The number of Egyptian pilgrims who died of natural causes during the hajj in Saudi Arabia reached 35 cases Thursday, state news agency MENA reported.

The deceased pilgrims will be buried in Saudi Arabia, after Egyptian authorities consulted with their families, the news agency added, quoting the head of Egypt’s Hajj mission Said Maher.

Over 80,000 Egyptian pilgrims are performing the hajj this year.

The hajj and the lesser umrah pilgrimages bring millions of Muslims to Saudi Arabia from around the globe every year.

The death of pilgrims due to heat exhaustion, fatigue and other natural causes is a regular occurrence on the hajj.

Fatal crowd stampedes are also common due to the high number of people along the pilgrimage route.

Saudi authorities have undertaken new safety measures after more than 2,000 died in a stampede last year including pilgrims wearing electronic safety bracelets.

One of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj is considered an obligation by all Muslims who can afford the costly and difficult trip at least once in a lifetime.

Original article

“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria, Politico

The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.

The main driver of the conflict is the country that’s toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2.  (See: Bill Blum here.) We’re talking about the United States of course.

Washington is the hands-down regime change champion, no one else even comes close. That being the case, one might assume that the American people would notice the pattern of intervention, see through the propaganda and assign blame accordingly. But that never  seems to happen and it probably won’t happen here either. No matter how compelling the evidence may be, the brainwashed American people always believe their government is doing the right thing.

But the United States is not doing the right thing in Syria. Arming, training and funding Islamic extremists — that have killed half a million people, displaced 7 million more and turned the country into an uninhabitable wastelands –is not the right thing. It is the wrong thing, the immoral thing. And the US is involved in this conflict for all the wrong reasons, the foremost of which is gas. The US wants to install a puppet regime in Damascus so it can secure pipeline corridors in the East, oversee the transport of vital energy reserves from Qatar to the EU, and make sure that those reserves continue to be denominated in US Dollars that are recycled into US Treasuries and US financial assets. This is the basic recipe for maintaining US dominance in the Middle East and for extending America’s imperial grip on global power into the future.

The war in Syria did not begin when the government of Bashar al Assad cracked down on protestors in the spring of 2011. That version of events is obfuscating hogwash.  The war began in 2009, when Assad rejected a Qatari plan to transport gas from Qatar to the EU via Syria. As Robert F Kennedy Jr. explains in his excellent article “Syria: Another pipeline War”:

“The $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey….would have linked Qatar directly to European energy markets via distribution terminals in Turkey… The Qatar/Turkey pipeline would have given the Sunni Kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America’s closest ally in the Arab world. ….

In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally….

Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world…”

Naturally, the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and Americans were furious at Assad, but what could they do? How could they prevent him from choosing his own business partners and using his own sovereign territory to transport gas to market?

What they could do is what any good Mafia Don would do; break a few legs and steal whatever he wanted. In this particular situation, Washington and its scheming allies decided to launch a clandestine proxy-war against Damascus, kill or depose Assad, and make damn sure the western oil giants nabbed the future pipeline contracts and controlled the flow of energy to Europe. That was the plan at least. Here’s more from Kennedy:

“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.

Repeat: “the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline”, he signed his own death warrant. That single act was the catalyst for the US aggression that transformed a bustling, five thousand-year old civilization into a desolate Falluja-like moonscape overflowing with homicidal fanatics that were recruited, groomed and deployed by the various allied intelligence agencies.

But what’s particularly interesting about this story is that the US attempted a nearly-identical plan 60 years earlier during the Eisenhower administration. Here’s another clip from the Kennedy piece:

“During the 1950′s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers … mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism — which CIA Director Allan Dulles equated with communism — particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism….

The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 — barely a year after the agency’s creation…. Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. (so)… the CIA engineered a coup, replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, 14 weeks into his regime…..

(CIA agent Rocky) Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1956 with $3 million in Syrian pounds to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Kuwaiti’s democratically elected secularist regime….

But all that CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA’s bribery attempts to the Ba’athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy taking Stone prisoner. Following harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession to his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA’s aborted attempt to overthrow Syria’s legitimate government….(Then) Syria purged all politicians sympathetic to the U.S. and executed them for treason.” (Politico)

See how history is repeating itself? It’s like the CIA was too lazy to even write a new script, they just dusted off the old one and hired new actors.

Fortunately, Assad –with the help of Iran, Hezbollah and the Russian Airforce– has fended off the effort to oust him and install a US-stooge. This should not be taken as a ringing endorsement of Assad as a leader, but of the principal that global security depends on basic protections of national sovereignty, and that the cornerstone of international law has to be a rejection of unprovoked aggression whether the hostilities are executed by one’s own military or by armed proxies that are used to achieve the same strategic objectives while invoking  plausible deniability. The fact is, there is no difference between Bush’s invasion of Iraq and Obama’s invasion of Syria. The moral, ethical and legal issues are the same, the only difference is that Obama has been more successful in confusing the American people about what is really going on.

And what’s going on is regime change: “Assad must go”. That’s been the administration’s mantra from the get go. Obama and Co are trying to overthrow a democratically-elected secular regime that refuses to bow to Washington’s demands to provide access to pipeline corridors that will further strengthen US dominance in the region.  That’s what’s really going on behind the ISIS distraction and the “Assad is a brutal dictator” distraction and the “war-weary civilians in Aleppo” distraction. Washington doesn’t care about any of those things. What Washington cares about is oil, power and money. How can anyone be confused about that by now?  Kennedy summed it up like this:

“We must recognize the Syrian conflict is a war over control of resources indistinguishable from the myriad clandestine and undeclared oil wars we have been fighting in the Mid-East for 65 years. And only when we see this conflict as a proxy war over a pipeline do events become comprehensible.”

That says it all, don’t you think?

A study on human behavior has revealed that 90% of the population can be classified into four basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting and Envious. However, the latter of the four types, Envious, is the most common, with 30% compared to 20% for each of the other groups.

This is one of the main conclusions of a study recently published in the journal, Science Advances by researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, together with colleagues from the universities of Barcelona, Rovira i Virgili and Zaragoza. The study analyzed the responses of 541 volunteers to hundreds of social dilemmas, with options leading to collaboration or conflict with others, based on individual or collective interests.

Specifically, this work is part of game theory, a branch of mathematics with applications in sociology and economics, which examines the behavior of people when they face a dilemma and have to make decisions. These decisions will have different consequences which will also depend on what the other party involved decides to do.

“Those involved are asked to participate in pairs, these pairs change, not only in each round, but also each time the game changes. So, the best option could be to cooperate or, on the other hand, to oppose or betray ….. In this way, we can obtain information about what people do in very different social situations”, explained one of the authors of the study, Anxo Sánchez, who is a professor in GISC (Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos / Interdisciplinary Group of Complex Systems), which is part of the Department of Mathematics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M).

According to Yamir Moreno, who is the coordinator of the Cosnet group (Grupo de Redes y Sistemas Complejos / Networks and Complex Systems Group) at BIFI (Instituto de Biocomputación y Física de Sistemas Complejos / Institute of Biocomputation and the Physics of Complex Systems) at the Universidad de Zaragoza, and also president of the Sociedad de Sistemas Complejos (Complex Systems Society), “The results go against certain theories; the one which states that humans act purely rationally for example, and, therefore, they should be taken into consideration in redesigning social and economic policies, as well as those involved in cooperation”. He goes on to say that, “these types of studies are important because they improve existing theories on human behavior by giving them an experimental base”.

After carrying out this kind of social experiment, the researchers developed a computer algorithm which set out to classify people according to their behavior. The computer algorith organized 90% of people into four groups: the largest group, accounting for 30%, being the Envious – those who don’t actually mind what they achieve, as long as they’re better than everyone else; next are the Optimists – who believe that they and their partner will make the best choice for both of them – on 20%. Also on 20% are the Pessimists – who select the option which they see as the lesser of two evils – and the Trusting group – who are born collaborators and who will always cooperate and who don’t really mind if they win or lose.

There is a fifth, undefined group, representing 10%, which the algorithm is unable to classify in relation to a clear type of behavior. The researchers argue that this allows them to infer the existence of a wide range of subgroups made up of individuals who do not respond in a determined way to any of the outlined models.

Anxo Sánchez explains this with an example of a specific dilemma: Two people can hunt deer together, but if they are alone, they can only hunt rabbits. The person belonging to the Envious group will choose to hunt rabbits because he or she will be at least equal to the other hunter, or maybe even better; the Optimist will choose to hunt deer because that is the best option for both hunters; the Pessimist will go for rabbits because that way he or she is sure to catch something; and the hunter who belongs to the Trusting group will cooperate and choose to hunt deer, without a second thought.

The study is based on an experiment organized by Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Citizen Science Office, within the framework of the DAU festival, also in Barcelona.

“One of main principles of this study is the fact that the experiment has been developed in such a way to encourage the participation of citizens within the framework of one of the city’s public activities,” explained Josep Perelló, leader of the group, OpenSystems in the Condensed Matter Physics Department at Universitat de Barcelona, and also coordinator of the Barcelona Citizen Science Office. In this sense, “the results have been shared with the participants, thus, the subjects of the study become active participants in the research”, concluded the researcher.

“The really funny thing is that the classification was made by a computer algorithm which could have obtained a larger number of groups, but which has, in fact, produced an “excellent “rating in four personality types,” said Yamir Moreno. Jordi Duch, a researcher at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, and one of the authors of this study, goes on to explain, “This type of classification algorithm has previously been used with success in other fields, such as biology. However, its application to the study of human behavior is quite revolutionary, given that previous works prefixed the behaviors expected before the experiment was carried out, instead of allowing an external system to then automatically give us information about which groupings were most logical.” This is of capital importance because it isn’t something imposed by the researchers. The objective of using mathematics was precisely to guarantee impartiality,” added Anxo Sánchez.

“Previously, the experiments were performed by dozens of people. Now, with this platform, it is possible to significantly increase the volume of participants in the study, as well as being able to test using the heterogeneous population; this also allows us to record much more specific data on how the participants behave during the experiment. This has opened up the door to setting up much more complex tests than those that have been carried out so far in this field,” said Jordi Duch.

In the same way, the research results shed light in relation to what moves the collective or individual interest in the processes of negotiation, and as such, it is useful for the management of business, organizations or for political reformulation. Furthermore, it also serves to open the door to improving machinery, to make “robots more humanized”, concluded Anxo Sanchez.

The inter-state water disputes in India are now becoming a matter of concern. The present dispute between states in southern India on sharing of water only highlights the fact that the political leadership at the state level lack matured approach with understanding of the problems of the neighbouring states. Sometimes, the exchange of bitter communication between the political leaders makes one think that they behave like urchins.

There is considerable and justifiable anxiety in Tamil Nadu over the proposed move of Karnataka government to construct check dam in Mekedatu; move of Andhra Pradesh government for check dam in Palar and move of Kerala government for check dam in Attapadi (Siruvani) and for restricting the water level in Mullaiperiyar dam.

It appears to the people in Tamil Nadu that the three neighbouring states are proposing such check dams without considering the interests of Tamil Nadu, which is largely a lower riparian state.

However, one has to note that the above three states also claim that they have justifications in mooting the above proposals.

The Karnataka government says that in the common reach of the river, it will have a regulating dam at Mekedatu, where it can produce power and will also share water with Tamil Nadu. The idea is that when it gets excess water, it will hold it instead of wasting it.

The Andhra Pradesh government says that no construction work is happening on the Palar river in Kuppam area. However, small check dams are being constructed in the river in deep forest areas to provide water for elephant herds.

Andhra Pradesh says that what is being done is only a preliminary survey covering technical and financial feasibility aspects, ecology and submergence factors, so that in the event of the government deciding to go ahead with the proposal, it could then sit down for full-fledged negotiations with its other riparian partners.

The Kerala government’s argument for constructing check dam in Attapadi is that there are no major or medium retaining structures in the command area of the project. Most of the irrigation facilities are privately owned lift irrigation systems, which are confined to small patches and the farmers, mainly tribals, relied mainly on rain-fed agriculture.

