There are roughly five times as many recreational fishers as commercial fishers throughout the world. And yet, the needs and peculiarities of these 220 million recreational fishers have largely been ignored in international fisheries and conservation policy. This gives rise to conflicts and loss of social welfare, and is not conducive to the sustainable management of fish stocks. An international team of fisheries scientists, economists, sociologists and ecologists led by Robert Arlinghaus from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) has now presented a five-point plan to bring about reform.

Compared to commercial fishing, the social, economic and ecological importance of recreational fisheries is greatly underestimated in public and political perceptions. And yet, in many regions, the number of jobs dependent on recreational fishing exceeds the economic significance of commercial fishing. One in ten people living in industrialised nations fish for pleasure, amounting to around 220 million recreational fishers worldwide. In Germany alone, some 4 million anglers exist. The money they spend on their hobby helps support 52,000 jobs .

Overall, commercial capture fisheries harvest about eight times the fish biomass caught by recreational fisheries. In inland waters in the temperate zone, however, recreational anglers are now the predominant users of wild fish stocks. The significance of angling is also steadily increasing in coastal and marine fisheries.

In spite of that, fish stock and aquatic ecosystem management is primarily geared towards the needs of professional fishers or conservation. This may give rise to conflicts, as demonstrated by the recent examples of Baltic cod, and Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

Led by Professor Dr. Robert Arlinghaus from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, an international team of fisheries researchers, sociologists, economists and ecologists from Germany, Spain, Canada and the USA has now presented a five-point plan for reform of global fisheries and aquatic conservation policy in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The proposal, which take into account the specific qualities and characteristics of recreational angling, are aimed primarily at national and international policymakers.

“Even countries with strong governance for fisheries fail to integrate angling into their fisheries and conservation management system effectively. We are convinced that fisheries management and conservation measures would be more effective if the interests of anglers were given equal consideration to those of commercial fishers and other stakeholders,” stated the lead author of the study, Robert Arlinghaus , explaining his expectations of the reform process.

Five-point plan for reform of fisheries and conservation policy

1. Explicitly integrate angling targets into aquatic ecosystem and fisheries management

Sustainable management in the fisheries sector requires taking into account objectives specific to recreational fisheries, which differ considerably to those of commercial fisheries.

“Management tools applied in commercial fisheries, such as those under the umbrella of the concept of maximum sustained yield, are inappropriate in recreational contexts. Nonetheless, many countries adhere to traditional management systems, particularly in marine fisheries, and fail to recognise the high socio-economic value of recreational fisheries. Local water and nature conservation policy is also often more geared towards crowding out anglers from waters, rather than integrating them into polices. And yet it is clearly in the interests of recreational fishers to protect species and nature,” remarked Dr. Thomas Klefoth , fisheries biologist from the Angling Association of Lower Saxony, Germany, and co-author of the article.

2. Establish angler organisations and involve them in fisheries management

In central Europe, most anglers belong to a club or an association. In the rest of the world, however, this is rarely the case. The establishment and involvement of angler organisations in practical fisheries management represent key components towards future-oriented fisheries and aquatic ecosystem management.

3. Permit variable management approaches, and implement them at the local level

A single fishery typically cannot satisfy the often conflicting objectives of a heterogeneous group of recreational fishers. As a consequence, standard tools, such as minimum-size measures and other harvest regulations applicable to all waters in a particular region are problematic. However, provisions and rules tailored towards local needs call for a degree of decision-making sovereignty on the part of anglers and other managers. As the examples of local private property fishing rights in central Europe show, it pays to involve anglers in local management measures, and to equip them with a certain level of management competencies for local waters via clubs and associations.

4. Use the right tools

All anglers use a common pool resource, which may also be depleted by their activities. Many stocks are under high harvest pressure due to both professional fishers and anglers. Non-fishing factors such as river engineering and climate change also have a negative impact on fish productivity, which reduces even further some stocks’ resilience to fisheries. Under such circumstances, unpopular management strategies such as access restrictions or individually costly harvest tags are more appropriate than continuing to release annual licences permitting a theoretically unlimited number of anglers and individually unlimited landings.

5. Improve monitoring

All these measures are only of any use if the most important stocks and waters are periodically assessed. The provision of high-quality, compelling data is ultimately also the responsibility of anglers. Only then can gradual overfishing be prevented, and management targets and strategies adapted, where needed. New technologies such as smartphone apps enable catches to be monitored and other data from and about anglers to be captured almost in real time. Some anglers and associations consider such technologies to be a form of surveillance, and are therefore against them. However, conflicts cannot be resolved or targeted management established without the use of modern monitoring techniques that enable the cost-efficient collection of data from hundreds of thousands of people. Anglers’ trust in the transparent and targeted use and analysis of such data must first be built up and secured long term.

“The five steps for policy reform call on policymakers, governments, science and stakeholders to take a proactive approach towards recreational angling. Fishers should be treated on an equal footing to other users of nature and the demands placed on it. Only then can the ever-growing conflicts with other claims to aquatic ecosystems and fish stocks be addressed. It is essential to maintain the quality of fisheries and nature as a whole, and this is only possible together rather than against one another,” Arlinghaus concluded.

The Myanmar and Chinese governments have failed to stem the trafficking of ethnic Kachin women and girls as “brides” to families in China, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.   The 112-page report, “‘Give Us a Baby and We’ll Let You Go’: Trafficking of Kachin ‘Brides’ from Myanmar to China,” documents the selling by traffickers of women and girls from Kachin and northern Shan States into sexual slavery in China.

Trafficking survivors said that trusted people, including family members, promised them jobs in China, but instead sold them for the equivalent of US$3,000 to $13,000 to Chinese families. In China, they were typically locked in a room and raped so they would become pregnant.  

“Myanmar and Chinese authorities are looking away while unscrupulous traffickers are selling Kachin women and girls into captivity and unspeakable abuse,” said Heather Barr, acting women’s rights co-director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The dearth of livelihoods and basic rights protections have made these women easy prey for traffickers, who have little reason to fear law enforcement on either side of the border.”

The report is based primarily on interviews with 37 trafficking survivors, as well as with 3 families of victims, Myanmar government officials and police, and members of local groups, among others.   A Kachin woman who had been trafficked at 16 by her sister-in-law said:

“The family took me to a room. In that room I was tied up again. … They locked the door – for one or two months. When it was time for meals, they sent meals in. I was crying…Each time when the Chinese man brought me meals, he raped me.”

Survivors said the Chinese families often seemed more interested in having a baby than a “bride.” Once trafficked women and girls gave birth to a baby, they were sometimes able to escape their captors, but usually at the cost of leaving their child behind with little hope of seeing the child again. Back in Myanmar, survivors grapple with trauma and stigma as they try to rebuild their lives. There are very few services for trafficking survivors, and the few organizations that provide desperately needed assistance cannot meet the survivors’ needs.

Many of the trafficking survivors interviewed were among over 100,000 people internally displaced by fighting in Kachin and northern Shan States who face desperate lives in camps. The Myanmar government has largely blocked humanitarian aid to the camps, some of which are under the control of the opposition Kachin Independence Organization. Women are often the sole breadwinners, with men taking part in the conflict. This makes women and girls vulnerable to traffickers, who sell them to Chinese families struggling to find brides for their sons due to the gender imbalance in China related to the country’s earlier “one child policy.”

The percentage of women in China’s population has fallen steadily since 1987, and the gender gap among men and women ages 15 to 29 is increasing. Researchers estimate that China has 30 to 40 million “missing women,” who should be alive today but are not due to preference for boys exacerbated by the “one-child policy” in place from 1979 to 2015 and China’s continuing restrictions on women’s reproductive rights.

Some families cope with the lack of marriageable women by buying trafficked women or girls. It is difficult to estimate the total number of women and girls being trafficked as brides to China, but the Myanmar government reported 226 cases in 2017. Experts on the issue told Human Rights Watch they believe the real number is most likely much higher.

Law enforcement officers in China and Myanmar, including officials of the Kachin Independence Organization, have made little effort to recover trafficked women and girls, Human Rights Watch found. Families seeking police help were turned away repeatedly, often told that they would have to pay before police would act. Women and girls who escaped and went to the Chinese police were sometimes jailed for immigration violations rather than being treated as crime victims.

“The Myanmar and Chinese governments, as well as the Kachin Independence Organization, should be doing much more to prevent trafficking, recover and assist victims, and prosecute traffickers,” Barr said. “Donors and international organizations should support the local groups that are doing the hard work that governments won’t to rescue trafficked women and girls and help them recover.”

Asian Americans graduate from university at far higher rates than white Americans, but despite this are no more likely to hold professional or managerial jobs, according to a new study.

The findings suggest that Asian Americans face additional barriers and discrimination when trying to climb the career ladder at work, a phenomenon known as the ‘bamboo ceiling’, an invisible barrier akin to the ‘glass ceiling’ faced by women.

It has long been known that the US-born children of Asian immigrants–a population known as the “Asian second generation” are not only more likely to be college-educated than the US general population, but are also more likely to graduate from the nation’s elite universities. While Asian Americans make up only 6.3% of the US population, they account for about a quarter of all students in the Ivy League institutions in the US. However, until now, it has not been known if these advantages crossover into the workplace.

In the Ethnic and Racial Studies article, three researchers–Van Tran, Jennifer Lee and Tiffany Huang–from Columbia University, New York City pooled over a decade of data from the Current Population Survey (2008-2016), a monthly survey of about 60,000 US households conducted by the United States Census Bureau. They then used this dataset to analyse graduation rates among the five largest Asian groups in the US – Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese and Koreans. Together these groups account for 83% of the country’s Asian population. They found that all five groups are more likely to have graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree than white Americans.

The highest attaining group are Indians, who are eight times more likely to graduate with a degree than white students. Chinese are six times more likely, Koreans and Vietnamese almost three times more likely, and Filipinos almost twice as likely to graduate.

However, despite this educational advantage, Asian Americans are less likely to secure positions in top-tier professional jobs than white Americans with the same qualifications as them. The only exception was secondgeneration Chinese graduates, who are one and a half times more likely than whites to be in a professional or managerial position, after controlling for age, gender, education and region of the country.

“Despite their exceptional educational credentials, we found clear evidence that Asians professionals are overcredentialed in education to achieve parity with whites in the labor market,” says Van Tran, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Columbia University who led the study.

“To be clear, Asians are not under-represented in the managerial and professional occupations–three quarters of second-generation Chinese and Indians report being in a managerial and professional occupation. However, second-generation Asians are significantly under-represented in senior-level leadership positions, considering how well-credentialed they are, even after accounting for many demographic factors.”

According to the authors, there are a few factors that could explain Asian Americans’ lack of career progression.

“The same stereotypes that help Asians succeed in the educational domain (i.e. being smart, competent and hardworking) may actually hurt them in the labor market, where Asian Americans are sometimes perceived to be less vocal, less assertive, lacking in social skills and leadership potential,” says Professor Jennifer Lee.

“Asian American professionals are also often excluded from the informal power networks in the workplace, which sometimes matter more than competency when it comes to being promoted into the leadership ranks.”

Another potential reason is that second-generation Asian professionals often lack Asian role models and effective mentors in the workplace.

Whatever the reasons, the findings are especially timely, as Harvard University has been accused in a high-profile legal case of discriminating against Asian American applicants. A conservative advocacy group, Students for Fair Admissions say that Harvard artificially suppress the number of Asian American students by holding them to higher academic standards than whites, and rating them poorly on personal characteristics.

“We hope that our findings will spark a broader conversation about the disadvantages faced by Asian American professionals across the country, and more importantly, about what policies might be put in place to help promote more equal treatment and opportunities to all groups, including not just Asians, but also whites, blacks and Latinos in the US,” says Professor Van Tran.

Stability prevails atop the latest Food and Beverage Attractiveness (FBA) ranking. For the third year in a row, the United States, China and Germany keep their positions on the winners’ podium as the three most attractive export destinations for food and beverages. Expanding our view to the top 10, there are a total of five countries that repeat their positions of last year, while none of the 10 have moved up or down more than two notches.

This is according to the sixth edition of the Vademecum on Food and Beverage Markets, a co-production by IESE and Deloitte, which is meant to be a practical guide for companies in the context of IESE’s 23rd annual Food and Beverage Industry Meeting.

