By Daniel Wagner

Last week’s passage into law of the controversial anti-gay bill in Uganda puts the country among an elite club of nations noteworthy for their backpedaling on human and civil rights. Kampala has experienced widespread condemnation for its action, and funding from the World Bank and two European governments has already been suspended. President Obama and the U.S. Congress must now decide whether to restrict aid to the country, but geopolitical considerations may ultimately determine the extent to which Kampala will be penalized by Washington.

As a host of a U.S. military presence and a major contributor to the African Union Mission in Somalia, Washington has long viewed Kampala as a strategic ally in Central and East Africa. Given Uganda’s geographic proximity to a range of conflicts where Western interests are at stake — such as the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and South Sudan — a sophisticated military partnership with Uganda serves several of Washington’s strategic interests in the region. The $1 billion in aid that Washington has provided to Uganda since Obama took office underscores the value of this alliance from Washington’s perspective.

Since major oil fields have been discovered in portions of Uganda in recent years, the country will likely remain under the West’s radar for the foreseeable future. Moreover, as Libya and Iraq remain destabilized, Western energy firms will likely look to Uganda as a new location for business, particularly given that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been weakened in northern Uganda and constitutes less of a risk for foreign investors compared to several years ago.

The West’s punishment of other African countries for human rights violations (such as Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe) pushed these governments closer to China during the 20th century — for that reason it is sensitive to the notion that any move to isolate Uganda in response to human rights violations could push President Museveni closer to China. If history serves as any guide, China will not issue any criticism of Uganda’s anti-gay legislation. On the contrary, business between the two countries should continue as usual, if not grow. As Washington has been cautious about taking concrete moves to punish Uganda’s government, the China factor is surely a consideration in the minds of U.S. policymakers.

In recent years, China’s economic footprint in Uganda has rapidly expanded. In 2011, Uganda’s trade with China overtook Uganda’s trade with the United Kingdom, its former colonial ruler. Chinese-Ugandan bilateral trade increased 35 percent between 2012 and 2013, reaching $538 million last year. Last September, China’s state-owned oil company won a $2 billion contract in Uganda to develop the Kingfisher oil field, which holds an estimated 635 million barrels of oil and will have an initial production capacity of 30,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Uganda’s Ministry of Energy. In 2012, China’s Ambassador to Uganda estimated that nearly 200 Uganda-based Chinese firms employ 30,000 Ugandan workers.

Since the 1990s, China’s government has invested heavily in Uganda, mainly in the form of infrastructure, education/technical assistance, interest-free/soft loans and debt relief. In 2012, a ceremony was held for the 22-mile long Kampala-Entebbe Expressway, Uganda’s first expressway, which links Uganda’s capital to the country’s international airport and is financed with $350 million in soft loans from China’s Export Import Bank. Chinese engineers have played a crucial role in developing railways and hydroelectric dams across Uganda, providing the country with much needed funds and expertise. In 2007, China and Uganda signed a debt cancellation protocol forgiving Uganda for all debt to China from prior to 2005.

While China’s aid comes with no strings attached, Western aid often requires that Kampala modify domestic policy in order to receive assistance. In a show of defiance against the West, a spokesperson for the Ugandan government stated that his country “can’t force the West to give it their money, and they shouldn’t force homosexuality on Uganda.” He specifically referred to the World Bank’s decision to withhold aid as a “decadence trap.” The reality, however, is that as one of the world’s poorest countries, Uganda remains dependent on foreign aid to finance 20 percent of its annual budget. Speculation that Western nations would withhold aid has already shaken the Ugandan economy, but Mr. Museveni was well aware of the political and economic risks associated with enacting the legislation.

Across Africa, China’s “soft-power” appears to have largely benefited from Beijing’s tendency toward non-interventionist foreign policy. Whereas Western outrage over the anti-gay bill was dismissed by officials in Kampala as “arrogant” “social imperialism,” China’s neutral stance toward such domestic affairs is interpreted by Museveni and other African leaders as respect for African states’ sovereignty. This, combined with China’s growing economic reach in Africa and globally, implies that Uganda is no longer solely allied with the West. Although most of Uganda’s aid continues to come from the West, a pivot toward China appears to be taking place.

For now, Uganda’s government remains defiant of Western governments and the international human rights organizations that pleaded with Museveni to reject the law. There is no indication that any pressure from the West will prompt Kampala to rescind the legislation. The truth is that the anti-gay law received widespread support from a society that maintains ultra-conservative and intolerant views on homosexuality. If the White House determines that reducing foreign aid to Uganda will do nothing to improve the plight of Uganda’s oppressed gay community, but will only serve to push Uganda closer to China while risking the loss of a strategic military partner, there is good reason to believe that the law will remain on the books and American taxpayer dollars will continue to flow into Kampala. Museveni may very well have his cake and eat it too.

Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions, Senior Advisor with Gnarus Advisors, and author of the book “Managing Country Risk”. Giorgio Cafiero is a research analyst with CRS based in Washington.

This article was published at Huffington Post and reprinted with permission.

The article The Geopolitics Of Gay Rights In Uganda – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IDN

By Julio Godoy

The U.S. government is unofficially accusing Russia of violating the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, by flight testing two-stage ground-based cruise missile RS-26.

Although the U.S. government has not officially commented on the alleged Russian violation of the INF, which prohibits both countries to producing, testing and deploying ballistic and cruise missiles, and land-based missiles of medium (1,000 to 5,500 kilometres) and short (500 to 1,000 kilometres) range, high ranking members of the government in Washington have been leaking information to U.S. media, in a moment of particular tense relations with Moscow.

In 1987, after years of negotiations, both the NATO and the then Soviet Union agreed to destroy and to stop production of all missiles and related weapons, for instance the U.S. Pershing Ib and Pershing II and the BGM-109G Gryphon arsenals. Moscow, on its part, eliminated the whole SS missile series, including the SSC-X-4, in 1987 its most modern, land-based cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.

According to a report by the New York Times, the tested missile RS-26 aims at filling “the gap left in the missile potential of Russia as a result of the limitation of INF.” The newspaper also indicated that mid-January, the acting Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller informed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of the U.S. data.

U.S. military experts, such as Dan Blumenthal and Mark Stokes of the American Enterprise Institute, say that the main Russian problem with the INF is that China is not bound by it and continues to build up its own Intermediate-Range forces. In a comment for the Washington Post, Blumenthal and Stokes wrote that “Moscow has already threatened to pull out if China does not sign the treaty.”

If the U.S. reports are true, the Russian tests would confirm what numerous peace and anti-nuclear weapons activists have been warning about since several years, that the NATO and Russia are engaged in a new nuclear arms race, despite all the bilateral talk about disarmament.

For the NATO has also been “filling the gaps” of its nuclear capability, in particular with the ongoing plan to “modernise” its arsenal of B61 nuclear weapons, stationed all over Western Europe.

Additionally, practically all nuclear states, including India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan have at one time or other in recent years improved their arsenal on middle range rockets and nuclear weapons.

The formidable B61 arsenal stationed in Europe is a remnant of the Cold War. The actual number of such weapons of mass destruction is a top military secret, but some 20 of these are reported to be deployed in Germany, in the military basis near the village of Buechel, in the southwest of the country. Another undetermined number, up to 200 such weapons, are deployed in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, all members of the NATO.

According to the NATO, or, rather, to the U.S. government, the modernisation of this nuclear arsenal is necessary given the archaic character of the B61 weapons. They are so-called dumb or “gravity” weapons, to be dropped from war planes over target zones, and be guided by a radar that, according to U.S. senate hearings, was constructed in the 1960s and originally designed for “a five-year lifetime”.

Dropping such dumb nuclear weapons from an airplane would mean that, even in case they operate as expected, vast areas would be obliterated from the face of the earth.

Additional dangers

The old B61 nuclear bombs manifest several additional dangers, especially for the own NATO armies and European populations: In 2005, a U.S. Air Force review discovered that procedures used during maintenance of the nuclear weapons in Europe held a risk that a lightning strike could trigger a nuclear detonation.

In 2008, yet another U.S. Air Force review concluded that “most” nuclear weapons locations in Europe did not meet U.S. security guidelines and would “require significant additional resources” to bring these up to standard.

All these risks were confirmed during several hearings at the U.S. congress late last year, and during which military officials explained the range of modernisation the B61 arsenal is expected to go through.

Officially, the U.S. government has dubbed this modernisation of the B61 arsenal “a full-scope Life Extension Program (LEP)”, as Madelyn R. Creedon, assistant secretary of defence for global strategic affairs, told a session of subcommittee of the House of Representatives last October. [Read more: http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=747337]

During the session, Creedon described the B61 as “the oldest warhead design in the U.S. nuclear stockpile, with several components dating from the 1960s.” She added that its modernisation “will meet military requirements and guarantee an extended service life coupled with more affordable sustainment costs; and it will incorporate the upgrades that (the National Nuclear Security Administration) NNSA deems mandatory to provide a nuclear stockpile that is safe, secure, and effective.”

During the same hearing, General C. R. Kehler, head of the U.S. strategic command, told the representatives what many peace activists have been saying since years, but the NATO always and only until recently denied. “The average B61 is over 25 years old, contains antiquated technology, and requires frequent handling for maintenance,” Kehler said. “Only through extraordinary measures has this aging family of weapons remained safe, secure and effective far beyond its originally planned operational life.”

If the schedule for the modernisation is to be respected, the new B61-12 weapons will be ready by 2020, and the programme would have cost at least eight billion U.S. dollars, according to the NNSA’s current estimate.

