Foreign Policy Blogs

By Dominik P. Jankowski & Liana Fix

To many who assumed that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict would calm down in 2018, the end of 2017 foretold quite the opposite. The conflict is back in motion, yet with some contradictory signals. On the plus side, the biggest swap of prisoners was held between Ukraine and the Russian-backed militants since the beginning of the war. This demonstrated that some progress on humanitarian issues is possible with the help of the Normandy format and the Trilateral Contact Group.

On the minus side, Russia withdrew its military personnel from the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC), a Russian-Ukrainian military body that helped to monitor the ceasefire and facilitated the withdrawal of heavy weapons. Not only did the JCCC provide a direct military channel of communication between Ukraine and Russia, it also reduced security risks for OSCE monitors. Immediately after Russia’s withdrawal, some of the worst fighting since February 2017 took place in eastern Ukraine.

Against this backdrop, Russian President Vladimir Putin again raised his proposal for a UN peacekeeping force, which he first tabled as a draft UN Security Council resolution in September 2017. Putin claimed at his end-of-year press conference that he is in principle not against a broader mandate for international peacekeepers in Donbas, but that a decision should be negotiated between Kyiv and the militants, which is—for good reasons—not acceptable to Ukraine and the West.

Nevertheless, Western allies redoubled their diplomatic efforts to find a workable solution for a UN mission with several parallel tracks of negotiations, including a direct U.S.-Russia channel between Kurt Volker, U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and his Russian counterpart, Vladislav Surkov. After a few months, there was little evidence of progress, which led the UN Secretariat to stall all preparations of an assessment mission to Ukraine. Despite that fact, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for a decision on a UN peacekeeping force to be taken before the Russian presidential election in March.

On paper, the Russian proposal seems to be a shift in posture. In reality, it is part of Russia’s strategy to backtrack from the political responsibility for the conflict and instead position Russia as a mediator within a new UN framework. Moscow proposed a limited, six-month mission, equipped with small arms, and with the exclusive mandate to ensure the security of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) along the line of contact. A mission under such parameters would likely freeze the conflict; it is also hard to imagine how it could support the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Therefore, any Western proposal for a UN mission in Ukraine must embrace three key elements. First, its mandate must cover the whole territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, including the Russian-Ukrainian border—a precondition the Russian president has already agreed to during a phone conversation with the German chancellor. This is essential to ensuring an end to further rearmament of the militants by Russia. In practical terms, a UN mission should be deployed at once—or, at maximum, over no more than two phases—to prevent Russia from obstructing further deployments.

Second, a UN mission should reinforce—not replace—the operations of the OSCE mission on the ground. The UN lacks practical expertise in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and has been recently involved in peacekeeping operations mostly outside of Europe. UN peacekeepers should help the OSCE SMM to maintain peace, including by monitoring the withdrawal of heavy weapons and forces, guarding arms and ammunition depots, and protecting civilians. A joint OSCE-UN mission should hence be seriously considered. To effectively deliver on these tasks, such a mission should involve around 20,000 peacekeepers, excluding Russian forces.

Third, a UN mission should support the implementation of the Minsk agreements and facilitate the return of areas not controlled by Kyiv to Ukrainian authority, including creating conditions for credible local elections. The UN Security Council could grant the mission executive powers to help oversee the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The mission could also assist with the selection of local officials and police, as well as their training at later stages, and might also facilitate the safe return of displaced persons. In sum, it would engage the whole “UN family”— with its many affiliated programs, funds, and specialized agencies—in the post-conflict Donbas reconstruction.

How could Russia agree to such a UN mission? Most importantly, a coordinated policy of carrots and sticks by the U.S. and European partners is needed. The U.S. administration’s approval of the largest sale of weapons to Ukraine since 2014 has boosted Ukrainian defensive capabilities. Politically, it could have been used as a stick towards Russia, if it had been coordinated with European allies. Instead, it has created additional rifts with Germany and France. On the other hand, the West has a serious incentive on hand: sanctions. A proper UN mission, with a robust mandate, can help fully implement the Minsk agreements—a precondition to lift Donbas-related sanctions.

The proposal for a UN mission to Ukraine is a small window of opportunity for diplomacy. Yet it is not a silver-bullet to solving the conflict. Political will on both sides remains a prerequisite for keeping peace.

This article was originally published by Carnegie Europe.

Dominik P. Jankowski is a security policy expert, diplomat, think tanker, and social media aficionado.

Liana Fix is the program director of the Körber Foundation’s International Affairs Department.

The views and opinions expressed here are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the institutions they represent.

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Recently, the Trump Administration decided against nominating Victor D. Cha as Ambassador to South Korea due to his opposition to the “bloody nose” strategy against North Korea advocated by the White House. On the heels of this report, U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood declared that North Korea stands only months away from the ability to hit U.S. territory with a nuclear weapon.

During such a time of uncertainty, it would stand to reason that appointing a qualified ambassador to a long-standing ally neighboring a nuclear-armed country that has threatened the United States would rank as a top priority for President Trump. Nevertheless, the United States is left without the diplomatic expertise of someone like Cha and armed instead with a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that promotes a greater use of nuclear weapons than ever before.

The “bloody nose” strategy, opposed by Cha but favored by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, argues for a preventative military strike against North Korea that would inevitably end in an untold number of causalities in South Korea and Japan—where combined more than 60,000 U.S. troops are stationed—as well as possibly in nearby China. This is not to mention the fate of U.S. coastal cities and territories such as Guam, who already has been threatened by the regime in Pyongyang partly as a result of bellicose, ignorant remarks by President Trump. There is far from any guarantee that North Korea would submit after an initial strike given Kim Jong Un’s erratic, unpredictable behavior, and with the recent NPR in hand, the United States could enter into a war with Pyongyang armed with even more readily deployable nuclear weapons.

The Trump Administration’s record thus far in handling nuclear threats and nonproliferation has only served to ratchet up tensions rather than make Americans any safer. In addition to provoking the regime in Pyongyang, President Trump has repeatedly threatened what’s commonly known as the Iran Deal. After “decertifying” it in October, he then only issued the waiver of key sanctions in January after saying it would be the last time.

The concerns behind these decisions—that the deal did not address Iran’s continued funding of terrorism, testing of ballistic missiles, and oppression of its citizens—are valid. The nuclear negotiations, however, were focused on removing nuclear weapons from Tehran with the understanding that further diplomacy would be required to address the other bad behavior. And currently, the deal is achieving what it set out to do: 17,000 centrifuges and 95 percent of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile have been removed and Iran’s only plutonium reactor has been disabled. Plus, trust in Tehran’s word is not needed to verify these achievements because the best nuclear inspectors in the world are on the ground, watching Iran’s uranium from the mines to the laboratories.

Undermining this deal would only result in setting the United States on a path to war with Iran. So rather than continuing down that course, the Trump Administration should instead encourage the enforcement of bipartisan, smartly targeted sanctions against Iran that do not violate the terms of the agreement. After all, sanctions, when used correctly, can be a strong tool—as seen when crippling sanctions helped move Tehran towards the negotiating table in the first place.

Just as sanctions have a role with regard to Iran, so do they have a role in pressuring North Korea. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence stated that the administration will soon roll out “the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever.” Carefully targeted sanctions are a smart step towards what must be the end goal in North Korea: phased denuclearization. This next round of sanctions will follow one announced two weeks ago, and it would similarly be best geared against those individuals and entities who are allegedly financing Kim’s nuclear programs—but specific details have yet to emerge.

Such economic action is a much surer and safer path what the NPR encourages. The review called for developing new, expensive nuclear weapons and stated that nuclear weapons will only be used in “extreme circumstances,” which could include “non-nuclear strategic attacks” such as cyber attacks. For decades, the United States has led the global charge to reduce nuclear weapons, but now, it is reversing course with unnecessary nuclear weapons and a lower threshold to using them—making nuclear war all the more likely.

So as the Trump Administration continues to grapple with charting the path through current nuclear issues facing the United States, they must set aside the unnecessary and expensive expansion of nuclear weapons as encouraged by the NPR. As evidenced by the succeeding Iran Deal, diplomatic and economic action remains the best bet in dealing with hostile, nuclear armed nations. Any brash military action and a withdrawal from diplomacy will only spark a war on the Korean Peninsula or in the Middle East respectively, risking the lives of Americans at home, abroad, and in uniform.

Shannon Bugos is the Communications and Writing Coordinator at Truman National Security Project. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Views expressed are her own.

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The United States Embassy in Havana in October.  CreditYamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On January 9, U.S. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson opened a formal inquiry into mysterious “sonic attacks” purportedly damaging the health of U.S. diplomatic personnel stationed at the American Embassy in Cuba.  The first reports surfaced in December 2016, and since then 24 United States personnel have complained of sharp ear pain, dull headaches, tinnitus, vertigo, disorientation, nausea and extreme fatigue.  Another 19 Americans who traveled to Cuba have reported similar symptoms to the U.S. State Department.  Canada has also reported several Canadians have experienced similar symptoms to the U.S. diplomats.

While the Cuban government has denied responsibility for the attacks, an investigation is being conducted by the F.B.I., the State Department and top American medical authorities.  The evidence currently under review by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board is “confounding and conflicting”, according to a New York Times report.   Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico has called for caution, warning, “I think we should be careful not to jump to conclusions.”

However, after reports of the illnesses of the embassy staff members reached U.S. President Donald Trump, he expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the United States.  More than half of personnel were pulled from the U.S. embassy back in September.  The diplomatic row reversing the trend toward friendlier relations instituted under former President Barack Obama, which made it easier for nearly 620,000 Americans to travel to Cuba in 2017.  “The idea that someone could put together some sort of action against them, 24 of them, and the Cuban government not know who did it, it’s just impossible,” Mr. Rubio said, while adding: “The Cuban government either did this or knows who did it.”  Francisco Palmieri, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, concurred: “Cuba is a security state, the Cuban government in general has a very tight lid on anything and everything that happens in that country.”  In light of the concerns, the latest U.S. Department of State travel advisory on Cuba, issued on January 10, has advised Americans urges to “reconsider travel to Cuba due to health attacks directed at U.S. Embassy Havana employees.”

Clearly, there are trade-offs when considering travel to Cuba.  Should we potentially risk our health to bring our tourist dollars, euros and pounds to Cuba, helping a people struggling with day-to-day shortages of goods and still recovering from the damage wrought by Hurricane Irma in September?  Or in so doing, will we just be adding to government coffers used to prop up another country which continues to repress dissent and punish public criticism and may be behind the mysterious health attacks?