The study, led by IESE’s Adrian Caldart and Júlia Gifra, analyzes a total of 80 countries, rating them based on 10 indicators that are meant to sum up their attractiveness as export destinations and investment opportunities based on the countries’ economic and legal frameworks, the structure of their populations, and the situation of their food and beverage sectors.

The aftermath of Brexit

Although the United States leads the ranking, Europe continues to be the most attractive region for the food industry. Five of the top 10 and nine of the top 20 countries are European.

European nations score especially high for the soundness of their economic and legal frameworks, as well as their citizens’ disposable incomes and per capita spending on food.

The most attractive European markets are Germany (3), the Netherlands (4), France (6), Switzerland (9) and the United Kingdom (10), which has dropped five places in two years.

The uncertainty surrounding Brexit, coupled with slowing growth, is weighing down on the United Kingdom’s standing in the ranking. And the worst could be yet to come if tariffs with EU trading partners are restored. The report highlights that 58 percent of UK food and beverage exports and 61 percent of its imports have their destination or origin in Europe.

Major British supermarket chains and local subsidiaries of the likes of McDonald’s and KFC have already warned about the risks of sharp price rises and even food shortages if a no-deal Brexit comes to pass.

Asia rising

Following Europe, the second most attractive region is Asia, propelled by China (2), the globe’s most populous country and the second largest importer of food and beverages. Other top Asian performers are Hong Kong (5), with the highest per capita spending on food; and Japan (7), which continues to be a compelling market despite having retreated three positions in two years.

India (14) and Singapore (19) round out the top five list within this region noted for its enormous potential, not only from a demographic point of view but also from that of economic growth and a surging middle class, especially in India.

In fact, over the past couple of years, most Asian countries have improved their positions in the ranking. The most notable two-year advances include Azerbaijan (+6), Pakistan (+5), Indonesia (+5), India (+4) and Hong Kong (+4).

America’s appetite

Without a doubt, the United States remains the most attractive market for food and beverage companies, given that it is the global leader in terms of both food and beverage imports–and it occupies one of the top positions in almost all specific import categories.

In terms of the rest of North America, Canada (11) continues to occupy a high and important position in terms of all three pillars of the index. Meanwhile, Mexico (33) has been dragged down one notch, mainly because of its sluggish GDP growth.

In South America, Chile (37) boasts the highest ranking again this year. Meanwhile, the ascent of Argentina (38) really stands out: it advanced no less than 23 positions over the past two years. But there’s no such good news for Venezuela (80), which remains down on the lowest rung of the ranking despite the size of its market.

Generally speaking, countries in the Americas are notable for their local food and beverage exports, especially relevant to firms looking to invest in local produce. Latin American consumers also tend to spend a higher share of their disposable income on food and beverages than consumers in other regions.

Taking stock of the Middle East and Africa

The United Arab Emirates (8) leads the regional ranking for the Middle East, climbing two positions over last year to enter the global top 10. It is followed by Israel (18) and Qatar (26), two countries that have headed in different directions recently, as Israel gained six positions while Qatar lost seven over the past two years.

On the African continent, the most attractive markets are Egypt (57), Kenya (60) and South Africa (61). Over the past two years, Egypt and Kenya have advanced six and nine positions, respectively, while South Africa suffered the ranking’s biggest setback, losing 10 positions.

Despite its potential, most African countries have had relatively low levels of participation in the international trade of food and beverages.

New this year

The 2017-2018 edition of the Vademecum on Food and Beverage Markets features some new and improved indicators on median disposable income, market and trade efficiency, export figures and more. With these changes, FBA index scores have also been recalculated for the previous two years, allowing meaningful comparisons over three years.

In addition, the report now includes half-page graphic presentations (“Countries at a Glance”) for all 80 countries analyzed, with tables and radar charts displaying each country’s performance along 10 indicators, as compared with the performances of top-20 countries.

This year’s edition also presents insights from local experts in 30 countries that are deemed especially interesting. Expert commentaries focus on salient local trends from the perspectives of consumers, manufacturers and retailers, as well as untapped opportunities and specific market conditions to look out for.

With these features, the report aims to help food and beverages companies looking for new markets by providing practical research. Research is a vital first step before taking the plunge into any new international venture.

Methodology, very briefly

Within the context of the food and beverages industry, 80 countries are analyzed in terms of their attractiveness for setting up a business or directing exports there. The food and beverage attractiveness (FBA index) ranking is based on 10 indicators that cover three pillars: the national economic and legal frameworks (25 percent), the structure of their populations (30 percent), and the situation of their food and beverage sectors (45 percent).

The report brings together, standardizes and assigns weightings to relevant data from reliable sources, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations.

By Giancarlo Elia Valori*

No official meetings between President Xi Jinping and Pope Francis are officially scheduled on the agenda for the Chinese President’s next visit to Italy.

 Neither party wants to jeopardize the agreement reached last September on the appointment of bishops and, however, as is well-known, both diplomacies like silence, long processes and long time schedules.

 Whoever remembers the old diplomatic precedents, also remembers that, just ten years ago, there was the possibility of another meeting between Benedict XVI and Hu Jintao in Italy for the G8 in L’Aquila. The Chinese leader, however, had to return quickly to Beijing, for a revolt in Xinjiang which was – as usual – more dangerous than we could believe.

 From the outset, however, Cardinal Zen opposed the “parallel” appointment of bishops by China and Italy, as  envisaged by the agreement currently in force between China and the Vatican.

  It should be recalled that, from the beginning, Cardinal Zen who was Archbishop of Hong Kong until 2009, dismissed the agreement between the Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, and the Chinese regime as an “incredible betrayal of Faith”.

 The old prelate was born in Shanghai in 1932, just a year after Mao Zedong founded a sort of Soviet republic in Jiangxi.

 Nevertheless, the new strategies and opportunities or new contrasts are beginning to take shape.

 Since January 30 last, for example, Peter Jin Lugang has no longer been a clandestine bishop from Nanyang, while Cardinal Filoni has recently gone to Macao to inaugurate some new facilities of the Saint Joseph University.

 In 2018, as many as 48,365 people were baptized in the churches and parishes of the People’s Republic of China.

 Currently there are almost ten million Chinese Catholics.

  There are also 104 dioceses recognized by the government of the People’s Republic of China, with 30 national provinces.

 Currently the largest number of newly baptized people in China is found in the Hebei province, with 13,000 new people baptized in 2018, followed by Shanxi, with 4,124 new Catholics, as well as Sichuan with 3,707 new people baptized, and finally Shandong with 2,914 new Christians.

 Even in Tibet as many as 8 baptisms were celebrated. In Hainan there were 35 baptisms and in Qinghai 43. This applies even to the Islamic Xinjiang, with as many as 57 new Catholics.

 On point of law – and not only canon law – Cardinal Filoni requires that the members of the unofficial Chinese Catholic communities should not be forced to join the specific “Patriotic Association” – as is instead subtly envisaged by the Chinese government.

 Nevertheless, for the Chinese government, this Patriotic Association is still a “people’s association” and hence has no ecclesial relevance. Moreover, participation in it is always “voluntary and never imposed”.

 This is what China, not the Vatican, maintains.

 Nevertheless, the Vatican precisely knows that in the areas in which – as we have seen above – there is a greater presence of new Catholic vocations, the People’s Association puts strong pressure to make priests and bishops be nationally independent “from the Vatican and from any foreign interference”.

 Without very strong nationalism, however, there is never any Chinese ideology – and certainly not the Communist one born from the Party founded in Shanghai in 1921.

 Hence currently a political and cultural policy – and even a religious, cult and sapiential one, if I may say so – would be needed to make the Chinese regime understand that a Chinese Catholic is all the more Chinese precisely because he is truly Catholic.

  Being Catholic is precisely the moment in which, as Saint Josemaria Escrivà de Balaguer used to say, we understand that “conversion is the matter of a moment, sanctification is the work of a lifetime”.

 And the sanctification of work and daily life applies to everybody, both believers and non-believers.

 This means that the universality of Catholicism includes everything, namely being Chinese, Italian, Indian from America or anybody else.

  For a Chinese, there is not being a Catholic outside being fully and absolutely Chinese.

 Moreover, the current Chinese law does not oblige priests and bishops to join the Patriotic Association, while in all the areas in which the Catholic faith is more widespread, the Chinese government tries to push clerics to join the aforementioned Association, which not too implicitly proposes “independence” from the Holy See.

 In Chinese politics, this is the heritage of a weak and divided Catholic Church, as experienced at the time of the “Chinese Rites Controversy”, which started in the early seventeenth century under the pontificate of Gregory XV and lasted almost three centuries until 1939.

 As you may recall, on the one side there were the Jesuits, who accepted and condoned the pagan practices and beliefs relating to the traditional cult of the dead according to the ancestral Chinese local traditions, but on the other there were the Franciscans and Dominicans, who thought that those practices – essential in the Chinese symbolism and tradition (even at political level) – should be radically changed in relation to the new, but perfect and unique, Catholic faith.

 Hence currently – and here the problem of its Communism is even marginal – China still fears to lose its “soul” and its profound identity, while the Catholic Church cannot certainly afford to be turned into a sort of Protestant Church, also subjected to the political power even in its Rites.

 Obviously the penetration of the Protestant-style sects – often of American tradition – could become dangerous both for the Catholic Church and, all the more so, for the Chinese government.

 There is also the issue of the four priests of the unofficial community of Zhangjiakou, Hebei, who are still detained in a secret place by the People’s Police.

  According to Chinese Catholic sources, the issue began in late 2018.

 Local governments’ factionalism and different CPC configurations in the various regions, as well as a proxy struggle between the Centre and the Periphery, are all factors which could explain the different approach of the various regional governments to the issue of Chinese Catholicism and its official presence in present-day Chinese society (and also in its the power system).

 There is fear for a dangerous competitor in the power game, but it should be clarified – especially at political level – that the Catholic person has not his/her own State, but is defined by the side of the currency in which Caesar is engraved.

There is nothing else – and a true Catholic is not allowed to worship anything else.

 According to some Vatican sources, however, while Pope Francis did not mention the issue of the priests detained in Hebei, the Vatican’s “policy line” could currently be to consider the Patriotic Association an organization to which the adhesion of bishops and clerics is fully optional.

 Again in Hebei, a priest accused his Bishop, Monsignor Agostino Cui Tai, of wanting to “oppose” the Sino-Vatican agreement and even asked the police to arrest him.

 Once again petty internal settling of scores, old tensions, as well as the usual problematic personal relations fit into the grand design of regularization of the Catholic Church in China, as certainly happens also on the government side.

 However, all the Chinese bishops to whom Pope Francis removed excommunication are in favour of abolishing the “Church of Silence” and massively adhering, instead, to the Patriotic Association.

 While recognizing the Chinese government’s full right to control the political activity of the Chinese Church, what about thinking about a very different instrument from the Patriotic Association, which is the obvious heir to an archaic Third International logic, together with the “United Front” and the other organizations that control political, religious and cultural heterodoxy in China?

 This is a topic about which Pope Francis and President Xi Jinping could talk if they met in Italy.

 Nevertheless, also for this negotiation by which China sets great store, there is the key issue of relations with Italy.

 The Chinese media notes that currently Italy has substantially adhered to the One Belt One Road project (OBOR), but that hopefully the agreement should be officially signed during Xi Jinping’s State visit to the country.

 Should this not happen, it would be an irreparable offense for China.

 It should also be noted that the Chinese media’s attention is very much focused on the “Special Working Group on China”, a structure recently organized by the Italian Government. In particular, China underlines the fact that both Greece and Portugal have already agreed to be part of the OBOR project, without the United States having had much to say about that.

Certainly the strategic relevance of Italy in the Mediterranean is very different from Greece’s and Portugal’s geopolitical function for China only regards its Atlantic projection and its traditional ties with Western Africa.

 For the Chinese media, however, Prime Minister Conte’s position is extremely important and, in all likelihood, China will enhance on the media the success it is already expecting to have in Italy.

 According to Chinese analysts, the US nervous reaction to Italy joining the OBOR project stems from the fact that is a crucial and decisive country for the European Union, from both an economic and geopolitical viewpoint.

