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Photo of an assembly of members of the Lhaka Honhat indigenous association in the province of Salta, in northern Argentina. Their claim to their ancestral territory has been recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but they have not yet gained exclusive use of their land. CREDIT: Courtesy of CELS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

In 1994 Argentina recognized in the constitution the ethnic and cultural pre-existence of indigenous peoples. However, enforcement of respect for their rights has fallen short and almost 30 years later the question of land is generating growing conflicts, which sometimes pit native communities against the rest of society.

On Feb. 5, a long convoy of some 500 vehicles driven by agricultural producers drove through the midwest province of Mendoza to defend “the sovereignty of our lands and private property” against growing and increasingly visible claims by indigenous people to their ancestral lands.

The demonstrators said that they do not want the same thing to happen in Mendoza as in the southern province of Río Negro, where there have been various violent incidents in recent years, which peaked in September 2022, when a group of indigenous people claiming their ancestral territory set fire to a National Gendarmerie mobile booth.“Due to economic interests over the land, we do not have a complete survey of indigenous territories in Argentina. That is the basic need, a diagnosis that is indispensable in order to solve this problem.”-- Noelia Garone

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the country’s indigenous communities are still waiting for community property title to the lands they have ancestrally lived on, which they point to as the key to access other rights that have remained empty words in the constitution, such as participation in the management of their natural resources.

“There is no political will to resolve this issue, because there are very powerful interests in the oil, mining, or agricultural industries that oppose it,” Silvina Ramírez, a member of the Association of Indigenous Rights Lawyers (AADI) and professor of graduate studies at the University of Buenos Aires, told IPS.

“This has been aggravated because there is a communication campaign trying to spread the idea that indigenous people want to prevent progress and are the enemy,” she added.

On the other side, Andrés Vavrik, a cattle producer from Mendoza and one of the organizers of the demonstration there, told IPS: “No one is against indigenous peoples, but we are concerned that the national government recognizes the right to territory of anyone who self-identifies as indigenous, because there we enter a very debatable terrain.”

“We came out to defend private property,” he said from the town of General Alvear in Mendoza.

A leading role in the march was played by a group of veterans of the Malvinas/Falklands Islands War, which Argentina lost in 1982 against the United Kingdom, which occupied the South Atlantic islands 190 years ago.

The reaction came after the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs (INAI), the official body in charge of the study and delimitation of indigenous territories, recognized the rights of native communities to over 21,500 hectares of land in Mendoza.

Although the INAI clarified that its resolution “does not imply in any way the restitution or handing over of land,” since the agency does not have that power, the Mendoza government objected to the decision before the Supreme Court.

 

More than 500 vehicles participated in a march in defense of national sovereignty in Mendoza, a province in central Argentina, which culminated in a demonstration in the city of Malargüe. The convoy was triggered by indigenous claims to their ancestral land in that province, to which agricultural producers are opposed. CREDIT: Courtesy of Diego Frutos

 

Land emergency

Argentina is a country that formally promoted European immigration and the exclusion of indigenous people since it became a unified nation in 1853.

In the 2010 census, 955,032 people self-identified as descendants of or belonging to indigenous peoples, just over two percent of the total population. In the 2022 census, which showed a population of 46 million inhabitants, the question was asked again, but the results have not yet been released.

Although the recognition of the rights of native communities in the 1994 constitutional reform was a landmark from a legal and symbolic point of view, implementation has been another question, with the issue of land ownership seen as the central hurdle.

For this reason, in 2006 Congress enacted Law 26160 on Emergency Matters of Land Possession and Ownership of indigenous communities, which banned evictions of native communities for four years, blocking existing court rulings ordering evictions.

The first three years were to be used to carry out a survey of the lands where indigenous communities lived and promote the issuing of collective land titles.

However, 17 years later the law is still in force, since it had to be extended several times, which demonstrates the failure of its implementation.