However, as the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan research organisation, has pointed out, an independent U.S. Defence Department assessment found that the actual cost could be higher than $10 billion. At this price, the LEP will cost $25 million per bomb. The Centre recalls too, that the Ploughshares Fund complained that at this cost each refurbished B61 will be worth more than its weight in gold.

According to critics of the LEP, the modernisation won’t mean only “a life extension programme”, but instead a formidable increase of the weapons’ capabilities.

Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, and one of the most distinguished civil experts on nuclear weapons, says that new features of the weapons contradict early pledges by U.S. authorities that the LEP “will not support new military missions (n)or provide for new military capabilities.”

However, new information about the LEP indicates precisely the contrary.

“The addition of a guided tail kit will increase the accuracy of the B61-12 compared with the other weapons and provide new warfighting capabilities,” Kristensen says. “The tail kit is necessary, officials say, for the 50-kilotons B61-12 (with a reused B61-4 warhead) to be able to hold at risk the same targets as the 360-kilotons B61-7 warhead. But in Europe, where the B61-7 has never been deployed, the guided tail kit will be a significant boost of the military capabilities – an improvement that doesn’t fit the promise of reducing the role of nuclear weapons.”

For comparison, the ‘Little boy’ nuclear bomb with which the U.S. destroyed on August 6, 1945 the Japanese city of Hiroshima had an explosive yield of between 13 and 18 kilotons. The ‘Fat man’ bomb that destroyed Nagasaki three days later had a yield of up to 22 kilotons.

During the October 2013 hearings at the U.S. House of Representatives, it became also clear that B61-12 would replace the old B61-11, a single-yield 400-kiloton nuclear earth-penetrating bomb introduced in 1997, and the B83-1, a strategic bomb with variable yields up to 1,200 kilotons.

For Kristensen, “The(se) military capabilities of the B61-12 will be able to cover the entire range of military targeting missions for gravity bombs, ranging from the lowest yield of the B61-4 (0.3 kilotons) to the 1,200-kiloton B83-1 as well as the nuclear earth-penetration mission of the B61-11.”

Such upgrading of the destruction capabilities would make the new arsenal an “all-in-one nuclear bomb on steroids, spanning the full spectrum of gravity bomb missions anywhere.”

Most problematic

This extraordinary improvement of the B61 arsenal’s mass destruction potential is the most problematic, for the European governments concerned, in particular in Germany, have since at least 2009 openly expressed their wishes to dismantle the weapons.

In reaction to the historic speech U.S. president Barack Obama made in the Czech capital Prague in April 2009, where he called the nuclear weapons spread across the world “the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War”, the Berlin government of the time argued in favour of the dismantling the archaic B61 stationed on German soil.

In what it was called “an unprecedented statement”, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Social Democratic German foreign minister of the time, called for the withdrawal of the U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in his country. In April 2009, only days after Obama’s speech in Prague, Steinmeier told the German magazine Der Spiegel that “the (B61 nuclear) weapons are militarily obsolete today” and promised that he would take steps to ensure that the remaining U.S. warheads “are removed from Germany.”

In the two years that followed, the next German conservative government, represented by its new foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, continued to make the case for dismantling the B61 arsenal. Like his predecessor Steinmeier, Westerwelle, serving for the Christian Democratic-Liberal ruling coalition, made the arguments of the anti-nuclear weapons activists his own, and recalled that such arsenal is in many ways obsolete, for it was conceived to be used in conjunction with other armament that itself is out of use, and it aimed at an enemy – the Soviet bloc – that had ceased to exist.

On March 2010, a large majority of the German parliament, the Bundestag, passed a resolution unequivocally demanding the withdrawal of the “U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil.”

But both Steinmeier and Westerwelle failed at convincing the NATO in general, and the U.S. government in particular, to follow. Instead, they had to kowtow before the fait accompli decided in Washington, that the B61 arsenal be modernised to become, to again use Hans Kristensen’s aptly description, an “all-in-one nuclear bomb on steroids.”

Steinmeier is again foreign minister, but he long ago ceased to discuss the matter in public. He may have “gotten shell-shocked by the pushback from the old nuclear guard in NATO,” as Kristensen said of Westerwelle on the same question.

At least, Steinmeier less than two years ago signed a declaration by a group of German parliamentarians representing all political parties, in which they insisted that the U.S. nuclear arsenal be removed from Germany. In the declaration, Steinmeier, at the time leader of the social Democratic parliamentarian group, and colleagues accused the then ruling conservative Christian Democratic-Liberal coalition of having failed at reaching the same goal. “Worst still: By now it seems as if the government has said goodbye to this goal.”

The same accusation can be made this time against Steinmeier, again German foreign minister: He has not lived up to his own conviction, that the NATO nuclear weapons must be removed from European soil. The new NATO-Russia crisis caused by the turmoil in Ukraine will certainly help him to argue his change of mind.

Julio Godoy is an investigative journalist and IDN Associate Global Editor. He has won international recognition for his work, including the Hellman-Hammett human rights award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Investigative Reporting Online by the U.S. Society of Professional Journalists, and the Online Journalism Award for Enterprise Journalism by the Online News Association and the U.S.C. Annenberg School for Communication, as co-author of the investigative reports “Making a Killing: The Business of War” and “The Water Barons: The Privatisation of Water Services”.

The article NATO And Russia Caught In New Nuclear Arms Race – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Peter Tase

Book review on “A day With a Moon and Bride”, published by Gjon Buzuku Press (1991), Prishtina, Kosovo.

Poetry as a genre, not only as a drama but also as heroic, demands its coherence, time. Time of poetry exists. In Albanian literature there are four centuries influenced by poetry as a clear and individualized genre. Berisha’s poetry has its influence over the unattractive genres of drama, novel, essay, and treatise. Why? Due to the fact that his poetry in its wideness and depth and in its preferred signs is the work of a creative Albanian poet, shows a familiarity and “ability” over all “to speak” through characters that create perfectly shaped characters and figures.

Figurative language, poetry, was although an alibi and a greater space to express the reasons and motives of modernity, predominantly the societal current status, at least more than it demanded to express the drama of an individual, even if it may a lyrical approach, an intimate world of individual particularities, although Albanian poetry in the last four decades was not restrained from this traditional nature of a poetry as a genre.

In a “simple” innovation that was promised by a contemporary poetic genre, it became attractive for many more poets (perhaps we can say) even for three or four more young generations of writers, in which Engjell Berisha plays a critical role, who gave priority to such a genre even more important than dramas and novels. First of all, because the “softness of creation” was speculated in what was called as the Licentia Poetica, in the borderless freedom “of maneuvering” in style and linguistics, “a maneuvering” that could not go through the traditional critical analysis, therefore from this creative speculation, except only a few names who for a half a century became famous writers of great innovation and left behind a genuine literary work, on the spot light emerged also a significant number of new “poets”.

A conviction that anyone can write poetry (in a literature where contemporary novels and plays are missing), and its impossibility to become the certification of its value during its created time, steadily it brought a great loss towards loosing its prestige of being the queen of genres, not to say that it is loosing its readers, or better said the reader would be searching for the writer and not for poetry. This made the author a defender of poetry and made him a principal player to not have poetry create its superiority against the other genres. Therefore in Albanian Literature are welcomed with great interest other genres such as Essays, Novel, Drama, since this style of writing leaves less possibility for a speculative nature.

The poetry of Engjell Berisha is part of the youngest generation of our writers, the youngest among the young. It is distinguished with new language style which is different from the standard unreformed school which derives from the teaching of its previous generation, the poetry that demands cohesion that imposes its reasons, the objection to be accurate and constantly marked only to express more lucidly possible and clearly any subject.

As a consequence, the poetry of Engjell Berisha uncovers a new poetical image, and this is his greatest value: the intimate world that would not be transparent from a reality, the world that seems it is shrinking in the intimacy of this poet, to express from his verses the whole drama of a day, coherence. Berisha is exemplified as a poet who doesn’t want to participate in the philharmonic orchestra of those figures that have been digested and re-digested on the contents of poetical motives. Especially because it is a particular voice and a rare character of a creative individual, his first book is also a guarantee that we keep in our hands the first volume of a prosperous writing career.

This would be the first reason of a publisher: the possibility that ought to be given to those that have not had a chance to be part of a deception emerging from creativity, difficulties that erupt relatively from a “creative time”. Since this is the first book of Engjell Berisha; the poetry of this book will represent him genuinely rather than these few words.

Biography

Engjell I. Berisha, was born on June 17th, 1962 in Korenice, District of Gjakova. During his studies on Albanian Language and Literature in Prishtina, has frequently published on periodicals since 1985 and continued for many years.

Published his first book in 1990 while continuing later with four poetry volumes. In 1993 established the Literary magazine “Fiction Magazine” while serving as its managing editor. Has been a contributor on almost every newspaper published in Kosova, while in 1995-1999, worked as an investigative journalist in the daily “Bota Sot” and in the weekly “Eurozeri”.

In 1997 in the traditional conferences of Gjeçovi, earned the annual prize for best poetry. In 2002, in the conference of poetry, won the prize of “poetry gathering” with his book entitled: “Çati eshtrash”(House Ceiling of Dreams).

In December 2006, won a literary prize, “Serembe on Poetry” with his book, “Drunken memory” from the Art Club of Laç. His verses are included in the anthology “To whom are you fatherland”, authored by Ali Podrimja.

During the last war of Kosovo, in the last massacre known as the Massacre of “Mejës e Korenicës” both of his brothers were killed and his uncle, his house was burned including his library with more than three thousand books. Therefore all his manuscripts and publications were burned. This is the reason why he has republished this collection of poetry, with the first volumes burned and with other works written on the topics of Kosovo War which he experienced first hand.

