LONDON – In a new report titled ‘Iraq: Angry Hearts and Angry Minds’, The Senlis Council on Thursday called for a reengineering of the international community’s mechanisms for responding to global security crises. The Senlis Council, a security and development policy group with research platforms in the three main War on Terror conflict theatres – Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia – has been undertaking a series of interviews looking at the root causes of the conflicts. The Council’s new research in Iraq demonstrates that current policies in the country are producing a generation of angry young men who are easy prey for recruitment to extremist insurgencies.

The new Iraq findings show one striking similarity with The Council’s previous research in Afghanistan and Somalia: the intense anger of the country’s young men. “This crescent of anger that runs through all three of the main theatres of the War on Terror conflict is not being effectively responded to,” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher of The Senlis Council. “We need to win over these young men’s hearts and minds in order to starve the insurgents of recruits and support.”
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PARIS – Donors at the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan must focus their attention on tackling Afghanistan’s burgeoning illegal opium economy instead of making generous but ineffective aid pledges that fail to address this major crisis, said The Senlis Council on Thursday. Empty promises from previous donor conferences have done nothing to improve the everyday situation in the war-torn country, while the illicit opium economy continues to hamper Afghanistan’s reconstruction, development and stabilisation efforts.

Just three-fifths of international aid pledged to Afghanistan since 2001 has actually been delivered, and most of this has been to projects that have little positive impact on the basic needs of the Afghan population.
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OTTAWA – Raymond Kendall, Honorary Secretary General of Interpol, and The Senlis Council’s President, Norine MacDonald QC, on Tuesday urged Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to keep Vancouver’s Insite safe injection centre open, citing in particular its significant positive impact on public security aside from its proven health benefits. In a piece published as the Globe and Mail’s exclusive commentary on its website on Tuesday, Kendall and MacDonald wrote that Insite and other sites like it ‘neither increase drug-related crimes, nor attract criminals to the site’.

“A public security paradigm that is community-based is more conducive to public order. Given that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has, quite rightly, named Canada's security as one of his main priorities, we have no doubt that he will understand Insite's positive contribution to public security,” wrote Kendall and MacDonald.
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LONDON – The current US-led War on Terror approach is creating a political space in which extremists such as Al-Shabab in Somalia and the Taliban in Afghanistan have become legitimate political actors, said The Senlis Council at the release of its latest report on Wednesday.
In its report Chronic Failures of the War on Terror: From Afghanistan to Somalia, The Senlis Council said that a number of abject policy failures of the Bush Administration in Somalia, such as aerial bombings, support of the Ethiopian troops in the country and the ill-timed designation of Al-Shabab as a terrorist organisation had been successfully exploited by the Somali insurgency to boost its support and recruitment bases.
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LONDON – The people of Afghanistan would like to see US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama take over at the White House, while Somalis would prefer to work with Democratic rival Senator Hillary Clinton, according to a series of interviews conducted over the past month by The Senlis Council in Afghanistan and Somalia.

