Agroecology: The Game-Changing Solution to Global Food, Climate and Conflict Crises

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Biodiversity

Edward Mukiibi, President, Slow Food. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Edward Mukiibi, President, Slow Food. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

TURIN, Italy, Oct 8 2024 (IPS) – Edward Mukiibi, President of Slow Food, champions agroecology as a transformative answer to the world’s most pressing crises: food insecurity, climate change, and violent conflicts.

In a world where these challenges intersect, Mukiibi called for an urgent rethink of our approach to food systems. 

Agroecology, a practice already embraced by millions of farmers worldwide, is emerging as a sustainable alternative to the industrialized agriculture model that dominates today. It emphasizes biodiversity, environmental stewardship, and equitable livelihoods—elements that Mukiibi insists are key to addressing the multifaceted crises facing our planet.

Speaking ahead of the highly anticipated Terra Madre 2024 event in Turin, Mukiibi called for immediate global action to end the misuse of food as a weapon in war-torn regions like Gaza and Ukraine, where food scarcity is exacerbating human suffering.

“Slow Food strongly advocates for an end to all violence in the ongoing conflicts, from the Gaza Strip to Sudan, from Lebanon to the Democratic Republic of Congo, from Ukraine to Yemen, and opposes the use of food as a weapon of war, said Mukiibi, calling for immediate negotiations to achieve a just solution that ensures the dignity of all people and fosters a peaceful future for everyone.

With global crises growing more complex, Mukiibi stresses that agroecology is not just about farming techniques—it is a framework for building more resilient societies.

Carlo Petrini, Founder, Slow Food. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Carlo Petrini, Founder, Slow Food. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

The Power of Agroecology

As climate change accelerates, its devastating impacts—melting glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and shifting ecosystems—are becoming harder to ignore. Mukiibi linked these environmental crises directly to our food systems, calling industrial agriculture a “leading culprit.” He argues that agroecology offers a path toward resilience, citing its ability to regenerate soil health, reduce social inequality, and provide local communities with economic opportunities.

Mukiibi’s call for change comes as 3,000 international delegates convene at the biennial Terra Madre event to explore solutions for sustainable food systems. He argues that agroecology not only regenerates soil fertility and promotes environmental health but also strengthens local economies, reduces social inequalities, and builds resilience against climate-induced disasters.

“As climate change intensifies, agroecology offers a path to more resilient and equitable food systems,”  Mukiibi declared. “This situation compels us to reflect on the transformation needed if we want to achieve a food system that feeds all people well, regenerates and protects the environment, and allows local cultures to survive and prosper.”

A Call for Global Food System Reset

Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food, echoed Mukiibi’s sentiments, calling for nothing less than a complete reset of the global food system.

“The current global food system is not only unfair but is criminal because it destroys our mother earth, it destroys biodiversity and is based on waste and it has turned food into a price, not into a value,” said Petrini. “We need to restore the value of food because food represents our common good; with food we can establish relations with each other, we can establish reciprocity.”

Petrini emphasized the political significance of food in shaping our future, asserting that the fight for sustainable food systems is inherently tied to larger social and environmental battles.

Petrini also condemned multinational corporations that prioritize profit over the health of the planet, calling on them to stop polluting ecosystems through unsustainable food production methods. He called for an ecological transition.

Food and Humanity

Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, also weighed in, highlighting the spiritual and cultural dimensions of food.

In a message to the Terra Madre network, the Pope criticized the commodification of agriculture, noting that it is being manipulated for profit at the expense of both the environment and human dignity.

The Pope praised Terra Madre for fostering a movement that respects the integrity of both food and culture. He argued that only through recognizing the value of food and promoting food education can humanity move towards a future of universal fraternity—a future where diversity is celebrated rather than a cause of division.

The Food Revolution

Launched 20 years ago, Terra Madre has sparked a global food revolution. Over the past two decades, it has united small-scale producers, farmers, and consumers committed to creating a better, cleaner, and fairer food system.