 China is subtly trying to make us understand that while the United States finally wants to thwart the single currency and weaken the great network of duties and protections that the EU is essentially for it, China has no interest in undermining the EU nor certainly in plunging the Euro area into a further crisis.

 Surely, according to Chinese analysts’ economic projections, the flow of goods and services going from Italy to the United States would decrease – albeit to the benefit of  China – while it is likely that, in the near future, the 5G issue will emerge again, and hence China could have some more chances.

 Hence a clear loss of US relevance in Italy, which would give rise to a long series of very harsh countermoves by the United States.

 Over 60 countries, including 12 European ones, have so far signed a Memorandum of Access to the OBOR network, in whatever manner.

 We enter here directly into the project that Xi Jinping has recently outlined in the “Two Sessions” of the National People’s Congress, which are always held in the first two weeks of March.

  In this year’s two sessions, President Xi Jinping has underlined that the limit whereby the President of the Republic and CPC Secretary, as well as the President of the Central Military Commission, shall serve no more than two consecutive terms has been removed.

 The meaning is clear: my power lasts and is stable, possibly until 2027 – hence the many factional areas of the Party and the State would do well to conform again with the Party’s policy line and not to cause too much trouble.

 President Xi Jinping emphasized once again the importance of the anti-corruption campaign, with 621 civilian officials and military officers punished in 2018 alone.

 He also highlighted the new widespread presence of the Party’s committees in Chinese private companies – a presence that has now reached 70% of companies – as well as the huge reduction of NGOs operating in China from 7000 to just 400. Finally, there was the reaffirmation of the “mistakes” made by the Western propaganda, as well as the reaffirmation of the pillars of the CPC doctrine and practice.

 Certainly this has much to do with the relationship between the Chinese government and the Catholic Church.

 With specific reference to foreign policy, after the “two sessions”, Xi Jinping currently tends to finalize as soon as possible the negotiation for a “Shared Code of Conduct” between China and the ten ASEAN countries, while the Chinese control over the Taiwan and Hong Kong seas is expanding.

 It should be made clear that China will never conquer the Kuomintang island militarily, but it will wait for its internal political transformations to lead to a de facto reunification.

 China also knows that an attack on Taiwan would enable the United States, in particular, to massively and harshly return to the Asian continental region.

 As we will also see in Italy, for President Xi Jinping, China must define – as soon as possible – a “Chinese” model to resolve all current international tensions, so as to ensure that China can become a “contributor and promoter” of both global free trade – in contrast with Trump’s US trade policy – and of multilateralism.

 In the “Two Sessions”, President Xi Jinping also proposed “Xi’s five Study Points”.

 They concern above all peaceful unity, also referring to the fact that Xi in Chinese also means “to learn, to study, to put into practice”.

 As can be easily imagined, peaceful unity is directly related to the Taiwan issue – to which the rule of “one country, two systems” will soon be applied.

  In Xinjiang, the Chinese government will soon accept a UN mission, provided it “does not interfere in domestic matters”.

*About the author: Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist and businessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and national orders. Mr. Valori has lectured on international affairs and economics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University in New York. He currently chairs “International World Group”, he is also the honorary president of Huawei Italy, economic adviser to the Chinese giant HNA Group. In 1992 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’Honneur de la République Francaise, with this motivation: “A man who can see across borders to understand the world” and in 2002 he received the title “Honorable” of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France.”

Source: This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Hajnalka Vincze*

(FPRI) — France and Germany recently decided to share the presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and jointly do the agenda-setting and public communication tasks it involves, over the next two months. What could be an important symbol appears, however, more like a smokescreen to conceal the two partners’ skirmishes over their respective UN seats. France is one of the five permanent members of the UNSC, with all the privileges that brings, including a veto on any decisions it opposes. Germany has recently been elected to a two-year, non-permanent seat on the Council, with no special privileges. The Germans wish to see France’s permanent member status Europeanized—in other words, transferred to the European Union as a whole. Paris continues to respond to such suggestions with a resounding non. At first glance, this disagreement might look like French national “egoism” standing in the way of Germany’s splendid ambitions for Europe. On closer inspection, however, it is rather the other way around.

Test Balloons and Net Refusals

With Brexit looming, France would be the only EU Member State to have a permanent seat on the chief UN decision-making body. A configuration that is clearly not to Germany’s liking; no wonder Berlin has put France under increasing pressure for months.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor at the head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), made a point to float the idea of ​​a single European UNSC seat in her recent op-ed on Europe. The German Chancellor stepped in to support her, saying that such an EU seat was “a very good concept for the future” as it would “help to gather the European voices in the Security Council,” including France’s. In November 2018, Vice Chancellor and Social Democrat Olaf Scholz asserted, “If we are to take the European Union seriously, the EU should speak with one voice within the UN Security Council. In the medium term, France’s seat could be converted to a seat for the EU.” One month before, Berlin’s UN ambassador cited ongoing talks in view of sharing the French seat (immediately rebuked by the French ambassador in Washington). Before that, in June 2018, Chancellor Merkel insisted that in the UN Security Council Europeans should “speak with one voice.”

The concept is anything but new. Almost a quarter of a century ago, the idea of ​​a single European seat was already evoked, only to be dismissed as “unrealistic” and “premature.” Ever since, German diplomacy, backed by some of the other EU members, has repeatedly said to be “very favorable to a European seat,” although doubtful it could be realized in the near future.

And doubtful it should be. As Chancellor Merkel herself acknowledged, “The fact that France is skeptical about a European seat at the UN is well known.” Indeed, the French response to recent demarches has been immediate and unequivocal. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian assured that “there has never been a question of sharing France’s seat as a permanent member in the United Nations Security Council. I say this with force. It is our seat and we are keeping it.” The European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau was equally decisive when she said, “We will not share it with Germany or anyone else.” For Assistant State Secretary Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, the CDU president’s proposal shows that “she did not necessarily read in extenso the Aachen Treaty, which was signed between Merkel and President Macron.”

Sticking to the Texts

Lemoyne was referring to the Franco-German document signed a few weeks ago to reassert bilateral cooperation, articles 5 and 8 of which deal precisely with the UN seat issue. The text reiterates the prevailing consensus that “the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany as a permanent member of the Security Council is a priority of Franco-German diplomacy.” More broadly, the parties pledged to “cooperate closely in all organs of the United Nations . . . as part of wider efforts to coordinate the positions of EU Member States and in accordance with the positions and interests of the European Union. They will work together to advance the European Union’s positions and commitments with respect to global challenges and threats.” In this spirit, they plan to “initiate exchanges within their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York, particularly between Security Council Teams.”

Since this last point raised some concerns, the Elysée Palace (French presidency) decided to clarify: “NO, France will not share its seat in the UN Security Council with Germany . . . nor with anyone else. A very simple reason for that: a seat on the UN Security Council cannot be shared, neither the law nor our interests would allow us to do so.” What the Elysée did not mention is that the EU treaty already commits France to work in European interest. According to Article 34, “Member States shall coordinate their action in international organisations. They shall uphold the Union’s positions in such forums.” Accordingly, “Member States which are also members of the Security Council will defend the positions and the interests of the Union.” Since the EU does not have a position unless all Member States agree, this obligation is less restrictive than it appears. Coordination is not co-decision. Nevertheless, it denotes the maximum level of ambition within this scheme; anything more would turn into practical relinquishment of the Members States’ individual UN seats.

Going Beyond: Triple Mistake for Europe

Abandoning the existing arrangement would not be easy; it is also not desirable.

First of all, the abandonment by France of its permanent UNSC seat would inevitably destabilize the European Union’s Franco-German “engine.” Indeed, the balance within the so-called couple has always been based on the implicit idea that France’s diplomatic-military power serves as a counterpoint to German economic supremacy. It is no coincidence that Berlin’s efforts, in the case of the UNSC permanent seat just as on various defense-related issues, aim to diminish or even eliminate France’s relative advantages in order to change this rapport de force. The Europeanization of French trump cards—in other words, their engulfment into a collective pool—would, in fact, tip the balance in Germany’s favor. This might seem to Berlin as a worthy goal. The problem is that the delicate Franco-German equilibrium is also the foundation of European integration as a whole.

Second, if the objective—as German leaders like to claim and others might believe—is to represent Europe’s positions more effectively, then merging several seats (currently there are five EU members in the UNSC) into one is definitely the wrong way to go. As long as Member States defend the same position, there is no need for a single seat. Quite the contrary. As Christopher Patten, former European Commissioner for External Relations, observed, rather than aiming to “speak with one voice,” “we get more attention and better effect if we sing to the same song sheet.” The question is not whether Europeans speak with one voice, but whether they say the same thing. Once EU members can do that, then having more seats (and therefore more votes) in an intergovernmental organization like the United Nations is actually an advantage.

But herein lies the challenge. Europeans are, as a rule, unable to defend the same position on major geopolitical issues. Be it the Iraq war, Russia, Jerusalem, or arms sales, they are virtually never on the same page. Either because they do not all have the same analysis, or because they do not all agree to defend their common analysis in case of divergence with the United States. In both cases, the EU as such is paralyzed and/or reduced to incantatory formulas corresponding to the lowest common denominator. Due to this self-inflicted impotence, the idea of an independent and strategically powerful Europe, and the positions that it entails, are most often defended by France (alone, or with some of the other Member States). General Charles de Gaulle had traced the way: “While waiting for the sky to clear up, France pursues by its own means what a European and independent policy can and must be.” Seen from this perspective, nothing could be more counterproductive than to sacrifice one of these means, namely the permanent UNSC seat, on the altar of a pseudo-Europeanization made in Germany.

*About the author: Hajnalka Vincze is a European foreign and security policy analyst, formerly in charge of European Union and transatlantic issues at the Hungarian Ministry of Defense’s Research Institute. She contributes to the Foreign Policy Research Institute on French politics and policy.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

Why did Pharaoh oppress the Jews in Egypt? French Egyptologist Alain Zivie points to Pharaoh’s vizier ‘Abdiel whose Semitic name means ‘a servant of [the god] El’.

‘Abdiel’s name is unusual. In Egyptian, it is ‘Aper-El. ‘Aper is the Egyptian way to render the Semitic word ‘abed, which means “servant.” So, Alain Zivie believes that the vizier’s name actually would have been pronounced “‘Abdiel.”

The second part of his name consists of the name of the god El, the head of the Syro-Canaanite pantheon. Thus, “Abdiel” means “servant of [the god] El.” El is also the generic Semitic term for “god” and one of the names of the Israelite deity in the Hebrew Bible.

In 1980, Alain Zivie began excavating a rock-cut tomb in Saqqara, Egypt (near Cairo). In 1987, he discovered the tomb’s burial chamber with the remains of the Egyptian vizier ‘Abdiel, his wife Tauret, and his son Huy. Each had been buried in three coffins.

Extraordinary grave goods filled the room: canopic jars, a diadem, and a wood cubit listing some of ‘Abdiel’s prestigious titles. These items, along with the tomb’s inscriptions and illustrations, help paint a picture of ‘Abdiel’s importance in ancient Egypt.

In his article “Pharaoh’s Man, ‘Abdiel: The Vizier with a Semitic Name” published in the July/August 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Alain Zivie explores this intriguing figure, who lived in the 14th century B.C.E. and who likely served two pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (better known by his later name Akhenaten).

Akhenaten is famous for his attempt to push the Egyptian court and nobility into worshipping the Solar disc Aten, instead of all the traditional Gods that Egyptians had worshipped for over 2,000 years.

This was the most revolutionary event in Egypt’s religious history, and it failed because Akhenaten died as a young man, and his young son also died a few years later. The general who was acting regent then took over; and at his death the next general started the 19th dynasty and ruled in his own name; Rameses.

The Torah states, “When a new king (dynasty), to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt” Pharaoh said to his court nobles, “Look, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if a war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” (Exodus 1:8-10)

That is what Pharaoh (Ramses I) said, but what he really meant was: although the Egyptian nobles outnumber the Israelites, their belief in only one God has already influenced two previous Pharaohs (Amenhotep III and Akhenaten).

If the Israelite belief in only one God spreads from some of the nobility into the general population, many people might stop believing that Pharaoh himself is the son of God, and that would be very dangerous for the traditional authority of our religious and political establishment, so we should oppress them.

