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The Taleban attack on a Kabul guesthouse which killed 15 people (not 14, as earlier reports said) on 13 May 2015 was aimed, the Taleban claimed, at “invaders”, specifically an “important meeting” of “important people from many invading countries, especially Americans.” In this update of our earlier dispatch, AAN’s Kate Clark identifies all the dead: all were civilian and eight were aid workers, five, Afghans from the regions who had been visiting Kabul for training. Even by the Taleban’s own crude metrics of nationality apparently denoting ‘targetability’, she says just two of the dead came from NATO member states. Moreover, once again, she says, the Taleban have breached the distinction between military and civilian, seemingly branding all foreigners as ‘invaders’. Along with biographical details of all those killed, she pays tribute to one of them in particular, a friend of AAN’s, the former director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), Paula Kantor, who was a serious-minded, generous researcher and mentor who carried out important work on reducing poverty in Afghanistan.

 (Originally published 14 May; updated 18 May 2015.)

15 people, all civilians, were killed when the Taleban attacked the Park Palace Hotel in central Kabul on the night of 13 May 2015. It is a mid-range hotel, where many foreigners, largely Indians and Pakistanis, but also Westerners stay or live. Most tend to be aid workers, researchers and journalists; those with more money or who feel particularly under threat usually stay at the far more expensive Serena. On Wednesday night, the Park Palace was hosting Afghan classical musician Ustad Eltaf Hussein (1) and the concert had drawn many Afghan and foreign music lovers. The police believe the attack was pre-planned since the gunman/men (the number is disputed; the Taleban say one, Afghan security forces say three) did not need to force their entrance with explosives or by killing guards, but appear to have been inside the hotel beforehand.

By nationality, those killed were: Afghan (six, including a joint British-Afghan national), Indian (four), Pakistani (two) American (one), Italian (one) and Kazakh (one).

The number of foreigners killed and wounded made this an unusual attack, as the vast majority of those killed in the conflict continue to be Afghans (both civilian and military). Last year, on average across the country, 29 civilians were killed or injured as a result of the war every day (UNAMA figures; see also AAN analysis). However, that average is likely to increase this year, given that the violence has already intensified. UNAMA reported the number of civilian casualties during the first four months of 2015 as 16 per cent higher than in the same period in 2014. There was virtually no ‘winter lull’ this year, except in the Afghan capital which had been enjoying an unusually quiet few months after a particularly violent autumn and early winter. A number of explanations have been supplied for this – that it was partially linked to President Ashraf Ghani’s decision to ‘take the gloves off’ with regard to night raids by NDS and Afghan Special Forces (Karzai had largely banned these), and partially to the president’s demands that Pakistan put greater pressure on the Taleban to, among other things, cease all suicide and complex attacks in the capital.

Then came two suicide attacks on shuttle buses ferrying workers to and from the Attorney General’s Office, first on 4 May and then on 10 May 2015, which, together, killed seven civilians and injured dozens more. And now the attack on a cultural event at a hotel. (2) The lull is certainly over. The end of the calm raises questions about Pakistan’s intent and influence over those sending attackers and suicide bombers into the Afghan capital. It condemned the attack, which came a day after a visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; he had assured Afghanistan of Islamabad’s full support in its battle against the Taleban, saying, “the enemies of Afghanistan cannot be the friends of Pakistan.”

The attack also raises questions about Taleban intentions this year.

The Taleban’s ‘spring offensive’ statement, issued on 11 April 2015, reads as if, after years of being lambasted for attacking civilians, the movement was finally trying harder to protect them.

… top priority will be given to safeguard and protect the lives and properties of the civilian people; and those Mujahidin who are negligent and careless in preserving the lives and properties of the civilian people and their operations result in the civilian losses or casualties, will be panelized according to Jihadi and Sharia rules and regulations. Similarly, consisting with its policies, the Islamic Emirate has never and will never target religious and other educational institutions like mosques, madrassas, schools, universities, health centers like clinics and hospitals, public buildings and other projects of public welfare. [English as original]

However, both the Taleban attacks on prosecutors and judges, and the assault on the Park Palace Hotel, represented major breaches of international law which prohibits attacks on civilians. Despite their talk, the Taleban continue to fail to abide by the Geneva Conventions, which demand the protection of non-combatants. Instead, the Taleban divide people into those they deem to be with the government, whether military or civilian, and those who are not. It is only the latter which they call ‘civilians.’ In their eyes that makes, for example, prosecutors ‘fair game.’ (UNAMA, quoted earlier, noted on 10 May, that there had, by that point in 2015, been 11 separate attacks against legal professionals and court houses, causing in total 114 civilian casualties (28 killed and 86 injured) this year so far – “an increase of more than 600 per cent from the same period last year.”)

Taleban justifications of the Park Palace attack

The Taleban’s repeated use of the word ‘invaders’ as an apparent synonym for ‘foreigner’ in their claim of responsibility for the Park Palace attack (read a translation at the end of this dispatch) also reads like a deliberate attempt to blur the distinction between military and civilian.

… the mujahed managed to… attack a meeting attended by over 100 invaders.

… an important meeting attended by important people from many invading countries, especially Americans…

The enemies…were holding night-time parties consisting promiscuity and indulgence as well as other important meetings.

Among the dead, there are a number of important/senior people from the invading countries…

The invading countries should understand that they will not stay safe from our attacks at any place and under any cover as long as they fail to withdraw their troops from our country and recognize our sovereignty. … (3) 

Following this statement, some people pressed the Taleban on whether they now considered foreign humanitarian workers as legitimate targets. Here was one exchange with Abdul Qahar Balkhi who tweets for the Taleban (all English as per the original)  in which it looked like they were backing off from their initial hard-line messaging:

Abdulqahar Balkhi: Every foreigner from invading country especially @NATO is considered an invader, we don’t classify any as civilian

@SwoopOuttaOrbit: So even if i was on a humanitarian mission For instance as a doctor in a hospital then i would be your enemy?

@Abdulqahar Balkhi: Any Muslim/non-Muslim not part of @NATO alliance working for humanitarian cause is not considered invader

@Abdulqahar Balkhi: there are proper procedures in place for humanitarian orgs to contribute positively in Afghanistan

Balkhi made another response, to Amnesty International which had condemned what it called an “atrocious attack,” the Taleban’s “contempt for human life” and a “surge” in their targeting of civilians:

@Abdulqahar Balkhi: Reaction: #amnestyinternational accusations about civ/cas baseless, foreign nationals working for invaders not civ.

@Abdulqahar Balkhi: US & their hirelings deliberately target Ulama, madaris, homes & civilians daily; these same organizations have elected absolute silence

In other words, there was both a denial that the dead were civilians and a counter-accusation, that the US and Afghan government forces regularly kill Afghan civilians.

The main claim came 12 hours after the attack started – a long delay by Taleban standard. Apart from the Twitter comments, there has been only one other statement, an article published on the Taleban’s al-Emara (‘the Emirate’) Pashto website. Reporting only the confirmation of the Indian and American casualties, it still insisted the attack had been against “invaders,” but now emphasized the ‘moral decay’ of the concert, saying it had been organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had involved ‘scandal’ and ‘obscenity.’

Conflating civilian and military

Whatever justifications the Taleban try to make, from the list of those killed below, it is clear just how far away they were from being the “important invaders” claimed by the movement. Of the 15 dead – 11 men and three women – eight were aid workers, (4) five of them Afghan nationals who had travelled in from the regions for training. Three others worked in finance, three others as consultants in energy, infrastructure  or in an unspecified sector. The last was a visiting spouse.

The place which was targeted was also at odds with the Taleban’s portrayal of it. A mid-range hotel, its guests were mostly Indians and Pakistanis, along with Westerners and Afghans from the provinces; these were professional people with access to limited budgets and little reason, they thought, to fear a Taleban attack. If they had had more money or felt themselves to be more obvious targets, they would have been staying elsewhere.

Did the Taleban just make a mistake in their estimation of the worthiness of Park Palace as an important target? (UNODC used to be based there; when they did, there were indeed more stringent security measures. However, it has also not previously been linked to the ‘invasion’.)

Or was the Park Palace just a place which the Taleban could attack easily and hope to net victims who could be held up afterwards as “the targets”?

Or was this actually intended as an attack on foreigners linked to NATO countries? We wrote earlier that in the killing of someone like Paula Kantor the inherent racism of viewing all foreigners or Westerners as ‘invaders’ became clear, in that her suitability as a target in Taleban eyes apparently had nothing to do with who she was or what she did, but only that she was a westerner. However, even here the gunman/men apparently failed to distinguish among potential victims according to the crude metrics of a foreigner/Westerner being an enemy, given that Afghans and those from the region were not spared (Pakistani, Indian and Kazakh). One of the victims, for example, according to two eye-witnesses who spoke to AAN, was an older ‘local-looking’ man with a long grey and white beard wearing shalwar kamiz. Did the gunman/men expect more Westerners and then just kill whomever they found?

As AAN wrote after the attack on the Lebanese restaurant in Kabul in January 2014, we have seen the Taleban crossing the red line of targeting foreign civilians before. And we have seen them trying to justify this before (see, for instance, their response to AAN’s piece on the Taverna attack). We have also seen them pulling back. This time the Taleban’s language is again worrying and many will be watching to see whether their targeting ‘guidelines’ have indeed changed. The fear is that the paucity of foreign military targets (the vast majority of the international military are in non-combat roles advising at senior levels; they are not in the field, except for some United States special forces) may make the softer foreign civilian targets more attractive. Many people, anyway, will already be sceptical of the Taleban’s assertions on Twitter that humanitarians are not targets, given the sheer number of aid workers among those killed.

If there was a shift in the Taleban’s targeting, this would put a large part of the international humanitarian and aid effort under threat, with potentially grave consequences to vulnerable Afghans (50 per cent of whom live beneath the poverty line). The irony would be that those affected would include NGOs who, out of principle, have always distanced themselves from the western military and who have often been in the country for decades, including during the Taleban regime.

15 dead, all civilians, all individuals, among them Paula Kantor

Before giving a longer obituary of Paula Kantor the former director of the other leading Kabul-based research organisation, AREU, who was a colleague and friend of AAN’s, we present what is known of the other victims. Many of the Afghan families did not want the identities of their kin released, possibly for privacy reasons, familiar to grieving families everywhere, possibly also because of the fear of repercussion. We have respected this.

