Diplomacy & Crisis News

David Cameron’s announcement that the UK will be sending troops to support UN blue helmets in Africa was welcome news. The UN has long struggled to secure enough of the right forces for its missions, since few countries with elite trained and equipped forces commit them to peacekeeping operations.

Boko Haram is evolving under the pressure of combined military operations by the Lake Chad Basin states, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. It has suffered significant conventional military defeats and lost most of the territory it loosely controlled in late 2014, but, despite this, it is not a spent force and continues to exact an unacceptable humanitarian toll.

Among the three principal politicians who have struggled for power in Côte d’Ivoire since 1995, President Alassane Ouattara, 73, is the only one still in the game and is most likely to win the presidential election on 25 October.

 

Palestinian protesters hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers during clashes in Betunia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah October 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

The growing insecurity in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel proper and the occupied territories are simply the symptoms of a more complex political issue that has been neglected and exploited.

The real historical context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is routinely muffled; only that all too familiar distorted narrative gets a pass, especially in the U.S. commercial media. Throughout history, countering the dominant narrative has never proven easy.

Make no mistake—with this latest violent uprising and draconian policies imposed to crush it—at stake is not only peace in Israel and Palestine or Middle East, but peace around the world.

Lost Opportunity

As soon as Barack Obama was elected  president of the United States, a bipartisan group of ten former senior government officials that included the likes of Chuck Hagel, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and chaired by Brent Scowcroft, approached him with a document entitled The Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement. Their main concern was that “unless the president tackles this problem early it is unlikely to be done at all.  Political capital will erode; domestic obstacles will grow; other issues will dominate; and the warring parties will play for time and run the clock.” The old “peace process” model has resulted in  nothing more than a 22 years of spiraling apartheid-like repression, brutal violence, and systematic oppression.  Among other things, the group recommended the city of “Jerusalem as home to both capitals.”  That, needless to say fell onto deaf ears.

Today, the Palestinians demand the cancellation of the Oslo Accords that proved nothing more than “an endless process which has delivered neither an end to hostilities nor a coherent framework for peace.” The latter was impossible to achieve since Israel has been and continues to swallow the 1967 occupied territory—where the Palestinian state was to be founded—one settlement expansion at a time.

Anatomy of a Violent Intifada

Before readers delve into the argument made in this article, he or she must ask oneself:

Would 67 years of systematic oppression that includes mass expulsion, arbitrary arrests, brutal military incursions, checkpoint involving psychological subjugation, denial of basic human rights, and economic strangulation be long enough to motivate anyone to defend him or herself by any means or snap and transgress beyond self-defense?

How long would it take the average person under similar circumstances to consider the violent option for self-preservation, and when he or she cannot find a suicide belt, a hand grenade, or an automatic weapon, take up on a slingshot or a kitchen knife to randomly stab those whom he or she considers the sustainers of his misery? Especially when settler extremists protected by the Israeli Special Forces periodically invade one’s holy site chanting this provocative chant “the mosque will burn and the temple rebuilt.”

 Demonization Run Amok

In an attempt to sustain the old anti-Palestinian narrative and deflect the role of his policies in inciting this latest outburst of violence, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to dumbing down history by making an outlandish public claim that is on par with Colonel Gaddafi’s “al-Qaida drugged up the Libyan people’s coffee”.

Speaking to the World Zionist Congress before his trip to Germany, Netanyahu makes this bizarre assertion that in 1941: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews…And mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’” It gets eerily comical when he quotes Hitler meekly consulting the mufti “So what should I do with them?” and the mufti promptly responding with this holocaust epiphany “Burn them.”

There was a worldwide diplomatic censure, ridicule, and condemnation. “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust… We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman.

The harshest criticism of Netanyahu’s remarks came from the Jewish scholars, historians and politicians in Israel. Dina Porat, chief historian of Yad Vashem, called his wild remarks “completely erroneous, on all counts.”

Could This Turn Into a Religious War?

The simple answer is absolutely, yes; if it hasn’t already. That said, it is time to reassess the Palestine-Israel issue through the faith prism. Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land is a sacred geographical area for all the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yet, there has never been a single interfaith conference lead by high profile clerics from all these three religious groups to deescalate religious tensions and have serious dialogue on how to share these sites.

Traditionally, the round tables of peace were always crowded by secularist politicians from both sides who often use religion for political expedience.

Now that the two-state solution is out of the question; that leaves only two plausible scenarios: The one-state solution or self-annihilation. Contrary to the naysayers, the one-state solution is a viable alternative for coexistence and sustainable peace.

If such option could work between blacks and Afrikaners of Apartheid South Africa, why could it not between two Semitic ethnic peoples of Abrahamic roots? All that is needed is objective political will and broad-minded religious vision. We have no choice but to give it our collective best shot. It is our only hope.