Pharaoh Ramses then engages in what today psychologists call projection. Ramses takes his own semi and sub-conscious desires to push away the dreaded monotheistic ideas that denied Pharaoh’s divinity as a son of God; and projects these desires on the Children of Israel.

The Qur’an reveals the true thoughts of Ramses when it states: The Chiefs (Nobles) of Pharaoh claim that Prophet Moses’s plans are to get them (the Egyptians) out of their land. (7:110) and Pharaoh claims that Prophet Moses’s plan is to drive his (Pharaoh’s) people out of the land. (7:123)

The Qur’an also explicitly reveals: “He (Pharaoh Ramses) said: “Have you come to drive us out of our land with your magic, O Moses?” (20:57) and “They (the Nobles) said: “These two (Prophet Aaron and Prophet Moses) are certainly magicians: their object is to drive you (Pharaoh Ramses) out from your land with their magic, and to do away with your most cherished institutions”. (20:63)

Thus, the well meaning but erroneous attempt of the Egyptian vizier ‘Abdiel, ‘the servant (prophet?) of El” to influence Pharaoh Akhenaten and the royal court to forcefully spread monotheism among Egypt’s nobility and then the general population: failed.

The Torah is silent about this shameful episode because ‘Abdiel, ‘the servant of El” should not have encouraged Pharaoh Akhenaten to pressure people to become monotheists. As the Qur’an proclaims: “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut, and believes in Allah, has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it; for Allah Hears and Knows. (2:256)

‘Abdiel had many titles, including “chief of the town, vizier,” “general of the horses,” “chief in the entire land,” “messenger of the king” (ambassador), and “father of the god” (a senior advisor who knew Pharaoh as a child). ‘Abdiel is the only vizier in the history of ancient Egypt to be called “child of the kap” (someone palace raised or educated). He also bears the title “first servant of Aten in …”

Although this title’s ending is not readable, the surviving part shows that ‘Abdiel was connected to the Egyptian god Aten, whose worship rose to prominence during Akhenaten’s reign. In 1320 B.C.E., after Akhenaten’s religious revolution failed, many pro Israelite monotheistic inclined notables were sent into exile in the Canaan province, more specifically in Shechem and Urushalim (Jerusalem).

The discovery by Alain Zivie of the tomb of Akhenaten’s vizier Abdi-El at Memphis suggests a close family relationship between Abdi-Heba, Mayor-Governor of Urushalim, and Akhenaten’s top officials.

The Qur’an makes the thoughts and fears of Pharaoh clear and explains why the Children Of Israel inherited the land of their ancestors Prophet Ibrahim and Prophet Ya’kub/Israel.

“We made the (Children Of Israel) people who were deemed weak. to inherit the Eastern lands and the Western of it (Arabic: wamagharibaha) which We had blessed (Arabic – Barakna Fiha); and the good word of your Lord was fulfilled in the Children of Israel because they bore (sufferings) patiently; and We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people used to make and what they built” (7:137)

Many have framed the battle lines in the geopolitics of the emerging new world order as the 21st century’s Great Game. It’s a game that aims to shape the creation of a new Eurasia-centred world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent.”

For now, the Great Game pits China together with Russia, Turkey and Iran against the United States, India, Japan and Australia. The two camps compete for influence, if not dominance, in a swath of land that stretches from the China Sea to the Atlantic coast of Europe.

The geopolitical flashpoints are multiple. They range from the China Sea to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Central European nations and, most recently, far beyond with Russia, China and Turkey supporting embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

On one level, the rivalry resembles Risk, a popular game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest played on a board depicting a political map of the earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents. Multiple players command armies that seek to capture territories, engage in a complex dance as they strive for advantage, and seek to compensate for weaknesses. Players form opportunistic alliances that could change at any moment. Potential black swans threaten to disrupt.

Largely underrated in debates about the Great Game is the fact that increasingly there is a tacit meeting of the minds among world leaders as well as conservative and far-right politicians and activists that frames the rivalry: the rise of civilisationalism and the civilizational state that seeks its legitimacy in a distinct civilization rather than the nation state’s concept of territorial integrity, language and citizenry.

The trend towards civilisationalism benefits from the fact that 21st century autocracy and authoritarianism vests survival not only in repression of dissent and denial of freedom of expression but also maintaining at least some of the trappings of pluralism that can include representational bodies with no or severely limited powers, toothless opposition groups, government-controlled non-governmental organizations, and degrees of accountability.

It creates the basis for an unspoken consensus on the values that would underwrite a new world order on which men like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Victor Orban, Mohammed bin Salman, Narendra Modi and Donald Trump find a degree of common ground. If anything, it is this tacit understanding that in the shaping of a new world order constitutes the greatest threat to liberal values such as human and minority rights. By the same token, the tacit agreement on fundamental values reduces the Great Game to a power struggle over spheres of influence and the sharing of the pie as well as a competition of political systems in which concepts such as democracy are hollowed out.

Intellectually, the concept of civilisationalism puts into context much of what is currently happening. This includes the cyclical crisis over the last decade as a result of a loss of confidence in leadership and the system; the rise of right and left-wing populism; the wave of Islamophobia and increased anti-Semitism; the death of multi-culturalism with the brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as its most extreme expression; the Saudi and Russian alliance with ultra-conservative Christian groups that propagate traditional family values; and Russian meddling in Western elections.

Analysts explained these developments by pointing to a host of separate and disparate factors, some of which were linked in vague ways. Analysts pointed among others to the 2008 financial crisis, jihadist violence and the emergence of the Islamic State, the war in Syria, and a dashing of hope with the rollback of the achievements of the 2011 popular Arab revolts. These developments are and were at best accelerators not sparks or initiators.

Similarly, analysts believed that the brilliance of Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Towers and the Pentagon in Washington was the killing of multi-culturalism in one fell and brutal swoop. Few grasped just how consequential that would be. A significant eye opener was the recent attack on the mosques in Christchurch. New Zealand much like Norway in the wake of the 2012 attacks by supremacist Andre Breivik stands out as an anti-dote to civilisationalism with its inclusive and compassionate response.

The real eye-opener, however, was a New Zealand intelligence official who argued that New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance alongside the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada, had missed the emergence of a far or alt-right that created breeding grounds for violence because of Washington’s singular post-9/11 focus on what popularly is described as Islamic terrorism. That remark casts a whole different light on George W. Bush’s war on terror and the subsequent war against the Islamic State. Those wars are rooted as much in the response to 9/11, the 7/7 London attacks and other jihadist occurrences as they are in witting or unwitting civilisationalism.

“The global war on terror has become a blueprint for violence against Muslims. When there isn’t a shooting at a mosque, there’s a drone strike in Somalia. When one Friday prayer goes by without incident, an innocent Muslim is detained on material support for terrorism charges or another is killed by law enforcement. Maybe a baby is added to a no-fly list,” said human rights activist Maha Hilal. Scholars Barbara Perry and Scott Poynting warned more than a decade ago in study of the fallout in Canada of the war on terror that “in declining adequately to recognize and to act against hate (crimes), and in actually modelling anti-Muslim bias by practicing discrimination and institutional racism through “‘ethnic targeting,’ ‘racial profiling,’ and the like, the state conveys a sort of ideological license to individuals, groups and institutions to perpetrate and perpetuate racial hatred.”

The same is true for the various moves in Europe that have put women on the frontline of what in the West are termed cultural wars but in reality are civilizational wars involving efforts to ban conservative women’s dress and endeavours to create a European form of Islam. In that sense Victor Orban’s definition of Hungary as a Christian state in which there is no room for the other is the extreme expression of this trend. It’s a scary picture, it raises the spectre of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations, yet it is everything but.

Fact is that economic and geopolitical interests are but part of the explanation for the erection of a Muslim wall of silence when it comes to developments in Xinjiang, the Organization of Islamic Countries’ ability to criticize the treatment of Muslim minorities in various parts of the world but praise China for its policy, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s alliance with a man like Victor Orban and his joining the right-wing chorus that has turned Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros into a bogeyman or the rise of militant, anti-Muslim Buddhism and Hinduism. In fact, the signs of this were already visible with the alliance between Israel and the evangelists who believe in doomsday on the Day of Judgement if Jews fail to convert to Christianity as well as the recent forging of ties between various powerful Islamic groups or countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the evangelist movement.

Civilisationalism is frequently based on myths erected on a falsification and rewriting of history to serve the autocrat or authoritarian’s purpose. Men like Trump, Orban, and Erdogan project themselves as nationalist heroes who protect the nation from some invading horde. In his manifesto, Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch attacks, bought into the notion of an illusionary invader. Muslims, he wrote, “are the most despised group of invaders in the West, attacking them receives the greatest level of support.”

He also embraced the myths of an epic, centuries-long struggle between the white Christian West and Islam with the defeat of the Ottomans in 1683 at the ports of Vienna as its peak. Inscribed on Tarrant’s weapons were the names of Serbs who had fought the Ottomans as well as references to the battle of Vienna. To Tarrant, the Ottomans’ defeat in Vienna symbolized the victory of the mythical notion of a world of inviolable, homogeneous nations. “The idea that (medieval societies) are this paragon of unblemished whiteness is just ridiculous. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so awful,” said Paul Sturtevant, author of The Middle Ages in the Popular Imagination.

Much like popular perception of the battle for Vienna, Tarrant’s view of history had little relation to reality. A multi-cultural empire, the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna in cooperation with Catholic French King Louis XIV and Hungarian Protestant noble Imre Thokoly as well as Ukrainian Cossacks. Vienna’s Habsburg rulers were supported not only by Polish armies but also Muslim Tartar horsemen. “The Battle of Vienna was a multicultural drama; an example of the complex and paradoxical twists of European history. There never has been such a thing as the united Christian armies of Europe,” said historian Dag Herbjornsrud. Literary scholar Ian Almond argues that notions of a clash of civilizations bear little resemblance to the “almost hopelessly complex web of shifting power-relations, feudal alliances, ethnic sympathies and historical grudges” that shaped much of European history. “The fact remains that in the history of Europe, for hundreds of years, Muslims and Christians shared common cultures, spoke common languages, and did not necessarily see one another as ‘strange’ or ‘other,'” Almond said.

That was evident not only in the Battle of Vienna but also when the Ottomans and North Africa’s Arab rulers rallied around Queen Elizabeth I of England after the pope excommunicated her in 1570 for breaking with Catholicism and establishing a Protestant outpost. Elizabeth and her Muslim supporters argued that Protestantism and Islam were united in their rejection of idol worship, including Catholicism with its saints, shrines and relics. In a letter in 1579 to Ottoman sultan Murad III, Elizabeth described herself as the “most mighty defender of the Christian faith against all kind of idolatries.” In doing so, she sought to capitalize on the fact that the Ottomans had justified their decision to grant Lutherans preferred commercial treatment on the basis of their shared beliefs.

Similarly, historian Marvin Power challenges the projection of Chinese history as civilizational justification of the party leader’s one-man rule by Xi Jinping and Fudan University international relations scholar Zhang Weiwei. Amazon’s blurb on Zhang’s bestselling The China Wave: Rise of the Civilizational State summarizes the scholar’s rendition of Xi Jinping’s vision succinctly: “China’s rise, according to Zhang, is not the rise of an ordinary country, but the rise of a different type of country, a country sui generis, a civilizational state, a new model of development and a new political discourse which indeed questions many of the Western assumptions about democracy, good governance and human rights.” The civilizational state replaces western political ideas with a model that traces its roots to Confucianism and meritocratic traditions.

In his sweeping study entitled China and England: The Preindustrial Struggle for Justice in Word and Image, Powers demonstrates that Chinese history and culture is a testimony to advocacy of upholding individual rights, fair treatment, state responsibility to its people, and freedom of expression rather than civilisationalism, hierarchy and authoritarianism. Powers extensively documents the work of influential Chinese philosophers, writers, poets, artists and statesmen dating back to the 3rd century BC who employed rational arguments to construct governance systems and take legal action in support of their advocacy. Powers noted that protection of free speech was embedded in edicts of the Han Emperor Wen in the second century BC. The edicts legitimized personal attacks on the emperor and encouraged taxpayers to expose government mistakes. The intellectuals and statemen were the Chinese counterpart of contemporary liberal thinkers.

