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After The South China Sea Ruling – Resilience The ASEAN Way: Consensual Diplomacy In Vientiane – Analysis

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The Vientiane communiqué of 25 July 2016 by ASEAN foreign ministers at their annual talks has been criticised as showing ineffectiveness. This is not the case if one examines it in the context of ASEAN’s diplomatic style and the healthy imperfections of international law.

By Alan Chong*

Political observers impatient for results over the South China Sea imbroglio have criticised the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Vientiane last week for its silence on the 12 July ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in favour of the Philippine complaint against China. That decision represents international law in action – to deliver as clear a verdict as it reasonably could under difficult circumstances.

But international law is also a reflection of the imperfect relationships between equally sovereign nation states. International law can pass judgements only after weighing multiple grey areas and taking into account the rock-steady institution of national sovereignty, whereby enforcement of the decision is entirely left to voluntary compliance.

ASEAN Diplomacy at Work

This is where ASEAN and its diplomatic characteristics enter the picture to ensure that international dialogue can resume despite the judgement of international law. Since its inception, ASEAN has never been about making haste towards political detriment. This regional organisation’s modus operandi has been to make dialogues happen and, in cases where they have lapsed due to public acrimony between two governments, regenerate a positive atmosphere for the resumption of negotiation.

For both ASEAN member states and China, the consensual communiqué enables both sides to resume constructive dialogue about the South China Sea despite Beijing’s anger at the PCA ruling and the Philippines’ public assertions of victory. People forget that the spirit of diplomacy is to ensure that channels of communication do not lapse during moments of acute tension. China did say last week that it was willing to move forward on the drafting of a permanent Code of Conduct in the disputed area while the PCA judgement allows it to claim that the ownership of the Spratly islands has not been definitively decided.

Moreover, the extensive realities of China-ASEAN economic interdependence in trade, investment and technology had to be acknowledged in crafting ASEAN’s communiqué. A compromise was ultimately reflected in the words committing all participants to “full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force, in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

The Diplomatic Dance

During the extended drafting process, some ASEAN states keen on avoiding antagonism towards China reportedly tried to derail any ASEAN consensus. Fortunately, all ASEAN members recovered their faith in the ‘ASEAN Way’ of consultation and trading off extreme positions. Any ASEAN consensus has rarely meant comprehensive unanimity on every detail.

Consensus can be operationalised as ‘10-x’ or 10 members minus x number that are not ready to join hands. This is actually an ingenious way to facilitate a conciliatory atmosphere for dialogue amongst themselves and between ASEAN & the great powers despite internal dissension. In fact, the Vientiane communiqué reaffirmed the recurring and unspoken understanding that ASEAN does not need to resolve issues all the time.

It incrementally nurtures peace by facilitating a conducive atmosphere for dialogue through creative reinterpretation of the circumstances of a dispute, and thereby simultaneously depriving disputing parties of the anxiety that leads to military confrontation. There is no better vindication of this than Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s comment that ‘the page has turned’ and ‘we believe that the temperature surrounding the arbitration case should now be lowered’.

Healthy Imperfections of International Law

The resilience of the time-honoured ASEAN Way in mitigating disputes is also a direct complement to the diplomatic room afforded by the imperfections of international law. Indonesia and Malaysia obtained a mutually respected outcome over the Ligitan and Sipadan island dispute in 2002 because the diplomatic ground had been prepared well in advance of what their respective lawyers had to argue at The Hague.

Likewise, Malaysia and Singapore’s date at The Hague in 2008 over the Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Putih dispute proceeded smoothly because both governments had agreed to allow an international court to arbitrate an outcome that both would respect regardless if one side ‘won’ or ‘lost’. In both cases, compliance was trouble free and the loss of face hardly emerged as an issue. International legal proceedings generated space for political dialogues before and after the proceedings.

Notably, the PCA ruling awarded rights of access to Philippine commercial and military vessels in the waters off the Spratlys and undermined China’s nine-dash line claim. But the PCA pointedly also refused to be drawn into confirming the definitive sovereignty of ownership over the Spratlys because determining sovereignty was not part of its judicial mandate.

Technically, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam remain official claimants awaiting further arbitration in principle. China could neither be accurately described as having ‘lost’ at the PCA since it declared that it did not recognise the Court’s jurisdiction, nor could it be said to have constituted a formal party to the PCA’s proceedings in this case.

Constructive Ambiguity?

The PCA ruling in fact generates an ambiguously helpful space for diplomatic manoeuvre as summarised in these words: ‘The Tribunal considered that it would not need to implicitly decide sovereignty to address the Philippines’ Submissions and that doing so would not advance the sovereignty claims of either Party to islands in the South China Sea’.

ASEAN can heal tensions in the South China Sea by demonstrating fairness, amity and a spirit of accommodation in its communiqués on the subject. Its member states do not need to end up replicating situations in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, or Eastern Europe, when territorial disputes slide inevitably towards war because no inclusive regional security organisations existed to facilitate dialogue between protagonists.

ASEAN has no standing policy of deliberately naming enemies. This should remain so if only because it preserves room and face for peaceful negotiations, however prolonged it might be. This is how the Southeast Asian peace will be kept.

*Alan Chong is Associate Professor in the Centre for Multilateralism Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.


Russia-US Rapprochement: A Strategic Imperative – Analysis

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By Dr Subhash Kapila

Russia and United States estranged relationship impinges on global security and stability with China as a ‘revisionist power’ being the major beneficiary of this estrangement and with vested interests in sustaining this trust-deficit.

Strategic rapprochement between Russia and the United States can fully materialise only when both these global bipolar powers shun playing the ‘China Card’ against each other. Russia and the United States must recognise that any Chinese diplomacy or policy initiatives aimed at currying favours from either Russia or the United States are only ‘temporising moves’ awaiting the full materialisation of its military power by 2020 at the earliest. That could be the earliest that China can throw a military gauntlet against the United States.

Russia needs to recognise the strategic reality that the Russia-China relationship is not a cemented relationship based on enduring strategic convergences. United States too needs to recognise that China as a revisionist power chiefly aims to engineer initially the United States exit from the Western Pacific which is already in evidence. China’s end-game is to prompt the United States abandonment of the Asia Pacific so that Asia is left at the mercy of Chinese dictates. In sum, by such strategies China aims to create a new bi-polar global power structure and thereby emerge as United States ‘strategic equal.’

Russia needs to recognise the above reality more forcefully as implicit in the above Chinese strategies is displacing Russia’s existing strategic equivalence with the United States and a return to the US-Russia bipolar global management of security and stability that held the peace during half a century of the Cold War, even though that peace may have been imperfect. China since 2008 or so, and more particularly since 2012, has only indulged in disruptive aggressive military brinkmanship.

The onus of strategic rapprochement against the gathering storm unleashed by China’s not so benign military rise lies squarely on the shoulders of the United States. It was the United States policy and political establishment weighted by Cold War mind-sets that pushed Russia into a corner and further refusing to recognise during the whole of the last decade that Russia was on a resurgent trajectory under the leadership of President Putin.

Rather strange, but true, is the reality that the United States was ever-ready to respect China’s strategic sensitivities but the United States was not ready to concede the same respect to Russia, even though Russia was still a reckonable global power.

United States needlessly pushed Russia into China’s strategic embrace which after the two Gulf Wars of US humanitarian military interventions had made China extremely nervous and was looking for strategic partners to counter-balance United States emergence as the Unipolar Power.

United States unwarranted strategic permissiveness and molly-coddling of China for nearly two decades just to strategically discomfit Russia has resulted in creating the Chinese Dragon spitting fire in the South China Sea towards achieving the ‘Chinese Dream’ of evicting the United States from its Forward Military Presence in Asia Pacific and rendering redundant the US security architecture existing in the region for six decades or so.

In mid-2016, the overall strategic picture obtaining in Asia Pacific is that no strategic gains have accrued to either Russia or the United States with their strategic dalliance with China. The foregoing discussion would indicate that China has no intentions to play second fiddle to either Russia or the United States. The ‘China Card’ is therefore rendered redundant for both Russia and the United States.

In fact, China has displayed all signs that in the pursuit of the ‘Chinese Dream’ enunciated by President Xi Jinping China’s Maritime Strategy 2015 and the Chinese President’s directives to all branches of the PLA Armed Forces to be prepared to fight modern wars under informationalised warfare, China has no peaceful designs to be absorbed in the global community as a responsible and benign stakeholder, in keeping with the strategic halo bestowed on it by United States and Russia for their vested interests.

China’s new strategy of One Belt One Road in addition to the strategies enumerated above is nothing more than a subtle rope-in of all and sundry small nations with economic inducements to further her strategic designs to girdle Eurasia and the maritime expanses of the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean by client states. It would be notable to point out that none of the major nations have opted for this Chinese design.

More significantly, China virtually stands isolated in East Asia by her disruptive aggressive brinkmanship in the South China Sea and in the East China Sea. China is at odds with the other two major nations of Asia, namely, India and Japan, with which it has disputed border problems foisted by China.

If that be the case, can Russia and the United States strategically be perceived in proximate relations with China or being overly sensitive to China’s strategic pretensions? No strategic logic justifies such Russian or American policy attitudes.

Concluding, it needs to be stressed that global security and stability imperatives ordain that Russia and the United States make concerted moves for a strategic rapprochement. The alternative would be a disruptive militarily rising China playing Russia and the United States against each other and exploiting their bridgeable strategic deficit to disrupt global stability.

Bangladesh: Sustained Response – Analysis

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By S. Binodkumar Singh*

On July 26, 2016, nine militants were killed in ‘Operation Storm 26’ carried out by the Joint Forces including Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) personnel, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Detective Branch (DB) of the Police and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), in capital Dhaka’s Kalyanpur area. One militant identified as Rakibul Hassan aka Reagan, purportedly a member of Daesh [Islamic State], was arrested from the area with bullet injuries. However, Inspector General of Police A.K.M. Shahidul Haque, who visited the encounter site, stated, “The detained person claims to be an IS member, but we think they are of the banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).” On July 27, 2016, Police identified seven of the nine militants killed as Abdul Hakim Naym (33), Taj-ul-Haque Rashiq (25), Akifuzzaman Khan (24), Shazad Rouf (24), Motier Rahman (24), Abdullah (23) and Jobayer Hossain (20) after matching their fingerprints with those on their National Identification Cards. Most of them were from well to do families and were missing since January 2016. On July 28, 2016, the identity of the eight slain militant was established as Raihan Kabir aka Tarek, the Dhaka ‘region coordinator’ of JMB. He had reportedly trained the men who attacked the Holey Artisan café in Gulshan on July 2.

The July 2, 2016 incident, the first ever hostage crisis in the country in which 22 civilians including 18 foreigners and six Bangladeshis were slaughtered at Holey Artisan Bakery, a Spanish restaurant at the Gulshan diplomatic zone in Dhaka city, was also claimed by Daesh. On July 4, 2016, Police identified the five terrorists killed in the incident as Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasher, Shafiqul Islam Ujjal and Khairul Islam Payel, all under 30 years of age. All five men had gone missing between three and six months before they reappeared at the site of the terror attack. Three of them came from affluent families in Dhaka and studied at top schools or universities, while two were from lower income families. On July 20, 2016, officers investigating the restaurant attack identified the coordinator of the operation as Rajib aka Shanta aka Adil, a mid-level JMB leader.

Disturbingly, a Government official who is working closely on the issue of terrorism, seeking anonymity, on July 9, 2016, disclosed that more than 100 young persons in the age group of the terrorists who attacked the Holey Artisan café in Dhaka, had gone missing since January 2015. Law enforcement agencies gathered this information from general diaries provided by Police Stations across the country, as well as from parents of missing persons who had contacted the Police since the Holey Artisan attack. Further, on July 19, 2016, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) published information on 261 missing youth from 39 Districts. Asking people to contact nearby RAB office if they have any information about those on the list, the elite crime buster also published photos of 50 in this list.