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The logo of Rabobank is seen at its headquarters in Utrecht, Netherlands, October 30, 2013. REUTERS/Michael Kooren/File Photo – RC167810E570

International banking has always been subject to laws and rules that apply where their head offices operate as well as via international rules and standards. For an international law to apply, it often has to be codified within a country, as even if the law is accepted and applied through international agreements or treaties, the enforcement of those laws are often only capably done by a country itself. In the banking industry where one large organisation is required to register and operate via the due diligence required in each region and state, norms and practices are often the best standard used by the bank as local laws can be weak and form an easily corrupted system. Larger countries often would make laws that may not be formally applied in smaller states, but act as a deterrent to illegal international banking operations if they did not operate in a legal or moral standard expected by the international community. American laws like Dodd-Frank have spurned on international regulatory standard for all international and local banks, many now operating with Compliance entities and AML departments as a permanent part of their organisations.

Policy approaches in dealing with issues of rogue state activities, money laundering and drug related financial transactions are applied to private financial institutions, and when HSBC was caught ignoring standards by providing financial services to Latin American cartels as well as accepting transactions from rogue states under sanction by the United States and many European countries, they were heavily fined $1.9 billion in 2012. Massive financial penalties have become the norm in cases were very large corporations commit illegal actions, stemming from one of the first European Union cases against Microsoft many years ago. Having a massive effect in a case of fraud, competition or money laundering decimates the profits of large corporations and has a lasting effect on the reputation and investors in those large corporate entities. Despite these severe measures, the penalties are often not applied to the degree where a large company would dissolve from the size of the penalty, as a loss of a major market player might cost more to the society via employment loss and a loss of tax revenue than compensating for the loss due to their actions.

With these standards in place, money laundering still occurs through international banks. Rabobank out of the Netherlands had their Mexican and Californian operations penalized when a US court fined them $369 million for laundering money linked to Mexican drug cartels. While these issues concern financial crimes, the real effect on cartel violence in Mexico has a wider criminal component. A Mexican national living in the Netherlands has taken the next step in applying international laws and standards to banks that are convicted of actions that violate international and local banking regulations. The funds that had been laundered through Rabobank may have contributed to other crimes by the cartel, and a legal precedent linking the bank to very severe crimes committed by the cartel would be an enormous shift in how financial violations are applied to larger crimes against populations, arms trading as well as financial supports linked to human rights atrocities. State or non-state actors who violate human rights can have their financial systems completely halted when rights violations and human rights atrocities are found to have occurred and been linked to international financial institutions. It would be a complicated development, and difficult to prove, but most likely a welcome policy change for victims of cartel violence, genocide survivors who are largely ignored by the international community as well as those who require a punishment to be applied in cases where power and justice have been lacking.

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Ever since the 2014 sham elections in Bangladesh, it was a huge question mark whether Sheikh Hasina could still be considered a ruler of a democratic country or not. However, recent events have demonstrated that Sheikh Hasina is in fact no democrat but rather is an emerging Asian dictator who is aligned with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to recent reports, Bangladeshi Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia, who has been struggling with Sheikh Hasina to rule Bangladesh for decades, is set to get 5 years imprisonment on corruption charges. The implication of this decision is that during a critical election year in the South Asian country, the main opposition leader will not be able to run against ruling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a time when the Awami League ruler’s popularity is at an all-time low and when Khaleda Zia as the widow of a former military ruler has gained increased prominence.

Given this reality, those who are associated with the Bangladeshi Opposition claim that the charges against Khaleda Zia are a sham specifically designed to undermine her ability to compete against Sheikh Hasina in the upcoming elections since Bangladeshi law bars someone who is sentenced to more than two years behind bars from running for office. Israeli Druze diplomat Mendi Safadi, the head of the Safadi Center for International Relations and Public Diplomacy, proclaimed following the conviction of Khaleda Zia: “It is true that there is an ideological gap between us and Khaleda Zia but we oppose the decision to stop her for the same reason that we oppose any other political arrest. Every citizen of the country has the right to conduct legal political activity and political activists must not be arrested because their views are contrary to the government’s position.”

“Many friends have been arrested because of their legitimate political activity,” Safadi added. “I myself have been persecuted for legitimate political activity for the sake of my people and for a good future for Bangladesh. We must not remain silent on the government’s oppression and should work for human rights, democracy and freedom in the country. The government of Sheikh Hasina violates all our rights. It uses oppression, terrorism and ethnic cleansing against minorities. It is time to stand up and to say we will not agree to this oppression. We want a fair leadership that respects us as citizens, even if we do not agree on the same ideology. Even if we are in the opposition, we have the right to conduct political activity.”

“After all of the human rights violations that occurred until the arrest of Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia, it seems like we have no choice but to go for mass demonstrations in the streets of Bangladesh, to lead a revolution against Sheikh Hasina’s government and to demand protection from the free world,” Safadi noted. “God bless the people of Bangladesh!”

Around the same period of time that Khaleda Zia was arrested, it has emerged that the Sheikh Hasina government is increasingly building up ties with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another democratically elected leader who transformed his country into an unfree dictatorship. Last September, Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan visited Rohinya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh. In addition, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu invited Bangladesh to open up their doors to assist Muslim Rohinya refugees and even offered to pay for the expenses associated with such a gesture but Turkey offered no such humanitarian gesture to the Hindu Rohingya, who have been ethnically cleansed from their homes and live under horrendous conditions in Bangladesh presently.

Soon after Erdogan highlighted his humanitarian concern for the Muslim Rohingya but not the Hindu Rohingya in Bangladesh, Turkey proceeded to attack the Kurds in Afrin and the ancient Temple of Ain Dara. The attack was strongly condemned by Syria’s Archaeological Survey Office. Mamum Abdul Karim, a former Syrian antiquities official, said that tourists used to be attracted to visit the lion sculptures in the temple, emphasizing that the attack on Ain Dara was a major loss and was en par with the destruction of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra. The Temple of Ain Dara is considered a UNESCO world heritage site in danger. The ancient temple dates back to the times of King Solomon and was considered by archaeologists to be a living monument to how King Solomon’s Temple could have looked like.

“The damage to Ain Dara is tragic,” Brian Daniels, co-director of the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq Project, told Artnet News. “It does not strike me that there has been a particular lull in cultural destruction, only that it has been less reported and specifically less ISIS driven since the collapse of that group’s organization.”

Like Erdogan’s attack upon Ain Dara, Sheikh Hasina’s government is similarly not disturbed whenever historic Hindu temples are destroyed within her country. Shipan Kumer Basu, the head of the Hindu Struggle Committee, related: “Every day, Hindu women are gang raped and Hindu homes are being burnt down. The present government has no qualms about that and also ensures that there is no news going out on the persecution of minorities within the country. If any journalist publishes news on this issue, he or she will be punished. We need help to ensure the future of the minorities of Bangladesh.”

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On January 27, Rodrigo Londoño began his campaign for president of Colombia. Will this move help the FARC achieve greater acceptance and further the peace process, despite the unlikelihood of a political victory?

Rodrigo Londoño is the leader of the FARC, which, in September 2017 became a political party in an attempt to vanquish a notorious guerilla past. The violent syndicate gave up arms in pursuit of political legitimization in a peace process that has moved mountains since its signing in November 2016.

Colombia’s elections in 2018 will demonstrate to the world just how far the Colombian peace process has progressed, and more importantly, if it can survive. Both the legislative elections in March as well as the campaign for president in May will bring the FARC into the media spotlight.

Despite the attention Londoño has garnered, the FARC’s 2018 political ambitions are destined to fail. A Polimétrica poll from November 2017 had 1% of voters pledging support for FARC candidates in March 2018. It is likely to take years, if not decades, for the FARC as a political party to gain any noteworthy support on the political podium. This is likely to cause mounting frustration among FARC sympathizers and perhaps lead to greater numbers of FARC defectors wanting to take up arms once more – an escalating issue since the FARC gave up their weapons in June 2017.

As part of the peace process, the FARC is guaranteed 10 seats in the upcoming legislative elections. It should be noted that the group’s ambitions shoot far beyond this. The group is fielding 74 candidates for the ballots in March. As pointed out in a recent GRI analysis, the FARC’s presence in Congress, as small as that of the 10 seats assured, will place a likely constraint on the ruling party’s efforts to form a governing coalition and to subsequently implement noteworthy legislation.

While this should preoccupy the attention of investors, faith in the peace process should remain of paramount importance. The campaign of Londoño and his party is of undeniable symbolism. The FARC’s political campaign will neither disrupt the political establishment nor the country’s institutions. What the FARC campaign can however achieve, intentionally or not, is the conveyance to other militant movements that a political road map to voicing concerns can be a viable alternative to violence.

In the summer of 2017, Londoño declared: “We will continue to exist as a movement of legal and democratic character, which will develop its ideological political organizational actions, and its propaganda, through legal methods.” Other groups such as the ELN – which have been the cause of major infrastructure damage – now find themselves at a crossroads, and will see the upcoming elections, and specifically the FARC campaign, as a drawing board for their own negotiations with the government.

Why does the UN favor FARC protection?

The peace process has been an experiment in forgiveness which has, at least to a small extent, quashed security risks in many remote regions of the country. The hope is that the peace process will continue to encourage social stability and economic growth, not only in the short term, but in the medium and long term as well.

In January 2018, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as an appeal for everyone to stand behind the peace process. However, as the FARC’s election campaign now gets under way, the promise of peace has become more brittle. On January 17, two former FARC militants wereassassinated by armed men in the Peque Municipality in Antioquia Department while promoting their newly formed party.

The UN has wholeheartedly condemned the attack and insisted that the government provide greater security protection for FARC leaders and militants. The risk of attacks on FARC members will increase considerably as the elections approach, testing the resolve of all sides. For Guterres, such attacks are extremely damaging to the success of the peace process as a whole.

The Colombian government is likely to respond in kind with increased military and police operations in rural areas.

Power vacuum and dissent

A power vacuum opened up in 2017 after FARC members gave up arms as part of the compromise to forming a political party. This has allowed other powerful and violent syndicates such as Los Urabeños and the ELN to move into previously controlled FARC regions.

On October 2017, the ELN entered into a recently expired ceasefire with the government. Immediately following its cessation in January 2018, the ELN attacked the Caño Limón–Coveñas oil pipeline. This pipeline alone was bombed 62 times in 2017, causing millions of dollars in damages.

The pipeline has historically been a target of militant groups. It is estimated to have been out of service for 30 percent (10 ½ years) of its lifespan since 1986. Effectively integrating members of groups such as the FARC and the ELN into Colombian society will thus be the cause of considerable relief for both nationalized and private infrastructure.

To understand, at least in part, the failure so far in peace talks with the ELN, we must look closely at the progression of the peace process with the FARC. Negotiations extend much further than simply allowing the FARC to form a political party. Economic and social integration programs, as well as the advancement of development and agricultural projects in former FARC concentrated zones of the country, must be followed through and implemented. The extent to which these policies have been effectively carried out has been contested.