 

A photo of Kolla indigenous women in the extreme northern Argentine province of Jujuy. Although the rights of indigenous peoples have been recognized in the constitution since 1994, they have not been enforced. CREDIT: Courtesy of Amnesty International Argentina

 

The INAI completed surveys for only 46 percent of the legally constituted communities, as reported in late 2022. And today the road is much longer than before, because in 2007, when the communities started to register legally and the survey began, 950 registered, and the number has since grown to 1825.

But the survey does not imply that the land titling process is being carried out. This is an even more complicated step, because there is still no law in the country that regulates indigenous community property, which is different from the multi-owner residential development provided for under civil law, when there is more than one owner.

The community property law is another longstanding demand of indigenous peoples and human rights organizations, which Congress has not met.

Although some communities in the country have received their property title from the hands of provincial governments under different legal statuses, it is not known how many there are or what area these indigenous territories cover.

“The indigenous territorial emergency law was passed in a very particular context of expansion of the business of growing and exporting soybeans in Argentina, which caused a serious situation of constant evictions of indigenous communities,” Diego Morales, a lawyer with the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a human rights organization, told IPS.

“Since then, no government has wanted to hand over land to indigenous people and not even the associated communities in Lhaka Honhat (living in the province of Salta, in the north of the country) have been able to access a community property title and fully exercise their rights, even though they obtained a favorable sentence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” he added.

Morales said the situation today is more difficult to resolve, because indigenous communities that have historically been discriminated against and neglected, who in recent years have become more aware of their rights, now not only lay claim to the land where they live but are also making cultural claims to territories from which their ancestors were driven.

 

A demonstration by indigenous Kolla people in the arid, mountainous landscape of northwestern Argentina. The country has declared a “territorial emergency” for indigenous peoples since 2006, but the vast majority of communities do not have title to their lands. CREDIT: Courtesy of Endepa

 

Violence and debate

Diego Frutos, who suffered several occupations and attacks on his property in Villa Mascardi, in the province of Río Negro, by groups laying claim to his property for Mapuche indigenous communities, said there are people who are trying to take advantage of indigenous rights to reclaim land that does not belong to them.

“I do not deny the rights of the Mapuches, but those who attacked my property are not a registered community. They cannot be, because they do not have blood ties and they cannot show that they have had an uninterrupted occupation of a territory. They are a group of young people who seek to take advantage of the umbrella of indigenous rights,” Frutos told IPS from his town.

Frutos is convinced that those who attacked his property are backed by the administration of center-left President Alberto Fernández, who feels pressure from both sides while walking a minefield between indigenous people and the agricultural producers who settled on their lands, with neither side feeling satisfied with what his government has done.

Sandra Ceballos, a member of the Kolla people and vice president of AADI, the association of lawyers for indigenous rights, told IPS that the government is persecuting indigenous people, as demonstrated by the fact that an unusual joint command of federal and provincial forces was assembled in Río Negro, after the acts of violence in September.

Noelia Garone, a lawyer from the Argentine office of Amnesty International, said the lack of recognition of the right to land has triggered multiple violations of other rights of indigenous communities, such as education, healthcare, water or work.

“Due to economic interests over the land, we do not have a complete survey of indigenous territories in Argentina. That is the basic need, a diagnosis that is indispensable in order to solve this problem,” she told IPS.

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Thelma Cabrera and Jordán Rodas launch their candidacy for the presidency and vice presidency of Guatemala in December 2022, which has been vetoed by the courts, in a maneuver that has drawn criticism from human rights groups at home and abroad. CREDIT: Twitter

By Edgardo Ayala
SANTA CATARINA PALOPÓ, Guatemala, Mar 4 2023 (IPS)

Centuries of racism and exclusion suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala continue to weigh heavily, as demonstrated by the denial of the registration of a political party that is promoting the presidential candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera in the upcoming general elections.

On Mar. 2, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against Cabrera’s party, the leftist Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), which had appealed a Feb. 15 Supreme Court resolution that left them out of the Jun. 25 elections.“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities.” -- Silvia Menchú

Cabrera’s candidacy and that of her vice-presidential running-mate Jordán Rodas are now hanging by a thread, with their hopes depending on a few last resort legal challenges.

The deadline for the registration of candidates is Mar. 25.