Earlier, on May 17, 2016, Golam Farukh, the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Rangpur Range disclosed that two JMB militant groups – one based in Rangpur District and the other in Dinajpur District – were working in smaller units of seven to eight members and were currently active in the eight Districts of Rangpur Division. Further, the Detective Branch of Police stated, on June 14, 2016, that JMB had around 100-150 trained madrassa students working for them in 16 Districts of north-western Bangladesh with a highly educated 16-member cell supervising them.

Urging all to be more watchful, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed warned, on July 13, 2016, “We have intelligence reports that the terrorists have planned to launch more attacks. We have to keep in mind that this will not stop here. There are many kinds of plots. We are collecting reports of various intelligence agencies at home and abroad.” In a second warning in less than two weeks, during a Cabinet meeting on July 25, 2016, Prime Minister Hasina stated, “They [terrorists] will try to create unrest in August. They are planning something big… Ministers may also be targeted… Everyone must remain alert. Their goal is to free Mir Quasem.”

Mir Quasem Ali (63), a Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) central executive committee member, is a war crime convict sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) on November 2, 2014, for the killing of young freedom-fighter Jashim Uddin Ahmed and eight others during the Liberation War of 1971. On June 19, 2016, Quasem had filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking acquittal from the charges in which he has been convicted. On July 25, 2016, the Supreme Court deferred hearing of the death penalty review plea by Quaesem to August 24, 2016.

Meanwhile, on May 21, 2016, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, warned that different militant groups were trying to reorganize to carry out subversive acts aiming to thwart the War Crimes trials. So far, ICT-1, constituted on March 25, 2010, with the objective of bringing the perpetrators of War Crimes to justice, and subsequently, ICT-2 created on March 22, 2012, to speed up the War Crimes Trials, have indicted 67 leaders, including 43 from Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), 11 from the Muslim League (ML), five from Nezam-e-Islami (NeI), four from Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and two each from the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) and Jatiya Party (JP). Verdicts against 42 of these accused have already been delivered – 27 were awarded death sentences while the remaining 15 are to undergo imprisonment for life. Five of the 27 who received the death sentence have already been executed, while the remaining 22 cases are currently pending with the Appellate Division of the SC. Former JeI ameer Ghulam Azam (91) and former BNP Minister Abdul Alim (83) passed away while serving life imprisonment sentences.

Further, law enforcement agencies interrogating militants who were arrested in various operations on July 27, 2016, disclosed that at least two dozen hideouts in Dhaka and surrounding areas were being used to attempt more attacks by setting up small dens. A senior law enforcement official requesting anonymity confirmed that militants were now renting flats in areas where low income populations and garment workers live. Small groups of militants, usually numbering seven to nine, are living in these flats and, some cases, were using family members to rent flats.

The Hasina-led Government has succeeded in minimizing the threat from Islamist terrorism since assuming power in 2009. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), 231 terrorists belonging to JMB, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), Hizbut Towhid (HT) and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and other Islamic extremist groups have since been killed across the country (data till July 31, 2016). A Press Release from Police Headquarters on July 6, 2016, warned that strict measures would be taken against people putting up any video, photo, message, share, comment or like, supporting Daesh or other terrorists on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Further, urging all parents to be vigilant about the movements of their children to prevent them from being radicalized, Prime Minister Hasina on July 12, 2016, asserted “The people of the country are pious, but not bigots. I simply cannot understand why their children who are receiving education in reputed schools and colleges and English medium institutions are turning into bigots. We don’t want these students to lay down their valuable lives indiscriminately after getting derailed from the right path. We won’t allow emergence of militancy in the country. We don’t want Bangladesh to be the land of militancy… we’ll have to take some measurers keeping this view in mind.” At an emergency meeting of the Awami League Parliamentary Party (ALPP) at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban (National Parliament House) on July 26, 2016, Hasina asked her party lawmakers to form active anti-militancy committees in their respective constituencies to fight extremism.

Remarkably, Bangladesh Jamiyatul Ulama (BJU), a national body of Islamic scholars, issued an anti-militancy fatwa (religious edict) on June 18, 2016, through a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity, declaring that those killing people in the name of religion were heading for hell. Signatures of 101,850 Islamic clerics, including 9,320 women, have been collected in support of the fatwa, prepared in light of the Quran and Hadith. Explaining the initiative, Farid Uddin Masoud, BJU Chairman, observed that law enforcement agencies alone cannot resist the criminals who are ready to kill themselves in the name of religion. The first thing needed is to dispel the militants’ misconceptions about Islam. Fatwas, he added, are more powerful than one lakh weapons and they will largely be able to curb terrorism. Separately, on July 14, 2016, Bangladesh Islamic Foundation authorities issued a circular requesting imams (prayer leaders) of all mosques across the country to recite a common khutba (sermon) during the Jumma (Friday) prayers to create awareness among people against terrorism and militancy.

The Holey Artisan café attack was meant to strike terror in the hearts of Bangladeshis and foreigners with the intention to harm the country’s economy and international relations. The response of the Sheikh Hasina Government has been immediate, vigorous and calibrated across a wide range of variables, beyond a knee jerk security clampdown. Nevertheless, Bangladesh has developed large reserves of radicalization over decades of earlier mischief by complicit Governments, and the threat of extremist violence remains real and significant, demanding extreme vigilance and continuous efforts of containment.

*S. Binodkumar Singh
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

Cults Of Security And Terror: Fear Ahead Of Rio Olympic Games – OpEd

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The Olympics remains a black hole of needless expenditure, sucking services into it with impending and merciless doom. Unused stadia, tracks left to moulder, services supposedly linked to urban renewal turned into dilapidated wonders. That is the Olympic legacy in its lingering aftermath.

Another feature of the Olympics is the tendency to turn a city into a super security haven, crawling with armed troops, security personnel and surveillance. In London 2012, efforts to transform humble tenements into rocket launching pads was one of the stranger spectacles that bothered residents.

The Brazilian experience does not look like being anything different, though commentators have gotten on the highest of horses to claim that the state’s security remains “pre-9/11”.[1] Well it might be that Brazilians are used to the presence of armed gangs and police on the streets, claimed The Independent, but they still lived in a world untouched by the knee-jerk security complex. It is typical for those permanently immersed in the argot of security that the events of September 11, 2001 had to shape everything else. But not all countries felt that need.

In addition to traditional favela-bred woes, there are fears that the virus of ISIS-Islamic State inspiration will find form amongst Brazilians in an effort to inflict mayhem on locals and visitors. This might well be, but in the reasoning of the security establishment, nothing about such an assessment is ever proportionate, let alone reasoned.

Last week’s arrest of 10 Brazilians (some reports put the figure at 12) suspected of planning attacks across the Rio games has been seen as a jolt. A country more accustomed to dealing with its own indigenous variants of violence and poverty did not need another incursion of ideological concern. That was for other countries to wrestle with.

When it came to the arrests of alleged Islamic State members, a certain sense of panic moved through the body politic, a sweat inducing fear. Were cells being cultivated in paradise? Would the vicious lone-wolf make a long waited debut? Judicial authorities in the state of Parana claimed to have intercepted calls suggesting a terrorist cell’s wishes to use “weapons and guerrilla tactics” in attaining its goals.[2]

Operation Hashtag, as it was called, sparked confidence in certain officials within the presidential circle. Something was being done, which is always the operating premise of the guardians. “This shows,” claimed Brazil’s presidential chief of staff Eliseu Padilha, “that Brazil is on its toes and monitoring any suspects that could become a threat.”

Brazil’s security establishment, suggested Padilha, had been making visits to France to pick up tips in the aftermath of the Nice attacks. How useful such tips are to keep Brasilia on its toes, given the specific Gallic context, is hard to see.

The arrests did not inspire confidence at all levels. The Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes seemed unimpressed, merely seeing bungling children at play. They were dabbling “amateurs” who had flirted with social media rather than any serious terrorist game.

Moraes did note that the men were rather green converts, having come to Islam after conducting Internet driven research on jihadism, and exchanging sympathetic messages on such chat platforms as WhatsApp and Telegram. (Others had also met in Egypt in efforts to learn Arabic.) Among topics of discussion: weapons training, and the possibility of an online purchase of an AK-47 assault rifle from a Paraguayan-based outlet.

ABIN, the Brazilian secret service, whose members were turning scarlet with rage, suggested that the issue was far more serious, one of greater organisation than the minister was giving them credit for.

A federal police source cited in The Japan Times expressed irritation that the minister “gave the impression that this is a minor problem that does not represent a risk. That’s not right. We cannot spread that idea.”[3]

The genie of fear is truly out of the bottle, roaming the land, sensible or otherwise. “Amateurs or not,” claimed a former captain of an elite police squad in Rio de Janeiro, “they were organising themselves.” The Islamic States’s recruitment drive thrived on a perceived sense of disorganisation.

The Islamic State’s techniques, and the recent spate of international attacks, are taken to have come from a different stable, a separate blue print. Robert Muggah, research director at the Rio de Janeiro-based think tank, the Igarape Institute, noted the qualitative difference about such organisations, that “they are more diffuse and widely distributed and may materialise where you don’t expect them.”

The official front from Brazil’s intelligence community, at least for the time being, is that the slate on specific plans for attacking the Olympics is not so much clean as tidy. There is one fundamental fear: the lone wolf, a sort of terrorist parthenogenesis.

Modern states, with their muscular reach and brutal measures, remain incapable of detecting the point when an idea is implanted, and becomes a faith manifested in knife, bomb, or, in Nice, a murderous truck. A bloated security state can hardly be the answer, since it was never a solution to begin with.

Notes:
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rio-olympics-security-brazil-terrorism-a7158071.html

[2] https://www.rt.com/news/352505-rio-olympics-terror-isis/

[3] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/07/23/world/plot-rio-olympics-raises-fears-lone-wolf-terrorist-attacks/#.V5hdTfl96Uk

President Sargsyan Says Armenia Won’t Be Solving Problems With Guns Or Violence

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In the aftermath of the siege of Yerevan police station, Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting with the representatives of different segments of society – cultural figures, representatives of healthcare, mass media, public and political figures, members of the Public Council, as well as the representatives of legislative and executive bodies, heads of the standing bodies and Armenian clergy headed by the Catholicos of All Armenians.

As the President noted in his statement, “Yesterday, the situation created as a result of the assault by an armed group on the police station was finally resolved. It was resolved in a way which was probably the most acceptable for all of us: the National Security Service, Police, State Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs through their consistent and coordinated activities compelled the members of the armed group to put down their weapons and surrender to the authorities. I am very glad that we were able to avoid the “classical” scenario of resolving situations such as this one even though the detailed plan for the implementation of such option was certainly on hand too.”

“The unacceptable situation has come to an end; however its full resolution lies ahead. First of all a thorough investigation is in order, as well as a comprehensive and unbiased examination, and an open trial. Every single person must answer for his actions before the law. There will be no other options; any attempt of personal vengeance will be stopped by the law. All processes unfolding in the Republic of Armenia will take place exclusively in the framework of the RA Constitution and laws.”

“The time has come to draw conclusions. A full analysis of these events will take a long time. However one thing is clear: the process of the radical changes in Armenia’s social and political life must be expedited.”

“From now on we will allow no one to take our country hostage. We will allow no one to undermine the foundation of our state. Problems in Armenia will not be solved through violence or arms.”

“Yerevan is neither Beirut nor Aleppo. Let no one aspire to import Near East solutions of the previous century, of the Cold War to Armenia.”

Bosnia Leaders Hail Breakthrough Deal On EU, IMF

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By Danijel Kovacevic

After almost a year of political quarrels, Bosniak and Bosnian Serb leaders on Sunday announced a major agreement on formation of an EU Coordinating Mechanism –a key condition for the continuation of the stalled EU accession process.

With that agreement in place, Bosnia’s Prime Minister, Denis Zvizdic and the Federation entity premier, Fadil Novalic, also signed the long delayed Letter of Intent for the IMF, paving the way for the new IMF program to be approved in the near future.

The breakthrough was reached at a meeting on Sunday in East Sarajevo of Zvizdic, Novalic, Bakir Izetbegovic – the chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and leader of the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA – Milorad Dodik – president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, and leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD – RS premier Zeljka Cvijanovic and the head of the EU delegation in Bosnia, Lars-Gunnar Wigemark.