The government has instead focused extensively on militarized operations in a bid to crack down on FARC defectors and other violent groups in these regions. These operations have indeed had some immediate positive impacts on security. However, analysts predict that by not tackling core socio-economic issues, many more FARC members will dissent.

Conclusion

Private sector as well as civilian vilification of the FARC’s political campaign is not conducive country’s ongoing stability. The distrust towards the success of the peace process has been of ongoing concern for years, particularly because it disparages notions of investor safety.

However, as security concerns increase over the coming months, in particular with the proliferation and violence of other militant groups, distrust in the peace process will continue. Still, if the FARC continues to display trust in the political system, and the number of FARC defectors does not continue to grow, this distrust may begin to dissipate.

The signing of the November 2016 peace process provided the foundations for a bridge to ending decades of conflict. That bridge is far from built. Bringing attention to Londoño’s campaign is less important for the message his party produces, and more so for the possibility of both greater social and market stability in the long term.

 

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This article first ran on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Anthony Tipping.

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The New Year didn’t bring any respite for Albania’s beleaguered government as January saw the renewal of public protests with tens of thousands descending on capital Tirana, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama over his alleged links to organized crime.

The leader of the ruling Socialist Party has denied accusations of wrong-doing, although former minister Saimir Tahiri is currently under investigation for corruption and drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the opposition – led by the recently deposed, center-right Democratic Party – insists that cabinet members are exploiting their position for personal gain, while ordinary citizens struggle to survive on a few hundred euros a month in one of Europe’s poorest nations.

Unfortunately, the political elite’s tendency to benefit from corruption and collusion with organized crime groups is a pattern across the region – one that the EU has made clear it won’t ignore as it starts to devote renewed attention to the Western Balkans’ membership drive.  Indeed, just this week, the European Commission released a new regional strategy, saying that Montenegro and Serbia could be ready to join the bloc by 2025 and extending support to Albania and the three other aspiring members in the region. However, the Commission emphasized that lawmakers in all six countries will need to show real results in addressing persistent issues of crime, corruption, and patchy rule of law if they want to move forward.

Albania: Europe’s cannabis capital

The surging lawlessness in Albania was largely the result of the violent transition from Soviet state to self-ruling economy in the 1990s, which in turn led to the unchecked growth of organized crime groups. The country has since become a point of entry for drugs being smuggled into the EU and its home-grown, if illegal, cannabis trade has long been ignored by politicians who haven’t had the political will to tackle the gangs who profit from its continuance.

To be fair, the government can claim some success. In 2014, a successful police operation focusing on drugs hub Lazarat in southern Albania saw the arrest of more than 100 people, the seizure of cash and hashish and the closure of a number of illegal labs. However, no gang bosses were arrested, leading some to speculate that they were enjoying the benefit of high-level political protection. It’s also worth noting that the raid had the knock-on effect of stabilizing drug prices in the region which had been on the point of collapse.

Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha has admitted that it was unofficial government strategy during his administration to turn a blind eye to the processing and distribution of illegal drugs from Lazarat, as it enabled them to contain cannabis production, while underpinning claims that progress against drug smuggling was being made.

A Balkan-wide struggle

It’s a comparably dismal state of affairs in neighboring Montenegro, which has an ambitious EU accession target date of 2025 but where the escalating violence by criminal gangs has led to accusations of tacit government collusion. Police have stepped up patrols in Podgorica and Kotor following a string of clashes between rival Montenegrin gangs over the past year, but few arrests have been made. The towns have long been favored by criminal groups, most famously by drug baron Darko Saric – who was jailed in 2015 for smuggling cocaine from South America with a number of co-defendants, many of whom are still on the run. Gang warfare has also spilled over into Serbia, where it’s alleged that gang members with Serbian citizenship are also receiving support from people in positions of power.

Unfortunately, there is little hope for change with the expected return of strongman politician and former prime minister Milo Djukanovic to power following presidential elections slated for this April.  He bowed out of politics after the 2016 elections, yet over the past 25+ years he has twice before quit public office while maintaining considerable political influence. It is easy to see why, given the evidence that he has used his time in power to build lucrative ties with organized crime groups and to enrich his own associates.

EU membership no panacea

Even existing EU member states in the Balkans have been unable to shake off accusations of corruption and links with organized crime, notably in Romania. A new government was recently formed under the leadership of the country’s first female prime minister, Viorica Dancila, but it’s feared that little will change in the immediate future.

Although pledging to reduce bureaucracy and increase wages – as well as fast-tracking the construction of an extensive new road and rail system – Dancila supports proposals introduced by the ruling Social Democratic (PSD) party designed to make it harder to prosecute corruption and over which the European Commission (EC) has expressed concerns. The policies have already triggered mass protests in Bucharest.

Dancila is the third Romanian premier in seven months and is seen by some as prime minister in name only, with PSD chairman Liviu Dragnea calling the shots from behind the scenes as he is prohibited from taking office due to a conviction for vote-rigging. Dancila will have her work cut out convincing the public (and the EC) that her government is committed to fighting corruption given that five cabinet members are the subjects of current corruption investigations.

With the EU intimating the possibility of accession talks in mid-2018, Albania has begun efforts to clean up its act. These include the recent firing of the national police chief, Haki Cako, under whose auspices cannabis cultivation actually increased – despite his assertions that his force had ‘uprooted’ cannabis all over Albania.

Nevertheless, with Brussels getting tough about requirements for would-be joiners, it remains to be seen whether Albania’s attempts to address the country’s deeply entrenched criminality will bear fruit in the form of coveted EU membership.

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Addis Ababa is a very active city even by night. Taken near Bole MehaneAlem – Edna Mall.

Not many may know that Ethiopia was among the first countries to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when the latter was formed on 27 December 1945.  Nevertheless, it took another 72 years for Ethiopia to welcome its first visit from the IMF Managing Director, in this case, Christine Lagarde who in December 2017 visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and met with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. This followed the IMF’s  assertion that in 2017 Ethiopia’s economy surpassed Kenya’s to become East Africa’s largest economy. Lagarde’s visit served as the latest stamp of approval for Ethiopia’s bold plan to reach lower-middle income status by 2025.

Ethiopia’s growing economy

It was Ethiopia’s late President Meles Zenawi who crafted Ethiopia’s ambitious goal of becoming a lower middle-income country by 2025. Following victory in 1991, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) set in motion far-reaching economic reforms aiming to transform this poverty-stricken nation into a “developmental state” while maintaining an iron grip on power. Although achieving lower middle-income status by 2025 is ambitious, Ethiopia is making strides in combating poverty and improving economic conditions with the poverty rate falling from 44% in 2000 to 23.5% in 2015-16 (IMF, 2017).

Ethiopia’s government has made great strides in raising Human Development indicators, increasing female labour force participation as well as pursuing pro-poor growth policies. In the last decade Ethiopia has consistently registered double-digit GDP growth buoyed by state-led investments in infrastructure and manufacturing. According to the IMF Ethiopia’s economy will expand by 8.5% in 2017/18.

This growth will be supported by infrastructure spending and Ethiopia’s attempts to become a regional manufacturing base, in contrast to resource dependent economies in Africa such as Nigeria. The 2014 fall in commodity prices has had a negligible impact on Ethiopia’s growth trajectory and for this reason Ethiopia is becoming the new standard for a working, non-resource rich, African economy.

Ethiopia’s investment in infrastructure and manufacturing

Ethiopia is driving economic growth through the government’s laser-like focus on sectors such as manufacturing, energy and infrastructure. A notable example can be found in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) where Ethiopia plans to leverage the Blue Nile to become Africa’s largest exporter of electricity. Although the GERD will boost the economy and meet Ethiopia and its neighbour’s energy needs the plan is facing severe pushback from Egypt which is traditionally the kingmaker when it comes to the River Nile. How Ethiopia negotiates this risk will be a key indicator of whether it achieves its goal of becoming a regional power supplier to neighbouring countries vis-à-vis Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan.

In terms of infrastructural investments, Ethiopia is fast becoming a destination of choice forChinese investors. 2018 was ushered in with the opening of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway which cost $4 billion and was funded by Chinese state-owned rail and construction firms as part of China’s transformative One Belt One Road Initiative. The Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway connects the landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti’s port which is significant as Djibouti handles 95% of Ethiopia’s cargo. With a growing population of 105 million Ethiopia is waking up to the perils of its landlocked status and dependence on Djibouti’s ports as proven by its recently acquired stake in Somaliland’s Berbera port. The ways in which Ethiopia capitalises on its economic linkages with neighbouring states will be key to it reaching lower-middle income status by 2025.

In addition to state-led Chinese investment, private Chinese companies have also invested in Ethiopia, creating over 28,000 jobs, mainly in the manufacturing sector. It was during the 21-year reign of autocrat Meles Zenawi that Ethiopia put in motion its industrial strategy that prioritises labour intensive sectors such as manufacturing as a means to create employment opportunities for its large and mostly poor population. Ethiopia has seen some success in manufacturing due to the creation of various industrial parks and the reduction of bureaucratic red tape for businesses through the introduction of “one-stop shop” type regulatory services from the government.

Outlook

Ethiopia’s new-found economic confidence is embodied by its state-owned, national carrier Ethiopia Airlines which has grown to become one of the world’s fastest growing airlines.Ethiopia Airlines recently overtook South Africa Airways to become Africa’s largest carrier in terms of revenue and profit. Ethiopia Airlines has succeeded through its policy of establishing multiple global hubs and expanding to more than 120 destinations with regular flights to key cities such as Rio De Janeiro, London, Shanghai, Beijing and Washington DC among others.

However, Ethiopia’s most consistent economic risk factor is its historically weak private sector. Ethiopia’s policy of “state-led capitalism” has prevented the emergence of a strong private sector, especially when compared to regional peers such as Kenya where the dynamic private sector is driving growth. To put this into perspective, Ethiopia’s 105 million citizens are served by the state-owned Ethio Telecom which has a monopoly on all telecommunication and mobile services. The Ethiopian government is waking up to the need for competition in key sectors as highlighted in the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) which aims to strengthen private sector development andincrease FDI.

Despite this, the state has no shown no appetite for privatisation in key sectors such as telecoms and banking where it considers state-owned monopolies and enterprises as cash cows. Going forward, Ethiopia’s ability to reach lower-middle income status by 2025 will be characterised by its ability to reduce the power of large, state-owned enterprises (SOE’s). Other policies for the state to pursue include implementing Public-Private Partnerships (PPP’s) and economic reforms aimed at driving efficiency and stimulating competition in the economy.

Although Ethiopia has made great strides in terms of development, it is in the political sphere that Ethiopia faces the greatest risks in the medium and long term. Although Ethiopia’s “Ethnic Federalism” governance model afforded it stability during the reign of strongman Meles Zenawi, recent cracks have emerged under Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. Examples include the ongoing protests of Oromo activists opposed to the government’s forceful seizure of their ancestral lands around Addis Ababa in the name of FDI. As such, Ethiopia’s ability to maintain consistent economic growth will be tied to its ability to integrate marginalised communities who need to be persuaded that they too have a stake in Ethiopia’s bold, new future.