Is the founder and managing editor of the journal of those Missing in Action and have Dissapeared “April 27”. Since 2005 is the chairman of the Literary Club “Gjon Nikolle Kazazi”, in Gjakova. For many years has been a staff member and for fifteen years serves as the director of the regional “Ibrahim Rugova” Library in Gjakova.

The article Engjell I. Berisha: A Writer Of Simple Innovations And Courage – Review appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Penza News

The international community must act on evidence that crimes against humanity are being committed in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said the experts of UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights in the DPRK in their report, which in great detail documents the “unspeakable atrocities” committed in the country by the authorities.

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” says the document.

The report documents crimes such as murder, rape, torture, forced abortions persecution on political and gender grounds, and other human rights violations.

According to the published information, between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners are currently held in four North Korean prison camps, where deliberate starvation is used as a means of control and punishment.

The Commission found that the DPRK displays many attributes of a totalitarian State.

“There is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association,” the report says.

“The key to the political system is the vast political and security apparatus that strategically uses surveillance, coercion, fear and punishment to preclude the expression of any dissent. Public executions and enforced disappearance to political prison camps serve as the ultimate means to terrorize the population into submission,” the document states.

Navi Pillay, United Nations Head Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that this historic report leaves no justification for inaction of the international community.

“[The Commission of Inquiry] has published a historic report, which sheds light on violations of a terrifying scale, the gravity and nature of which – in the report’s own words – do not have any parallel in the contemporary world. There can no longer be any excuses for inaction,” quotes her the official website of the United Nations.

According to Roseann Rife, East Asia Research Director at Amnesty International, the gravity and nature of human rights violations in DPRK are off the scale.

“The UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council should seize this opportunity and use their power and influence to ensure the North Korean government acts on the Commission’s findings. The people of North Korea deserve no less,” she noted.

Roseanne Rife also called for the international community not to stand idle after receiving the evidence of “these incomprehensible crimes.”

“The Commission’s findings reinforce the need for the UN Security Council to raise human rights alongside security and peace when it comes to North Korea,” she added.

However, Hazel Smith, Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies UCLan, takes a different point of view. In her article “Crimes Against Humanity?” published in “Critical Asian Studies” journal, she says that much of the analysis does not follow the guidelines of scientific research.

In her opinion, the authors of the document mostly used information that fit their assumptions. For example, she notes almost complete absence of reference of data collected by other UN agencies, donor governments and nongovernmental organizations, particularly in the issues of food and medicine distribution.

“North Korea’s nutritional statistics are […] similar to many other countries with low levels of economic development. What these statistics reveal is not a government that is starving its children, but an economic and food crisis of long duration,” Hazel Smith specified.

“Governments have the right to implement sanctions against other countries, but the way the debate is framed on North Korea is noticeable for the absence of discussion of the perennial dilemma as to whether sanctions damage the government or the long-suffering populations,” she emphasized.

Hazel Smith also noted the tendency of most news agencies to demonstrate and distribute information on DPRK using a scheme similar to one used to inform the public about the Nicaraguan Revolution and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

“Common knowledge about Korea is not conveyed in a vacuum but organized and disseminated in order to persuade politicians to go to war,” she stated.

In turn, John Swenson-Wright, Chatham House senior consulting fellow on Asia Programme, said that UN report on North Korea was “not unexpected.”

“The report exposes and demonstrates that the North Korean human rights record is appalling. It is an opportunity for the international community, for the first time, to document in real detail the extents and the long-standing pattern of human rights abuse [in DPRK]. We know from the testimony of defectors that many people are held in what are effectively concentration camps and punished without any means of appeal, and often the physical conditions of those people concentrated in camps is such that many people die in captivity,” the expert said in an interview with news agency “PenzaNews.”

He suggested that there will be “very little if any steps” taken by North Korea in response to this report, but placed emphasis on the symbolic and rhetorical significance of the conducted investigation.

Also, the analyst pointed out the critical role of China in this conflict and said that the situation will depend on whether it approves the recommendations of the UN report to move to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In his opinion, this will not happen, because China is not going to sanction such measures.

“I think the human rights abuse is the case that should be in the spotlight of international attention on the DPRK, making clear that international community is solely opposed to this, and raising public awareness. More than that, it requires a much more ambitious agenda trying to find mechanisms to bring DPRK back into the international community and deal with a nuclear issue,” he said.

David Hawk, the leading expert on human rights in North Korea, described the UN Commission of Inquiry report on human rights violations in the DPRK as “the most authoritative and definitive account of these severe violations.”

According to him, in March the UN human rights council in should adopt a resolution recognizing and condemning the crimes against humanity that North Korea commits against its people, after which the issue should be submitted to the UN Security Council (UNSC) to be referred to the International Criminal Court.

In his opinion, the further actions will depend on the fact if China and Russia will veto a referral to the ICC, and if the US will put China in the situation where it may have to use its veto power.

“If the DPRK wants to join the 21st century and have normalized relations with, and trade, aid and investment from the outside world, it will have to change its human rights policies. If they want to keep their current combination of Korean feudalism and 1930/1940 Stalinism, then there is very little the outside world can do,” emphasized the expert.

Meanwhile, Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch Asia division, stated that the report will make it impossible for any state to say that they do not know what is happening in the DPRK.

“The UN report is a scathing indictment of the human rights crimes of the North Korea government, revealing that the abuses are systematic and pervasive, and done as a matter of state policy. This is a huge blow to Kim Jong-Un and the North Korean government, who now stand accused of crimes against humanity – and now it is up to the UN and the international community to find a way to hold North Korean leaders accountable for their actions against their own people. North Korea has been revealed as among the worst of the worst of the world’s human rights abusing governments, and governments like China or Russia should recognize that anyone who defends Pyongyang will now pay a higher price in the international community for doing so,” the expert said.

In his opinion, concerns about North Korean human rights abuses for too long have been moved aside because of other concerns, like Pyongyang’s nuclear program, missile tests or threats to South Korea. However, he stressed, the UN report will now place human rights at the center of the international community’s attention to North Korea.

“It’s hard to say what is going to happen next. I think that the Human Rights Council will endorse the report and press for implementation of its recommendations, but the problem is that North Korea is totally denying that there are any rights abuses at all. Pyongyang’s obstinate refusal to recognize that the game has changed and they will be held accountable means that achieving justice for the North Korean people could take a number of years. As for the ICC, since North Korea has not signed or ratified the Rome Statute that established the court, only through a UN Security Council referral can the ICC receive a case on North Korea. I expect that there will be a lot of international pressure on Russia and China to support referring North Korea to the ICC, and that pressure will grow from the other members of the UN Security Council as well as member states in the UN General Assembly. If they are not prepared to support that referral, then at least Russia should not object or use its veto to stop it,” the expert added.

At the same time, Jasper Becker, journalist and writer, author of books on China, Mongolia and the DPRK, expressed doubt that there will be any steps taken on the situation in North Korea.

“I don’t think you can do anything, because China is going to support North Korea whatever it does, and so China will block everything to the UN. For 30 years, people have been trying to persuade China to use its influence on North Korea, but it hasn’t proved successful, and then the South Koreans for more than 10 years tried engagement policy with North Korea – and that didn’t really work. The first Bush administration tried to frighten North Korea and China, and that didn’t really work. And then they had the six-party talks which had gone down nowhere,” he reminded.

However, in his opinion, the document has certain symbolic significance. One of the reasons, Jasper Becker said, is that the report criticized the food aid program to North Korea that took place during the 1990-s, which, according to the criticism, only kept the regime in power.

“I like the idea that the UN human rights report has threatened to put Kim Jong-Un on trial for crimes against humanity, actually target the ruling family, because this is a sort of reversal of the earlier thinking that if you were nice to the leadership of North Korea, you could persuade them to undertake reforms. Everybody tried to avoid antagonizing the leadership of North Korea. And now that’s a new policy to target them and threaten them individually,” the expert noted.

Nadine Godehardt, consulting fellow of Asia Research Division at German Institute for International and Security Affairs, stated that the evidence represented in the report gives voice to people that are rarely heard.

“This is in many regards an incredible document which reports in detail the human suffering in North Korea and the totalitarian reach of the North Korean regime. The graphic illustrations by former prisoner Kim Gwang-il show the cruelty in many details and speak a language of its own. They may have more ‘power’ than the countless interviews that make up the report,” the analyst said.

She also noted that there is a very obvious “tiredness” in China’s political elite on having to deal with the North Korean neighbor.

“We can observe that China is deeply rethinking its policy towards North Korea. However, the question remains if China can bring (once again) North Korea back to the table. Without collaboration between China and the US this, however, seems unrealistic,” the expert concluded.

This article appeared at Penza News.

The article UN Report Reveals Scope Of Human Rights Violations In North Korea – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By ISN Security Watch

After a period of relative calm, Russia’s fractious security agencies are once again at odds with each other. Against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Mark Galeotti assesses the prospects of a new intra-elite turf war breaking out in Moscow.

By Mark Galeotti

While there is often a temptation to lump all of Russia’s so-called ‘siloviki’—the ‘men of force’—into one faction, they are, in fact, divided by myriad fracture lines: factional, personal, political and pragmatic. The last time conflicts between these agencies became a serious problem was in 2007, when a corruption scandal led to a major dispute between agencies that, in turn, led to arrests and even rumored deaths, before President Vladimir Putin had to step in and impose an armistice. Back then, Putin was at the height of his power. Now, as new tensions mount and the need to cooperate over the Sochi security operation recedes, rivalries amongst the siloviki are becoming increasingly open, something that may not only weaken Putin but also perhaps reflect a growing suspicion that he is no longer as powerful and his time may be beginning to come to an end.

