move these rights are lost and you become simply a squatter on somebody else’s land.

Forced removals in the past have proved devastating and costly, not only to the communities themselves but also to the surrounding communities responsible for resettlement. Nearly all outback Aboriginal communities are under-resourced, have inadequate infrastructure and are grappling with social problems. To burden these communities further is unthinkable.

Such action would place Australia in conflict with international law.

“…forced evictions are … incompatible with the requirements of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and could only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances….”

UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, General Comment No.4, (1991)

Pope Francis warns Australia of socio-economic disaster when he states, “severing the ties of Aboriginal people from their land and thus their culture, spirituality and very foundation of their being, is unethical, immoral, un-Christian and heartless.”

Sydney Peace Foundation strongly agrees with Concerned Australians that the Federal funding decision should be reversed.

Want to help stop this crisis?

For this your help is invaluable: please send a letter or phone Tony Abbott and Nigel Scullion telling them that it would be totally unacceptable for funding to Remote Communities to be cut.

Please click here for more information on how to contact Tony Abbott and Nigel Scullion and help prevent a crisis.

Want to learn more?

There is a rare opportunity to hear First Nations women speaking about treaty at Sydney’s Redfern Community Centre (29-53 Hugo St, Redfern) on Friday, 20 March 2015 at 5.30 for 6pm start, organised by Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney (STICS). Guest Speakers: Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Amy McQuire,  Amala Groom  and Natalie Cromb.

For more visit: http://www.stoptheintervention.org/.

The post Concerned Australians: Will You Help to Prevent a Crisis? appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

We have just had the UN International Day of Peace (its been going for 30 years and we don’t have it), International Disarmament Day last week and this Thursday is the International Day of Non Violence commemorating Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.

Yet, we are holding our breath for the cease fire over Gaza, and that our rightful concern about the march of ISIS will not beak out into a global conflagration. We have just learned that the promised referendum on the inclusion of indigenous Australian in our constitution is not core enough to be dealt with until after the next election!

Peace, international and domestic should be a right like the other human rights. Those rights which few would deny are anybody’s right: health, education, clean water and the right to information and freedom of expression.

Peace can’t just be an end to the shooting and killing. It must be a peace with justice. That is one that means not being raped on your way to school, being treated with dignity as an asylum seeker not being imprisoned or worse, being murdered, to have the basic human rights we all deserve and expect. And this was the central theme of this year’s Day which recognizes that the promotion of peace is ‘vital for the full enjoyment of all human rights.’

The 157 Tamil asylum seekers, 37 of them children, who spent nearly a month on the high seas have disappeared from our radars lets hope not from our consciences.

Given all of this, most of us would say, at the very least, “let’s talk about peace…”. (With apologies to Bryan Adams’ Let’s talk about love, and that other hot little number, Let’s talk about sex.) Yep, love and sex is OK, but not peace.

Never again said the veterans of WW1 which is being so richly celebrated and no lesser man than Bertrand Russell was sent to Brixton for his stand against conscription and the War and decades later at the age of 89 was sent to Brixton again for his protest against nuclear arms.

By 1915 the International League for Peace and Freedom had been formed and there were pacifists, Quakers, and the suffragette and women’s movements against the War.

There was peace talk.

The Pankhursts did it with Adela, the Australian Irish member of the clan, very active in Australia along with the feminist Vida Goldstein who also did it. But when Adela visited Japan in 1939 she was arrested and interned in 1942 for her advocacy of peace.

Women in Australia have been talking peace and campaigning against war and violence for decades from the turn of the century when they had the vote, they went for it. But those with political aspirations found their dreams quashed as soon as they mentioned the peace word. Yet women had very good reason to talk about peace and violence and they still do.

According to the most recent UN survey of available data more than a third of all women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence. Rape has been a rampant tactic in modern wars. Conservative estimates are that up to 50,000 women were raped during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while approximately up to half a million women and girls were targeted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Women and girls are more than half the estimated 20.9 million victims of forced labour worldwide, and nearly all of the estimated 4.5 million forced into sexual exploitation. Even in our comparatively comfy nation intimate partner violence accounts for up to 70 per cent of female murder victims.

So – how to talk about Peace?