The Afghans

Two Afghans working for the NGO Action Aid, 27-year old Muhammad Muhammadi and 36-year old Dr Jawed Ahmad Sahai, were killed. They were both working in Balkh and had come to Kabul for training on watershed management and water harvesting. A colleague, Andrew Wieteacha, told Vice News he was close to both and described how he would periodically travel to the provinces with Sahai:

It would be Sahai’s stories about his family, including anecdotes of his 4-year-old daughter, that Wieteacha would miss most, he said. “He was more than a hard worker, more than a dedicated humanitarian,…he was also a father and a husband. His family was paramount to him.”

Wieteacha said Muhammadi had always been listening to other people, “It was his patience and kindness that made [him] so easy to work with.” Other colleagues, describing how he had risen within the ranks at Action Aid, told Vice News of his “innate ability to win the respect of everyone from senior colleagues, high-powered political officials and even local elders.” 

The families of three other Afghans working for another NGO, the Aga Khan Foundation, who were killed in the attack did not want their identities revealed. A colleague said the two men and one woman, who were “of a variety of ages, young and old” were normally based in Takhar working on the Foundation’s human and institutional development programme. Like the Afghan Aid staff, they had been in Kabul for training.

A British Afghan who had been working for the British Council was also killed at Park Palace. His family also did not want his details released.

The Indians

Dr Martha Farrell (1959-2015) was a director of the NGO, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), which she and her husband had founded in 1982 to promote citizens’ participation in democratic government. In a professional career lasting more than 30 years, she had worked in India and abroad in the fields of education, research and policy advocacy, especially on gender and women’s rights. She had been in Kabul to train staff from the Aga Khan Foundation and was killed along with three of her trainees. There were strong tributes for Martha from former colleagues:

Dr Martha Farrell was a dear friend, popular colleague and a great support to others. She has always championed the causes of poor and marginalized. She lived and sacrificed her life for gender equality and women empowerment.

(from the PRIA website)

Martha was a strong woman, always very focussed and determined. She was a great trainer, she was instrumental in mainstreaming gender in PRIA, and she always raised gender issues in all discourses. Martha was passionate about her work.

(a message posted at Sahayi – Centre for Collective Learning and Action; see here)

Dr Farrell is survived by her husband and two children.

Two other Indians were auditors at the same firm. Rajesh Kumar Bhatti, who was 64 and from Chandigarh, had retired as a Senior Deputy Accountant General of Punjab in 2011 and, his son said, had been planning to finish his assignment in Kabul and return home next month: “I spoke to him yesterday, and he seemed excited about his coming trip to the US. He had booked the flight tickets and was going to stay with my younger brother there.” (5) His colleague, George Mathew from Ernakulam in Kochi, had called his family during the attack saying he was fine and hiding. Later, when they called back, there was no response.

The fourth Indian to be killed, Dr Satish Chandra, was described as a “technical consultant”

The Pakistanis

Pakistan lost two nationals in the attack: Ismail Awan, an adviser with an Afghan power supply company who was from Sargodha in Punjab, and Abdul Sattar, a finance manager in an Afghan construction company who was from Charsadda district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Italian and Kazakh

Aigerim Abdulayeva, 27 years old and from Kazakhstan (parents from Taraz but they had migrated to the capital), was killed along with her husband, Alessandro Abati, who was 48 and from Lombardy in Italy. They had met in Kazakhstan and married there before moving to Milan where Abdulayeva was studying for a degree in fashion design. It seems, from the Italian press, that they had been planning a second marriage ceremony in Italy in July. It reported that Abati had been a consultant for infrastructure projects and had worked extensively in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. According to the Italian Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, he had been working most recently “as a consultant to an agency that promotes investment in Afghanistan.” His parents, said the press, were “shut up in pain; [they] preferred not to comment.”

The American

Dr Paula Kantor, was a dedicated and meticulous researcher who spent five years working in Afghanistan, first as senior researcher and then director of AREU (2005-2010). She had been in Kabul for a few days, the first time in five years, very excited to be starting a new project looking at women and wheat-growing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ethiopia for the Islamabad-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, the world’s leading centre for research, development and training for these two essential staple crops. Four months ago, she had been appointed as its senior scientist working on gender and development. Typically, for Paula’s work, the new project was aimed at helping the poorest and most vulnerable.

Previously, Paula had worked at the WorldFish Centre, the International Centre for Research on Women and at the Universities of East Anglia and Wisconsin-Madison. With a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Gender and Development from the University of Sussex and a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina, she brought a formidable skill-set to her work in Afghanistan.

More importantly, however, she brought a commitment to positive social change through policy research. Behind her often self-deprecating front were firm and steadfast views on the importance and relevance of research and the need to uphold high standards. She was pro-active and energetic in seeking out new ideas and opportunities for research that would make a difference in improving people’s lives, especially in the areas of child labour, women, livelihoods, and migration. “She was focused on her work,” one former colleague said, “yet with staff, she was always generous with her time.” Her output at AREU was prolific (6), but she was also crucial for training up a new generation of Afghan researchers and was always a strong advocate for defining a meaningful career path for them.

She remained hopeful for Afghanistan as she made clear on the eve of the London conference in 2010 when Afghan and international leaders met to discuss ‘progress’ in Afghanistan:

“If the international community listens as much as it speaks, and if it responds genuinely to Afghan needs and priorities, then the shoots of hope, already present, can grow.” 

Billions of dollars have been spent on aid in Afghanistan and yet there is still an overwhelming need for the kind of research which Paula carried out and mentored others in doing: thoughtful, passionate, practical and committed, seeking to understand the intricacies of the Afghan social and economic systems that keep people thriving, oppressed or just alive.

 

(1) Ustad Eltaf Hussain is the son of Ustad Muhammad Hussain Sarahang. He was born in Kabul in 1955 and learned classical music from both his grandfather, Ustad Ghulam Hussain Khan, and father. He was also trained by Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan of Pakistan.

(2) Most recently, the Taleban’s 17 May suicide attack against a EUPOL convoy (a civilian target, although one which the Taleban consider military) next to the Kabul airport was bound to hurt civilians; indeed, two teenage girls were killed, along with a British security guard working with EUPOL.

(3) A hint that the Taleban might be about to widen their targeting had already come in their spring offensive statement: “the occupation has not ceased in political, cultural, educational, propaganda and other aspects.”

(4) Quoting Acbar, we earlier reported seven aid workers killed. However, the British Afghan had also been working on a development project.

(5) The Indian press reported that two of the Indians had been working with the UN, but UNAMA has confirmed to AAN that none of the dead had been “working with nor was contracted to any UN entity.”

(6) A list of Paula Kantor’s publications at AREU (some co-authored) are:

Create More Quality Jobs with Regular Pay to Improve Livelihoods and Political Stability, May 2007, with Stefan Schütte

Target Assistance to Families with the Least Access to Diverse, Better-Paying Jobs, May 2007, with Stefan Schütte 

Microcredit, Informal Credit and Rural Livelihoods: A Village Case Study in Kabul Province, November 2007, with Erna Anderson 

Microcredit, Informal Credit and Rural Livelihoods: A Village Case Study in Bamiyan, April 2008, with Erna Anderson

Factors Influencing Decisions to Use Child Labour: A Case Study of Poor Households in Kabul, April 2008, with Anastasiya Hozyaninva

Focusing ANDS Implementation on Pro-Poor Outcomes: Workshop Proceedings, 23 February 2009, with Sayed Mohammad Shah

Delivering on Poverty Reduction: Focusing ANDS Implementation on Pro-Poor Outcomes, February 2009, with Adam Pain

From Access to Impact: Microcredit and Rural Livelihoods in Afghanistan, June 2009

Child Labour in Afghanistan: ACBAR Presentation Notes, November 2009

Building a Viable Microfinance Sector in Afghanistan, January 2010, with Erna Anderson

Speaking from the Evidence: Governance, Justice and Development—Policy Notes for the 2010 Kabul Conference, May 2010, with Anna Larson, Deborah J Smith, Emily Winterbotham, Jay Lamey and Rebecca Roberts

Improving Efforts to Achieve Equitable Growth and Reduce Poverty, April 2010

Afghanistan Livelihood Trajectories: Evidence from Faryab, September 2010, with Zarah Batul Nezami

Poverty in Afghan Policy: Enhancing Solutions through Better Defining the Problem, November 2010, with Adam Pain

Securing Life and Livelihoods in Rural Afghanistan: The Role of Social Relationships, December 2010, with Adam Pain

Understanding and Addressing Context in Afghanistan: How Villages Differ and Why, December 2010, with Adam Pain

Running out of Options: Tracing Rural Afghan Livelihoods, January 2011, with Adam Pain

Beyond the Market: Can the AREDP transform Afghanistan’s rural nonfarm economy? February 2011, with Adam Pain

ANNEX: The Taleban’s statement on the Park Palace attack (AAN translation from the Pashto text)

Fedai Attack on Meeting Related to Occupiers Killed and Wounded Dozens of Occupiers Last Night in Kabul

Last night at 9 pm during the Azm operation, a self-sacrificing [fedai] mujahid, Muhammad Idris hailing from Logar province, using a special tactic, carried out [a series of] attacks on Park Palace guesthouse in Taimani area of Kabul city. The mujahid, who had a pistol, a Kalashnikov, a huge amount of explosives, a [suicide] vest and hand grenades, managed to breach the perimeters of the guesthouse and attack a meeting attended by over 100 invaders.

The attack which lasted until late last night was designed carefully; an important meeting attended by important people from many invading countries, especially Americans, was in progress as the attack happened.

Such attacks had previously happened in Wazir Akbar Khan and Shahr-e Naw which resulted in severe casualties for the enemy. The enemies have now [after the two previous areas turned insecure] moved to this area [Taimai] where they were holding night-time parties consisting of promiscuity and indulgence as well as other important meetings.

The mujahedin had followed the enemies carefully and knew about the timing of the meeting precisely. The fedai mujahid managed to cross all the security blockades safely and arrived in the hall [where the meeting was taking place]. According to information, more than 100 people were present in the meeting, half of whom were either killed or wounded in the attack.

Among the dead are a number of senior people from the invading countries; the media and the enemies will perhaps keep silent over that.

Rumours suggesting that the attack was carried out by three people are inaccurate; only one person carried out the attack.

The invading countries should understand that they will not stay safe from our attacks at any place and under any cover as long as they fail to withdraw their troops from our country and recognize our sovereignty. 