Most-Favored Oprichnik

Of course, the security chiefs and agencies remain a long way off realistically challenging the Russian president. Indeed, the struggles are often around opportunities to seem most useful to him – through the tsar’s favor come budgets, privileges and precedence. This has certainly been the lesson of the rise of Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee (SKR), an agency that carries out primary investigations of serious crimes before referring them to the Prosecutor General’s Office (GPRF).

Bastrykin is unusual amongst senior Russian officials in having no meaningful support base of clients below him, nor allies and patrons beside and above him. He survives through his utility to Putin, and so his actions are often a good indicator of the president’s actual or assumed intent. In 2013, Bastrykin was very much in prominence, culminating in the trial of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in July. However, with the decision to free Navalny on bail and allow him to contest the Moscow mayoral elections—very much at the urging of powerful incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, who wanted a contested vote to legitimize himself—Bastrykin had clearly suffered a serious political setback. In the latter months of the year, he kept a strikingly low profile.

This year, though, he is back at the forefront, championing a new role for the Kremlin as the scourge of dishonest oligarchs, tax evaders and corrupt officials. In a series of interviews, he has expressed cautious distaste for the privatization campaigns of the past and warned that economic crime ought to be considered a serious national security threat. In this, he is undoubtedly his master’s voice, as Putin appears to be looking likewise to relegitimize himself with the public as the tsar who can keep the corrupt and self-serving boyar aristocrats of Russia in check.

The Economic Crime Honeypot

However, Bastrykin is also using this as an opportunity to advance his and the SKR’s agenda. While talking about the ills of tax crimes, he also proposes that the SKR ought to have a greater role in investigating similar white-collar offences. This would give him greater political leverage, as economic crimes are increasingly the weapon of choice in intra-elite struggles. It is also popular with the less-honorable officers of the SKR, as these crimes also lend themselves well to lucrative and easy bribe-taking.

This desire to maximize the opportunities for political firepower and illegal enrichment are at the heart of an increasingly bitter struggle between the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) over the latter’s cumbersomely-named Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (with the equally clumsy acronym GUEBiPK).There have long been rumors about the directorate and tensions between its head, Lt. General Denis Sugrobov, and Deputy Interior Minister Yuri Alexeev, head of the MVD’s Investigations Department (SD). Sugrobov, who at 34 had last year become the youngest general in the history of the post-Soviet MVD, was associated with Prime Minister Dmitri Medevedev, a patron of diminishing influence. He was also reportedly frustrated that Alexeev did not move more quickly or forcefully with cases he raised, just as Alexeev considered Sugrobov too interested in quick headlines and high-profile scalps.

However, these internal disputes acquired a more serious edge as the SKR began looking for ways to assert its dominance over the SD, as its counterpart within the MVD, and the FSB—which has long had its own economic security division—sought to cherry-pick from the GUEBiPK’s cases and investigators. Late February saw a sudden blood-letting, as both Alexeev and Sugrobov was sacked by presidential decree. This followed the SKR’s decision to open a criminal case against senior GUEBiPK officers, who stand accused of trying to entrap an FSB officer on bribery charges. The SKR then arrested Major General Boris Kolesnikov, Sugrobov’s right hand man, generally regarded as a tough and effective investigator. It was his team that reportedly opened the investigation into embezzlement through the defense ministry’s Oboronservis property arm that led to the downfall of minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

A War Of All Against All

While the SKR and FSB seem to be cooperating against the MVD, they are nevertheless competitors on other fronts. For example, talk of the creation of some investigatory super-agency—a “Russian FBI”—have resurfaced periodically. Putin, a KGB veteran who well understands the power of dividing and thus ruling the security apparatus, has always held back from such a move. Nonetheless, the Russian press has now begun reporting leaks to the effect that such an agency may be announced this spring, to be fully operational by 2016 or 2017. It would be founded on the basis of—and thus dominated by—Bastrykin’s SKR, assimilating relevant elements from the FSB, MVD and Federal Antinarcotics Service (FSKN).

Unsurprisingly, the FSB is opposed to this move, unless it can instead ensure that this new agency is under its own control. The MVD is likewise hostile (and the suspicion is that Alexeev’s ouster was in part to make the ministry look like it could not manage its own investigations department). Sugrobov’s acting replacement at GUEBiPK, Maj. General Sergei Solopov, is a client of Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev’s and the hope is that a quick cleansing of the stables might help fight off the FSB and SKR alike.

As for the FSKN – one of the less powerful agencies – its director Viktor Ivanov has in the past tried to empire-build himself, presenting his agency as outside the fray and thus best able to police the secret policemen on the Kremlin’s behalf. Perhaps sensing that its prospects of retaining a powerful domestic role are waning, the FSKN has now started to argue that it needs its own external intelligence arm. In the process it has stepped on the toes of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), as well as the FSB, which in 2003 was granted the right to run its own overseas operations.

In short, the security community is bubbling with rivalries in a way it has not since 2006-7, and the prospects for increased political conflict are great. The current crisis with the Ukraine is also having unpredictable effects: rumours suggest Putin sacked a number of Ukraine analysts within the SVR and FSB for failing to predict Yanukovych’s demise, while the Kremlin’s focus on the Crimea may well embolden some other actors. Although Putin has played the siloviki against each other in the past, the danger is that agencies lose focus on their primary missions when they are busy fighting turf wars. Inevitably this could undermine the Kremlin at a time when domestic political opposition may be about to revive. It may also be a symptom of a weakness in the presidency. All the agency heads serve at the pleasure of the president, but likewise the security community is a powerful player in the inner elite politics behind the Kremlin walls. Since his inauguration, Putin’s foreign policy triumphs and the pageantry of Sochi have masked a lack of direction and determination in domestic politics. A new turf war within the security apparatus would be a distinct sign that they now no longer fear Putin as once they did.

Dr Mark Galeotti is Professor of Global Affairs at New York University’s SCPS Center for Global Affairs and author of the In Moscow’s Shadows blog. He is currently carrying out field research in Moscow.

The article Are Russia’s Security Agencies At War (With Each Other)? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ludwig Watzal

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave one of his typical speeches1 at this year’s AIPAC convention in Washington. Before he delivered his usual sermon about Iran and the other “terrorists” in the region, he implored the friendship and the alliance between Israel and the United States of America. This time, neither President Barack Obama nor veep Joe Biden showed up.

Netanyahu’s main purpose of coming to Washington was, however, to strengthen the forces of opposition against the talks between Iran and the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. For the Palestinian negotiators, he erected insurmountable political obstacles in order to prevent a durable peace agreement by demanding that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state; for the Palestinian leadership a no-go. Netanyahu also rejected international peace-keeping forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and he insisted on a future military presence in the Jordan Valley. In addition to Iran, he also criticized the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. According to him, it’s the “latest chapter in a long and dark history of ‘anti-Semitism’”. And “those who wear ”the BDS label should be treated exactly as we treat any anti-Semite”.

After he had distinguished himself as a champion in drawing of “red lines”, he attacked the “forces of terror” sharply, such as Iran, Assad, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and many others. He drew Israel in the best colors and praised the country as a palladium of humanity and charity. “Israel is humane; Israel is compassionate; Israel is a force for good”. Whether the occupied Palestinians would agree with it, may be doubted. However, there is no doubt that Israeli physicians provide medical help for some of the oppressed in Palestine who make it across the borders or emergency medical assistance towards the refugees from Syria on the Golan Heights.

Again, Netanyahu demonized Iran as the “worst terrorist regime on the planet” whose leaders can’t be trusted. “If we allow these outlaw terrorist state to enrich uranium, how could we seriously demand that any other country not enrich uranium?” He called Iran an “outlaw state” which “violated multiple UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting enrichment”. Not Iran but Israel has been violating for the last 46 years UN Security Council resolutions by preventing their implementation to solve the Middle East conflict.

Beyond that, Israel’s huge nuclear arsenal, its biological and chemical weapons are off limits for the IAEA inspectors, whereas Iran has granted the IAEA full access to all its nuclear installations. Not Iran is a threat for its neighbors in the region but Israel, which not only politically and economically strangulate a helpless people but also bomb some of its neighboring states on a regular basis.

Netanyahu seems hell-bent to even prevent Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes to which every nation has a right. “And we will make sure it does not happen.”

Conversely, this means that if the negotiations can’t be derailed by the “Israel’s US troops” like AIPAC, the neo-cons or the members of Congress, the Israeli government might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities single-handed. Netanyahu even called for more pressure instead of relieving it. The more pressure is applied, her argues, the less likely is a war. The more credible the threat of force, the smaller the chance that force will ever have to be used, continued Israel’s Prime Minister. According to this logic, the Iranians and the Palestinian Arabs only understand the language of force.

In his short appearance before the press with Obama, Netanyahu put the blame on the Palestinians for not having advanced the prospects of peace. For the Israeli leader, security is paramount. He called on the Palestinians to compromise; in reality, however, they are already naked. The Israeli government has all the political bargaining chips in their hands, nevertheless, it requires of a prostrate beggar to give even his last shirt. Before the U.S. government imposes an agreement on the Palestinians their negotiators should end this charade and leave the “peace talks”.

When Israelis and Palestinians negotiated “peace” under the Ehud Olmert government, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, expressed to Tzipi Livni the desperate plight of the Palestinians as follows: “The only thing I cannot do is convert to Zionism.”

To recognize a Jewish state would mean for the Palestinians to recognize the Zionist narrative about “Eretz Israel” in which there is no place for the Palestinian people. Arafat, Abbas and their ilk have already recognized the State of Israel several times. According to international law, it is irrelevant whether the leadership of a state considers its state being Jewish, Buddhist, Christian or Atheist. In his letter of recognition, President Harry S. Truman has crossed out “Jewish State” and replaced it with “State of Israel”. Why should the Palestinians be more American than the Americans themselves?