The innovative Australian business man Steve Killelea talks about peace in money terms and it makes sense. His most recent Global Peace Index says the economic impact of containing and dealing with the consequences of global violence last year was estimated to be US$9.8 trillion. That is equal to 11.3% of Global GDP – or twice the combined GDP of African countries.

Think how that could help those countries. It is worth considering even if human decency and compassion does not move us enough to do so, money might.

Let’s put peace up there – with love, sex and money.

 

By Jane Singleton, Director/CEO Sydney Peace Foundation (2014)

The post Let’s Talk about Love, Let’s Talk about Sex, but – How about Peace? appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

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Declining levels of peace

The historical measures of GPI have shown that 111 countries have declined in their level of peace, and only 52 have improved since 2008.

Seven of the top 10 most peaceful countries are in Europe, and Iceland remains most peaceful. Syria has replaced Afghanistan as the world’s least peaceful country.

“Our research shows that peace is unlikely to flourish without deep foundations,” says Steve Killelea, Founder of IEP and Vision of Humanity, “This is a wakeup call to governments, development agencies, investors and the wider international community that building peace is the prerequisite for economic and social development.”

Economic impact of violence:

While violence obviously has a serious impact on people’s lives, we don’t always think about the economic costs. IEP found that the global impact of violence is 11.3% of global GDP or $US 9.8 trillion.

The world would not only be a better place without violence, it would also be wealthier and more sustainable for all its inhabitants. Imagine if this money was invested into sustainable energies, education and training in entrepreneurship—for people in all countries! What a different world we could create.

Learn more:

Global Peace Index interactive map: http://bit.ly/GPI2014
Global Peace Index report: http://bit.ly/GPIreport
Global Peace Index Video: http://bit.ly/GPIvideo

Based on what?

The GPI is based on the measurement of 22 indicators:

1. Level of perceived criminality in society
2. Number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 people
3. Number of homicides per 100,000 people
4. Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
5. Ease of access to small arms and light weapons
6. Level of organised conflict (internal)
7. Likelihood of violent demonstrations
8. Level of violent crime
9. Political instability
10. Political Terror Scale
11. Volume of transfers of major conventional weapons, as recipient (imports) per 100,000 people
12. Terrorist activity
13. Number of deaths from organised conflict (internal)
14. Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP
15. Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people
16. Financial contribution to UN peacekeeping missions
17. Nuclear and heavy weapons capability
18. Volume of transfers of major conventional weapons as supplier (exports) per 100,000 people
19. Number of displaced people as a percentage of the population
20. Relations with neighbouring countries
21. Number of external and internal conflicts fought
22. Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external)

Stay in touch with the Global Peace Index:

Twitter: @GlobPeaceIndex #PeaceIndex
Facebook: Global Peace Index

The post Global Peace Index 2014 appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

We join South Africans everywhere in celebrating the visionary yet humble man who displayed great wisdom, courage and compassion in leading his country in the difficult transition from apartheid through a process of dialogue and reconciliation to a united and democratic ‘rainbow nation’.

In September 2000, Dr Mandela was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by The University of Sydney in recognition of his leadership in the struggle for peace and justice in South Africa, and he visited the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) for a special award ceremony organised by the Sydney Peace Foundation.

Nelson Mandela presented Dr Stella Cornelius, founder of the Conflict Resolution Network, and Dr Faith Bandler, campaigner for indigenous rights in Australia, with certificates for their dedication and achievements in conflict resolution and education, and the then Director of CPACS and the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees, presented Nelson Mandela with a Wallabies rugby shirt as a gift to remember his visit to Australia!

The following article appeared in the October 2000 issue of CPACS newsletter, PeaceWrites:

Nelson Mandela Visits our Centre

On 4^th September, Nelson Mandela came among us! For an hour we were enthralled by his noble presence, his words of encouragement, his wisdom and message of hope. In an impromptu discussion on reconciliation, he drew upon a life-time’s experience dedicated to the attainment of peace with justice.

“Reconciliation” he told us, means to “ensure that we eliminate tension in society” in order to “create an environment where people appreciate the gifts and talents of each other.” There is a need to “forget the past – we are not very responsible for the past but we are responsible for the present and the future.”