A Máltával és Lengyelországgal szemben folyó deficiteljárás lezárását javasolta a héten az Európai Bizottság, amely a Nagy-Britanniának a túlzott mértékű hiány megszüntetésére adott határidőt további két évvel történő meghosszabbítását is indokoltnak tartja. Finnország ellen viszont rövidesen elindulhat a deficiteljárás.

Europe is poised to try to help Libya stem the lethal human trafficking trade that has imperiled the lives of tens of thousands of desperate migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life in Europe.

But Libya’s U.N. ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi, is essentially saying “not so fast.”

The Security Council’s four European members — Britain, France, Spain and Lithuania — have crafted a resolution that would grant Europeans broad authority to use military force to seize suspected smuggling ships on the high seas or in Libya’s territorial waters, according to a diplomat familiar with the draft. The resolution, which European foreign ministers are scheduled to take up on Monday in Brussels, would also allow European forces to pursue human traffickers in Libya.

It’s unclear how many European navies are prepared to participate in a concerted interdiction effort on the high seas, and it seems highly unlikely that any European countries would relish the chance to send combat forces into a country riven by a bloody civil war.

Dabbashi doesn’t want to wait to find out. In an interview with Foreign Policy, Dabbashi expressed deep reservations about the European plan, which he said could violate Libya’s sovereignty. He also fretted that Libyan fishermen might get caught up in the international operation and have their boats, their only source of income, destroyed. “It will be very difficult to distinguish between fishermen and trafficking boats,” he said. “It could be disastrous for fishermen.”

The ambassador’s concerns echo public and private misgivings being expressed about the European plan from the United Nations, the United States, and Russia. The resolution would be adopted under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, a provision that is traditionally invoked to impose sanctions or authorize military action. The European text, which may be shared with the 15-nation Security Council later this week or next week, also would permit the detention of smugglers and the scuttling of their ships. In addition, foreign powers would be allowed to mount attacks on Libyan soil to seize any “assets” the smugglers might use to further their illicit trade.

The initiative is being driven most fervently by Italy and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, an Italian. Rome has shouldered the greatest burden of accommodating the massive flow of tens of thousands of desperate migrants into Europe. In previous efforts to stem the tide, Italy sought unsuccessfully to rally international support for a U.N.-backed stabilization force in Libya.

European powers cast the diplomatic push on humanitarian grounds, but Dabbashi voiced suspicion that Italy and other European powers were actually seeking a blank check to carry out offensive military operations on Libyan soil and Libyan territorial waters. The European approach, he said pointedly, could “raise more problems than it solves.”

The European diplomacy follows one of the deadliest months for the nearly 60,000 migrants that have fled unrest in Africa and the Middle East for Europe since the beginning of the year. In one particularly horrific incident, a boat carrying more than 750 migrants capsized off the coast of Sicily, killing most of the passengers.

“In the first 130 days of 2015, 1,800 people have drowned in the Mediterranean,” Peter Sutherland, the U.N.’s special representative for international migration, told the Security Council Monday. “That total represents a 20-fold increase over the same period last year – and at this pace, between 10,000 and 20,000 migrants would perish by autumn.”

The migrants come from as far away as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Syria, where political repression or long-standing conflicts have fueled a mass exodus. The largest numbers are transiting through Libya, which is in the midst of its own civil war, and are paying a fee of $5,000 to $15,000 for their passage to the southern shores of Italy, according to the United Nations. “They face a substantial risk of death,” Sutherland said. “But, clearly, the situations from which they flee are even more dangerous.”

European governments have faced intense criticism for mounting what has largely been a lackluster response to the rising migrant death toll.

Last November, European leaders shuttered an Italian naval operation, dubbed Mare Nostrum, that patrolled international waters in search of smuggling boats and sought to prosecute the traffickers. The program, which is credited with saving thousands of lives, was considered too costly by its European funders. A newer, less ambitious European program, called Operation Triton, only operates within about 21 miles of Italy’s shores, and has only six vessels at its disposal, according to Sutherland. Mare Nostrum had 32.

The push for a Security Council resolution is aimed to show renewed European resolve. It comes as the European Commission on Wednesday announced a new European migration plan, which would triple funding for a European maritime operation aimed at rescuing migrants at sea, establish a quota system for distributing refugees throughout Europe, and forge a common security policy aimed at dismantling traffickers networks and fighting the smuggling of humans.

On April 23, the European Council endorsed a plan favored by Mogherini “to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture, and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers in accordance with international law.”

The European call for the use of force has faced some skepticism at the United Nations, where U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Russia, and the United States have expressed public or private reservations about the plan. “Destroying the boats in not the appropriate way, it’s not the good way,” Ban told reporters during a visit to the Vatican. He voiced concern that destroying boats could damage an already ailing local economy.

Russian officials, for their part, have voiced regret for supporting a resolution in 2011 that paved the way for a NATO-backed overthrow of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, saying they were fooled into believing that the mission was designed only to prevent the mass slaughter of civilians. Moscow remains skeptical about the latest European plan. “We think it’s just going too far,” Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin said late last week.

The United States has not publically criticized the European proposal. But during a May 11 closed-door Security Council debate, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, asked a series of pointed questions about the European plan, according to three diplomats briefed on the meeting. One of her biggest: Whether creating a European force designed to deliver rescued migrants to Europe for processing might actually encourage people to try to make the risky passage.

Power and other American diplomats have also privately raised concerns with foreign officials about the wisdom of trying to adopt the resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, a provision used to authorize sanctions or the use of military force. Washington worries that governments in other parts of the world, including Asia, might seek authorization for military force against their own migrants using the provision.

Some diplomats, however, say they suspect the U.S. is reluctant to see the Security Council getting into the business of addressing migration issues because it doesn’t want to set a precedent that might invite other governments to call for council consideration of American migration policies.

Speaking to the Security Council on May 11, Mogherini sought to downplay the military nature of the operation, saying the Europeans had no intention of sending an intervention force onto Libyan soil. She also assured council members that the effort was not aimed at forcing refugees to remain in Libya, where many faced detention in extremely harsh conditions.

“Let me explicitly assure you that no refugees or migrants intercepted at sea will be sent back against their will,” Mogherini told the council. “Their rights under Geneva conventions will be fully honored.”

Asked to expand on Power’s remarks in the closed-door meeting, a U.S. official said that the Obama administration wanted to ensure that “any response that imposes consequences on smugglers and their assets should avoid putting migrants in further danger.”

But the official, who declined to be identified by name, said: “We support Europe’s effort to take a comprehensive approach to resolving these migration challenges and would emphasize that – as laid out in the EU council’s conclusions – a sustainable solution must include elements to expand search and rescue operations, increase legal avenues to migration, provide protection to refugees, and help source and transit and transit countries to manage migrants and refugees more humanely, in addition to cracking down on smugglers.”

European officials, meanwhile, are calling on Libya’s leaders to write a formal letter to the U.N. granting their consent for a new mission.

But any effort to secure Libyan backing is complicated by the fact that two rival factions — the internationally recognized government, headquartered in the eastern city of Tobruk, and a coalition of Islamists and fighters from the Misrata-based militia — are in the midst of a bloody civil war. Any decision to use force would require the formal consent of the government in Tobruk, which fled the Libyan capital of Tripoli last summer. But it would also require the approval of the rebels, who now control Tripoli and many of the country’s main ports. The failure to secure both parties consent, U.N. officials warn, could undermine U.N.-brokered talks aimed at forming a government of national unity in Libya.

While Dabbashi didn’t rule out the possibility that the Libyan government might ultimately agree to an outside maritime force, he set potentially insurmountable terms. “If we have to ask for assistance we will ask for assistance of the Security Council to extend the authority of the Libyan government over all of Libya,” he said.

That is a non-starter as it would run contrary to U.N. efforts to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement, according to diplomats. But they said they remain confident that they can secure the support of the key Libyan parties.

“We know what Dabbashi thinks, but at the end of day, if we are going to get a request from the government, it’s not going to be a letter written by Dabbashi,” said one U.N.-based diplomat.

The Libyans are not the only ones to harbor serious doubts about the European plan. “Nobody really thinks the European Union has a very convincing plan,” said Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. “There is a lack of clarity over how these operations would work [and] there is a lot of fear that this will end up in situation where the Europeans blow up harmless civilians. The U.N. secretariat is unconvinced it’s a good idea, Ban Ki-moon is unconvinced it’s a good idea.”

Gowan said the Italian government has failed to build European and U.N. support for a peacekeeping force in Libya, and the current strategy offers an opening to enlist greater support for military involvement in Libya. “This is partially a genuine response to migration crisis but it’s also an alibi for a serious European intervention in Libya,” he said. There is a lot of “genuine skepticism” about whether this constitutes a viable strategy capable of addressing Europe’s migration crisis, Gowan added, or a “lowest common denominator” pact that simply papers over differences within Europe.

“To be honest it looks like a half-baked baked plan that could go seriously awry,” said Gowan. “My suspicion is a lot of people are hoping maybe Russia and China will kill this off and save everyone a lot of embarrassment.”

Francesco Malavolta/AFP/Getty Images

In the past visitors could leave the Kremlin only via Kutafya Tower and had to walk around the entire Kremlin to get to Red Square.

Mazrak camp in the tough mountainous scrublands of Yemen’s north-west border with Saudi Arabia is now home to more than 10,000 people displaced by the escalating war between the government and rebels from the Huthi clan.
Photo: Annasofie Flamand / IRIN / 201003230854400244

By Ali G. Scotten

As Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) officials meet with President Obama at Camp David, their lobbying efforts are revolving around one question: In the event of a nuclear deal with Iran, what will the U.S. do to counter the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Middle East? The more important question, however — and one that Obama should ask them — is how they plan to stop the spread of sectarian warfare in the region.

The intensification of fighting along the Sunni-Shia divide should be of far greater concern than the challenge posed by Iran’s emergence from isolation. Sectarian hatred is drawing religious extremists from around the world to fight in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The longer that violence continues along religious communal lines, the harder it will be to arrive at political solutions to each conflict, and the more battle training foreign insurgents will receive — experience that can be used to wreak havoc when they return home.

The transnational nature of the current sectarian conflict is largely a result of the way a number of GCC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have attempted to counter Iran’s increasing influence in the region. For over a decade, Arab leaders have been warning Western governments of the Islamic Republic’s nefarious plan to establish a Shia empire across the Middle East — an argument based on the assumption that all Shias are sleeper agents, mindlessly awaiting orders from Iran’s Supreme Leader. The irony is that, in employing sectarian rhetoric to thwart Shia community efforts to address local grievances, these leaders have galvanized Sunni extremists, whose violence often serves to push Shias into Iran’s arms as a last resort.