A centuries-old racist system

Guatemala’s political and economic elites “are looking for ways to keep her (Cabrera) from registering; everyone has the right to participate, but they are blocking her,” Sonia Nimacachi, 31, a native of Santa Catarina Palopó, told IPS. The municipality, which has a Cachiquel Mayan indigenous majority, is in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá.

“We would like a person with our roots and culture to become president, I think it would help our people,” added Nimacachi, standing by her street stall in the center of town.

Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman, sells “granizadas” or snow cones: crushed ice sweetened with syrup of various flavors, perfect for hot days.

“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities,” Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women, told IPS.

The organization, based in Santa Catarina Palopó, carries out human rights programs focused on indigenous women.

Santa Catarina Palopó, a picturesque Cachiquel Mayan town located on the shore of Lake Atitlán in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá, is preparing for the upcoming general elections, where voters will choose a new president, vice president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, as well as 340 mayors. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“Racism has prevailed, we are mistreated everywhere by the government and the authorities, we are seen as people with little capacity,” said Menchú, of the Maya Quiché ethnic group.

An alleged illegality attributed to Rodas, the vice-presidential candidate, was the cause for denying the MLP the right to register for the elections.

Analysts and social organizations perceive obscure maneuvering on the part of the powers-that-be, who cannot accept the idea that an indigenous woman is trying to break through the barriers of the country’s rigid, racist political system.

Cabrera is a 51-year-old Mayan Mam woman who is trying for a second time to run in the unequal fight for the presidency of this Central American country of 14.9 million inhabitants.

Of the total population, 43.7 percent identify as indigenous Mayan, Xinca, Garífuna and Afro-descendant peoples, according to the 2018 census.

In the 2019 elections Cabrera came in fourth place, winning 10 percent of the total votes cast.

In the Jun. 25 general elections voters will choose a new president for the period 2024-2028, as well as 160 members of Congress and 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and 340 mayors.

In Guatemala, the ancient Mayan culture was flourishing when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

The descendants of that pre-Hispanic civilization still speak 24 different autochthonous languages, most of which are Mayan.

Years of exclusion and neglect of indigenous rural populations led Guatemala to a civil war that lasted 36 years (1960-1996) and left some 250,000 dead or disappeared.

The presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), must be allowed by the Guatemalan authorities, so that the indigenous population is represented in the Jun. 25 elections, says Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

A blatant maneuver

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) rejection of the MLP arose from a complaint against Rodas, who served between 2017 and 2022 as head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

In that office, Rodas strongly questioned alleged acts of corruption by the current government of Alejandro Giammattei, who took office in January 2020.

The criminal complaint against the vice-presidential candidate was filed on Jan. 6 by the current head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights, Alejandro Córdoba.

After Cabrera and Rodas attempted to register as candidates, Córdoba said he had “doubts” about some payments allegedly received by his predecessor in the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

His “doubts” apparently had to do with some alleged illegality on the part of Rodas, but since Córdoba has not described it in detail, his statements have been nothing but a weak half-hearted accusation.

However, that was enough for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to reject the MLP on Feb. 2, which triggered protests by rural and indigenous people, who blocked roads in at least 12 parts of the country.

According to Guatemalan law, all candidates for popularly elected positions must have a document that attests that they have no pending legal issues.

But analysts have pointed out that this document should only take into account actual legal rulings handed down by courts, and not “doubts” vaguely expressed by some government official.

By vetoing Rodas, the TSE automatically bars his presidential runningmate Cabrera, who may actually be the ultimate target of the maneuver, since she is the one who is trying, once again, to win the votes of the indigenous population.

On Feb. 15, the MLP runningmates filed a provisional injunction with the Supreme Court, so that it would take effect immediately and overrule the TSE’s decision, while the Supreme Court studied and resolved the matter in depth.

But the injunction was rejected, so the MLP appealed the next day to the Constitutional Court, asking it to review the case and order the Supreme Court to admit the provisional injunction, to allow the fight for the registration of Cabrera and Rodas to continue forward.

But the appeal was denied Thursday Mar. 2 by the Constitutional Court.