For a special sixty minutes he made the Centre his home, and us his friends. Since his visit, our work has taken on a new energy, a sense of commitment and optimism that we are on the right track, however long and winding the path.

Dr Mandela engaged directly with members, students and friends of CPACS and the SPF during his visit to the Mackie Building. Mingling in the Posters for Peace Gallery was accompanied by the opportunity for each of us individually to approach Dr Mandela with our questions during a special session in Seminar Room 114. As a PhD student and volunteer with CPACS at the time, I was privileged to participate and discuss briefly with Dr Mandela my research on the challenges of justice, reconciliation and peacebuilding after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

This poem by Stuart Rees, published in the October 2000 issue of PeaceWrites, was inspired by Nelson Mandela’s visit to the Centre:

Nelson in September

The build-up was like waiting for a bride
To give the cue for all to stand and gaze
At groom already married to ideals,
A handsome suitor armed with selfless deeds,
Like laughter at the shirt he’s asked to wear
In stripes of Africa’s opposing team,
So Gandhi-like he teaches you and me
To shower with love each polar enemy.
A sonnet is too short to catch this man
Of sunlight on the global seas of grey
Whose poverty condemns and disempowers
The millions who would lift and be inspired
By being here to breathe, to learn, to see
This beacon light for all humanity.

It seems appropriate to celebrate the poet and statesman, Nelson Mandela, in this way as we mourn his passing at the age of 95, reflecting on a life so well lived. An inspiration to us all!

By Dr Wendy Lambourne, Acting Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. 7 December, 2013.

The post Memories of Mandela – A Life Well Lived appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

As the leader for a democratic South Africa and as an inspiration for civil rights activists around the globe, Nelson Mandela possessed the stamina and courage needed to overcome numerous adversities. These included escape from an arranged marriage, being outlawed and going underground, several trials, 27 years in prison, the isolation from his family and, on release, the responsibility to rectify the economic and social consequences of decades of apartheid.

Like any chieftain at ease with himself, he did not need to be assertive to convey authority. His human touch shone through humility and a self-deprecating humour. His charisma came from a certain majesty, as if showing that he had no need to remind anyone, himself included, of his status. In 2000, when he came to Sydney University’s Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies and honoured two of Australia’s most significant human rights campaigners, Indigenous leader Faith Bandler and Conflict Resolution founder Stella Cornelius, he explained, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had been Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s assistant, not the other way around.

Nelson Mandela was born in July 1918 in rural Transkei. At the age of nine, on the death of his father, he moved to the royal Thembu household to be groomed for high office, probably as counsellor to a chief. In that context he developed his interest in African history, realised the white man’s injustices and confronted, as he did throughout his life, the contradiction between respect for traditions and the realisation that black Africans needed power to govern themselves.

On leaving his rural home for Johannesburg he enrolled in a law degree at the largely white University of Witwatersrand. With his brilliant friend Oliver Tambo he set up a legal practice to provide free or low cost counsel to black Africans. In 1942 he joined the anti-apartheid movement.

Three particular sources convey the essence of Mandela’s values and vision: the speeches at his various trials, the solidarity cemented with fellow prisoners on Robben Island and his role in South Africa’s non-violent transition to democracy.

Attorney in the Courts

On reading the record of his speeches at his various trials in the early 1960s I witnessed a leader’s qualities:  courtesy combined with combativeness, dignity with defiance.

When Mandela and his co-defendants were charged with treason – for which he was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment – he explained his objective to campaign for a democratic society in which all people lived in harmony and enjoyed equal opportunities. “That”, he said, “is an ideal I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

In an earlier trial, when he was charged with organising a strike, Mandela was asked what he meant by equality before the law. He explained: “In its proper meaning, equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of laws by which one is governed.” He added, “I consider myself neither morally nor legally obliged to obey laws made by a parliament in which I am not represented.”

The Prison Years

In prison on Robben Island Mandela and his fellow political prisoners practiced their Gandhi-like non-violence, self-discipline, civility to warders and to one another. In his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom, he recalls, “We believed that hostility was self-defeating, that all men, even warders were capable of change.”  In my conversation with him he explained that, “In prison we realised we had two options. We could argue only with our emotions, but that way lay bitterness and recrimination. Or we could argue with our head with a view to working out ways to seek justice for everyone.”

