Peace Profile: Roger Casement

In an earlier “Peace Profile,” Patrick Cannon provides a comprehensive account of the life of Roger Casement, a person who identified with the Irish nationalist community, in spite of the fact that he was raised in an Ulster, Protestant family and worked as a representative of British imperialism during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It was his experiences as a British counsel in the Congo Free State and in the Putumayo region of Peru that convinced Casement that imperialism had, in fact, systematically oppressed native peoples and perpetrated horrendous human rights atrocities. His official reports to the British government helped to end abuses by the representatives of King Leopold II in the Congo and by officials of the Peruvian Amazon company in Peru. This significant work for humanitarian causes prompted Cannon to suggest that Casement should be regarded as an exemplar for peace activists and humanitarians everywhere.     

Afghan Questions

The international community views the national reconciliation process in Afghanistan as a bold political experiment that can have a most beneficial impact on the elimination of regional conflicts throughout the world. It is not by chance that this innovative initiative is already being supported and continued by the revolutionary government of Nicaragua, along whose borders an undeclared war has been waged for many years now by the "Contras" financed by the United States. As M. S. Gorbachev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, stated in his Declaration on Afghanistan, "this is an expression of new political thought on the Afghan side." This is also an opportunity to demonstrate our good will to the great powers whose governments and peoples bear special responsibility for the elimination and prevention of dangerous hotbeds of tension on earth.