 

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This article was first published on Global Risk Insights and was written by Bashir Ali.

The post Under the Radar: Ethiopia’s economic growth offers opportunities and challenges appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Picture from City of Cape Town. (Source: Alberton Record)

Cape Town, South Africa (a city of four million people) is at a dangerous inflection point.
National Public Radio (NPR) reports that South Africa’s second main economic driver and
Africa’s third main economic hub city could be the first major city in the developed world to run
out of water, if residents do not heed new stricter water measures. The New York Times (NYT)
reported that “the day of reckoning the government has tagged as “Day Zero” will surpass
anything a major city has faced since World War II or the Sept. 11 attacks. So how did one of
Africa’s most promising cities – one that boasted high “green” credentials – so rapidly find itself
without water?

A Convergence of Factors

One of the undisputed story lines of this national emergency is that the Southern Africa region
has become drier in recent years. However, the cause of this dryness is somewhat disputed by
scientists. Experts such as Piotr Wolski, a hydrologist at the University of Cape Town who has
tracked rainfall in the region for most of the last two decades believe that climate change has
exasperated dryness in a historically dry region. Climate models support Mr. Wolski’s forecast
that Cape Town will remain on a dry trajectory and that precipitation will become less
predictable in the coming decades.

Other internationally renowned scientists like Dr. Augusto Jose Pereira Filho, (Professor of
atmospheric science at São Paulo University) believes that there are other atmospheric dynamics
in play causing the protracted dryness. He explained in an email response that lower mean water
temperatures in the Southern hemisphere continues to reduce ocean evaporation leading to a dry
lower atmosphere (read: no moisture for cloud formation) across the Southern Africa region.

This is the same cooler ocean and dry atmosphere dynamic Dr. Filho argued in 2015 was the
leading cause of Brazil’s once in a century drought in 2015. Though the precise causal factors
are debatable (i.e., how much is stunted ocean evapotranspiration versus how much is locked in
CO2 induced temperature rise), there is little argument as to who is getting the brunt of the blame
for Cape Town’s nightmare.

Lots of Finger Pointing

The much disputed part of the crisis backstory is how much city planners did to prepare for a
scenario that many warned was not only possible, but inevitable. According to David Olivier,
who studies climate change at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Global Change Institute,
“The national government has dragged its feet.” It is further alleged that in the first two years of
the drought, the unpopular African National Congress (ANC) led national government failed to
limit water supplies to farmers (the large wine industry ) thus intensifying the problem. But the
finger pointing doesn’t stop there.
It is also argued that the city government didn’t make common sense investments that could have
averted the crisis such as tapping into local aquifers and investing in desalination plants. Another
contributing stressor is rapid population growth as tens of thousands of regional migrants flowed
into a city that has been on the upswing seeking employment.

To diffuse culpability city officials have blamed residents for not heeding previous water
consumption edicts and restrictions. The embattled Mayor, Patricia de Lille alleges that well over
half the residents are not heeding warnings and she has threatened to impose fines. Ms. de Lille,
who is embroiled in a corruption scandal and facing a possible recall is staying the course
stating recently, “I’m committed to making sure that this well-run city does not run out of
water…We can all avoid Day Zero but we must do it together.”

Unfortunately, many don’t share her optimism and it is reported that talks are underway with
South Africa’s police to start planning for the impending chaos because “normal policing will be
entirely inadequate.” The city is hoping for the best and planning for the worst in advance of
“Day Zero” – a historic tipping point that will occur before the end of April if the already
implemented countermeasures (e.g., rationing and water sourcing) prove not to be effective.

Not the First; won’t be the Last

Sao Paulo, northern California, Paris (experiencing the heaviest rains in 50 years), Houston, and
Puerto Rico, and now, Cape Town are just representative examples of regions that were
grievously unprepared for protracted changes in weather patterns. Poor planning under-girded by
complacency (or misinformation) about the disruptive capacity of climate change effects, is a big
reason populations continue to be unnecessarily injured by a phenomenon that scientists,
politicians and activists have been warning about for over a decade.

Lastly, the most salient lesson to be learned from this unfolding drama is the imperative for
policy makers to factor environmental variability into their governance calculus, or face the risk
of tremendous loss of faith at best, or popular unrest at worst. This clarion call to action will
continue to ring true for many years to come.

The post Cape Town Awaits “Day Zero” appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Lula may face over 10 years in prison, or become re-elected as President

A well known song from Antonio Carlos e Jocafi could easily run though someone’s mind when reading about corruption in their native Brazil. Voce abusou, or You abuse me is how many citizens feel when members from political parties or elite members of a society take advantage of the public purse. It is not only a financial drain on society, but in order to ensure success of the few over the many the political system must be corrupted along with agencies, branches of government and even the judiciary. While politics permeates all institutions in society, even judicial ones at times, the complete corruption of a system always leads to the people being ignored and abused. Challenging the powers that be often results in extreme actions like humiliating and destroying opponents via ad hominem campaigning, and in some cases even going to the extremes of prison or death.

When a small group of people, be it political agents or an entire party, focuses more on their own ability to win a seat in their government’s capital than the people themselves, the system changes and rots from above. Corrupting the elite leads to an understanding from others in the institutions that success comes in the shadows, and at a certain point achievements become a standardization of abusive policies against the general public and individuals. For a small group to do literally anything to have access to the public purse is always to the detriment of others in society. Besides the open fight for free and fair elections, a barrier to corruption systemically is the judiciary.

Corruption can take place in many forms. Even in a country like Canada, a top aid to a former Premier of the largest Province of Ontario was recently convicted for knowingly hiding actions and erasing public documents relating to over one billion dollars being wasted out of the public purse. This was done so that his party could win a few seats in a past election. The loss of that amount of money from the public without anything to show for it damages the society on many levels. Any future efforts to improve a community are halted with that amount of money lost for the sake of a few greedy people. They effectively destroyed the opportunity for two new major hospitals from possibly being built in their community, possible social housing, welfare, employment insurance coverage and reduced power costs for the most vulnerable in their society, for the sake of a few politicians and their jobs. When funds are stolen or squandered, taxes rise to cover corruption, and those who contribute to society are punished and castigated for continuing to build their own fair societies. In Brazil, these types of issues are amplified many times over, and their judiciary has taken on the task to crush corrupt practices, even if it could be politically impossible to succeed.

The conviction of former popular President Lula da Silva to twelve years in prison for corrupt actions he took during his time in office in the 2000s may show Brazil and the world that corruption must be ended without fail. Whether or not he will serve any part of his sentence remains to be seen. The application of guilt in a fair trial might do more to halt a possible return to politics for Lula than serve justice through his sentence, as the difficulty in reversing corruption once it is institutionalized is almost impossible. With so many political agents in Brazil facing corruption charges, the politics of those in power will flood the judicial process with everything they can to muddy the process, and will likely hinder fairness in that process. A victory for justice in a corrupt system is really any victory that can be claimed, and in societies that are not yet wholly corrupted, a strong a forceful application of justice should be applied not only as the resulting judgment, but as deterrent against abusing the rest of us that just wish to put in a fair days work for our daily bread.

The post Voce Abusou: Corruption as a Permanent Impairment to Society appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

As Narendra Modi welcomes ASEAN leaders, can he balance non-interventionism with his desire for Indian strategic partnerships with ASEAN? India can still present itself as a credible counterweight to China, but not without embracing international norms of accountability.

Looking east

The 26 January marked India’s 69th Republic Day. New Delhi welcomed all ten heads of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to participate. Indian premier Narendra Modi portrayed it as a coup for his country’s diplomacy, with Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong, Malaysia’s Mohammad Najib Razak, Indonesia’s Joko Widodo and even Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in attendance as Modi’s guests.

This banner moment is the fruit of India’s “Look East” policy, launched in the early 1990s after decades of non-alignment. Look East marked a significant change in India’s attitude towards Southeast Asia. It has also proven remarkably durable through successive changes of government, perhaps because both sides see the other as an important partner in containing China.

In 2014, Modi took the policy a step further by directing Indian envoys to “Act East”. This means focusing not just on improved economic relations but also on a wider spectrum of co-operation. Act East has seen Modi visit nine of ten ASEAN member states, presaging a proactive strategic role within the region just as Donald Trump abandons the Obama-era “Pivot to Asia”.

In this vacuum, India is not the only regional power picking up the slack. China hassuccessfully stifled progress in the South China Sea thanks to its outsized economic influence over ASEAN. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has all but abandonedFilipino claims in the area in exchange for Chinese economic support. India, by contrast, offered a clear and forthright statement that seemingly reinforced its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the institutions of international law more broadly.

But it will take more than isolated cases or a large Republic Day coterie to prove India is ready for a proactive global role. Modi’s track record in two other crises highlight an enduring reticence to speak out against problematic partners, whether in India’s own neighbourhood or further afield.

Rejecting the Rohingya

While Aung San Suu Kyi visits New Delhi as an honoured guest, many of her countrymen receive a harsher reception. A growing number of Rohingya refugees have fled to India since Myanmar opted for ethnic cleansing in October 2016; India’s response has been todeport those within its borders and ban the rest from entering. Indian border forces have been ordered to use “rude and crude” methods to keep refugees from crossing. The country also refused to endorse a declaration at last year’s World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development because it included an “inappropriate” reference to the Rohingya.

Explanations for this uncharacteristic hostility vary. India has close ties to Myanmar’s government. It is especially dependent on Myanmar for help against secessionist rebels who strike at India from secluded bases in mountainous northern Myanmar. India had nonetheless been a forthright critic of the former junta’s abuses. In a remarkable volte-face, Modi has opted instead for condemning Rohingya “terrorism”.

Domestic politics may also play a role. Modi is a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has a track record of ignoring mob violence against India’s Muslim communities. Opposition parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor has drawn a direct link between Modi’s political stripes and the deportations, saying it “appears to be prompted by the fact that they are primarily Muslims.”

What about the DRC?

Neither regional priorities nor domestic politics explain Modi’s non-response to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite the distance, India contributes the largest contingent of peacekeepers to the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). At least 17 Indian peacekeepers have died there.

The Congolese government is currently undoing the stability Indian soldiers have fought and died for. President Joseph Kabila’s tenure constitutionally ended in 2016, but elections have been put off and Kabila remains in power. He has engineered a lethal crackdown on the pro-democracy movement demanding his ouster: six people were killed and hundreds detained during protests organised by the Catholic Church on 21 January.

Kabila has also kept the opposition candidate best positioned to replace him, former regional governor Moïse Katumbi, out of the DRC by pressuring the judiciary to convict him on spurious charges. That has not stopped Katumbi from heightening international pressure on Kabila, but it has stopped him from returning home.