In prison his courageous stand on principle contributed to his reputation as a leader and friend. When, in 1985, he refused President F W Botha’s offer of release from prison on the condition that he would give up his advocacy of armed struggle against apartheid, he replied, “Prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Only free men can negotiate.”

In the Bantu language, the term ubuntu refers to the interconnectedness of human beings, the notion that no human being exists in isolation, that qualities of humour and generosity derive from reciprocity in relationships and not from individuality. In this ubuntu spirit, Nelson Mandela would have considered it incorrect if any tribute was paid to him without reference to the key roles played in struggles against apartheid and for justice by his close comrades, such as Oliver Tambo, Winnie Mandela, his children, Archbishop Tutu and his third wife Graca Machel.

The First Democratic President

In 1993 Nelson Mandela and South African President F W de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to dismantle the country’s apartheid system. In 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black President.

His activities since becoming President were characterised by efforts to heal the wrongs of the past – ensuring the right to vote, striving for social and economic equality, insisting that Aids was a normal illness, that sufferers, such as his son Makgatho, should not be discriminated against.

In spite of the enormous difficulties of post-Mandela South Africa in dealing with poverty, unemployment and housing, this giant figure of history, known affectionately by his clan name Madiba, remains an inimitable political leader, the adored father of a nation, the symbol of civility, a source of hope.

When Mandela fell seriously ill last year, the manager of the Mandela Family Restaurant in Soweto spoke for her community when she said, “He means everything to us.” Interviewed on the same television program, a nine-year-old boy replied with Mandela-like thoughtfulness and gentility, “He is a leader. He is beautiful. I love him.”

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Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees is the Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation.

This article was first published in New Matilda on 6 December 2013.

– See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2013/12/06/prisoner-who-freed-nation

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Photo: Stuart Rees greets Nelson Mandela on Arundel St in 2000.
Photo credit: Rose Tracey.

The post The Prisoner Who Freed A Nation appeared first on Sydney Peace Foundation.

In spite of the Rudd resurrection, the refugee debate in Australia is still framed in the odious game of gaining political mileage by demonstrating a certain chauvinist pride in protecting borders.

To that end, to convey that the assessment of refugee status is not tough enough, that too many unworthy people may gain entry to this boat-people-besieged-country, the Foreign Minister Bob Carr claims that as many as 100 per cent of Iranian asylum seekers may only be “economic migrants”.

Yet, in crowded camps on the Thai Burma border, the values of refugees and their supporters suggest that if Australia wants to build a fairer society, much can be learned from refugees – people so easily stigmatised as unwanted and unworthy.

Evidence from Jim Chalmers’ recently published book Glory Daze shows Australians bemoaning their financial lot even when most enjoy the benefits from an affluent economy. On this issue there is a chasm between the values of refugees and their supporters and the priorities deemed important by politicians.

Different attitudes towards entitlement to health and education services are an indication of the width of this chasm.

Kachana, the director of the Burma Children’s Medical Fund, describes her work:

Of course we provide medical services as a right, not just because our patients are poor. We do depend on donors to finance our services but how could you talk to sick people about costs when our responsibility is to meet their needs?

In the Thai border town of Mae Sot, the Mae Tao clinic provides medical services for hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrant workers. The director of the clinic, Dr Cynthia Maung, gives me her interpretation of a common good:

During the funding crisis of last year, we were $650,000 short, but we could not afford to charge patients. To combat that crisis, all the staff agreed to take a 20 per cent cut in their meager wages.

A supporting Australian doctor, Kate Bruck, explains:

That reduction was uniform because of an equity in pay policy: same wages for surgeon, nurse, social worker, fund raiser, accountant, librarian or manager of sanitation.

My interpreter and guide in the Ma Lae refugee camp was a 41-year-old Karen named Law La Say, whose salary for his job to train camp residents to be therapists for drug addicts is $250 per annum. To the question, “How do you mange to be so optimistic?”, he answered:

I survived 17 years in the jungle, always on the move from the Burmese army. There was no time to cry. Laughing expresses my feelings. This camp may seem like a prison, but we know one another, we can support one another.

