(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This summer (10-11 June), nine international and four Austrian peace organisations, including the International Peace Bureau (IPB), organized the peace conference International Summit for Peace in Ukraine in Vienna. The conference brought together over 300 activists, politicians and experts from 32 countries to discuss the need and methods to restore peace in Ukraine. The aim was to create democratic dialogue between fredsactivists in Ukraine, Russia, NATO countries and the Global South, and to arrive at a joint international call for peace. Money was also raised for water purification equipment; after the destruction of the Kakhova dam, the need is acute.
The conference consisted of introductions, partly from the stage and partly via screen, and working groups where everyone could discuss with each other. There was quite a wide range of differing opinions, but the vast majority agreed on the need for immediate truce and peace talks. It was uplifting to be able to have calm and matter-of-fact discussions where disagreements about important issues were discussed. More such rooms are needed. One of the talks began with a question to the audience about how many people had been personally harassed for saying that the killing must stop – and I think a majority of hands went up in the air.
Cease fire and negotiations
The most interesting introduction came from Ann Wright, a former US State Department employee who resigned her position in protest of the war on Iraq. Wright's message was that peace negotiations are usually lengthy and complicated, and that Ukraine, Russia and the US/NATO should therefore start talks immediately, even if the fighting is still going on. During the Korean War, 575 meetings were held over two years before the (still valid) armistice agreement was agreed upon, and millions were killed during the talks. She referred to the UN's guide to achieving effective ceasefires and a study by Virginia Page Fortna, American political scientist and specialist in peace negotiations. The study, which was conducted on 48 different conflicts, has shown that long-term ceasefires are more successful in cases that include specific language that cannot be misunderstood, demilitarized zones, monitoring, third-party guarantees, peacekeeping forces and joint dispute resolution commissions. This is in contrast to the Minsk agreements, which had no effective mechanisms to ensure that the parties complied with the agreement.
Long-term ceasefires are achieved through specific language that cannot be misunderstood, demilitarized zones, monitoring, third-party guarantees, peacekeeping forces and joint dispute resolution commissions.
The German former UN diplomat Michael von Schulenburg emphasized the bleak alternatives to a ceasefire and negotiations: either continued positional warfare in which thousands die, Russian progress that will put Ukraine in a worse negotiating situation, or Ukrainian progress that pushes nuclear-armed Russia into a corner. Jeffrey Sachs believed that the war could be ended by US President Biden saying that NATO will stop expanding if Russia withdraws. Noam Chomsky was somewhat more reserved in his use of words, but stated that one only wants to find out if negotiations will work by trying. The Indian professor Anuradha Chenoy emphasized that the Global South supports the European peace movement. Refreshingly, many of the ushers represented countries in the south, such as Bolivia's vice-president David Choquehuanca, Chinese peace researcher Wang Danning and IKFF's Cameroonian leader Sylvie Jacqueline Ndongmo.
Ukrainians and Russians together for peace
However, the strongest part of the conference was when Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian peace activists shared the stage. A female Ukrainian peace activist prefaced to applause from the audience that nothing can defend the invasion, and that although it is difficult to negotiate when the invading power attacks civilian infrastructure, the war must be stopped, now. She used the biblical story of the two women arguing over who was the mother of a child as an image of the dilemma of negotiating while parts of the country are occupied: King Solomon ruled that the child should be split in two, but the woman who was the real one the mother, would rather let the other keep the child than kill it.
Russian Oleg Bodrov began his speech by saying that he agreed with everything the Ukrainian representative had said, and emphasized the difficulties of conducting peace efforts in Russia: Independent media are closed, many civil society organizations are banned, and protesters are jailed. He also complained that 'a double iron curtain' has arisen where both Russia and the West close the borders. Ukrainian Yury Selyazhenko believed that arms shipments help fan the flames of war, and advocated non-violent resistance, ceasefire and peace negotiations. Ukrainian Nina Potarska, on the other hand, was concerned that a cease-fire would divide the country permanently, and believed that the most important thing the peace movement in the West could do was work to ensure that one's own country was willing to provide real security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace agreement, for to prevent future aggression.
The Italian Peace Movement
For one of the less than a hundred who were present in Oslo during the demonstration for a ceasefire in Ukraine last December, it was particularly inspiring to hear about the experiences from the Italian the peace movement: They have had over 100 participants in two demonstrations protesting against the Russian invasion and Western arms shipments, and for a ceasefire and peace negotiations.
We in Norway have something to learn here!
The organization Comitato fermare la guerra ("End the War"), which brings together Catholic activists and trade unions, has carried out five peace caravans to Ukraine with a total of over 80 vehicles filled with medical equipment, generators, water purification equipment and other necessities. During the peace caravans, they have also met Ukrainian conscientious objectors, trade unions, humanitarian organizations and representatives of what remains of left-wing parties (most of which are banned) in Ukraine. They could also say that they have organized housing for Ukrainian refugees in boats Italy and Ukraine, plans to visit the Russian soldiers' mothers and to present a peace list for the next European parliamentary elections. We in Norway have something to learn here!
The event ended with the organizers reading , the solution they had adopted during the conference where they called on leaders in all countries to work for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
