The referendum is about to begin in Kyrgyzstan, to choose a new constitution which, despite its flaws, will put greater limits on presidential power and, it is hoped, avoid authoritarianism and promote civil peace. Young people around the country, organized by the Central Asian Free Market Institute and similar civil society groups, are working to promote peace and suppress hatred, revenge, and violence. The shirts (see below) say on the front “I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian, and on the back, “One Homeland! One People! One Future!,” also in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian.

The libertarians in Central Asia are planning to open an office in Osh, as well, to promote peace, liberty, and limited government in the area that has seen so much deliberately provoked violence by people who prefer force and power to persuasion and freedom. It’s not too late to make a modest donation to make that possible. (Ten dollars actually buys something there, and no donation is too small.) Click here for the information. We’ve already raised a few thousand dollars, enough to pay to open the office and equip it, just from Facebook and a few notes, mostly in small donations. Every penny helps!

Peace Activists at the Office of the Central Asian Free Market Institute

Some Faces of Friendship

Getting Ready to Distribute Peace Shirts to Kyrgyz Young People

“We are brothers and sisters, we are children of our beautiful land. We call all of you, kyrgyzstanis, to tolerance and peace, compassion and solidarity. We have to prove to everyone that we are united. Our friendship and brotherhood unites us! And we do not tolerate any more bloodshed, tears and suffering in our land. Protection of our country is our civic duty. Developing and maintaining friendship of peoples is the sacred duty of every person. We love our Kyrgyzstan. It is our home, our future, our homeland!”

We are Kyrgyzstanis!

If you want to support this campaign for peace and freedom in Central Asia, click here. Tax deductible donations can be made online to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and 100% will be sent to support the work of libertarians in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia who are working tirelessly for peace, liberty, justice.

CAFMI Executive Director Mirsulzhan Namazaliev at 2009 Cato University

Kyrgyz libertarians are leading a series of coordinated voluntary efforts to provide emergency aid to the victims of the vicious attacks of the last few days in their country and to promote peace throughout the nation and the region. I’ve been in regular touch with our friends there, and on Tuesday evening I talked to Central Asian Free Market Institute (CAFMI) Director Mirsulzhan Namazaliev by Skype, as he was interrupted by a stream of volunteers working late into the night in the CAFMI offices. He made their resolution clear:

“We are helping those who are suffering, but we are doing more. For me personally this is not only a fight for life. It is a fight for freedom. We don’t want to be ruled by any authoritarian Central Asian or Russian regimes that would exploit this awful violence. The violence we are suffering is a provocation designed to generate chaos and to overturn the chance for a constitutional regime. We will not stand for it. We want peace, we want freedom, and we want a lawful government.”

I was in Kyrgyzstan just last month to work with CAFMI and with the new acting minister of economic development, my friend Emil Umetaliev, a founding member of CAFMI’s board of directors. (CAFMI was founded by two Cato graduates, former Cato intern Seyitbek Usmanov and Cato University graduate Mirsulzhan Namazaliev.) There was guarded optimism about the country’s future, after the corrupt and increasingly authoritarian regime of Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising after he tried to suppress demonstrations with deadly force. But there was also fear of Bakiyev’s machinations, especially after the revelation of a recorded cell phone conversation between his son, Maksim, and his brother Janybek (who had given the orders to shoot protesters in April), in which they clearly plot violence to derail a new constitutional process and regain power, even proposing how many “fighters” to hire, arming them with iron bars and other implements, and how much to pay them to launch attacks. The recording was chilling. And with the money they looted from the country, they found the thugs to launch attacks on both Uzbek and Kyrgyz villages, in order to spark revenge attacks. Their plans bore fruit this month, as hundreds were murdered, homes and businesses were burned, and between 80,000 and 100,000 people were made refugees.

As Namazaliev put it to me, “We will not stand for it.”

CAFMI Volunteers Load Supplies to Deliver to Refugees

CAFMI’s staff and volunteers are almost all under 25. Few have backgrounds in defense or security. But they immediately put the talents they do have to work. CAFMI volunteers worked with others to solicit, gather, and deliver humanitarian assistance for the thousands of people – mainly mothers and children – who had been driven from their homes, and to create a message of communal peace – of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Russians, Uighurs, Tajiks and others who were standing together for peace and against murder and hatred. They called together teams of computer experts, technological wizards, social networkers, and activists to build an umbrella coalition: “I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” –“Мен Қирғизистонда тинчлик бўлишини истайман!” in Uzbek, “Мен Кыргызстанга тынчтыкты каалайм!” in Kyrgyz, and “Я хочу мира в Кыргызстане!” in Russian.