Kerala has been arguing that the existing structure in Mullaiperiyar dam has outlived its safety and longevity and that there is a need to construct a new structure and that it is unsafe to maintain water at 46.3 metres, which is at the full capacity and that should be restricted to 41.45 metres.

In this scenario, what is surprising is that the Chief Ministers of the four states do not think it to be necessary to meet and discuss the issues thread bare, so that a mutually acceptable solution can be arrived at, with the good understanding of the issues faced by each of the state. A give and take attitude with maturity and foresighted thinking by the four Chief Ministers appear to be conspicuous by absence. On the other hand, they seem to be approaching the issues like sworn enemies.

The Tamil Nadu government is responding to the scenario by repeatedly writing to the Prime Minister and also taking up the issue to the Supreme Court. Such approach has not really yielded any results in the past and is unlikely to lead to any solution in future, in the absence of readiness of four chief ministers to meet and sort out the issues with understanding.

The ground reality is that if a few lakhs of people in Tamil Nadu would protest and demonstrate demanding justice for Tamil Nadu, similar number of people in neighbouring states also can reciprocate the same. In such circumstances, neither the Prime Minister nor the Supreme Court can enforce any decision in the absence of co operative attitude by the Chief Ministers of four states.

Obviously, Tamil Nadu is the most affected state in the water dispute in southern India. In such circumstances, it would be appropriate if the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister would take the initiative and convene a meeting of the Chief Ministers of neighbouring states to thrash out a solution. It is not clear as to why Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is not exercising this option.

Of course, in all issues today, there is more politics in the approach of the state governments, with the opposition parties in each state likely to criticize any move of the respective government towards finding a solution.

However, it has to be kept in mind that apart from politicians, there are large number of citizens in all the four states, who do want peace and harmony and not conflicts between the states. There is considerable inter-dependence between the four southern states and one cannot be totally oblivious to the interest of other states, particularly in viewing such critical matter as sharing of water.

Probably, Tamil Nadu’s stand in such inter-state water disputes would be strengthened, if Tamil Nadu can take steps to conserve water in the state, avoid wastage of water particularly in the monsoon season and even examine the feasibility of changing crop pattern to reduce the requirement of water in the agricultural fields. Of course, there are many ways and means of doing this including measures for rain water harvesting , treatment of sewage water for use in industries and for non drinking purposes , construction of check dams within the state without affecting the requirement of neighbouring states, desilting of tanks to improve the storage etc.

Of course, it is important that not only Tamil Nadu but the neighbouring states of Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh should also implement such measures to conserve water and avoid wastage of water. The fact is that all the four states are not taking adequate steps in earnest, for implementing such measures for conservation and storage of water.

The matter is very urgent now, since the demand for water is increasing in all the southern states due to population growth and other development activities. This problem cannot be allowed to linger on forever, which would be detrimental to all the four southern states.

The politicians ruling the states need to keep long term perspectives and needs of the states in view, without approaching such issues with immediate political consideration and short term exigencies.

Former Iran nuclear negotiator, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, has recently penned an important article that advises Iran to explore the various venues for normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and to avoid falling in the Riyadh-Tel Aviv “trap”, an implicit concert by Israel and Saudi Arabia to contain the Iranian power in the region and to isolate Iran. Mousavian’s article provides insight for a timely debate on the proper next Iranian steps toward Saudi Arabia which has been criticized by Iran’s top officials for its mishandling of last year’s Hajj that led to the death of several hundred of Iranian pilgrims.

One way to proceed is to address the roots of Saudi misperceptions of Iran, reflected in the Iran-bashing official statements as well as sermons, such as by the Saudi grand mufti, who has questioned Iranians’ Islamic identity. These represent soft power offensives aimed at sowing hatred of Shiite Iran by the Sunni world and thus to further Riyadh’s foreign policy objectives against Iran, one of which is to continuously blame and scapegoat Iran for the Saudis’ own problems, such as their on-going assaults on Yemen, resulting in a tragic humanitarian catastrophe.

Certainly, the well of Iran-Saudi tension is functional for the Western defense contractors, who have sold billions of dollars of arms to Saudi Arabia and other members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council. France alone in 2015 has reportedly sold upwards of $16 billion dollars of sophisticated, cutting-edge military hardware to Riyadh. Therefore, it is vitally important to take into consideration the role of third countries and their vested interests in keeping the Iran-Saudi tensions alive, simply because a tranquil regional environment translates into a slump in arms sales as well as arms race in the oil region. Consequently, it is unlikely that simple bilateral efforts toward a much-needed rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh would suffice and broader input, e.g. by UN and certain regional organizations, may prove helpful in this regard.

Simultaneously, from Yemen to Iraq to Syria to Bahrain, the sparks of Iran-Saudi tensions can be found aplenty, in light of the Saudi accusations of Iranian meddling in Yemen and Bahrain, categorically denied by Iran, and Iran’s suspicion that the rise of ISIS in Iraq may be traced to a Saudi complicity. Certainly, Riyadh is fully implicated in backing the radical jihadists posing as rebels in Syria. On the whole, this is a multi-dimensional, region-wide complex issue that involves several theaters of conflict and occasional cross-cutting loyalties that do not lend themselves to simplistic conclusions.

Of course, as Mousavian has rightly noted, we must objectively tackle the root causes of dispute between Tehran and Riyadh and take into consideration the two countries’ shared as well as competitive interests. Terrorism is one such issue that poses threat to both countries and, therefore, it is illogical and counterproductive by Tehran and Riyadh to allow such shared interests be overshadowed by their present disagreements and differences. Through apt diplomacy and good neighborly intentions, a zone of agreement between Tehran and Riyadh can be mapped out that can be the basis for bilateral (security) dialogue. This, hopefully, can be expanded over time. Regional intermediaries such as Oman, which played a catalytic role in the nuclear negotiations, can be enlisted for this purpose, which can take the form of open and discrete, behind the scenes discussions, in order to remove the misperceptions and replace them with correct perceptions.

Concerning the latter, the Saudi officials and their media have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking the overthrow of the Saudi kingdom and, yet, there is hardly any evidence to corroborate this unfounded allegation. Iran, on the other hand, is genuinely concerned about justice for its pilgrims who died last year and, henceforth, the Saudis, if concerned about de-escalating tensions with Iran, should take proactive steps to assure Iran that there was no foul play at work. Pure accident and (perhaps) negligence was behind last year’s tragedy. As two regional power houses, once portrayed as twin pillars of stability in the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia can easily thread the path toward more tension and proxy wars in the future, which does not help either country’s interests, or they can veer in the direction of crisis-management and stability in their relations, which in turn requires calm heads, avoidance of incendiary rhetoric, and active search for capitalizing on shared or parallel interests.

This article appeared at Iranian Diplomacy

Investors and businessmen, politicians and experts, journalists and commentators continue to discuss the results of the second Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, which was attended by 3,500 people from 56 countries.

A total of 201 agreements valued at more than 1.63 trillion rubles were signed at the Forum, which is significantly more than last year.

“The second Eastern Economic Forum showed that it was much-in-demand. We see that business has a desire to come here and this livens up the business environment. So the forum is being held in the right place at the right time. As a result, new projects and enterprises will emerge in the Far East,” said Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, and Chairman of the Eastern Economic Forum Organizing Committee.

According to him, the Forum indicated that the new development mechanisms for the Far East are effective.

“We definitely won’t stop with the package of proposals and laws for the Far East that were presented at the forum. There is an understanding that the third Eastern Economic Forum should be different, so new development mechanisms will certainly appear next year”, Yury Trutnev stated.

“The Eastern Economic Forum is being held in order for the Far East to develop more rapidly. If you look at the growth rates, the number of new investment projects and the inflow of investment to the region, you could say that this process has begun. But there is an understanding that this is only the start of the journey. We hope that in two to three years the system will get going and became comprehensive and competitive. We understand that the region is above all being developed by people who are establishing new enterprises here. For them to keep doing this, they need to know that the Far East is developing and that it is truly better to work here,” he added.

Analyzing the main results of the event, Lak Chansok, Research Fellow at Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), Lecturer at Department of International Studies, Institute of Foreign Languages, Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), said that the Forum resulted in several remarkable economic and political-strategic achievements.

“To expand its market in the Russian Far East, Russia has supported investors by providing subsidies for building and developing transport and hard infrastructure, promoting digital telecommunication technologies or e-commerce, and push for more free trade zones especially with South Korea. 34 investment projects totaling more than 23 billion dollars were achieved particularly in energy, high-tech industry, agriculture, transport and infrastructure development,” the expert told PenzaNews.

According to him, amidst the growing tensions Moscow’s role in the Asia-Pacific region has increased.

“Russia with its strategy towards the Asia Pacific region might be of significance to some major and middle power countries, particularly Japan and South Korea, as Russia would be able to persuade North Korea to return to negotiation table to resolve Korean Peninsula crisis, to resolve long-standing maritime territorial disputes, and to contain or balance against China’s growing military assertiveness in the region,” Lak Chansok explained.

From his point of view, Russia also remains crucial for China as a result of China’s deteriorating relationships with other major countries particularly in the contexts of Senkaku (Diaoyu) Island and South China Sea disputes.

“For Russia, this Forum signifies not merely Russia’s growing cooperation with regional powers including US age-old allies, but also its political-strategic engagement as to counter US growing presence in the region,” he said.

In turn, Nobuhide Hatasa, Associate Professor, Nagoya Keizai University, stressed that this year’s Forum has gained more attention than the previous one by being able to invite two top leaders of important neighboring economic partners in the region, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and President of the Republic of Korea Park Geun-hye.

“In addition to the US and EU sanctions against Russia, recent price decline of resources and energy and China’s economic slowdown have been damaging Russian economy but those economic and investment agreements signed during the forum will at least positively contribute to future economic growth of Russia,” the analyst said.

According to him, Russian Far East is the most attractive resource wealthy area for Japan and Korea which are resource scare countries.

“They both also need Russian cooperation in addition to China with regards to the North Korean crises including missiles and nuclear development. In case of Japan, the northern territories issue is the most important political agenda in relation with Russia. Prime Minister Abe’s participation in the forum and his proposal of meeting with Putin once a year in Vladivostok articulated in Abe’s speech during the forum show a part of his strong determination that the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia must be resolved in near future,” Nobuhide Hatasa added.

In his opinion, one of spectacular features of this Forum is a number of economic events held during the EEF.

“These economic outcomes definitely benefit the Far Eastern region and develop economic relations of Russia with neighboring Asian countries including China, Japan, Korea, ASEAN, and India. These Asian nations will become much more important economic partners for Russia as more Eastern European countries are being incorporating into EU and its relationship with the West is becoming worse. In addition, these Asian countries of ASEAN and South Asia in particular are now the center of growth, playing a leading role of developing the world economy, while the economy of EU has been stagnant for a long period of time,” the expert explained.

Meanwhile, according to Valentin Timakov, Director General of Agency for the Development of Human Capital in the Far East, the Forum provided new opportunities not only to foreign partners, but also Russians.

“The EEF was effective for the Agency for the Development of Human Capital in the Far East. We held two key sessions with the participation of government officials, investors, experts and non-governmental organizations. One of them was devoted to staff attraction to new enterprises in the region, the other was about the Far East Hectare program. As a result of these activities we have signed resolutions containing a list of specific recommendations, the implementation of which will enhance the speed and efficiency of the Far East development. In particular, we decided to modify labor mobility program, develop special state support for the recipients of Far East Hectare, and synchronize these measures with the existing programs of social assistance to large families and those moving to the Far East. […] In addition, we signed a number of agreements on cooperation in the field of attracting staff to the enterprises located in the areas of advanced development, as well as a trilateral agreement with RAO Energy Systems of the East, the Government of Khabarovsk Krai to attract highly qualified personnel through the construction of affordable housing for power engineering specialists in the Far East,” Director General of the agency said.

He also stressed that there is a list of government support measures for the Far East residents and citizens who wish to move to the region.

