News
South Africa to host Global Alliance summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace in 2011
by Kirsten Pearson
27 April 2010
Media release by the co-founder of the South African Peace Alliance, Karen Barensché.
MEDIA RELEASE
“Ke nako - The time is now!” said the co-founder of the South African Peace Alliance, Karen Barensché. She was speaking after receiving official confirmation that the South African bid to host the Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace in Cape Town in 2011 has been successful.
The Global Alliance is a civil society organisation calling for the establishment of Ministries and Departments of Peace in governments worldwide. It is represented in approximately 40 member countries. The Global Alliance has achieved it’s aims in the Solomon Islands, where there is a Ministry of Peace, Nepal, where there is a Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation and Costa Rica, which has a Department of Peace within the Ministry of Justice. About 35 other member countries are actively working on campaigns to form Ministries or Departments of Peace within their country’s government.
Barensché continued that bringing the Global Alliance Summit to South Africa would be good timing for South Africa. It is truly a triumph of modern history that South Africa transitioned peacefully from apartheid to democracy. South Africa has much to share with the international peace-building community as she continues to transition.
The 2011 Global Alliance Summit will be themed: “Ubuntu in Action”. Cape Town is set to welcome approximately 200 delegates from countries from around the world for the Global Alliance Summit. The opening ceremony on 2 October will coincide with commemorations of Mahatma Ghandi’s Birthday. “The South African Summit Planning team will be working hard to ensure that our international visitors experience the spirit of Ubuntu.” said Barensché.
South Africans still suffer from deep trauma and we need to continue the process of healing, as the scarring effects of apartheid wounds run deep. For South Africa to establish a sustainable culture of peace, healing needs to take place. It is the South African Peace Alliance’s hope that the Global Alliance Peace Summit in South Africa will bring momentum to the continuing work of building a sustainable peace culture in South Africa and Africa.
When asked for his thoughts on the movement to establish Ministries and Departments of Peace in governments worldwide, this is what Archbishop Desmond Tutu had to say: “It’s an extraordinary idea and, it fills one with a great deal of excitement and exhilaration, and it sounds crazy, but then I think it was crazy when Gandhi said we’re going to work so that eventually India is free. It must have been crazy when Martin Luther King Jr. also said we’re going to make civil rights a real issue in the United States, and maybe when Nelson Mandela and others said one day apartheid will be no more, that we need those like yourselves who dream dreams and say, “It is possible. It is possible for people to know that war is not natural.”
EDITOR’S NOTES
ABOUT SOUTH AFRICAN PEACE ALLIANCE
The South African Peace Alliance, an NGO based in Cape Town, is part of a global initiative calling on governments to establish ministries or departments of peace, as three countries have already done, namely Costa Rica, Nepal and the Solomon Islands. It is envisaged that a South African Ministry of Peace, headed by a cabinet minister, will build a culture of peace, manage peacekeeping efforts, be involved in peace-building where there was once conflict, seek to achieve disarmament and convert military facilities to peaceful purposes, lead peace education and training; and ensure that we celebrate peace.
The South African Peace Alliance believes that the South African Department of Peace should have a cross-department mandate to ensure the peaceful resolution of conflict and to institutionalise a peace perspective in government. This would be a broad approach to peace – accepting as a starting point that peace is a much bigger concept than simple “anti-war”. Living in peace includes living without poverty, school violence, racial and ethnic conflict, domestic violence, the effects of substance abuse, gangsterism and crime, hate crimes and even animal abuse. It also means living in a dignified home with access to basic services.
The South African Peace Alliance will be embarking on a public participation process over the next 12 months, culminating in the drafting of a proposed Bill for the establishment of a South African Department of Peace.
For more information about the South African Peace Alliance: www.sapeacealliance.org.za
For more information about the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace: www.mfp-dop.org
Issued by: South African Peace Alliance
Contact: Kirsten Pearson
082 936 1898
Kirsten@sapeacealliance.org.za
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