Law La Say’s thoughts are echoed by Naw Nweh, a member of the camp’s Women’s Support Group:

I also lived in the jungle. This camp is better because it is our family home. We know we are refugees but we have hopes for our children, even for repatriation to Burma.

With a shy smile she adds:

But don’t believe what they tell you about the reforms in Burma. The people in charge are the same people who drove us here.

In Australia, in the controversy over the Gonski report, state premiers still calculate the difference between their political fortunes and a commitment to children’s future education. The pugnacious Premier Newman of Queensland seems to favour his short-term political interests over any long-term vision about the quality of education for all children irrespective of their parents’ means.

Karen children also want the opportunities provided by education in good schools. The Bangkok Post journalist Phil Thornton records:

On the Karen side of the border, the schools have no buildings and no desks. In small groups children cluster under the shade of a large teak tree. Their teacher explains, ‘Time is precious for our children. They are desperate to learn but our biggest problem is malaria.’   

A final contrast in values concerns food. While Australian television is saturated with programs on how to cook, how to extend knowledge of nutritious dishes, and even how to lose weight because you have eaten too much, UN reports about Burma identify problems of hunger and food security. In their report Chronic Emergency, the Back Packer Workers Team from Mae Sot concluded that hunger and malnutrition has drastic effects in eastern Burma where one in 10 children will die before age one and more than one in five before their fifth birthday.

A refugee, Naw Doo, explains that she and her two teenage children are used to going without food:

Many times we only have rice and chilli. We eat twice a day. We get sick but that’s normal for people here. Look how thin I am.

In Australia’s election campaign, reference to a common good is unlikely. We are likely to hear derision about asylum seekers, probably talk about the benefits of privatising public hospitals to make them more efficient, and attacks against trade unions for eroding individual freedom.

Ironically, several significant projects on the Thai Burma border are financed by the humanitarian arm of Australia’s trade union movement, Apheda, whose staff value the ideals of a common good. To achieve such a goal, economist Jeffrey Sachs writes that perhaps the best we can do is to appeal to enlightened self-interest because it is everyone’s interest to care for the vulnerable and for the planet.

If the impressive Dr Maung became the campaign manager for Kevin Rudd or for Tony Abbott, she would emphasise why refugees who are thankful for small mercies have so much to teach those in a lucky country who might regard refugees as a threat to their well being.

On the hustings for either party, Dr Maung might start by explaining why health care should be given according to need and not according to an ability to pay:

If you want a healthy society, all people have to be treated as equals. If people are to live and work as equals, the barriers that divide them have to be removed.

Professor Stuart Rees travelled to the Thai Burma border in mid-June on an exploratory mission for the Sydney Peace Foundation. Stuart Rees is Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation and Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney. View his full profile here.

This article was first published by ABC’s The Drum on 3 July 2013

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Foreign Minister Bob Carr will head to London shortly for the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, amid growing calls for the cancellation of this year’s Heads of Government Meeting in the Sri Lankan capital.

It comes as the United Nations is finally preparing for more decisive intervention following the country’s civil war, in which government forces are accused of killing tens of thousands of Tamil civilians.

Australian diplomacy risks sending the wrong signals. Carr visited Colombo in December and pronounced it safe for the return of Tamil asylum seekers – flatly contradicting every independent assessment. The UN Human Rights Council recently voted to send its own investigators after hearing ‘serious allegations of violations of international human rights law’, along with ‘continuing reports of violations… including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, as well as intimidation of and reprisals against human rights defenders, members of civil society and journalists, threats to judicial independence and the rule of law, and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief’.

Sri Lanka was supposed to be tackling such issues through its self-proclaimed ‘Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission’, but this was a cynical exercise to buy time until international attention moved on.

The final offensive against the Tamil Tigers was planned as a ‘war without witnesses’, but investigative journalism led by the UK’s Channel Four, in collaboration with brave Sri Lankan reporters both in country and in exile, has kept the issue in the public eye.