“Basically, this is social support, relocation assistance, and providing employment, including in the form of self-employment and small business development. In particular, these measures involve preferential and special loans, property support, payments to the unemployed during the registration of the legal entity, etc. One of the key support measures is the possibility of every Russian citizen to get the Far East Hectares for free — more than 370 applications for hectares have been filed to date, 130 land plots have been transferred to citizens for free use,” Valentin Timakov said.

Moreover, he praised the prospects of further region development.

“According to our estimates made on the basis of 500 investment projects analysis, by 2021 there will be created 80,000 new jobs. Enterprises that are built here are the best and even unique in technology used in the production. Innovation will inevitably lead to the change in the quality of life and ways of doing business,” the head of the agency said.

In turn, Liew Chin Tong, member of the Malaysian Federal Parliament for Kluang, member of Democratic Action Party Central Executive Committee, called the EEF an important effort to explore business opportunities in Russia’s Far East.

“It should continue and expand the scope of discussions to initiate a dialogue between Eurasian Economic Community and ASEAN, energy and technology cooperation between Russia and ASEAN and etc. The setup of advanced special economic zones and the free port of Vladivostok serve as catalyst to the development of Russia’s Far East and give more access to energy rich areas. For the time being, the EEF and Russia’s Far East is still new to Southeast Asian countries, more introductory programs and dialogues are needed,” the politician said.

He reminded that the Forum was held under two strategic situations, namely the western economic sanctions against Russia and the rise of China economic power as well as increasing demand on fossil energy of East Asia.

“This Forum was meant to break the western economic sanctions on the Russia’s western front by developing its Far Eastern front. Through inviting East Asian investment, Russia hopes to earn more foreign hard currency and develops its vast and idle land resources. The underdeveloped Russia’s Far East which is incompatible to the rapid rise of China and Korea economic power needs to be changed,” Liew Chin Tong said.

“In terms of regional strategic outlook, Russia who is one of the victors of Second World War and security balancer in East Asia has its own important role to play. The efforts to achieve nuclear free Korea peninsula and maintain the post war order of East Asia in peaceful situation depend very much on Russia’s commitment. Only a strong and developed Russia’s Far East can provide power base for it to fulfill its commitments,” member of the Malaysian Parliament added.

According to Termsak Chalermpalanupap from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, the significant outcome of the EEF was Russia’s proactive move to showcase the economic potential of the Far East as yet another alternative destination of foreign direct investment.

“The business conditions in Russia’s Far East can continue to improve when there are more contacts and exchange of visits with business people from East Asian countries, including those from the ASEAN region, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. […] I would wish to see Russia do more publicity of the Far East in the ASEAN region, and to see direct flights between Singapore and Vladivostok,” the expert said.

According to him, one of the most important results was positive response from Japan, particularly from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the huge economic potential of Russia’s Far East.

“The long-term political effect is a reaffirmation of Russia’s wish to promote equal security and shared prosperity in East Asia – which Russia’s Far East is and must be counted as an important part of,” Termsak Chalermpalanupap concluded.

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) was established by a Presidential Executive Order in 2015 to promote the accelerated economic development of the Russian Far East and the expansion of international cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.

The EEF focuses on enhancing the investment appeal of the Russian Far East and offers broad opportunities for cooperation between Russian and foreign business partners.

The First Eastern Economic Forum was held in Vladivostok on 3–5 September 2015. It was attended by 1,800 visitors and 32 official foreign delegations; more than 80 large investment contracts worth more than 1.3 trillion rubles have been signed.

Source: http://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/62672-2016

China’s state-owned enterprises are increasingly engaged in various activities in the South China Sea. Their involvement, usually mingled with nationalism in China, further complicates Beijing’s policy on the dispute.

By Xue Gong*

On 12 July 2016, a special arbitral tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) issued its verdict over the case brought by the Philippines against China in the South China Sea dispute. Since the start of the arbitration, China has steadfastly held on to its stance known as the Four Nos: No Participation, No Acceptance, No Recognition and No Execution.

Many analysts attempted to interpret China’s reaction to the arbitration from Beijing’s strategic and regional security policy perspectives. What is missing in all the analyses is the increasing role of Chinese corporate players, many of which are state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Exploring the role of these Chinese SOEs helps to enrich our understanding of China’s behaviour in the dispute. In fact there is a case to be made that China’s tourist industry is playing a complicating role in China’s positioning in the South China Sea dispute.

Involvement of Chinese Tourist Companies

It is easy to understand that the Chinese defence industry has significantly benefited from the South China Sea disputes. The stock market offers a glimpse of their latest gains. In the weeks leading to the tribunal ruling, a few notable Chinese stocks experienced significant price hikes and rising trading volume.

For example, the shares of Beifang Daohang Technological Corporation, affiliated to China North Industries Group, rose by 8.8 per cent. Another example includes China RACO which specialises in satellite communication. Its shares rose by 6.6 per cent. The shares of State China Shipping Corporation rose by 19.6 per cent between 24 June and 12 July 2016. In addition to the defence industries, there are other less well known but active SOEs reaping benefits from the South China Sea disputes.

Although the tourism industry may seem to be the unlikeliest candidate to experience growth in times of regional conflict and uncertainty, it is not the case for Chinese companies that offer tour services to the South China Sea. On the day after the release of the arbitration ruling, two aircraft, chartered by China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, both state-owned enterprises, departed from Haikou and landed on Meiji/Mischief Reef and Zhubi/Subi Reef respectively. Pundits in China suggested their government may eventually come up with a plan in the future to utilise the tourism resources on the newly-constructed artificial islands occupied by China in the South China Sea.

Chinese tourist companies had already started their businesses in the Paracels. The Coconut Fragrance Princess Cruise was introduced in 2012 by the Hainan Strait Shipping Co. Ltd. (HSSC), a local SOE, to promote tourism in the Paracel Islands, especially to Quanfu Dao/All Wealth Island and Yagong Dao/Male Duck Island. Initially, the Princess Cruise made losses and was subsidised by the government. But its operational performance improved after Sanya became the departing port in September 2014 and Yinyu/Observation Bank was added to the existing two destinations.

Such tourism operations are inevitably linked to nationalism. Tour activities include flag-raising and oath-taking ceremonies. It is believed that promoting travel resources bolsters China’s sovereignty and rights in the South China Sea. Over 10,000 Chinese tourists, touted to be patriots, have visited the Paracel Islands. Such tours continue to be supported and welcomed by the general Chinese public, especially after the arbitration.

Growing Appetite of the Tourist Sector

The Chinese corporate players are developing an even stronger interest in the tourism resources in the South China Sea. In April 2016, China COSCO Shipping Corporation started a cruise company in partnership with two other national SOEs, namely China Travel Service Group (CTSG), and China Communications and Constructions Corp. (CCCC). COSCO is seeking opportunities to expand operations from Paracels to Taiwan and other islands in the neighbouring countries, as part of China’s Maritime Silk Road cultural tour.

During the exhibition of China Nanhai Cruise, Party Chairman and CEO of China COSCO Xu Lirong reiterated that tours to the South China Sea would be part of the company’s future development plan. He also emphasised that operating businesses along the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) route is one of China’s SOEs’ responsibilities. Similarly, the CCCC has also actively responded to the OBOR initiative to focus on the development of maritime economy.

Besides developing a cruise terminal in Sanya Feng Huang Island about 330 kilometres from Yong Xing/Woody Island, together with CTSG, the CCCC co-founded the Sanya International Cruise Development Company (SICDC) with the support of Sanya Municipal Government in December 2015.

The fortunes of Chinese SOEs are inexplicably linked to their double missions which includes not only financial goals but also the obligation to achieve the nation’s socio-political objectives. This is apparent among the SOEs involved in the South China Sea. By including the realisation of tourism potential in the South China Sea as one of China’s strategies, the development of civilian usage within the disputed maritime territory becomes a mandate for the SOEs.

In 2012, the government declared national marine zonings that essentially stipulated state support for the oceanic industry in Nansha/Spratly Islands, Zhongsha/Macclesfield Bank, and Xisha/Paracel Islands, and travel resources, especially in Yongxing/Woody Island.

Corporate Involvement Further Complicates China’s Policy

After the tribunal ruling, China is likely to continue to encourage its SOEs to invest in the South China Sea because Chinese decision makers believe that the presence of Chinese SOEs in the area helps enhance China’s sovereignty and maritime claims in the South China Sea. The expansion of SOEs’ interests in the South China Sea, in turn, makes it more difficult for China to back off from its South China Sea claims or soften some of its positions.

But Beijing faces a dilemma. In addition to the negative impacts on China’s relations with some regional countries and Beijing’s regional strategic influence, the disputes in the South China Sea cast a gloom over some of Beijing’s more ambitious regional economic integration plans such as the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative, which requires the participation and cooperation of many countries in Southeast Asia.

The tensions and disputes in the South China Sea make the implementation of the MSR only possible bilaterally, that is, between China and willing parties in Southeast Asia. A multilateral approach for the MSR, which would be ideal for the purpose of maximising the benefits of the initiative for all participating countries, is very unlikely at least in the foreseeable future unless the South China Sea becomes far more stable than it is now.

*Xue Gong is a senior analyst with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Taping over or otherwise covering up your computer’s web camera is a “sensible” thing that everyone should do, according to FBI Director James Comey. US spy agencies have had the ability to hack into webcams for years, according to whistleblowers.

Giving a keynote address at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the National Security Division at the US Department of Justice, Comey sat down with Assistant Attorney General John Carlin and discussed things such as webcam security and Twitter. The event was hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, DC think tank.

“Do you still have a piece of tape over your cameras at home?” Carlin asked.

“Heck yeah, oh, heck yeah,” Comey replied.

“It’s not crazy that the FBI director cares about personal security as well, and so I think people ought to take responsibility for their own safety and security,” Comey continued. “There are some sensible things you ought to be doing, and that’s one of them.”

The practice is apparently widespread at US government offices, according to the FBI chief.

“You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen. They all have a little lid that closes down on them. You do that so that people who don’t have authority don’t look at you. I think that’s a good thing,” Comey explained.

While the FBI director admitted he was “mocked” after bringing up the tape trick in April this year – in part because he was involved in a heated dispute with Apple over access to the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone at the time – it appears many have taken his advice to heart. A photo of Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year showed his office laptop with a piece of tape covering the webcam.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the government had tools to access not just computer webcams, but also the cameras in iPhones and BlackBerries.

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

Macedonia’s Special Prosecution, SJO, tasked with probing high-level crime and corruption, on Thursday said it was raising its first criminal indictments.

Fourteen persons are indicted for “enticement and carrying out a criminal act against public order”, while the other case concerns seven people employed in the secret police, for “illegal destruction of documentation”.

The SJO has not not yet revealed the names of those who face criminal charges. However, one of the cases, involving former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, is already known to the public.

This relates to the wiretapped conversations released last year that suggest that former Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE party leader Gruevski in 2013 ordered an attack on the opposition mayor of Centar municipality in Skopje, Andrej Zernovski [which he evaded], during protests in front of the municipal HQ.

“Fourteen people are indicted for violence, five as instigators and nine as executors [of the violent acts],” deputy special prosecutor Fatime Fetai told a press conferrence in Skopje.

She said that from the content of the wiretapped audio materials and from the further investigation the SJO had carried out, “it was established that the first indicted intentionally asked the second indicted [to organize the violence] and the second indicted accepted [this request] without objections.”

Fetai said they had established that the motives of the giver of this order were “solely lucrative, for the preservation of the business interests of the political party establishment and of their friends” that were related to an announced change to the municipal urban plan.

She said the indictees decided to prevent the municipal session from changing the urban plan, by organizing violent protests against the plan, which they alleged including the demolition of an Orthodox church. [The Mayor denied this was part of the plan.]

In June 2013, shortly after Zernovski won the mayoralty of Centar in local elections, a mob surrounded the municipal building, breaking windows and protesting against the alleged plan to destroy the church.