Iraq and Yemen provide just two examples.

Following the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Saudi Arabia and its allies feared that a new representative government in Baghdad would emerge as a Shia theocracy operating under Tehran’s thumb. This was despite the fact that the majority of Iraqi Shias align with the Najaf school of Shiism, which looks down on ayatollahs engaging in worldly politics, and that most Shias polled at the time didn’t see Iranian involvement in their political affairs as a positive development. However, anti-Shia rhetoric and funding from wealthy individuals in GCC countries — coupled with the U.S. de-Ba’athification program, which exacerbated Sunni fears of marginalization — drew Sunni militants to Iraq harboring the intent to spark a sectarian civil war. When the civil war erupted in 2006, Shia Iraqis had little recourse but to turn to Iranian-allied extremist groups for protection.

In Yemen, the Saudis have been bombarding Houthi rebels, whom they view to be Iranian proxies because of their Zaydi Shia faith. But Zaydis share more in common religiously with their northern Yemeni Sunni neighbors than they do with distant Iranian Shias; in fact, many Zaydis even consider themselves to be a distinct sect. As a result, until the past couple of decades, Yemen experienced relatively little in the way of sectarianism. The more assertive form of Zaydism that the Houthis follow, however, emerged in the early 1990s in response to the encroachment of Saudi Wahabbism—the brand of Sunni Islam that has inspired the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State—into northern Yemen, accompanied by attacks on Zaydi shrines and mosques.

This new tension, combined with the economic deprivations experienced by northern Yemenis, created the Houthi movement. During the past decade, the Houthis became more radicalized following Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh’s six military incursions into northern Yemen, which left thousands dead. The Saudis, who supported the attacks as a means of countering Iran’s supposed influence in the Arabian Peninsula, joined the fight against the Houthis in 2009, prompting emboldened rhetoric from Tehran in support of the rebels.

Ultimately, in attacking the Houthis as Iranian proxies rather than seeking to alleviate the social and economic problems afflicting northern Yemen, Sana’a and Riyadh pushed the rebels to seek Iran’s help. Moreover, Saudi intervention in the name of countering Tehran created an incentive for the Iranians to operate in a region that held minor strategic importance to them, largely in order to prevent the Saudis from claiming that they had dealt the Islamic Republic a blow. Today, multiple flights travel each week between Tehran and the Houthi-held Yemeni capital, with many likely carrying arms (although most analysts see Saleh’s about-face in support of the Houthis, rather than Iranian weaponry, as the key to the rebels’ recent success).

None of this is to say that Iran is blameless in the sectarianism game. The Saudis and Bahrainis, for instance, likely wouldn’t see their sizeable Shia populations as security threats if it weren’t for Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Khomeini’s call in the 1980s to spread the Islamic Revolution — a call that led to the establishment of pro-Iranian revolutionary groups throughout the Persian Gulf. One such group, Hijazi Hezbollah, is widely believed to have been behind the 1996 bombing of the U.S. military barracks in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. And Iran’s failure to rein in previous Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s persecution of Iraqi Sunnis contributed to the widespread alienation that allowed the Islamic State to take over much of the country’s Sunni areas with such ease. The massacres being perpetrated against Sunni civilians by Iranian-backed Shia militias in areas liberated from the Islamic State do nothing to address this problem.

At today’s meeting with Obama, GCC leaders will ask for more military assistance. While Washington is likely to grant them their wish — perhaps providing them with a missile shield — it’s unclear what more weaponry will ultimately accomplish given that most of the fighting is being waged by non-state actors who can’t be defeated through conventional military means. Already possessing the world’s fourth-largest defense budget, the Saudis have been unable to achieve definitive success against the Houthis. Instead, the fighting is spreading into Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic State appears to have used the unrest to gain a foothold in Yemen.

It’s time for the GCC to accept that the years of containing Iran are over; the Bush administration’s decision to overthrow Tehran’s mortal enemy in Baghdad made that all but inevitable. Even in the face of the most crippling sanctions it has ever seen, the Islamic Republic has been able to preserve the Assad regime in Syria and increase its influence in Iraq. Is it possible that, following the lifting of sanctions, Iran could use the billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and increased oil revenue to intensify the fighting? Yes. But it should be painfully clear by now that none of the region’s most serious conflicts can be resolved without having Iran at the table. Ultimately, lasting security will have to involve the establishment of a new regional framework that binds the Islamic Republic and the other Persian Gulf countries into a relationship that elevates economic collaboration over geopolitical confrontation.

This is unlikely to occur, however, without domestic reform in the region. All of the conflicts raging in the Middle East today — with the exception of the U.S.-inspired chaos in Iraq — were sparked by protests against repression. In this regard, it’s important to note that Persian-led Iran has only made substantive inroads into the Arab world in times of instability. This was the case following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which provided the context for Hezbollah’s emergence, and it’s the case in Iraq and Yemen today. Meanwhile, GCC leaders’ policies that marginalize their Shia subjects, rather than integrate them into a pluralistic national project, have created the very susceptibility to Iranian influence that the Sunni monarchs fear.

For these reasons, when President Obama’s visitors ask him how they can best counter Iran, the most honest answer he can give is, “Get your own houses in order.”

Ali G. Scotten is a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and founder of Scotten Consulting, LLC, a company specializing in sociocultural and geopolitical analysis of the Middle East. Views expressed are his own.

Famed fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones often said antiquities belong in museums. A new bill introduced this week in Congress agrees.

Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) is offering new legislation, called the Prevent Trafficking in Cultural Property Act, to help the Homeland Security Department block Islamic State sales of antiquities on the black market, a major source of the group’s revenue. It’s not clear how much the sale of these artifacts, looted from museums and archaeological sites, is bringing in, but intelligence officials estimate it’s the second largest source of funding for the group, behind oil revenue. In one region of Syria, the group reportedly cashed in on $36 million by selling plundered artifacts.

The United Nations already has a ban against the sale of items looted from Iraq and Syria. But according to Keating, efforts within U.S. law enforcement to stop their sale are poorly coordinated, and officials charged with preventing the illicit trade are not well trained.

“It takes more expertise to be able to spot what’s an antiquity,” Keating told FP. “These investigations aren’t occurring the way they should.”

The Islamic State profits from the sale of stolen relics in two ways. In some cases, the group offers them on the black market. In others, it serves as a courier between parties, exercising a tax as high as 50 percent on their sale.

The market for these goods is global, but Keating said the main buyers are in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. His bill would require DHS to appoint a lead law enforcement coordinator to stop such sales in America, better train U.S. officials to identify stolen pieces, and improve efforts to prosecute buyers.

Keating said Reps. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) also have signed on to the plan, which he described as a way to cut off Islamic State funding that is just as important as military operations against the extremists on the battlefield.

“It’s something we have control over,” he said, referring to cracking down on the black market. “There are so many things we don’t have control over.”

Photo Credit: Louai Beshara/Getty Images

Who would’ve thought superstar Johnny Depp’s dogs would become the focus of an international incident? But here we are, in 2015, and Depp, who is in Australia filming the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film, finds himself in a stand-off with Canberra over the fate of his dogs, which the Australian government argues were brought into the country illegally. If they aren’t sent back home, Australia is threatening to kill the dogs.

The Australian Department of Agriculture argues that the dogs were brought into the country without the proper permits and in violation of the country’s biosecurity laws. “We found out he snuck them in because we saw him taking them to a poodle groomer,” Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce told reporters, according to the Guardian.

The dogs in question are two Yorkshire terriers named Boo and Pistol, and if Depp doesn’t ship them back to California on the private jet on which they arrived, they could be put down by the Australian government in a matter of hours. Joyce gave Depp 50 hours to get the dogs out of the country. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States,” Joyce said. “He can put them on the same chartered jet he flew out on to fly them back out of our nation.”

Australia has intense restrictions in place on importing dogs to prevent the spread of animal-borne diseases. Dogs must be vaccinated and checked for rabies by approved veterinarians before leaving for Australia, and then quarantined for a minimum of 10 days once they arrive. The guidelines posted online by the Australian Department of Agriculture include a 19-step guide to comply with these regulations. If they aren’t followed, the animal’s owner has to either send the dog home or pay for their pet’s euthanasia.

Depp appears to have not bothered complying with these, and the fracas over his pets has turned into a minor media firestorm, with reporters camped outside his Gold Coast mansion waiting for a glimpse of the dogs and to learn their fate.

They’ve even spawned heartfelt appeals for animal equality:

Maybe we have a hashtag campaign to look forward to: #BringBackBooAndPistol.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

This report is for the media and the general public.

The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements”.  Its monitoring was restricted by third parties and security considerations.* The SMM observed continued fighting around Shyrokyne and Donetsk airport. At a “DPR” heavy weapons holding area the SMM observed that six self-propelled howitzers 122mm (Gvozdika) were missing.

The SMM continued to observe ceasefire violations in the hotspots of Shyrokyne (20km east of Mariupol) and surrounding areas, and in and around Donetsk airport. The SMM observed artillery, including mortars, tanks, heavy-machine gun fire, rifle and anti-aircraft guns, including the use of shrapnel-causing ammunition at the airport. Shyrokyne remained tense with sporadic small-arms and mortar fire heard by the SMM from its position at government-controlled Sopyne (3.5km west of Shyrokyne).

According to the representative of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) observation point at Donetsk railway station (“Donetsk People’s Republic” - “DPR”-controlled, 8km north-west of Donetsk city) intensive fighting had taken place between “DPR” in Spartak (12km north-west of Donetsk) and the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Butivska mine (government-controlled, 14km north-west of Donetsk) on 12 May between 21:00hrs and 23:00hrs. According to the JCCC there was also intensive fighting between Ukrainian Armed Forces in Pisky (15km north-west of Donetsk) and “DPR” in Zhabunki (13km north-west of Donetsk).

In Horlivka (“DPR”-controlled, 39km north-east of Donetsk) the SMM observed six craters in six different locations. After performing a crater analysis and observing shrapnel and fuses, the SMM assessed that all six craters were the result of 122mm artillery fire. The SMM assessed that the majority of the shelling originated from a north-westerly direction. According to local residents in Horlivka, the shelling occurred on 12 May between 23:00 and 03:00hrs. 