However, the Supreme Court has not yet issued a final ruling on the injunction, but only a provisional stance. This means that when it is finally issued, if it goes against the MLP, Cabrera and Rodas could once again turn to the Constitutional Court, in a last-ditch effort.

But it seems as if the die is already cast.

In a tweet on Thursday Mar. 2, Rodas wrote: “The constitutional justice system has denied my constitutional right to be elected and denies the population the right to choose freely. We await the Supreme Court ruling on the injunction and the position of the @IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights). Our fight continues.”

Guatemala’s political and economic elites are determined to block the candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, says Sonia Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman selling snowcones in Santa Catarina Palopó, in the country’s southwest. She would vote for Cabrera again, if her candidacy is finally allowed. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Cabrera’s second attempt

This is Cabrera’s second attempt to run for the presidency. Her first was in the 2019 elections, when she failed to fully capture the indigenous vote.

“I would dare to think that the majority of the indigenous population did not vote for her because of those instilled prejudices: that she is a woman and also indigenous, not a professional, are issues that have nothing to do with the dignity and the quality of a person,” argued Silvia Menchú.

She added that the right-wing parties have been allies of the country’s evangelical churches, through which they keep in submission segments of the indigenous population that end up supporting conservative parties, rather than a candidate who comes from their Mayan culture.

To illustrate, she said that in Santa Catarina Palopó, a town of 6,000 people, there is only one school to cover primary and middle-school education, “but there are about 15 evangelical churches.”

The TSE’s veto of the registration of Cabrera and Rodas puts the credibility of the elections at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned on Feb. 27.

In a joint statement, the two organizations said the electoral authority’s rejection of aspiring candidates “is based on dubious grounds, puts political rights at risk, and undermines the credibility of the electoral process.”

“The electoral process is taking place in the context of a decline in the rule of law, in which the institutions responsible for overseeing the elections have little independence or credibility,” they stated.

In addition to Cabrera and Rodas, the TSE also rejected the registration of right-wing candidate Roberto Arzú, because he allegedly began campaigning too early.

HRW and Wola added that “efforts to exclude or prosecute opposition candidates create unequal conditions that could prevent free and fair elections from taking place.”

Meanwhile, the TSE did endorse, on Feb. 4, the presidential candidacy of Zury Ríos, daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who governed de facto between 1982 and 1983.

In 2013 the general was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of more than 1,400 indigenous Ixil people in the north of the country.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, but the Constitutional Court later revoked the ruling. Ríos Montt died in April 2018.

Article 186 of the Guatemalan constitution prohibits people involved in coups d’état, or their relatives, for running for president.

Meanwhile, snowcone vendor Sonia Nimacachi said in the central square of Santa Catarina Palopó that she still held out hope that Cabrera would be able to register as a candidate.

“If they let her participate, I would vote for her again,” she said, while serving a customer.

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By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

Welcome to Strive, a podcast of IPS News, where we chat with new voices about fresh ideas to create a more just and sustainable world. My name is Marty Logan.

We’ve all made asses of ourselves at one time or another. But today’s guest actually made a career out of it — not of messing up but of being The Ass, the author of a satirical column that ran on the back page of the Nepali Times newspaper for more than two decades.

As full-time publisher and editor of the weekly paper he says that writing the column went way beyond horsing around. In fact, more than once during our chat he describes satire as serious business — it’s a way to hint at what is really going on in the halls of power without playing by the regular rules of journalism, but if you cross a line and hit too hard — or too low — you could find yourself in a heap of — well, you know what.

We also discuss the evolution of the Times. It started as a business decision but soon became immersed in war journalism, reporting on the decade-long Maoist conflict. Gradually it developed its brand as a paper that went out of its way to report on the state of the country outside the Kathmandu bubble. Simultaneously it chronicled momentous events including the high stakes, post-war peace process, the downfall of the monarchy, the birth of republican Nepal and the devastating 2015 earthquake.

Post-Covid-19, Nepali Times has resumed printing a hard-copy version to accompany its website. But The Ass, aka Kunda Dixit, believes the physical paper has at most a three-year future before mobile phone readership will render it obsolete. The big challenge, larger even than fending off pressure from anti-democratic forces in government and beyond, will be attracting enough ‘eyeballs’ — in competition with Facebook, Instagram and other social media — to finance operations.