In order to be successful in the negotiations with Iran and the Palestinians, the U.S. government must abolish its weird image of the Iranians and the Palestinians, which is strongly determined by Israel and its friends from the Zionist lobby. If one stigmatizes the elected Iranian or the Hamas Palestinian leadership as “terrorists”, as Netanyahu does, negotiations are meaningless. To exclude the legitimate and democratically elected Hamas-run Palestinian government from the “peace talks” means, to push half of the Palestinian population aside. Since David Ben-Gurion, it’s an old tactic of the different Israeli governments to caricature the Arabs as terrorists in order to conceal its own rejectionist attitude towards peace.

This rejectionist attitude of the Israeli leadership is documented by Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit in their book “Israeli Rejectionism”, which sets the record straight. For the authors, Israel is only interested in peace “unless such a peace was totally on its own terms”. The Israeli leadership constantly proclaim its commitment to peace, like Netanyahu did in his AIPAC speech, too, but its real political strategy has been to thwart any real possibility of peace. Its leadership has been convinced “that peace is not in Israel’s interest”.

This peace-rejecting attitude can be traced back to the first Zionist leaders such as Theodor Herzl, especially to Ben-Gurion as the authors write. Not Israel lacks a viable “partner for peace”, as the Israeli propaganda tells the public, but it is the other way around: the Palestinians have no reliable and serious “partner for peace”. Even the Americans are not an honest broker because they have a strong Israeli-linking.

The time for an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is running out. To gain more time, the Americans will perhaps come up with an interim agreement, which will set a new time-frame till the end of the year. To date, no American government has been able to accomplish peace in the Middle East. Why should the Obama administration be successful, considering that Netanyahu dislikes the US President? In order to have success, the Americans must firmly insist on the implementation of international law, because in the implementation of the UN resolutions lies the answer to the conflict. Should international law again be pushed aside, there will be a peace without justice; i. e. there will be no peace.

The article Netanyahu’s Anti-Iranian And Anti-BDS Rant At AIPAC – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Patrick J Buchanan

In assessing the motives and actions of Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton compared them to Adolf Hitler’s. Almost always a mistake.

After 12 years in power, Hitler was dead, having slaughtered millions and conquered Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.

And Putin? After 13 years in power, and facing a crisis in Ukraine, he directed his soldiers in the Crimea to take control of the small peninsula where Russia has berthed its Black Sea fleet since Napoleon.

To the Wall Street Journal this is a “blitzkrieg.”

But as of now, this is a less bloody affair than Andrew Jackson’s acquisition of our Florida peninsula. In 1818, Gen. Jackson was shooting Indians, putting the Spanish on boats to Cuba and hanging Brits. And we Americans loved it.

Still, there are parallels between what motivates Putin, a Russian nationalist, and what motivated the Austrian corporal. Hitler’s war began in blazing resentment at what was done to Germany after Nov. 11, 1918.

The Kaiser’s armies had defeated the Russian Empire, and the Italians at Caporetto, and fought the Western Allies to a stand still in France, until two million Americans turned the tide in 1918. When Berlin accepted an armistice on President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, not a single Allied soldier stood on German soil.

But, at Paris, the Allies proceeded to tear a disarmed Germany apart. The whole German Empire was confiscated. Eupen and Malmedy were carved out of Germany and given to Belgium. Alsace-Lorraine was taken by France. South Tyrol was severed from Austria and given to Italy. A new Czechoslovakia was given custody of 3.25 million Sudeten Germans.

The German port of Danzig was handed over to the new Poland, which was also given an 80-mile wide strip cut out of Germany from Silesia to the sea, slicing her in two.

The Germans were told they could not form an economic union with Austria, could not have an army of more than 100,000 soldiers, and could not put soldiers west of the Rhine, in their own country.

Perhaps this Carthaginian peace was understandable given the Allied losses. It was also madness if the Allies wanted an enduring peace.

Gen. Hans Von Seeckt predicted what would happen. When we regain our power, he said, “we will naturally take back everything we lost.”

When Hitler came to power in 1933, he wrote off the lands lost to Belgium, France and Italy — he wanted no war with the West — but set out to recapture lost German lands and peoples in the East.

He imposed conscription in 1935, sent his soldiers back into the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938, demanded and got the return of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938.

He then sought to negotiate with the Polish colonels, who had joined in carving up Czechoslovakia, a return of Danzig, when the British issued a war guarantee to Warsaw stiffening Polish spines.

Enraged by Polish intransigence, Hitler attacked.

Britain and France declared war. The rest is history.

What has this to do with Putin?

He, too, believes his country was humiliated and shabbily treated after the Cold War, and sees himself as protector of the ethnic Russians left behind when the Soviet Union came apart.

Between 1989 and 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev had freed the captive nations of Eastern Europe, allowed the Soviet Union to dissolve into 15 nations, and had held out a hand of friendship to the Americans.

What did we do? Moved NATO right onto Russia’s front porch. We brought all the liberated nations of Eastern Europe into our military alliance, along with three former Soviet republics.

The War Party tried to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, which was established to contain and, if necessary, fight Russia. Had they succeeded, we could have been at war with Russia in 2008 over Georgia and South Ossetia, and today over Crimea.

Now we hear new calls for Ukraine and Georgia to be brought into NATO. Are these people sane?

Five U.S. presidents who faced far more violent actions by a far more dangerous Soviet Union — Truman, Ike, JFK, Johnson, Reagan — refused even to threaten force against Russia for anything east of the Elbe river.

These presidents ruled out force during the Berlin Blockade of 1948, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the smashing of Solidarity in Poland in 1981.

Yet, today, we are committed to go to war for Lithuania and Estonia, Obama is sending F-16s to Latvia where half a million Russians live, and the War Party wants Sixth Fleet warships moved into the Black Sea.

If there is a Cold War II, or a U.S.-Russia war, historians of tomorrow will as surely point to the Bushes and Clintons who shoved NATO into Moscow’s face, as historians today point to the men of Paris who imposed the Versailles treaty upon a defeated Germany in 1919.

The article Patrick Buchanan: Hillary, Hitler And Cold War II – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ben Tanosborn

Quickly, take cover, America’s former top diplomat decided to become a talking-mime now that she’s two months away from her office in the State Department!

Back in November 1999 it was a kiss to Suha Arafat (wife of then Palestinian President Yasser Arafat) that got Hillary in political trouble as a candidate for the Senate, from which she quickly backtracked in order to get the Jewish vote in New York. Now she is also backtracking on her stupid, ill-informed remarks demonizing Vladimir Putin.

No; it’s unlikely that American history will someday elevate this pol-lady to the ultimate veneration of sainthood… spousal martyrdom maybe, but extremely doubtful that her walk through political life could ever bring consensus for sainthood.

Ms. Clinton, or Hon. Hillary Clinton if we must follow protocol, has been an unsavory character in my political book since her run for the Senate in New York as she and her Scoundrel Bill were about to vacate the White House. Although her masked sourpuss personality never made any inroads with me as a likeable person, or even as a capable individual with a social-political agenda, I tended to follow those who tagged her as a lady of affliction who “had been done wrong” by Unvirtuous Bill. But that event early in her Senate campaign, the backtracking demeaning the Palestinian cause, would change all that, and I started paying closer attention to both her words and her deeds. And the accumulation of data would soon place her as the gender carbon-copy of her classmate fellow-Yalie-husband, Bill. Two flakey politicians without scruples!

The Lady of Affliction until 1999 became the Lady of Infliction from that moment on!

And now the Hitler-remark! She is likely thinking ahead to 2016 and her run for the ultimate and most endearing post: the presidency of these United States of America… the first lady in American history who will have done it all! Such a remark, she probably thinks, will get her bonus points with the McCain jingo-crowd, and this will make her far more McCainist than McCain; for the Annapolis-dud only said in 2007 what he saw looking into Mr. Putin’s eyes. Well, perhaps she’ll get those bonus points, but most likely not!

That’s not to say that Hillary Clinton won’t be a viable presidential candidate in 2016. She is likely to get a lion’s share of the women-vote just because of her gender, the rest of her attributes, or political shortcomings, be damned. [I know several educated, top-level professional women who proclaim to be committed to vote for her regardless of who other possible candidates might be, as long as they are men.] Let’s face it; in America we seem to be a one-issue people, often electing our leaders for very personal, isolated reasons (race, gender, and religion among others) much to our later regret. Take our sorry commander-in-jest, Barack Obama.

Whether or not President Obama could have become, on his own merits, an effective president of the US, we’ll never know. An educated, potentially capable, and good-hearted individual, through either vanity or ineptitude, assumed the presidency long before he was ready to do so. A newcomer to Washington as Junior Senator for Illinois, he barely had his feet wet before being given the keys to the White House. Not having had the opportunity to build a loyal cadre of “his own” advisors, something which may have required as long as a full senate term, Obama had to rely on the clique still hanging around from the Clinton days… some inept, some corrupt, and all self-serving politicians. And to those, he added a small admixture of Republican bush-lings (in government and Wall Street) who had been instrumental in financially turning the nation upside-down. So no, we’ll never know… his legacy, sadly it looks, will not rank well even among those at the periphery of mediocrity. But that would be just deserts to vanity or ineptitude.

The clamor of domestic and international comments to Madame Clinton’s Hitler-remark will soon die down to be replaced by comments about American sanctions on Russia as drafted by Obama’s current gang of advisors who want to appear as more McCainist than McCain… just like the mime (Hillary Clinton) did.

And that takes me to a current TV commercial from State Farm, where a baby who shouldn’t be talking is saying, “Freeekaay… Does it bother anyone that the mime is talking?”