At the Uspenka (“DPR”-controlled, 72km south-east of Donetsk) international border crossing point the SMM observed approximately 20 civilian vehicles with Ukrainian registration plates, waiting to cross into the Russian Federation. About 15 civilian trucks with Ukrainian registration plates were also lined up. According to passengers and drivers waiting in the queue the waiting time for cars was about 2hrs, whereas trucks had to wait 3 to 4 hours.

While stationary on the M03 road at the Luhansk/Donetsk administrative boundary close to “DPR”-controlled Debaltseve (71km north-west of Luhansk), the SMM heard at 14:30hrs three explosions from incoming shelling. The SMM spoke with three “DPR” armed members who said that live fire exercises are taking place in the area involving 80mm mortars. The SMM could observe the impact site approximately 500 meters south of the M03 road. The SMM has previously observed the use of the area as a “DPR” training site.

From 09:30 to 10:13hrs, at the last government-controlled checkpoint before the partially repaired Stanytsia Luhanska bridge (16km north-east of Luhansk), the SMM observed a continuous flow of civilians (both women and men of different age) crossing in both directions. According to the “Chernihiv” volunteer battalion checkpoint personnel, every day about 300-400 civilians (both women and men of different age) travel across the bridge of which about 50 are not let through. Only in case of obvious attempts to deceive the checkpoint staff would people be refused to pass. Further, the majority of people were allowed through, showing their Ukrainian internal passports to the checkpoint personnel. The SMM observed damaged houses near the bridge on “LPR”-controlled territory with holes in roofs and windows blown out. The checkpoint personnel said that on 12 May between 21:00 and 02:00hrs armed members of the “Lugansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”) attacked the town of Stanytsia Luhanska and the bridge with wire-guided anti-tank rockets (TUR) and rocket propelled grenades (RPG). According to the interlocutor, exchanges of fire between government forces and “LPR” members had taken place over the last days and several small groups of armed persons tried to access government- controlled territory. Local female residents told the SMM that several houses and the gas pipeline were damaged by the attacks of 12 May.

The SMM re-visited two “DPR” holding areas of heavy weapons. At one of the sites, the SMM was informed by the “DPR” commander that four of the self-propelled howitzers were taken out to a firing range close to the site. He then accompanied the SMM to the firing range where the SMM found four self-propelled howitzers 122mm (Gvozdika) that were the same as the ones previously recorded at the holding area nearby. The howitzers were in firing position pointing south-south-east. The SMM then went to the site where the team found two remaining self-propelled howitzers 122mm (Gvozdika) with removed engines. The engines were stored beside the howitzers.

At the second “DPR” heavy weapons holding area the SMM found only two 100mm anti-tank guns and observed that six self-propelled howitzers 122mm (Gvozdika) were missing. According to the “DPR” members at the site, the howitzers were taken away on the evening of 9 May to an unknown location.

The SMM re-visited one Ukrainian Armed Forces holding area of heavy weapons on 12 May to verify the inventory of 34 Uragan MLRS, BM-27 launchers and BM-27 transporter-loaders confirmed all weapons were in situ in compliance with Minsk withdrawal lines.

Despite claims that heavy weapons have been withdrawn, the SMM Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operated in the area in and around Shyrokyne and further east and observed a number of main battle tanks (MBTs) on both sides of the contact line. In particular, in government-controlled areas of Pionerske, Sopyne and Novolaspa, (13km and 16 east of Mariupol and 90km north-east of Mariupol) it observed 6 MBTs; in “DPR”-controlled areas of Oktyabr (26km east of Mariupol) Michurine (70km north-east of Mariupol) and Sontseve (18km east of Mariupol) the UAV observed 7 MBTs.

In Kharkiv the SMM observed on 12 May a peaceful pro-unity rally held on the 34th birthday of the female Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko (currently in detention in Moscow). Around 50 euro-Maidan activists of mixed gender and age, holding Ukrainian flags and escorted by five policemen, marched from the Liberty Square to the Russian Federation Consulate General . The Russian Federation Consulate was guarded by a cordon of 15 police officers. They called for the “liberation” of Savchenko and other Ukrainians citizen detained in Moscow. After approximately one hour, participants dispersed calmly.

In Odessa city the SMM visited on 13 May the site of an explosion between two railway stations. According to workers at the site, the explosion happened on 12 May at 23:55hrs. According to the railway workers they had fixed the damage and the SMM observed a train passing through the site at 10:30hrs. A representative of the Odessa regional transport police confirmed to the SMM the date and time of the explosion. According to him, the preliminary investigations revealed that a non-fragmentation explosive device with the equivalent of approximately 2.5 kg of Trinitrotoluene (TNT) was placed on the tracks near the railway bridge. The blast had resulted in the destruction of 500 metres of metal rail and a damaged sleeper. No casualties were reported. The incident has been classified as “sabotage” according to paragraph 113 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code. In addition, a representative of the Odessa regional police confirmed to the SMM that on 12 May at 14:25hrs at Solontsevatyi lane in Odessa, a handmade explosive device was discovered by gas company workers. The explosive material was in a plastic bottle with wires connected to a clockwork mechanism. An explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) unit of the Odessa regional police deactivated the device and sent it to a forensic laboratory for examination. The police assessed its action as ’Prevention of terrorist attack’.

In Kyiv the SMM attended a press conference which was held by the Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights and various civil society organizations, on the evacuation and public safety of state institutions in the area of Mariupol not controlled by the government. The institutions addressed by the speakers range from orphanages and hospitals to nursing homes and prisons. According to the speakers, in “DPR”/”LPR”-controlled areas there are 77 such institutions which accommodate approximately 60,000 persons. The speakers estimated that up to 35,000 persons should be urgently evacuated from areas not controlled by the Government east of Mariupol. In one of the hospitals in Mariupol there are approximately 100 bedridden patients. In case of emergency, measures in Mariupol need to be prepared for a possible evacuation of approximately 1086 persons, of whom 56 are orphans.

The SMM continued to monitor the situation in Kherson, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv.

 

* Restrictions on SMM access and freedom of movement:

The SMM is restrained in fulfilling its monitoring functions by restrictions imposed by third parties and security considerations including the lack of information on whereabouts of landmines. The security situation in Donbas is fluid and unpredictable and the ceasefire does not hold everywhere.

- On 12 May, at a Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint in government-controlled Makarove (19km north-east of Luhansk) the trunks of the SMM vehicles were inspected by the checkpoint personnel. The SMM was let through after five minutes.

- While returning to government-controlled Sievierodonetsk (74km north-west of Luhansk) a Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint guard was inspecting the OSCE red books of SMM members on patrol. The SMM was let through after eight minutes.

For a complete breakdown of the ceasefire violations, please see the annexed table.

  Related Stories

• Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 19:30 (Kyiv time), 12 May 2015
• Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 19:30 (Kyiv time), 11 May 2015
• Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 19:30 (Kyiv time), 10 May 2015

Colombia is facing a key challenge familiar to many countries attempting to transition out of armed conflict: conducting peace negotiations while armies are still on the battlefield. With the FARC rebel group’s recent violation of its self-imposed ceasefire that resulted in the killing of 11 Colombian army soldiers, the peace talks have had a bumpy couple of months. But despite what some have argued, the sky is not falling. The talks are best understood as an elaborate political kabuki dance, high on posturing and symbolism, and regularly featuring both setbacks and shows of good faith. Though negotiators are walking a dangerous tightrope, the peace process has proven robust so far. So despite several mishaps (including another battle at the end of April), the progress to date and the underlying structure of the conflict are still forcing the parties toward a deal.

True, recent incidents in Colombia have been unnerving. Although the FARC declared a unilateral ceasefire over Christmas that was partially reciprocated by the Colombian government’s temporary halt to airstrikes, it was broken when the 11 army soldiers on patrol were attacked and killed by a FARC unit on April 15. This tragic incident and previous skirmishes are compounded by a deeper mistrust built up over a conflict that has lasted over fifty years and claimed over 220,000 victims. Colombians can’t be blamed for their suspicion, and the government’s reluctance to commit to a bilateral ceasefire was reinforced by the testy Caguan negotiations from 1999-2002. During that effort, the FARC took numerous towns, massed on the edge of Bogotá, and even shelled President Álvaro Uribe’s inauguration ceremony. The words “Colombia” and “failed state” often appeared in the same sentence. It is therefore understandable why some might believe the talks to be at risk today, and why the U.S. envoy to the talks, Bernard Aronson, admonished the FARC to “show they are serious.” But what many observers have missed is that the conditions in Colombia today are different.

There are several reasons why the peace process remains strong. The talks have already made historic progress and the FARC has made many shows of good faith: it has given up on its call to institute a socialist state, admitted responsibility for its role in the conflict, listened to victims and asked them for forgiveness, aided with removing land mines, and ceased kidnapping and recruiting of child soldiers. Important sub-agreements have been reached on land reform, political participation, and the drug trade. 

The posturing of the armies on the battlefield is also better viewed as a “tremble” rather than as a sign of an impending collapse of negotiations. Game theorists invoke the concept of the “trembling hand” to represent a player’s mistake or an accident that sends the game toward deeper conflict. In one recent such “tremble,” a FARC front commander attacked energy towers because news of a cease-fire was delayed in reaching him. Nevertheless, the process has proven robust in the face of such trembles — including previous attacks by both sides. Negotiations have continued to progress and FARC negotiators have been helpful and responsive in mitigating flare-ups of conflict. Case in point: the mysterious capture of General Alzate by the FARC in the western department of Chocó in November of last year (when he ventured into a FARC-controlled village) was successfully resolved through his timely release. Even after the latest fatal skirmish, which some accounts suggest was accidental, the FARC has recommitted to a ceasefire.

Perhaps most importantly, the structure and incentives underlying these talks are different from those that prevailed during the previous talks in Caguan. The alternative of resuming fighting remains far less desirable for both sides than a negotiated agreement. The FARC is weak and still prefers a deal, which is why they are still at the table, have begun to implement policy changes and pressed hard for a ceasefire.

