A massacre of the innocents is taking place in the heart of Africa as the world looks the other way. The humanitarian emergency in the Central African Republic (CAR), a landmass bigger than France where the average male life expectancy is 48, remains a blind spot for most of the international community. Samantha Power, the US Read more
Armistice Day 2013 was particularly sobering. The traditional memorials were kept, all with solemnity due in honouring memory of the dead, the witness of veterans and laments for current conflicts. Sadly, however, evidence would suggest that war will remain a means for political ambition and solution for impasse. Hope for better may be forlorn. Perhaps Read more
How can so much pain and suffering be inflicted upon a people and no notice taken by those that are inflicting it? Tell me the ideology or political view that outweighs the right to life? Around 9.3 million of Syria’s 23 million inhabitants need aid. The number of people who have lost their homes or Read more
A group of Syrian Christians — claimed to number 50,000 — have asked for dual Russian citizenship, saying they are “scared of the conspiracy of the West and hateful fanatics who are waging a brutal war against our country”. Their action was reported by the Russian news agency Interfax, which also carried a Russian Orthodox Read more
The most recent comments by United States President Barack Obama regarding a possible military intervention in Syria indicate views at odds with just war theory – the doctrine emerging from moral philosophy surrounding the just use of military force. On Saturday, President Obama expressed his desire to “hold the Assad regime accountable for their use Read more
Pope Francis rejected war and exhorted all sides to put an end to hostilities and seek peace in Syria. “No more wars. The use of violence never leads to peace. War calls for war, violence calls for violence,” the pope said over the weekend as the United States and its allies prepared to attack Damascus. Read more
This week in Guam, the island community gathered to pay tribute to the victims of the Tinta and Faha massacres. On July 15 and 16, 1944, with the American forces approaching Guam near the end of the Japanese occupation of the island in World War II, Japanese soldiers massacred nearly fifty Chamorro men and women from Read more
Let’s just say that suddenly you are a social scientist and you want to study peace. That is, you want to understand what makes for a peaceful society. Let’s say that, for years in your work in various parts of the world, you’ve been surrounded by evidence of violence and war. From individual people, you’ve Read more
A violent rampage by Indonesian soldiers in the town of Wamena in Papua province has sent thousands of residents fleeing to the bush. At least one person is confirmed to have been killed and several seriously injured by the soldiers from the Baliem Valley-based Battalion 756. An Indonesian military spokesman denied anybody had died and Read more
Engaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions Bishop Richard Pates wrote in a March 2 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Pates, chairman of the US Catholic Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Read more