India has had little to say about Kabila’s actions. Instead, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj stressed in November that the Modi government enjoys “close and friendly relations” with the DRC. She also discussed lines of credit to the Congolese government, even as other foreign investors are dissuaded by the Kabila government’s rampant corruption and its business partners come under American sanctions.\

Tight grip on a hands-off approach

Though India has a long tradition of humanitarianism, cold geopolitics have apparently trumped idealism. In doing so, is Narendra Modi abandoning one of democratic India’s key advantages over authoritarian China in the struggle over Asia’s balance of power?

If so, there is still time to change course. India’s new “Act East” outlook could well fill the normative vacuum left by the Trump administration as well as the strategic one. India is one of the few regional powers with the economic, military and moral clout to counterbalance Chinese dominance of ASEAN, a challenge that has acquired a renewedsense of urgency with China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. Modi may be ready to indulge in power politics, but neither hard power nor an expanded Republic Day guest list will be enough to keep ASEAN from slowly being drawn into the Chinese orbit.

 

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This article first appeared on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Nicholas Leong.

The post India looks east, but is it ready to act? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Volcanic schism dominates the landscape in the Islamic world. Sectarian civil wars rage in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Yemen is the worst humanitarian disaster in the world as a result of a ruthless war campaign spearheaded by Saudi Arabia—a nation that, ironically, carries the Islamic declaration of faith on its flag and is the site of two holiest mosques. There are fanatical insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Mali and Somalia.

The latter still remains the embodiment of self-destruction and institutional corruption. It is a ‘geographical expression’ that lacks vision, sovereign authority, and sense of nationhood. It is a resource-rich nation that accepted being the poster-child of perpetual misery. It is a psychologically subjugated and spiritually dysfunctional nation that constantly digs itself into a new geopolitical quicksand.

Somalia is the microcosm of the Muslim ummah or the Islamic nation.

Fifty seven nation states that are members of OIC are reduced to being spectators or at best agonizing over the ethnic-cleansing of the Rohingya people, systematic genocide of the Palestinian people and annexation of holy sites.

For centuries Muslims have been trailing in thought-production, technology, political stability, good governance, and human rights. To emerge out this disgraceful and seemingly hopeless condition requires a mega mirror to reveal the ugly state of our affairs and a thorough introspective process. Granted there are foreign factors and sinister elements that contributed to this ugly state of affairs. But bear in mind only after the internal causes are corrected could the external ones be corrected.

The Raging-foam Syndrome

It is hard for Muslims to ignore the daunting resemblance of current times to that which Prophet Muhammad has prophesized; a time in which nations will summon each other to encircle Muslims and feast upon them. When asked if it was due to smallness of the Muslim population, the Prophet answered: ‘No; you will be numerous.’ Then he added the quality of your moral character would be like scum or foam. You will be afflicted with “al-wahn” or obsession with privileges and luxuries, and extreme fear of anything that could end it.

Today, Dubai—the glittering façade of a degenerate city of lust, greed, and gluttony sustained by foreign military mercenaries—became the success model or the highest aspiration of many Muslim nations. The alternative model still remains brute power to ensure the privilege of the few at the expense of the deprived masses.

In recent decades, the Islamic world has produced some of the most vicious and most corrupt tyrants who would destroy their own countries for their personal power and privilege till they force a tipping of public wrath. Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh was the latest to be flushed down in the sewage system of history.

Suppressing Scholars and Intellectuals 

Only a few decades after the death of Prophet Muhammad, a chain of Muslim rulers who lacked legitimacy started to recruit or promote their own pseudo scholars or clerics who looked the part but whose primary role was to provide fatwas or moral covers to the political shenanigans of their patron rulers or tyrants. So, sectarian zeal and jingoistic loyalty became the litmus test and the process through which the ummah still manipulated and exploited.

Today, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim scholars and intellectuals are empty-talkers, propagandists or flamethrowers of al-assabiyyah which describes a condition of extreme emotional attachment to one’s religious sect (Sunni, Shi’, Suffi, etc.), school of thought (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’, Hanbeli, Ja’fari, etc.), or religio-political identity (Salafi, Ikhwani, Huthi, Islahi, etc.).

Against that backdrop, two essential elements that propelled the Islamic civilization of yesteryear have corroded: genuine pursuit of truth and Ijtihad.

Ijtihad is a thought-processing mechanism to extract meanings or provide new interpretations to existing ones within the moral boundaries of faith. A century ago, Allama Muhammed Iqbal has warned the colonized minds of heedless ummah about the prevalence of suppression of intellectual and spiritual inquiry in the Islamic world. “The door of interpretation (ijtihad) cannot be closed. Because a door that has been kept open by the Qur’an and Sunnah (Prophetic teachings), can be shut by them alone and no one else,” he wrote. Iqbal reasserted what Muslims have long forgotten: spiritual inquiry and rational quest for meaning is a God-ordained process to acquire and produce knowledge.

Genuine Muslim scholars and intellectuals are those who are motivated by pursuit of truth and advancement of the common good. They are not enticed by power, privilege or wealth. Their main role is to enlighten the masses and keep power in check while preventing senseless rock bottom rebellion and anarchy.

Tyranny of ‘Reform’

Though the Islamic world, more specifically the Middle East, is the center of gravity of international politics and competition for strategic or energy resources, by the large, Muslim rulers in those countries have very little or no political clout to advance their respective national interests let alone make a world impact. Most are charlatans whose foreign policies are handicapped by inferiority complex and their domestic policies are emboldened by their tyrannical impulses. They readily put their nations’ interests last so long as their positions of authority are secured, their privileges are sustained, and their images are polished with superficial grace.

If the Arab Spring was the people’s raw expression against abuse of political power, against economic disenfranchisement and corruption, these destructive ills are still present in many Arab and Islamic countries and in some cases even more pronounced. The Muhammad Bin Salman phenomenon in Saudi Arabia is an example.

As a de facto King, he has been asserting unchecked authority that is making his country at-risk for political implosion. He spearheaded the catastrophic war in Yemen, weapons-purchase frenzy that is draining the Saudi economy, and the Qatar blockade. He imprisoned a large number of religious scholars, princes, media moguls and professionals who could have challenged his legitimacy and appetite for power-grab. They are all declared guilty of corruption without any judicial process.

So, the de facto King declared anti-corruption campaign and imposed austerity measures while maintaining his exclusive right for exuberant extravagance- a luxury chateau in France for over $300 million $500 million yacht and a $450 million painting.

Then you have the Egyptian and the Turkish opposition-purge or collective punishment models. None of these models are morally justified in Islam.

The Prophetic Model

Rhetoric aside, Muslims have drifted away from the moral principles that led Prophet Muhammad and his companions change the world and establish a global civilization.

First: unwavering sense of justice and fairness. While most may proclaim it, man cannot truly uphold justice and fairness without acknowledging the delusion of self-sufficiency and without declaring the Divine supremacy over him. The one who acknowledges and upholds God’s rights upon him is likely to uphold the rights of other human-beings.

Second: aspiring for excellence in all matters, and dealing with other human-beings in the best manner possible. With such approach coexistence with others who maybe different or espouse different beliefs becomes much easier.

Third: taking responsibility very seriously and being compassionate and beneficial to all people. And because families constitute the early stages of community formation, those who fulfill their familial responsibilities are likely to benefit the society at large.

Fourth: refraining from and preventing all aspects of corruption- moral, financial, political, social decadence and sins that harm self and others.

Fifth: refraining from and preventing heedlessness, overt or shameless behaviors that destroy all ethical boundaries and promote moral anarchy.

Sixth: refraining from and preventing against all form of transgression whether against the Will of God or against other human-beings.

These core principles encapsulated in a verse in the Qur’an were operationalized through a system of governance that promoted and protected these objectives: Sanctity of life, faith, property, family and intellect.

Prophet Muhammad was conscious of the fact that no relationship can be built on a zero-sum foundation. Sustainable relationships—domestically and internationally—are built upon trust, ethical conduct and certain level of sacrifices.

Getting Back On Track

The human-being is divinely hardwired to search for meaning in life. So as a rational being, inquiries and discoveries in the moral and material realms of life lend the person reason to exist. They are the wheels that propel the process to reimagine and reinterpret. Any society that fails to reassess its social, political, economic, and spiritual vison to match the ever-evolving generational aspirations and challenges would have to face immanent decay.

Islam is a universal faith. As such, interaction and collaboration with the rest of humanity is a divine obligation. And that can only materialize after we change our individual and collective mindset.  Numerous verses in the Qur’an underscore the importance of using the mind and intellect and warn against sectarian groupthink and blind loyalty.

It is time for Muslims to reclaim the Islam of inclusivity that transformed broken persons, tribes, and nations. It is time to reinvigorate the Islamic values of thinking before acting; connecting to the hearts before the minds, and purifying the intention before trying to reform. Ponder, plan or simply perish.

** Article was first published by The Muslim Vibe

The post The Ailing Muslim Conscience: It’s time to reclaim the Islam of inclusivity appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Trump’s State of the Union. Turkey intensifies operations in Syria. Merkel mends her coalition. All this in The Week Ahead.

UNITED STATES: Trump’s State of the Union:

• President Trump will present his State of the Union Address to Congress this Tuesday, following a rough week that included a government shutdown, controversy in Davos, and revelations that he tried to fire special counsel Robert Muller. Given the numerous issues facing Congress right now, it is unlikely that Trump’s speech will bring forth any new legislative priorities, though it may prove a useful distraction for the press and Republican leadership.
• Should the President lay out an immigration platform agreeable to Congressional Democrats, this could become an important speech for both resolving the fate of 700,000 Dreamers in the United States as well as initiating a more stable budget vote. Additionally, should the president mention infrastructure and discuss it beyond broad platitudes, he may be able to jump start negotiations on a major infrastructure bill ahead of midterm elections this November.

GRI Take: Don’t expect any radical new policies from Trump’s State of the Union Speech as the current budget crisis occupies most of his attention. However, if Trump announces reforms for DACA recipients, he has the potential to bolster his own popularity and hasten the end of the Congressional budget showdown.

TURKEY: Turkey’s Operation ‘Olive Branch’ escalates as hundreds return injured:

• This week, the Turkish military’s Operation Olive Branch is likely to escalate as Turkey seeks to eradicate Syrian Kurdish forces from the area of Afrin. U.S. support for the Syrian Kurds has long angered Turkey, as Turkey views the Syrian Kurds as an extension of the U.S. designated terror group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and a threat to its internal safety. Efforts to deescalate fell flat, as both Trump and Erdogan came away from last week’s phone call with a radically different understanding of the situation.
• The escalation also follows reports that as many as 130 members of Turkey’s armed forces returned injured from Olive Branch. If Turkey had thought this to be an easy fight, it is in for a surprise. It will be difficult for Turkey to quickly eradicate the YPG, given their fighting experience, well-trained and equipped forces, and U.S. support. Adding further complications to this matter, the Syrian government has threatened to shoot down any Turkish plane it finds in its territory. This could limit the Turkish military’s ability to provide air cover or engage in less casualty-heavy military tactics in its fight to eliminate the YPG (People’s Protection Units).