I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan -- in Three Languages

Some Peace Graffiti (this one in English)

The “I want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” campaign has five coordinated elements:

1. Use cell phones, databases, and the internet to organize volunteers effectively and to create and disseminate maps (using Google Maps and other techniques) to guide deliveries of aid to victims and to help people to avoid areas in turmoil, burning buildings, and road blocks and ambushes set up by thugs.

2. Create a modern campaign for peace in three languages (Kyrygz, Uzbek, and Russian) – with a brand, a logo, street graffiti, slogans, t-shirts, stickers, leaflets, hand-written letters from children, radio interviews and public announcements, text messages, and other means to calm tensions and promote peace. Representatives of the various ethnic groups appear together to pledge peace and to build the rule of law and freedom together.

3. Combat disinformation and misinformation that might fuel ethnic hatred and violence, and respond rapidly to malicious rumors and hate campaigns before they bear their evil fruit.

4. Contain the spread of reprisals and hatred throughout Central Asia, by providing reliable information to media, helping to combat ethnic smears and suppress revenge attacks against minorities in other countries, and quickly rebutting calls in nearby countries for military intervention into Kyrgyzstan, which carries the very real danger of regional war.

5. Create a “Peace Room” (not a “War Room”) in CAFMI’s Bishkek offices to be open 24 hours a day to coordinate the collection and dissemination of information. Volunteers in the Peace Room utilize cell phones, social networking sites, twitter, text messages, phone trees, and more and monitor mass media constantly. The CAFMI office is now fully staffed with volunteers and working around the clock.

The young volunteers and staff of CAFMI are donating their time, risking their lives, and contributing their scarce resources, in a country with a per-capita income of about $2,100. If you’d like to stand with a group of very brave, very determined, and very committed libertarians to stop the violence in their country, provide emergency aid to the victims, avoid regional war, and lead the region to peace and freedom, you can send a tax-deductible donation to the Central Asian Free Market Institute (CAFMI) through the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which has provided support to CAFMI. Please write to Erin.Grant@AtlasNetwork.org and 100% of your donation will be dedicated to CAFMI’s work in Central Asia. Even small donations will help. It would be a decision you would not regret. (You can follow CAFMI’s work on their Facebook page and Namazaliev writes in Russian and in English on NewEurasia.net, Twitter, and other media. He covered the April uprising against Bakiyev’s authoritarian regime in The Independent and was quoted frequently by CNN and many other news organizations.)

Volunteers Collecting Donated Supplies in Bishkek Neighborhoods

CAFMI Volunteers After Days of Loading Donated Supplies at Manas Airport to Send to Victims of Violence in Osh and Jalalabad

The trade embargo against the people of Gaza is itself a crime, and the incompetence and avoidable deadly violence of the Israeli authorities in dealing with the aid flotilla are further arguments that it should be lifted.

Searching for weapons is one thing, but embargoing trade and aid altogether is another. How can the Israeli authorities expect peace from people who, in the end, feel that they have nothing to lose? Free the trade with Gaza and let the people there work, produce, and flourish. Let them trade with Israelis. Search for weapons, but do so with intelligence, not rank incompetence that results in the spilling of blood.

Once again, the Israeli authorities have shown that, when a trap is set, they are quite willing to step into it. A bad policy coupled with utter stupidity and incompetence will prove disastrous for everyone. Perhaps the Israeli authorities may learn something from what happened. I hope so.

There is a great deal of evidence that freeing trade creates or supports peace. The Israeli authorities should consult it.

Dan Griswold on “Peace on Earth? Try Free Trade among Men”

Jagdish Bhagwati on free trade and peace

Some updates:

These articles are well worth reading, to give a sense of what is included in the embargo, which goes far beyond the quite justified interdiction of weapons and war material:

CBS: “Israel’s Gaza Blockade Baffles Both Sides”
Wall Street Journal:Gaza Blockade Hampers Private-Sector Economy

Lt. Johnson: Virginia needs all her sons, Mr. Anderson.
Charlie Anderson: They don’t belong to the state they belong to ME! When they were babies I never saw the state comin’ around here with a spare tit!