Mukiibi said Terra Madre 2024 serves as a reflection point, a moment to assess the progress made and chart a course for the future.

Coinciding with Terra Madre, the G7 Agriculture Ministers met in Sicily, where Slow Food has urged governments to place food at the center of global political agendas. The call is clear: food must be recognized as a cornerstone of fundamental rights and environmental sustainability.

Mukiibi underscored that millions of farmers around the world are already practicing agroecology, ensuring food sovereignty, food security, and healthy diets. He emphasized the need to build on these successes by expanding the Slow Food network and empowering more farmers to take up agroecological practices.

Agroecology is a path forward for resilient local food systems, Mukiibi noted, explaining that Slow Food was building a network of Slow Food Farms to empower farmers and make them central to future sustainable food systems.

A Hopeful Vision for the Future

Mukiibi’s message is agroecology is not just a farming method—it’s a movement with the potential to tackle some of the most profound challenges of our time.

“Agroecology is the solution, not just for a more sustainable food system, but for addressing inequality, social injustice, and the global environmental crisis.”

As the world grapples with the devastating impacts of climate change, violent conflict, and food insecurity, the vision laid out by Slow Food offers a hopeful path forward—one where food is not a weapon, but a source of unity, resilience, and renewal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Activists Call on World to ‘Imagine’ Peace, End Nuclear Arms

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Peace

The panel for the session on “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World without Nuclear Weapons.” Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

The panel for the session on “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World without Nuclear Weapons.” Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

PARIS, Sep 27 2024 (IPS) – In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear arms must be addressed, and now.

That was the message from a range of delegates at the “Imaginer la Paix / Imagine Peace” conference, held in Paris September 22 to 24, and organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, a Christian organization founded in Rome in 1968 and now based in 70 countries.

Describing its tenets as “Prayer, service to the Poor and work for Peace,” the community has hosted 38 international, multi-faith peace meetings, bringing together activists from around the world. This is the first time the conference has been held in Paris, with hundreds traveling to France, itself a nuclear-weapon state.

Occurring against the backdrop of brutal, on-going conflicts in different regions and a new race by some countries to “upgrade” their arsenal, the gathering had a sense of urgency, with growing fears that nuclear weapons might be used by warlords. Participants highlighted current and past atrocities and called upon world leaders to learn from the past.

“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been blessed with many who have said ‘no’—’no’ a million times, creating movements and treaties, (and) awareness… that the only reasonable insight to learn from the conception and use of nuclear weapons is to say ‘no’,” said Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, based in New York.

Participating in a conference forum Monday titled “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World Without Nuclear Weapons,”  Bartoli and other speakers drew stark pictures of what living in a world with nuclear weapons entails, and they highlighted developments since World War II.

“After the two bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humans built more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and performed more than 2,000 tests. Still today we have more than 12,500, each of them with power greatly superior to the two used in August 1945,” Bartoli said.

Despite awareness of the catastrophic potential of these weapons and despite a UN treaty prohibiting their use, some governments argue that possessing nuclear arms is a deterrent—an argument that is deceptive, according to the forum speakers.

Anna Ikeda, program coordinator tor disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

Jean-Marie Collin, director of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a movement launched in the early 2000s in Australia and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017), said that leaders who cite deterrence “accept the possibility of violating” international human rights.

“Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities and kill and maim entire populations, which means that all presidents and heads of government who implement a defense policy based on nuclear deterrence and who are therefore responsible for giving this order, are aware of this,” Collin told the forum.

ICAN campaigned for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, entering into force in 2021. The adoption came nearly five decades after the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970.

The terms of the NPT consider five countries to be nuclear weapons states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Four other countries also possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.

According to a 2024 ICAN report, these nine states jointly spent €85 billion (USD 94,6 billion) on their atomic weapon arsenals last year, an expenditure ICAN has called “obscene” and “unacceptable.” France, whose president Emmanuel Macron spoke about peace in broad, general terms at the opening of the conference, spent around €5,3 billion (about USD 5,9 billion) in 2023 on its nuclear weapons, said the report.

