The Peace Mastermind Behind ‘War With No Guns’ visits Swindon’s
ODS Business Services
23rd Jan 2008, Swindon - Brigadier Roger Mortlock OBE, who led the New Zealand peace-keeping force that ended ten years civil war in Bouganville with guitars instead of guns, is visiting Swindon today. He is meeting Franky Marulanda, Commercial Director of ODS Business Services, who is adding a trailer for ‘War with No Guns’ to the company’s promotional EcoDisc covermount (an eco-friendly DVD) that will be distributed to 37,000 ‘Marketing Week’ readers in the next few weeks.
ODS Business Services is helping New Zealand film director Will Watson drum up support for the documentary ‘War With No Guns’ based on the true story of the Brigadier’s remarkable peace-keeping solution. Will says ‘Something happened in the South Pacific that deserves to be looked at. War was stopped dead in its tracks. Ten years later peace is still holding.’ Will is making a documentary to celebrate the tenth anniversary of lasting peace. He gave up his day job a year ago to work on the film which is 70% complete. ODS Business Services is helping Will by bringing the film to the attention of the UK marketing community. It is hoped this will help raise the £200,000 necessary to complete filming, find a musician, ensure entry to this year’s international film festivals, and secure an international film distribution deal.
Brigadier Mortlock masterminded the unusual idea of sending troops in completely unarmed because when he visited the island, one of the rebel political chiefs walked past and said ‘The winds of peace are blowing over this country. If we leaders don’t take notice, we will lose our place.’ The Brigadier adds ‘Once a country has been at war for ten years, you are on the cusp of creating a war generation who think guns are a normal extension of their arms. Peace becomes abnormal and increasingly difficult to achieve because people fear change.’
Bouganville is 300 kilometres off the coast of Papua New Guinea and there had already been 14 failed peace agreements, 20% of the population were dead and the infrastructure was completely destroyed. Brigadier Mortlock had served in Vietnam and Angola and wanted to do something different with his forces drawn from Australia, New Zealand, Venuato and Fiji. He believes the success of this operation was due to a combination of brave people who understood the culture and were prepared to try something new whilst taking huge personal risks. They used several techniques based on Maori peace initiatives such as the Haka and the Hongi. The Brigadier observes ‘Even a ‘tough-as-nails’ general listens to his Mum’s opinion, so we empowered the women again.’ The troops appealed to the matriarchs who persuaded warlord husbands and sons to lay down their guns so peace negotiations could begin properly. A total amnesty underpinned negotiations and they kept reinforcing the people’s hopes for peace. The peace-keeping coalition did not bother with disarmament because collectively these measures made the guns superfluous. The warlords locked up their own guns!
Brig. Mortlock had no exit plan because that would indicate a belief they would lose. He says ‘It would have been a terrible thing to fail because people taking risks would pay with their lives. This was a ‘People’s Peace Process’ supported by good people in the intervention, and good, if unusual, concepts.’
The story of ‘War With No Guns’ is a potential blueprint for other peace initiatives around the world but the important distinction is that the island people in this tri-partite war created their own peace - it was not imposed from outside. Often a peace-keeping force spends years trying to establish and maintain a fragile peace. With Bouganville, the peace-keepers intervened and went home two years later.
Brigadier Roger Mortlock OBE has been involved in international peacekeeping research, including the UN, with the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. The connection with ODS Business Services was made through Swindon-based Blue Click PR Ltd. They produce 3.3 million DVDs a day across Europe, and recently launched a more environmentally friendly alternative called EcoDisc, with 480,000 produced daily. Commercial Director Franky Marulanda is from Columbia. The civil war gave in his own country gave him understanding and the motivation to support ‘War With No Guns’. He says ‘There is a moment when war becomes a business and you can’t stop it.’
Will Watson of TMI Pictures and Brigadier Roger Mortlock are grateful for the support of Blue Click PR, ODS Business Services and SwindonWeb for filming interviews and editing the film trailer. See www.swindonweb.com/office/?m=580&s=596&ss=0&c=1954 For further details or to offer help for the project, watch the video for further instructions.
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ODS Europe at a Glance:
ODS is the leading European manufacturer of pre-recorded discs in the covermount business for newspapers and magazines. They have contracts with over 80% of UK publishers. ODS started in Dassow, Germany in 1997 with just forty employees and a turnover of €10 m. Today, ODS employs over 3,500 people in over 16 countries including Germany, BeNeLux, France, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Spain, Greece, Poland, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.
The annual production capacity is 1,05 billion discs (648 million CDs, 502 million DVDs). Sales have risen from €125m in 2004, € 175m in 2005, € 210m in 2006 and estimated € 330m in 2007.
ODS Business Services UK was established in 2003 in London with 4 staff. ODS Business Services UK now employs over 300 full-time staff.
About Blue Click PR Ltd.
Based in Swindon, Blue Click PR Ltd. is a specialist IT public relations agency which was set up in 2000. The team handles mainly business to business, trade and technical PR for clients along the M4 corridor from London to Bristol. They have achieved global success with press releases, television and online media coverage for clients, and have helped several clients win national and even global awards. The highlight was helping Wincor Nixdorf win two global awards and a Highly Commended with their two British banking clients.
Blue Click PR has an ability to help medium size organisations leverage their association with blue chip clients and has written numerous press releases and case studies approved by global organisations such as AXA, BT, Baxter Healthcare, Cable & Wireless, Cisco Systems, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, EDS, Greene King IPA, Homebase, Lloyds TSB, Microsoft, Nationwide Building Society, Tesco etc.
The agency won the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Gold PRide Award for Small Team in 2007 with an entry classed as ‘outstanding’ and head and shoulders above the rest.’
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