A quick note: early in the episode The Ass talks about the panchayat, which was the party-less system of government that reigned in Nepal before democracy was restored in 1990.

 

 

Chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022, according to Oxfam report. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

The data is shocking: three-quarters of African Governments have already reduced their agricultural budgets while paying almost double that on arms.

Africa is home to a quarter of the world’s entire agricultural land. Nevertheless, in the 12 months that African leaders vowed to improve food security in the continent, over 20 million more people have been pushed into “severe hunger.”

Today “a fifth of the African population (or 278 million) is undernourished, and 55 million of its children under the age of five are stunted due to severe malnutrition,” Oxfam International adds to the above data in its report: Over 20 million more people hungry in Africa’s “year of nutrition”.

“The hunger African people are facing today is a direct result of inadequate political choices…,” said Fati N’Zi-Hassane, Oxfam in Africa Director.

 

Chronic underinvestment

The report further explains that chronic underinvestment in agriculture is a key cause of the widespread hunger experienced in 2022.

The majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8% of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as 1%. Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their agricultural spending since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture

Specifically, it adds, the majority of African governments (48 out of 54) reportedly spend an average of 3.8% of their budgets on agriculture -some spending as little as 1%.

“Nearly three quarters of these governments have reduced their agricultural spending since 2019, failing to honour their Malabo commitments to invest at least 10% of their budget on agriculture.”

In 2014 African leaders signed the Malabo Declaration, which stipulated that African governments must spend at least 10% of their budget on Agriculture and supporting farmers.

 

Politicians doubling military spending

In contrast, “African governments spent nearly double that budget (6.4%) on arms last year. Ongoing conflict, especially in Sahel and Central Africa, has continued to destroy farmland, displace people and fuel hunger.”

In addition, “worsening climate-fuelled droughts and floods, and a global rise in fuel and fertilisers prices, made food unobtainable for millions of people. In 2022 alone, food inflation rose by double digits in all but ten African countries.”

 

No access to neighbouring markets

As the 36th African Union Summit was held in February 2023, focussing on intra-continental free trade, “millions of smallholder farmers, who are vital food producers in the continent, cannot reach markets in neighbouring countries due to poor infrastructure and high intra-African tariffs.”

In other words, “many African nations find it cheaper to import food from outside the continent than from their next-door neighbour.”
According to Oxfam:

• As of August 2022 (the last available figure), there were 139.95 million people in 35 African countries living in “Crisis or worse acute food insecurity.” That is an increase of 17% (20.26 million people) over the same number a year earlier (119.69 million people).

 

• This increase can be attributed to both a worsening acute food insecurity situation and an expansion in the population analysed between 2021 and 2022. (Source: Global Report on Food Crises Mid-Year Update 2022).

 

• The average spending on military as share of total budget is 6.43% (2021) as reported at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, while the average spending in agriculture (2021) was 3.8% as reported on GovernmentSpendingWatch

 

• South Sudan spends less than 1% of its budget on Agriculture. Calculations of all agricultural spending in Africa is based on data from the government spending watch, national budgets and FAO.

 

• According to the CAADP report and the FAO Crop Prospects report, Africa’s cereal production in 2022 was 207.4 million tons, a decline of 3.4 million tons from the average of the previous five years.

 

Five-fold increase in extreme weather events

The increasing hunger in Africa –which is imposed by both externally and internally– is just part of a widespread drama.

In fact, climate change is fuelling hunger for millions of people around the world. “Extreme weather events have increased five-fold over the past 50 years, destroying homes, decimating livelihoods, fuelling conflict and displacement, and deepening inequality,” Oxfam reports.

 

Hunger more than doubling

Climate change has resulted in more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and heat waves. “The number of disasters has increased five-fold over the past 50 years.”

This is hitting low-income countries hardest, Oxfam goes on, adding that the 10 countries with the highest UN appeals related to weather extremes since 2000, have seen a 123% rise in the number of people suffering extreme hunger -from 21.3 million to 47.5 million.