It’s incredible that a nation with the largest gross domestic product in the planet and upwards of 320 million people would yield leadership in the images of Clinton, McCain and Obama. And we dare criticize Putin… fools we are!

The article Hillary Rodham Clinton, America’s Perpetual Lady Of Infliction – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By N Sathiya Moorth

After two rounds of anti-Sri Lanka Indian vote at the UNHRC, both nations have begun starting almost from the scratch. Or, so it seems. At the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, on the sidelines of BIMSTEC Summit in Myanmar, the two countries have “committed to be in touch” as New Delhi decides on its vote in the third US-sponsored resolution in as many years at Geneva.

As in the past two years, the West expects India to do vote with it. The US draft seems wanting to address the western perceptions of the concerns of the larger India, in tactical ways, if at all. Those perceptions relate to the ‘Tamil Nadu factor’ in the short-term. They do not address India’s larger concerns, of the geo-strategic variety. One is the need for the movers of the resolution. The other is India’s own need.

After the Myanmar visit with Prime Minister Singh, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has reiterated how India needs to engage with Sri Lanka for doing good to the Tamils in that country. In the historic context of the Sri Lankan ethnic issue, what India can do for the Tamils working with Sri Lanka, no other nation can. What India can do against Sri Lanka (at the UNHRC, for instance), others can. The former produced 13-A, the latter, simply nothing.

Easing the situation

At a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in Colombo a week before he met Prime Minister Singh, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the politician that he is, said that he fully understood Indian leadership’s compulsions (read: ‘Tamil Nadu factor’) to vote on a Sri Lanka resolution at the UNHRC ‘in an election year’. His observations may have eased the situation before the Myanmar meeting. ‘Adversity’ thus does not work with a nation, or its new-generation leader who is earthy to accept political/electoral realities, not only in his country but also in elsewhere, whether India or Europe.

At inception, the 2012 move for a UNHRC resolution was expected to pressure the Sri Lankan Government to engage with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for a negotiated political settlement to the ‘ethnic issue’. It ended up making the Sri Lankan State and the leadership suspicious about the motives and the methods of the TNA, instead. The broken talks have yet to be revived.

The TNA and the otherwise divided Tamil Nadu polity do not understand – or, do not want to understand – global diplomatic realities. UNHRC resolutions are moved for maximum support, not necessarily for maximum impact. The pressure is also graded, spread out over years, at times decades. They will never ever satisfy the ‘electoral expectations’ of the ‘competitive Dravidian polity’ in Tamil Nadu.

Unity in diversity

The Tamil Nadu polity has become the unthinking foot-soldiers of motivated sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) Diaspora, not even the Tamils still settled in Sri Lanka. INGOs that have overlooked other war-time violations of human rights elsewhere are focussing not even on Sri Lanka, but in and on India, to distance the two South Asian neighbours as much as possible. They may have a different motive and agenda, not of the altruist kind.

The SLT Diaspora has the patience that the Tamil Nadu polity lack. They are playing for the long-term – a ‘separate State’ first, and a ‘greater eelam’ next. They are willing to wait, and wait out other ‘partners’ and even ‘stake-holders’. It is unclear if the DMK in Tamil Nadu that gave up ‘separation’ in favour of mainstreaming in the early Sixties, and the ruling AIADMK, which added the ‘all-India’ prefix as an add-on to live down the ‘separatist’ image of the DMK parent, have given any thought to the SLT Diaspora agenda and its consequences for India and all Indians.

Maybe, it’s time that the Centre read out the rule-book, if not the riot-act, to the Tamil Nadu players, on the well thought-out provisions on ‘division of powers’ under the Constitution. The latter need to acknowledge that under the continuing complexities that is India, such a constitutional scheme has worked – and that it alone may still work, to retain the nation’s centuries-old ‘unity in diversity’.

Cold War’s ‘unfinished task’?

In the years immediately after the ‘String of Pearls’ theory did its round in the post-Cold War India, Geneva may have pushed Sri Lanka back into the waiting arms of China – and India’s one-time dependable ally in Moscow. Ground realities in Sri Lanka may be different from those in Syria and Ukraine, but at Geneva this time, ‘friends of Sri Lanka’, including China and Russia, Iran and Cuba, are said to be contemplating a ‘counter-resolution’ to the Anglo-American draft, which in turn seems to have the EU’s blessings.

In 2012, India, though not the prime-mover in anyway, set the tone and tenor on Sri Lanka at Geneva. Today, the regional and international initiatives on Sri Lanka have slipped out of India’s hand just as the TNA too may have at another level. Whatever their intentions and goals, New Delhi cannot afford self-proclaimed ‘friends of India’ repeatedly taking the Geneva route against Sri Lanka, and end up reviving Cold War’s ‘unfinished task’, if it could still be called so, and ‘de-stabilise’ the immediate Indian Ocean neighbourhood for the first time after the Seventies.

Coming at a time when the 50-year-long Anglo-American lease deed on Diego Garcia military base is due to end – and come up for an equally- controversial renewal – as early as 2016, Sri Lanka in Geneva has worse consequences for India than the ‘targeted victim’.

The fact that the original, Mauritius ‘owner/possessor’ of Diego Garcia had boycotted the Colombo CHOGM in November, literally at the last-minute, and is now among the five proposers of the UNHRC resolution along with the US, maybe a cause for politico-diplomatic concern for its ‘distant’ Sri Lankan neighbour. If so, it is a greater geo-strategic security concern for India, too, over the medium and long-terms, the seeds for which are being sown, here and now, if not already.

With successive generation of children of Indian migrants from the common British past often heading elected governments since Independence, Mauritius has been a friend and ally of India. Today, the nation is set to play host to an ‘international Tamil Diaspora culture conference, later this year. In contemporary SLT Diaspora context and their resources, this can mean only one thing. India has to be wary.

The anti-Sri Lankan position of Mauritius also comes at a time when the country is joining the emerging trilateral maritime security cooperation arrangement among India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, as an ‘observer’ along with Senegal, the other Indian Ocean neighbour of the three. The idea is also for inducting the the two distant Indian Ocean neighbours of the other three as members, if only over time.

First line of defence

It’s in contexts like this that China, like other nations before it, would collect IOU’s by the dozen from countries such as Sri Lanka on the political front, and cash them at a time of their choosing, possibly on the geo-strategic front. From the other side, post-Cold War US has made faster and deeper entries into nations in the ‘sphere of traditional interest’ of the Indian ‘friend and ally’ without obvious reference to India. Mauritius seems to be only the latest one — but need not be the last.

In geo-strategic terms, Sri Lanka has remained the first line of defence for India on the indefensible vast Ocean front/frontier in the south. In turn, India used to be – and should have continued to be — the first line of political defence for Sri Lanka. That was how Sri Lanka ended LTTE terrorism, even for India to breathe easy. India helped Sri Lanka to help it. Today, Sri Lanka, by reviving the ethno-political processes should help India help it. Sri Lanka’s current and future problems are outside Sri Lanka, the solutions lie within.

Barring the successful, post-war 2009 counter-resolution on Sri Lanka that it initiated along with unthinkable partners in China and Pakistan, India has voted against the collective wisdom of other South Asian neighbours by voting for a resolution moved against an immediate neighbour by a distant ‘friend and ally’. India did not seem to have consulted even ‘friendly neighbours’ while choosing its post-Cold War ally/allies for the Indian Ocean security, nor on the Sri Lankan vote.

China on the geo-strategic front apart, when it two-term placement among the voting members in the UNHRC ends, India will still require its neighbours. It then cannot complain if any or all of them look ‘unfriendly’ and ‘unapproachable’, too, if it required their backing at UNHRC or elsewhere. International diplomacy is all about collecting IOU’s and cashing them when required, which trade, it seems, at least ‘political India’ is yet to master to the hilt.

India thus cannot afford to vote against Sri Lanka at UNHRC, now or later. It need not vote in its favour until Sri Lanka stands by its commitments on the ethno-political front, made to India at the height of ‘Eelam War IV’, much of it even without asking. And if India needs to engage with Sri Lanka for helping the Tamils, as Minister Khurshid has reiterated, it cannot do so from a perceived position of animosity and antagonism.

A beginning thus has to be made for reversing the bilateral processes to the pre-2012 mode. It has to be made early on, if it is to be of any use to the suffering Tamils in Sri Lanka – and in the larger context of bilateral relations, as well. Otherwise, managing the ‘Tamil Nadu factor’ should be India’s domestic problem. Addressing with Sri Lanka, the Indian Tamils’ umbilical cord concerns for brethren across the Palk Strait forms a part of it, too. Yet, it cannot be allowed to derail bilateral, geo-strategic relations in particular. Whether China, or the US, or any other, Tamils in India, too, would not want the neighbourhood waters troubled, whichever be the extra-regional power wanting to fish in those troubled waters!

(N Sathiya Moorthy is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter)

The article Sri Lanka: Why India Should Not Vote Against Sri Lanka At UNHRC – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Hudson Institute

By Charles Fairbanks

Harry Houdini invented ever-more ingenious ways of trapping himself, immobilizing himself, and wrapping chains around himself, to make his escape more dazzling. Western governments and opinion-makers are doing the same in responding to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But we seem to have forgotten the part about the escape. Everywhere you hear the conventional wisdom: we don’t have any levers. Such a conclusion should be the end of an analysis, not the beginning. If any Western government does want to do something that will change Putin’s fait accompli, in responding to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, here are some directions in which they ought to begin thinking. There surely are others. The beginning of wisdom is to question the paralysis of “few effective levers.” Leverage flows from vulnerabilities of the adversary. Russia certainly has some.

