Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

The 16-year-old girl, her face already bloodied, tries to escape  but is surrounded by the mob. Minutes later her body would lie  ablaze on the ground, as the perpetrators watched her burn.   A recent series of lynchings in Guatemala has once again drawn attention to that Central American country’s reputation for violence. News reports point to at least a score of lynchings in Guatemala so far this year, in which mobs attack, beat and often then burn to death individuals suspected of crimes. The latest Guatemala lynching went viral in the social media, in a video that showed how a mob of at least 25 people in the village of Río Bravo first savagely beat and then burned alive a 16-year-old girl. The girl, said to be the daughter of a convicted gang member, was suspected of taking part in the gang murder of a taxi driver, allegedly for not paying a “protection fee” to the gang. She was reportedly accompanied in that crime by two males, both of whom...

On a journey this past week to East Asia, one of my goals as a traveler was to visit that man-made wonder of the world known as the Great Wall of China. Being there, seeing it for the first time, after reading about it and studying its history while doing research on ancient China was a truly impressive experience. And, I have to admit, since it coincided with the launching today of my latest book, War: A Crime Against Humanity, on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords, as well as in print distributed worldwide by Amazon, it got me thinking. Not so much about the wall itself, mind you, but about the effort that went into it, a centuries-long effort built entirely on the premise of separation, isolation and division among peoples. More than a monument to human ingenuity, the Great Wall is that, a monument to isolationism, to divisions among peoples, to the risk of invasion and domination and to the meticulously expressed desire of one group of the world’s inhabitants to shut themselves off fr...

The emergence of a seemingly endless parade of radical Islamist groups, whose immediate goals vary to the point of confrontation but whose general long-term objective would appear to be the disruption and eventual destruction of Western civilization as we know it, often seems to have materialized overnight. But the fact is that this ostensible optical illusion is the result of widespread Western ignorance about Islam in general and about “radical Islam” in particular. I should hasten to say that one has little to do with the other. The first is one of the major monotheist religions, with many similar teachings to those of Judaism and Christianity, which formed part of its origin, including, most notably, its messages prescribing peace, love, forgiveness and the brotherhood of humankind. The second is a multi-faceted, worldwide, extremist movement, which—although utilizing religion as its pseudo-philosophical base, drawing card, and justification for acts that are unjustifiab...

Vatican City I was present yesterday at the Vatican when His Holiness, Pope Francis, closed the Fourth Annual Congress of Scholas Occurrentes —a project personally supported by the Pontiff and directed by José María del Corral and Enrique Palmeyro, the underlying mission of which is the achievement of world peace through education—with a worldwide call for “reconstruction of the educational pact.” At the closing ceremony of the Scholas Congress,  I had the privilege of meeting Pope Francis and  presenting him with a copy of my book,  "El Crimen  de la Guerra", soon to be published in English as "War: A Crime Against Humanity". Behind the Pope is Scholas Co-Director José María del Corral.    The Pope posited that, for some time now, the educational pact that should exist between learning centers, students, nations, cultures and society as a whole “is broken...and badly broken, and it can’t be stuck back together.” He issued a challen...

Vatican City This week, I’ve had the enormous pleasure of being invited to take part in the Fourth Scholas Occurrentes World Congress at the Vatican, a project that bears the seal of Pope Francis. Within the context of this invitation, I also had the honor of being asked to present my book, El crimen de la guerra (soon to be released in English as War: A Crime Against Humanity ), the message of which is in perfect harmony with that of the Scholas mission: the consolidation of peace through education and through acceptance of human diversity. I had the honor of presenting my book in this Vatican hall. Pope Francis will speak here tomorrow.  Here in Rome, we’re anxiously awaiting the closing presentation headed by His Holiness, Pope Francis. Scholas Ocurrentes  is a worldwide educational network inspired by the Pope with the aim of promoting the linking of schools from all over the world in a huge network. The idea is for a wide variety of learning centers to share ...

The past year has been a difficult one for world peace. This has been true not only because of the severity and escalation of civil and regional wars in different parts of the world, but also because of how certain of those conflicts have influenced international tensions and driven renewed polarization among leading world powers. The principal concern for the year has had to do with a major deterioration in relations between the West and Russia. Riding on his bolstered popularity at home, which was powered by the economic improvements with which his government has been credited, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose 2014 to be a year of self-assertion on the world scene. Putin has been at the pinnacle of power in Russia, as either president or prime minister, throughout the first decade and a half of the new millennium. After years of leading—together with his partner in power, current Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev—a movement toward closer ties with the West but a separate p...

Ben Ferencz is the kind of guy you like right off—friendly, smiling, open, and incredibly humble considering his stunning achievements. I was lucky enough to make Ben’s acquaintance through a mutual friend, former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo. Since I was in the midst of in-depth research for a book that was to be, in part, about the link between international justice and world peace, Luis thought Ben was somebody I needed to meet. Ben and I at his winter home in Florida. Still highly active despite then being on the threshold of his tenth decade, Ben met with me while he was visiting The Hague, where Moreno Ocampo had asked him to provide some concluding comments at the closing of the ICC case against Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for crimes against humanity. I was there, as an observer, on Moreno Ocampo’s invitation as well.   Ben and I seemed to hit it off right away, and we cemented our friendship still furt...