The policy of “deterrence” and “reciprocity,”  which essentially means “we’ll get rid of our weapons if you get rid of yours,”  has been slammed by ICAN and fellow disarmament activists.

“With the constant flow of information, we often tend to lose sight of the reality of figures,” Collin said at the peace conference. “I hope this one will hold your attention: it is estimated that more than 38,000 children were killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children!”

All those killed—an estimated 210,000 people by the end of 1945—died in horrific ways, as survivors and others have testified. Delegates said that this knowledge should be the real “deterrent.”

At the forum, Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International, a global Buddhist movement, described testimony from a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor, Reiko Yamada, as one she would never forget.

“She (Yamada) stated, ‘A good friend of mine in the neighbourhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her four brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard,” Ikeda told the audience with emotion.

“Who deserves to die such a death? Nobody!” she continued. “Yet our world continues to spend billions of dollars to upkeep our nuclear arsenals, and our leaders at times imply readiness to use them. It is utterly unacceptable.”

Ikeda said that survivors, known as the “hibakusha” in Japan, have a fundamental answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished—it is that “no one else should ever suffer what we did.”

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Cultivating a Culture of Peace

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Opinion

UNDP’s peacebuilding work in Afghanistan coordinates efforts, from international to local, and ensures community members, particularly disadvantaged groups, have a meaningful role in shaping their future. Credit: UNDP Afghanistan

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2024 (IPS) – As global peace hits its lowest point since the Second World War, the International Day of Peace on September 21 offered a critical moment to reflect on and strengthen our peacebuilding efforts.

This year’s theme, ‘Cultivating a Culture of Peace’, is a powerful reminder that for peace to be possible, everyone must play a part.

This sentiment is at the heart of the UNDP’s conflict prevention and peacebuilding work, which we call an ‘area-based approach’. Under this model, we ensure that all those who are working towards peace within a community are working together, and towards a common goal.

The work is tailored to the specific needs and conditions of each particular community, and is locally-led. Peace has its greatest chance when communities come together to address the underlying causes of tension or conflict.

Conflict is on the rise

Today’s conflicts are driven by complex factors including shifting global power dynamics, weak governance, rising inequalities, and a range of interconnected threats such as climate change, crime, and terrorism.

The toll of armed conflicts is staggering. By the end of 2023, conflict-related deaths had surged dramatically. Over 117 million people have been forcibly displaced. Violence has cost the global economy an astonishing US$19.1 trillion. Two billion people, one quarter of the world’s population, live in conflict zones.

If we don’t invest sufficiently in peace, we can’t hope to reverse these trends. Yet, international resources are increasingly focused on immediate humanitarian relief rather than at the root causes of conflict.

The OECD estimates humanitarian aid in fragile contexts has reached a historic high of 27.7 percent of the Development Assistance Committee’s official development assistance, while peace building funding has fallen to a 15-year low of 10.8 percent.

In response, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s vision for building a more peaceful world, the New Agenda for Peace, calls for greater international cooperation and a decisive shift towards prioritizing conflict prevention.

To effectively address the root causes of violence It emphasizes the importance of national ownership, people-centred strategies, and peace financing. One way of meeting the promise of the New Agenda for Peace is to employ an area-based approach.

Area-based responses keep local communitiess at the centre of the peacebuilding process. Credit: UNDP Syria

What is an area-based approach?

It delivers tailored recovery and development based on context and conflict analysis. It works with local authorities, community groups, and local businesses to analyze and plan locally tailored solutions. In places such as Syria it ensures that responses are locally rooted, and keeps communities at the centre of the process.

Local communities, including vulnerable and excluded groups, define the priorities of area-based approaches. This inclusive engagement creates a shared sense of purpose, which is the foundation for building peace.

In Mozambique this has helped address localized conflict and foster resilience, including ensuring meaningful local participation in navigating entrenched social and political barriers.