Wigemark called the meeting in an East Sarajevo restaurant in a last-ditch attempt to unblock the country’s EU path and an IMF arrangement, both stalled by months of political bickering.

During the meeting, Izetbegovic and Dodik signed an agreement that defined the most contentious issues related to the EU coordination mechanism, which has been blocked for years.

It was agreed that all decisions will be made by consensus and that all institutions at all levels will be obliged to ensure the presence of their representatives at meetings of the body.

All decisions adopted by the different bodies of the system of coordination mechanism may be reviewed by a higher authority in the system within ten days of their adoption and by representatives of the Council of Ministers [the state government], the RS government and the Federation government.

In addition to the agreement on the coordinating mechanism, the participants also signed the Letter of Intent for a new IMF program.

“Three issues related to the Coordination Mechanism were controversial, and all three were positively solved … as for Letter of Intent [with the IMF], it has already been signed and sent out to Washington”, Dodik said on Sunday after the meeting.

Dodik also said that the meeting had resolved contested issues regarding a blocked transport strategy, which – if true – would unlock EU infrastructure projects for Bosnia.

The IMF in July delayed approval of a three-year, 550-million-euros loan for Bosnia – even though all conditions for it had been met – because Zvizdic and Novalic refused to sign the Letter of Intent until the vexed issue of the Coordinating Mechanism was agreed.

The IMF put on hold a previous, 33-month program worth around 720 million US dollars because of delayed reforms, and it eventually expired in June 2015.

Bosnian Presidency chair Izetbegovic said the meeting had resolved the most contentious matters.

“Today we solved all the questions that will open Bosnia’s path to the EU and also to the IMF arrangement. This was a good meeting, which is definitely an introduction to all future questions,” he said.

“I wish to emphasize gratitude to Izetbegovic and Dodik and other members of the two delegations for their willingness to agree on matters related to the continuation of the European path. They showed statesmanlike maturity,” Wigemark said.

EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn also welcomed the breakthrough. “Looking forward to the next steps ahead on country’s EU path,” Hahn wrote on social networks.

However, Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Covic, who was not present at the meeting, sounded a more cautious note, welcoming the signing of the IMF letter but still expressing concerns about the Coordinating Mechanism.

He said that the last version that Izetbegovic showed him was “not acceptable” for Bosnian Croats, and he would have to see the document before Bosnian Croats accepted it.

Tanja Topic, a Bosnian political analyst from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation told BIRN, was also cautious.

“The only progress we ever witness is when this country needs money. Then we have a deal,” Topic said.

“It is difficult to say to what extent the deal is viable. Experience tells us it might be just another deal that ends in fiasco…. It also showed how powerful the entities are, and how weak the state is,” she added.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-leaders-hail-breakthrough-deal-on-eu-imf-08-01-2016#sthash.fHAmhRGH.dpuf

South Asia: Islamist Recruitment Intensifying Efforts – Analysis

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By Sanchita Bhattacharya*

There is a visible increase in activity of militant outfits in South Asia – particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – in their respective recruitment drives, especially using online communications. Previously, terrorist formations were using printed Jihadi literature, propaganda videos and face to face interactions with religious motivators to entice people to their cause. With the Internet boom and proliferation of online web-based communications, as well as the dramatic example of Daesh’s (Islamic State’s) cyber outreach, terrorist formations in the region are increasingly using the internet to communicate with youth and inspire them to embrace violent extremism.

In one significant effort to tackle the challenge of online recruitment, a July 21, 2016, report disclosed that the Kolkata Police had decided to recruit around 100 software and networking experts to its Special Task Force (STF). The move was initiated after Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar stressed the need for better monitoring of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where the Police believe terror groups “spot” potential recruits. A source added, “The idea is to stop these youths before they get radicalized. Among the terror groups, the Islamic State (IS)/ Daesh has a specific formula. They want to attach themselves to young men who have problems and are looking for something to give them a structure in their life.”

In December, 2014, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a native of West Bengal, an electrical engineer posted in Bangalore, as he was tweeting to recruit for the IS. Police recovered some 122,000 Twitter messages with over 18,000 followers on his Twitter handle.

An unconfirmed report in January 2016 suggested that Daesh had contacted over 30,000 young techies from India and that some of them may already have grabbed the opportunity offered.

Significantly, Islamist terror entities appear to be working across group lines. Operatives of Indian Mujahideen (IM) and IS, for instance, have been working in tandem for recruitment. In January 2016, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) found chatter on the internet suggesting that Ansar-ut Tawhid fi Bilal al-Hind, an IM splinter, was attempting to carry out strikes in India. Earlier, in August 2014, the group had pledged support to IS and promised to recruit at least 300 Indians. IB officials have been on the trail of brothers Sultan and Shafi Armar who operated various handles on Twitter. Sultan Armar was killed in a US strike in Syria on March 6, 2015, while Shafi Armar continues to run Ansar-ut Tawhid (AuT)’s operations, now under the identity of Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind or the Army of Caliph in India.

Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind has managed to recruit a handful of young men in different parts of the country, and has emerged as a new threat. Investigations by NIA reveal that a financial nexus was involved in the recruitment process. Mudabbir Mushtaq Shaikh, the ‘chief’ of Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind confessed to having received INR 600,000 from Shafi Armar.

A July 26, 2016 report stated that there have been a total of 54 arrests made in India linked to IS. Sources disclose that the suspects, during interrogation, explained the functioning of their motivators who, through social media and WhatsApp, look for “talent” and after spotting them, carry out indoctrination by sending links to videos of atrocities on Muslims, speeches of Islamist extremists and write-ups to lure them to their violent ideology.

In Pakistan, direct linkages with Daesh and a number of splinters of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), under the umbrella of the Islamic State-Wilayat Khorasan, have been established and constitute a direct kinetic threat to security. Nevertheless, cyber recruitment plays a significant role, even as domestic terrorist formations continue to play a role in international terrorism. The blasts at Medina (July 4, 2016), in the month of Ramadan, in Saudi Arabia are a case in point, with direct links to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. 12 Pakistanis were arrested in connection with the blasts in Medina. The European Parliament’s Vice-President, Ryszard Czarneck, in an editorial titled “Wake up call to Anti-terrorism Ayatollahs” as reported on July 11, 2016, observed that the recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia had signaled the arrival of LeT’s “humanitarian” NGO Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) as the source of the Medina attack. The arrests demonstrate FIF’s quiet ways of radicalisation of the Pakistani Diaspora, as part of LeT’s campaign for a new Islamist world order based on Sharia, Czarneck noted. One of the suicide bombers involved in the attacks was identified as Abdullah Qalzar Khan, a Pakistani national.

Hafiz Saeed’s terrorist footprints have long been visible in India, especially in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). As reported in January 2016, LeT is recruiting “vulnerable young men in Pakistan,” as part of a larger conspiracy to wage war against India, especially in the state of J&K, a chargesheet filed by NIA in the Udhampur terrorist attack (August 5, 2015) case stated. On April 26, 2016, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, India’s Minister of State for Home, also mentioned in a written reply to Parliament that LeT was recruiting “vulnerable young men in Pakistan” as part of a larger conspiracy to wage war against India.

Apart from LeT and its affiliates, other terrorist organizations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) have been openly involved in generating funds for jihad and recruiting cadres. A July 5, 2016, report noted that JeM was soliciting funds from various mosques in Karachi (Provincial capital of Sindh) to send jihadists to fight in India and Afghanistan. Video footage showed JeM cadres demanding money from people in name of Kashmir and the jihad in Afghanistan and against Americans. HM has also been involved in a recruitment drive, paying a “monthly salary” to its cadres to fight in Kashmir. INR 35,000 was offered to those willing to join HM by ‘poster boy’ and ‘commander’ Burhan Wani, who was killed by Security Forces on July 8, 2016 . Wani’s picture with other armed cadres, shot in an orchard, had gone viral on social media in August 2015, and was used by HM as a recruiting tool. According to some reports, Wani’s viral images and videos on social media had attracted around 100 Kashmiri youth to HM.

In January 2016, Wilayat Khorasan (Khorasan Province), the IS’s branch in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, released a propaganda video titled, “Cubs of the Caliphate Camp,” that showed young boys undergoing training for jihad. Earlier, on December 24, 2015, a report on “Recruitment of Pakistani boys and Afghan refugees by Daesh”, circulated by the Punjab (Pakistan) Home Department warned against the potential threat of the global terror network. It claimed that Daesh was spreading its propaganda, particularly through CDs, to win the support of Pakistani youth to its global agenda. The report further stated that Daesh had started recruiting individuals from Pakistan, especially Afghan refugees living in different refugee camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) at a monthly salary ranging from PKR 30,000 to PKR 50,000.

A May 27, 2016, report on the National Action Plan (NAP, launched in January 2015 to tackle terrorism) noted that banned outfits in Pakistan were still recruiting jihadis who had become a serious internal security threat. “Major banned outfits are still recruiting the students of madrasas to wage jihad in the Indian-Held Kashmir and Afghanistan. Such non-state actors have become very dangerous for Pakistan.” In the secret document, consisting of 111 pages, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Punjab, revealed that 32 proscribed organizations with nine splinter groups had now become “a nursery of terrorism in Pakistan.” Banned organizations like IS and HuT (Hizb-ut-Tahrir) are also gaining ground by establishing a special wing in Pakistan where their ‘commanders’ are recruiting militants, the document revealed.

The latest attack on the Holey Artisan café in the Gulshan area of capital city Dhaka on 1-2 July, 2016 demonstrated the power of recent recruitment in Bangladesh. The group of middle-class university students behind the attack, affiliated with Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) prompted alarm about the reach of terrorists’ recruiting networks and how the group drove affluent young men to such barbarism. Following the attack, Bangladesh has launched a clampdown on social media sites spreading jihadist propaganda, saying the country’s young were being radicalised online. “Social media has become a fertile ground for recruiting militants,” the head of the telecoms regulator Shahjahan Mahmood stated. One of the attackers, Rohan Imtiaz reportedly posted an appeal on Facebook in 2015 urging all Muslims to become terrorists. Survivors of the café siege narrated how the young attackers seized mobile phones from hostages and forced them to provide their passwords so they could send out photographs of the carnage. The Holey Artisan café attackers also sent out their own photographs as well as images of the ongoing carnage even while it was underway, and these quickly found their way to the Daesh website, as the IS claimed the attack as one of its own.

Earlier, in January, 2015 the Bangladesh security services arrested JMB ‘regional commander’, Shakhawatul Kabir, a self proclaimed ‘IT expert’, also claiming affiliation to Daesh. Police disclosed that Kabir had set up a Daesh recruitment cell inside Bangladesh, along with friends, Nazrul Islam, Rabiul Islam and Anwar Hossain. The men planned to carry out a series of bombings, and then use the publicity to draw recruits online.

On July 26, 2016, Tarana Halim, Bangladesh’s Minister of State, Post and Telecommunications Division stated that she had discussed the export of more internet bandwidth from Bangladesh to India’s northeastern States. The Bangladeshi terrorist formation, JMB, is working its way across the border into the Indian States of West Bengal and Assam, and is also recruiting from these areas. An April, 2016 report stated that, according to the Assam Police, JMB operatives are concentrating mostly on recruiting boys from lower Assam Districts. Subsequently, on May 26, 2016, three JMB ‘fresh recruits’, Mohammad Mohiruddin Sheikh, Mohammad Mafidul Sheikh and Mohammad Rojob Ali Patowary, were arrested from Chirang District in lower Assam. In case of West Bengal, a May, 30 report suggested that Enamul Mollah, a, JMB operative, helped in recruiting new members and also in spreading the group’s agenda by circulating jihadi material and arranging programs of radicalisation.

A July 9, 2016, media report indicated that 10 Bangladeshi youth who had been missing for months and feared to have been recruited by terrorist outfits such as the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami – Bangladesh (HuJI-BD) and JMB and trained as Daesh modules, were believed to be hiding in West Bengal. The Bangladesh Government has shared their details with Delhi. Consequently, vigil has been intensified at the Indo-Bangladesh border in Malda, Murshidabad and North 24-Parganas Districts.

