July 1999

It would be easy for one peace to hide another. Satisfaction at seeing an end to the hostilities in Kosovo should not allow what has just happened in Algeria to pass unnoticed: it is the start of a peace process that may eventually end the country¹s civil war.It would be easy for one peace to hide another. Satisfaction at seeing an end to the hostilities in Kosovo should not allow what has just happened in Algeria to pass unnoticed: it is the start of a peace process that may eventually end (...)

We are now plagued by an unexpected fear: our daily food. From mad cow disease to dioxin in chicken, from hormone contaminated beef, transgenic soya, animals reared on bonemeal to contaminated mineral water and Coca Cola, the list of adulterated foodstuffs grows longer. There is a common thread to all these aberrations: the pursuit of maximum profits by the food industry giants is transforming farming and leaving little room for the farmer. Having accommodated the big seed producers by agreeing to the introduction of transgenic maize, the French government seems now to have regained its senses and is calling for a moratorium on the licensing of further GMOs in Europe.

A natural and cultural heritage shaped by millions of years of biological evolution and thousands of years of agricultural practice is now being exposed to private appropriation ‹ a form of management hostile to the biosphere. Freedom for trade and industry, in other words the extension of the realm of merchandise, is radically opposed to the requirements of sustainable development.

Just as they did in Bosnia after the Dayton Agreements, the Western powers are getting ready to place Kosovo under their guardianship, with the declared aim of restoring peace and democracy. Yet the protectorate, a modern form of colonialism, risks putting a seal of approval on the ethnic partitioning of the province.

The Atlantic Alliance’s intervention in Kosovo is a spectacular example of the erosion of state sovereignty, helped along by globalisation and the “right to interfere”. This evolution is spreading to a growing number of spheres ‹ first and foremost the economy. However, the principle of sovereignty is not breaking down with any degree of uniformity: the social and environmental spheres remain relatively unaffected, while a higher economic order is emerging only too clearly ‹ founded on the primacy of the markets and guarded by irresponsible and complicit international organisations, led by the World Trade Organisation.

Books celebrating the current economic system and the growing power of the markets are on the increase. Rarely however have their authors shown as much zeal as Thomas Friedman, one of the New York Times’ star writers. Apart from its impact, his book expresses in an almost emblematic way the thinking of the American ruling classes. As well as that of economic and political leaders elsewhere who dream of imitating the US.

As the United Nations Security Council resumes its debate on Iraq, it remains divided. Three proposals are up for discussion, tabled by Britain (with the backing of the United States), China and Russia, plus a “working document” submitted by France. The British position sets new requirements for any eventual lifting of sanctions, which are even more draconian than those formulated in previous UN decisions. Baghdad has already made it clear that the British text is unacceptable. Its adoption would only prolong the political stalemate and the silent agony of Iraq and its people.

Laos is in a period of development with ambitious projects including four new dams and hydro-electricity. It is also in urgent need of foreign currency. The rural population meantime is simply intent on survival.

The authors of the Treaty of Rome saw the Court of Justice of the European Communities (CJEC) as a key instrument in the process of European integration. It has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Sixty per cent of national legislation is now of European origin, and the court’s decisions are inexorably reinforcing the precedence of Community law over national law. Yet far from challenging its authority, member states’ governments are continuing to strengthen it. It is proving particularly effective as a tool for building an essentially liberal economic order in Europe, but its rulings raise the issue of the legitimacy and scope of European law.

In the early 1990s it seemed that an end was in sight to one of the cold war’s symbolic confrontations, the 15 year-old conflict between the Luanda government and Unita. By giving priority to the political rather than the military aspects of the 1994 Lusaka Protocol, however, the UN played into the hands of the armed opposition and failed miserably to achieve its aims. As the fighting resumes, the exhausted country is preparing to face shortages and famine.

The stagnation overwhelming the economies of Africa is a killer. This is not only because it is making access to clean water, decent food and modern and traditional care increasingly difficult, but also because it is insidiously breaking down the bonds that hold society together and the traditional systems that regulate society. It is a breakdown that no public authority is able to bring under control. In Cameroon beatings are the symbol of a people’s justice that is all the more brutal as it cannot reach the authors of the people’s misery.

The United States and Britain continue to bomb Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein has a hidden programme of chemical and biological arms. One of the declared objectives of Washington’s foreign policy is to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Recently declassified archives now reveal, however, that the US was the first country to incorporate biological warfare into its military doctrine. And there are indications that it was used, at least on an experimental basis, during the Korean war.

As film director George Lucas releases the latest in his Star Wars series, the US Congress has followed the Senate in voting through a bill to relaunch the idea of an anti-missile defence. At the start of the 1980s President Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars, aimed to protect the US ‹ from space ‹ from attack by Soviet missiles. This hugely expensive project was, in fact, conceived by writers of science fiction, always attentive to scientific innovation and keen to find a way to fund the conquest of space.

The manifesto setting out a third way for the new centre in Europe, launched by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder in London on 8 June is a significant political move with a clear electoral agenda. General disenchantment with previous political models has created a rich source of votes that the two Social Democrat leaders aim to seize with a minimal risk of losses. They see capitalism and the market economy, as well as business enterprise and wealth creation, as the only credible prospect for the 21st century. There is, to their minds, nothing to fear from a communist or socialist alternative, which has no place in modern society.