Welcome to the ministry for peace website

ministry for peace is an organisation working for the creation of a Ministry for Peace within government and an independent civil society body to work alongside it.
To work for peace is to work to transform violence. The fundamental aim of a Ministry for Peace is to reduce violence, both in the UK and internationally.

The real struggle of the 21st century will not be between civilizations, nor between religions. It will be the struggle between violence and non-violence. Help non-violence win.

 


DFID White Paper submission

Submission to Department for International Development’s White Paper - “Eliminating World Poverty: Assuring our Common Future”    21/5/09

By:  Jim McCluskey, member of the National Co-ordinating Committee of  ministry for peace.

Poverty and War 

This submission addresses the relationship between poverty and war. This close relationship was expressed by Martin Luther King as follows:

 "There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor - both black and white - through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such." 

The same considerations apply to the current ‘adventures’.  Thus in order to reduce poverty in the world it is recommended that the UK government puts an end to its invasion of sovereign states, withdraws its combat troops from Afghanistan as well as Iraq, and encourages its American ally to end its war in Pakistan. It is further recommended that the UK government abjures the use of violence as a way of attempting to solve conflict situations.

See Articles for full Submission

 

Working in Parliament

After many months of quiet effort, two years ago ministry for peace secured enough support in Parliament to set up an official All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues. The purpose of the APPG, as formally stated in the Parliamentary Register, is 'To encourage dialogue, on the basis of expert information and opinion from across the political spectrum, on issues relating to conflict; especially on the practical means to prevent, transform and resolve violent conflict.'

Establishing this group, a major step forward for ministry for peace, generated a lot of interest across government and amongst those who work in the field of conflict management. The APPG provides a forum where Parliamentarians, government officials, NGOs, academics and others come together on a regular basis to share ideas and thoughts about the challenges of non-violent approaches to managing conflict.
 
To follow the activities of the APPG please go to: www.conflictissues.org.uk mfp's latest project is to act as the Secretariat for the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security. This was launched in the UK Parliament on Thursday 26th March.
 
The Parliamentarians Network is an international, non-partisan initiative of the EastWest Institute that brings together parliamentarians from across the globe to direct political will and resources to prevent conflicts before they begin. The UK launch was hosted at Westminster by the APPG on Conflict Issues.

Read more: Working in Parliament