The terrorists are also exploiting disturbed areas along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to garner recruits. Intelligence reports in the month of February 2016 noted that 20 terrorist outfits in Bangladesh were trying to recruit documented as well as undocumented Rohingyas living in the Districts of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar and Bandarban. The terrorist groups named their alliance Hilful Fuzul al Islami al Bangladesh (League of the Virtuous – Bangladesh) to recruit the Rohingyas. This otherwise unknown outfit plotted to blow up over 100 navy and coastguard bases and oil refineries in Chittagong city in 2015.

Daesh has claimed responsibility for 21 attacks against foreigners and minorities in Bangladesh since September 2015, and claimed the presence of “Khilafah Soldiers” in the country in April 2016. Agencies, however, claim that this strategy is more about using propaganda to spread fear than carrying out sophisticated terror attacks. Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the ‘self-styled chief’ of Daesh in Bangladesh, is also reportedly radicalising and recruiting prospective jihadis in India, Pakistan and Myanmar.

Further, ABT (Ansarullah Bangla Team) also appears to be succeeding in indoctrinating and recruiting elements among the youth. Its main target group for recruitment is highly-motivated and well-educated university students, especially those familiar with the English language and active on social media. However, ABT also recruits from the poorer and more conservative sections of society as well as from the Islamic political organization Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and its youth wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The ABT is also known to have extended its recruitment network to Singapore. Between November 16 and December 1, 2015, Singapore authorities detained 27 Bangladeshi construction workers, connected with ABT on charges of conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks on Bangladesh. The group was trying to recruit Bangladeshi workers in Singapore, to wage jihad against the Bangladeshi Government. The Internal Security Department (ISD) of Singapore recovered a “significant amount” of radical and jihad-related material, such as books and videos containing footage of children being trained in jihadi camps. Additionally, documents with graphic images and instructions detailing how to conduct “silent killings’’ using different methods, were recovered.

With terrorism becoming a pronounced international phenomenon, frequent lone-wolf incidents, and an increasing number of terror attacks across the world, the recruitment strategies of terrorist formations demand comprehensive study. The profile, both, of potential terrorists, and of recruitment tools, is undergoing continuous shifts, and state agencies seeking to contain the threat will need extraordinary efforts to keep pace.

* Sanchita Bhattacharya
Visiting Scholar, Institute for Conflict Management

Spain Raises Growth Forecast To 2.9%, Sees Creation Of 900,000 Jobs Before 2017 End

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Spain’s Council of Ministers updated the macro-economic chart for 2016-2017 that serves as the basis for the preparation of the General State Budget. This revision improves the growth and employment figures contained in the Stability Programme presented to Brussels back in April.

The acting Vice-President of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, announced that “the Spanish economy will post four years of back-to-back economic growth and job creation after suffering the worst recession in our recent history”. She also pointed out that the government’s forecasts are “prudent” and will allow progress to be made towards achieving the goal of 20 million people in work by 2019.

Along the same lines, the acting Minister for Economic Affairs and Competitiveness, Luis de Guindos, described the forecast as “conservative” and the employment figures as “perfectly credible”, in line with the forecasts made by the European Commission.

Luis de Guindos explained that the government has revised the growth forecast upwards by two tenths of a point, from 2.7% to 2.9%, while the estimate for 2017 has been reduced by one tenth to 2.3%.

The government also raised the job creation forecast in national accounting terms [full-time equivalent jobs as an annual average] to 2.7% in 2016, two tenths higher than the estimate in April, while the forecast for job creation in 2017 remains at 2.2%.

In terms of the Labour Force Survey (Spanish acronym: EPA), the minister highlighted that it is estimated that 900,000 new jobs will be created over the next two years, that is, an average of 450,000 jobs each year. Unemployment will fall by a little over 1 million people over these two years and the unemployment rate will fall from 20.9% of the recorded active population in 2015 to 16.6% by the end of 2017.

This means that the unemployment rate will have fallen by 4.3 points in two years to stand at the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2008.

The Minister for Economic Affairs highlighted that the Spanish economy is competitive and now has a healthy banking sector and is in a position to offer credit. He also stressed that the improved growth in 2016 is taking place with a surplus in the current account of the balance of payments which stands at 1.7% and may even exceed 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Luis de Guindos reviewed the latest economic data which, in his opinion, show “significant growth in the Spanish economy, double the Eurozone average, with noteworthy job creation, negative inflation and an unprecedented surplus in the current account of the balance of payments in our recent history”.

The minister pointed out that, according to the estimates from the National Institute of Statistics for the second quarter, year-on-year growth in the economy stands at 3.2%, while the Eurozone average is 1.6%, in other words, “exactly double”. In this regard, he also pointed out that Spain’s contribution to growth in the Eurozone amounts to 20% while its weighting stands at some 11%.

In terms of inflation, Luis de Guindos highlighted that this stands at -0.6% in July, and hence will post negative figures for the third straight year. “We are going to have a negative average rate of inflation. That is good news from the perspective of the competitiveness of the Spanish economy and the increase in disposable income of salaried workers, pensioners and all those that rely on a fixed income, which will increase in terms of purchasing power as a result of the drop in inflation”.

The minister also referred to the Bank of Spain figures on the development of the current account of the balance of payments. He considers that the Spanish economy can generate a surplus of close on 2% of GDP this year, in other words, around 20 billion euros. “This would be a first in Spain’s history, and the fourth straight year of a surplus in the current account”.

Luis de Guindos also highlighted that the flow of credit, both to families and to companies, continues to grow.


Nigeria: Arrested Ringleader Of Global Network Behind Thousands Of Online Scams

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The head of an international criminal network behind thousands of online frauds has been arrested in a joint operation by INTERPOL and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), according to INTERPOL..

The 40-year-old Nigerian national, known as ‘Mike’, is believed to be behind scams totalling more than USD 60 million involving hundreds of victims worldwide. In one case a target was conned into paying out USD 15.4 million.

The network compromised email accounts of small to medium businesses around the world including in Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Thailand and the US, with the financial victims mainly other companies dealing with these compromised accounts.

Heading a network of at least 40 individuals across Nigeria, Malaysia and South Africa which both provided malware and carried out the frauds, the alleged mastermind also had money laundering contacts in China, Europe and the US who provided bank account details for the illicit cash flow.

Following his arrest in Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria, a forensic examination of devices seized by the EFCC showed he had been involved in a range of criminal activities including business e-mail compromise (BEC) and romance scams.

The main two types of scam run by the 40-year-old targeted businesses were payment diversion fraud – where a supplier’s email would be compromised and fake messages would then be sent to the buyer with instructions for payment to a bank account under the criminal’s control – and ‘CEO fraud’.

In CEO fraud, the email account of a high-level executive is compromised and a request for a wire transfer is sent to another employee who has been identified as responsible for handling these requests. The money is then paid into a designated bank account held by the criminal.

‘Mike’ first came onto the law enforcement radar through a report provided to INTERPOL by Trend Micro, one of its strategic partners at the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore. This, combined with actionable analysis and intelligence from Fortinet Fortiguard Labs in 2015, enabled specialists at the INTERPOL Digital Crime Centre, including experts from Cyber Defense Institute based at the IGCI, and the EFCC to locate the suspect in Nigeria, resulting in his arrest in June.

Abdul Chukkol, Head of the EFCC’s Cybercrime Section said the transnational nature of business e-mail compromise makes it complex to crack, but the arrest sent a clear signal that Nigeria could not be considered a safe haven for criminals.

“For a long time we have said in order to be effective, the fight against cybercrime must rely on public-private partnerships and international cooperation,” said Chukkol.

“The success of this operation is the result of close cooperation between INTERPOL and the EFCC, whose understanding of the Nigerian environment made it possible to disrupt the criminal organization’s network traversing many countries, targeting individuals and companies,” added Chukkol.

Noboru Nakatani, Executive Director of the IGCI warned that BEC poses a significant and growing threat, with tens of thousands of companies victimized in recent years.

“The public, and especially businesses, need to be alert to this type of cyber-enabled fraud,” said Nakatani.

“Basic security protocols such as two-factor authentication and verification by other means before making a money transfer are essential to reduce the risk of falling victim to these scams.

“It is exactly through this type of public and private sector cooperation that INTERPOL will continue to help member countries in bringing cybercriminals to justice no matter where they are,” concluded Nakatani.

The 40-year-old, along with a 38-year-old also arrested by Nigerian authorities, faces charges including hacking, conspiracy and obtaining money under false pretences. Both are currently on administrative bail as the investigation continues.

Arrested Eight Of Europe’s Most Wanted Criminals

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Six months after the launch of the ‘Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives’ website, a platform hosted by Europol, 14 of the fugitives wanted by EU Member States have successfully been put behind bars. In at least eight of these arrests, the leads provided via the online platform played a direct role in locating the fugitives. Requesting the assistance of the general public has proven to provide significant added value for capturing criminals on the run.

Exactly six months ago, the European Network of Fugitive Active Search Teams (ENFAST), supported by Europol, created a dedicated new website where the public can help police trace Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives. ENFAST is a network of police officers from the 28 EU Member States and associated states specialised in undertaking immediate action to locate and arrest fugitives.

The media attention around this project proved to be very important, according to Europol. Thanks to the increased media attention and to information provided by the general public, law enforcement in Europe was able to track down 8 of the fugitives appearing on the website, 6 of them in a different European country than where they were initially wanted. In total, 14 wanted criminals have been arrested. Of the original fugitives on the list in January, 28 remain.

The ‘Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives’ website shares information on high-profile internationally-wanted criminals, convicted of – or suspected of having committed – serious crimes or terrorist acts in Europe. Some of them have been sentenced to long or even life imprisonment. Recent uploads to the list are from Slovakia searching for the leader of a violent criminal organization, Belgium searching for a fugitive convicted to 25 years of imprisonment for multiple rapes, Denmark looking for two murderers, Latvia for a robber and Bulgaria for two murderers as well.

It is the first initiative on a pan-European scale to present a most wanted list on a common platform. Citizens in the EU and beyond can provide useful information via the website, anonymously if preferred. Europol has supported ENFAST with this project by developing a secure platform for the ‘Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives’ website.

Julian Assange Claims Hacked Emails Include Info On Hillary Arming Islamic State – OpEd

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew that the US was sending arms from Libya to Syria back in 2011, a year before the Benghazi consulate attacks, according to the latest claims from Julian Assange.

Hillary Clinton has denied she knew about the weapons shipments during public testimony (under oath) in early 2013 after the Benghazi terrorist attack.

US Senator Rand Paul questioned Hillary Clinton about this gun running program back in January 2013 during her testimony on the Benghazi terrorist attack.

On Tuesday, Julian Assange told Democracy Now that the Wikileaks DNC emails contains information on the weapons shipments to Syria.

“So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone,” Assange claimed.

Dunford Visits Turkey, First By Senior US Official Since Coup Attempt

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By Jim Garamone

Though they are both national leaders, the trip here to visit Gen. Hulusi Akar of the Turkish army by Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford was one friend making sure another was well after a traumatic experience.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Turkey’s chief of defense today just a little over two weeks after Akar was kidnapped, drugged and threatened as part of the unsuccessful coup here.

The plotters were trying to topple the government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It failed, but more than 250 people were killed and more than 2,100 were wounded, according to Turkish figures.

Dunford is the first international leader to visit Turkey since the coup was defeated. “I’ve known General Akar – my counterpart – for a long time,” Dunford said. The general said he wanted to be sure his friend was all right.

Details of Coup Attempt

Dunford said Akar told him that one of his aides had turned on him and sided with the coup plotters. They kidnapped him and held a pistol to his head to get him to sign a proclamation in support of the coup. He refused. Akar was held until the coup fell apart after Erdogan rallied the Turkish people to reject the attack on democracy in the country and take on the coup plotters.

Dunford said Akar was pleased with the visit and confirmed that Turkey desires to keep a broad partnership with the United States across a broad range of issues, but especially in NATO and in countering the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The chairman said Akar assured him that Turkey will continue to provide access to Turkish bases in Incirlik and Diyabakir. These bases are key to the fight against ISIL.