One. Russia fears marginalization and humiliation. Russia still enjoys treatment as a major power after losing the larger part of the strengths (economic might or the illusion of it, territory, usable military power, the prestige given by ideology) that the Soviet Union had. That great power status is a gift we gave the Russians in spite of their repeated misbehavior and obvious hostility. We invited Russia into the G-8, although South Korea has a better economic claim to that status, and regularly invite Russia into almost every Middle Eastern negotiation, in spite of its marginal influence there. We rush into nuclear arms control negotiations where we and Russia are the sole partners, like two superpowers, negotiations that Russia needs much more than we do. Russia, however, simply does not have the weight internationally that China, Germany, France, Britain, and perhaps India have, to say nothing of us. Russia is at best the “least of the great powers,” as Italy was from 1870 to 1943, before giving up its uphill effort to claim that status. The facts themselves threaten Russia with the loss of great power status. Russia cherishes that status, and a threat to it will weigh on Putin. In diplomatic contacts, then if necessary in public declarations, we can make clear that Russia will get no more signs of status or invitations it does not earn by effective power and respectable conduct. Ouster from the G-8 is only a beginning. Of course, Germany shudders at the thought of expelling Russia from the G-8. But any American President can simply tell the Germans they can do as they wish, but personal repugnance will impede his meeting with Vladimir Putin as long as he occupies Ukrainian territory. End of discussion.

Two. The lack of legitimacy of a regime that is neither democratic nor Communist is the deepest root of Russian weakness, because kleptocracy and monopoly are impeding the free market and keeping Russia a petro-state. In fact the current regime is a gang of robbers that have seized on a great nation and are sucking its blood like a bloated deer tick. Years ago more people finally acknowledged that Putin’s rule is not democratic, but our government still does not acknowledge this fact publicly as we do with the Iranian mullahs or Syria’s Assad. We can do much more to call the regime what it is and to help the struggle of Russian democrats against it. We have to be careful not to expose democratic activists there to Putin’s retaliation, but he has reason to fear our appeal to freedom.

Three. Everyone is chanting the mantra, “military force is not an option.” Of course, any military clash between Russian and American forces would be very dangerous; it is not in our interests at all. But is it, then, in Russia’s interest? Here we need to think through the correlation of forces in a hardheaded way. Putin has allowed Russian military forces, except nuclear forces, to deteriorate to a point where many Pentagon planners no longer worry about them as a threat. America’s tremendously capable military, in contrast, has been freed by President Obama’s withdrawals for other contingencies. Any military encounter between Russian military forces and those of the major NATO countries would be likely to end in a disastrous defeat for Putin’s side. And any defeat would be likely, as so often in Russian history, to trigger major political change. Putin could lose everything if he ever dared attack Western forces. Putin has forced Ukraine and the West on the defensive by playing a risky game, but he is holding a hand that is weak in crucial cards. That does not mean we should challenge him militarily, far, far from it. It does imply, however, that the West could accept an invitation to deploy forces in the Western part of Ukraine to defend its independence if a desperate Ukrainian government were ever to request them. It would be insanity for Putin to attack them. While it is not prudent policy to move troops, it is certainly in our interest to let him know that we are not afraid of his underfunded, unreformed and corrupted army if the situation were unfortunately to evolve to such an extremity. And who could object to routine naval visits to the Black Sea, as the George W. Bush administration ordered during Russia’s invasion of Georgia?

Four. Putin now has the option of gnawing off other Russian-majority morsels of Ukraine or of using the crisis to undermine the reformist Kiev government. The crisis can get much worse. Realizing this, many diplomats are eager to negotiate some compromise that will leave Putin a partial victor at the expense of international standards of conduct. Such a course assumes: the worse it gets, the more Putin gains. Quite the contrary. The Russian-populated areas have acted to retard the return of Ukraine to the European family of nations. If Ukraine effectively loses them, the part that is left loyal, which probably would comprise three-fifths of the country including the capital, will be radicalized in a nationalist direction and turn far more unanimously toward Europe. Gaining some border areas, Putin has to calculate, would mean losing the larger Ukraine for good. We can never advocate for any change that compromises Ukrainian sovereignty. But it is important to show we are aware that a worsening crisis is, past a certain point, not in Russia’s interest either. The possibility of escalation does not give Russia leverage against us.

The EU and the United States, if necessary the latter alone, need to negotiate with the new Ukrainian government two distinct packages of Western measures to bring Ukraine closer to the West. The more moderate package should include the agreement with the EU Yanukovich aborted, much economic aid, and other things we should be doing anyway. The deeper package of measures should unfold unless Putin withdraws his forces from Ukrainian territory. It should begin with massive Western aid to improve the quality of the Ukrainian army, modeled on what the Clinton and Bush Defense Departments did for Georgia. Knowledge of the existence of such a package should be an effective deterrent to further Russian aggression. If it does not, its actualization helps Ukraine and the West.

Five. Putin’s biggest weakness is the divergence between his personal motives and Russia’s interests. He cares about restoring the Soviet Union under another name, to the extent possible. But his whole history shows he cares more about getting rich and staying rich. Some former high officials estimate that he is the richest man in the world. He could have acted much more effectively to restore the U.S.S.R. by creating a nationalist, authoritarian but law-governed regime that strictly limited corruption. Instead, he channeled it to himself and his friends. Putin and his friends are extraordinarily vulnerable to measures that publicize and sanction individual dictators and war criminals of the kind now being widely used. The United States government needs to inform Putin that we are ready to publish everything we know about his riches and how they were stolen; identify and seize his many offshore bank accounts; apply a “stolen property” designation to business transactions involving these assets—and declare associated contracts invalid; and ban Putin’s international travel. If Putin continues to occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory, these threats should be carried out. We should act similarly, perhaps first, with the members of his corrupt elite as well as Yanukovich’s embezzlers. For Putin and his friends this is the biggest danger. Unlike many plundering dictators and warlords, we have carefully shielded him from exposure so far. Why? Like so much of our Russian policy, our complaisance about Putin’s charade of patriotic self-sacrifice suggests we are not serious. We need to get serious.

Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr. was a research professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins/SAIS and a director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He has served as a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of State and member of the department’s policy planning staff. He was a foreign policy adviser to the Reagan campaign in 1980 and the Bush campaign in 1988. Fairbanks has served on the political science faculty of both Yale University and the University of Toronto.

The article Getting Serious About Putin’s Aggression – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Hudson Institute

By Jack David

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula is an event of momentous significance. It is significant for Ukraine, for the people of Crimea, and for Russia. But its greatest significance is for what it says about the world order the U.S. has mostly succeeded in nourishing, growing, and maintaining since 1945. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the end of a period of hope for that order.

Since the end of WWII, the U.S. and its friends and allies have sought to establish a peaceful order in which ambitions of countries and disputes between countries would be pursued and resolved with words rather than through war. The central feature of that order has been and was to be the acceptance of the proposition that aggression was not an acceptable tool to use when pursuing national objectives. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest nail in the coffin of this hoped-for order.

U.S. military preeminence has been the linchpin in the architecture of this post-WWII order. Until recently, the gap between the capabilities of the U.S. military and the militaries of any other country, together with the widely shared conviction that that the U.S. was willing to make use of its military preeminence, tamped down aggression. No more.

Dramatic reductions in U.S. military budgets since the 1990s, reductions that have accelerated in the last five years, have helped reduced the gap between the military capabilities of the U.S. and those of its adversaries and would-be adversaries. These facts can’t have escaped the attention of foreign powers. This is especially so for Russia and China: For years, both have increased expenditures for military capabilities that have been specifically designed to defeat the U.S. military. A couple of examples of the contrary trend in the U.S,, toward a reduced military, make the point.

From a 600-ship U.S. Navy in 1980, we’re down to 287 or fewer. The budgets that have been and are being proposed do not make provisions for replacing ships as fast as we are retiring them.

Similarly, the U.S. Air Force has the fewest airplanes it has ever had. At its founding in 1947, it had more than 12,300 airplanes. Today we have fewer than 5,200, and falling.

For the last several years, we have been planning military expenditures by asking the wrong question. We are asking how much money we need to save rather than what risks to our safety and security the military must be prepared to reduce or eliminate. What do we need to support the strategy — successful until recently — of discouraging the use of aggression to pursue national ambitions? This important change in U.S. focus, from risk assessment to budget concerns, could not have been overlooked by others.

The dramatic reductions in U.S. military expenditures suggest diminished U.S. resolve. The time-worn expression of a person with resolve is that he “puts his money where his mouth is.” Spending less on the military means that we are spending less to support our long-held principle that the world must be safe from aggression and tyranny.

U.S. action — or inaction — in response to aggression has sent the same message. We took no action of substance in response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia; we acceded to Russia’s demand in 2009 that we revoke missile-defense treaty commitments we had previously made to Poland and the Czech Republic; we abandoned the victory gained at such great cost in Iraq; the commander in chief announced a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that was obviously unrelated to any military or political objective; the U.S. responses to the 2011 turmoil in Libya were ambivalent, at best; the president drew a redline in Syria in 2012 and then claimed he hadn’t. In all this, the leaders of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea could not fail to see that America’s resolve to stave off aggression is substantially diminished.

In the context of this history, it is not surprising that China recently declared its right to control vast areas of the sea off East Asia, and its right to use coast-guard and military ships to do so; nor should we be surprised that Vladimir Putin is using military force to seize Ukrainian territory. Beijing and Moscow saw opportunity — and seized it.