GRI Take: Turkey will escalate operation ‘Olive Branch’ in the coming week, promising more schisms with its international allies. Its NATO allies, especially the U.S., oppose the operation, further alienating Turkey from the organization and its regional priorities.

GERMANY: Merkel looks to wrap up coalition talks this weekend, following tense negotiations between SPD and CDU/CSU:

• This Sunday, representatives from Angela Merkel’s CDU are expected to finalize an agreement to continue the grand coalition between her party and the Social Democrats (SPD), following intense opposition from several quarters of the SPD. There remain several major sticking points, particularly on immigration, that the two parties need to first hammer out. However, both have reached the conclusion that continuing to draw out talks will only further damage German public perception of both parties.
• Both the SPD and CDU have major motivations for holding a harder line in negotiations that will make any governing arrangement difficult. For the SPD, there is a consensus that the party’s close link to Angela Merkel’s previous government has negatively impacted their popularity across Germany. The party thus faces pressure to exert major concessions from the CDU. On the CDU side, any concession to the social democratic wing of the German spectrum could be viewed as an opportunity for the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) to gain voters from the center-right.
• The shape of the final coalition largely hinges on the actions of the AfD. As the 3rd largest political party in the Bundestag and largest outside government, the far right AfD will act as the largest voice of opposition to the CDU/SPD coalition. This could create strain for the coalition partners even after they enter into government as the rightward leaning CDU and left-leaning SPD attempt to reconcile their priorities while protecting their base from being poached by the AfD.

GRI Take: Merkel will get her coalition; however, in order to be effective over the long term, one of the two ruling parties will have to soften their stance on their platform policies.

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This article was originally published on Global Risk Insights.

The post The Week Ahead: 28 January-3 February 2018 appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Venezuela is closer than ever to a full-blown humanitarian crisis, with its population being unable to satisfy dietary requirements amidst a climate of hyperinflation and collapse of national productivity. The government, instead of formulating a clear exit strategy, is forcing supermarkets and consumer goods manufacturers to cut prices at severe losses, in a move that is sure to worsen the situation. GRI’s Juan Daniel Goncalves provides an insider’s view.

Venezuela boasts the highest cumulative inflation rate of the last decade, as well as increasingly unavailable and/or prohibitively expensive food and medicine. These problems have become so systemic that anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million people have left the country, and in 2016-2017 almost a third of Venezuelans reported a desire to emigrate.

Officially, the Venezuelan government wants to convince whoever bothers to listen that this in fact is not their fault, instead blaming US-orchestrated sabotage campaigns, and on the “economic war” – an alleged coordinated attack by the private sector against everyday Venezuelans. For those who have not yet raised an eyebrow, the government’s long practice of denying responsibility is easily debunkable with one telling statistic: ever since 2005, after the ruling PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) managed to reorganize public institutions under their full control by appointing party hardliners as leading bureaucrats, there has reportedly never been a Supreme Court ruling against the government in over 45,000 decisions.

The impact of hyperinflation

In any case, the most troublesome reality the PSUV does not want to recognize is that Venezuelans are starving, to the point were desperate lootings are now commonplaceacross the country.

A 2016 report by Venezuelan universities and NGOs revealed that approximately 74.3% of Venezuelans confessed to unplanned weight loss due to financial constraints. Since then, it is safe to assume that in a country plagued with a 2017 cumulative hyperinflation of above 2000% – citizens’ purchasing power have continued to worsen, and with it, their quality of life.

To further illustrate the ramifications of hyperinflation’s effect on Venezuelans’ pockets, Harvard professor Ricardo Haussmann published a statistic where he shows that in order to be able to afford the country’s cheapest calorie – yucca – at around 30 BsF, for a daily intake of 2000 kcal (what is recommended for an average adult female) throughout a span of a month, a person must earn at least 1,800,000 BsF. This feat is quite impossible as the current minimum monthly salary together with food stamps as of 18 January 2018 amounts to 800,000 BsF (it is worth noting that there would be no leftover money for utilities, transportation, entertainment, education, etc).

Price manipulation

In light of the looming humanitarian crisis, and reminiscent of similar disastrous policiesimplemented in Zimbabwe merely a decade ago, on 5 January Nicolas Maduro called for major supermarkets as well as smaller, independent outlets to sell their products at “fair” prices, strong-arming businesses via the SUNDDE (National Superintendency of the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights) to sell at 15 December 2017 prices with the threat to “shut down” or “expropriate” non-compliants.

Retailers were essentially forced to sell much of their stock at an approximate 50% discount overnight due to inflation, in what business executives protested as something that left them “unaware if they were bankrupt or not”.

In an interesting twist, since most major supermarket chains in Venezuela are owned by the Portuguese immigrant community that came to Venezuela predominantly in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Luso-Venezuelan descendants were forced to call on Lisbon to intercede on their behalf. Senior level Portuguese officials – including Portugal’s minister of Foreign Affairs Augusto Campos Silva – flew into Venezuela to meet with the Portuguese community and affected business owners and hear their pleas, before a scheduled official sit-down with his Venezuelan counterpart Jorge Arreaza.

Most likely as a result of these meetings, it seems now that the SUNDDE and ANSA (National Association of Supermarkets) have reached an agreement in which “the Executive made a commitment to guarantee that supermarkets would be able to repose their stock and there would not be any new measures that would imply products to be sold in accordance with the December cost structure”. It can also be interpreted that Venezuela did not want to risk to losing a lukewarm friend in Europe, especially as Arreaza “stressed that there is a very close relationship with Portugal that they will maintain and reinforce”, according to state media. This is also in light of the PSUV becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage after the loss of major allies in the Ecuadorian, Argentine, and Brazilian governments, to name a few.

Venezuelan government in a bind

Having encountered a snag in their supermarket witch-hunt, the SUNDDE decided instead to go after major consumer goods manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, and Bimbo in an effort to cut prices somewhere along the supply chain and give desperate Venezuelans access to what can be interpreted as a “food-for-today-none-for-tomorrow”.

However, there doesn’t seem to be a resolution in sight, as the Caracas Chamber of Commerce has strongly rejected what they call “arbitrary rejections of price fixing via authoritarian practices that do not resolve the crisis, but rather deepen it and cause anxiety amidst the population that fears that inventory will disappear, mainly food and medicines, (in a climate where) there is an absolute absence of reasons to keep producing”.

Perhaps what the SUNDDE will find in face-to-face meetings with manufacturers will be nothing short of a game of chicken, with manufacturers finding no alternative but to shut down completely in light of the regulator’s constant threats of further controls or expropriation.

In other words, the traditionally populist government of Venezuela is in a bind.

From a risk point of view, Venezuela seems to be heading inevitably down a road in which the government fails to address the productivity and monetary policy problems that are causing the endemic situation – Venezuela’s GDP in 2018 is estimated to contract by 11.9%. Most likely only a major change in the composition of the government would bring about the sensible policy required to rein in the spiral of chaos.

—

This piece was origionally written for Global Risk Insights by Juan Daniel Goncalves.

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Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani

The Kurdistan Regional Government is presently calling upon the international community including the United States, the EU and the UN to intervene in order to bring the Central Government in Baghdad to the negotiating table: “The restrictive policies adopted by Baghdad against Erbil are in violation of Iraq’s obligations and responsibilities under international and humanitarian law, and its duty as a state to respect and protect its citizens, including those displaced, and to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals and groups.”

According to the Kurdistan Regional Government, reducing the Kurdistan Region’s budget in the 2018 Draft Budget Bill without involving the Kurdistan Regional Government, closing off the Kurdistan Region’s airspace, and travel restrictions are among measures of collective punishment being implemented by the Central Government in Baghdad against the Kurdistan Region. In fact, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani stressed that the Iraqi Central Government has even stopped sending medical supplies to the Kurdistan region, even though the area recently suffered a horrendous 7.3 magnitude earthquake. The KRG stressed that these measures adversely affect 1.5 million displaced persons who have taken refuge in the Kurdistan region.

“With winter fast approaching, many displaced persons, including Yezidis, Christians, and recently displaced people from Kirkuk, Tuz Khourmatu and other areas, will be without critical supplies, specialized assistance, and care provided by UN agencies, NGOs, and other international organizations,” the KRG statement read. “Erbil and Suleimaniya airports are vital to meet the humanitarian needs of displaced people and the basic needs of our general population, including emergency medical evacuation of civilians as well as victims and military personnel wounded in the fight against ISIS. Moreover, restriction of movement is detrimental to peace, stability and progress in a globalized world.”

As we speak, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi refuses to engage in dialogue with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Furthermore, he wants the Peshmerga to become part of the “Iraqi government security forces or a small local force.” He added: “All border crossings in and out of Iraq must be under the exclusive control of the federal state.” This would include the Kurdish oil pipeline to Turkey, which is a major source of income for the Kurdistan Regional Government.

As Abadi seeks additional punitive measures against the Kurdistan Regional Government, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani calls for dialogue: “The Kurdish government and political parties are ready to fully engage in negotiations with Baghdad in order to resolve all disputes through understanding and based on the constitution. The KRG is ready for talks that would achieve the best interests of Iraq and the Kurdistan region. We don’t think that these issues can be solved militarily. They need serious political talk.”

“The UN, EU, ICRC, the US and NGOs, and other members of the international community are essential to serve the humanitarian needs of displaced people hosted by the Kurdistan Regional Government,” the Kurdistan Regional Government stressed. The Kurdistan Regional Government seeks American and international assistance in bringing Iraq to the negotiating table. All of the parties should help Barzani to overcome this crisis. He needs the international community to force Iraq to overcome this crisis for without their assistance, the situation for one of America’s strongest allies in the region is seriously deteriorating.

“We call on the international community to intercede in urging Baghdad authorities to lift the embargo, without condition, on international flights,” the Kurdistan Regional Government emphasized. “The international community’s attention and action would be deeply appreciated in mediating and lifting air embargos and other collective restrictions in order to minimize and avoid adverse effects on vital humanitarian services, health and education services, food security, security against terrorism, jobs and income security in the Kurdistan Region.”

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Nearly eclipsing the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Euromaidan protests last Tuesday was the latest in the ongoing scandal surrounding former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

According to newly released records, the beleaguered political consultant traveled to Moscow at least 18 times during his nearly decade’s worth of work for the pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected as president in 2010 and ousted in 2014. The revelations suggest his consulting and business activities were far more closely linked with Russia than he initially revealed.