One municipal employee was injured and the Mayor had to be evacuated. Gruevski’s ruling VMRO DPMNE party insisted at the time that it had nothing to do with the incident.

While the opposition accusations the protesters of being undercover ruling party activists, VMRO DPMNE and most of the protesters themselves insisted that they gathered spontaneously, outraged by the Mayor’s alleged plan.

In April 2015, the opposition Social Democrats presented covertly-recorded tapes that they said proved that Gruevski was behind unrest in Centar in June 2013.

On one tape, Gruevski’s voice allegedly can be heard ordering the then Transport Minister, Mile Janakieski, to stage an attack on Mayor Zernovski.

“I am thinking that he [Zernovski] should take five to six slaps in front of the cameras on Friday,” a voice identified as Gruevski’s can be heard saying.

“Let the citizens enter [the municipal building] and one of them should slap him three times, hard,” the same voice tells Janakieski. He then replies: “We could arrange a scenario.”

The second indictment against the seven secret police employees for “illegal destruction of documentation” relates to a previous investigation codenamed “Fortress”.

This concerns the alleged illegal destruction of equipment that was used for large-scale illegal wiretapping.

“The goal of the destruction of official documentation was to destroy the records of the unlawful wiretapping,” Fetai explained.

The SJO launched the “Fortress” investigation in March. Among other matters, it said it suspected a former Interior Minister, as well as senior officials in the secret police, were part of a scheme to destroy equipment that had been used illegally to eavesdrop.

The then Interior Minister was Gordana Jankuloska. However, the SJO has not revealed whether she is among those freshly indicted for the destruction of documents as well.

The alleged illegal destruction of documents and equipment took place in March, April and May 2015, the SJO said, only months after the opposition publicised its allegations about mass illegal surveillance.

Gruevski has long insisted that the tapes were created by unnamed “foreign secret services” in collaboration with the opposition in order to destabilise the country.

The first indictments against high ranking officials come as the SJO marks the first year of its existence.

The SJO, which was formed as a result of the internationally brokered crisis agreement reached last summer, has officially launched six investigations, but many more cases are in the pre-investigation phase.

By Ashok Sajjanhar

The process for the selection of the ninth Secretary General (SG) of the United Nations (UN), who will assume the position of incumbent Dr. Ban Ki-moon when his term expires at the end of this year, has taken off in right earnest.

The fourth of the so-called straw polls — named as such to determine which way the wind is blowing — on September 9 has failed to throw up any decisive verdict or even indicate a favourite candidate. On the contrary, the results of the polls have made the situation even more tortuous and confused.

But first things first. How does the selection of the top diplomat of the most important and visible world body take place?

There are sparse rules governing selection to this significant position. The only guiding text is Article 97 of the United Nations Charter, which states that “The Secretary General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.” As a result, the selection is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council. In 1946, the General Assembly adopted a resolution stating that it was “desirable for the Security Council to proffer one candidate only for the consideration of the General Assembly, and for debate on the nomination in the General Assembly to be avoided.”

The Charter’s scant treatment of the subject has since been supplemented by other procedural rules and accepted practices. Traditionally, candidates from the permanent five members of the Security Council (China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, and United States) are not considered for the position of Secretary General to avoid further concentration of power in hands of a single country. This is a matter of precedent and convention, rather than a written rule. It is also a matter of convention that the position is normally occupied by representative of a small state and not a country that is politically, economically and militarily strong and powerful.

There is also the practice of regional representation according to which the position rotates between different regions. Eastern Europe is the only region within the UN system whose representative has so far not occupied the position of top diplomat of the world body. Increasing number of commentators is hence speculating that the next SG could be from Eastern Europe. However, after expansion of the European Union (EU) in 2004 most countries, barring Russia, of the Eastern Europe Group are de facto part of Western Europe.

Since the position has been a male bastion during all the 70 years of UN existence, there is a growing chorus led by the US, UK and several others that the next SG should be a woman. SG Ban has also expressed his preference for a woman SG to take his position. He has however qualified that the decision rests with SC and not with him.

Since the position has been a male bastion during all the 70 years of UN existence, there is a growing chorus led by the US, UK and several others that the next SG should be a woman.

To begin with there were twelve candidates in the fray. Out of those still in contention, five are women.

In the first of many expected informal, closed-door, secret ballot straw polls on 21 July 2016, members of Security Council were asked to indicate whether they “encourage”, “discourage” or had “no opinion” regarding the candidates. A second straw poll of the same nature was held on August 5, a third on August 29 and a fourth on September 9, 2016. The list in descending order of number of ”encourage” votes received in the fourth straw poll is as follows. Votes received by the candidates in the first three polls are also given:

The fourth straw poll showed significant shifts in the levels of support for several candidates but still placed António Guterres of Portugal at the top as was the case at the end of the first three polls in number of “yes” votes received. The position for Guterres however continues to be as precarious and unsteady as it was after the second straw poll. It is only in the first straw poll that he did not receive any negative vote. It is now becoming increasingly clear that one of the two negative votes that he got in the fourth round possibly comes from Russia who might be willing to dig in its heels and decide to use its veto against his candidature. Russia has clearly indicated that it strongly prefers an East European candidate for this position. If Russia stymies Guterres’s hopes for the top position, it is possible that he could be offered the position of Deputy Secretary General, although three earlier occupants out of the four since the office was established in 1997, have hailed from West European and Others Group. So far DSGs have been from Canada, UK and Tanzania with the current incumbent being from Sweden. Work over the next two weeks is cut out for Guterres to find out who the negative votes belong to and try to neutralise them.

In the fourth straw poll, out of the five women contestants, only one, Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, managed to come within the first five contenders. In the third poll she had come third and had raised hopes that since she is both a woman and from East Europe she could possibly emerge as a consensus candidate in case subsequent rounds are not able to throw up an acceptable choice. The fourth poll has registered a huge blow to her aspirations. She can however not be written off as in the back room deals she could still emerge as a powerful contender. Susana Malcorra, Argentina who had stood third in the second poll has now been relegated to the seventh position, significantly diminishing her chances.

Two results of the fourth poll are noteworthy. First, as mentioned above, although Guterres continues to maintain his lead in the “yes” votes, the number of “no” votes he received increased from “nil” in the first poll to 2 in the second, 3 in the third and now again 2 in the fourth poll. This could spell serious danger for him if one of the “no” votes is from a veto-wielding permanent member of UNSC.

The second significant development is the meteoric rise of Miroslav Lajcak of Slovakia from virtually the end of the table to second position from the top, just next to Guterres, in the third poll. He has maintained this position in the fourth poll and even bettered it by moving one of the negative votes from the third poll to a positive one in the latest poll. This could prove to be significant. He could emerge as the compromise candidate in subsequent discussions. It is however impossible to make any prognosis of the final shape of things at this stage.

Going forward to the fifth poll, many candidates at the bottom of the table are expected to drop off. However Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand stated a few days ago that his compatriot Helen Clark who stands at eighth position in the rankings will continue in the contest and that he will take up her candidature with leaders of the US, Russia and others for their support.

The Council will continue to hold straw polls until there is a majority candidate without a single veto from a permanent member of the Council. That name would then be officially transferred to the Assembly whose membership will formally select the candidate.

The fifth straw poll will be held on September 26 when most world leaders are in New York for the UN General Assembly Session. Some changes could hence be expected. The fifth poll could shed some light on the final shape of things on who will don the mantle of the ”most impossible” job in the world. At this moment, the field is wide open, though shrinking fast, and ripe for intense discussions and negotiations in New York and major capitals of the world.

*The author is a former Indian ambassador to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia.

By David Smilde and Dimitris Pantoulas*

During his 14 years in office Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frias sought to turn his country into a leading promotor of the integration of Latin American states and regional autonomy from U.S. influence. Among Chávez’s lasting contributions were his support for the creation of the Union of Southern Nations (UNASUR) and the Council of Latin American and Caribbean Heads of State (CELAC). Chávez also played a key role in bringing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) to the negotiating table for peace talks with the government of President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia.

In this report we will look at Venezuela’s regional role and key bilateral relations, and how its participation in the Colombian peace process fits with its goals. We will then examine the economic and political dimensions of its current crisis and how this might effect its regional role and participation in the peace process.

Venezuela’s regional role

Since 1998 four principles have governed Venezuelan foreign policy. Firstly, the Venezuelan government has aimed to maximise profits from the country’s oil production. Together with Iran and Russia, the Venezuelan government has sought to accomplish this through restricting production and thus maintaining prices. However, these objectives have clashed with those of other OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, which has sought the maximisation of profit through the maximisation of output.

Secondly, the Venezuelan government has tried to diversify its trade partners and reduce its dependence on the U.S. In doing so it has turned largely toward China, which represents a significant market and has the resources to build refineries that can process Venezuela’s heavy grade of crude oil. Venezuela has also sought bilateral trade agreements and cooperation with both regional allies and authoritarian governments that support an “anti-imperial” axis.

Thirdly, the Venezuelan government has sought to “soft balance” U.S. influence in the region (Corrales & Penfold-Becerra, 2011). This has involved, for example, the pursuit of diplomatic engagements, the creation of alternative regional organisations that do not include the U.S., and routinely accusing the U.S. of intervention and meddling.

The Venezuelan government has also utilised foreign aid and subsidised oil to assist regional allies with develop- ment projects and, according to some critics, to finance political campaigns (COHA, 2010).

Finally, the Venezuelan government has attempted to construct a new multilateralism. It founded the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and strongly promoted regional bodies that exclude the U.S. and Canada, such as UNASUR and CELAC. Each of these organisations has promoted regional integration and competed with the inter-American human rights system, which includes the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Gill, 2013).

Key Venezuelan bilateral relations

The U.S.

While Venezuela historically had strong foreign relations with the U.S., these relations deteriorated rapidly after the 1998 election of Chávez, but especially after the 2002 coup against him. Venezuela still maintains that the U.S. was an organising force behind the coup – a charge that the U.S. denies (Corrales & Romero, 2012). Observers have argued that the U.S.’s clumsy management of its relations with Venezuela fueled Chávez’s neo-nationalism (McCoy, 2009).

However, despite poor diplomatic relations and heated rhetoric from both Chávez and various parts of the U.S. government, the U.S. remains one of Venezuela’s largest trading partners, with trade between the two countries amounting to $23.9 billion in 2015 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). And although the Venezuelan government has sought to diversify its oil trading partners, the U.S. still consumes upward of 30% of all Venezuelan oil exports (but with a negative trend over recent years) (EIA, 2016).

Nevertheless, some have characterised the two countries as mutual “mid-level security threats” (Corrales & Romero, 2012). Chávez routinely accused the U.S. government of aiming to undermine the Bolivarian Revolution by support- ing and funding opposition groups, as well as multiple plots to assasinate him – accusations that have continued under Chávez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro. For its part, the U.S. government has sanctioned the Venezuelan government for allegedly harbouring and supporting members of the FARC-EP and repressing domestic civil society organisations (El Universal, 2012).

Government repression of the 2014 anti-government protests led to a push by anti-Castro Republican senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that imposed targeted sanctions on Venezuelan leaders accused of human rights abuses or corruption. After fending off the legislation for months, U.S. president Barack Obama finally signed it into law on December 14th 2014, one day after announcing the normalisation of diplomatic relations with Cuba. This allowed the Obama administration to triangulate anti-Castro legislators like Marco Rubio, Robert Menendez and Ileana Ros-Lehithen, because these sponsors of the Venezuela sanctions bill were also the most vocal critics of the U.S.’s normalising of relations with Cuba.

The implementation of these sanctions in March 2015 in an Executive Order designating Venezuela a “threat to national security” caused a regional uproar, threatening to overshadow the U.S.-Cuba rapproachment at the Summit of the Americas in April 2015. As a result, the U.S. sent Special Envoy Thomas Shannon to personally engage Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders. This policy continued throughout 2015, leading to a substantial improvement of relations (Smilde, 2015). Renewal of the sanctions bill in March led to a new round of anti-imperialist speeches and marches in Venezuela, but they did not have anywhere near the degree of salience they did one year earlier.