In southern Iraq, UNDP is using an area-based approach to harmonize crisis response coordination, basic service delivery, livelihood opportunities, and protection for at-risk groups. It addresses the many facets of recovery and resilience simultaneously, helping build a foundation for lasting peace.

Area-based approaches also provide a coordination framework for international organizations to assess local needs, and design cost-effective responses.

UNDP’s work in Afghanistan coordinates efforts, from international to local, increasing effectiveness and value for money while also supporting local ownership. This ensures that community members, particularly disadvantaged groups, have a meaningful role in shaping their future.

Leveraging over 30 years of experience, UNDP has found area-based approaches to be highly effective in addressing some of the key barriers to peace, such as poverty, inequality, and weak governance.

However, these approaches are not a panacea.

There are challenges in ensuring meaningful participation. Among them are coordinating diverse stakeholders, sustaining long-term impact, managing varying expectations, and overcoming capacity constraints. To be effective peacebuilding programmes must be integrated into broader frameworks, such as national prevention strategies, efforts to mitigate strategic risks, and international cooperation.

Despite their challenges, area-based approaches have great potential for preventing conflict, fostering peace and building community resilience. We’re already seeing the dividends in Mozambique, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

By focusing on people-centred solutions, fostering national ownership and addressing the root causes of conflict, area-based approaches play a critical role in cultivating a culture of peace from the ground up.

Naysan Adlparvar is Core Government Functions and Research Advisor, UNDP; Giacomo Negrotto is Local Governance Specialist, UNDP; Adela Pozder-Cengic is Core Government Functions Specialist, UNDP

Source UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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To Kill the Future, Zero the Past

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Opinion

Credit: UNRWA

ATLANTA, Georgia, Sep 17 2024 (IPS) – Today’s weapons are capable of wiping out entire swaths of humanity, demolishing remaining shreds of culture along with them. News coverage of the one-sided Gaza campaign make it plain that’s exactly what’s happening. Destroying the past destroys the future too. The world must band together to make sure these atrocities stop.

Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza have now reached a new low, despite continuing international protests and UNESCO complaints over the destruction of culture. After nearly a year of overkill, Israeli jets continue to drop bombs on hospitals, schools, and refugees in flimsy tent camps, killing increasing numbers of people who never had anything to do with starting the war.

Four months ago on May 15, Israeli’s Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, reported to Prime Minister Netanyahu that “HAMAS no longer functions as a military organization.” Lately it has been clear to everybody that there are no more military objectives left in Gaza.

It can only mean that the incessant bombing of the last four months, killing scores of innocent people every week, were intended to punish Gaza by intentionally killing civilians. Despite the claim that those being bombed are terrorists, there is no evidence to support that claim. It’s an outrage. War crimes keep piling up.

Just last week, on September 10 2024, after nearly a year of incredibly destructive bombing, Israeli jets struck the flimsy tents in al-Mawasi Camp, formerly declared a safe zone by the IDF itself, killing dozens of people and leaving three craters 30 feet deep.

A day later, the UN school in Jabalia Camp used as a shelter was bombed for the umpteenth time, killing at least 18, including 6 UN/UNRWA staff members, with local people claiming up to 60 deaths. After so many months and so many innocent people killed, what could possibly account for this continuing barbarity?

Deliberately targeting civilians anywhere is illegal under international law, and especially in declared safe zones within United Nations shelters and tent camps. Such overkill is incomprehensible to most of the civilized world, but also to nearly a million Israelis who regularly protest their government’s unwillingness to accept a cease-fire.

They have been in the streets for months begging the Likud-dominated War Cabinet to stop the war and free the diminishing number of Israeli captives. Weak cautions from the US White House have had no effect.

It is difficult to see how any of this benefits Israel. Their actions have raised worldwide scorn for the government in Jerusalem that insists on continuing the war. They have only succeeded in empowering the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement.