Manafort has been the subject of intense scrutiny over his work for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which culminated last month when a grand jury indicted him and his former colleague Rick Gates on a range of charges as part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The political consultant has claimed that his work was intended to boost Ukraine’s integration with Europe, but the flight records put the lie to a tale that was already hanging from a thread.

Meanwhile, as Washington focuses on Manafort’s alleged ties with the Kremlin and Mueller’s wider Russia investigation, Ukrainians are wondering what the Manafort affair means for the prospect of eventually rooting out political corruption in their own country. And even if the writing’s on the wall, Kiev doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Revelations of Manafort’s skullduggery – not least the estimated $17 million he and his associates were paid by the Party of Regions – hits close to home for citizens in a country where the 50 richest own over 45% of GDP and that ranked 131st out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Even more frustrating for ordinary Ukrainians, despite promises by President Petro Poroshenko to root out corruption, he has, if anything, only helped cronyism become more entrenched.

Most recently, in response to the Manafort investigation, while government officials have said they are willing to assist US authorities, observers shouldn’t hold their breaths. After all, even though the alleged wrongdoing occurred under the previous administration’s watch, Poroshenko’s government has a number of reasons to drag its feet. First, they are loath to derail relations with the White House by further delving into what is now a distinctly sore subject. But most importantly, Poroshenko and his allies worry that if the government opened up its own probe, this would have major consequences for Manafort’s wider network of contacts, not least the oligarchs and crooked officials who still make up a broad swath of the current political elite.

As a result, the country’s most powerful oligarchs are eager for the Manafort affair to blow over as soon as possible. These include men like the businessman Dmytro Firtash and the coal and metals tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, who rank among the wealthiest in the country and have a finger in nearly every pie – from the seats of parliament to the presidential palace to the country’s biggest conglomerates. It was they who helped Yanukovych hire Manafort to begin with and drove his efforts to boost his reputation in the West. But embarrassingly for the current government, they still pull a considerable amount of political clout.

For instance, Firtash – the billionaire oligarch and Party of Regions funder – has close ties with Manafort, having worked with him in a failed effort to buy the Drake Hotel in New York for $850 million in 2008. He has also been accused of essentially overseeing the process by which Poroshenko became president, having helped to organize a summit between former boxer Vitali Klitschko and Poroshenko in 2014. According to allegations, Firtash helped convince Klitschko to run for mayor of Kiev instead of the presidency, in a deal that fueled fury in a country tired of major political decisions being turned into gentlemen’s agreements.

Another oligarch who stands to suffer from a more in-depth investigation of Manafort’s sordid past is Rinat Akhmetov, the man responsible for bringing the political consultant to Ukraine in the first place. Ukraine’s wealthiest man, he is reported to have come out on top following a power struggle among organized crime groups in the 1990s over control for coal and metals assets in the former Soviet Union – assets that he has now organized under his holding company, System Capital Management (SCM).

While Akhmetov claims that he made his fortune thanks to wit and luck, the evidence suggests otherwise. Some claim that Akhmetov’s first stroke of good fortune came in 1995, when his mentor, Akhat Bragin, was killed along with his bodyguards in a bombing. Later, during the Yanukovych era, Akhmetov exerted considerable power as a key Party of Regions funder. Not surprisingly, during those same years, his businesses boomed, adding an estimated $3 billion to his bank accounts in a matter of months. Of course, like many of his fellow oligarchs, Akhmetov recognizes the importance of staying on the good side of the government: after he realized where the winds were blowing in 2013, he, Firtash, and other oligarchs switched teams, beginning to openly support the Euromaidan.

The result is that Poroshenko’s initial promises to enact a policy of “de-oligarchization” has ended in a coalition between the president and Akhmetov, the main heir of Ukraine’s entrenched system in crony capitalism. Parts of the latter’s hold over Ukraine’s economy have started to crack, especially after a London court ordered Akhmetov to pay almost $800 million and settle the debts accrued after the purchase of the state telecom company Ukrtelecom in 2013.

Poroshenko – a political turncoat and tycoon in his own right – thus represents only the latest iteration of oligarchical government in a country that remains, as ever, firmly under the thumb of corrupt interests. Given the tycoons’ enduring power and the government’s slow-moving efforts to tackle corruption, then, we shouldn’t be surprised if Kiev fails to use the Manafort affair as a catalyst for reforms. Yet the government’s likely reluctance to further investigate Manafort’s past – and his network of contacts with Ukraine’s deep state – represents a huge loss for a country that only four years ago had such high hopes for a new chapter in the country’s history.

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Although unhelpful, Trump’s tweets are not the essence of the issue.

President Donald J. Trump’s tweets are striking and unhelpful, but they do not explain the essence of the current strategic situation surrounding North Korea. The underlying dynamics are more deeply rooted than any one day’s headline, even if the current U.S. president has done more than his share to exacerbate the situation.

In terms of U.S. security issues in East Asia, there is a near-term threat concerning North Korea and a longer-term threat concerning China as a rising great power. A main goal in the near term has been to bolster cooperation among the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China in order to impose restraint on North Korea. In doing so, the U.S. administration would probably prefer stronger cooperation among itself, Japan, and South Korea inasmuch as China is itself viewed as potential threat. The widespread belief that only China has influence in Pyongyang, however, assures it a role in U.S. plans, perhaps a greater role than China prefers or is capable of.

The goal of maintaining this coalition through to a successful conclusion confronts both facilitating and hindering conditions. The main facilitating condition has been the behavior of North Korea, itself, which has gone a long way toward forcing the other countries together regardless of what the U.S. president does. Among hindering conditions are: a new, liberal South Korean administration that came into office with the express hope of improving relations with North Korea and China; a China and a South Korea that prefer diplomacy whereas the current U.S. administration prefers economic pressure and random, sometimes contradictory threats; a South Korean electorate that views Japan with extreme suspicion and contempt; countries other than China that have little leverage over North Korea; a China that views extreme pressure on a fragile North Korean economy as a possible prelude to the collapse of the North Korean regime (a traditional ally of China) and, subsequently, massive refugee flows and possibly war on the Korean Peninsula as South Korea, the United States, and China race to secure the North Korean territory first; and a North Korea that at this point has little incentive to make concessions.

While the main relationships have been sorting themselves out, side disputes among the partners add to the fissiparous pressures in the coalition. China and Japan, for instance, are engaged in a dispute over the ownership of islets (Diaoyu/Senkaku) in the East China Sea and over China’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in that area. South Korea and Japan have their own island dispute (Dokdo/Takeshima) in the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea, as the Koreans insist on calling it). Also, the previous South Korean administration agreed to the deployment of a U.S. THAAD missile-defense system on its territory to guard against possible North Korean missile strikes. China objected to the THAAD deployment, claiming that the system, and especially the associated radars, constituted the basis for a larger, regional system to be directed against China in the future. The new South Korean administration objected as well, but then agreed to complete the deployment owing to North Korea’s behavior. The THAAD dispute between China and South Korea appears to have been resolved in recent weeks—once China’s 19th Party Congress was safely out of the way and the deployment had been completed anyway—but the resolution included statements by South Korea that it will host no further missile-defense systems and that the current U.S.-Korean-Japanese collaboration will not grow into a permanent trilateral alliance. These are assurances that the U.S. administration would prefer that Seoul had not made.

One big, unanswered question is North Korea’s motivation for seeking nuclear weapons or, conversely, for agreeing to a mutually acceptable outcome, regardless of whether the other countries succeed in maintaining a united front. Pyongyang may have multiple goals for seeking nuclear weapons. As some commentators have suggested, it may hope to profit from selling weapons to other rogue countries. (North Korea does not have a great variety of attractive export items to offer.) It may hope to intimidate other countries. It may intend to deter U.S. intervention while forcefully reuniting the Korean Peninsula. These are all fine reasons for not wanting North Korea to get nukes. The fundamental underlying interest, however, is regime survival, especially when its main traditional ally appears to be colluding with the other side. Only with nuclear weapons can North Korea hope to defend itself against far larger adversaries.* Compared with the other possible motivations, this one is inherently difficult to negotiate away. Doing so would require an extreme degree of reassurance.

What end goal is the United States seeking through this collaboration? The stated objective (when the president is not alluding to destroying North Korea outright) is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. From North Korea’s perspective, however, this goal faces two obstacles that Americans, who do not tend to look at things from North Korea’s perspective, do not see. It is—again, from North Korea’s perspective—inherently unequal, and the United States cannot be trusted.

First, what does it mean to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula? As viewed from Washington, North Korea would be expected to eliminate its entire nuclear arsenal and eliminate the means for producing more. South Korea, for its part, has no nuclear weapons. What would the United States do? Withdraw its nuclear arsenal from South Korea to Guam or the U.S. mainland. In fact, the United States has already done this and has little further to offer in that regard. Once North Korea had destroyed its arsenal and production facilities, however, the United States could return its arsenal to South Korea overnight, or it could target North Korea from submarines or from bases in the United States without having to touch South Korean soil. For North Korea to accept this deal would require a high degree of confidence in the United States’ willingness to abide by the agreement.

What degree of confidence does Pyongyang have in the United States? Let’s view the history, from North Korea’s perspective. Saddam Hussein eliminated his nuclear program. (Sure, the Americans claim they didn’t believe it, but the North Koreans don’t trust Americans.) Then the United States attacked Iraq, and now Saddam Hussein is dead. Mu’ammar Qadhafi negotiated an explicit deal with the United States to give up his nuclear program in return for improved relations. Then the United States attacked Libya, and now Mu’ammar Qadhafi is dead. And frankly, the United States would be unlikely to simply stand by if the North Korean regime were to collapse. Beyond that, while many Americans will point out North Korea’s violation of the 1994 “Agreed Framework” in the early 2000s, the North Koreans will argue that the United States had never fulfilled its obligations under the agreement. (The United States was to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea and, together with South Korea and Japan, provide for the construction of two light-water reactors, which would have produced electricity for North Korea with a reduced danger of proliferation; none of this had occurred when, in 2002, the United States accused North Korea of cheating and canceled the accord.) Finally—and this is probably Trump’s greatest personal contribution to the matter—Trump has been actively denouncing his country’s nuclear agreement with Iran and has refused to certify Iran’s continued compliance with that agreement despite findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. experts that Iran is in fact in compliance. This is unlikely to persuade North Korea, or other countries for that matter, of the administration’s seriousness about negotiating similar agreements.

Thus, the outlook is not a pleasant one. Having gotten this far despite threats and sanctions, North Korea is unlikely to give up its quest for a nuclear arsenal now. Yet the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Trump himself have at various times suggested that the United States will not permit North Korea to acquire a usable nuclear arsenal. Indeed, this is the first U.S. administration to have actually threatened a preemptive strike against North Korea, which if anything is an incentive for the North Koreans to preempt inasmuch as they could not assume that their deterrent force would survive a U.S. first strike. If the administration continues with that line of thinking, then war is likely. On the other hand, reversing course is not alien to the Trump administration. The alternative would be deterrence as well as the simultaneous reassurance of allies South Korea and Japan, countries that will be more exposed to North Korean weaponry than we. Since this may require communicating a clear message as to exactly what North Korean behavior is to be deterred and what the allies will have to be promised, the Trump administration will have to decide what that is. That, in turn, may require more consistency than the administration has shown so far.