The Commonwealth summit would be hosted by president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been removing political and judicial constraints on his ability to wield despotic power. Two of his brothers also hold cabinet posts. The constitutional limit restricting presidents to two terms in office was removed, and the High Court chief justice was dismissed, after she stood up to him.

The last Heads of Government Meeting, in Perth, strengthened the Ministerial Action Group’s mandate. Empowered to intervene when the Commonwealth’s ‘values and principles’ are threatened, its grounds for engagement now include ‘the systematic denial of political space, such as through detention of political leaders or restrictions on freedom of association, assembly or expression’, particularly in conditions such as ‘systematic violation of human rights of the population, or of any communities or groups, by the member government concerned’ and ‘significant restrictions on the media or civil society’.

Human rights monitors and the UN’s own expert panel, which reported two years ago, show this is an accurate description of Sri Lanka today. Canada has already said it will not attend CHOGM if it is held there, and cites recent developments to support its argument.

So why has Canberra never backed demands for an independent international investigation of the alleged killing of civilians? Why has it not added its voice to calls for CHOGM to be moved? The answer may lie not in Sri Lanka at all but in one of the grimmest places in Australia: the MITA Detention Centre in Melbourne.

There, a group of 30 asylum seekers, most Sri Lankan Tamils, are on hunger strike because, they say in a statement by the Tamil Refugee Council:

We left Sri Lanka because we fear to die. We came to Australia to live, not die. But death would be better than the life we have.

Their refugee claims have been granted, but they cannot leave detention – after three or four years in most cases – because of adverse security assessments by ASIO. The implication is that they are associated with the Tamil Tigers.

Not only is it fanciful to suppose that – even if they were – they would pose any threat to Australians, it is also difficult to imagine how such assessments could be made without collaboration with the Sri Lankan authorities: a source that is inevitably biased, because party to an unresolved conflict, and tainted by credible allegations of torture and abuse.

Is Australian diplomacy being distorted to avoid upsetting Colombo, for fear of an increase in the passage of boats carrying desperate people to our shores?

ASIO assessments cannot be challenged in court, which makes them a convenient tool for a government wishing to send signals to other would-be asylum seekers, without appearing to fall foul of international obligations. It’s a case cited by the NSW Council for Civil Liberties in its campaign to phase out ’emergency’ powers granted to the security agency following the 9/11 attacks.

Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka will have genuine asylum claims for as long as the country’s government attempts to suppress their political aspirations rather than engaging with them. Diplomacy should send a clear signal that Colombo is on the wrong track. Withholding its showpiece summit is among the only meaningful gestures the Commonwealth can make. The Ministerial Action Group, if it is not to belie its name, must now recommend that step.

First published on The Drum 15 April 2013. Associate Professor Jake Lynch, PhD is director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. View his full profile here.

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The man who was to be awarded this year’s Sydney Peace Prize died last week. Stephane Hessel inspired the Occupy movement and lived an exceptional life. Stuart Rees on what Hessel might have told Australians

On the day that Shadow Minister Scott Morrison was falsely portraying asylum seekers as criminals and advocating imposed “behaviour protocols”, an inspirational Frenchman lay dying.

In the early hours of Wednesday 27 February, the life of 95-year old Stephane Hessel ended.  Tributes poured in from around the world. Parisians gathered in the Bastille to honour him. Francois Hollande, President of France said, “Hessel was a huge figure. His was an exceptional life devoted to the defence of human dignity”.

France mourns. In Australia we have reason to be both saddened and disappointed.

Stephane was to have been the recipient of this year’s Sydney Peace Prize. On learning of his choice he said, he was “deeply honoured to join the company of previous Peace Prize recipients”, such as Professor Muhammad Yunus, Archbishop Tutu, Mary Robinson, Hanan Ashrawi and Patrick Dodson.

Hessel’s 2009 book Time For Outrage has sold 4.5 million copies in 35 countries. In that work he challenged youth to resist “the international dictatorship of financial markets,” which he saw as a threat to peace and democracy. He motivated and supported the worldwide Occupy movement and attacked government policies which imposed hardship on the vulnerable majority as solutions to the financial excesses of the elite few.