Akar also took Dunford to the Turkish parliament. He showed the chairman the results of the four bombs coup F-16s dropped on the building and the effects that attack helicopters had on it. Following the tour, Dunford met some Turkish lawmakers.

Meeting With Prime Minister

Then Dunford, Akar and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass met with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. In all of the meetings, he heard that “to deal with the challenges of the region is going to require the United States and Turkey to cooperate,” Dunford said. “The consistent theme throughout the day was a reaffirmation of the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship — the need for us to cooperate,” he added. “We will have all the access we need to Incirlik, Diyabakir and other facilities as necessary to prosecute the counter-ISIL fight.”

Dunford said the tone in all the meetings was positive and “not accusatory at all.”

In all of the meetings, Dunford said, he also heard about the need for the United States to send Fethullah Gulen – a former imam who is self-exiled in Pennsylvania – back to Turkey. Turkish leaders believe he is behind the coup. “I told them that I will be sure the Turkish perspective is conveyed to my leadership,” Dunford said.

Encouraged by Relationship

The chairman said he is encouraged not only about the military-to-military relationship between the two countries, but also about the broader relationship. “We have some differences on how to deal with [ISIL],” Dunford said. “But I think an express willingness to work through these issues and share perspectives will mean stability in the region.”

Akar already was scheduled for a counterpart visit to Washington this month. Dunford said he told the Turkish general that he hopes he will still come, noting that they have a lot to talk about: ISIL, bases, tactics and so on. But they did not talk about them today, he said.

“I wanted to practice a little bit of patience, recognizing that my friend had been through a traumatic experience,” the chairman said. “Me going in there with a laundry list of ‘asks’ is not appropriate for a friendship – that’s a transactional relationship – and that is not what this is. I was just glad to hear my friend’s voice again.”

Dunford’s visit to Turkey follows a visit to Iraq during his current overseas trip.

North Stream 2 Could Resurrect Cold War Divisions – Interview

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(EurActiv) — The controversial North Stream 2 gas pipeline project has the potential to resurrect cold war divisions in Europe, US Energy Envoy Amos Hochstein said, before calling for greater competition with Russia’s Gazprom through increased LNG imports.

Amos Hochstein is US Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs. He spoke to EurActiv Slovakia.

What do you do?

I am the Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs. I look at wherever energy intersects with foreign policy, national security, economic security. It could mean anything from denying ISIL the ability to profit from oil in Syria to energy sanctions on Russia or Iran, to helping developing countries reach their targets in renewable energy. And it could also mean how we look at energy security in Europe. And how we look at what could bring about the kind of change in Europe that will allow countries not to be dependent on one supplier and diversify their portfolio.

You spoke to EU energy ministers at their recent informal meeting. What did you say?

My presentation was about the fact that the world of energy has changed fundamentally and really transformed over the last five, seven years.

Are you talking about the shale gas revolution in the US and about the liquefied natural gas (LNG)?

Shale gas is one. The shale oil revolution is another. Now, about the concept of LNG.  If you build a pipeline for billions of dollars between a producer of gas and a consumer, you are not going to buy it from anybody else. Because you don’t have any other infrastructure. You also paid an enormous amount of money for this pipeline, so you have to use it. So, you have no flexibility. You are stuck. LNG came and changed the game. If you build an LNG terminal, you can buy it from anybody who sells LNG. You can negotiate the price. But then another revolution happened. Just in the last four, five years. Instead of building an LNG terminal on your shore that could cost a couple of billions of dollars you can have a floating, storage and regasification unit (FSRU).

Lithuania has one.

Yes. Pakistan has another. Israel and Jordan have it. And you know what the difference is? It only costs a couple of hundred millions of dollars. And this year, companies will say to a country, “We will give you the boat for free, if you agree to buy the gas for five years.”

But the prices in Europe are lower than in Asia. So, most LNG goes to Asia. If there is any American LNG that comes to Europe, it is marginal.

I disagree. Traders take the LNG and they sell it anywhere in the world. You have to look at not only where the prices are. Also the distances and transportation time cost a lot of money. So, how many days does it take to get to Asia or Europe? The first 12 or 13 cargoes the United States sold went to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Dubai, Kuwait, Portugal and India. It went far more to Europe, the Middle East and South America, than to China, Japan or Korea. Why is more LNG not going to Europe? That is the question people should ask. It has nothing to do with price.

So what does it have to do with?

Europe is not united. It has a set-up that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Are you talking about the low usage rate of the LNG terminals in Western Europe?

Right. Europe’s problem is that it has plenty of LNG terminals and they are all in the wrong places. You have LNG terminals in Spain and Portugal. But gas cannot make it. There is no pipeline to take gas from Spain into the rest of Europe, from France onwards. There are a couple of LNG terminals in Italy and they work. But in Eastern and Central Europe there are none.

In Poland, there is one.

Poland has just opened one. They will have plenty of gas coming. And Lithuania. The United States helped Lithuania get LNG, because they were an energy island. They were 100% dependent on Gazprom. Before the LNG ever arrived, just by signing the contract, they were able to renegotiate their contract with Gazprom and lower their price by 20 – 30%.

What I advocated in the meeting of energy ministers and why I am going to Greece tomorrow is to put a floating LNG terminal in Greece. Near the border with Bulgaria. To allow LNG to enter into Bulgaria and from there to Romania and Serbia. And to put another floating terminal in Krk Island in Croatia that would supply gas to Hungary, Slovenia and Ukraine. If you just do those things and invest in infrastructure, you won’t free yourself from Russian gas but you don’t need to. There is nothing wrong with Russian gas. But it should not be the only game in town.

I told some folks: Russian gas is OK. If it plays by the game, not trying to mess with the game. They have enormous amounts of gas and there is no reason why European consumers shouldn’t have access to it. But there is also no reason, why European consumers shouldn’t be able to get a better price. By competing with Gazprom. So, I believe LNG will arrive in Europe. As soon as the infrastructure is there. And that’s what I am urging and working very hard to try to achieve.

Strengthening interconnections has been the long-term plan of the European Commission and of Vice-President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič.

First, I think Mr. Šefčovič is doing an incredible job. He is fighting a very difficult battle trying to achieve the Energy Union across Europe. And that is not an easy task. I have rarely met somebody who works as many hours. And he constantly seems – based on his Twitter account – to be in multiple countries at the same time. I think he has a double (laughs).

I talk to him on a weekly basis. We are in very regular touch. There is a role to play for the EU as the governing body. Our relationships with several of the member states are very strong, historic. We also are an energy country. We have companies that I can talk to and understand how we can create the conditions to allow for private sector investment. I cannot tell an American company who to sell gas to.

But you can allow or not allow them to export.

That is right. We can give them the licenses to export. That is no longer the issue. The licences we have given to export are over a 100 billion cubic metres. That is an enormous amount. The total yearly demand of all of Europe is about 400 billion cubic metres. After years of approving the licences, the construction is starting to become complete. This year, we have started exporting from the first terminal in Louisiana 13 cargoes. And by 2020, we will be the second largest exporter in the world. The only thing that stops American LNG from reaching Europe is that European terminals need to buy it. There is no problem with availability, licensing or regulations.

So you think Europeans can beat higher prices in Asia or different world regions by the volume of imports?

Yes. The proximity, location and availability will allow American gas to reach Europe. And it already has. The location of the LNG terminals has stopped the gas from coming. And the fact that there are prior contracts that have to be satisfied.

How will Nord Stream 2 affect the American interests in Europe? Technically speaking, Nord Stream 2 means a change of trajectory for the same Russian gas imports to the EU. That is of course not beneficial for Slovakia and Poland. 

Here is how I look at every project. What is the motivation of the project? Do I understand the economics behind it? Or is it purely a political project? If it is, I get very worried about its intentions.

The Russians say Nord Stream 2 will reduce transit fees, so it is an economic project.

You look at a project and you say: I have gas that is coming from certain fields in Russia and it needs to reach certain customers. I have a multi-billion-dollar pipeline in existence. Most companies will do everything they can not to build the pipeline, because it costs a lot of money – over 10 billion dollars.

But they say they don’t control the Ukrainian pipeline.

They don’t control Nord Stream 2 either. Because they have a consortium and it is subject to European law. So it has to be open.

But they will operate it.

It doesn’t matter. They are selling the gas, they have customers. The same customers. Just because they don’t operate the pipeline are they going to spend 12 billion dollars building a new one? What for? If you were a shareholder and you walked into a company and said, “We are going to spend 12 billion dollars for something we don’t need,” they’d fire the CEO. Unless, it is not about shareholder value. Unless, it is not about economic value. Unless, it’s there to pursue political gain by the political levels and not by the CEO and the Board. Here is the level of damage you do with a project like Nord Stream 2: You take two billion dollars of revenue from shaky economy like Ukraine at a time when the international community is trying to support it. How do you recover from that? There is an easy answer. You can’t. The economy will collapse. I don’t think they are trying to hurt Slovakia. But they don’t seem to mind if they do. It’s a close to a billion dollars a year for the Slovak economy and budget. You cannot replace that.

But it’s about more than just Ukraine and Slovakia. You have half of Europe with an integrated and free gas market. And you have a half of Europe that was – as a result of the Cold War – connected by pipeline to Russia. You have an uneven energy picture in Europe. With Nord Stream 2 and South Stream, you are condemning Eastern and Central Europe to another 30 – 50 years of dependency on one supplier. Look at the price differential today, what people are paying in Bulgaria or Hungary compared to Germany.

Unless you build more interconnections with Western Europe.

It won’t help. Because you are simply bringing the same gas through a different pipe. You don’t have to build interconnectors to Western Europe, you have to build infrastructure that will allow those countries to receive alternative gas supplies. If you are in Germany, you can decide to have Norwegian gas. If you are in Italy, you can have LNG gas from Spain.

Germans lobby very hard for the Nord Stream 2 project across Europe. Have you talked to them?

Germany is a close friend and a close ally of the United States. We are open and frank with each other on all issues, including this one.

But they don’t seem to listen to your advice.

Well, I can see that some in Germany see this differently than I do. But it would be a mistake to consider this project as a small isolated project. It will have a great impact on all of Europe. If you have something that will affect Europe, in a negative way, isn’t that a classic example for the EU bodies to come and say, “This may not be such a good idea.” You created the position of the Vice-President of the European Commission for the Energy Union. And then you do this project?

It would compromise his position.

It compromises the concept. And it allows for the line that divided Europe during the Cold War to be resurrected. Not as a military, but as an economic line. I don’t think that is in the interest of Europe and of the United States.

Landmark Omission In UN Resolution Disappoints G77 And China – Analysis

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By Ramesh Jaura

Does ‘the inalienable right to self-determination for countries and peoples living under colonialism and foreign occupation’ sound relevant to the 21st century? Yes, says an overwhelming number of 193 member states of the United Nations.

It is not surprising therefore that those member states have expressed “deepest disappointment” at a landmark omission in the UN General Assembly’s resolution on ‘follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the global level’.

The resolution, which was adopted in “consensus action” on July 29, disregards reference to the inalienable right to self-determination for countries and peoples living under colonialism and foreign occupation.

The Group of 77, comprising 133 developing countries, and China has strongly objected to the resolution skipping one of the “most important historical principles”.

And this at the insistence of a few countries which regard reference to the right to self-determination irrelevant to the 21st century – though, as Algeria’s representative pointed out, the peoples of the 17 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories legitimately expected to exercise that right.

Sudan’s representative, associating himself with the Group of 77 and China as well as the Arab Group, underscored the need for “a comprehensive, transparent and robust system” of follow-up and review that would help member states realize the objectives of the 2030 Agenda.

Emphasizing the voluntary nature of such a process, he said States must be able to direct their own sustainable development processes while taking into account the cultural specificities of their people.

Recalling that the 2030 Agenda pledged to leave no one behind and to pay special attention to the needs of countries in special situations, he said that applied to countries living under colonialism and foreign occupation, something left out of the resolution without any justification. Indeed, the right to self-determination was among the basic tenets of the United Nations.

The G77 and China Chairperson Virachai Plasai, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations in New York, stressed that the right of self-determination is “a primordial right” that anchors the United Nations.