 

The Taliban takeover of Kunduz in Northern Afghanistan this week is the visible part of an insurgency iceberg that has grown larger, more destructive, and more threatening to the Afghan coalition government and to the Obama administration’s Titanic-like exit strategy.

As the world marks Polio Day today, Pakistan remains the greatest impediment to a polio-free world. The country has more polio cases than any other, reflecting a double policy failure: to prioritise the health of its citizens, and to curb violent extremism. Pakistan's deadly conflicts increase the likelihood the disease could spread to other countries.

Los apuñalamientos, tiroteos, protestas y choques en Jerusalén, Cisjordania, Gaza e Israel constituyen una de las mayores amenazas para el presidente palestino, Mahmud Abbas, y su estrategia de negociaciones bilaterales, diplomacia y cooperación con Israel en materia de seguridad. La agitación -su causa inmediata fue el establecimiento de más restricciones al acceso palestino a la mezquita de al Aqsa- refleja el sentimiento de los palestinos de que sus dirigentes han fracasado, que deben defender sus derechos nacionales incluso desafiando a sus líderes si es necesario, y que la era de Abbas está llegando a su fin.

Seul survivant politique parmi les trois hommes qui se disputent le pouvoir depuis 1995, Alassane Ouattara est favori pour remporter aisément l’élection présidentielle du 25 octobre. Henri Konan Bédié, leader du Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) et ancien chef de l’État, a volontairement écarté son parti de la compétition pour faciliter la victoire du président sortant. Laurent Gbagbo, son adversaire en 2010, est en prison. Ses sept concurrents du moment n’ont ni l’envergure, ni le soutien d’un grand parti qui leur permettraient de gagner. L’enjeu n’est donc pas tant le résultat d’une élection à priori sans surprise que sa suite et les choix qu’effectuera le président Ouattara pour les cinq prochaines années s’il est réélu.

Since the Islamic State began seizing significant amounts of territory in northern Syria and Iraq, policy makers and analysts have focused primarily on the question of whether America should arm the Kurds to fight the jihadi group.

La Comisión ha demostrado su enorme utilidad en contextos en los que las instituciones públicas ordinarias no funcionan, o están cooptadas por poderes oscuros.

(Own report) - The EU's Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Cameroon, soon to be implemented, will drive this African country deeper into poverty, Yvonne Takang, Executive Secretary of the Cameroonian civic organization ACDIC explained in an interview with german-foreign-policy.com. The Economic Partnership Agreement, ratified under pressure from Brussels last year in a hush-hush operation, will endanger Cameroon's "agriculture and regional integration," warned Takang, and hamper the country's industrialization. She also signaled resistance to the agreement's implementation. Since 2002, the EU has been seeking to conclude EPAs with former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions to open markets for European businesses, create attractive investment opportunities, and secure imports of cheap raw materials. The planned deregulation will leave the weaker national economies in Africa unprotected. A well known example of the negative consequences is the local chicken production in Ghana, which virtually collapsed after this West African country opened its markets to European - including German - poultry exports. German slaughterhouses, on the other hand, benefitted, significantly increasing their chicken exports and profits.

The stabbings, shootings, protests and clashes now spreading across Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and Israel present one of the greatest challenges yet posed to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his strategy of bilateral negotiations, diplomacy and security co-operation with Israel. The unrest – its proximate cause was increased restrictions on Palestinian access to al-Aqsa Mosque – reflects a sense among Palestinians that their leadership has failed, that national rights must be defended in defiance of their leaders if necessary, and that the Abbas era is coming to an end.

Por fin se empezará a discutir en el Congreso un marco legal para el sometimiento de las Bacrim. Pero para que sea realmente útil se necesitaría una propuesta más audaz. Parece haber un nuevo aire de optimismo en la lucha contra las denominadas bandas criminales (Bacrim). Hace unas semanas fue abatido Pijarbey, el jefe de los Libertadores del Vichada. Pocos días después cayó Megateo, el líder de una disidencia del Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) que para muchos era una organización criminal. Y, según la prensa, la fuerza pública ya está muy cerca a Otoniel, la cabeza de los Urabeños.

The United Nations should not be held responsible for the failures of its members. Yet the world body still faces pressing challenges of its own. Seven decades after its founding, the United Nations presides over an ever-expanding agenda—and in trying to do too much, it risks doing little well.  

Dimanche 18 octobre 2015, le précédent numéro de Politique étrangère (2/2015) sur la Russie était à l’honneur dans l’émission « Carrefour de l’Europe » présentée sur RFI par Daniel Desesquelle.

Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, responsable du Centre Russie/NEI à l’Ifri et coordinatrice du dossier « La Russie, une puissance faible ? » présenté dans le numéro d’été 2015, était l’une des invités de l’émission.

« En Syrie, le régime de Bachar el-Assad regagne du terrain grâce aux frappes russes. En Ukraine, le jeu trouble de Moscou empêche toute stabilisation du pays. Que cherche vraiment Vladimir Poutine, dont les ressources s’estompent avec la baisse des prix du pétrole. Le président russe a-t-il les moyens de son ambition : remettre durablement son pays sur le devant de la scène mondiale ? La Russie est-elle une puissance forte ou faible ?  »

Pour réécouter l’émission, cliquez ici.

De gauche à droite : Olga Kokorina, Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean, Daniel Desesquelle, Isabelle Facon. Crédits photographiques : © 2015 Copyright RFI – Tous droits réservés.

Map: Council on Foreign Relations

Waters are heating up again in the South China Sea, as Vietnamese authorities this week accused a Chinese vessel of sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel (Xisha in Chinese, Hoang Sa in Vietnamese) islands on September 29.  Vietnam, Taiwan and China all claim the Paracel islands, which consist of some 130 small coral islands and reefs, which were occupied and are now controlled by China after defeating the South Vietnamese navy in 1974.

The sinking of the Vietnamese boat, according to Phan Huy Hoang, an official in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Ngai, occurred as a result of a Chinese ship slammed into the boat.  Five Chinese men then boarded and proceeded to steal navigation devices, fishing equipment and their 2-ton catch of fish.  The boat eventually sank some 12 hours later and the fishermen resorted to floating in their life vests for another four hours before being rescued.  

According to Hoang,  more than 20 Vietnamese fishing boats have been attacked by Chinese vessels this year.  On June 19, a Vietnamese fishing boat operating off the Hoang Sa archipelago was boarded by a Chinese crew, which destroyed its fishing gear and confiscated an ICOM walkie-talkie, a positioning system, and about five metric tons five metric tons of catch worth US$13,780.  And on June 10, four ships surrounded a Vietnamese fishing boat and then forcefully boarded the fishing boat, forcing the 11 Vietnamese fishermen to transfer all of their catch – about six metric tons – to the other vessels.  As a result of these attacks on Vietnamese fishermen, the Vietnamese government now plans to allow its coast guard forces to employ weapons to help chase away foreign vessels which have illegally entered Vietnam’s waters, starting October 20.

While the Chinese naval vessel has yet to be identified as belonging to the Chinese government, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying defended the action as one taking place in waters China claims, stating, “Chinese authorities have the rights to take law enforcement measures in accordance with the law on boats that have illegally entered.”

Should the Chinese vessel be identified as a state-owned ship, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Le Hai Binh warned of a potential response: “If there is such a case that foreign law enforcement commits acts that hinder the normal and legitimate operations of Vietnamese fishermen in this area, we will have formal and appropriate response.”

Hanoi’s authorization of the use of force and a plan to augment its coast guard patrol capabilities signals Vietnam may be taking the threat more seriously, and not just catering to nationalistic sentiment at home.  The U.S. has already provided Vietnam with five patrol vessels and has pledged to contribute more in the future.

Should Hanoi decide not to respond, the U.S. may nonetheless stir up tensions in the water in their own effort to challenge the sovereignty of China, as they have threatened to do in recent months following China’s reclaiming of land on submerged reefs.  China has been using the reclaimed land to build airstrips and other potential military infrastructure on three of the Spratly (Truong Sa in Vietnamese, Nansha in Chinese) islands.  The Spratlys consist of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays and islands and are variously claimed and controlled by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Washington does not recognize Beijing’s claim to the 12-nautical-mile zone around the islands in the Spratlys (the U.S. argues international law prohibits claiming territory around artificial islands built on previously submerged reefs), and some geopolitical analysts believe the U.S. military will soon assert freedom of navigation in the waters by sailing or flying within the zone claimed by China.  U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter warned on Tuesday the U.S. military would sail or fly wherever international law allowed, while John Richardson, the U.S. chief of naval operations, told reporters in Tokyo this week, “It should not come as a surprise to anybody that we will exercise freedom of navigation wherever international law allows.”

Clearly, the waters in the South China Sea are again heating up with rhetoric from all sides, and this may be behind Beijing’s attempt on Friday toward reconciliation.  On the microblog of China’s Defense Ministry, Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan issued a statement saying all sides should try to limit their disputes, with Beijing offering to hold joint exercises with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries next year in the South China Sea.  The joint exercises propose to cover search and rescue and disaster relief efforts, as well as rules about accidental encounters at sea.  Given the encounters at sea this week and over the last several months, and the propensity of fishermen from all countries to follow the catch (paying little attention to maritime boundaries), Beijing’s offer holds little water and is unlikely to stop a more serious and deadly confrontation from taking place.

