[OPIRG-EVENTS] Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 16:56:10 -0500

["Jo Wood" <jwood@ccs.carleton.ca>]

SEARCHING FOR PEACE: THE UNITED STATES, IRAQ, THE WAR ON TERRORISM, AND THE
WORLD.

Tuesday, 25 March 7:00-10:00 P.M.,
National Arts Centre.

Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen (see bio) will present an analysis of the
current situation and concrete policy proposals for what governments and
citizens can do, followed by questions and discussion. (see details).

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DETAILS OF SEARCHING FOR PEACE EVENT

Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen, co-director of TRANSCEND (www.transcend.org)
and director of PATRIR (www.patrir.ro) will speak on Searching for Peace:
The United States, Iraq, the War on Terrorism, and World Peace, Tuesday, 25
March 7:00-10:00 P.M., National Arts Centre. This will be followed by
questions and discussion. His talk will present a clear and concise analysis
of the situation in and around Iraq, the drive to war, as well as concrete
policy proposals and suggestions for governments and citizens for what can
be done, and how the conflicts can be transformed constructively, through
peaceful means. It will also place the current conflict in context, looking
at the deep cultures of violence, and the growing global peace movement. If
the war will have begun at that time, it will look at the impact of the war,
what can be done by citizens, and the need to overcome and abolish war as an
institution, proposing also constructive and effective strategies for
peacebuilding and conflict transformation by peaceful means.

The event will be completely free and open to the public. Donations will be
appreciated and will go to support local peace organisations and the global
peace coalitions working in Ottawa to prevent the war.

There will also be a space in front of the auditorium where organisations
can place tables, making their materials and literature available. It will
be particularly relavent for the literature to provide information to the
public on how they can be further involved with local organisations active
in working for the promotion of peace.

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Brief Biographical Information: Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen

Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen is founder and Director of the Peace Action,
Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR) and Co-Director of
TRANSCEND, and is on the Executive Board of the TRANSCEND Peace University
(TPU). He has worked extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal,
Russia, South Eastern Europe, North America, and the Middle East at the
invitation of governments, inter-governmental organisations, UN agencies,
and local organisations and communities. He has written and published
widely, and is author of The Struggle Continues: The Political Economy of
Globalisation and the Struggle for Peace (Pluto, forthcoming), co-author,
together with Johan Galtung and Carl Jacobsen, of Searching for Peace: The
Road to TRANSCEND (Pluto, 2000 & 2002) and Editor of the TRANSCEND book
series published together with Pluto Press, Critical Peace Studies: Peace by
Peaceful Means. He is also a member of the Executive Board of the Journal of
Peace and Development and the Executive Board of the Centre for Peace and
Conflict Resolution, and an Associate of the Transnational Foundation for
Peace and Future Research, as well as an advisor to several governments,
foreign ministries, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Council of Europe and
national and international aid and development organisations. In 1999 he was
founder and Director of the Coalition for Global Solidarity and Social
Development, and in 2000, together with Johan Galtung, he was founder of the
Nordic Institute for Peace Research (NIFF). Since 1996 he has provided more
than 130 training programmes in peacebuilding, development, and constructive
conflict transformation to more than 3000 participants in 26 countries –
including politicians, diplomats, aid and development workers, peace
workers, journalists, researchers, students, and others – and has spoken
widely, at the invitation of governments, international and
inter-governmental organisations, universities and citizens groups. When in
Romania he teaches at the Faculty of Political Science of Babes-Bolyai
University in Cluj-Napoca, and is Course Director for the Peacebuilding and
Empowerment course of the TRANSCEND Peace University. He is a practitioner
and specialist in: peacebuilding, conflict transformation by peaceful means,
people-centred participatory development, political economy and global
economics, international relations and diplomacy.
Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen is a Canadian citizen, currently living in
Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He travels widely internationally, and is available to
provide training programmes, public speakings, and interviews. Currently,
Mr. Brand-Jacobsen is in Ottawa, Canada, where he will be located until
March 27th, 2003. He may be contacted by telephone at: 1-613-262-6111 or
1-613-234-7511 or by e-mail at jacobsen@transcend.org

Brief Description of TRANSCEND
TRANSCEND - A Peace and Development Network for Conflict Transformation by
Peaceful Means
TRANSCEND is a network of more than 250 of the world’s leading practitioners
and scholars in peacebuilding and development from over 60 countries around
the world. Committed to the promotion of peace by peaceful means, TRANSCEND
has 20 active programmes, and conducts its work through action,
education/training, dissemination and research. With centres in Barcelona
(Spain), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Geneva (Switzerland), Hagen (Germany),
Honolulu (USA), Kyoto (Japan),Managua (Nicaragua), Moscow (Russia), Sandnes
(Norway), Taplow Court (Great Britain), Torino (Italy), Vienna (Austria),
and Washington, DC (USA) – with several others now being formed in Europe,
Latin America, Africa and Asia – TRANSCEND has provided more than 300
training programmes for over 6000 participants in 43 countries around the
world. Participants in TRANSCEND training programmes have included
politicians, diplomats, aid and development workers, teachers,
psychologists, social workers, journalists, civil service employees, UN
staff, professors, students, and others. In 2000, TRANSCEND developed the
United Nations’ first ever manual on “Conflict Transformation by Peaceful
Means: The TRANSCEND Approach”, used by the United Nations and international
organisations for training diplomats and staff in peacebuilding and conflict
transformation. Currently, TRANSCEND is doing research on: Peacebuilding and
Empowerment; Non-Territorial Federalism and Functional Independence;
Self-Determination and the Nation/State Dialectic; Peacebuilding and
Globalisation; Conflict Transformation and Psychological Assumptions;
Comparing Methods of Conflict Transformation from Micro, Meso and
Macro-Levels; the Dialogue Process; Local and Subsistence Economics; Models
for Global Economic Crises; Understanding Genocide. TRANSCEND has recently
launched the new TRANSCEND Media Service, and is in the process of
developing the Conflict Transformation Index (CTI) and TRANSCEND Early
Warning Index (EWI). TRANSCEND perspectives are freely available on the
Internet, and a TRANSCEND monthly Bulletin is being prepared for
distribution in 12 languages. In February, 2003, TRANSCEND launched the
world’s first ever global peace university taught through distance learning
over the internet, and designed to meet the needs of practitioners and
scholars world-wide, the TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU)

Brief Description of PATRIR
The Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR)
Founded on March 1, 2001, the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute
of Romania (PATRIR), is both an institute, organisation, training centre and
network, linking together scholars, grassroots activists, and peace
researchers throughout Romania and South-Eastern Europe. Its aim is to
address the core challenges facing Romania and the countries of South and
Eastern Europe, to strengthen and empower grassroots organisations and
citizens’ action, to mobilise people for active peace work and peaceful
conflict transformation, and to address the structural causes of poverty,
human rights violations and economic and social injustice. PATRIR is a
public-service institute and an organisation for research, training and
active peace work, providing policy proposals for governments and
international organsiations as well as for citizens and local communities.
PATRIR organises training programmes in peacebuilding and peaceful conflict
transformation, globalisation, social justice, peace journalism, democracy
and human right, multi-culturalism, empowering civil society, gender and
peace, sustainable development, and environment and ecology. Participants
have included NGO workers, civil society activists, professors, teachers,
students, journalists, politicians, diplomats, and psychologists from
Romania and 26 countries internationally. PATRIR cooperates with TRANSCEND
as the TRANSCEND Centre for South-Eastern Europe.



For more information, contact jacobsen@ca.inter.net


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