Projects I never did with UNESCO

Already by the beginning of 1998, there were projects that I had tried to initiate at UNESCO which could not be carried out because of the bureaucratic inertia of the organization, and deeper yet, the opposition of the Member States to a culture of peace. These are described in my unpublished essay at that time, Lessons Drawn from Failures of the Culture of Peace Programme. They include not only the national culture of peace programmes in El Salvador and Mozambique, but also:

* national culture of peace programmes in Burundi, South Africa and Bosnia

* An international initiative for the reintegration of demobilized soldiers

* A concert by Harry Belafonte for the demobilization of FRELIMO and RENAMO soldiers in the Mozambique peace process

* an OECD Initiative to link development aid to conflict resolution

* an international initiative for conflict resolution training in schools in areas of conflict

In addition to the preceding initiatives that are described in the unpublished essay mentioned above along with the bureaucratic snafus that killed them, I also proposed at one point an international festival of films that promote a culture of peace. Like so many proposals, it fell into the black hole of the UNESCO bureaucracy.

In a memo of 25 March 1996, I proposed an International Institute for the Culture of Peace in a memo to my director with many reasons why it seemed to be possible at that moment of history.

Perhaps the most radical proposal was one that I made to the Director-General (D-G) to call for the conversion of NATO from its military priorities to a priority of economic conversion of industry from military to civilian production. It was included as section IV in the report to the D-G of my mission to Russia in February, 1997. Although the D-G underlined and commented on other sections of the report, he did nothing with this proposal, nor did he ever mention it to me in subsequent conversations.

Years after leaving UNESCO, I worked up a proposal with Lou D'Amore of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism for a project of tourism for peace. We submitted this to Françoise Rivière who had become Assistant Director General in charge of Culture, but she never responded to my repeated attempts to get her reaction, apparently because she was involved in very conflictual situations in the organization. We also submitted it to the new UN specialized agency for tourism, but with no effect.