(Own report) - The German Bundeswehr is holding another exercise oriented on "Civil-Military Cooperation" (CIMIC) in the context of military interventions. The "Joint Cooperation" exercise will take place in Nienburg County (Lower Saxony) at the end of the month primarily with the participation of soldiers from NATO member countries, and with troops from countries, officially claiming neutrality, such as Austria and Sweden. According to the scenario of the exercise, which has been drawn up in all details, so-called CIMIC forces will operate in a fictitious country at the Horn of Africa that has become the scene of a bloody civil war provoked by a neighboring nation. The unit specialized in "civil-military cooperation" must "assess" the war zone population's situation, to provide the military command the "necessary information" for its "operational planning." The scenario shows a number of parallels to NATO's current large-scale "Trident Juncture" exercise, which also focuses on combating an "aggressor nation," covertly supporting one party to the civil war in the neighboring country. Reference to the situation in Ukraine is explicitly desired.

Cette recension d’ouvrages est issue de Politique étrangère (3/2015). Timothy Boswell propose une analyse croisée de deux ouvrages : celui de Virginia Comolli, Boko Haram. Nigeria’s Islamist Insurgency (Londres, Hurst Publishers, 2015, 208 pages) et celui de Mike Smith, Boko Haram. Inside Nigeria’s Unholy War (Londres, I.B. Tauris, 2015, 320 pages).

Si Al-Qaïda et l’État islamique ont concentré la plupart des analyses sur le phénomène djihadiste, la littérature sur Boko Haram est bien moins abondante. Le groupe qui s’est rendu célèbre par l’enlèvement des lycéennes de Chibok il y a plus d’un an est pourtant responsable de nombreuses exactions, qui ont coûté la vie à plus de 7 000 personnes de la mi-2014 à la mi-2015. Deux livres, de Mike Smith, ancien chef du bureau de l’AFP pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest, et de Virginia Comolli, chercheur à l’Institut international d’études stratégiques (IISS) à Londres, tentent de faire la lumière sur cette organisation que l’on qualifie parfois de « secte ».

L’ouvrage de Mike Smith se livre principalement à un récit factuel des événements, plus qu’à une étude critique de Boko Haram. Il fournit des détails saisissants sur les attaques du groupe, recueillis de la bouche même des victimes et des témoins directs. Ces détails donnent un excellent aperçu de la situation au Nigeria depuis que le groupe s’est engagé sur la voie de la violence en juillet 2009. Le livre s’ouvre sur un récit de l’attaque de Boko Haram contre un siège de la police en janvier 2012 par un des survivants, avant de présenter un tableau général de la situation au Nigeria, et du groupe lui-même. Chaque chapitre débute par le récit d’un événement majeur dans l’histoire de Boko Haram, de l’exécution extrajudiciaire du chef du groupe en juillet 2009 à l’enlèvement de près de 300 filles dans leur école de Chibok. Les autres chapitres se concentrent sur le contexte, l’histoire coloniale de la région, et l’échec des réponses du gouvernement à Boko Haram.

De son côté, Virginia Comolli a écrit un ouvrage de facture plus scientifique, aux nombreuses références, et offrant moult détails donnant une vue d’ensemble du groupe et des enjeux locaux, régionaux, et internationaux. Le livre de Comolli explore tout d’abord le contexte historique de l’islam au Nigeria. L’auteur se fonde sur cette histoire pour expliquer l’origine de groupes islamistes radicaux, avant de se tourner plus spécifiquement vers Boko Haram. Elle analyse en profondeur ce groupe, détaillant les controverses sur sa fondation et le tournant violent sous la direction d’Abubakar Shekau. Elle se concentre ensuite sur les multiples conséquences régionales, et les liens éventuels avec d’autres groupes islamistes extrémistes. Dans la dernière partie de l’ouvrage, elle se montre critique envers la stratégie de contre-insurrection mise en œuvre par le gouvernement nigérian, qui s’est soldée jusqu’ici par des revers et de multiples violations des droits de l’homme de la part des forces de sécurité.

Les deux livres ont des styles et des buts différents. Celui de Smith est une lecture captivante pour quiconque souhaite mêler récits historico-politiques et témoignages poignants. De son côté, le livre de Comolli est une lecture incontournable pour ceux qui veulent avoir une compréhension globale des conditions ayant conduit à la situation actuelle. Alors que Boko Haram étend ses opérations hors du Nigeria et que les effets de ses actions se feront sentir pendant des années, on ne peut que recommander la lecture de ces deux ouvrages.

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