In a lot of ways, Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church have understood the utility of civilisationalism far better than others and made it work for them, certainly prior to the Russian intervention in Syria. At a gathering several years before the intervention, Russia achieved a fete that seemed almost unthinkable. Russia brought to the same table at a gathering in Marrakech every stripe of Sunni and Shiite political Islam.

The purpose was not to foster dialogue among the various strands of political Islam. The purpose was to forge an alliance with a Russia that emphasized its civilizational roots in the Russian Orthodox Church and the common values it had with conservative and ultra-conservative Islam. To achieve its goal, Russia was represented at the gathering by some of its most senior officials and prominent journalists whose belief systems were steeped in the values projected by the Church. To the nodding heads of the participating Muslims, the Russians asserted that Western culture was in decline while non-Western culture was on the rise, that gays and gender equality threaten a woman’s right to remain at home and serve her family and that Iran and Saudi Arabia should be the model for women’s rights. They argued that conservative Russian Orthodox values like the Shariah offered a moral and ethical guideline that guarded against speculation and economic bubbles.

The Trump administration has embarked on a similar course by recently siding in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women with proponents of ultra-conservative values such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq and several African countries. Together they sought to prevent the expansion of rights for girls, women, and LGBT people and weaken international support for the Beijing Declaration, a landmark 1995 agreement that stands as an internationally recognized progressive blueprint for women’s rights.

The US position in the commission strokes with efforts by conservative Christians to reverse civilizational US courts decisions in favour of rights for women, minorities, members of the LGBT community, Muslims and immigrants and refugees. It is what conservative historian and foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan describes as the war within traditionally liberal society. It is that civilizational war that provides the rationale for Russian meddling in elections, a rational that goes beyond geopolitics. It also explains Trump’s seeming empathy with Putin and other autocrats and authoritarians.

The US alignment with social conservatives contributes to the rise of the civilizational state. Putin’s elevation of the position of the church and Xi’s concentration of absolute power in the Communist Party strengthens institutions that symbolize the rejection of liberal values because they serve as vehicles that dictate what individuals should believe and how they should behave. These vehicles enable civilisationalism by strengthening traditional hierarchies defined by birth, class, family and gender and delegitimizing the rights of minorities and minority views. The alignment suggests that the days were over when Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov trumpeted that the West had lost “its monopoly on the globalization process” because there was a “market of ideas” in which different “value systems” were forced to compete. 

Similarly, conservative American author Christopher Caldwell asserted that Orban’s civilizational concept of an authoritarian Christian democracy echoed the kind of democracy that “prevailed in the United States 60 years ago” prior to the civil rights movement and the 1968 student protests. Orban’s Hungary epitomizes the opportunism that underlies the rise of the civilizational state as a mechanism to put one’s mark on the course of history and retain power. In Orban’s terms, civilizational means not Christianity as such but those Christian organizations that have bought into his authoritarian rule. Those that haven’t are being starved of state and public funding.

Civilisationalism’s increased currency is evident from Beijing to Washington with stops in between. Trump’s and Steve Bannon, his former strategy advisor’s beef with China or Russia is not civilizational, its about geopolitical and geo-economic power sharing. In terms of values, they think in equally civilizational terms. In a speech in Warsaw in 2017, Trump declared that “the fundamental question of our time is whether the west has the will to survive” but assured his audience that “our civilization will triumph.”  Bannon has established an “academy for the Judeo-Christian west” in a former monastery in the Italian town of Collepardo. The academy intends to groom the next generation of far-right populist politicians.

It is initiatives like Bannon’s academy and the growing popularity of civilizational thinking in democracies, current and erstwhile, rather than autocracies that contribute most significantly to an emerging trend that transcends traditional geopolitical dividing lines and sets the stage for the imposition of authoritarian values in an emerging new world order. Interference in open and fair elections, support for far-right and ultra-conservative, family-value driven Western groups and influence peddling on both sides of the Atlantic and in Eurasia at large by the likes of Russia, China and the Gulf states serve the purpose of Bannon and his European associates.

Civilizationalists have put in place the building blocks of a new world order rooted in their value system. These blocks include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The grouping is centred on the Chinese principle of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of others which amounts to support for the region’s autocratic regimes. The SCO’s Tashkent-based internal security coordination apparatus or Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS) has similarly adopted China’s definition of the “three evils” of terrorism, extremism, and separatism that justifies its brutal crackdown in Xinjiang.

Proponents of the civilizational state see the nation state and Western dominance as an aberration of history. British author and journalist Martin Jacques and international relations scholar Jason Sharman argue that China’s history as a nation state is at best 150 years old while its civilizational history dates back thousands of years. Similarly, intellectual supporters of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) project India as a Hindu-base civilization rather than a multi-cultural nation state. Modi’s minister of civil aviation, Jayant Sinha, suggests that at independence, India should have embraced its own culture instead of Western concepts of scientific rationalism. Talking to the Financial Times, Sinha preached cultural particularism. “In our view, heritage precedes the state… People feel their heritage is under siege. We have a faith-based view of the world versus the rational-scientific view.” 

Arab autocracies like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have stopped short of justifying their rule in civilizational terms but have enthusiastically embraced the civilizational state’s rejection of western notions of democracy and human rights. One could argue that Saudi Arabia’s four decade long global propagation of ultra-conservative strands of Islam or the UAE effort to mould an Islam that is apolitical and adheres to the principle of obedience to the ruler is civilizational in nature.

Islamic law scholar Mohammed Fadel argues that one reason why Arab autocracies have not overtly embraced civilisationalism even though they in many ways fit the mould is the absence of a collective memory in post-Ottoman Arab lands. To explicitly embrace civilisationalism as a concept, Arab states would have to cloak themselves in the civilizational mantle of either pan-Islam or pan-Arabism, which in turn would require regional integration. One could argue that the attempt by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to impose their will on the Middle East for example with the boycott of Qatar is an attempt to create a basis for a regional integration that they would dominate.

The rise of the civilizational state with its corporatist traits raises the spectre of a new world order whose value system equates dissent with treason, views an independent press as the ‘enemy of the people’ and relegates minorities to the status of at best tolerated communities with no inherent rights. It is a value system that enabled Trump to undermine confidence in the media as the fourth estate that speaks truth to power and has allowed the president and Fox News to turn the broadcaster into the United States’ closest equivalent to state-controlled television.  Trump’s portrayal of the media as the bogeyman has legitimized populist assaults on the press across the globe irrespective of political system from China and the Philippines to Turkey and Hungary. It has facilitated Prince Mohammed’s effort to fuse the kingdom’s ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam with a nationalist sentiment that depicts critics as traitors rather than infidels.

In the final analysis, the tacit understanding on a civilisationalism-based value system means that it’s the likes of New Zealand, Norway and perhaps Canada that are putting up their hands and saying not me instead of me too. Perhaps Germany is one of the countries that is seeking to stake out its place on a middle ground. The problem is that the ones that are not making their voices heard are the former bastions of liberalism like the United States and much of Europe. They increasingly are becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Edited remarks at Brookings roundtable in Doha

By S. Chandrasekharan

The much-hyped peace talks with the non-signatories of the National Cease-Fire agreement ended in failure thanks to the rigid stand of the Government.

  It was thought that the Government of Myanmar having realized the futility of putting down the Arakan Army militarily made the first reconciliatory move to rope in the AA for talks along with six other non-signatories and talk to them as a group.  The door was kept open for the representatives of the organisations to talk to the Army also individually with the groups the next day.  It was also known that the talks had the full backing of China though left to themselves the Chinese would have avoided inviting the Arakan Army whose operations are in the western theatre far away from the Chinese border but close to the Indian border.

It was therefore not a surprise that Chinese had pressured the KIA not to support the Arakan Army any way and would like to it to be crushed if it was possible! The idea appears to be not to provide strategic space to India in Myanmar. But the surprise was that the Government took a very confrontational and an aggressive stand against the Arakan Army in the talks.

In the meeting on 21^st March, the Peace Negotiators of the Government failed to agree on a proposal to allow the Arakan Army to establish a base in Rakhine region.

U Tin Myo Win, the Deputy Chairman of National Reconciliation and Peace Committee said that the Government will continue to take measures to prevent the Arakan Army to establish a base in Rakhine.

U Zaw Htay, the Director general of State Counsellor’s Office maintained that they would continue to take the responsibility for security of Rakhine State and suppress any armed group that wants to establish a base in Rakhine.  He tried to justify this hard stance claiming that the main issue is that they do not want to make the people suffer and therefore the Government will carry out necessary action.

If this was the objective, intensifying the military operations against the AA and shelling and strafing the villages in the Rakhine area will not help as the conflict has already given rise over 20000 internally displace persons.  Even the ancient capital with sacred Buddhist monuments in the town of Mrauk U has not been spared.

The town of Mrauk U is an architecturally important town in the Norther Rakhine State. It was the capital of Mrauk U kingdom from 1430 to 1785.  Important sites include Shite-thaung temple- a temple of 80000 Buddhas, Andaw thein temple, Koe Kaung temple with 90,000 Buddha images and an archeological museum all in the nearby areas of the township.

On 18^th the civilians in Mrauk U complained that soldiers in vehicles in the town started firing indiscriminately as they moved round the town.

The Army resorted to shelling the village Ywan Haung Taw and there were airstrikes close to Myelon village.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army a smaller group allied to the AA and a part of the Northern Alliance called on the military to end its operations and targeting Arakanese civilians.  It warned that other armies allied to them will enter the fight on AA’s behalf.  A joint statement was also issued on 19^th accusing the Myanmar Government and the Army targeting civilians and attacking the Pagodas.

What we see now is that the Army with full support of the Government is trying to put down the Arakan Army with a heavy hand and in quick time.  But it looks that it may not be that easy. It is likely to be a long haul, undermining the country’s move towards democracy.

Myanmar’s media reports indicate that the Myanmar Army in coordination with the Indian Army had eliminated around twelve posts of Arakan Army near the border.  The operation was ostensibly to protect the Kaladan Multi Modal Project being built by India for reaching Mizoram through Sittwe. Will the intensification of conflict in the Sittwe-Paletwa region bring in stability and Peace and secure the project?  One cannot be sure.

 It is also hinted that in return, the Myanmar army has dismantled the camps of Khaplang faction of NSCN as well as other Indian Insurgent Groups operating from Myanmar around the Taga river.  There has been no response from AA either denying or confirming this news and if it has happened it will raise the level of conflict by another notch in the stability of Sittwe- Paletw region.

The indigenous peoples of Mountain Province, Philippines, called Igorots, or “people of the mountains,” are peace-loving, and hard-working, as exemplified by their stone rice terraces built by sheer power and brawn. Their men are known fierce warriors, who resisted Spanish, American and Japanese colonizers.

While most indigenous peoples’ culture worldwide have succumbed to modern day’s creeping globalization, eroding important cultural values, the Igorot peoples’ adherence to a centuries-old principle, called “inayan”, has allowed them to respect nature, live sustainably with their ecosystem and live peacefully with their neighbors.

According to the International Journal of Advanced Research Management and Social Sciences. “Inayan” is a lexicon in the Philippine indigenous language, which is spoken mainly by the ethnology groups inhabiting the western part of the Mountain Province covering the municipalities of Bauko, Besao, Sagada, and Tadian and the central part Bontoc and Sabangan of the Philippines.

“Inayan” means to hold back or to prevent an individual from doing something unpleasant towards others or things, living and non-living. A deeper investigation of the word in language culture indicates the word connotes “fear of a Supreme Deity called Kabunian (God) who forewarns or dissuades one from doing anything harmful to others and things.”

This concept is deeply rooted in the culture specifically of the Sagada and Besao Applai tribes. To them, “inayan” embodies all virtues and morals of tribal members –humility, truthfulness, fidelity, honesty, and commitment, among others.

In a study titled ‘Inayan, the Tenet for Peace’ by Rhonda Vail G. Leyaley, the peace loving Igorot people are influenced by their belief that they are answerable to Kabunyan (God) in whatever actions they do towards others. The strong bond of the Igorots to Kabunyan (God) inspires them to love the good they are doing towards others and their work for prosperity.