After a meeting between the U.S. and Venezuelan foreign ministers during the June plenary session of the OAS, the U.S. and Venezuela announced the resumption of dialogue between Shannon and Venezuelan officials. Shannon came to Venezuela shortly thereafter for a two-day visit and met with President Maduro, important opposition actors and members of civil society (Telesur, 2016b).

Cuba

Throughout Chávez’s and Maduro’s terms in office Cuba has remained Venezuela’s strongest ally. While popular among the Venezuelan government’s most radical supporters, this relationship has led to much criticism from the opposition, and polling makes clear that more than 60% of the Venezuelan public have a negative opinion of the Venezuelan government’s main political and economic ally (Devlin, 2014). While in office Chávez continually cited the Cuban revolution as an inspiration, and some journalists have even speculated that the Cuban government played a prominent role in Chávez’s decision to appoint Maduro as his successor.

The Venezuela-Cuba relationship has been constructed on more than ideology, however. Since the start of the Chávez government, Venezuela and Cuba have signed accords involving the transfer of 100,000 barrels of oil per day to the island in exchange for the deployment of 45,000 Cuban specialists to Venezuela (Mallett-Outtrim, 2013). Many of these specialists have served in Venezuela’s medical and educational missions, but the Cuban government has also sent military and security personnel, intelligence special- ists, and sports instructors to advise the Venezuelan government.

All available information suggests that the December 2014 announcement of the normalisation of ties between Cuba and the U.S. caught Venezuela by surprise. This normalisation is a reflection of Cuba’s accurate perception that it cannot depend on Venezuela for its economic well-being in the future. However, since then both Venezuela and Cuba have worked to maintain and reaffirm their relationship. When President Obama made a state visit to Cuba in March 2016, President Maduro preceded him with a three-day visit of his own, announcing that Venezuela and Cuba would strengthen their agreements in a series of economic and social projects for the period 2016-30 (Smilde, 2016a).

However, the wisdom of Cuba’s strategic decision to reduce its dependency on Venezuela has recently become clear: declining Venezuelan production has meant a 40% reduction in oil shipments to Cuba in 2016 (Parraga & Ulmer, 2016).

Colombia

Venezuela and Colombia share historical ties and both consider Simon Bolivar to be their liberator. However, during the Chávez administration relations soured. Chávez accused former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of allowing U.S. military forces to operate in Colombia and prepare for a potential invasion of Venezuela. He also accused the Colombian government of bowing to U.S. imperial interests by promoting U.S. free trade initiatives rather than regional blocs and attempting to undermine Venezuelan influence in the region.

For its part, the Colombian government accused Venezuela of attempting to destabilise it, and of providing sanctuary and financial support to the FARC-EP. After Colombian military forces raided a FARC-EP encampment across the Ecuadorian border in March 2008, killing FARC-EP leader Raul Reyes, the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian governments closed their embassies in Colombia and deployed troops along the border (Romero, 2008). Fortunately, the conflict among the three countries did not escalate further.

Nevertheless, during the raid the Colombian authorities seized Reyes’ laptops, which contained significant information on the FARC-EP’s operations. This information revealed that the Venezuelan government had a close, although complicated relationship with the FARC-EP, guided as much by strategic calculations as ideology (Martinez, 2011). Chávez participated in efforts at peace between the Colombian government and guerrilla groups while simultaneously supporting the latter through public advocacy or by providing clandestine financial and diplomatic support (IISS, 2011). Many in Colombia suggest that Chávez’s support for the FARC-EP prevented Uribe from definitively defeating it.

Analysts have argued that the volatile relationship between Chávez and Uribe simply deepened a historical rivalry between the two nations that has traditionally been tamed by mutual economic dependence (McCoy & Diez, 2011).

Venezuela-Colombia relations did not significantly improve until the election of Juan Manuel Santos as president of Colombia in 2010. Santos openly promoted the repair of relations between the two countries, and he and Chávez met on several occasions to discuss issues of mutual importance, including Venezuela’s role in facilitating peace talks between the Colombian guerrillas and the government.

Santos, however, enfuriated the Venezuelan government in May 2013 when, in the immediate aftermath of the disputed Venezuelan presidential election, he met with opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski, despite having recognised Maduro’s electoral victory. Although the Venezuelan government temporarily withdrew from the peace talks in Cuba, Santos and Maduro met in July of that year to repair relations and move forward. Economically, Colombia has traditionally been one of Venezuela’s largest trading partners, but commerce between the two countries decreased by 44% from 2014 to 2015.

In August and September 2015 the Maduro government closed several border crossings in Táchira state and deported more than a thousand Colombian citizens (Efecto Cocuyo, 2015b), while more than 15,000 Colombians left Venezuela to avoid deportation (Efecto Cocuyo, 2015a). The “infiltration of paramilitaries” into Venezuela was the main reason alleged by the Maduro government for the measures along the frontier (AVN, 2015). A more concrete reason was that the Maduro government wanted to reduce the scarcities of basic goods and it knew that many low-cost basic goods and large quantities of gasoline were making their way across the border from Venezuela to Colombia.

Some have suggested that the most important result of the border closure is that the Venezuelan military now has much firmer control of the trade in lucrative contraband items and therefore does not want the border reopened (La Patilla, 2016a). Simultaneously, the border closure has negatively affected the licit economy on both sides of the border.

In July 2016, during two consecutive weekends the border was opened, permitting tens of thousands of Venezuelans to cross over to Colombia to stock up on basic goods (Dreier, 2016). Government opponents referred to these border openings as “humanitarian corridors” and images of crowds of people queuing at the border circled the globe. After the first opening the governor of Venezuela’s Táchira state said it would not happen again. Nevertheless, he relented and the next week at least 80,000 people crossed. After the second crossing the Colombian government stated that there would be no more temporary border openings and that the two countries needed to work towards a permanent reopening of the border.

Venezuela’s role in the Colombian peace talks

Negotiations with the FARC

Given its long, porous border and close relationship with Colombia, Venezuela is vital to any negotiation with irregular armed groups in Colombia. Indeed, it has participated in multiple Colombian peace efforts over the past 25 years.

President Chávez changed the course of Venezuelan diplomacy towards the Colombian conflict. From the beginning of his presidency he declared neutrality in the conflict, but in some instances his government showed passive or active support for the guerrillas’ causes (Goncalves, 2014; IISS, 2011). In 2008 Chávez argued that the FARC should be recognised “as belligerent forces and not as terrorists”, suggesting this would be “the first step towards peace in Colombia” (Janicke, 2008). If this were done, the guerrilla forces would be protected by the Geneva Convention, and would also have to renounce kidnapping and violence against civilians.

During the presidency of Alvaro Uribe (2002-10) Chávez mediated in a humanitarian exchange negotiation with the FARC (Civico, 2009). The Uribe government abruptly terminated the negotiations on November 22nd 2007, accusing Chávez of not being “interested in bringing peace in Colombia but instead, of engaging in an expansionist project in the region”. Nevertheless, Chávez’s efforts to arrange the humanitarian exchange continued.

In the General Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace signed between the parties in Havana, Cuba, on August 26th 2012, it was stated that the talks would develop with the support of “Cuba and Norway as guarantors and the governments of Venezuela and Chile as accompaniment” (ICG, 2012). Chávez was seen as an actor who could significantly influence the FARC’s negotiating team (La- Tarde, 2012). Chávez’s illness cut short this role, but he even had meetings with the guerrilla leadership while he was hospitalised in Venezuela and Cuba (EFE, 2015).

In the three years of his administration President Maduro has continued to support the peace negotiations, although observers suggest that this role has not been as important as Chávez’s was. In January 2016 Maduro and Santos met in Quito and Maduro once again expressed his desire to contribute to the peace talks in Colombia and continue with Chávez’s legacy on the issue (RT, 2016).

On June 23rd 2016 the Colombian government and the FARC-EP signed an agreement in Havana opening the door for the guerrillas’ demobilisation and disarmament, which was one of the most thorny issues on the agenda. The future of the peace deal will be decided by a plebiscite later (perhaps in October 2016). Both Santos and FARC-EP leader Rodrigo León Echeverí publicly thanked Venezuela for its role in the three-year peace process. Maduro, together with four other presidents, was in attendance for the announcement. The signing occurred on the same day that the Permanent Council of the OAS discussed OAS secretary-general Luis Almagro’s report invoking the OAS Democratic Charter against Venezuela, indicating the country’s complex position in hemispheric relations (Ramsey, 2016; Smilde & Pantoulas, 2016).

Negotiations with the National Liberation Army

In 2014, parallel to the peace talks with the FARC-EP in Havana, the Colombian government began private exploratory peace talks with the country’s second most important guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). These pre-dialogue talks started on January 24th 2014 and lasted until March 30th 2016, when at a press conference in Caracas the two parties announced the start of formal peace talks on the basis of a six-point agenda aimed at putting an end to their armed conflict (BBC, 2016). The pre-dialogue talks took place in Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela, with international representatives acting as facilitators.

The ELN has always expressed its gratitude to the Venezue- lan government, which it considers to be an important ally of its cause. The ELN has frequently used Venezuelan territory to escape Colombia’s armed forces. Insiders suggest that the Venezuelan government has had an important influence on the ELN’s decision to enter dialogue.

Venezuela and the Colombian peace process in summary

What are Venezuela’s interests in the Colombian peace process?

• The resolution of Colombia’s civil war would significantly improve issues of governance along the border. Drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, crime and violence are all strongly related to the presence of irregular forces, and prevent social, political and economic development.
• Playing an important role in the Colombian peace negotiations confounds Venezuela’s “the-enemy-of-my-friend-is-my-enemy” relations with the U.S. Because Venezuela is positively engaging Colombia in a way that the U.S. values, it reduces the latter’s ability to portray Venezuela as a rogue state and international pariah.

What has Venezuela contributed to the Colombian peace process?

• Hugo Chávez played an important role in the initiation and consolidation of the peace process. He provided the FARC with political-ideological cover among its own members and supporters. As Chávez had recognised, his involvement provided leftist credentials that legiti- mised the fact that the FARC-EP was prepared to sit down and negotiate with the Colombian government (Martínez Meucci, 2013).
• Chávez also provided the weight of a recognised demo- cratic state supporting the FARC.

The Maduro government has been a complicated partner in the past three years, continuing to support the process, but also providing significant distractions:

• Maduro responded with outrage to Henrique Capriles’s meeting with Santos after the contested 2013 presidential election (see above).
• In August 2015 the Maduro government closed the Venezuelan border with Colombia (see above).
• The importance of Venezuela’s role can be seen in the way in which the country is once again providing an important reference point in the initiation of formal negotiations with the ELN (Telesur, 2016a).

Venezuela’s current crisis and its regional impact

Economic crisis

Venezuela’s economic difficulties have gradually intensified since Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s handpicked successor, took power in 2013. Venezuela’s macroeconomic position was already deteriorating before the price of oil plummeted in the second half of 2014. Inflation in 2015 was 180% (BBC Mundo, 2016). The economy as a whole contracted by 5.7% in 2015 and by 3.9% in 2014 (BCV, 2016). The Venezuelan government has not yet published any data for 2016. The IMF estimates that the country’s GDP will shrink by 8% and the inflation rate could surpass 700% – the worst in Latin America and one of the worst in the world (MercoPress, 2016).

Despite an unprecedented oil boom prior to 2014, Venezuela has limited international financial reserves and is experiencing a deficit of foreign currency. Imports have been reduced significantly, creating serious shortages of food and medicines. In the first quarter of 2016 imports were reduced by 40% from the same period in 2014, and by over 60% from 2012 levels (Sanderson & Schipani, 2016).

An overvalued currency and price controls on basic goods create massive incentives for corruption. The Maduro government carried out partial reforms of the exchange rate in 2015 and early 2016, but not enough to have a significant impact.