Stephane Hessel was born in 1917, in Berlin, to a Jewish family who moved to France when he was eight. He became a French citizen in the late 1930’s and in the early years of the war he fled to London and joined the free French forces under General De Gaulle. On return to France he was captured by the Nazis, imprisoned in Buchenwald and sentenced to death. He escaped, met up with relief forces of American troops and at the end of the war entered France’s diplomatic service.

At the end of 1947 he became the youngest member of a committee empowered to craft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document which Hessel said reflected the aspirations of members of the French Resistance.

If Stephane Hessel had come to Australia what would he have told us ?

In the run up to the federal election, he would have insisted that the essence of being human is the capacity to pursue a common good and to be outraged by the gap between rich and poor.

He would have championed that key function of a welfare state to give opportunity to every citizen. He wrote that the Resistance called for “A comprehensive social security plan to guarantee all citizens a means of livelihood in every case where they are unable to get it by working”. He would have been dismayed by cuts of payments to single mothers because of politicians’ preoccupation with balancing budgets.

Hessel was highly critical of France’s treatment of illegal migrants. He deplored the racism, violence and deportations experienced by these vulnerable people. In Australia he would have been deeply offended by the macho swaggering and fear-mongering attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees.

Hessel was also passionate about all citizens’ responsibility to protect a fragile and precious environment. He was incredulous about the destruction caused by economic policies which were preoccupied with productivity whatever the cost.

He knew the importance of having a media which could report uninfluenced by fear or favour.

In the French Resistance, Hessel and his colleagues had demanded “the freedom and honour of the press and its independence from the state and the forces of money and foreign influence”. In Australia he would have been disappointed by the derision which often passes for journalism and he would have been appalled by the bullying techniques of shock jocks.

Hessel reserved his strongest outrage for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

As a Jew, a Holocaust survivor and as an observer of life on the West Bank and in Gaza, he was mindful of the traditions of Judaism regarding tolerance and the joys to be found in celebrating difference.

He and his wife were dismayed by the brutality towards Palestinians but they were also impressed by people’s response to adversity. In writing about the 2009 Operation Cast Lead and the destruction of Gaza’s Red Cross Hospital, he noted the behaviour of the Gazans — “their patriotism, their constant preoccupation with the wellbeing of their countless laughing children — that haunts our memories”.

In all his campaigns for justice, Hessel displayed many of the qualities of Mahatma Gandhi: to be inclusive, to encourage diversity, to advocate tolerance and to make non-violence a key strategy to achieve such goals. He wrote, “I am convinced that the future belongs to non-violence, to the reconciliation of different cultures. It is along this path that humanity will clear its next hurdle”.

Hessel was a significant humanitarian, a cosmopolitan citizen and a great lover — of his family, of philosophy, of human rights, humour, laughter and justice.  He lived for almost a century but he remained deeply concerned about the future, for the vulnerable and powerless, for the planet and for courage and principles in politics.

In my last conversation with him he said, “Before I come to Sydney, you must come to Paris and we’ll drink some fine French wine”. “And sing the Marseillaise?” I asked. “Of course.” He paused, then chuckled, “What song do you sing down there, it’s not still God Save the Queen is it?”

On the day before his death his publisher recalls that Stephane said, “We are all looking forward to coming to Australia, to receive the Peace Prize.”

It could have been the last journey for the last tribute and he would have galvanised the public.

First published on New Matilda 6 March 2013

Stuart Rees is the Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation

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By now most Australians know that Senator Sekai Holland has won the 2012 Sydney Peace Prize. They will remember those terrible photos of her in a hospital in Harare after she was brutally arrested and tortured by the Mugabe forces during the lead up to the violent 2008 elections in Zimbabwe.

They also know that she is now the highly respected minister for national healing, reconciliation and integration in the Zimbabwean Unity Government. Few Australians however are aware of her strong Australian connections and her importance in the anti-racism movement in Australia.

Sekai Hove came to Australia as a student in the early 60s and married Australian Jim Holland in 1965. During the intense Anti-Apartheid activity of the late 60s and early 70s she came to prominence as the elegant and articulate face of black Africa.

