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International humanitarian aid played an important role in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-70. Relief aid was organized under two major umbrella bodies--the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Joint Church Aid (JCA). The JCA received support from Catholic and Protestant churches white the ICRC, an established humanitarian agency, relied on donations from many governments as well as from the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). This paper focuses on the formation of the JCA as a humanitarian organization and examines its efforts to provide health care for the war victims in Biafra. Though the JCA has not received adequate scholarly attention, its humanitarian aid in Biafra was the first of its kind in the developing world and involved the largest civilian airlift in history. As this paper argues, the JCA s health care intervention in Biafra was restricted to minimal care because of a lack of essential medications, equipment, food, and epidemiological expertise. Despite these challenges, however, the JCA managed to provide basic health care to over ten million persons in Biafra during the war. Further, the organization succeeded in providing aid without creating long-term dependency. Keywords: Nigeria: Biafra: humanitarian: church: war: starvation: disease: food; medicine: aid L'aide humanitaire intemationale a joue un role tres important durant la guerre du Nigeria-Biafra, 1967-1970. Des secours fiurent organises sous Fegide de deux importants organismes--le Comite international de la Croix-Rouge (ICRC) et l'Aide conjointe des eglises (JCA). Le JCA etait appuye par les eglises catholiques et protestantes alors que le ICRC, line agence humanitaire de vieille soitche, dependait des dons de plusieurs gouvernements de meme que des fonds d 'urgence internationaux pour les enfants des Nations Unies (UNICEF). Dans cet article, nous portons notre attention sur la naissance du JCA en tant qu organisme humanitaire et nous etudions ses efforts pour apporter des services nwdicaux aux victimes de la guerre du Biafra. Quoique le JCA n'a pas ete adequatement le sujet d'etudes erudites approfondies, son aide humanitaire au Biafra etait la premiere de ce genre dans les pays en voie de developpement et entraina le plus grand pont aerien civil de l'histoire. Comme nous denotons dans cet article, l'intervention du JCA en services nwdicaux au Biafra fut limite aux soins minimum a cause du manque de medicaments de premiere necessite, de materiel, de nourriture et de l'expertise en epidemiologie. Toutefois, malgre ces defis, le JCA reussit a pourvoir des services nwdicaux essentiels a plus de dix millions de personnes au Biafra pendant la guerre. De plus, cet organisme reussit a fournir cette aide sans creer de dependance a long terme. Mots-cles : Nigeria : Biafra : humanitaire : eglise ; guerre : inanition : maladie ; nourriture : nwdecine ; aide, 1. Introduction On May 30, 1967, the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, Lt. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, made a broadcast, declaring the Eastern Region with its continental shelf and territorial [...]

A study to examine the empirical developments relating to the Cambodian conflict by examining the explanatory value of I. William Zartman's 'ripeness theory' in the resolution of the Cambodian conflict is conducted. Findings show that Zartman's theoretical approach may have some explanatory value in the case of the resolution of the conflict situation at internal Cambodian level.

A study of Java's socio-economic determinants of the everyday kind of social violence during 1994-2003 is examined using panel-data analysis of count data. It revealed that policies aimed at reducing socio-economic human insecurity simultaneously reduced violence and development is one way to achieve peace.

Despite the high visibility of religiously charged international social conflicts, the unique role of religion often is overlooked in social science research and theory. Some studies ignore religion, others conflate religion with other identities. Virtually all lack adequate data. We respond to these deficiencies by testing a theory-driven model of a particular form of social conflict, religious persecution. We investigate the proposition that religious regulation leads to religious persecution. Using measures coded from the 2003 International Religious Freedom Reports, we consider how both social regulation and government regulation of religion in 143 countries affect the level of religious persecution. We also consider and test competing hypotheses, particularly Huntington's clash-of-civilizations thesis. We find strong support for the religious economies arguments and only limited support for the clash-of-civilizations thesis and other competing arguments.

The author studies two groups of people by giving one group every thing it needs or wants while giving noting to the second group in a study on violence. Topics include social status, social conflict, and interpersonal relations.