When asked which of the Presidential candidates they would back, 69% of those questioned in Afghanistan favoured Obama, with 26% in favour of Clinton. In Somalia, 47% of civilians surveyed supported Clinton, with 44% backing Obama.
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VIENNA – On the occasion of the 51st Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, The Senlis Council on Wednesday presented The Australian Red Cross save-a-mate (SAM) program with the inaugural Award for Innovative Drug Policy. Initially launched in 1999, the save-a-mate program’s peer education comes in direct contact with more than 40,000 young people in Australia each year, and delivers training to more than 10,000. The initiative addresses the young in all communities, including vulnerable populations such as the Aboriginals, the prisoner population and sex workers...
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WASHINGTON D.C. – The Senlis Council on Monday urged the United States Government to halt plans for forced poppy crop eradication in Afghanistan, citing the drastically deteriorating security situation in the country. With the US set to restart manual crop eradication any time now, Senlis said a continuation of this failing policy would undermine NATO’s efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.
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LONDON – With the Taliban entrenched in the south and running parallel governments in several districts, the Afghan state has reached a decision point, The Senlis Council said on Wednesday. According to the Council’s latest research, NATO’s failure to address Afghanistan’s security situation has made aspirations to hold Presidential elections in 2009 wholly unrealistic.
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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Harper should implement the Manley Panel’s recommendations to provide a much-needed road map for Canada’s future role in Afghanistan, said The Senlis Council in an analysis of The Manley Panel Report released on Friday. The main conclusions of the Manley Report, presented to Prime Minister Harper on Tuesday, echoed The Senlis Council’s call for Canada to adopt a new overall strategic approach in Afghanistan.
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LONDON – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown missed a golden opportunity to address Afghanistan’s opium crisis in his statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday, said The Senlis Council. Despite opium production rising by a further 34% in 2007, Prime Minister Brown stated his intent to continue with partial crop eradication in Afghanistan.
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OTTAWA – The Senlis Council on Wednesday called on the Manley Panel to recommend that Canada convene an emergency NATO meeting in response to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in southern Afghanistan and the increased Taliban control in the region. According to Senlis, a de facto Taliban/Al Qaeda state is on the verge of emerging in southern Afghanistan, straddling the Afghan border into Pakistan.
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LONDON – The Senlis Council on Wednesday called on NATO’s troop force size to be doubled to 80,000 after its new security assessment report based on field research during the last month revealed 54% of Afghanistan’s landmass now hosts a permanent Taliban presence. “The security situation has reached crisis proportions. The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, border areas, some district centres, and important road arteries” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher of The Senlis Council.
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STRASBOURG – The European Parliament on Thursday recommended that Afghanistan’s poppy crop should be used to produce much-needed essential medicines such as morphine instead of being destroyed. The recommendation was tabled by Marco Cappato MEP and the ALDE group (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) and adopted by an overwhelming majority of 368 for and 49 against. The recommendation was based on a technical dossier for running pilot projects to test out the production of morphine in Afghanistan put forward by The Senlis Council.
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OTTAWA - The Senlis Council on Monday called on the Canadian Government to develop a ‘Fast Track’ approach to peace and stability in Afghanistan. The call came as the international security and development policy group released their latest report, entitled Peace in Afghanistan: Made in Canada at a Peace Talks Simulation Event in Ottawa, with experts and academics from across Canada taking part in mock peace negotiations to develop a solution for peace in Afghanistan.
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LONDON - The Senlis Council on Tuesday urged British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to initiate Poppy for Medicine pilot projects in Afghanistan after a nationwide survey revealed that 8 in 10 in the UK support the initiative.

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THE HAGUE - On Tuesday The Senlis Council called on Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende to support a project of medicinal poppy cultivation in the province of Uruzgan. In the province, where the Dutch troops are based, more than 100,000 people are still directly dependent on poppy cultivation to survive. An opinion-poll, conducted in august by TNS NIPO, shows that 92 percent of the Dutch think a Poppy for Medicine project would be a good idea.

Click here for the Dutch press release

The Senlis Council on Tuesday urged US President George W Bush to initiate Poppy for Medicine pilot projects in Afghanistan after a nationwide survey revealed that 7 in 10 in the US support a Poppy for Medicine pilot project.

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The Senlis Council on Wednesday urged Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to endorse running Poppy for Medicine pilot projects in Afghanistan after a nationwide survey of Canadians revealed that 8 in 10 Canadians support the initiative.

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Figures released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show an alarming 34% increase of opium production in Afghanistan this year, despite stepped-up counter-narcotics efforts. It confirms that the international community is spending millions of dollars on flawed strategies. Poppy crop eradication was reinforced this year but in the current environment of rural poverty and lack of sustainable alternatives, eradication has proved wholly ineffective.
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The Senlis Council releases its latest reports and recommendations on the Afghan situation, and the technical blueprint for the Poppy For Medicine project is released.

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In the lead-up to testifying to the Canadian Foreign Affairs Committee on May 29, The Senlis Council called on Prime Minister Harper to undertake a major overhaul of Canada’s strategy in Afghanistan.

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On the occasion of the 50th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, The Senlis Council presented Dr Eva Tongue, Chair of the Vienna NGO Committee, with an award for her exceptional contribution to global drug policy in a career which has spanned the last five decades.
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A ‘make or break’ situation is facing the international community in southern Afghanistan in the coming months, with the threat from the Taliban of a major spring offensive against international forces. Musa Qala fell two weeks ago – the Taliban now have the big towns in their sights and anyone who can leave has already left.
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A new drug addiction care and treatment centre was opened today in Kabul. The “Nawai Zwand” (New Beginning) Care and Treatment Centre for Drug Addiction is a joint project of the Italian Red Cross, the Afghan Red Crescent and The Senlis Council’s Afghan agency, Senlis Afghanistan.
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