How can continued bombing reach any rational objective except to incite Israel’s enemies with more hatred and revenge killing extending far into the future? A military doctrine of “maximum force” can only mean killing large numbers of non-combatant women and children. These one-sided attacks will soon reach the one-year mark.

The only possible reasons for continuing Israel’s eleven-month killing spree in Gaza—since Netanyahu recently blocked a cease fire with HAMAS that might have rescued the hostages—is to decimate Palestine’s future along with its past, an important goal for the government in Jerusalem.

Targeting Palestine’s youth by bombing schools inevitably destroys their future opportunities along with the historical memory of the Palestinian people’s collective nationhood. Young people will be unable either to get jobs or reclaim their rightful heritage.

This barbaric one-sided atrocity in Gaza continues despite President Joe Biden and Democratic Candidate Kamala Harris’ words supporting two states. That formulation is now an improbable dream—far off if it ever happens. Most analysts believe it’s undo-able at this point, after hundreds of thousands of settlers have moved into the West Bank.

Humanity—meaning all of us—continues to struggle today amid an atmosphere of fear and lust for power. Bloody Gaza is at the center of a growing vortex in today’s sea of troubles.

James E. Jennings, PhD is President of Conscience International www.conscienceinternational.org and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace. Jennings has delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza’s hospitals since 1987, including during the first intifada, the al-Aqsa intifada, and Israel’s “Cast Lead” bombing attacks in 2009 and 2014.

IPS UN Bureau

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15 Years After the Civil War Ended, Sri Lanka Faces Another Crucial Election

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Democracy

Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, addresses the media and the community at the site of the Mullivaikal massacre. She says justice is overdue for the families of those killed and disappeared during the Sri Lankan civil war. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, addresses the media and the community at the site of the Mullivaikal massacre. She says justice is overdue for the families of those killed and disappeared during the Sri Lankan civil war. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

MULLIVAIKAL, Sri Lanka , Sep 16 2024 (IPS) – Thousands of Tamils are heading to Mullivaikal on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka, many of whom were here 15 years ago and still live in the region. They are there, May 18, to commemorate the massacre of civilians in a ‘no fire zone’ during the final stages of the civil war.

This was the last day of the bloody civil war, which raged mainly in the northern and eastern parts of the island since 1983. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas had finally surrendered to the Sri Lankan government. The aftermath continues to rock the island.

The ethnic conflict between the island nation’s majority Sinhalese population and the minority Tamils (who were in the majority in the north and east) had escalated after 1948 when the country gained independence from Britain, the last in the line of colonial powers.

The whole island suffered during the war. Sri Lankan Tamils have been through a lot, especially those who lived in the war-torn north. Everyone who came to the beach on this day of remembrance wants to honor the memory of loved ones who fell victim and the blood that was spilled in the sand.

“Everyone here has a family member or relative who didn’t make it,” explains the teacher Shanmuganathan, who has stopped with his motorcycle by the road where porridge made from rice, the only thing that was available to eat in the war zone, is being offered before Memorial Day.

The war has left its mark. He shows scars from shrapnel and tells us that he lost his wife in the final stages of the war. He has continued to work and is involved in a teacher’s union.

Women pray during the commemoration of the Mullivaikal massacre. Thousands died in no fire zones in the final days of the war. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

Women pray during the commemoration of the Mullivaikal massacre. Thousands died in no fire zones in the final days of the war. Credit: Johan Mikaelsson/IPS

Internationally, the calls to investigate targeted bombings of civilians, mass executions of surrendering Tiger soldiers and leaders, widespread sexual violence and other torture are no longer as loud. Many of those who protested and demanded to know what happened to missing relatives have died without receiving any response from the government.

When war crimes are discussed, the government side highlights that the terrorist-branded LTTE carried out acts of terror against civilian targets in the south and that Tamils in the north were used as human shields.

The peace process that began in 2002 with a ceasefire and peace talks led by the Norwegian government and facilitator Erik Solheim stalled and the ceasefire agreement was torn apart by the parties. Sri Lankan government forces in 2008 launched a final offensive to capture the parts then still controlled by the LTTE, which had been fighting for a separate Tamil state in the northern and eastern parts of the island.

