Picture:  Rwandan prisoner in chained  handcuffs

In our Blog Pages  (http://www.afroamerica.net/AfricaGL/   is the 2010 Global Peace Index  rankings. “We work with a definition of peace that is not as the opposite of war but the absence of violence,” says Clyde McConaghy, Board Director of the Institute for Economics and Peace – the Sydney, Australia, think tank behind the Global Peace Index, or GPI.

What we can say is that the rankings based on the GPI index are surprising at the best. Even Clyde McConaghty admits the counter intuitive nature of the GPI, acknowledging  that Americans may be suspicious of any peace index that  put their country behind Nicaragua and Rwanda.  In fact, Rwanda is known as one of the most violent places in the World, its military has been invading its neighbors or using proxy militias, and a number of armed groups are apposed to the Government.

Recently, the Rwandan government unleashed a ruthless repression on its political opposition and the media and has forced into exile tens of thousands  Rwandans, including high ranking political and military figures. To alleviate the criticism,  Clyde McConaghy qualifies the credibility and reliability of the GPI by admitting that  gauging peacefulness is not the same as ranking national well-being or happiness. “Ours is not an airy definition” of peace, but a “technical definition – it’s not a state of mind,” he  quickly clarified.

Hence, it appears that to rank high on the GPI, a government may only need to unleash terror on its people, kill opponents, send others into exile, stifle the opposition and the media.

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