The government also has much to gain and little to lose by continuing to negotiate. It has proven difficult to finish off the FARC militarily, given its places of refuge in the jungle and in the mountains. A political agreement would be much neater than trying to hunt down every last rebel. There is also the worry that if the FARC is defeated militarily, it may splinter into criminal bands. So far, the FARC is also not using the talks to mask a massive remobilization, as it did during the Caguan talks. And although the Colombian government was burned by this remobilization, it will be much harder to fool this time around. The FARC is far weaker today: its force strength has dropped from around 18,000 to 7,000 troops. The Colombian military is also much stronger as a result of Plan Colombia assistance and other training and procurement programs. If the FARC engages in militancy or if negotiations break down, the government will not have sacrificed its position and the military would be able to continue pressing an offensive that has proven effective at pushing the FARC onto their heels.

This doesn’t mean there are no threats to the stability of the talks. There are. Perhaps the biggest risk factor is the armies that remain on the battlefield, which can lead to accidents and clashes. A security dilemma persists in which neither actor can simply sit still and allow themselves to be vulnerable, and both sides still have constituents they must appease and missions to achieve. The FARC must still hide its camps, evade the army, and fund itself. It has shown greater restraint in offensive operations against the military and police, but has also bombed oil pipelines. The conflict has also continued to displace civilians. Further, the FARC Central Secretariat and negotiators in Havana may also have uncertain control over some parts of the battlefield, particularly fronts in southern and western Colombia that are more closely linked to the drug trade.

The government is also responsible for squandering trust during the talks. Earlier this year, President Juan Manuel Santos invoked former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when he said, “We are going to negotiate as if there were no terrorists, and we will fight the terrorists as if there were no negotiations.” Indeed, Minister of Defense Juan Carlos Pinzón cannot in good conscience order his troops to sit on their hands and refrain from defending the Colombian people. The military has continued operations, including killing FARC leaders and, in one incident in late 2012, killing over 20 FARC soldiers in southern Colombia. Colombian military intelligence also broke the FARC’s communications encryption, leading to an eavesdropping scandal last year when the military set up an operation in the back of a lunch counter in downtown Bogotá to monitor the peace talks in Havana. If the FARC’s communications cannot be assured, the group may justifiably doubt the government’s willingness to comply with norms of the negotiation, or hold up its end of a final agreement.

The slow pace of talks is also not helping. The process is already in its third year and since reaching three sub-agreements in quick succession, there has been little good news of late. The talks have continued behind closed doors in Cuba as negotiators toil with the most difficult parts of the agenda: justice and punishments for FARC members, reintegration of the guerrillas into Colombian society, and the technical details of the agreement’s final implementation. A lack of recent “wins,” along with bad news from the battlefield, have only fueled skepticism by opponents (such as former President Uribe) and volatile public support.

The loss of civilian lives and soldiers on both sides is tragic. But it is not yet a threat to the peace process, because too much has been invested to endanger the historic progress that has already been achieved. There may be a few more unfortunate trembles yet before a final deal is concluded. But sustained progress in the negotiations, exercising patience and restraint, and enduring international support will help keep both parties at the table. The trembles suggest that rebel spoilers could materialize as a future hazard to a final agreement, but that will only become apparent once success is realized. For the moment, the trembling hands in Colombia appear to be steadied.

In the photo, Colombian soldiers render funeral honors to their comrades killed in a FARC attack on April 16, 2015.
Photo Credit: LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images

In Europa haben Enthüllungen für einen Aufschrei gesorgt, denen zufolge der deutsche Auslandsgeheimdienst BND im Auftrag der amerikanischen NSA in…

This report is for media and the general public.

SUMMARY

On 14 May 2015 at 06:52hrs (Moscow time), a Russian convoy arrived at the Donetsk Border Crossing Point (BCP). A total of 50 vehicles were checked by the Russian border guard and customs services. All the vehicles had crossed back into the Russian Federation by 14:45hrs on 14 May.

DETAIL

Leaving the Russian Federation

On 14 May 2015 at 06:52hrs, the Observer Mission observed the arrival of a Russian convoy at the gate of the Donetsk BCP. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations team led the process of the convoy’s movement. The convoy consisted of 44 cargo trucks and 6 support vehicles. All cargo trucks bore the inscription “Humanitarian help from the Russian Federation”.

The vehicles stopped at the customs control area, backdoors of all of the cargo trucks were opened and visually checked from outside by Russian border guards and customs officers. One service dog was used to check some of the cargo trucks. Ukrainian officers – 6 border guards and 1 customs officer – were present on site during the check. They performed visual observation of the opened trucks from the outside. By 08:02hrs all vehicles had left the BCP towards Ukraine. At 09:25hrs, the last two cargo trucks arrived at the BCP. After being visually checked from the outside, both trucks crossed into Ukraine by 09:37hrs.

Returning to the Russian Federation

At 14:15hrs on 14 May, the convoy arrived and lined up at the customs area in four lines. The backdoors of the trucks were open and both Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officers visually checked the returning convoy. One service dog was used to check some of the cargo trucks. By 14:45hrs on 14 May all 50 vehicles had returned and crossed back into the Russian Federation.

Related Stories

• Weekly update from the OSCE Observer Mission at Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk based on information as of 10:00 (Moscow time), 12 May 2015
• Spot Report by OSCE Observer Mission: A twenty fourth Russian convoy of 62 vehicles crossed into Ukraine and returned back through the Donetsk Border Crossing Point
• Spot Report by OSCE Observer Mission: A twenty third Russian convoy of 62 vehicles crossed into Ukraine and returned back through the Donetsk Border Crossing Point

Pour Jean Arthuis (UDI), président de la commission des budgets du Parlement européen, l’annulation d’une partie de la dette grecque est inévitable. Celui qui fut le ministre des finances français (95-97) qui a négocié le Pacte de stabilité, analyse, pour Libération, une crise grecque qui n’en finit pas.

Pourquoi les négociations avec la Grèce s’éternisent-elles ?

Il faut bien comprendre que, quel qu’ait été le gouvernement issu des élections du 25 janvier, la négociation actuelle aurait eu lieu : si la Grèce veut toucher les 7,2 milliards d’euros promis par la zone euro et le Fonds monétaire international, elle doit s’engager à mener davantage de réformes. La précédente majorité dirigée par le conservateur Antonis Samaras avait d’ailleurs échoué à se mettre d’accord avec ses créanciers et c’est en partie à cause de cet échec que des élections législatives anticipées ont été organisées. Or, le gouvernement d’Alexis Tsipras persiste à refuser une partie des réformes demandées, les plus douloureuses, parce qu’il veut appliquer le programme sur lequel il a été élu. Le problème est qu’il n’en a absolument pas les moyens : il doit comprendre que ce n’est pas aux Européens de financer les dépenses publiques de l’État grec en lui prêtant de l’argent sans limites et sans condition. Ainsi, ramener la retraite à 60 ans alors que son système est déjà déficitaire, c’est faire financer la retraite des Grecs par les autres citoyens européens qui, eux, doivent parfois travailler jusqu’à 67 ans et plus. C’est évidemment inacceptable ! Surtout, Tsipras doit réaliser que ces réformes ne sont pas exigées pour punir ou humilier la Grèce, comme on l’entend parfois : il s’agit de remettre le pays durablement sur les rails de la croissance. À ce moment-là, il retrouvera des marges de manœuvre budgétaires qui lui permettront de faire davantage pour son peuple. Le Premier ministre grec commence à réaliser qu’il va devoir en passer par là. Mais ce processus est laborieux et c’est dangereux pour l’ensemble de la zone euro.

Certains affirment que c’est la zone euro qui est responsable des problèmes grecs.

Il n’y a aucun acharnement malveillant dans ce qui se passe : il faut, zone euro ou pas, que le budget grec soit à l’équilibre puisque les marchés refusent de lui prêter de l’argent. On qualifie cette politique d’austéritaire, mais ça n’a aucun sens. Quand une entreprise est proche de la faillite, on prend des mesures de redressement, notamment en coupant dans ses dépenses et ses effectifs... La conséquence de cet ajustement a certes été une baisse de près de 30 % de son PIB qui est revenu à son niveau du début des années 2000. Mais la période 2001-2008 a été une bulle : l’État a financé à crédit des augmentations de salaire, des embauches de fonctionnaires, des travaux publics, etc.. Si la Grèce était restée hors de la zone euro, elle n’aurait simplement pas connu cette bulle et son PIB ne serait pas plus élevé qu’il ne l’est aujourd’hui. Et il faut bien avoir conscience que si la Grèce sortait maintenant de l’euro, elle connaitrait le sort que connaît l’Argentine depuis 2002, lors de la rupture de la parité fixe entre le dollar et le peso et du défaut qui a suivi, sans les matières premières et les capacités exportatrices de ce pays…

Comment se sortir de cet imbroglio grec ?

La réalité est en train de s’imposer au gouvernement Tsipras. Les citoyens grecs ont arrêté de payer leurs impôts fonciers, car Syriza avait imprudemment promis qu’il allait les abroger, les comptes publics se sont dégradés au point que le gouvernement aura du mal à maintenir l’équilibre primaire (hors charge de la dette), la fuite des capitaux prend des proportions inquiétantes et la croissance économique qui devait atteindre 2,4 % en 2015 est désormais proche de zéro. Ma conviction est qu’on va finir par trouver un accord. Il faut y arriver parce que si les Grecs en sont là, c’est aussi en partie de notre faute.

Pourquoi ?

Les Européens ont été irresponsables d’admettre ce pays dans la monnaie unique en 2001 essentiellement parce qu’on ne pouvait pas claquer la porte de la zone euro au nez de Platon ! Cela a été une faute politique majeure alors que tout le monde savait que la Grèce n’était pas un État fonctionnel et qu’elle mentait sur l’état réel de ses comptes publics. Une fois admise, on aurait pu au moins la surveiller comme on surveille le lait sur le feu, ce qu’on n’a pas fait au nom du respect de la souveraineté nationale. Cet aveuglement s’explique en partie par le fait que les pays européens, et notamment la France et l’Allemagne, y trouvaient leurs comptes : ils exportaient massivement vers la Grèce sans se préoccuper de savoir comment ces dépenses figureraient dans ses comptes publics. Si elle était surendettée, ce qui l’a conduit au défaut de paiement, c’est parce qu’en face il y avait des surcréanciers… On n’a alors pas eu d’autre choix que d’aider la Grèce, à la fois pour éviter des effets systémiques sur le reste de la zone euro, mais aussi pour que les créanciers privés (banques, assurances, entreprises) ne se retrouvent pas seuls à gérer un défaut de paiement. On a en fait transféré le mistigri des banques aux États.

La Grèce remboursera-t-elle sa dette ?