These countries are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe. According to this data, 7 out of these 10 countries are Africans.

 

Fossil fuel staggering profits

The G20 countries are amongst the most polluting nations in the world, collectively responsible for nearly 77% of carbon emissions, reports Oxfam, a global movement of people, working together to end the injustice of poverty, by tackling the inequality that keeps people poor.

It is extraordinary that as humanity faces this existential crisis, there is still more incentive to destroy our planet than to save lives.

“The oil and gas industry has enjoyed staggering profits as they wreak havoc on the planet –amassing 2.8 billion US dollars a day (or more than 1 trillion US dollars per year) for the last 50 years.”

 

Seismic hunger

For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that the current seismic hunger crisis has been caused by a deadly combination of factors: conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes are combining to create a food crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Much so that “as many as 828 million people are unsure of where their next meal is coming from.”

In its report ‘2023: Another year of extreme jeopardy for those struggling to feed their families,’ WFP warns that a record 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity – up from 287 million in 2021. This constitutes a staggering rise of 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

More than 900,000 people worldwide are fighting to survive in famine-like conditions, the world body reports, adding that this is “ten times more than five years ago, an alarmingly rapid increase.”

In short, politicians also in the most needed and highest exposed to staggering hunger countries, continue to attach higher relevance to spending on arms fueling conflicts, and on fuel fuels spreading climate disasters, rather than investing in saving the lives of their own people.

 

In the southern city of Taiz, 11-month-old Ameer Hellal receives WFP supplementary food for malnutrition. Photo: WFP/Albaraa Mansoor

By Alexander Kozul-Wright
GENEVA, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

At a high-level UN event, global donors pledged US$1.2 billion in aid operations to Yemen in 2023. Millions of Yemenis require humanitarian assistance as the country continues to suffer from the fallout of a prolonged civil war.

While the Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths noted that the UN had received 31 commitments during the conference on February 30, 2023, in Geneva, the amount pledged remains well below the organisation’s target of US$4.3 billion.

The conflict in Yemen started in 2014 when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels – representing the country’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority – seized the capital, Sanaa. The war intensified in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened on behalf of the government against the Houthis.

Owing to repeated Saudi-led bombardment campaigns and deep territorial divisions (half of the country remains under Houthi control in the north and the other half under government control in the south), Yemen’s economy has ground to a halt.

Last year, exogenous factors also led to steep falls in Yemen’s Rial relative to the U.S. dollar, pushing inflation up to 45 percent. Elsewhere, food prices surged by 58 percent. In 2022, 13 million people in Yemen relied on the UN’s World Food Program for basic staples.

To date, the conflict has killed more than 375,000 people, sixty percent from indirect causes (mainly from malnutrition and disease). The war has also razed the country’s civilian and physical infrastructure, including its oil sector – Yemen’s only source of foreign exchange.

Last year, warring parties agreed to an UN-brokered cease-fire. Though it expired in October, the six-month truce led to a reduction in casualties. It also enabled commercial traffic to flow through the port of Hodeida, increasing the supply of goods and aid into the country.

A slight improvement in food security at the end of last year meant two million fewer Yemenis suffered from acute hunger. The number of people in famine-like conditions also dropped from 161,000 to zero. But progress remains fragile.

Yemen continues to rely on foreign aid. “More than 21 million people, or two-thirds of the country’s population, will need humanitarian assistance in 2023,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres.

Among those in need, more than 17 million are understood to be living below Yemen’s poverty line. Meanwhile, an estimated 4.5 million Yemenis are internally displaced, largely due to climate-change-related events.

According to the UN, Yemen is “highly vulnerable” to the effects of rising global temperatures (notably arid weather). In recent years, severe droughts have exacerbated food shortages caused by the war.

Yemen Remains in Need of External Support

The UN’s US$4.3 billion funding objective is nearly double what it received last year. Looking ahead, reliance on external aid will be particularly acute in 2023 due to constrained oil exports linked to Houthi attacks on government-held oil terminals last October.