During 2016 the Venezuelan government and the state oil company, PDVSA, have to make almost $10 billion in debt payments. So far PDVSA has made its payments, although around $6 billion is due before the end of the year. The Venezuelan government has prioritised using its scarce international financial reserves (even selling gold reserves) to honour its debt commitments, which explains worsening scarcities (Moore & Schipani, 2016).

The government and PDVSA will need to renegotiate at least part of the latter’s loans. Since PDVSA debt does not contain collective action clauses that could facilitate restructuring, it might only be able to renegotiate by incurring more sovereign debt through loans from international allies like China and Russia or through multiple debt swaps with private firms that operate in the country (Ellsworth et al., 2016). Because Venezuela has significant assets abroad, needs to import light crude to transport its own heavy crude, and, of course, needs to sell its oil on international markets, a default would be especially traumatic and bring the economy to a standstill.

For average Venezuelans, their country’s economic meltdown is being felt through the scarcity of basic goods and the long queues outside supermarkets. Until recently, buying and reselling basic goods gave many in the popular sectors a way to get through the crisis. However, increased shortages have made even this difficult and, combined with recent price increases on some basic goods and rampant inflation in unregulated goods, mean that the situation of the poor is rapidly deteriorating.

According to a recent survey, in January 2016, 70% of Venezuelans ate three meals a day, while in June less than 40% did. In May there were 70 reported instances of looting, as compared to approximately 20 in January (Crooks, 2016). And mid-2016 has seen food protests beginning to appear across the country in places where people do not have access to price-controlled goods.

As the shortages continue to worsen, public discontent with the government rises. According to a recent poll, 71% of those asked blamed the government for the food shortages (Datanalisis, 2016), while 79% of Venezuelans have a negative opinion of Maduro’s government (Datincorp, 2016).

The government has addressed the problem of food shortages by creating local organisations of pro-government activists called Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAPs) to distribute subsidised staples door to door. According to the government, CLAPs’ objective is to guarantee the poor’s access to basic goods and combat the extraction and smuggling of food products (AVN, 2016). However, like many of the government’s participatory initiatives, there is little supervision, and they are ripe for corruption, inefficiency and political bias. While there are reports of their distributing food, they have also generated tensions and protests (Garmendia, 2016). In any case, the CLAP initiative does not address the fundamental problem of shortages, which is not one of distribution but of supply.

Recently, the government announced the creation of a new state distribution policy for food and medicine known as the Great Sovereign and Secure Supply Mission, to be run by the armed forces under the command of the defence minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who was given power over all other ministers. This has caused considerable consternation among commentators, some of whom see it as the beginning of a “soft coup” whereby the armed forces progressively take over the executive branch of government: fully a third of government ministers are active or retired military officials. Others have said that Maduro seems to be aiming to make the armed forces a central stakeholder in Venezuela’s economic crisis.

Political crisis

The significant victory of the Venezuelan opposition in the December 6th 2015 legislative elections – winning by two million votes and 15 percentage points, and obtaining a two-thirds “super majority” (112 out of 167 seats in the legislature) – significantly altered the country’s political landscape. For Chavismo, the result was the worst in its 16 years in power. And for the first time in Venezuela’s democratic history the president has had to face a legislature controlled by a unified opposition political bloc. This electoral sea change created high expectations among the population that the country’s progressive deterioration would finally be addressed.

The Venezuelan constitution of 1999 grants many powers to the National Assembly, especially when it reaches a super majority, including the ability to curtail the executive’s powers (e.g. with vetos or motions to ministries); to appoint the heads of the other branches of government (electoral, judicial, ombudsman, etc.); and to pass significant legislation through the approval of organic laws that could change the country’s institutional framework. After the elections some analysts argued that the National Assembly would have more power than a politically wounded president – if, that is, the executive respected the results (Pantoulas, 2016).

The Maduro government accepted the results in the days after the elections, but almost immediately started to take institutional steps to neutralise the threat. Basically, the government has sought to increase its own powers while hollowing out those of the National Assembly. In the weeks after the elections, but before the members of the new National Assembly took their seats, the United Socialist Part of Venezeula (PSUV) used its control of the outgoing National Assembly to enhance its control over the country’s Supreme Court by appointing 13 new justices, all of whom were activists or former members of the PSUV (Hernández, 2015).

Supreme Court decisions have been decisive in curtailing the National Assembly’s powers and increasing executive power. Firstly, the court suspended electoral results in one of the 23 states, which pushed the opposition below a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly (even in August 2016 the assembly continues to function with 163 instead of 167 deputies) (Izaguirre, 2015). Secondly, the court reinterpreted the constitution to limit legislative oversight and control over other government branches. Thirdly, it has declared unconstitutional several laws and actions approved by the National Assembly (Amnesty Law, Central Bank regulation, Supreme Court appointments, property rights for the Great Venezuelan Housing Mission) (Hernández, 2016). Finally, it approved in effect the executive’s ability to govern by decree, as well as a State of Exception, both of which were rejected by the National Assembly (La Patilla, 2016b).

While the opposition-controlled National Assembly has taken on a number of legislative projects, currently its main focus is on removing Maduro from the presidency. After significant disagreements among the opposition between January and March 2016 about the best way to push for Maduro’s removal, by April the opposition had focused its efforts on a recall referendum. But the National Electoral Council, dominated by the government (four of the five members are close to the Maduro government) has slowed the process through bureaucratic hurdles and delayed decisions (AFP, 2016a). If the referendum takes place after January 10th 2017 the Maduro-appointed vice president will complete the final two years of the presidential term.

Both the government and the opposition are determined not to cede ground, creating political and social tensions that have taken Venezuela to the brink. The weeks to August 2016 have made clear that international actors such as the Vatican, UNASUR and the OAS are interested in mediating the Venezuelan conflict, but such efforts are only incipient.

At this point it seems unlikely that there will be a referendum before January 10, 2017. While many members of Chavismo would like to see Maduro removed from the presidency, because they see him driving the movement off a cliff, they would prefer the opposition not to take power and so would like to see a referendum after this key date.

And support for a referendum in 2016 is not unanimous in the opposition either. The main promoter of the referendum is twice-presidential-candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski and his party, Primero Justicia. Other important opposition leaders, such as Henry Ramos Allup, publicly support a referendum, but behind closed doors suggest it would be better to let the government assume the political costs of the severe economic adjustment that is needed, and to organise the opposition for the 2016 governors’ elections and 2018 presidential election.

As a result, Allup and others in the Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition have been much more receptive of UNASUR-led efforts at dialogue than Capriles and his Primero Justicia party. It is indeed easy to doubt the sincerity of the government’s desire for such dialogue, when it has so steadfastly rejected institutional dialogue in the National Assembly or between the legislative and executive branches. Most likely it sees the push for dialogue as a way to burnish its democratic credentials at a time when it is using increasingly authoritarian measures to retain control of an ever-less-governable situation.

Impact on Venezuela’s relations with the region and the Colombian peace process

Relations with the region

Venezuela’s regional strength and influence are clearly waning; however, suggestions that the country is isolated are premature. The recent discussion of the state of Venezuela’s democracy in the OAS are a case in point. On May 31st 2016 the OAS secretary-general, Luis Almagro, presented a 114-page report justifying the case for invoking the Democratic Charter against Venezuela. Nevertheless, three separate OAS discussions of Venezuela in June – two by the Permanent Council in Washington, DC and one plenary session in Santo Domingo – all ended by voicing support for the the UNASUR-led effort at dialogue (Smilde, 2016b; Ramsey 2016).

Analysts argued that while most countries are willing to recognise the gravity of the situation in Venezuela, the principles of state sovereignty and non-interference are still strongly defended in the region (Smilde 2016b). Furthermore, Almagro’s invocation of the Democratic Charter against a democratically elected executive on behalf of another branch of government surely gives pause to other executives in the region. All governments have skeletons in the closet, especially those who have been in power for a long time, and they likely fear that such a precedent could come back to haunt them.

The Colombian peace process

The Maduro government’s trajectory is clearly unsustainable and could lead to undemocratic outcomes, such as outright repression, famine or a military coup, which would alter the current status quo.

In summary, how have Venezuela’s interests in the Colombian peace process changed?

• Given the nature of the current crisis, the Venezuelan government does not have the space to prioritise long-term issues of border governance.
• Nevertheless, its current vulnerability and the impor- tance of regional perceptions and support mean that appearing to be an important peace broker is still important to it.

If some combination of factors – e.g. an escalation of tensions with Colombia and/or the U.S. – lead Venezuela to want to undermine the Colombian peace process, could it do so?

• Venezuela’s participation was much more important during the early stages of the negotiations with the FARC-EP. Now that the most important agreements have been signed, Venezuela’s role has mainly to do with consolidating the FARC-EP’s demobilisation and incorporation into society.
• Venezuela could perhaps do the most damage through public statements:
  • − It could undermine support for the peace process among the FARC rank and file by issuing statements suggesting that the Colombian government is not fulfilling its promises to the FARC-EP.
  • − It could facilitate the opposition to the accords being mobilised by former president Alvaro Uribe by trumpeting the concessions the Colombian govern- ment has made to the FARC-EP.
  • − It could complicate the newly initiated peace process with the ELN.

There are other aspects of Venezuela’s crisis and its potential outcomes that could affect the Colombian peace process:

• An acute humanitarian crisis could draw attention to Uribe’s argument that the peace accords will allow the FARC-EP to pursue a far-left agenda and take Colombia down the Venezuelan path.
• The impact of a military coup would depend on the actual figures involved. Overall, the Venezuelan military has traditionally been nationalist, anti-Colombian and anti-guerrilla. But the most likely military scenario would be a take-over by Chávez loyalists, many of whom are sympathetic to the Colombian guerrillas.
• If the opposition were to take power through a recall referendum or negotiated transition, Venezuela’s role in the peace process would certainly change. Venezuela has participated in it as a relative ally of the FARC-EP. The politicians and parties affiliated with the Democratic Unity Roundtable – the opposition coalition known by its Spanish acronym, MUD, that won a parliamentary majority in last year’s elections – have frequently criticised the Colombian peace process over the years, as they have almost any Maduro government initiative. This will probably subside once peace begins to consoli- date. And they would certainly be closer to President Santos ideologically and favour cooperation on the border. But they would not have any rapport with the FARC-EP or ELN and could not facilitate these organisa- tions’ confidence in or cooperation with the peace process.
• Finally, whether or not there is a political transition, Venezuela will likely be in crisis for the next couple of years. Thus, it is unlikely to be able provide support for the consolidation of peace in Colombia or provide the control of border areas necessary to consolidate guerrilla demobilisation.

*About the authors:
David Smilde is the Charles E. and Leo M. Favrot Professor of Sociology at Tulane University and a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. He has lived in or researched Venezuela for over 20 years. He is the author or editor of three books and 30 articles on Venezuela and curates the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. From 2010 to 2012 he was chair of the Venezuelan Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association.

Dimitris Pantoulas is a political analyst and researcher at the IESA Business School in Caracas. He has worked in electoral observation for the Carter Center and CAPEL. He has undertaken doctoral studies in social and policy studies at the University of Bath, England.

Source:
This article was published by NOREF

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By Manoj Joshi

The death of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov has sent shockwaves through the elites in Kazakhstan and other authoritarian states in the post-Soviet world, forcing them to confront the issue of succession in their own countries and increasing divisions among them as they look to the future.

In the nature of things, an authoritarian leader cannot name a successor because if he tries to do so, others in the elite will inevitably organize against that person. Indeed, one of the great weaknesses of authoritarian systems compared to democracy is that, except in hereditary monarchical countries, they cannot groom new leaders or manage transitions without risk.

Indeed, while speculation about who will be the next leader is rife in all such systems at all times given that members of the elite want to position themselves for whatever happens, incumbent dictators have an interest in restricting such discussions as much as possible and punishing those who talk about succession too openly.

But Karimov’s death has opened the question more broadly than before first of all in neighboring Kazakhstan which also has an aging leader at the helm and where there is as yet no democratic process for replacing him when he passes from the scene but also in other authoritarian regimes around the former Soviet space.