They strongly believe that it is only when everyone is in harmony with man and nature that Kabunian (God) will bring blessings to their life. For these reasons, the Igorots practice the principle of “inayan” to enjoy a peaceful life.

Reverencing God’s Creation

Dr. Caridad Fiar-od, author of’ Indigenous Knowledge Manifested in the Sense of Inayan, said “inayan” is a factor in attaining development. It is viewed as a value, belief, strategy, customary law governed in the council of elders or “dap-ay”, natural law/principle, and strategy for discipline. It is a process towards reconciling culture, love for creation, religion and education for transformation.

The protection and conservation of the communal forest systems referred as “batangan” or “saguday” of Besao and Sagada peoples is rooted on the concept, “The higher level of adherence to the sense of “inayan”, the higher the degree of love, respect, and protection of forests, she said.

Fiar-od added “inayan” is reflected in different ways as follows: a) As a value, there is justice, harmony and sharing of resources as manifested in weddings, baptism, and wakes/funerals, and other events; b) As a cultural belief, “inayan” is invoked along attainment of spirituality, peace, prosperity and abundance, either personally, morally, socially, religiously, purposely; c)As a customary law, “inayan” is invoked towards environmental protection, land use and management through community rituals/rites or ceremonies like “begnas”; d) As a natural law/principle, “inayan” is invoked in the optimistic assurance implied in the utterance “kasiyana, wadas Kabunyan” meaning “ have faith in the Almighty.”Nature will take its course.; e) As a control measure, it is a wake up call to act as a social being rather than just a human being. A social being observes ethical and moral standards for fear that consequences may happen in one’s life.

Leyaley’ study established the Igorot’s belief on the use of inayan as:

• It is Inayan to destroy or overuse and abuse any of God’s creation because others will also need the resources.
• It is Inayan to commit adultery because whatever actions you have done, might also happen to the children or the grandchildren might be the ones who will suffer the consequences of the act.
• It is Inayan not to help other people because we always need others. Most especially, you must know how to help your neighbour because they will be the first people to help you in times of need.
• It is Inayan if we don’t listen to the advices of parents and elders because they know what is best for their children.
• It is Inayan to curse because your curse might happen to the family instead.
• It is Inayan to say bad words against your parents most especially when they are already old and they have unpredictable behaviours because you might be worse than them when you will be of their age in the future. Another thing, according to one of the respondents, we are just counting the minutes, hours and days before they will be taken by our ,Maker.
• It is Inayan to look down on others. You should always think of what might happen in the future. Like what if the children of both sides will get married.
• It is Inayan for couples to fight in front of their children. The children might not show respect towards the parents.

Because of the influence of technology and the yearning for material things, the value of respect and love towards all of the creations of God is diminished. For this reason, the researcher Leyaley said, if only all peoplehas put in their hearts and mind the principle of Inayan then we will all be enjoying life peacefully.

The above mentioned definitions of Inayan corroborates Fiar-od when she said that Inayan is a community value similarly known as karma or the concept of “ you reap what you sow.” In like manner, Inayan as taboo, bad or a vilation while Fiar od summarizes all views by saying Inayan is a value, belief, strategy, customary law governed in the dap-ay, natural law or principle, strategy for discipline, biblical commandment and a process towards reconciling culture, religion and education for transformation.

The researcher recommended that the principle of Inayan be disseminated to the younger generation through the Philippine educational curriculum.

By Sreeparna Banerjee

In 2018, a major attack on drug trade, especially of ‘Yaba’, popularly known as the madness drug, took place in Bangladesh where a record 53 million methamphetamine pills were seized. Nearly 300 suspected drug dealers were killed out of which 40 were from Teknaf area near to Rohingya camps. Some 25,000 were arrested, out of which few were Rohingyas. As Reuters reports, Bangladesh has become a big market for traffickers who source the drug from factories in lawless northeastern Myanmar. Why and how these stateless people are getting involved in this crime needs to be looked at.

Bangladesh currently harbours more than 900,000 Rohingyas in their overpopulated camps. Already cramped and burdened, the living conditions in these camps are appalling. Though the Rohingyas are finally getting a chance to live in a settlement, some restrictions on procuring legitimate work is paving way for new illegal ones.

The men, women and children, who travelled from their war torn villages, arrived at this side of the border either without their spouses or parents or children who they lost in the brutal military crackdown. While some could carry money or clothes, most couldn’t since their villages were lit on fire. Under such harsh physical and mental conditions, they are settled in the overpopulated camps where there are restrictions to work outside the camp areas. The relief they receive from the humanitarian organisations are in kind. They are only allowed to work in occupations created by the UNHCR organisations within the camps but the money they earn in exchange is meagre in order to support themselves and their families. The food supply remain limited and thus, having extra money helps to procure better ration and other basic necessities.

Though education programme runs within the camps, according to the JRP Report 2019, 97% of youth and adolescents lack access to quality education or learning opportunities.

They are paid according to the size of ‘Yaba’ consignments. For instance, they earn 10,000 taka for transporting 5,000 pills to Dhaka and other urban centres which is extremely lucrative in nature. Hence, considerable numbers of Rohingyas act as agents in order to deliver ‘Yaba’ to the drug peddlers.

Also, for many Rohingyas, engagement with drug peddlers offers an easy exit from Myanmar due to the Naf River running between the two nations.

Several briefs published by the Reuters during 2017-18 confirm that the demand for ‘Yaba’ has increased drastically. It has affected people from several quarters, from house-wives to college students, to professionals. The camps have proven to be the easy prey.

Considering the larger ambit, Bangladesh is used as a transit nation for drugs produced in the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand).

The Teknaf town, located in Cox’s Bazar, has gained a lot of limelight for being the notorious passageway for transporting drugs to Bangladesh where currently 15 syndicates are operating to smuggle the drug to the capital. The Rohingyas reside at the very heart of this gateway.

According to the stories published in various media reports, the smugglers visit deep within the camps or deserted forest or are fellow Rohingya neighbours from whom the package is received. Later the couriers travel to major cities in Bangladesh in public transport to deliver the package by passing the security checks by walking that stretch. Traffickers prefer using Rohingya women or children to act as the couriers since they remain lesser suspects. Thus, unsuspected women cross the security checks carrying their children along with the drugs. The drugs are even carried in one’s footwear, undergarments, belt, rectum and abdomen.

Thus, the traffickers are currently utilising the camps as a major marketplace and store house for ‘Yaba’. Not only is the drug coming in, but also the associated know-how comes along with it.

Though the law enforcing agency understands the gravity of the situation, it is at times helpless in order to address this issue.

There has been much debate regarding the reason for the continuation of the crime. Loophole in the Narcotics Control Act 1990 may be one of the major reasons facilitating the process for continuation.  For one, ‘Yaba’ did not feature as a drug of concern in the previous Act, probably since this drug has gained its popularity only in recent years. Also, earlier the drug dealers could get easy bails and thus were not detained for long. In December 2018, the government has enacted a Narcotics Control Act 2018 to strengthen the previous Act.

Whether this Act will bring about the desired effect is yet to be seen.

The last month’s surrender programme at Teknaf town saw 102 drug mafias and peddlers surrender  to the authorities. Though this is a major breakthrough, one has to take into account that many are still in the hiding and this puts the Rohingyas directly in charge to carry forward this business. It remains, however, unsure how far the poor Rohingyas  are aware of the consequence and gravity of the situation. Their status as refugees puts them in deeper trouble since they have no rights and thus the standard of protection falls in jeopardy.

From the humanitarian perspective, several UN reports have spoken about international attention towards human rights violations of Rohingyas. The international aid working with these groups are focussing on improving the basic livelihood of people which they are hoping may help reduce crimes within camps. But many a times, these aid agencies are more to do with reporting and self-glorifications. Funds are either mishandled or misused. On top of this, the fizzled repatriation efforts by the governments and international community have equally thwarted security attempts. Thus, integrated solutions either at a nation or regional level only gets procrastinated which shows the lack of urgency to address this issue. It is important to understand that social media can only generate mass attention whereas real solutions need to emerge from within the formal policy framework for rehabilitating these stateless people.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is keeping her campaign promise to put her radical agenda ahead of the best interests of children.

In 2015, Michigan’s legislature passed a law to protect the religious freedom of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies, assuring that they wouldn’t be forced to choose between their values and their mission to find homes for children. The bill was supported by the Michigan Catholic Conference.

Nessel, outspoken in her opposition to the law, promised that as Michigan’s top law enforcement official she would not defend this state law against a pending legal challenge by the ACLU of Michigan.

Now she has made good on that promise. In a settlement with the ACLU, she has decreed that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services must end state contracts with faith-based agencies, rather than allow them to make child placement decisions in accord with their religious beliefs.

Once again, Nessel demonstrates her contempt for the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, decreeing that faith-based agencies must check their religious principles at the door before they will be allowed to provide services for children in need.

She also demonstrates her contempt for the democratic process of her home state, arbitrarily overriding a law duly enacted by Michigan’s elected representatives.

Worst of all, by excluding faith-based agencies from the state’s foster care and adoption program, Nessel shows utter contempt for all the children served by those agencies. As the Michigan Catholic Conference observed, this settlement “does nothing to protect the thousands of children in foster care looking for loving homes.”

But that is of little concern to Nessel, an ideological extremist who has repeatedly demonstrated her animus toward the Catholic Church and people of faith. We expect her decision will be challenged in the courts.

Contact Kelly Rossman-McKinney, Nessel’s director of communications: rossmanmckinney@mi.gov

We may never know for sure whether Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to obtain Russia’s help in the 2016 election, in return for, say, Trump’s help in weakening NATO and not interfering against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Trump and his propaganda machine at Fox News have repeatedly conjured up a “witch hunt” and maintained a drumbeat of “no collusion,” which already has mired Robert Mueller’s report in a fog of alt-interpretation and epistemological confusion.

What’s “collusion?” What’s illegal? Has Trump obstructed justice? Has he been vindicated? What did Mueller conclude, exactly? What did he mean?

The real danger is that as attention inevitably turns to the 2020 campaign, controversy over the report will obscure the far more basic issues of Trump’s competence and character.

An American president is not just the chief executive of the United States, and the office he (eventually she) holds is not just a bully pulpit to advance policy ideas. He is also a moral leader, and the office is a moral pulpit invested with meaning about the common good.

A president’s most fundamental responsibility is to protect our system of government. Trump has weakened that system

As George Washington’s biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, explained, the first president believed he had been entrusted with something of immense intrinsic worth, and that his duty was to uphold it for its own sake and over the long term. He led by moral example.

Few of our subsequent presidents have come close to the example Washington set, but none to date has been as far from that standard as Trump.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, when accused of failing to pay his income taxes, Trump responded “that makes me smart.” His comment conveyed a message to millions of Americans: that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted.  “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.”

In other words, it’s perfectly OK for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy.

Trump sent another message by refusing to reveal his tax returns during the campaign or even when he took office, or to put his businesses into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, and by his overt willingness to make money off his presidency by having foreign diplomats stay at his Washington hotel, and promoting his various golf clubs.

These were not just ethical lapses. They directly undermined the common good by reducing the public’s trust in the office of the president.

A president’s most fundamental responsibility is to uphold and protect our system of government. Trump has weakened that system.

When, as a presidential nominee, he said a particular federal judge shouldn’t be hearing a case against him because the judge’s parents were Mexican,  Trump did more than insult a member of the judiciary. He attacked the impartiality of America’s legal system.

When Trump threatened to “loosen” federal libel laws so he could sue news organizations that were critical of him and, later, to revoke the licenses of networks critical of him, he wasn’t just bullying the media. He was threatening the freedom and integrity of the press.

When, as president, he equated neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, by blaming  “both sides”for the violence, he wasn’t being neutral. He was condoning white supremacists, thereby undermining equal rights.

When he pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa county, Arizona, for a criminal contempt conviction, he wasn’t just signaling it’s OK for the police to engage in brutal violations of civil rights. He was also subverting the rule of law by impairing the judiciary’s power to force public officials to abide by court decisions.

When he criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, he wasn’t really asking that they demonstrate their patriotism. He was disrespecting their – and, indirectly, everyone’s – freedom of speech.

In all these ways, Trump undermined core values of our democracy.

