Disarmament vs. Demilitarization
An Interview with Ambassador Chester Crocker, February, 2008
In 2006, the United States Institute of Peace generously provided a grant to Conflicts Forum to conduct a research study on “Disarmament vs. Demilitarization” in the context of the current Lebanese political environment. The goal of the study is to research and determine what set of strategies were followed by diplomats in previous conflicts — from the civil war in Namibia to the crisis in Northern Ireland. Does the practice of requiring resistance groups to “disarm” prior to negotiations work? How stringently has such a policy been followed? In keeping with this research project, Conflicts Forum Director Alastair Crooke has completed a study of the Namibia conflict. His monograph, “Disarmament and Demilitarization in Namibia” is published here. It is supplemented by an interview with Chester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1981 to 1987. Ambassador Crocker is the architect of the U.S. policy of “constructive engagement”and is credited with setting the terms of Namibian independence. Alastair Crooke’s monograph and Chester Crocker’s reflections on the issue of disarmament vs. demilitarization highlight the issues involved in the debate over how to engage Islamist resistance movements in the Middle East.
Disarmament and Demilitarization in Southwest Africa (PDF)
An Interview with Professor Chester A. Crocker conducted by Mark Perry
In the name of God
We don’t want to kill anybody, or trow someone in the sea, all what we want, is the leberation of the occuped houses in Palestine, stop killing innocents childs and womens, and then israel stop the wars and the attaks on lebanon. And if israel stop the terrorists attacks, and if the lebanon army can defend lebanon from enemys, the hezbollah will stop and keep the weapon to the apparition of Al-Imam Al-Mahdi(P) “al-zohour”, and this is our religious right to keep the resistance for al-imam and whe israel is there.