In an interview, Diniyar Ashimbayev, a political analyst who is the editor of the Kazakhstan Biographic Encyclopedia, notes that “after the death of Karimov, Nursultan Nazarbayev has become the senior leader in the post-Soviet space,” something that “with particular sharpness” raises the question of succession (press-unity.com/analitika/8659.html).

That is highlighted by the recent spate of new appointments in Astana, a continuation, albeit intensified, of Nazarbayev’s longstanding practice of “experimenting” by putting leaders in different positions to see how they perform and to give them the broadest possible experience, Ashimbayev says.

By so doing, the analyst continues, Nazarbayev has “formed a sufficiently large circle of experienced administrators who hypothetically could lead the country.” None of them talks openly about succeeding, but “in this closed circle, each has imagined putting on the presidential crown.” Such reflections are only increasing since Karimov died.

To the extent he has the time, the incumbent president will likely seek to narrow the field of possible successors over the next year or two; but he will be constrained by the system from plumping too hard for any one of them. At least in Kazakhstan, under the constitution, when a president dies, there are no new elections as the senate president takes over.

But that is obviously only a short-term solution, especially since the incumbent president can name the senate president at will and that person does not even need to be a member of the senate itself.

In other countries of the region with similar governments, such reflections are also likely to be increasingly common. And where people dare not talk about them openly, they are doing so either in Aesopian language or more commonly by focusing on the discussions in Kazakhstan as a model. That is what is happening in Azerbaijan (interfax.az/view/682058).

The situation in Baku is different, of course, in that the incumbent president is much younger than Nazarbayev or Karimov; but with no little open competition for the leadership, it is likely that those close to the president are talking more about succession in the future, even if they do not expect it immediately. And even that will affect politics and decision making there.

Donald Trump poses as a working-class populist, but about his new economic plan would be a gusher for the wealthy. And almost nothing will trickle down to anyone else.

He’d knock down the top tax rate on businesses from 35 percent to 15 percent, thereby richly rewarding the investor class.

He’d cut taxes the top tax rate on the wealthy from 39.6 percent to 33 percent, another boon to the top.

He’d eliminate the estate tax – now paid by a relative handful of families whose net worth exceeds $5.5 million.

Not incidentally, this is an especial windfall for the Trump family. If Trump is worth as much as he says, his heirs would get a tax break of $4 billion to $7 billion.

He’d let global corporations pay just a 10 percent tax rate on untaxed offshore profits – another mammoth gift to big shareholders.

Consider: Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft and other global American corporations hold $2.4 trillion in earnings abroad. They owe some $700 billion in taxes on these earnings. Trump’s 10 percent tax rate would raise only about $150 billion. It wouldn’t even generate new investment in America. A tax amnesty was tried in 2004 and it was a dud.

Yes, he’d also lower taxes on lower-income Americans. But the biggest beneficiaries by far are the wealthy.

Trump says his tax cuts would cost $4.4 trillion over 10 years. He claims most of it would be paid for by economic growth.

We’ve been here before.

Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush tried supply-side “trickle-down” economics. We should have learned two lessons.

First, nothing trickles down. The giant tax cuts on the wealthy enacted by Reagan in the 1980s and Bush in the 2000s enriched those at the top – but the wages of the bottom 60 percent went nowhere.

Second, such tax cuts produce giant budget deficits. Under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the federal budget deficit exploded. It took Bill Clinton’s administration (of which I was proud to have been a member) to get the budget back in some semblance of balance.

Then, under George W. Bush, what happened? The deficit exploded again.

Trump would do all this on a far grander scale. He’s also proposing a vast expansion of the military, including 90,000 new soldiers for the Army and nearly 75 new ships for the Navy. The tab: an estimated $90 billion a year in additional spending.

This would mean big bucks for military contractors. But it’s hard to see how economic benefits trickle down to anyone else.

Perhaps Trump is banking on an indirect fiscal stimulus – the kind of “military Keynesianism” Ronald Reagan employed to fuel growth in the 1980s. But as we learned then, this sort of growth doesn’t trickle down, either.

Trump also pledges a gigantic infrastructure building program to “build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, sea ports, and airports.”

Hillary Clinton has proposed spending $275 billion on infrastructure over five years.

The Donald is thinking much bigger. “Her number is a fraction of what we’re talking about,” says Trump. “We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure. I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need a lot more than that.”

Okay, so let’s call this $500 billion over five years.

Trump doesn’t stop there. A “foundation” of his economic plan, he says, is to renegotiate Nafta, bring trade cases against China, and “replace the present policy of globalism – which has moved so many jobs and so much wealth out of our country –with a new policy of Americanism.”

Who would benefit from a retreat from globalism? Maybe giant American corporations that don’t export from the U.S. because they already make things abroad for sale in foreign markets. But not average Americans, who’d have to pay more for just about everything.

Choking off trade won’t result in more good jobs in America. Trump says his trade policy will bring back manufacturing to the United States. But today’s factories are automated. Even in China, numerical-controlled machine tools and robots are replacing humans.

Oh, and Trump also wants to scrap many environmental, health, and safety regulations. He says this will further stimulate growth.

It’s another form of trickle-down nonsense. Even if we could get more growth by scrapping such regulations, growth isn’t an end in itself. The goal is a higher standard of living for most Americans.

If our air and water are unhealthy, if we’re subject to more floods and draughts (especially lower-income Americans who can’t afford to protect themselves and their homes from the devastation), if our workplaces and our food are unsafe, what’s the consequence? Our standard of living drops.

Trickle-down economics has proven itself a cruel hoax. It’s cruel because it rewards people at the top who least need it and hurts those below who are in greatest need. It’s a hoax because nothing trickles down.

Trump’s “yuge” trickle-down economics would be an even bigger bamboozle.

Vietnamese authorities should drop all charges and unconditionally release a prominent land rights activist facing trial for peacefully exercising her rights, Human Rights Watch said. On September 20, 2016, a court in Hanoi will begin the trial of Can Thi Theu for “disrupting public order” under article 245 of the penal code after she and others staged peaceful protests against land confiscation.

“Conflicts between farmers and the government over land confiscation have become a serious problem in Vietnam in the last few years,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should reform its land law and compensation system instead of punishing people who protest the loss of their land.”

On June 10, Hanoi authorities arrested Can Thi Theu, 54, and charged her with “disrupting public order” after leading people from Hanoi’s Duong Noi ward in carrying banners to various government offices to petition against land confiscation. She was also accused of urging people from Duong Noi ward to boycott the national election in May. After being arrested, Can Thi Theu carried out a hunger strike for more than 10 days.

More than a decade ago, in June 2006, the local government decided to confiscate farmland in Duong Noi ward of Ha Dong district and transform the area into an urban zone. Hundreds of families protested the confiscation process and inadequate compensation for those who would lose their livelihoods. The authorities made little effort to engage the local residents or respond to their complaints. In April 2014, the authorities forcibly confiscated the land and brutally beat many protesters.

Can Thi Theu was arrested at the scene for photographing and filming the forced eviction. She was charged with “resisting against those who are on public duties” under article 257 of the penal code. Her husband, Trinh Ba Khiem, was also arrested and charged with the same crime. In September 2014, both were convicted. Can Thi Theu was sentenced to 15 months in prison and Trinh Ba Khiem to 18 months (later reduced to 14 months). In June 2015, when Trinh Ba Khiem completed his prison sentence, dozens of land rights activists and bloggers went to Prison No. 6 in Nghe An province to welcome him. The group was attacked by men in civilian clothes. Can Thi Theu’s youngest son, Trinh Ba Tu, was part of the group and suffered serious injuries. In July 2015, Can Thi Theu completed her prison sentence in Prison No. 5 in Thanh Hoa.

Since her release, Can Thi Theu has continued to advocate on land and environmental issues. She participated in protests calling for the release of prominent rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and his colleague Le Thu Ha, urging the government to repeal article 88 of the penal code, which criminalizes peaceful criticism. She joined protests against police violence and carried out a hunger strike in support of political prisoner Tran Huynh Duy Thuc.

“When the Communist Party of Vietnam needed farmers’ support, it advocated that ‘farmers must have land’ (‘nguoi cay co ruong’),” said Adams. “But now it puts those who make the same point in prison.”

The city government of Davao in the southern Philippines is discouraging Muslim women from wearing burqas in public places.

“The law enforcement officers have expressed their opinion that it would be a good security practice to disallow garments that cover faces in public places,” said Mayor Sara Duterte in a statement on Sept. 15.

While she said that she understands the sentiments of Muslim women, the mayor said “the general welfare of the majority takes precedence over religious tradition.”

“May I suggest that you wear the hijab which shows your face or cooperate with security personnel and show your face if you are wearing the burqa,” she said.

“While it is true that these garments are not disallowed by law, we discourage their use in public places,” the mayor added.

By Marie Pavageau*

Generally speaking, countries’ decisions to go nuclear are based on traumatic episodes that shaped their national identity and must never happen again. The 1956 Suez Crisis was the trigger for France’s nuclear programme when it realised it was vulnerable to Soviet nuclear threats and a reluctant US. India’s experience was shaped by the 1971 Bangladesh war when both China and the US ganged up and resorted to nuclear threats against India. Curiously, both India and France have a similar notion of international affairs – that of strategic autonomy where they refuse to depend on bigger powers for their security or projection of interests.

The trigger for the nuclearisation of both countries was based on both abandonment and heightened threat intrinsically linked with their doctrines of strategic autonomy. It is for this reason the similarities and contrasts in their nuclear doctrines are important to study.

Four key similar elements can be identified in the two doctrines: both countries have a “minimal deterrence” doctrine. In France’s case, this has resulted in a massive reduction in the size of the arsenal from its peak a few decades back. In India’s case, the growth has been at a snail’s pace and estimates by experts show that the actual weapons arsenal will remain small relative to other nuclear states. Second, they both threaten their adversaries of unacceptable damages in an event their national interests are threatened, albeit the quantum of such damage remains undefined. Third, both countries view their anti-missile defence systems as complementary to their deterrents by reducing vulnerability (however minimal) to a first strike. Finally, both countries avoid mentioning the target of their respective deterrents. For France, this is something new as Russia was frequently mentioned as the target during the Cold War. India, though, has maintained a policy of not naming its intended target except once, immediately after the 1998 nuclear tests, when the letter from then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to the then US President Bill Clinton expressly mentioned China as the intended target.

The differences in the nuclear composition and doctrine though are many. Both India and France exercise absolute civilian control over their nuclear weapons, but with a major contrast in their command process. France’s control is autarkic with the French president exercising absolute and sole authority over weapons launch. India’s exercise authority is collective through the executive council and the launch order has to go through the executive, i.e. the National Security Adviser.

It can also be argued that French strategic autonomy known as auto-suffisance is also more “autonomous” than India’s in that it is able to ensure its independence from any external pressure. 99 per cent of the French deterrent – apart from its uranium imports – are “made in France” (for example its missile technology, Rafale jet-fighters, SNLE submarines). India’s deterrent still relies on foreign technologies. For example Russia is sought out for its nuclear propulsion technologies. Similarly India is on a never ending quest for air land and sea propulsion as well as seeking technology transfers on almost every aspect of modern weaponry. It can be also be argued that India’s “missile revolution” coincides far too conveniently with the lifting of dual-use technology sanctions on India and finally its desire to import reprocessing technology means that even the material actually available for the nuclear device is prone to external interference.

The divergences continue in the arena of No First Use (NFU). France has an explicit first use policy while India is seen as moving from an NFU to a first use policy. The upgrading of the deterrent horizontally (in terms of quantity) and vertically (in term of quality) suggest a possible future change in their nuclear doctrine towards a “preventive strike.” This has been presaged both in the 2003 doctrine “in the event of a major attack against India, or Indian forces anywhere, by biological or chemical weapons, India will retain the option of retaliating with nuclear weapons.”