“For the Group of 77 and China, it has been and continues to be a beacon of hope for all those who struggle under the weight of occupation,” Plasai told the plenary of the General Assembly after the text adoption of the resolution.

He explained that while the Group did not break silence before text adoption, it could not remain silent on “an issue that has long united us and has been a thread of solidarity for our Group”.

“It was deeply disappointing therefore that even a benign reference to this right and the very principles that uphold this right, which the Group proposed as a way out of the impasse, was rejected. Indeed, it begs the question that if we cannot stand for what the United Nations in its very Charter promises, then what do we stand for?” G77 and China Chair asked.

Algeria’s representative, associating himself with the Group of 77 and China, also deplored the omission. of the right to self-determination for countries and peoples living under colonialism and foreign occupation.

Describing occupation as the worst form of human rights violation, he said the right to self-determination was clearly enshrined in the United Nations Charter and many global conventions, and the peoples of the 17 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories legitimately expected to exercise that right.

Indeed, it was deplorable to hear voices raised against the principle of self-determination in the twenty-first century. The manner in which the present resolution had been adopted – namely, the flexibility on the part of the Group of 77 and China – should not constitute a precedent for future intergovernmental work at the United Nations, he stressed.

Ecuador’s delegate expressed regret that the reference to countries and peoples living under colonialism and foreign occupation had been omitted from the resolution due to the opposition of a few delegations. Operative paragraph 11 of the text implicitly included those countries and peoples, he said, voicing further concern that a few countries remained systematically opposed to including well-established language on such clear and historic principles.

Calling for a return to traditional negotiations without such impositions, Cuba’s representative also warned against time limits and deadlines, stressing that resolutions should be drafted wisely and without haste.

Nicaragua’s representative expressed regret that the negotiations had been deferred for months and that the text did not include issues important to developing countries. All States – large and powerful ones as well as small developing ones – had the same rights. Rejecting the trend of impositions by negotiation facilitators, she warned that such impositions would not help to eradicate world poverty or implement the 2030 Agenda.

Bolivia’s representative stressed the need to remove all obstacles to sustainable development, including barriers to the right to self-determination.  She also expressed regret that the resolution omitted a reference to the right of all people to development.

Against this backdrop, Chair of the G77 and China said it was incumbent upon the Group to set forth its understanding of the interpretation of the resolution for the record as follows:

– That there is no derogation from the commitments enshrined in the 2030 Agenda, especially from the shared principles as set forth in the Agenda;

– That while countries and peoples under colonial and foreign occupation are not explicitly mentioned in the resolution, paragraph 35 of the 2030 Agenda which refers to “the full realization of the right of self-determination of peoples living under colonial and foreign occupation, which continue to adversely affect their economic and social development as well as their development” is nonetheless validated in the resolution’s reaffirmation of the 2030 Agenda itself; and

– That the process of the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda at global level including through the High Level Political Forum shall therefore be conducted by taking into account paragraph 35 amongst other relevant paragraphs relating to countries and peoples facing specific challenges.

The UN General Assembly’s consensus resolution envisages that the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development – mandated to coordinate the follow-up to and review of global sustainable development commitments – would spend the next three years focusing on a range of specific themes and targets, ranging from eradicating poverty to building resilience to empowering communities.

The Forum would discuss a set of Sustainable Development Goals and their interlinkages at each session representing the three dimensions of sustainable development, with a view to facilitating an in-depth review of progress made on all the Goals over the course of a four-year cycle, and that the sets of Goals to be reviewed in depth for the remainder of the current cycle would be Goals 1, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 14 in 2017; Goals 6, 7, 11, 12 and 15 in 2018; and Goals 4, 8, 10, 13 and 16 in 2019.

No Link Found Between Erectile Dysfunction Drugs And Risk Of Prostate Cancer

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While some previous studies have indicated that taking erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs may reduce the likelihood of developing prostate cancer, new research published in The Journal of Urology found that these drugs do not play a role in preventing prostate cancer.

ED is a common problem with a prevalence of 20% to 40% in the sixth decade of life and approaching 75% in the seventh decade. Drugs such as tadalafil, sildenafil, and vardenafil are phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE-5is) commonly used to treat ED. Since PDE-5is were first introduced in 1998, their durability, safety, and efficacy for treating ED have been clearly demonstrated.

“In vitro mouse studies have suggested that these drugs might have some anticancer activity, but the evidence in human subjects is mixed,” said lead investigator Stephen J. Freedland, MD, Division of Urology, Department of Surgery at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, CA. “Given the routine use of PDE-5i and the possibility that these agents may have anticancer activity, we wanted to test the association between their use and risk of developing prostate cancer.”

Using data from REDUCE, a four-year, multicenter study testing the effect of daily dutasteride to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia on prostate cancer risk in men, the authors analyzed whether ED drug use by more than 6,500 patients may have affected overall prostate cancer risk and disease grade (Gleason 2-6 and 7-10). All participants in the REDUCE study were required to undergo biopsies at two and four years after enrollment, which facilitated uniform cancer assessments across the entire group. In this way, the basic science linking PDE-5i and anticancer activity could be explored.

Of the 6,501 men in the study 364 (5.6%) used PDE-5i at baseline. During the study, prostate cancer was diagnosed in 71 of these men (19.5%) compared to 1,391 of 6,137 (22.7%) men who did not take PDE-5i, which was not significantly different.

An analysis of prostate cancer grade also showed no correlation between PDE-5i use and low or high grade cancer. Because PDE-5i use was significantly higher among North American men, the authors looked for a regional effect. They found some correlation between ED use and lower prostate cancer diagnosis in North American men, but this did not reach statistical significance.

“Future studies with longer followup and larger study populations are warranted to determine the association between PDE-5i and prostate cancer,” said Juzar Jamnagerwalla, MD, urology resident at Cedars-Sinai and first author of the study.


Pope Francis’ Appeal For Poland To Welcome Refugees May Remain Unanswered

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Pope Francis’s appeal to Polish people to welcome refugees into the country and to embrace EU integration may remain unanswered, according to an expert from the University of Leicester.

Dr Simona Guerra, Senior Lecturer from the University of Leicester Department of Politics and International Relations, has written an article for Think: Leicester, the University’s platform for independent academic opinion, discussing Pope Francis’s recent visit to Poland during the World Youth Day gathering to mark the 1,050th anniversary of Poland’s adoption of Christianity.

While Pope Francis appealed for people to show a merciful heart towards refugees and to welcome them into the country, Dr Guerra suggests that his call for mercy may remain unanswered due to the Polish Church and its concerns about the consequences of EU integration.

In the article Dr Guerra said, “The Polish Church has concerns on the consequences of EU integration, linked to secularization and consumerism and the focus was and is on the position of Poland towards EU integration and Polish culture and values, as the Church can successfully become both provider and defender of these values.”

Dr Guerra continued: “Pope Francis’s positions seem at odds with the local Church. In his speech at Blonia Park, he called for merciful hearts, saying: ‘A merciful heart can go out and meet others; it is ready to embrace everyone. A merciful heart is able to be a place of refuge for those who are without a home or have lost their home; it is able to build a home and a family for those forced to emigrate; it knows the meaning of tenderness and compassion. A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants. To say the word “mercy” along with you is to speak of opportunity, future, commitment, trust, openness, hospitality, compassion and dreams.”

According to Dr Guerra, “This is not a shared position by Poland, where the government has maintained a rather strict position, in particular after the terrorist attacks in Europe, and where just a few months ago, in the Spring, about 64% of Poles wanted their country’s borders closed to refugees.”

Dr Guerra noted that, “While the European Commission stressed that it is important not to confuse the refugees’ crisis with security, Poland is currently again under the spotlight, after the January Constitutional crisis, as the Commission has given a three-month notice to take action to protect the rule of law in the country, before it may launch the unprecedented Article 7 procedure.”

In the opinion of Dr Guerra, “Pope Francis’s appeals may remain unanswered, while he met with Polish bishops in private, and repeated his call for mercy before leaving on Sunday late afternoon.”

Iraq Needs To Ban Abusive Militias From Mosul Operation, Says HRW

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Iraqi military commanders should prevent militias with records of serious abuses from taking part in planned military operations for the city of Mosul. The government’s obligation to take all possible measures to protect civilians and ensure respect for the laws of war makes it essential to prevent these groups from participating in the Mosul campaign.

Militias with abusive records include components of the mostly Shia Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) such as the Badr Brigades, the Hezbollah Brigades (Kata’ib Hezbollah), and other groups. During recent operations to retake territory from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Human Rights Watch documented summary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and the destruction of homes by these and other groups that are part of the government-affiliated PMF. There have been no apparent consequences for these abuses.

“Militias that form part of the PMF have repeatedly carried out horrific, sometimes wide-scale abuses, most recently in Fallujah, with no consequences despite the government’s promises to investigate,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “Iraqi commanders shouldn’t risk exposing Mosul civilians to serious harm by militias with a record of recent abuse.”

ISIS took control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in June 2014. It is thought that hundreds of thousands of civilians still remain in the city. In mid-March 2016, the Iraqi army, in cooperation with Iraqi Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces, opened a ground offensive from the town of Makhmur, in Erbil governorate, that reached Qayyara, 70 kilometers south of Mosul, by mid-July. This raised the prospect of an imminent assault on Mosul.

PMF officials have said their forces would be at the forefront of the campaign against ISIS in Mosul, and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, which have also been responsible for abusing civilians, also insist that they will participate. In a June 25 statement, Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Brigades, said, “The PM[F] will take part in the liberation of Mosul, against the will of the politicians who oppose this.”

In May, prior to the campaign to retake Fallujah from ISIS, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Badr leader Hadi al-Amiri, and the United States-led coalition spokesman, US Army Col. Steve Warren, said that the PMF would not enter Fallujah. But allegations of abuses of civilians by members of the PMF immediately surfaced after the start of operations on May 24. Members of the Badr Brigades and Hezbollah Brigades, among others, and in at least one instance, Federal Police officers, allegedly beat hundreds of Sunni men escaping the fighting after taking them into custody, summarily executed dozens, forcibly disappeared hundreds, and mutilated at least a dozen corpses.

On June 4, al-Abadi said he had opened an investigation into allegations of abuse in the Fallujah operation. Three days later, he announced unspecified arrests and the “transfer of those accused of committing violations to the judiciary to receive their punishment according to the law.” Since then, officials have not responded to Human Rights Watch inquiries about the status of the investigation, who is conducting it, or steps taken. The abuses in Fallujah followed numerous earlier allegations of widespread abuses by militias that were part of the PMF, including in Diyala, around Amerli, and Tikrit.

Two people told Human Rights Watch that, in March, the Hezbollah Brigades, League of the Righteous (Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq), and Soldier of the Imam (Jund al-Imam) militias rounded up thousands of Sunni families fleeing the Jazira desert area west of Baiji, Tikrit, and Samarra, and held them in food warehouses south of Tikrit. Another source Human Rights Watch interviewed in March said that a militia fighter told him that he and fellow militiamen had executed dozens of Sunni young men, also from the area west of Tikrit and Samarra.

After ISIS claimed two bombings at a café in the town of Muqdadiya, in Diyala governorate, on January 11, fighters with the Badr Brigades and the League of Righteous responded by attacking Sunnis, killing at least a dozen people and perhaps many more, local residents told Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch also documented widespread destruction and looting after ISIS had withdrawn in March and April 2015, by the Badr Brigades, Ali Akbar Brigades, Hezbollah Brigades, League of the Righteous, Khorasan Companies (Saraya Khorasan), and Soldier of the Imam militias, all part of the PMF, after battles in al-Dur, al-Bu ‘Ajil, and parts of Tikrit. Sunni PMF forces also destroyed property in al-‘Alam.

Shia PMF militias and Federal Police officers also carried out apparent extrajudicial killings in Tikrit in early April. Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone people who had been recently detained by the Shia militias who said that groups including Hezbollah Brigades and League of the Righteous had abducted at least 160 people, all of whom remain unaccounted for, from al-Dur, south of Tikrit.