An interview with James Ziegler of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Definitely worth watching. Definitely.

From the BBC’s Cuban propaganda division, Raul Castro sector: “Can the ‘Cuban-Jubans’ rebuild South Sudan?“

Watch the admission at Cato@LibertyGOP Congressmen: Most Republicans Now Think Iraq War Was a Mistake

War game shows how attacking Iran could backfire

I’ve met with some very sharp Afghan policy makers who understand well that the US “war on drugs” has terrible consequences for Afghans, who are victimized by the US DEA and the Afghan government it bullies into suppressing the market, and that it’s buying weapons for the Taliban. I’m hoping to work to prepare a report calling for a special drug regime that would allow Afghan farmers to grow poppies for the legal pharmaceutical market, which would actually increase incomes to farmers (who get a tiny share of the total price of illegal drugs, as most goes to the traffickers who smuggle it out of Afghanistan through Iran, India, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, and then those who ship it to markets in the US, Europe, and elsewhere, not to mention the final dealers), would cut out the profits to the narco-traffickers and terrorist networks, and would undercut the corruption that prohibition brings. It would be a good step toward bring civil peace to a country that has had thirty years of war. They deserve peace, and a change in the policies toward narcotics producers and buyers would be a big step in the right direction.

Add up:

New York Times: “High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War”

The estimated $1 million a year it costs per soldier is higher than the $390,000 congressional researchers estimated in 2006.

A good short general treatment of the costs of “exporting democracy” is found in Chris Coyne’s After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. People who advocate a “Stay the Course” approach (or even expanding “nation building” exercises) should grapple with Coyne’s arguments and evidence.

It’s in German, but this short film the message of this little film should be clear to all.

BBC: “Guns given to Somali quiz winners”

The winning team, from the city’s Farjano district, reportedly won a rifle, two grenades, a landmine and office supplies worth $1,000 (£613).

What do you do with one landmine?

Nobel Peace Prize winner President Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan and has made no additional moves, beyond what the Bush administration had planned, for any withdrawal from Iraq. He has done nothing to move the world, much less the US, toward peace. It seems he got the “I’m not a Republican” award. This has got to be the greatest cheapening of an international award since, um, Henry Kissinger got it for “peace in the Vietnam.”

Note the CNN comment:

Unlike his predecessors, Obama was selected not for substantive accomplishments, but for his “vision” and inspiring “hope” at the beginning of his presidency.

One crazy person with an explosive enema

BBC: “Explosives ‘inside’ suicide bomber“

Takis Michas is a very brave Greek journalist who is not afraid to point out the idiocies of extremist nationalism and xenophobia and their awful consequences, especially in the Balkans.

He has suffered quite serious death threats for pointing out the craziness of threatening war over the name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and now he is being sued for pointing out the presence of Greek nationalist paramilitaries in Bosnia during the Srebrenica massacre. Here’s an interview with him on the case on the website of the Congress of North American Bosniacs: “Greek journalist sued for writing about the presence of Greek paramilitaries in Bosnia”

More on the case from the Srebrenica Genocide Blog.

AP: “Washington, Colombia near deal on base access”

The “War on Drugs” is a prime reason for the success of the military groups that are attacking the government and civil society in Colombia; it provides a comparative advantage in fundraising to groups that are well organized at brutality and violence. The best friends FARC in Colombia and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan have are in the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Without US drug laws, it would be much harder for them to get money to pay for weapons, soldiers, etc. And now, in an example of Ludwig von Mises’s insight that one intervention begets another, we have military interventions to combat the well financed forces that are financed so well because of the earlier intervention. More interventionism of this sort will raise the rents to the purveyors of violence who, under violent conditions, dominate drug markets, leading to more financing for narco-terrorism. To get rid of narco-terrorism, we need to get rid of the prohibitionist drug laws that make it possible.

I got a little example of what Vijay Dandapani describes: a very short flight from Delhi (maybe half an hour) to Pakistan took me more than 11 hours, via Dubai.