This is the essence of Trump’s failure – not that he has chosen one set of policies over another, or has divided rather than united Americans, or even that he has behaved in childish and vindictive ways unbecoming a president.

It is that he has sacrificed the processes and institutions of American democracy to achieve his goals.

By saying and doing whatever it takes to win, he has abused the trust we place in a president to preserve and protect the nation’s capacity for self-government.

Controversy over the Mueller report must not obscure this basic reality.

he recently-proposed Green New Deal is proof that climate change is for progressive Democrats what terrorism is for neoconservative Republicans: a ready-made excuse to expand government and curtail liberty. This radical plan would authorize the US government to seize control of major sectors of the US economy, phase out gasoline-fueled cars, make buildings “energy efficient,” and even replace air travel with rail travel.

Supporters of the Green New Deal claim that the science regarding the risk of climate change is “settled.” However, the science is far from settled. Many of the claims regarding climate change have been debunked.

Some supporters of policies like the Green New Deal have actually supported criminalizing dissent from the so-called “settled” science of climate change. This reveals the authoritarianism of some people demanding Americans give up real liberty and prosperity because of phantom fears of impending environmental disaster.

Like all forms of socialism, the Green New Deal suffers from what Ludwig von Mises identified as the “calculation problem.” Knowledge of the most efficient use of resources is conveyed by prices set in a free market. Prices reflect individuals’ subjective preferences regarding the best use of resources. When government uses force to remove resources from the marketplace, it makes it impossible for the price system to function, leaving government officials and private citizens unable to determine the most efficient use of resources. That is why every attempt at government management of the economy inevitably reduces the people’s standard of living.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has dismissed concerns regarding the almost 100 trillion dollars ten-year cost of implementing the Green New Deal by suggesting that Congress simply make the Federal Reserve pay for it by creating new money. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s claim is rooted in Modern Monetary Theory. This theory states that, when government controls the currency, it need not worry about running up large debt for welfare and war; it can have the central bank print more money to pay for more government.

Modern Monetary Theory is not modern. The Federal Reserve has facilitated the growth of government by printing money since its creation. It is no coincidence the birth of the Federal Reserve was immediately followed by the rise of the welfare-warfare state.

Whether done to monetize the federal debt or to jump-start economic growth, the Federal Reserve’s creation of new money harms the economy. In fact, Fed-induced distortions, caused by actions including money creation and interest rate manipulation, are the root cause of the boom-and-bust cycle that plagues the American economy. The Green New Deal would, in addition to its other negative impacts, hasten and deepen the inevitable Federal Reserve-caused economic crisis facing America. It would also increase the hidden and regressive inflation tax.

Ironically, the Green New Deal also would likely damage the environment. History shows that the most effective way to protect the environment is with a free-market economy that respects property rights. Therefore, those concerned with protecting the environment should support the free market, along with a legal system that holds private property owners accountable when their actions damage the environment or harm other individuals or their property.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By Ken Bredemeier and Ken Schwartz

A jubilant President Donald Trump on Monday praised special counsel Robert Mueller while fuming Democrats demanded the full release of his report on Russian election meddling, which is said to have cleared Trump of collusion with Moscow but not of possible obstruction of American justice.

Speaking at the White House, Trump affirmed that Mueller had acted honorably and that his conclusion was “100 percent the way it should have gone.”

For nearly two years, Trump had repeatedly blasted the special counsel probe as a “witch hunt.” With the investigation complete, the president said, “We can never, ever let this happen to another president again.”

On Sunday, Attorney General William Barr released a summary of Mueller’s findings from the exhaustive, 22-month probe, which led to dozens of indictments as well as guilty pleas from some of Trump’s closest former associates.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Barr said Mueller concluded that Russia unquestionably meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but that Trump and his campaign did not conspire with Moscow to help him win the White House.

On the question of obstruction, however, Barr wrote, “The report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” On that basis, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that charges against Trump were not warranted.

Reaction from lawmakers

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers had sharply differing reactions.

“For the president to say he is completely exonerated directly contradicts the words of Mr. Mueller and is not to be taken with any degree of credibility,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a joint statement.

The Democratic leaders added: “Attorney General Barr’s letter raises as many questions as it answers. The fact that Special Counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said on CNN, “Mueller’s report, at the least the summary that we’ve gotten from Barr, leaves wide open both the question of obstruction, and I think, makes it clear that other investigations should proceed.”

By contrast, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn urged Congress “to move on,” and that “the worst thing we could do is to get bogged down in a relitigation of all of these issues.”

At the same time, Cornyn urged the release of as much of the Mueller report as possible, consistent with Justice Department regulations and U.S. law. He also called for a review of steps taken by federal officials in launching the Russia investigation.

Full report

On Monday, Schumer urged a Senate vote on a resolution calling for the release of Mueller’s full report. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, objected, saying Barr must be given time to determine which portions of the report can be divulged without revealing classified information.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he hopes Barr will testify before his panel.

During the investigation, many Democrats repeatedly stated their belief that Trump’s inner circle did collude with Russia and that the president later sought to evade justice — pronouncements that did not go unnoticed by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

“It’s hard to obstruct a crime that never took place,” Sanders told CNN. “The Democrats and the liberal media owe the president, and they owe the American people, an apology. They wasted two years and created a massive disruption and distraction from things that impact people’s everyday lives.”

Investigation numbers

Mueller charged 25 Russians with election interference, although they are unlikely to stand trial because the United States and Russia do not have an extradition treaty.

He also has secured guilty pleas or won convictions for a variety of offenses against six Trump aides and advisers, including the president’s one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort; his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn; and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Barr’s summary noted that Mueller had 19 lawyers and 40 FBI agents working with him on the investigation, issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, talked to about 500 witnesses and carried out nearly 500 search warrants.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg underlined the importance and strength of the partnership between NATO and Georgia during a visit to the country on Monday (25 March 2019).

Stoltenberg is there to observe the NATO-Georgia exercise, training which will improve the ability of Georgian and NATO forces to work together. Speaking alongside Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Secretary General said the exercise shows how the Alliance and Georgia are stepping up their cooperation.

“We will continue working together to prepare Georgia for NATO membership,” Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg highlighted Georgia’s efforts to modernize its armed forces and to build more effective defense institutions.

Stoltenberg emphasized that NATO fully supports Georgia’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

“We call on Russia to end its recognition of the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and to withdraw its forces,” Stoltenberg said, adding, “We also share your concerns about Russia’s military build-up in the Black Sea region.”

“That is why we are strengthening the cooperation between Georgian and NATO naval forces,” Stoltenberg said.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Moscow’s dispatch of military personnel to Venezuela is increasing tensions there and warned that Washington will not “stand idly by.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said Pompeo called Lavrov on March 25 and said “the United States and regional countries will not stand idly by as Russia exacerbates tensions in Venezuela.”

Pompeo’s call came after a Venezuelan official said Russian aircraft arrived in Caracas over the weekend as part of ongoing military cooperation. Reports that two Russian Air Force planes arrived could not be independently confirmed. Russia supports Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“The continued insertion of Russian military personnel to support the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela risks prolonging the suffering of the Venezuelan people, who overwhelmingly support interim President Juan Guaido,” he said.

The United States and dozens of other countries support Venezuelan opposition leader Guaido, who says Maduro’s reelection last year was rigged.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Lavrov had complained of “attempts by Washington to organize a coup d’etat in Venezuela” during the telephone conversation with Pompeo.

The statement said such moves “constitute violations of the UN charter and undisguised interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”

US President Donald Trump officially recognized Israel’s sovereignty of the Golan Heights in Washington on Monday.

The document reverses more than a half-century of US policy as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House.

Trump had previewed the move in a tweet last week, in which he said the US would take the step after 52 years of Israeli occupation of the strategic highlands on the border with Syria.

Israel captured the region from Syria in 1967 but its sovereignty over the territory is not recognized by the international community.

Reaction across the Middle East widely denouced Trump’s decision, with the Syrian government calling Washington’s recognition of Israeli claims over the territory an attack on its sovereignty.

“In a blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, the president of the US has recognised the annexation of the Syrian Golan,” a foreign ministry source said, according to state news agency SANA.

“Trump does not have the right and the legal authority to legitimise the occupation,” the unnamed source said.

The president of the Arab Parliament, Dr. Mishaal bin Fahm Al-Salami, categorically rejected Trump’s decision, condemning it and saying it was “null and void” with “no legal effect,” according to Saudi Press Agency.

He pointed out that the American decision threatened the international order and “shook its foundations” and that it would increase tension and instability, as well as the peace and security of the region.

Lebanon also slammed the decision and Jordan rejected Trump’s recognition of “occupied Syrian territory.”

Last Friday, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) expressed regret at Donald Trump’s plan to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the territory.

Trump’s statement “will not change the reality that (…) the Arab Golan Heights is Syrian land occupied by Israel by military force in 1967,” said Abdul Latif Al Zayani, the GCC secretary general.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said he condemned the move by the US.

After Trump’s decision, Russia warned it would prompt a “new wave” of tensions in the Middle East region. Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the move “ignores all international procedures” and would “only aggravate the situation.”

“Unfortunately, this could drive a new wave of tensions in the Middle East region,” Zakharova said in a radio broadcast, according to Russian news agencies. 

Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov said the US decision leads to “a gross violation of international law, blocks the resolution of the Syrian crisis and aggravates the situation in all the Middle East,” he said during a telephone call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to his ministry.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said it was “impossible” for his country to accept Trump’s decision, and added his country would take action, including at the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was “clear that the status of the Golan has not changed,” according to a UN spokesman.

The move came on the same day that Israel’s military launched strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit a house and wounded seven Israelis.

Witnesses and a security source in Gaza told AFP there had been at least two strikes on a site belonging to Hamas’s military wing in the west of the Gaza Strip. Details were not yet clear on the strikes.

By Nijeesh N.*

On March 18, 2019, Husnu Al Suood, President of the Commission on Investigation of Murder and Enforced Disappearances, announced that four high-profile cases assigned to the Commission for investigation were successfully completed. Husnu Al Suood disclosed,

Though Suood did not reveal the name of the group, he confirmed that information would be made public soon in the Commission’s investigation report. He also accused the previous Government of being aware of the group as early as 2011, but failing to go after them for political reasons.

Significantly, soon after taking office on November 17, 2018, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih formed the Commission to investigate murders and enforced disappearance that occurred between January 1, 2012, and November 17, 2018 in the country. The Commission, with the aid of foreign experts, is currently probing a total of 24 such cases, including the four high-profile cases of the murder of Ungoofaaru Parliamentarian and religious scholar, Dr Afrasheem Ali on October 1, 2012; the abduction of well-known blogger and journalist Ahmed Rilwan, on August 8, 2014; the murder of popular liberal blogger and a strong voice against radical Islamist elements, Yameen Rasheed, on April 23, 2017; and the murder attempt on the blogger and human rights activist, Ismail Hilath Rasheed, on June 4, 2012.

Further, on November 22, 2018, President Solih ratified the Bill to repeal the Anti-Defamation and Freedom of Speech Act. Repealing the Anti-Defamation Act was one of President Solih’s major pledges, as the Maldivian Press saw the Act as a major blow to freedom of expression and freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution.

Indeed, the change of Government in the Maldives, the tiny archipelago in the Indian Ocean, has created optimism among the international community that it will no more remain a nation which will encourage Islamist extremist elements. Significantly, on February 26, 2019, President Solih, while urging its citizens not to advocate religious extremism, asserted that “ideologies that support radical Islam could upset the peace and security of the nation.”

Disturbingly, reports highlighting the ‘Islamisation’ of society, especially the radicalization of Maldivian youth which began to gather in the Maldives after the 2004 Tsunami, when several Islamic religious groups from Pakistan and the Middle East came to the Maldives in the guise of helping the affected people and began preaching radical Islam, were prevalent through 2018. The Pakistani footprint is glaring here. Large numbers of Maldivians have been provided free education in radicalized Pakistani madrassas, joined the jihad in Afghanistan and subsequently within Pakistan, and returned to propagate a hardline Islamism significantly at variance with indigenous practices. 