But perhaps the greatest area of divergence comes in the form of leadership credibility, or the countries’ perceived will to use its weapons to defend itself. While both arsenals remain opaque, France engages in a publicity exercise with each new president publicly stating an evolution of its nuclear posture. Its officials then widely circulate this posture, solicit opinions and views and clarify each iteration to other countries. India on the other hand is yet to review and revise its 2003 doctrine despite a vastly changed international environment and refuses to clarify or discuss the same. More importantly, French leaders do not shy away from stating their will to use the deterrent, while Indian prime ministers tend to downplay their resolve either by use or omission of words.

Overall, the difference in the two deterrents, their composition and thought reflects the two countries’ requirements well. However, the seeming lack of leadership credibility – either in the public willingness to use, lack of autarky, and lack of revision of the Indian deterrent and doctrine – seriously erode the doctrine’s credibility.

*Marie Pavageau, Research Intern, IPCS Nuclear Security Programme

By Aijaz Zaka Syed*

Ever wondered why the Middle East, the heart of the Islamic world, remains in constant state of flux and without the conditions essential for peace, stability, responsive governance and overall human development? Indeed, this is perhaps the only region that suffers from this deficit of peace, democracy and progress in conventional sense of these words.

There are many who blame this state of affairs on Islam, singling out the faith for the stagnation, backwardness and other woes of the Muslim world. However, that is not a fair criticism.

Islam has never held back its followers. Indeed, the Qur’an repeatedly asks the believers to think and ponder over the universe around them and their own place in it, asking themselves why they have been created. This may be why the early Muslims and succeeding generations for over a thousand years remained hungry for and open to new ideas no matter where they came from. Their civilization dominated the world for nearly a millennium.

Incredible as it sounds today, the western scientific advances wouldn’t have been possible without the pioneering ground work done by the Muslims.

Also, it is a fallacy to suggest that Islam and democracy cannot coexist or Islam is antithetical to modern concepts of representative democracy and governance. Islam came up with the concept of ‘shura’ and ‘ijmaa’ (consultation and consensus) long before the western concept of democracy evolved.

Islam enjoins mandatory jamaah (collective) on Muslim societies, asking them to choose an emir or leader even if two Muslims are together. Even at home they are asked to follow the same policy of consultation and consensus. After the Prophet (peace be upon him), first Caliph Sayyidana Abu Bakr was chosen following the same process, just as the three other caliphs had been. Not only Islam and democracy gel well, the very nature of the faith is democratic.

Even those countries that do not strictly follow the western model of democracy can’t be dismissed as totalitarian dictatorships. Essentially tribal societies, many of them follow a sort of social contract between the rulers and the ruled.

Of course, the region is also home to many dictatorships, which are answerable to no one but themselves with appalling human rights record, endemic corruption and abuse of power. Many of them have survived all these years with the active support and connivance of you know who.

Indeed, the colonial rule in many of these countries gave way to the rule of the empire’s chosen men — many of them in uniform — when they won independence in the last century. The world powers not only supported their favorite tyrants but they plotted to keep out good men known for their integrity.

Today, Uncle Sam and the Ayatollahs may act all chummy but who could forget how the CIA and UK’s MI6 brought down Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadeq in what remains the most infamous coup of the region.

Mossadeq paid a heavy price for being upright, incorruptible and, above all, his own man. Having studied at the best of European universities, he saw through all the little games of manipulation that the empire played. And he dared to put an end to the long decades of loot and exploitation that Iran’s economy and oil industry had long suffered at the hands of the West by nationalyzing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, later British Petroleum). That coup of 1953 (codenamed Operation Ajax) may have set Iran back by decades and very well paved the way for the 1979 Revolution.

As Robert Fisk writes in his commentary on the coup against Mossadeq and the Middle East’s fledgling democracy, it was a reminder that the Plot — the international conspiracy (moamara in Arabic) was not entirely the product of Middle East imagination. There have been many others since who have paid their own price for their independence of mind and spirit and almost always for not toeing the Western line and received wisdom.

As in the case of Mossadeq, the oil played a decisive role in the undoing of Iraq’s Saddam Hussain and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. I am no fan of the Iraqi dictator. In life and in death, the tyrant brought nothing but great suffering and destruction to his country and people. His persecution of his own people remains unparalleled for its brutality and savagery.

But those who unseated Saddam by invading Iraq in violation of global public opinion and UN resolutions, visited even greater suffering and unspeakable horror and destruction on Iraq. Whatever Saddam’s crimes — and there were plenty of them — nothing justified the mindless destruction of an entire country and civilization, in the name of democracy, freedom and finding the non-existent WMD arsenal.

Poor Qaddafi, having seen the fate of Saddam, desperately tried to “mend” his ways, reaching out to the West and voluntarily ridding himself of his ancient arms and useless firepower. He showered expensive goodies, moolah and billions of dollars in contracts on France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Britain’s Tony Blair. Alas, all this proved of no consequence when it was time to go for the man who had for more than three decades been the master of all he surveyed in Libya. The metamorphosis of his Western friends was swift and breathtaking. When the Libyan leader was seen as an inconvenient liability, he was hunted and killed like an animal in full view of the world.

Was it a triumph of democracy and freedom? Perhaps. The whole world seemed to support the people power that erupted on the streets of Maghreb then as part of the Arab Spring revolutions. However, given the mindboggling mess that has replaced the brutal but ordered tyranny in Libya and Iraq, the answer is not a simple and straight one. The same dilemma seems to stare us in the face in Syria. The Syrians have paid the highest price so far for their revolt against the ruthless Baathist regime in Damascus that began with the uprisings in Maghreb in 2011. Nearly 300,000 people have been killed, more than half of the population is homeless and the whole country is in ruins. God alone knows when the long and dark night of Syria’s suffering will end. If only Syria had oil, it would have perhaps sufficiently lubricated the conscience of the world powers and international community into action.

Returning to the original question about the deficit of democracy, responsive governance and human development, there is no doubt that the credit for much of the current state of affairs in the region goes to its former colonial masters and their never-ending games of manipulation, exploitation and one-upmanship.

If only the conduct of the world powers in this part of the world had been dictated by the same lofty principles and ideals of democracy, freedom and human rights that they swear by, the region wouldn’t be stuck in a time warp with its broken models of governance, corruption, and never-ending conflicts while the rest of the world moves at a breathless pace.

While colonialism has ended for the rest of the world, its legacy lives on in many parts of the Muslim world in the form of institutions and policies that it has inherited. The chaos that was unleashed by the British-French duo Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot a century ago, dismembering the Ottoman Empire and paving the way for Israel remains at the heart of the region’s continuing instability.

*Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf-based writer.

By Felix K. Chang*

(FPRI) — On Tuesday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte abruptly demanded that American military advisors on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao “have to go.”  His stated concern was that the presence of American troops on Mindanao antagonized local Muslims and that the troops could become targets of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist Islamic group, for kidnapping and ransom.

The American military advisors were once part of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines operating under the authorities of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, headquartered at an airbase near Zamboanga.  The task force had been deployed there for a decade as part of a program to train and support elements of the Philippine military in its efforts to combat Islamic militants throughout the region.  Last year, that program was wound down and most of the American troops left.  But a small detachment of military advisors remained behind.

Precisely why Duterte chose to make his remarks is unclear.  They might have been intended to strengthen his hand in peace talks that he reopened with the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in August.  Those talks had been stalled for over a year after a botched anti-terror raid against Islamic militants, including the MILF, resulted in the deaths of 44 Philippine police commandos.  The raid derailed his predecessor’s attempt to fulfill an accord reached in 2014 under which the rebels agreed to lay down their arms in return for the passage of a law turning a large part of Mindanao into an autonomous region.  How successful Duterte’s peace talks will be remains to be seen.  In early September, Islamic militants bombed a night market in Davao City, where Duterte was once mayor.  The blast killed 14 people and wounded 70 more.

Back in Manila, Philippine Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay, Jr. downplayed the impact of Duterte’s remarks.  According to Yasay, the larger defense relationship between the Philippines and the United States remained “rock solid.”  The removal of a “token” number of American military advisors from Mindanao would not affect that relationship or the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that the two countries signed in 2014.

But Duterte’s remarks come at an awkward time in relations between the Philippines and the United States.  Only a week ago, at the ASEAN summit in Laos, a meeting between Duterte and President Barack Obama was cancelled after Duterte chided Obama for his criticism of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign in the Philippines.  While the two men eventually met, the incident amplified doubts over how Duterte’s administration would work with Washington.

More broadly, Duterte’s remarks reflected the deep ambivalence many Filipinos on the political left feel about the United States.  They would prefer it if the Philippines distanced itself from its one-time colonial ruler.  Indeed, Duterte already put a halt to the joint Philippine-American naval patrols in the South China Sea.  And, recently, he stated that he would favor buying weapons from China and Russia, rather than the United States.

Unfortunately, the Philippines needs the United States, at least until the Philippine armed forces can build up a credible external deterrent.  The last time Manila ordered American forces to leave the Philippines was in the early 1990s.  Soon thereafter, China took advantage of the weakened alliance to seize Philippine-claimed Mischief Reef.  Today China has not only fortified the reef, but also reclaimed enough land there to build an airfield on it.  Duterte’s remarks give China another opportunity.  Duterte may believe he can reach an accommodation with China without the United States.  But that accommodation will likely be on Chinese terms.

About the author:
*Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of DecisionQ, a predictive analytics company in the national security and healthcare industries. He has worked with a number of digital, consumer services, and renewable energy entrepreneurs for years. He was previously a consultant in Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization practice; among his clients were the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and other agencies. Earlier, he served as a senior planner and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Department of Defense and a business advisor at Mobil Oil Corporation, where he dealt with strategic planning for upstream and midstream investments throughout Asia and Africa.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

On Wednesday, I was a guest on Liberty Talk Radio with host Joe Cristiano. The interview explored many topics, including foreign intervention, incarceration in America, the United States presidential election, and my new book, A Tipping Point for Liberty: Exposing and Defeating Leviathan Government.

Early in the interview, Cristiano asked me a question that concerns a fundamental problem in American politics — how American politicians over and over make things worse when they say they are trying to make things better. Cristiano observed that presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump say they want “to make America greater and better and whatever, more prosperous” and propose accomplishing this goal via solutions that “always include another government program” despite the US government being bankrupt. Cristiano continued to note that he very rarely hears “any government official saying ‘the only way we can get out of this is if we get government out of the way.’” Yet, even when he hears that, Cristiano says, “right after that then they talk about another government program that will cost another $50 billion or whatever the case may be.”

Asked by Cristiano “how do we break through” this situation with politicians always wanting to add to government but not subtract, I answered as follows:

Well, you’re right: That is the typical politician way. They don’t have the humility to say that, even though they have this ultimate power, they don’t have the solution.

The solutions to problems are dispersed throughout the people in the country. And if the government stepped back, then things would improve, through people taking their own initiative and through the free market, and from the fact that if the government were able to step back and not spend the money there would be more resources on hand for individuals to solve their own problems. There would be less police standing in the way to enforce needless regulation and enforce laws against nonviolent conduct such as consuming drugs or gambling.

So, there is this fatal conceit that Friedrich Hayek, for example, talked about that these politicians have, and they think that they can solve all the problems. You know, it’s not a bad phrase to say, ‘Make America great again.’ But, the problem is that a politician — whether it’s Donald Trump who uses that phrase or Hillary Clinton who doesn’t use the phrase but thinks the same thing — they say that to make America great they just have to use this enormous power in a different way than people have used it before. And they think that if only the right people were in positions of power that then America would be great.

And that’s giving them the greatest benefit of the doubt, because sometimes they really don’t even want to make things better for the average person. Many times, politicians’ interests are to make things great for the connected special interests, for the military-industrial complex, for the pharmaceutical companies that send the lobbyists around. But, even giving them the greatest benefit of the doubt, it is a failing proposition for them to through political action and increasing government make America great again.

Listen to the complete interview here:

For an introduction to Hayek’s thoughts related on the topic of my answer to Cristiano’s question, read below the conclusion of Hayek’s 1974 speech upon his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences:

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants. There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever-growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success,” to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society — a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.