This week’s conference took place as the country’s rival groups agreed to an informal suspension of hostilities. Efforts are underway to declare a lasting peace after the parties failed to extend their UN-backed peace agreement last year.

“We have a real opportunity to change Yemen’s trajectory and move toward peace by renewing and expanding the truce,” noted Guterres at the pledging event, co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland.

The meeting was attended by officials worldwide, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. In his speech, Blinken called on donors to step up their contributions, citing last year’s funding shortages.

The UN missed its financing target for Yemen by US$2 billion last year. Blinken also urged the international community to help restore Yemen’s economy, suggesting this would “reduce people’s suffering over the long term.”

“Large-scale investment will be needed to rebuild Yemen’s physical infrastructure. Securing peace, however, remains the top priority. “Without it, millions will continue to face extreme levels of poverty, hunger and suffering,” added Blinken.

Meanwhile, the UN secretary-general warned that aid funding would not provide a panacea for Yemen.

“Humanitarian assistance is a band-aid. It saves people’s lives but cannot resolve the conflict itself.”
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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While each context has a unique mix of factors contributing to the growth of violent extremism, UNDP research uncovered common denominators that can inform relevant, coherent responses. Credit: UNDP Somalia

By Noura Hamladji and Samuel Rizk
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

There is no better environment for the expansion of violent extremist groups than a vacuum in state authority. It provides ideal conditions for these groups to prey on existing and historical grievances, fill the void with promises of financial support, access to services and attention for marginalized, neglected communities.

But, at what cost?

In sub-Saharan Africa, we are witnessing the toll. In the past decade, violence linked to the influence of global violent extremist groups like Al Qaeda and Daesh has spread swiftly across the region. In 2022, new global epicentres of terrorism were found in sub-Saharan Africa.

With thousands killed and millions displaced, this violence threatens the stability of the entire region and hinders development gains on the continent.

To better understand how violent extremist groups proliferate, and how they impact development and social cohesion, UNDP commissioned unique research to find out what gives violent extremists a foothold in particular contexts.

We looked at the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, DR Congo, Somalia and Northern Mozambique. What we found is that while every country – and district – has its own story, there are clear common denominators that help design relevant, coherent responses.

This new study, Dynamics of Violent Extremism in Africa: Conflict Ecosystems, Political Ecology, and the Spread of the Proto-State complements the research we have done into how and why individuals join violent extremist groups in the Journey to Extremism series.

Filling the void

As they expand in size and resources, buttressed by a link to a global ideological orientation, some violent extremist groups organize in ways akin to local government structures. They begin to compete with the state not only by monopolizing the threat/use of violence – in this case, instilling terror – but also by promising some of the most essential local services that people are aspiring to, such as a relative sense of security, sources of income and swift adjudication of disputes.

They may do so cruelly and oppressively, but even that may initially be attractive to communities weary of years of lawlessness, corruption and chaos. Indeed, the more deeply structured local violent extremist groups have evolved from raiding bands and now show many of the characteristics of a “proto-state”, typified by Daesh in Syria.

As the study findings suggest, the modus operandi of these local violent extremist groups is not centred mainly around persuading people to adopt their ideology. Instead – and often coming from the locality itself – they are grievance entrepreneurs, exploiting local development deficits, and forging alliances of convenience with other violent groups and criminal networks, like smugglers or local militias.

Even so, this does not make them one-dimensional opportunists. Their link to global networks helps to give them direction, binds them together and adds to their appeal. They are both global and local, both ideological and economic alternatives that can be appealing to people living in perceived or de facto state vacuum.

One common finding in this study is that violent extremist groups rarely appear in places well served by stable, predictable governments and governance systems. Instead, they operate where there is already poverty and instability, away from capital cities, in marginalized places where public services are thin or non-existent – all of which are often the product of local power-brokers’ interests.

The lack of trust between communities in these remote and crisis-hit areas and their government is also a common factor highlighted in the research. All too often communities suffer acute insecurity, feeling let down, targeted, and abused by the very state that should be protecting them. Violent extremist groups then plug in to fear or anger among communities and local leaders.