In September and October 2014, several militias, including the League of the Righteous, Badr Brigades, Khorasan Companies, and Hezbollah Brigades, destroyed buildings in at least 30 villages around Amerli, 80 kilometers east of Tikrit, after lifting the three-month ISIS siege on that Shia Turkmen town. Around Amerli, Human Rights Watch documented abductions of Sunni residents by Shia militias.

Human Rights Watch has also documented abuses by Peshmerga and other forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses by ISIS forces and said that ISIS should not use civilians to shield its military objectives from attack. Human Rights Watch also called on all sides not to use child soldiers and to allow civilians to flee to safety.

The US-led coalition has conducted aerial attacks on ISIS, including in the recent Fallujah offensive, and advises local forces on ground attacks. Germany trains and provides weapons to Peshmerga and other forces and provides them with weapons. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps provides military advisers to Iraq.

On July 12, the US announced the deployment of an additional 560 US troops. The US should request that none of the militias with a record of serious abuses with impunity is put in a position where they could commit similar abuses, including in any Mosul operation.

Any military operation to retake Mosul should also include efforts to preserve mass graves for victim identification and justice, both in Iraq and elsewhere. A focus should be the mass grave holding about 600 Shia prisoners whom ISIS captured at Badoush Prison on June 10, 2014, and killed in the nearby desert. The precise killing site remains unknown but, once identified, it requires immediate protection to preserve crucial evidence.

“Given the record of abuses by militias, it is crucial for Iraq’s military and political leaders to hold accountable those who have violated the laws of war in past operations,” Stork said. “It goes without saying those same forces should be kept away from efforts to retake Mosul.”

Iran And The Palestinians: A One-Way Solidarity – OpEd

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A high-profile meeting of the Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Maryam Rajavi, the head of opposition group known as MEK, in Paris recently has angered Tehran and stirred a slew of commentaries in the Iranian media filled with laments about Iran’s decades long sacrifices for the Palestinian cause without hardly any reciprocity by the Palestinians.

There is now a growing consensus in Iran that Mr. Abbas has just signaled his inclusion in the Saudi-led axis against Iran, in light of a recent MEK rally in France featuring the former Saudi intelligence chief as a keynote speaker.

With Saudi Arabia in open hostility toward Iran, recruiting proxies all over the Middle East to fight dirty wars against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the PLO has now officially been added to the list, perhaps involving serious financial gains for the inept and hitherto ineffective PLO — that ought to focus on its own agenda for statehood in a rapidly shrinking Palestinian territory due to insatiable Zionist expansion of illegal settlements, quietly tolerated by the western governments.

Mr. Abbas had previously sent warm messages to President Rouhani and the latter must surely be now thinking what explains this unwelcome U-turn on Abbas’s part, particularly since Iran has an impeccable record in defense of the Palestinian rights?

Lest we forget, Abbas’s predecessor, Chairman Yasser Arafat, was the first foreign dignitary meeting Ayatollah Khomeini after the revolution and, consistently over the years, Iran has been a pillar of support for the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist occupation. Sadly, Mr. Arafat made a horrendous error of judgment by siding with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, resulting in the recruitment of thousands of Palestinian “volunteers” in Saddam’s invading army, many of whom ended as POWs in Iran’s camps. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Arafat augmented his big mistakes by siding with Saddam again, with little or no forethought of the dire consequences of such big gambles that never paid off.

Unfortunately, history appears to be repeating itself with Mr. Abbas closely following the dreadful footsteps of Arafat, by offering his services to the Saudis in their undeclared state of war with Iran, counting on the MEK and other similar groups bent on “regime change” in Iran; MEK too has a history of collaboration with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, which is one of several reasons why it has absolutely no future in Iran, given the nationalistic Iranians’ collective memory of that war and those who sided with the enemy that exacted so many lives of Iranians.

To open a personal caveat here, this author has personally made repeated sacrifices for the sake of Palestinian rights and twice, at Boston University and State University of New York at Binghamton, was subjected to academic backlashes solely as a result of his public stance in defense of Palestinians.

And yet, over the past two years I have been targeted by a Palestinian restaurant owner, whom I assisted with a lecture by the renowned peace activist Noam Chomsky at his joint. Instead of showing the smallest gratitude, that Palestinian subjected me to serious mistreatment the night before the Chomsky talk and thus inflicted emotional harm, as I have been having a difficult time comprehending how someone can be so ungrateful and burn the hands that feed him? This is the question that now, on a broader level, many Iranians ask about the Palestinians, who seem all too ready to sell out Iran to the enemies without a pause. Perhaps the time has come for Iran to re-evaluate this unhealthy one-way solidarity that has cost Iran much, without an iota of benefit, save Iran’s own satisfaction of remaining true to its norms and values.

The Closing Of The American Mind – OpEd

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By Luis Durani*

In 1987, Dr. Bloom wrote a scathing critique of how society has failed democracy in the perennial book, The Closing of the American Mind. Dr. Bloom concluded society was more “impoverished” due to the character development being fostered by America’s universities. His central thesis focused on how concepts of openness and moral relativism have ironically led to the closing of the American mind.

He argued that openness has led to the deprivation and eradication of critical thinking. Today, decades later, the society he once critiqued, finds itself at a similar crossroads. Society seems to be at a precipice where the culmination of tensions related to race, economic disparity, and other issues appear to be fracturing the very foundation and social consciousness that has prolonged the existence of American society. Today’s downturn can be traced back to one of the most important pillars of society, education.

Education

The primary contributor to this phenomenon has been the education system especially America’s colleges. Starting with the primary and secondary education system, the country is witnessing a large disparity in the quality of education being provided to its youth relative to other countries. The US has been on steady decline in terms of how her student’s fare. Despite concerted efforts, the graduation rate for high school still lingers around 70% but even worse, 80% of those who graduate high school is not remotely prepared for their first year of college. The governing paradigm behind the US’s current approach to both its primary and secondary system requires a dramatic change, it is archaic at best. While American Universities have historically been second to none in terms of research as well as academics it is slipping more and more. A pedagogical shift is needed.

The most perilous issue at hand is critical thinking or lack thereof. The intent behind the American education system as well as the four-year American degree is that it certifies that the graduate is an individual that not only has demonstrated commitment in achieving and successfully passing a rigorous course of study but also acquired skills and knowledge into the fundamentals of a certain subject. However, more importantly, it demonstrated that whomever the degree was bestowed upon developed certain intellectual faculties that would allow them to employ logic as well as critical reasoning abilities to solve any problem. This skill, in particular, is what has allowed American society to flourish and innovate. The universities use to produce educated individuals who were able to debate what is right and wrong in a civil manner. Unfortunately, colleges are beginning to fail more and more in this respect. They are not creating the renaissance-like student as was initially intended with the premise of a 4-year degree. Such a well-rounded individual would help alleviate society’s burden, instead, today’s students are contributing to its decline due to a sense of false bravado that has been granted to them with their college education. Today’s students due to the relative peace, economic prosperity and false bluster have developed a sense of entitlement. Whereas in reality, they are perhaps more close minded due to the false veneer that has been created by their own inflated sense of worth. The university, which was supposed to be the Socratic utopia of creating the enlightened masses, has become an assembly line that churns out heavily indebted zombies and parrots. The sheer number of colleges and conferred degrees has exponentially skyrocketed to the point that bachelor degrees are becoming futile in almost every subject aside from engineering and the sciences. Society has created a false belief that everyone should go to college and it is a right rather than a privilege for those who were academically successful. Today, students of all calibers are entering college rather than those who performed well academically. While American colleges are still notable due to the massive endowment and research money poured into them, many are devolving from being renowned for centers of innovation to infamous for its campus parties. The price of colleges has continued to unabatedly rise exorbitantly for what appears to be a more worthless piece of paper as each day goes by. With the higher influx of students with all sorts of academic ability, standards have lowered and lowered in order to help better accommodate such students. The transformation of colleges into for-profit centers coupled with the unlimited loans from the government to support this fruitless endeavor has created a major government initiative that has failed. This failure, in particular, has one of the largest consequences to society as a whole. This slow regression of society is witnessed in all aspects and professions today as intellectual capacity is producing diminishing returns.

Politics

According to a recent Pew study, Americans have at no time been as partisan and divided as they are today. While the trend has been observed dating back to the 1960s, unfortunately, data has only been consistently recorded since 1992. While the American political system was created to be a forum for a variety of political ideologies in which the voters can view and subscribe to, today it has downgraded from being a congregation of beliefs to more of a vitriol battlefield of who can further their corporate and big money interest rather than fulfill the desire of their constituents. Unfortunately, many Americans find it hard to believe but on a national scale, the two major parties are not so much different than each other.

Social beliefs are used as a veneer to help create this illusion of differentiation between the two parties making it easier for voters to choose what candidates they can select. While a nation’s social direction is important and should not be neglected, the reality lies in the fact that Americans, for the most part, do not want to be dictated to in how they live their lives. Politicians in their natural finesse are able to contour the discussion of social issues as a topic of fear and imposition on people’s everyday lives. Most people tend to be more emotionally responsive rather than logical about their decision. Equipped with such psychological depth, politicians and consultants have transformed the elections from matters of substance into a popularity contest. Sophistry has become a most sought after trait by those seeking office.

The question goes back to how has this state of affairs come into being? How did statesmen transform into dreaded and corrupt politicians? While the government, in its best form, is a necessary evil, as Thomas Paine had put it, a democratic government only denigrates in complicity with its citizenry. A true democratic nation such as the US can only move away from its roots as a republic under the auspices of the same citizenry it serves. Whether it is the influence of corporate lobbying in legislation or big money in the elective process, all this has occurred thanks to the acquiescence of the voters. While not every American needs to be a full-blown political affairs guru, it is a civic duty to know what or whom they are voting for. Yet, too many times by too many people, Americans despite arguing for change, reduction of political corruption and favoritism, vote into power those who continue the bickering, stalemate, and impotence that is government today. The power of the ballot box has been ignored for too long and the voter, not the system, has created the leviathan that everyone bemoans today. Even to this day, as Americans continue to complain about all these plaguing issues of the electoral system, they do not take responsibility for their choices. Despite the continuous grievances and Congress’ historically low approval rating, the same officials are reelected almost every election. Politico reported that 90% of incumbent Congressman and 91% of incumbent Senators were reelected in recent elections. Political scientists are quick to point to the amount of money raised, television ad, etc. that was employed by the incumbent to secure his/her seat. In reality, the source of the blame is being ignored, the voters.

Many are quick to label politicians stupid, ignorant, etc. and while these labels may be true for certain politicians they are not applicable to all. There are many savvy and intelligent officials who have to simplify their speeches, points, or goals to catch the attention of the voter. This is the nature of politics in America, the oversimplification or “dumbing” down of information into slogans, so it can catch the attention of the potential voter. To further induce potential voters, certain words are intermittently interjected into conversations, rallies, etc. to help increase a candidate’s popularity. Such a demotion of ideas by politicians reflects once again the society they partake in. Voters as people are subconsciously biased and do not like to feel inferior around others as well as disliking what they perceive as negative. Self-worth is measured by social status, thus when an intelligent politician discusses intricate subjects with the level of complexity needed, voters are turned off whereas the politician seeking office rather than serving the public sings the necessary ode to the delight and content of the voter is elected.

As society regresses more so towards emotions and becomes largely devoid of logic and facts, the emergence of a dystopia resembling what the fictional movie Idiocracy was attempting to resemble takes hold. In such a society there is a lack of any sense of social responsibility, an inconsistent set of principles pertaining to human rights of its citizens and those abroad, and a continual hindrance to the pursuit of intellectual curiosity sometimes for the sake of inclusiveness or political correctness.