Biographical note: FLOYA ANTHIAS is Professor of Sociology and Head of Sociology at the University of Greenwich, London. She has published extensively on the social divisions of gender, ethnicity/race and class, as well as on Cypriot society and Cypriots in Britain. Her latest book (co-edited) is Gender and Migration in Southern Europe: Women on the Move (Oxford: Berg, 2000). Another new book, on The Social Division of Identity, will be published by Macmillan.

The fall of communism in Poland and the influx of different social views have changed the political climate of the country. Political parties that claim to represent the interest of the general public are not popular because the people have realized that they now have the freedom to achieve their own individual interests. The defeat of the moderates and the radicals in the 1993 elections have shown that radical views and the idea of an abstract society do not appeal to a general public that is unable to face the consequences of new political or social changes.

There is good evidence that people generally tend to evaluate behaviors, contributions, and outcomes in terms favorable to the self. The present series of studies expands this finding by showing that professional negotiators (Study 1), governmental decision makers (Study 2), and organizational consultants (Study 3) make self-serving evaluations of conflict behavior: They view their own conflict behaviors as more constructive and as less destructive than those of their opponents. In addition, results revealed that self-serving evaluation of conflict behavior is associated with increased frustration, with reduced problem solving, and with enhanced likelihood of future conflict. It is argued that these findings expand the conflict literature in that they provide better insight into the motivational-cognitive antecedents and consequences of conflict escalation.

This qualitative case study examines the nature of the competing information campaigns offered by environmental and timber industry groups as they conflict over the Northern spotted owl and 'old growth' forests in the Pacific Northwest. Environmental advocacy literature is reviewed and background of the debate is provided. The competing information campaigns are shown to comprise a synchronous, spiral-like logic of interaction in which antagonists mirror or match each other's rhetorical and communicative strategies. The study suggests that even in the absence of direct communication between disputants, the opposing political information campaigns are co-created within a system characterized by necessity and constraint.

This essay examines the spotted owl controversy as a public argument rooted in conflicting owl synecdoches that conceptualize competing social realities for environmentalists and the timber industry. It argues that these conceptions not only represent conflicting realities of the old-growth forest, but also function as 'figurative' or 'representational ideographs' that disallow resolution and maintain conflict because the controversy is too significant to resolve. By applying Burke's view of synecdoche and extending McGee's concept of the ideograph to conflicting views expressed in synecdochal form, the essay offers a unique perspective for understanding how controversies are influenced by rhetorical tropes and how such tropes prevent resolution and maintain controversy by becoming issues in and of themselves.

On the one hand, cultural differences in the contemporary world seem to vanish rapidly. This is effected through homogenizing processes of economic and political integration into nation-states and into the global system, as well as the globalization of culture brought about through modern means of mass communication. On the other hand, recent decades have seen the widespread resurgence of ethnic sentiments and the revitalization of local cultural identities. This apparent paradox is here seen as an inherent aspect of modernity. The processes of integration into nation-states puts strong pressures on minorities to assimilate. For this reason, many minority languages are threatened. The article compares the situation of several linguistic minorities, focusing on their relationship with the nation-states to which they are subjected, their strategies of resistance, and problems in challenging linguistic hegemony. Perhaps paradoxically, cultural minorities may have to assimilate culturally in important respects in order to present their case effectively and thereby retain their minority identity. A main conclusion emerging from the comparisons is that states need not be nation-states relying on nationalist ideologies proclaiming the virtues of absolute cultural homogeneity. Although they may be unspectacular, forms of linguistic oppression are forms of oppression no less, and they demand the attention of peace and conflict researchers.

The conflicts that have taken place among civilians that are overshadowed by intercontinental and guerrilla war, terror and genocide and have far reaching lessons to be learnt are addressed. A number of different conflicts throughout the twentieth century that show that strategic nonviolent action was once again reinvented and refined are discussed.

The ethno-political conflict between Kusasis and Mamprusis in Bawku in the north-east Ghana discusses the communal conflict and violence faced by the state. It also discusses about the various social conflicts and explains the pattern of conflict between the two groups.