*North Koreans were not the only ones to draw such conclusions. In 1991 an Indian general remarked that the lesson of the Persian Gulf War was: never fight the US without nuclear weapons.

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A man paints over the logo of the Cambodia National Rescue Party at its headquarters in Phnom Penh. Photo: Getty Images.

In the days following the dissolution of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), I headed to Phnom Penh to witness the changes on the ground since my last visit over two years ago.  On November 16, Cambodia’s Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the CNRP, and ban 118 of its senior officials from any political activity in the Kingdom for five years, effectively removing the sole threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s continuation of his 32-year rule.

The court’s case was predicated on an accusation the CNRP was attempting to overthrow the government through a “color revolution” aided by the United States.  Evidence presented in court consisted of two videos taken in 2013 allegedly of party leader Kem Sokha admitting to receiving U.S. training, and of former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy calling on the armed forces to turn their guns on the government.  Rainsy remains in exile since fleeing to France in 2013, while Sokha was arrested on September 3 on charges of “treason” and imprisoned.

The dissolution of the main opposition party has led to an international outcry, with Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch calling the ruling the “death of democracy” and “a political killing of the Paris Peace Accords”, while the International Commission of Jurists pointed to a “human rights and rule of law crisis” in Cambodia.  The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, also weighed in, arguing Cambodia was now ushering in a “new era of de facto one-party rule”.

Walking the streets of Phnom Penh, I sensed a profound resignation among the city’s residents and many of the tourists seemed unaware of the changes taking place.  A security guard interviewed by the Phnom Penh Post expressed the people’s frustration, saying “The people dare not to express their opinion or change, because if one stands up, that one will be jailed. If two stand up, two will be jailed,” while also predicting people would be similarly happy to see Hun Sen removed from power.

The Phnom Penh Post also spoke with 21-year-old Sok Sophorn, who argued, “For the upcoming election, I think it is meaningless because there is only one side, therefore who can [people] vote for?”  “Our country, law and power is in his [Hun Sen’s] hands. Everything belongs to him and if he orders them to go left, they go left and when he orders them right, they go right.”  

The changes to democracy in Cambodia will likely be a topic of discussion on December 7, when the Foreign Policy Association welcomes Dr. Dambisa Moyo, economist and author, to address the topic Is Democracy Dying? at the Harvard Club in New York.  A related concern, however, is how democracy is dying, and whether Chinese money and investment (flowing into Cambodia and other countries), will convince the people to trade their voice for economic benefit.  

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This week, Tehran announced it would continue a missile development program that defense analysts say could allow Iran to launch nuclear weapons. It was a public threat that has understandably stirred strong response from the US and the west: the risk of nuclear proliferation by a fanatical regime is indeed a threat to millions across the region. But there is another, potentially greater threat from within Iran, one made more insidious by the fact that no one outside of Iran seems to care but which nonetheless imperils the values and moral conscience of the civilized world. I am speaking of the massacre of some 30,000 Iranians—including my uncle— at the hands of the state in 1988. And the arbitrary killings and executions continue.

 

In 1981, during the early years of Iran’s so-called “Islamic Revolution” my uncle Mahmood ‘Masoud’ Hassani was 21 years old and in his second year studying Economics at Tehran University. On June 30, my uncle never returned home from school.

 

Nearly two traumatic months passed before Masoud called my family to say he had been in jail since his disappearance and had been sentenced to serve ten years in the notorious Evin Prison. Even in absence of any evidence, he was convicted of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘spreading corruption on Earth’ all because he had distributed pro-democratic pamphlets near his campus.

  

When my uncle was in the seventh year of his sentence, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a notorious fatwa, calling for the immediate execution of Iran’s political prisoners. Death panels were commissioned to demand that blindfolded prisoners repent for their actions and those of their cellmates. Those who complied were granted amnesty. Those, like my uncle, who offered no such apology, were taken through a set of doors from which they would never return.

 

Without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom or being allowed to contact his loved ones, my uncle was hanged at the age of 27 sometime between July 28th and August 1st 1988. 

 

Unfortunately, his story is not unique. In less than five months, 30,000 of Iran’s brightest students, professors and devoted activists–many of them members of the pro-democratic PMOI-MEK–suffered the same fate. Expectant mothers and children as young as 13 were among the victims of these systematic killings, which effectively decimated an entire generation of Iranians who had devoted themselves to the struggle for democracy.

 

But 29 years later, the mullahs’ regime has still not succeeded in silencing the people’s calls for freedom and justice. Last year, the son of Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the intended successor to Supreme Leader Khomeini, released an audio recording that detailed the grave extent of the purges. In it, Iranian jurists themselves described an obvious crime against humanity. For leaking this tape, Ahmad Montazeri was swiftly arrested, but not before unprecedented public discussion began of the 1988 massacres.

 

Thus, 60 million Iranians who were born after the revolution came to confront an issue that had been long swept under the rug, both by Iranian authorities who fear a public uprising and by thousands upon thousands of victims’ families who, with the most noble of intentions, have silently endured their grief and sadness, for fear of reliving the horrors they know this government to be capable of. Their fears are well-founded: many members of the judiciary who oversaw the execution of Khomeini’s fatwa in 1988 occupy the same posts today.

 

Despite the ongoing threats of violence, torture and execution, brave Iranian youth have recently risen up to put this issue at center stage, as when presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls, in large part, due to his role in the 1988 massacre.

 

The newfound scrutiny has forced a number of Iran’s high-ranking governmental officials to speak to the issue head-on and acknowledge the historical record. But they have not done so with contrition. On August 28th 2016, the Iranian prosecutor and politician Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said of the mass executions, “We are proud to have carried out God’s commandment and to have stood with strength and fought against the enemies of God and the people.”

 

As dissatisfaction, disillusionment and dissent continue to grow among Iran’s young and vibrant population, authorities have begun to feel the pressure and initiate new plans to conceal their history. There are plans to build commercial centers over the unmarked mass burial sites often frequented by families of the fallen.  Doing so would destroy crucial forensic evidence that would allow for perpetrators of the 1988 massacre to be brought to justice.

 

Civil society organizations continue to receive unsettling news about persecution and arrests of surviving family members who have sought information about the location of their loved ones’ remains. Maryam Akbari Monfared, for instance, is currently serving a 15-year sentence at Evin Prison, without family visits or medical care. Three of Mayram’s brothers and her sister were executed in the course of the purges, and her own ‘crime’ consists of having published a letter asking for an explanation of these executions and the subsequent secret burials.  

 

As grassroots efforts surrounding this issue gain momentum, two things should give global audiences pause. First is the ongoing impunity of the Iranian judicial system, with at least 3,100 executions being carried out since Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013. The second is the silence of international governmental bodies tasked with documenting these very sorts of human rights abuses.

 

For families of victims, like my own, it has become painfully clear that the maintenance of economic ties with an oil-rich country has repeatedly trumped earnest efforts to speak out on Iran’s human rights record. With an abundance of contemporary and archival evidence supplied to the appropriate intergovernmental agencies, how else might we explain their silence if not as an instance of quid pro quo? Judging from the lack of outrage or historical record in the west, do atrocities that do not directly affect others simply not happen? Are these truths inconvenient?

 

 

Sara Hassani is a PhD. Student and Fellow in Politics at the New School for Social Research and works as an Adjunct Lecturer in Political Science at Brooklyn College – CUNY. 

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French soldiers on patrol in Paris during Euro 2016 tournament

Since 2006 and peaking after 2008, several employee suicides took place after the privatization of France Telecom. Now part of international telecommunications giant Orange, sixty France Telecom employees committed suicide over a three year period as cut backs destabilized that company and developed into what could be described as a toxic work environment. In 2016 the incidences at France Telecom, now Orange, lead prosecutors to attempt to put the onus on management as it was claimed that cuts were tied in with attempts to purposely create a work environment that would negatively encourage employees to leave for their jobs.

Creating a difficult work environment married with drastic cutbacks might have violated a French law that establishes that anyone who harasses another with repeated actions with the aim or the effect of degrading working conditions is liable to a year in jail and a fine of €15,000. Directors of France Telecom at the time may eventually end up being fined or spending time in prison, but it is unlikely a violation of labour law would result in a severe punishment, and proof in a criminal law context may be too difficult to establish in the case of France Telecom. A national discussion, tribunal or even a trial may help French society understand why so many employees took their own life while working at France Telecom. While France still tries to deal with the tragedy, 2017 brought more mass employee suicides, this time within France’s police services.

Securing France after several attacks on French civilians have placed the burden of protecting the public on France’s police officers and Gendarmerie Nationale. With a drastic change in the security environment in France over the last few years, France’s protectors have been stretched to their limits trying to prevent attacks on innocent civilians and directly on themselves. Despite new policy approaches in 2015 to help prevent further suicides, eight officers took their own lives in a one week period alone. The numbers are truly shocking year after year as 45 French police officers and 16 members of the Gendarmerie have committed suicide this year alone. In 2015, the new policy came about after 55 police officers and 30 gendarmes took their lives. Unfortunately the added stress combined with already poor working conditions and a general negative sentiment towards officers has produced a difficult and dangerous situation for many officers according to France’s police union Alliance.

Like France Telecom, many employees and officers seem to feel trapped in impossible situations from their employer or in their role in society. Employment in France and Spain for younger employees is hard to come by with unemployment in some European countries for adults under 35 reaching as high as 25%. Simply switching jobs may feel like losing a career and a life spent establishing stability and the ability to provide for one’s self and their family. While there are many factors that can be difficult to understand for those not working in those environments, the fact that French employees commit suicide in certain organisations at such a high rate over a few short years is clearly a national crisis. These issues are not limited to France, as incidences at Foxconn and other international companies demonstrate that toxic work environments and tactics to constructively dismiss employees can lead to abusive practices on individuals and groups of employees. Solutions need to be developed starting with understanding the problem, requiring perhaps documented, recorded and directly experienced officials in work environments where it is difficult to have a voice, and to have independent reviews not linked to already established power structures in their organisation. Most importantly, solutions and legal actions need to have teeth so that policy solutions are not solely produced and documents without an effective change in policy. These solutions need to be applied evenly and fairly on large companies as they are on smaller ones. Threats that fall into the realm of criminal law should be treated as criminal as well as labour law violations. A national emergency that leads to terror incidences may require a more specialized and coordinated approach as well that gives assistance, training and more officers for support. Those solutions are only the first steps in addressing these types of issues in the workplace.

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