Society has been demonstrating a tendency to become “dumber.” A study carried out by a team of researchers concluded that there has been a markedly exponential growth in technological advancement since the Victorian age, but a shrinking in human intelligence over the same time period. It is estimated the average individual is approximately 13.4 IQ points less intelligent than their Victorian Era counterpart. This is somewhat noticeable with the untenable understanding of geography, science, and history demonstrated by most people in the US and around the world. When one looks to society, its role models and those who are held in high esteem today, it seems to have drastically altered than several decades or a century ago. Today, reality stars, movies stars, and athletes are bequeathed extreme adoration and epitomize the majority of society’s highest aspirations, unfortunately to its own detriment. This in itself resembles a society with a sense of void and lack of worthiness that should be better inculcated. The lifestyle that is portrayed by these “role models” appeals to the most inner compartments of people’s wants and desires. It is that lifestyle they appreciate and believe that would be most gratifying. Those lifestyles are almost always glitzy, flashy, and vapid. While education is not solely to blame, it is a major contributor to the development of character and critical thinking faculties. These members of society are doomed to never escape the most minimal echelons of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Erosion of Ideals

The culmination of all these issues is starting to manifest itself in a very grave threat to society through the erosion of ideals and principles that define American society. As each side rushes to blame the other for allowing such a decimation of the American character, in reality, both are to blame. While the left critiques the right, it ignores the fact that across American college campuses a new phenomenon of shutting down right-leaning speakers or even centrist liberal speakers is taking hold. In order to preserve certain ideals, they are partaking in an epidemic to limit free speech. Even if that speech is hate speech, it should not be stymied; it could be condemned and ignored but not impeded. Such a precedent only opens the floodgates for future limitation of speech based on emotions. While those on the left are ready to critique, justifiably so, former President George Bush for his actions (Iraq War and drone strikes) and legislations (Patriot Act, etc.) for some mysterious reason they are blind to their liberal leaders such as President Obama and Hilary Clinton, who have done similar, if not worse, in the same arena.

The same is applicable to those in the right, while they have employed labels such as regressive left or social justice warriors to project a negative connotation; they sometimes seem to have a short memory on the causation for certain failures that was created by Republican leaders such as President Bush and his predecessors. The failure to focus on Afghanistan has allowed for the Taliban to regain total power in that country, while presenting farcically based intelligence led to the war in Iraq that not only destabilized the region and world but gave birth to ISIS. They forget the deficit spending and corporate welfare that President Bush engaged in, which did not help the national debt.

Long gone are the days where a Socratic, intellectual and informative discourse can be held between people on opposite side of the political spectrum such as conservative commentator William Buckley Jr. and liberal linguistic and activist, Noam Chomsky. Such public debates helped inform both sides of the aisle on the opposing side’s opinion, train of thought and sometimes allowed for reconciliation through understanding or compromise.

This plaguing issue in today’s America is once again due to the character formation of the population through the education system. The art of learning how to learn is no longer instilled in students, but instead whether in primary, secondary, and even post-secondary, the focus is memorization of material and regurgitation. Without learning how to critically think and analyze, these students become parrots, mimicking what is fed to them based on those whom they align with ideologically. In addition, thanks to the inflationary practices of universities via reducing standards and graduating students as if they are an assembly line, an implicit enablement of such people in society is taking place on a mass level. In reality, what is being created are hollow individuals in society with a false sense of intelligence and knowledge that will end up further dividing this nation and bringing the eventual decline of America, if it has not already started.

Conclusion

The society that Dr. Bloom critiqued was vastly different than today’s society. While certain societal inequities have been remedied in the past few decades, others have begun to become a nuisance of its own. As the consequences of the cultural and sexual revolution were setting in, the changes were something of a perturbation to people from Dr. Bloom’s era. As those effects settled, one of the biggest impacts they have had has been the education system and the philosophical ways students are being taught. Nowhere more is this detrimental effect observed than America’s universities. Today students are being mass produced without the focus on their development into open-minded, inquisitive, informed, and critically thinking individuals. It is these college-educated individuals that are expected to run the future corporations, states, and country. Unlike, students of the past, today’s students are being produced by the groves at colleges who are more interested in profits than the actual quality of the graduate. As a result, colleges have become more of a rite of passage for most young Americans rather than a medium of knowledge. Undergraduate programs have become more widely known based on party rankings rather than academics. Instead of young graduates possessing knowledge and ability to think critically, colleges and society, in general, are producing more parrot-like citizens who are more interested in vitriol partisanship than actually debating and holding a conversation in which all points are discussed and analyzed. Humility and modesty, traits of most educated individuals, are evaporating and being replaced with hubris and arrogance. Due to social media, popular culture propagated by reality TV, and the lack of a properly educated population that can analyze and think judiciously not emotionally, a vicious future is being implanted for America. One of the most important functions of a college or university is to protect the concept of reason and logic. As Dr. Bloom said, “Education is the movement of darkness into light” but today it appears education is moving society back into darkness.

About the author:
*Luis Durani
is currently employed in the oil and gas industry. He previously worked in the nuclear energy industry. He has a M.A. in international affairs with a focus on Chinese foreign policy and the South China Sea, MBA, M.S. in nuclear engineering, B.S. in mechanical engineering and B.A. in political science. He is also author of “Afghanistan: It’s No Nebraska – How to do Deal with a Tribal State” and “China and the South China Sea: The Emergence of the Huaqing Doctrine.” Follow him for other articles on Instagram: @Luis_Durani

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

African Election Trends 2016: A Good Year For Democracy? – Analysis

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By Steven Gruzd and Luanda Mpungose*

With eight countries already going to the polls and seven more planning to do so before December, 2016 has been a busy year for elections in Africa.

At the halfway point of the year, what can be concluded about democratic processes across the continent? And what can be expected from the coming months?

The return of liberal democracy

After the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the perceived triumph of liberal democracy, coupled with cajolement from the victorious Western donor governments led many African states to re-introduce multi-party political systems, after decades of one-party or military rule. Competitive elections became institutionalised. Africa developed standards outlawing unconstitutional changes of government.

Democracy, it seemed, was making its biggest comeback since the crumbling of colonialism from the 1960s onwards.

Today, almost all African states stage multi-party elections every four or five years. Fifteen polls have been planned for 2016. The first half of the year saw elections in Benin, the Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Niger and Uganda, with elections also slated for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, the Gambia, Ghana, São Tomé and Príncipe, South Africa and Zambia.

But have constitutions, electoral processes and term limits been respected, or have incumbents tried to keep the keys to State House by all means necessary?

January-June: Delays, reruns and boycotts

While there has been improvement from deplorable polls in the past, unfortunately many African elections are still delayed because of coups d’état and other unconstitutional changes of government, undoing constitutional term limits and consequent violence. When the ballots do proceed, they are often marred by vote-rigging, opposition boycotts, logistical problems and court challenges.
While there has been improvement from deplorable polls in the past, unfortunately many African elections are still delayed because of coups d’état and other unconstitutional changes of government, undoing constitutional term limits and consequent violence.

The Central African Republic, engulfed by instability and violence in recent years, saw a chaotic and contentious electoral process. A coup d’état in 2013 ousted President François Bozizé, which led to an internecine conflict with religious dimensions, pitting Muslims against Christians; a series of interim administrations; and suspension from the African Union (AU). The constitutional court reinstated the right of refugees to vote (a million people of the country’s 4.7 million are estimated to have fled violence). Parliamentary and presidential elections were originally scheduled for October 2015, but they were postponed to December after violence in the capital Bangui. A successful legal challenge annulled the parliamentary results and forced a rerun in February 2016, together with a second round of presidential elections in March. With 63% of the vote, Faustin Archange Touadéra, a former Bozizé-regime prime minister, was elected president. The courts rejected further petitions for annulment, and the main opposition leader Anicet Georges Dologuele, accepted the result ‘for the sake of peace’ (despite having won 24% of the vote to Touadéra’s 19% in the first round). The AU then lifted the CAR’s suspension.

In Niger in 2011, the army ousted President Mamadou Tandja after mass protests when he failed to change the constitution to allow himself a third term bid. Interim military leaders kept their promise to hold early elections, won by Mahamadou Issoufou. In February 2016, presidential and legislative elections saw Issoufou romp home with 92% of the vote. A 20-party coalition called a boycott and threats of terror attacks saw a low turnout. Opposition leader Hama Amadou was arrested for alleged child trafficking shortly after announcing his candidacy. Voters lacked proper identity documents and voting stations ran out of materials, extending the poll for a day.

Term limits were dropped from Uganda’s constitution in 2005. As expected, February elections saw President Yoweri Museveni comfortably notch up his seventh five-year term since 1986. His perennial rival, Dr Kizza Besigye, was repeatedly arrested before and after the vote (as in previous campaigns). Opposition rallies were broken up and social media platforms were shut down, raising tensions. Like all Uganda’s elections since 2001, allegations of ballot rigging and voter intimidation were insufficient to overturn the result.

Chad dropped term limits in 2004, and President Idriss Déby won his fifth mandate (since his 1990 coup) in the April elections. A splintered opposition fielded 13 candidates. With consummate chutzpah, Déby promised to reinstate two-term limits if re-elected. The opposition is making noises to reject these results amid electoral boycotts and intimidation.

Similarly, in the Republic of Congo, incumbent Denis Sassou Nguesso, at the helm for 32 years, garnered 67% of the vote in March. An October 2015 referendum, (dubbed a ‘constitutional coup’ by opposition parties), removed both term and age limits, paving the way for his umpteenth run. The European Union refused to send observers. Calls to delay the polls due to disorganisation by the new electoral commission were ignored. On polling day, the country was in virtual lockdown: car use was banned, businesses stayed shut, and police and soldiers menacingly patrolled the streets. Cellphones were blocked during and after the elections, increasing anxiety around the results. At least 18 people died in protests, and opposition forces alleged massive rigging, to no avail.

Djibouti changed its constitution in 2010 to jettison term limits. President Omar Guelleh won his fourth term handsomely (breaking a promise not to run), with 87% of the vote in April, despite a boycott by major opposition parties. Perhaps the fact that the US, France and China have large military bases in Djibouti explains their silence.

In the troubled archipelago of Comoros – which has faced over 20 actual or attempted coups since independence in 1975 – inconclusive February polls necessitated a second round in April. The unusual electoral system chooses the president on a rotational basis from one of the three major islands. Colonel Azali Assoumani (twice a former president) narrowly emerged victorious. Courts dismissed accusations that the electoral commission falsified results, despite public protests.

Observers gave the thumbs up to the election of businessman Patrice Talon in the second round of Benin’s election, with a peaceful transition from the regime of President Thomas Yaya Boni (rumoured to have eyed an unconstitutional third term, although never publicly pronounced).

Looking forward: mixed prospects

Will the rest of 2016 change this mostly depressing picture?

There are rosy re-election prospects for long-time incumbents in Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe and the Gambia, with space for civil society, opposition parties and media severely restricted. More than 30 people died in the Democratic Republic of Congo protesting against a new electoral law. Anxiety is high over the likelihood that the 2016 elections could be delayed for several years due to alleged unpreparedness, lack of funds and a census, and a compromised voters’ roll. Is this a stratagem to extend the constitutionally-curtailed reign of President Joseph Kabila?
Africa’s civil society organisations and citizens must continue to raise their voices and cast their votes for the governance they deserve.

But democratic stalwarts present some hope. Local elections in South Africa in August (despite scandals swirling around the ruling party) and presidential polls in Ghana in December (despite concerns over the integrity of the voters’ roll) are both widely expected to be well run, free and fair and peaceful. Zambia faces its fifth leader since 2008, after the death in office of two presidents, with a tight but calm contest predicted.

What can we learn from 2016?

On 19 April, Koffi Annan urged African leaders to leave office when their time is up, or risk coups and uprisings. Threats of violence lead African observer missions to value peace above all, being willing to forgive a multitude of electoral irregularities.

Yet this won’t help build stable states ruled by fairly elected governments. Hasty presidential inaugurations also render legal protests ─ a vital democratic means to address electoral fraud ─ irrelevant.

Africa’s civil society organisations and citizens must continue to raise their voices and cast their votes for the governance they deserve. But without strong governance institutions and electoral management bodies, and an AU brave enough to condemn leaders who flout their constitutions, Africa could continue to be plagued by recurrent violence arising from elite power battles.

*About the authors:
Steven Gruzd
heads the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, and Luanda Mpungose is its programme officer. A version of this article first appeared in Standard Bank’s Risky Business publication.

Source:
This article was published at SAIIA.

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