The first step to addressing this growing trend is to understand the political economy of violent extremist groups, and the sources of their power, with a view to halt and reverse their stranglehold on society.

The next step requires collaboration by the international community, supporting national partners not only to address the visible manifestations of the problem, but also to reverse years or decades of state fragility, exclusion and insecurity that emboldened these groups over time.

To this end, UNDP’s work on sub-national and local governance and institutions is critical – resilient, responsive, accountable, transparent, linked to national-level reforms that will have the biggest impact on violent extremist groups’ “business models.”

UNDP also works to empower local communities and local leaders towards positive and inclusive governance and improving access to basic services in under-served areas. This is the way to avoid recreating the same conditions that enabled the governance void to exist in first instance.

Gaining a foothold

It is clear that many of the conflicts which give these groups a foothold are over land and water. Desertification, climate change and poor land management have made traditional ways of life difficult in many places where land has degraded and pastures no longer support herds, nor do farms support crops.

But this need not be irreversible. With careful attention to local power politics, social relationships and trust-building, we can help communities to regenerate land and revive livelihoods – and to capture carbon in the soil in the process, offering local solutions to global problems and giving communities agency in shaping their present and future.

We call it “political ecology”, and with this approach we can simultaneously improve lives and undercut the appeal of violent extremist groups.

Also crucial to this approach is understanding how illicit funds flow around an economy, both inside a country and across borders; how power-brokers depend on and manipulate instability and corruption for greater influence; and which actors have a real interest in reform. This knowledge can help identify and interdict income sources of violent extremist groups while sustainably rebuilding local economies.

A human-centred approach

While there is a common thread of misogyny in the narrative and behaviour of violent extremist groups, women’s roles are not homogenous or predestined to victimhood. On one hand, Boko Haram has used women as suicide bombers and al Shabaab as intelligence sources, but on the other hand women form the backbone of many peacebuilding and victim support efforts, and are the engine of cross-border trade in many areas.

This very diversity makes it more important to ensure that both women and men are fully involved in our efforts, from analysis to implementation to evaluation. In the end, where does the study address our collective approach to human security, to people-centred development, justice and peace?

These conflicts, and all the horrors committed by these groups, leave deep scars, and the trauma is long-lasting. Even in contexts that are not impacted by war, political conflict or pervasive violent extremism, we are starting to understand the cost of recent lockdowns and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, in mental health and alienation.

In conflict zones, the depth of trauma needs much more research, but we know it is severe. And people cope with it in ways that can lead to further violence, at a personal, family and community level. Sadly, that often helps to perpetuate cycles of conflict.

So, if we are to address these historical, multigenerational grievances which violent extremists can prey on, while working to heal their ongoing grief, we need to expand our capacity to provide the mental health and psycho-social support that individuals and communities need.

And if we can do so, we can demonstrate in action the positive alternatives to hatred and violence that these groups peddle.

Development first

A new approach is needed – one that first invests in understanding and complex ways in which these violent extremist groups win hearts and minds in different communities, acting as alternatives to state authority.

With this knowledge, we can work together with national and local governments to ensure a developmental, preventive, inclusive approach where people have access to the rights, goods and services they need to live prosperous lives, thus removing the power that these groups wield. Rather than helping people to get by; getting ahead, with hope and dignity, should be the goal.

Through this approach, we can improve the lives of citizens and communities across the region and turn back the tide of violence and despair. The challenge remains complex and urgent, and our collective responses must overcome by being more informed, adaptive, innovative and inclusive to promote and sustain development and peace.

Noura Hamladji is Deputy Regional Director, Regional Bureau for Africa;
Samuel Rizk is Head of Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions, UNDP

To learn more, visit the UNDP Prevention of Violent Extremism website.

Note: The research study was prepared in a process co-led by the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa (RBA) and the Crisis Bureau (CB) Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions (CPPRI)/Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) Team. The study paper was developed by lead researcher Peter Rundell and supporting researchers Olivia Lazard and Emad Badi, under the editorial direction of Noura Hamladji and Samuel Rizk, and coordination by Nika Saeedi and Nirina Kiplagat.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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