Il faut être réaliste. D’ici 2023, date à partir de laquelle la Grèce est censée commencer à rembourser les intérêts de sa dette vis-à-vis du Mécanisme européen de stabilité et des États de la zone euro, ses créanciers auront déjà inscrit en perte leur créance sur la Grèce. Il ne faut pas se faire d’illusion sur la capacité qu’auront les Grecs - et d’autres pays d’ailleurs -à rembourser leurs dettes. Ce qui est en train de se passer est une restructuration implicite.

Personne ne le reconnaît pour l’instant…

Car il faut garder un moyen de pression sur la Grèce ! Elle doit assumer ses responsabilités et moderniser son Etat afin d’éviter de répéter les erreurs du passé. A cet égard, les membres de la zone euro doivent aussi tirer les leçons de la crise. Le pacte de stabilité et de croissance n’est pas une politique, il n’est qu’un règlement de copropriété. C’est dire l’urgence d’un véritable gouvernement économique et financier, dirigé par un président à temps plein, disponible et non suspect de conflits d’intérêts, prenant appui sur un véritable Trésor européen, dans l’attente d’un budget et d’une chambre de la zone euro. Cet embryon de fédéralisme européen implique, bien sûr, que l’on révise les traités.

N.B.: English version

N.B.: entretien paru dans Libération du 11 mai

Bombers and ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) aircraft head towards the Pacific.

It looks like the U.S. Air Force is planning to deploy some strategic bombers and surveillance aircraft in Australia to put some pressure on China amid South China Sea tensions.

The South China Sea is the subject of several territorial claims. China claims sovereignty on some island chains and  waters that are within the 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam

This year, China has started building an airstrip on the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea  waters claimed by the Philippines.

According to FP, the Defense Department’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear, during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 13, said that along with moving U.S. Marines and Army units around the region, the Pentagon will deploy air assets in Australia, “including B-1 bombers and surveillance aircraft.”

The U.S. Air Force ISR aircraft, possibly unmanned Global Hawk drones, will monitor activities around the disputed islands, whereas the “Bone” heavy bombers will serve as a deterrent to challenge Beijing aggressive ownership claims.

U.S. strategic bombers have already been temporarily deployed to Australia, to take part in exercises with the Royal Australian Air Force, in 2012 and at the end of 2014 as a consequence of a joint Force Posture Initiative signed in 2011 to train together to face threats in the Pacific.

Actually, U.S. aircraft don’t really need to deploy to Australia to put pressure on China: Air Force Global Strike Command’s bombers, including B-52s and B-2s, routinely operate from Andersen Air Force Base, in Guam, strategically located 1,800 miles (about 2,900 km) to the east of China. And they can even launch round-trip strike missions from their bases located in the Continental U.S.

According to Xinhuanet, China cautioned the U.S. against taking any actions in the region, urging Washington “not to take any risks or make any provocations so as to maintain regional peace and stability.”

Image credit: Boeing

 

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On the evening of May 12, an Amtrak train carrying commuters from Washington, DC, to New York derailed, killing seven and injuring more than 200. To some, the deadly accident highlights the dangers posed by America’s crumbling and underfunded infrastructure, though on May 13, in a vote that had already been scheduled prior to the Amtrak crash, House Republicans voted to slash the budget for the publicly-funded railroad service by $260 million.

But Americans weren’t the only ones talking about the crash. China is home to the world’s longest high-speed rail network, built in just a decade. And while the officially communist country’s system of governance faces a bevy of international criticism for human rights violations and lack of rule of law, China’s steadily expanding infrastructure is a major point of national prestige. It’s also a major point of sensitivity; to many Chinese, the image of a train crash is deeply resonant, recalling a deadly high-speed crash in 2011 and a subsequent cover-up that cut to the heart of the legitimacy of their government. Perhaps that’s why some disgruntled Chinese web users have taken the Amtrak derailment as an opportunity to deflect criticism back on the United States.

Chinese netizens let loose the sarcasm on social media platform Weibo, parroting with apparent relish criticism, directed at China, that has been branded as Western — although much of it actually comes from Chinese reformists themselves. Though online chatter about the U.S. crash was limited, it was largely in this vein. One such criticism is that train crashes are a symptom of an inferior model of governance, often simply called a “system” in Chinese. “With such a backwards system and a backwards rail network, it would be strange if such accidents didn’t happen in the United States!” wrote one Weibo user on May 13. Another common criticism is that the Chinese government cares more about economic development, and its own survival, than the well-being of its people.  Still another feigned shock and denial, writing, “But how could a train derail in a democratic country?” And in a reference to China’s increasing number of international high-speed rail deals, one user proclaimed, in a comment that turned the U.S. save-the-world mentality on its head, “Chinese rail, it’s time to go save the American people!”

Such comments may appear to be simple schadenfreude, but they also reveal a lingering scar on China’s own national consciousness, and an ongoing debate between conservatives and reformists about the best path for China to take. In July 2011, 40 passengers were killed when two bullet trains collided in the southeastern city of Wenzhou. But government officials initially suppressed news of the crash; they even concealed one of the damaged train cars in a dirt pit, almost burying alive a three year-old girl still trapped in it. The memory of that attempt at deception hasn’t faded. On May 13, numerous Weibo users commenting on the Amtrak derailment made thinly-veiled references to the Wenzhou crash and the failed cover-up. One comment called on China’s pro-American liberals to “come out and cover up the scene” of the Amtrak accident. Another Weibo user fired out a series of mocking questions, writing, “Why haven’t you revealed the condition of the victims? What are you trying to hide? Who is lying?” Many believed the deadly crash was the result of a governance model which prioritized economic growth over human safety, as well as the corruption which has riddled China’s state-owned rail industry. To that, one user wrote, “A country that so disregards the safety of its people has a huge problem with its system.”

In the wake of the Amtrak tragedy, Americans got a taste of how a tragic train crash can trigger political and social controversy. In China, it dredged up memories of a years-old incident, and a simmering debate between liberals and conservatives, that’s never truly been buried.

Getty Images

Ce n’est la première fois que le médiateur intervient, la première de ses interventions remonte à plusieurs années comme le montre clairement une lecture attentive de la rubrique « Pour en savoir plus » ci-dessous.

La Médiatrice Emily Emily O’Reilly a fait à l’Agence Frontex de gestion des frontières extérieures communes un certain nombre de propositions pour qu’elle respecte davantage les droits fondamentaux des migrants faisant l’objet de procédures de retour forcé vers leur pays d’origine. Rappelons que de 2006 à 2015, Frontex a coordonné 267 vols conjoints de retour, ramenant en tout 13 000 personnes indique la médiatrice dans son communiqué. La réforme de Frontex ne semble pas avoir déjà porté tous les fruits attendus . (cf. l’article du 22.10 2011 de Nea say « de nouvelles règles pour renforcer Frontex » http://www.eu-logos.org/eu-logos_nea-say.php?idr=4&idnl=2240&nea=113&lang=fra&lst=0

Aujourd’hui ses recommandations portent notamment sur la situation des enfants et des femmes enceintes qui doivent être installés séparément des autres rapatriés. Frontex devrait également promouvoir des règles communes sur l’usage de la contrainte et obliger les Etats membres à améliorer les procédures de traitement des plaintes. La Médiatrice se dit également être déçue par le fait que Frontex refuse toujours de se doter de son propre mécanisme de traitement des plaintes. Ses préconisations concernent également et encore l’examen médical des migrants et la formation aux droits de l’homme du personnel escortant ces rapatriés .

Pour en savoir plus :

     -. Avis de la Médiatrice http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/correspondence.faces/en/11758/html.bookmark

     – . Propositions pour améliorer les opérations de retour : http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/summary.faces/en/59743/html.bookmark

   -. Recommandations de la Médiatrice concernant le respect de droits fondamentaux (FR) http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_EO-13-17_fr.htm (EN) http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_EO-13-17_en.htm

– . Dossier des articles de Nea say sur Frontex http://www.eu-logos.org/eu-logos_nea-say.php?idr=4&idnl=3500&nea=156&lang=fra&arch=0&term=0

 

 

 

 

Classé dans:Conditions d'accueil des réfugiés, DIGNITE HUMAINE, Droit à l'intégrité de la personne, Droit à la santé, Droits de l'enfant, DROITS FONDAMENTAUX, IMMIGRATION

Macédoine : gouvernement Gruevski, le début de la fin ?
Macédoine : la manifestation vire aux affrontements dans le centre de Skopje
Macédoine : un sit-in contre les violences policières
Macédoine : les étudiants en grève font plier le gouvernement

/ Politique intérieure, Courrier des Balkans, Macédoine, Dérive autoritaire Macédoine

 

By Chris Mondloch
Best Defense guest columnist

Back in February, several Members of Parliament began urging the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence to stand up a Sikh regiment in the U.K. Army. Not surprisingly, a similar proposal was dashed in 2007 amid charges of being segregationist.

But Sir Nicholas Soames, who was a Defence Minister in the’ 90s and is now a Conservative MP, has decided to take another stab at creating an all-Sikh regiment. Rory Stewart, who chairs the Defence Select Committee, responded favorably to the proposal, but suggested a reserve Sikh regiment may be the best initial option. Either way, the Conservatives’ resounding election victory last week means this proposal is likely to receive serious consideration. All of the very apparent racial sensitivities considered, is there way that creating an all-Sikh Army regiment could actually make sense in terms of the U.K.’s policy goals?

The answer is probably no. But it’s worth a closer look, because bringing back a segregated military unit has important considerations for the U.K.’s desired identity, and will certainly conjure up some pretty negative colonial memories.

On the face of it, this is a move to achieve higher inclusion among British Sikhs, who are severely underrepresented in the armed forces. Only about one in every 30,000 British Sikhs are currently in the military, which is much lower than the national ratio of approximately one in every 300 Brits in uniform. Hypothetically, standing up a 700-man Sikh regiment would boost national unity, patriotism, and all that good stuff.

From the religion’s beginnings in early 16th century India, the Sikhs have a storied history as a minority group who had to fight to maintain their religious freedoms amidst oppression. Sikhism developed out of abhorrence for the Hindu caste system, cementing a legacy of dissent against prevailing social orders. By 1700, the Sikhs had developed a ‘spiritual-military collective’ willing to fight for their faith, first against the Islamic Mughal Empire, and then against the Afghan invasion of the subcontinent. When the British East India Company’s army invaded the Punjab region in 1845, the Sikhs nearly defeated the imperial forces but were eventually forced to surrender.