In early 2009, the Tigers abandoned their main stronghold, the town of Kilinochchi. The areas under guerrilla control were shrinking ever faster. Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran did not listen to calls to lay down arms and surrender. Eventually, a narrow coastal strip remained, with several hundred thousand civilians and the remnants of the guerrilla movement pressed together and under fire from land, sea, and air.

For Remembrance Day, a school in the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu is organizing a poetry competition. One of the participants, Kamsaini, now 24, wants to share her experiences with the schoolchildren, who were born after the war.

“The generations after me know nothing about the pain I felt these days. We had neither food nor water and I lost several family members; some died, and my sister is missing,” explains Kamsaini.

In place under the hot sun in Mullivaikal is Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International. During her stay on the island, she has met President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who opened up for the visit, which was not a given. When the Rajapaksa brothers ruled the country (2005-2015, 2019-2022), the government allowed the military and police to prevent Tamils from observing commemorations linked to the war.

One reason why Callamard and Amnesty International want to be there is that she does not want Sri Lanka to “fall off the agenda,” which could happen if the main actor within the United Nations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, does not succeed with the latest in a series of resolutions on Sri Lanka voted through in the UN Human Rights Council.

She sees the issue of the war in Sri Lanka as a crucial test for the international community. A 30-year-long civil war must not be swept under the carpet, she believes

“Every time we fail to create justice, we all, including the international community, get a wound. We’re here because we don’t want that to happen. We feel the determination of many people in Sri Lanka and civil society, both Tamils and Sinhalese and a range of actors who are committed to seeing justice delivered,” says Callamard.

In this way, it represents a defining moment for the United Nations. Callamard is critical of the UN Security Council, which “has not taken a single step for Sri Lanka.”

Amnesty International advocates, as do a number of states, that the latest resolution must be implemented.

“Just a lot of ‘blah, blah, blah,’ something for the eyes, investments in so-called institutions and nothing, nothing, nothing. Fifteen years. Come on!” she urges.

Even on the island, there are far too many who have done nothing at all.

“The point is that the government in power must step forward, the political parties must step forward, the parliament must step forward, the religious leaders must step forward, cultural leaders must step forward. It should be an issue that everyone rallies around. The problem is that governments are being replaced. So it’s not good enough. Everyone must take their responsibility,” says Callamard.

In Mullivaikal, many people share memories. James Confucius, a Catholic priest, tells how he and a group of people barely made it out of the war zone alive.

“We waved a white flag, and we went in the direction of the soldiers to surrender, but then they shot at us, so we had to turn back,” he says.

They waited in a sand bunker and finally got another opportunity. The soldiers they encountered believed that an injured woman in the group was a Tiger soldier, because she had short hair. The priest pleaded and said she needed hospital treatment, but the soldiers said the woman had to stay.

The group had to move on and when they had gone only a short distance, they heard a shot.

“I turned around and saw that the woman had been shot,” says Confucius.

In total, roughly 300,000 people got out of the war zone. An estimate that has often been used is a death toll of 40,000 civilians in the final stages of the war alone. Tamils state higher numbers, while Sri Lankan authorities write low death tolls, including in the 2010 report by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), appointed by the government.

The then sitting president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had previously said that “not a single Tamil civilian has been killed by the military.”

Experts have dismissed the statement as absurd. While the majority of Tamil politicians still refer to “genocide,” the issue of death tolls rarely receives the same attention as it did in the years after the civil war.

The UN Human Rights Council has voted through a number of non-binding resolutions that Sri Lanka is expected to follow, but no real action on the problem has been taken in Sri Lanka. There is also nothing to suggest that this will happen.

None of the main candidates in the presidential election on September 21 have highlighted truth-seeking, the rule of international law, regional power-sharing and reconciliation—what the UN is asking for. The economy is in focus, the nation and the citizens, and all candidates want to stop corruption.