On January 15, 2018, Maldives’ Defence Minister Adam Shareef had disclosed that 61 Maldivians had travelled to Syria to fight along with jihadi groups, including Islamic State or Daesh and al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham – currently rebranded as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)]; and another 68 persons, including 59 adults and nine minors, were caught on their way to Syria. However, according to an ICSR report on Women and Minors of Islamic State published in July 2018, around 200 Maldivians, including 12 females and five minors, were fighting in Syria and Iraq, which make Maldives the world’s second largest number of foreign fighters ‘per capita’ (500 fighters per million population), after Tunisia (at 545.5 fighters per million).

There were also several reports of Maldivian nationals arrested before leaving the country to join global jihad. For instance, on June 6, 2018, Maldives Police arrested a group of Maldivians, who were attempting to go and fight in Syria, from Velana International Airport in Male. One of the arrested persons had been banned from travelling by a court order after an earlier attempt (on an unspecified date) to join the Syrian war. He had tried to leave again after the ban was lifted.

The National Counter-terrorism Centre (NCTC) disclosed, on February 20, 2019, that families of some Maldivian insurgents killed in foreign conflicts are currently requesting permission to return to the country. Director General of NCTC Brigadier Zakariyya Mansoor disclosed, “We are talking about families that are struggling alone, without any other options due to their husbands dying in war. Out of these families, six are making contact with us.” According to various releases from Islamic State and al Qaeda-affiliated groups, around 24 Maldivians have already been killed in different conflict zones of the Middle East.

Indeed, as the Islamic State rapidly loses ground in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, the foreign fighters have started retuning home, to their countries of origin, including Maldives, which further threatens security within these countries. Worryingly, reports indicate that there is a dearth of measures to tackle this situation. According to an April 16, 2018, report, an unnamed Maldivian man who, along with wife and child went to Syria and participated jihadi activities alongside with Islamic State, returned to Maldives in March 2018. The Man who was from Kaafu Atoll Guraidhoo island, started living in the capital Male and was not even questioned by Police following his return.

Even the country’s judiciary system came under suspicion when terror suspects having links with the Islamic were freed by on trivial grounds. Prominent among such incidents were:

November 4, 2018: The Criminal Court in Male released two suspected terrorists, Ishag Ali and Hussein Afeef, who were arrested on an unspecified date in September 2017 for their connection with Islamic State. The Court granted a conditional release based upon their physical illness and its treatment during the detention and the government’s failure to ‘respond’ to it. The arrestees were planning to carry out a suicide attack in the capital, Male.

October 2018: The Criminal Court in Male released two suspects, who were charged with terrorism in connection with a separate bomb attack conspiracy, on medical grounds. The two men were among four Islamic State suspects arrested in April 2017 for allegedly planning bomb attacks in five areas of Male.

On July 23, 2018: Ali Shafeeq, who was charged for leaving the Maldives to join the Syrian civil war, was cleared of all charges and released by the Criminal Court on the grounds that the prosecutor could not prove that he had left the Maldives to join the Syrian civil war.

The political establishment’s direct role in such acts of support to radical elements was also highlighted. On September 21, 2018, the Maldives Government demolished an artwork created by famous British artist and environmentalist Jason de Caires Taylor at a semi-submerged art gallery, Coralarium, after a court ruled that the ‘human-like sculptures’ in the artwork were ‘anti-Islamic idols’. The court ruled the artwork was a threat to “Islamic unity and the peace and interests of the Maldivian state” and that its removal was necessary to “protect the five tenets of Islamic shariah”, as the depiction of human figures in art is discouraged under Islamic law. Though the Government had given prior permission to build the art gallery, then President Abdulla Yameen ordered its demolition in July 2018, arguing that “significant public sentiment” against the artwork had guided his decision to destroy it.

According to reports, the Class IX Islamic studies textbook carries lesson which tells students that “performing jihad against people that obstruct the religion” is an obligation and promises that “Islam ruling over the world is very near.” While promising a ‘caliphate’, the textbook also says, “This is something that the Jews and Christians do not want. It is why they collaborate against Islam even now.”

With so much open support, radical elements were thriving. On August 21, 2018, the Eid al-Adha celebration event at Maafaru Island in Noonu Atoll, depicted the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in US. The photos circulated on social media showed men armed with pretend rifles and a tower with a US flag on top of it; a plastic plane on a zip-line crashes into the tower, with smoke and fire billowing out.

Amidst all this, the Maldives went through a cycle of political crises during 2018. Then President Abdulla Yameen declared a ‘state of emergency’ in the country on February 5, 2018, which eventually ended after 45 days on March 22, 2018. He also jailed several political opponents and judges after filing terrorism charges against them during the emergency. However, amidst all this political uncertainty and upheavals, Presidential election went through without any major incidents of violence. In the elections held on September 23, 2018, sitting President Abdulla Yameen was defeated by the opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. Subsequently, Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)-led Joint Opposition (JO) formed the Government and Solih took oath on November 17, 2018.

Since assuming power, Solih has tried to implement some corrective measures to bring a change in a country which has a history of using ‘Islamist mobilization’ to the political advantage of ruling regimes. The major challenge for the new President will be to sustain these measures.

*Nijeesh N.
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

By M. A. Athul*

On March 18, 2019, the Mizoram State Assembly unanimously passed the Mizoram Maintenance of Household Register Bill, 2019, which aims to create registers containing the names, details and photographs of every resident of the State, on a household basis, in an effort to detect ‘illegal foreigners’.

The Bill states,

The Bill further states that once the information prescribed by the State Government is received, the concerned registering authority will compile the details in two distinct registers – one for citizen residents and another for non-citizen residents of a village/area/town.

Talking about the bill, Mizoram Chief Minister (CM) Zoramthanga stated,

He also added that “large scale influx of foreigners and their mala fide assimilation” with the permanent residents in the villages of Mizoram has led to an “abnormal increase in the population” and poses a law and order threat.

Significantly, on March 15, 2019, Minister for Local Administration K. Lalrinliana informed the State Assembly that immigrants had set up at least 25 ‘illegal villages’ along the international border with Bangladesh and Myanmar and State border with Manipur: 16 villages in Lunglei District, four in Aizawl, three in Champhai and two in Mamit. The Minister added that, besides illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar, people from Manipur and Tripura were also residing in these villages, though he gave no estimate of the number of such people.

Though the ramifications of the Bill are still to manifest themselves, its passage clearly shows that the issue of illegal immigration is of urgent significance for the people in Mizoram, as in all other areas of the region.

Not surprisingly, the State had vehemently opposed the attempted introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) 2019. In a significant incident which indicated the deep-rooted apprehensions regarding CAB, Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP), the apex students’ body, and the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the apex Mizo youth organisation, boycotted Republic Day (January 26) and forcibly prevented two officers of the Indian Administration Service (IAS) from attending Republic Day functions in Aizawl. Moreover, no member of the general public attended Republic Day related events throughout the State as a boycott call was given by the Mizoram Joint NGO Coordination Committee, an umbrella group of civil society organisations and student bodies. 

Additionally, on February 13, 2019, former Chief Minister of the State Lal Thanhawla, while attending an agitation program against CAB, held a banner which read ‘Hello independent republic of Mizoram’. Earlier, on February 12, the State observed a ‘black day’ protesting the CAB proposal. Protests were held in Aizawl and all seven District Headquarters of the State to protest against CAB. Many protesters in Aizawl held placards with statements such as ‘Welcome Independent Republic of Mizoram’ and ‘Hello New Christian Country’.

While the issue of illegal migration continues to haunt the State, the repatriation of Brus is another concern. About 30,000 Brus (5,000 families) had fled from Mizoram to Tripura in the wake of ethnic clashes with the dominant Mizos in September 1997. According to a January 2019 report, out of 5,000 refugee families who were to be repatriated to Mizoram between August 25 and September 25, 2018, following the meeting, only 150 members of 42 families actually returned.

Drug use in the State is also a serious issue. With a population of just over a million (1,097,206 according to the 2011 Census), Mizoram recorded 36 deaths due to drug abuse in 2018. According to the Mizoram Excise Department, at least 60 people died of drug abuse in 2017; 59 in 2016; 27 in 2015; and 38 in 2014. The number of drug related deaths had peaked in 2004, with 142 deaths. In 2017, the then State Health Minister Lal Thanzara had stated that there were about 25,000 drug users in Mizoram.

According to a 2014 Narcotics Department report, Mizoram makes for an attractive drug trafficking route.  Vanlalruatna, President of YMA, which is also involved in actions against drugs, noted that a large proportion of drugs smuggled to the rest of the country pass through Mizoram. According to Mizoram Excise and Narcotics Department data, heroin recovery between 2013 to 2018 increased from 0.827 kilograms in 2013 to 3.126 kilograms in 2014 which climbed to 4.088 in 2015 and 4.039 kilograms in 2016. In 2017 the recovered quantity of heroin was 6.186 kilograms; and in 2018, 8.716 kilograms. (Recoveries are a tiny proportion of the total traffic and local use).

The border region of the State has also periodically faced the spill over effect of insurgency from neighbouring Myanmar. On March 11, 2019, a man from Bangdukbanga village located along the border was wounded in a landmine explosion near boundary pillar number two on the Indo-Myanmar border. Earlier, on January 15, 2018, one Indian was wounded in an improvised explosive device (IED) planted by Myanmar militants in Lawngtlai District along the Indo-Myanmar border. Separately another civilian was wounded in a similar incident along the Myanmar border.  

On February 17, 2019, two additional companies of the Indian Army were moved to Lawngtlai District along the Indo-Myanmar border following fresh clashes between the Myanmar Army and the rebel Arakan Army (AA). Troops were deployed to prevent the militants from entering India and also to facilitate processing of refugees. In November 2017, around 1,750 people from the Arakan area in the Rakhine State of Myanmar took refuge in Mizoram, following clashes between AA and the Myanmar Army. On February 19, 2019, Mizoram Inspector General of Police (Intelligence & Law and Order) L. H. Shanliana disclosed that about 230 Myanmar refugees from 60 families out of 1,750 people, who entered Mizoram in November 2017, were still in Hmawngbuchhuah village in Lawngtlai District. He also added that no fresh entry of refugees into Mizoram from neighbouring Myanmar had been reported.  

Amidst these irritants, through 2018, Mizoram continued to consolidate the established peace further. For the third consecutive year, the State did not register any insurgency-related fatality. The last militancy-related fatality had occurred on March 28, 2015, when three Policemen were killed in an ambush by the Democratic faction of Hmar People’s Convention (HPC-D) near Zokhawthiang in Aizawl District. Moreover, the last insurgency-related incident in Mizoram was reported on April 16, 2017, when three militants of the Bru Democratic Front of Mizoram (BDFM) were arrested in south Mizoram’s Lawngtlai District, while trying to enter Mizoram from Bangladesh.  

Significantly, after the signing of the Mizo Accord between the Mizo National Front (MNF) and Government of India (GoI) on June 30, 1986, the Mizo insurgent movement died out. Though no data is available for the period between July 1, 1986, and December 31, 1991, according to data available with the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) website there have been a total of 49 fatalities (15 civilians, 25 civilians and nine militants) since then (data till March 22, 2019). The groups responsible for these fatalities primarily included the United Democratic Liberation Army (UDLA), National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isaak Muivah (NSCN-IM) and Hmar People’s Convention – Democracy (HPC-D). The other groups that became active after 1991 include the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), formed in 1996; Bru Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM), formed in 2003, and surrendered in 2005; the Bru Democratic Front of Mizoram (BDFM), formed in 2008. Though BDFM has not surrendered, it has no noticeable presence.  

Meanwhile, peace talks between the Mizoram Government and BNLF began on September 7, 2001. At least 12 rounds of talks have been held between 2001 and 2005. The Mizoram Government and BNLF signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on April 26, 2005, and the group surrendered. However, in April 2018, the surrendered militants requested the Mizoram Government to implement the provision of the Peace Accord they signed with the State Government. There is no further news on this development. 

In a significant development the Mizoram Government and the H. Zosangbera faction of the Hmar People’s Convention-Democratic (HPC-D-Zosangbera) on April 2, 2018, signed  a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS).

The irritants which have been allowed to linger for a long time need to be addressed, lest they manifest themselves in a more serious form in the future. Given that identity politics has been rejuvenated as a result of the CAB protests, the possibility of identity-based agitations getting further momentum in Mizoram is likely.

*M. A. Athul
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management