In the colonial era that followed, the Sikhs forged strong ties with the British, who incorporated two battalions of Sikh infantrymen into the imperial army. In addition to their service on the subcontinent, hundreds of thousands of Sikhs fought for the U.K. in World War I and World War II.

Given the Sikh’s warrior culture and history of royal service, it’s not hard to fathom why certain British policymakers want to increase their numbers in the military. But creating an all-Sikh unit in 2015 seems like an outdated imperial solution to the modern-day problems facing the U.K. MP Soames (who happens to be Winston Churchill’s grandson) called on the MoD to “do away with political correctness” because a Sikh regiment would “make up a very serious gap in our armed forces.”

What serious gap is this? Adding less than 700 troops to a military that is 187,000 strong will hardly boost operational capabilities in any significant way.

Rather, the gap that Soames wants to fill is more based on identity. With an elevated threat risk from jihadist elements in the U.K., and an embarrassingly high number of radicalized British citizens traveling to the Middle East to join ISIS and other Islamist groups, supporters of a Sikh regiment likely wish to give the U.K. Army a more ethnic dimension. After all, this was a successful strategy for the Brits as they conquered a quarter of the world in the 19th century, so what’s to stop it from working now?

Granted, the Sikh community doesn’t seem like a bad place to start. They are a proud people with a legacy of promoting religious tolerance and fighting Muslim persecutors, not to mention their historic loyalty to the crown. Sikh membership in the Armed Services is not proportionate to population demographics, so it makes sense for policymakers to seek a plan to increase recruitment, which Sikh leadership in the U.K. has supported. But given the U.K.’s colonial past, creating an ethnically and religiously homogenous Army regiment is likely to do more harm than good, harkening back to an imperial era that has long since passed.

The Ministry of Defence has also recently called for an increased recruitment effort among British Muslims, who are also severely underrepresented in the armed forces. It has been estimated that there are twice as many British Muslims in ISIS than the U.K. military. However, it is hard to fathom any parliamentary support for an all-Muslim regiment to combat this frightening trend.

Some ethnic units do still exist in the British military. The Royal Gurkha Rifles, comprised solely of Nepalese soldiers, remain operational, as do the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish Guards. But while still perhaps vestiges of colonial times, these units are based on territorial affiliations, not religious identity. Explaining the benefits of maintaining the Gurkhas, the MoD says the following:

One of the strengths of a Gurkha battalion on operations today, and particularly in Afghanistan, is the ability of the soldiers to understand cultural nuances, and to empathise with people in conflict zones. Unforgiving in battle, the soldiers are equally generous and warm hearted to those who are affected by conflict.

Although some of these statements are questionable in themselves, it’s an even further stretch to apply this logic to the creation of a Sikh regiment. Whereas the Gurkhas are recruited straight from the Himalayan foothills, a Sikh regiment would recruit from London and Birmingham, hardly a rough-and-tumble warrior culture. Sikhs should be proud of their ancestors’ honorable military legacy, but their valor alone is not enough to justify a segregated unit for a new generation of soldiers.

Sikhs do have legitimate concerns about serving in an integrated military setting. Sikh men are not permitted to shave their beards or cut their hair, and must wear a turban at all times. Strict grooming standards have traditionally deterred Sikhs and other religious groups from serving in uniform. It is especially bad in the U.S. military, which as of last year only had three observant Sikhs in service. It was only in 2010 that the military relaxed its strict regulations banning articles of faith in uniform. The most recent DoD policy allows Sikhs to wear the turban, beard, and long hair in uniform only after they obtain a waiver from their chain of command, meaning their freedoms are subject to change anytime they change duty stations – not exactly providing any level of certainty for prospective Sikh recruits. Just this past November, the ACLU and United Sikhs sued the Army after a Sikh college student was banned from Hofstra University’s ROTC program for his personal appearance.

The U.K., however, has more progressive policy. Turbans and beards are allowed for practicing Sikhs to serve in in almost all settings, including the several Sikh soldiers who have served as Buckingham Palace guardsmen. The only restrictions in the MoD’s Religious Fact Sheet are based on operational concerns — Sikhs may not be able to serve on aircrews because of the tight-fitting helmet, and may need to shave in life-threatening situations where a beard prevents a respirator or gas mask from sealing.

Although British Sikhs face few restrictions in terms of grooming standards, that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to serve in an integrated unit. A huge part of being in the military is conformity and unit cohesion. It must be very difficult for a young Sikh soldier, who stands out from his peers and follows a different grooming standard. But providing a quick fix to the problem by putting all the Sikhs in their own unit does not solve an institutional problem. Sikhs face racism in the civilian world as well — incidents like the 2014 attack on a Sikh lawyer in London and the murder of a Sikh gas station clerk in Arizona right after 9/11 are among the most severe examples of the bigotry that still exists. Fostering an institutional culture of acceptance within the British armed forces, rather than bending to underlying discrimination, is the best way to address this problem from within.

The U.K. is already way ahead of the U.S. in terms of creating hospitable military conditions for Sikhs and other religious devotees who require relaxed grooming standards. Soames and others are right to recognize the need to recruit more Sikhs and remind the general public that many generations of Sikhs have served the U.K. honorably. But segregating them into their own regiment is not a prudent way to foster feelings of greater unity or enhance operational capability. It is more likely to highlight Sikhs’ differences and open up a Pandora’s Box of post-imperial sentiments and further calls for religious segregation of the British military.

Chris Mondloch served as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Marine Corps for seven years, including a deployment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2012. He is graduating from the London School of Economics this fall with a Master’s Degree in International Relations. He tweets at @C_Mondloch

Joshua Martin/U.S. Navy/Flickr

By James Sisco and Ajit Maan
Best Defense guest columnists

Clearly extremists are not afraid to fight or to die. They often welcome and embrace the idea of martyrdom. So, what are they afraid of? A common operating procedure among various extremist groups is to control and disempower girls and women. If one of their central operating procedures is any indication, they are afraid of girls. Smart girls.

The mechanisms extremists use to control women include rape, acid attacks, slave trading, and stoning. They occur in places like Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq, and Myanmar to ensure that women do not participate in the political process and is a central tenant of extremism wherever it is found. The fact that forced control of women and girls is a priority for extremist groups ought to clue us into a potential weakness that can be exploited.

Women in conflict zones represent an immense untapped resource to create and ensure stability within communities and societies. The segment of the population that is disproportionally targeted for systematic suppression possesses the potential to alter the power structures of the environment. That is why they are targeted.

When we see menacing images of men dressed in black wielding swords we should recognize that educated women might be their un-doing. And they know it. That is why Boko Haram abducted over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls. That is why fourteen-year-old year old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face on her way to school — not just anywhere but symbolically — on her way to school. That is why acid attacks target girls attending school rather than girls in brothels. It is the potential danger that educated girls represent that scares extremists most.

Educated women and girls have the potential to do what drones, bullets and boots on the ground cannot do; they can counter extremism from the inside. Therefore, the U.S. and its allies should adopt an approach that empowers women on the ground in conflict zones to preempt and counter violent extremism. Instead of viewing women in war zones only as victims, we should view them in an irregular warfare context as potentially powerful allies.

The “human terrain” has traditionally been limited to male terrain. And when women have been engaged, the engagement has been limited to intelligence gathering — a good move but one without strategic foresight. Limiting engagements to a Q&A session (Where are the bad guys?) over-looks valuable social information and potential collaboration opportunities.

While there have been admirable and well intentioned development initiatives to stabilize situations for women in hot spots, many of them, while deserving of support, have not moved beyond a humanitarian framework. The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review recognizes this. It makes the point that empowering women is not just a nice thing to do—it is imperative to the long-term security of the U.S. and counter-terrorism efforts. The concept is based on forming coalitions with women on the ground. But while the report’s vision is compelling its implementation remains somewhat vague.

A women-focused shared security approach delivers an instrument to bridge the gap between theory and application. Aligning U.S. security interests and the security interests of women in conflict zones, establishes a platform to develop strategies and programs to empower women and counter extremism. The initiative is much like the one implemented by a Special Forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

In Kandahar, Identity Conflict Theory was applied to a tribal society to determine its primary and secondary identity layers. Understanding identities and basic community needs enabled the construction of small-scale, high-impact development projects that not only addressed community needs but also established positive relationships between Special Forces and the local community. For example, contributing to local agricultural development led not only to a 350 percent increase in yields, but also a 10-fold reduction in roadside bombs in some of the most insecure districts of the Kandahar province. Within eight months of the implementation of this program, one of the most kinetic environments in Afghanistan became relatively benign.

A women focused shared security initiative would directly engage female populations with the understanding that security means different things for women than it does for men. The traditional assumption that women’s security concerns are addressed when men’s security concerns are addressed doesn’t follow. Not only are women’s concerns left largely unaddressed by all-male coalitions, but also over-looked is the tremendous potential for a different kind of civil engagement.

If we set aside both ethical considerations and heroic self-image, and consider the situation strictly from a pragmatic point of view, we will view girls and women in conflict zones as more than deserving recipients of generosity. They are invaluable assets in preventing and addressing extremism in their families and communities. Making coalitions with this over-looked majority of the population is important to our own national security interests. If we include the ethical component and national identity, we have a multi-faceted motivation to secure and ensure women’s participation in the security, policy, and economic infrastructures of their communities.

Women in conflict zones represent an immense untapped resource that has significant influence and the ability to alter power structures within communities and societies. We should harness the power and capitalize on the strategic benefits of forming coalitions with women in areas where we want to have influence. Empowering women and girls is ethically responsible, consistent with U.S. national policy and a strategically prudent security measure.

James Sisco is a former recon Marine and naval intelligence officer and currently the president of ENODO Global, a business intelligence firm that focuses on population-centric analysis to solve complex social problems in dynamic cultural environments. Ajit Maan, Ph.D. is ENODO Global’s vice president for research and analysis and author of Counter-Terrorism: Narrative Strategies and Inter-narrative Identity: Placing the Self. She also edits the Strategic Narrative blog.

U.S. Army/Flickr

 

More than ever, I am persuaded that it was British spec ops who did arranged the assassination of French Admiral Darlan, the former chief of its Navy who became a Vichy leader. I was just rereading volume three of Churchill’s memoirs of World War II and noticed his description of the admiral as a “dangerous, bitter, ambitious man.”

In warfare, if you think a foe is dangerous, you do something about it.

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