The agreement that the government reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is also being discussed. It was negotiated by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is not elected by the people but took over by a vote in Parliament after Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned and fled the country as a result of the April-July 2022 Aragalya (meaning struggle in Sinhalese) protest movement. Before that, Rajapaksa had appointed Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister.

At the Ministry of Defense (MOD) on the outskirts of the capital Colombo, soldiers and officers move inside the compound, which is surrounded by high walls. For some, the Vesak holiday awaits when the full moon approaches. The armed forces also marked the end of the war and Victory Day, but more quietly than in previous years.

Colonel Nalin Herath is the MOD media spokesperson. Right now, work is being done to adapt the forces to actual needs. Herath says they will shrink to 100,000 by 2030. Many who were previously employed in the military have faced unemployment as civilians.

An urgent issue is trying to bring home hundreds of ex-soldiers who were lured by middlemen to go to Russia to work for Russia’s army. Most are said to have received promises not to take part in battle, which hasn’t been the case.

“We should not have mercenaries in war; it violates international law,” says Nalin Herath.

Some have also fought and died on Ukraine’s side. Herath emphasizes that Sri Lanka is neutral, adheres to non-alignment, and does not want to comment on whether it is worse to fight for Russia, which is waging an illegal war of invasion and committing war crimes.

Close to 20 men from Sri Lanka, who were on the Russian side of the front in June, were confirmed dead. An unknown number of men have surrendered to Ukrainian forces. Hundreds of former soldiers have not been heard from for a long time, which emerged after the Ministry of Defense in April-May opened a telephone line where relatives can call.

Sri Lankans who have become Russian citizens can effectively be stuck in a death trap, as the Sri Lankan government became aware after a delegation traveled to Moscow in June to discuss the matter with the Russian counterpart. It was explained that the Sri Lankans who became Russian citizens are now under Russian law.

As a spokesperson for a military organization, Herath talks about a general goal.

“War means destruction. Both parties suffer. This should not be an era of war. As a soldier, I want to see a peaceful world. The smartest thing would be to avoid the wars,” he states.

He highlights international humanitarian law, which he teaches, both in Sri Lanka and internationally. He mentions the good the Sri Lankan military has done. After the war, minefields were cleared, land was returned and soldiers donated blood to the hospitals.

But he cannot comment on Amnesty International’s statement. Political leaders are responsible for handling this. He nevertheless states:

“Violations occur in all wars. Here we are dealing with isolated cases,” he adds.

Consensus still lingers.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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The Deadly US Weapons of Civilian Destruction

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Much of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed in the conflict. Credit: UNRWA

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 13 2024 (IPS) – As the devastating 11-month-old conflict in Gaza keeps escalating, with over 41,000 mostly civilian killings, and more than 92,000 Palestinians injured –in retaliation for the 1,200 killings inside Israel last October– the Israelis continue to defy the United States which maintains its uninterrupted flow of heavy weapons to Tel Aviv.

There are two hardcore lessons in this conflict. Perhaps Israel should realize that you cannot continue biting the hand that feeds you while the Biden administration should realize that you cannot continue to feed the mouth that bites you.

The world’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are categorized mostly as nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons. But the US-supplied missiles and 2,000-pound bombs dropped on Gaza are best described as weapons of civilian destruction (WCDs) which have also reduced cities to rubble.

On September 11, the New York Times ran a story on the latest killings of civilians, titled “Israel Kills Gazans as its Air Power Hits a Humanitarian Zone”

The Times quoted Trevor Ball, a former US army explosive ordnance-disposal technician, as identifying a fragment found at the most recent bombing in Gaza as “the tail section of a SPICE-2000 kit, a precision guided kit used with 2,000-pound bombs.

If Israel is accused of genocide and war crimes, where does the US fit in as the major supplier of arms that are killing all these civilians?

