Critical Analysis: Peace Accords or Political Surrender?

Written on March 24th, 2017 in politics Comments Off

… Latin America, the Middle East and Ukraine – Published on Axis of Logic, by James Petras, March 19, 2017.

Over thirty year ago a savvy Colombian peasant leader told me, “Whenever I read the word ‘peace accords’ I hear the government sharpening its knives” … //

… Conclusion: Epitaph for Peace Accords:  

Time and again throughout the world, imperial-brokered peace negotiations and accords have served only one goal: to disarm, demobilize, defeat and demoralize resistance fighters and their allies.

‘Peace Accords’, as we know them, have served to rearm and regroup US-backed forces following tactical setbacks of the guerrilla struggle. ‘PA’s are encouraged to divide the opposition (‘salami tactics’) and facilitate conquest. The rhetoric of ‘peace’ as in ‘peace negotiations’ are terms which actually mean ‘unilateral disarmament’ of the resistance fighters, the surrender of territory and the abandonment of civilian sympathizers. The so-called ‘war zones’, which contain fertile lands and valuable mineral reserves are ‘pacified’ by being absorbed by the ‘peace loving’ regime. This serves their privatization programs and promote the pillage of the ‘developmental state’. Negotiated peace settlements are overseen by US officials, who praise and laud the rebel leaders while they sign agreements to be implemented by US vassal regimes … The latter will ensure the rejection of any realignment of foreign policy and any structural socio-economic changes.

Some peace accords may allow former guerilla leaders to compete and in some cases win elections as marginal representatives, while their mass base is decimated.

In most cases, during the peace process, and especially after signing ‘peace accords’, social organizations and movements and their supporters among the peasantry and working class, as well as human rights activists, end up being targeted by the military and para-military death-squads operating around government military bases … //

… (full text).

(Please note James Petras’s new collection of essays with Clarity Press: the end of the republic and the delusion of empire, ISBN: 978-0-9972870-5-9, $24.95 / 252 pp. / 2016).

Links:

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA): Washington’s Little Known Spy Agency, on Global Research.ca, by Stephen Lendman, March 23, 2017;

Commercial & Residential Real-Estate Bubble once again a Risk to “Financial Stability” – and Fed’s Rosengren is Worried, on Wolf Street, bx Wolf Richter, March 22, 2017: the Fed caused it, but it won’t do much to contain it;

Iraqi Popular Forces Warn to Target US Forces after Expulsion of ISIL, on FARSnews, March 21, 2017>: if the US forces refrain from leaving the Iraqi territories after annihilation of the ISIL terrorist group, the Islamic resistance of Iraq will target them,” al-Hosseini told the Islamic republic news agency on Tuesday …;

bei Markus Lanz:

Alice in gender-gap land, on Bruegel.org, by Pia Hüth, March 20, 2017;

What future for Europe? on Bruegel.org, by Guntram B. Wolff, March 16, 2017: the Commission’s White Paper on the future of the EU sets out five scenarios, but misses the fundamental questions facing Europe. How should the EU interact with its neighbourhood? How can we manage the tensions created by multi-speed integration? And above all how can the Euro be made sustainable in the absence of a major step towards fiscal union?

… and this:

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