When the all-white racially-selected Springbok Rugby Union team toured Australia in 1971 Sekai and Jim were everywhere. Sekai made fiery speeches at all the rallies and even protested at the games themselves. In Sydney the Springboks were staying at the Squire Inn Motel in Bondi Junction. It was protected by a heavy cordon of police and all protesters were relegated to the car park opposite. Not so Jim and Sekai who had booked rooms earlier and who swept up to reception and asked for their rooms. They stood on their balcony and waved to the crowd of protesters, reducing the Springboks to apoplexy as miscegenation took place before their very eyes.

Sekai was not just involved in her own struggles. She was tireless in her support of Aboriginal land rights, women’s rights and even became an activist in the early environmental movement. She got a job as a nipper on a building site and joined the (now famous) NSW Builders Labourers’ Federation. She and her sister Busi were an integral part of the Green Ban Movement and the fight to save Sydney’s old historic buildings.

In terms of her own independence struggle in (then) Rhodesia, Sekai had been very active while still a student. She set up an organisation in Sydney called the Free Zimbabwe Centre in opposition to the Ian Smith-aligned Rhodesia Information Centre and later became the Australasian representative of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). She travelled to Zambia to work in a ZANU refugee camp. There she spoke out against endemic violence against ZANU recruits in the camp, and sexual abuse of ZANU female recruits. She was labelled a dissident and sentenced to death. Tipped off that her life was at risk, she escaped back to Australia (where the Melbourne Herald had printed her obituary!) and continued her Anti-Apartheid and Zimbabwean Liberation work.

During this period, Sekai attracted the interest of ASIO which followed her from rally to rally and meeting to meeting. It is to ASIO that we owe a debt of gratitude for the rare pictures taken of Sekai during this time.

In 1980 she and Jim returned to Zimbabwe to be part of the post-liberation nation-building project. Sekai became active in human rights campaigns, particularly the rights of women. She resuscitated the Association of Women’s Clubs (AWC), a grassroots rural women’s development organisation, the largest women’s organisation in the country. The AWC became active in speaking out against the increasingly tyrannical Mugabe government and eventually she and the AWC leadership were gazetted and banned from their positions by Mugabe.

In 1999 Sekai became a founding member of the party set up to oppose the corrupt regime of Robert Mugabe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). She travelled to Australia to help garner support for the MDC. She gathered the old Anti-Apartheid forces together and founded the Zimbabwe Information Centre to provide support in Australia for the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe.

The strong relationship that Sekai had built up with Australia’s Aboriginal community became crucial at this stage. The Congressional Black Caucus in the US and the Maori Caucus in New Zealand were originally loath to abandon their traditional support for independence leader Mugabe, but the Aboriginal leadership in Australia listened to Sekai with respect and was one of the first groups to support Morgan Tsvangirai and the new move for democracy in Zimbabwe.

Sekai’s strong links with the Australian trade union movement have also been helpful in the Zimbabwean struggle. In 2000, she was arrested while conducting a UNDP seminar in southern Zimbabwe. She disappeared into the rather frightening Zimbabwean prison system and we were all deeply concerned. At this stage I received a phone call and the distinctive voice of Bob Hawke was on the line.

“I hear Sekai has been arrested. Do you want me to ring that Mugabe and have a word with him?”

Bob made the call and eventually Sekai was released. Sekai had worked with Hawke when he was president of the ACTU.

She suffered constant harassment, arrests and attempts on her life. The most serious incident was in 2003 when she was pursued to her home in Harare and then she and her family were shot at repeatedly while trying to enter her house.

Her arrest and terrible torture in 2007 brought her plight to world attention. It is ironic that she now serves in a transitional government with the instigator of her suffering. She has said it is “a very difficult exercise but necessary because it has pushed our country out of full conflict into transition”.

Certainly life for ordinary Zimbabweans is slightly easier now that some economic and social stability has arrived with the Government of National Unity.

Sekai Holland gives the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize Lecture in Sydney Town Hall at 6.30pm on Wednesday November 7. Tickets are available from Ticketek.

Dr Meredith Burgmann was a fellow Anti-Apartheid activist and long-time friend of Senator Holland. She has been president of the Zimbabwe Information Centre since 1999 and travels to Zimbabwe frequently. View her full profile here.

This article was first published by the ABC’s The Drum on 30/10/2012

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