And, on August 13, as the civilian killings continued unabated, the Biden Administration formally notified Congress of its plan to authorize the sale of a staggering list of arms to Israel including:

An $18.8 billion sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets and related equipment;
A $774 million sale of up to 32,739 120mm tank cartridges and related equipment;
A $583 million sale of Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV)s and related equipment;
A $102 million sale of 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and related equipment; and, A $61 million sale of 50,000 M933A1 120mm High Explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment.

In June 2024, Reuters reported that the Administration had transferred at least 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS “for Israel to commit its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, it requires a large and steady supply of weapons. Most of these weapons come from the United States.”

“In fact, over 11 months of Israeli genocide and following numerous reports by international organizations, we know precisely how US bunker busters and other weapons and munitions intended for mass killings have been used,” he pointed out.

Yet, despite all of this, the US continues to give Israel all the bombs and rockets necessary to inflict most deadly violence against Palestinians, including those sheltered in displacement camps, at UN schools, at hospitals, and other areas that are intended to be ‘safe zones’.

But American support for Israel cannot be confined to that of weapon supplies, Dr Baroud said, because Washington remains Israel’s strongest backer and defender at international institutions, including the UN Security Council. This blind and unconditional support has emboldened Israel to carry on with the most despicable genocide against an innocent and besieged nation.

Even Biden’s so-called ‘ceasefire proposal’ last May was supposedly communicated on behalf of Israel, then, oddly rejected also on behalf of Israel.

There can be no other interpretation of this: the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza is carried out jointly by Israel and the United States, said Dr Baroud, a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). www.ramzybaroud.net

According to a Cable News Network (CNN) report early this week US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called for “fundamental changes” to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.

US President Joe Biden condemned Eygi’s killing on Wednesday. ““I am outraged and deeply saddened by the death of Aysenur Eygi,” Biden said in a statement, adding that the shooting “is totally unacceptable.”

Biden called for “full accountability” for her death after Israel “has acknowledged its responsibility.” Israel, he added, “must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”

As an old Middle East saying goes: The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

Is this a reflection of the unrestrained power of the Israeli lobby in the US Congress, which one-time Republican US presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, called “Israeli-occupied territory”? Does this now include the White House?

Unfortunately, there will be no accountability for the killing of the American-Turkish activist, Dr Baroud pointed out. “We know this for a fact because there has never been a precedent in history in which the US has held Israel accountable for anything”.

The family of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was deliberately run over by an Israeli army bulldozer, knows exactly how frivolous the US use of language in this kind of situation can be.

The US speaks of “accountability”, “responsibility”, “full investigations”, yet ultimately accepts the Israeli narrative as the truth. More recently, the US has used similar language following the murder of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, before circling back to accepting the Israeli story that her killing was not deliberate and was not part of a larger policy to target civilians.

Infuriatingly, but still unsurprisingly, the US is using the above language at a time when over 41,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in Gaza, with thousands more missing and tens of thousands wounded, he said.

Not only no such accountability has been achieved or even called for, but the US continues to give Israel the very murder weapon so that it may continue its genocide against Palestinian civilians, said Dr Baroud.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the death of at least 18 people, including children, women, and six UNRWA staff, in Israeli airstrikes that hit a school serving as a shelter in Nuseirat on 11 September.

This incident raises the number of UNRWA staff killed in this conflict to 220. The IDF stated that they had targeted a command-and-control center in the compound. This incident must be independently and thoroughly investigated to ensure accountability.

The continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza is unconscionable. Civilians and the infrastructure they rely on must be protected and the essential needs of civilians met. The Secretary-General calls upon all parties to refrain from using schools, shelters, or the areas around them for military purposes. All parties to the conflict have the obligation to comply with international humanitarian law at all times.

The Secretary-General also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. This horrific violence must stop, he declared.

According to an October 2023 report from the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.

Since its founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).

This assistance has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces into “one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide”.

Israel has also been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is a former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group, USA; and one-time UN correspondent for Jane’s Defense Weekly, London.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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