Call for a "Ministry of Peace"

By T, Staffer of De Birhan Media 
08 Feb 2013

As the Ethiopian regime is bracing up to celebrate the Ethiopian "Defense Week"/Armed Forces Day for the first time in its 21 years of rule with military Parade, training, events and promotion, many of us are being forced to ask how militaristic and forceful the Country and the Region is becoming in the already volatile and militarized region of the Horn of Africa (HoA). Celebrating capacity to violence and use of force is not progressive and the message it instills in the new generation is of the clout of might and the exceptionable value of the use of force and violence. Most countries of the world do in deed have their own national ministries and departments of war, defense/military. Most, if not all, do celebrate their own respective Military Days and brag about their ability to violence. They allocate huge sums of their annual budgets to their military and work to be as cross cutting in the army techno as the leading nations and also have their own military colleges, students, scientists and outputs that fall under their Defense ministries. 

But why is there no 'Ministry/Department of Peace' either in the HoA or in the world?

The idea of the Department of Peace and Non Violence was first proposed in the United States of America (U.S.A.).  In 2005, after a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich, introduced a bill for the establishment of the Department of Peace in the U.S. House; Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota) introduced legislation in the Senate to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace just like that of the Department of Defense (DoD). Other reports say that  Dr. Benjamin Rush was rather the first person in America to write a Pro Department of Peace essay in 1793  "A plan of a Peace-Office for the United States". The bill was officially introduced in 2005 H.R. 3760 (109th): Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act which can be fully viewed here. 

The Bill is currently before the U.S. House of Representatives. The Alliance for Peace, a U.S. based non profit peace advocacy organisation, is one of the organisations that advocate for the approval and legislation of the Bill. The Alliance states that the following are some of the things that the Department aims to do :

A Department of Peace will work to:

• Provide much-needed assistance to efforts by city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs; as well as develop new programs based on best practices nationally
• Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children
• Effectively treat and dismantle gang psychology
• Rehabilitate the prison population
• Build peace-making efforts among conflicting cultures both here and abroad
• Support our military with complementary approaches to peace-building.
• Create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy.
• And more…

A similar campaign for the establishment of a Department of Peace in Canada also exists here. It argues that "The proposed federal department of peace will be an entity that would provide a single coherent framework for policy focus for peace. It will bring together for the first time three major components of international peace and security: peacemaking, peace keeping and peace building". Now there are over 20 movements around the world that have expressed interest in Departments or Ministries of Peace.  In Australia, Japan and the UK, working groups seek equivalent goals to the work done by the Peace Alliance. Campaigns are emerging in Israel, Italy, Nepal, and Palestine. In Costa Rica, Ghana, Jordan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Romania, Spain and Uganda representatives have expressed interest, although it has not reached the level it is in U.S.A. and Canada. 

The idea of a Department/Ministry of Peace is very interesting and something to copy from. Africans should not wait until such soothing bills are approved in the West in order to integrate them into our own systems. Africans and mainly conflict ridden countries of the Horn would be better of establishing a Peace Ministry than spending millions on Defense. The need for Defense dies out when a Ministry for Peace comes into reality because this Ministry will be engaged in finding non violent solutions to conflicts and mainly at preventing all forms of conflict from occurring. The Peace Ministry can pitch issues  that help build peace and promote cooperation, empathy and non violence. It is a time to abolish Ministries of War like these countries: Costa Rica, Mauritius, Solomon Islands, Iceland, Maldives, Micronesia, Monaco and nurture Ministry of Peace and Non Violence. 

An Ethiopian, Somalian, Eritrean, South Africa and etc Ministry of Peace promotes peace and reduces violence, unlike what the Ethiopian and other regimes are doing this week by celebrating their capability to violence. Because of Peace Departments regional and national political problems would easily be solved. 

The moral of this short piece is that world peace and all other efforts of achieving non violence could surely and  easily be attained if nations have their own real Ministries of Peace. Yes , when our 'modern world' started establishing Ministries and Departments,  what should have come first was "The Ministry of Peace"/ Peace Day, nonetheless,....