In this sense, Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula — and perhaps more of Ukraine tomorrow — marks the end of an era. The era that is ending is one in which U.S. military preeminence and U.S. resolve helped nourish a liberal, peaceful international order. It lasted from 1945 to today. Three principal features of this order have been dispute resolution mostly by discussion rather than armed conflict; freedom of all to use international waters; and increasing recognition that free men, free markets, and the rule of law are the most certain path to prosperity. Russia’s use of military force to seize Ukraine’s Crimea ends all that. The law of the jungle has been restored to international relations. U.S. capabilities and resolve are no longer strong enough to support more noble aspirations.

Jack David is a Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Trustees at Hudson Institute as well as managing his own investments. Additionally, he is an independent consultant on national security matters, especially combating weapons of mass destruction.

The article Russia’s Invasion Of Crimea: The Law Of The Jungle Returns – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By The Heritage Foundation

By Ana Quintana

For the past few weeks, Venezuela has been rocked by anti-government protests. What started as small-scale demonstrations in the capital city of Caracas has escalated to mobilizations throughout the country.

In response, the Venezuelan government has ordered security forces from the national guard to armed motorcycle gangs to brutally crack down on the democratic opposition. Thousands have been beaten and tortured, and at least a dozen have been killed. Moreover, Leopoldo Lopez, a grassroots democratic opposition leader, has been arrested on politically motivated charges. Three U.S. diplomats have also been expelled for allegedly conspiring with the opposition.

The government has instituted a virtual media blackout: Domestic independent media is nonexistent, and the Internet has been cut off in many cities. While some foreign media broadcasters are still present, they have been censored by the government for fear of losing their operating licenses.

As the demonstrations rage on, the United States can no longer continue sitting on the sidelines.

The Legacy of Hugo Chavez: 21st-Century Socialism

Initiated by the late Hugo Chavez, the 21st-century socialist movement, blended with authoritarian populism, has not been kind to Venezuela. Almost two decades of government abuses, free-spending social programs, and socialist economic policies has led to skyrocketing inflation rates and significant losses of political and economic freedom.

In recent months, the economic and security situation has become more acute. Strict currency controls and haphazard devaluations have decreased the Bolivar’s value against the dollar by almost 40 percent. The country boasts the highest levels of inflation and debt in Latin America. In the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, published jointly by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, Venezuela ranks 175th, above only Zimbabwe, Cuba, and North Korea.[1] And this is occurring in a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

The Venezuelan government has also become a threat to U.S. interests. Via the socialist ALBA bloc—composed of Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia—the government of Venezuela has spearheaded the unprecedented wave of anti-Americanism in Latin America. ALBA member countries have expelled U.S. diplomats, shut down U.S.-led counternarcotics programs, and hampered bilateral trade relations.

The Venezuela–FARC–Hezbollah Nexus

Chavez and current leader Nicolas Maduro have also established deep relationships with global pariahs, terrorist groups, and drug trafficking organizations. Venezuela has now become Iran’s Latin America platform. Direct flights from Caracas to Tehran run weekly without much international scrutiny. More odiously, the Venezuelan government had previously provided clandestine support for Iran’s energy sector in clear violation of international sanctions.[2 ]

Aside from Iran, the government of Venezuela is also propping up the Castro regime in Cuba. Caracas gives Havana an average of $10 billion in subsidized oil and petro dollars yearly, more than double the amount it received from the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. In exchange, the Castros provide Venezuela with military and intelligence agents as well civilian slave labor.

Most sinister are the government’s connections to regional and international terrorist groups. Colombia’s narcoterrorist organization, the FARC, has long enjoyed sanctuary within Venezuelan territory.[3] High-ranking members of the Venezuelan government have provided support to Hezbollah as well. In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) found that at Venezuela’s Syrian embassy, the most senior diplomat facilitated the travel of two Hezbollah representatives in order to fundraise and open a Hezbollah community center in Venezuela.[4 ]

What the U.S. Should Do

The U.S. can no longer afford to allow for the proliferation of this looming threat in Latin America. In order to ensure the stability of the Western Hemisphere, curtail the expansion of terrorist organizations in the region, and protect the human rights of the democratic opposition in Venezuela, the United States should:

• Send a clear message of solidarity to the democratic opposition and assure the protestors that the U.S. is committed to holding the Venezuelan government accountable for its violent reprisals.
• Call on the Organization of American States (OAS) to convene a special session of the permanent council to discuss the situation in Venezuela. OAS member states should uphold the basic freedoms guaranteed in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
• Work with regional partners if the OAS fails to act. The United States needs to encourage a dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition.
• Enact targeted sanctions against Venezuelan government officials already on the OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List—including revoking their visas and freezing their assets within the United States.
• Immediately reciprocate in the event Venezuela expels any more U.S. diplomats. The State Department waited a week to respond in kind to the expulsion of U.S. diplomats. The Venezuelan government has explicitly declared that it does not wish to have “cordial ties” with the U.S.
• Support domestic policies that increase access to domestic energy sources, such as opening up federal lands and waters to exploration and development, devolving environmental review and permitting decisions to state regulators, approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and preventing federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing. While Venezuelan oil imports have decreased, they are still 9 percent of U.S. foreign oil purchases. This dependence limits the U.S.’s unilateral options.

Solidarity with Venezuela’s Democratic Opposition

Latin America has fallen out of the Obama Administration’s purview, and it is long past time for the U.S. to reclaim a leadership position in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S.’s foreign policy toward the regions needs to be grounded upon promoting democracy, expanding economic freedom, and protecting human rights.

The inexcusable and politically motivated violence against unarmed protestors demands international condemnation. It is important for the Obama Administration to show leadership and respond quickly, as the continued lack of action will only serve to further embolden the lawless government of Venezuela.

—Ana Quintana is a Research Associate for Latin America in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy, a department of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Terry Miller, Anthony B. Kim, and Kim R. Holmes, 2014 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones and Company, 2014), pp. 453–454, http://www.heritage.org/index/country/venezuela.

[2] Douglas Farah, “Threat to the Homeland: Iran’s Extending Influence in the Western Hemisphere,” testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, July 9, 2013, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/HM/HM09/20130709/101046/HHRG-113-HM09-Wstate-FarahD-20130709.pdf (accessed February 27, 2014).

[3] Press release, “Treasury Targets Venezuelan Government Official Supporting FARC,” U.S. Department of Treasury, September 12, 2008, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp1132.aspx (accessed February 27, 2014).

[4] Press release, “Treasury Targets Hizballah in Venezuela,” U.S. Department of Treasury, June 6, 2008, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/hp1036.aspx (accessed February 27, 2014).

The article Venezuela: US Leadership Needed – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By COHA

By Lauren Foiles

Despite the recent increase in chatter surrounding the Atlantic poll on U.S. public opinion towards Cuba and former Florida Governor Charlie Crist shifting his stance on the half-century old economic embargo, the U.S. has missed out on yet another opportunity to foster meaningful ties with its Caribbean neighbor. On February 10, 2014 European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton chaired a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. The meeting concluded with EU officials agreeing to talks with the Cuban government to increase trade, investment and dialogue on human rights and the EU negotiators aim to pass the so-called “Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement” by the end of 2015. While the accord is largely symbolic and is not likely to lead to any high-yielding change in the near future, it represents the most dramatic shift in diplomatic relations since the EU lifted sanctions against the island in 2008. After the ministers in Brussels agreed to a new round of dialogue with Cuba, Ashton stated, “These negotiations will help consolidate our engagement with Cuba. I hope Cuba will take up this offer.”[1] In fact, Cuba has responded more favorably than they have in the past, paving the way for new, lucrative investment opportunities and diplomatic/cultural exchanges that Washington continues to voluntarily exclude itself from.

The Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement

The accord has been in the works since January, 2013 when the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, traveled to Chile to attend the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and European Union (CELAC-UE).[2] Gianni Pittella, vice-president of the European Parliament, stated that “the decision to seek negotiations with Cuba had been a long process that gathered pace in Chile. Europe’s strategy is to encourage change.”[3] Change is in fact already occurring on the island as President Raul Castro has launched an organic and important economic and social reform process. Some of Castro’s reforms include: decentralizing the agricultural sector by offering individuals and cooperatives leases to cultivate state-owned farmland; relaxing restrictions on small businesses and issuing new licenses for service-sector jobs; liberalizing real estate markets allowing Cubans to buy and sell private property; and eliminating once onerous bureaucratic requirements for Cubans to obtain government permission to travel outside the country.[4] As a result of these reforms, it was reported in 2014 that the private sector had expanded to represent about 20 percent of Cuba’s workforce.[5] Additionally, the government aims to slash 20 percent of the state labor force (nearly one million jobs) by 2016.[6] According to EU officials, the proposed accord would give Brussels a bigger role in Havana’s market-oriented reforms, position European companies in an optimal situation to profit from Cuba’s ongoing transition to a more open economy and allow Europe to press for an expansion of political freedoms on the island. [7]

Like the “Common Position” that the EU adopted in 1996 in response to Cuba shooting down two U.S. planes (in which four Cuban dissidents were killed), the new accord will also include language that addresses human rights and pluralist democracy. One EU official was quoted as saying the document contained “our strongest human rights language yet” in EU policy towards Cuba.[8] While Cuba rejects the “Common Position” as intervening in internal affairs, the position will remain in place until the cooperation accord is agreed upon.

Both the EU and Cuba are acting with pragmatism as each party recognizes the colossal economic benefits that increased trade and investment could bring about. “Cuba is becoming more and more realistic in searching for economic partners,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban ambassador to the EU.[9] Whether or not Washington takes a hint from the EU’s warming towards Cuba, recent events paint a picture of missed opportunities for the U.S., making way for scores of other nations to situate themselves favorably in Cuba’s liberalizing markets.

France Taking Advantage of Untapped Markets

The most recent accord is not the only sign of the EU warming up to Cuba, as more than half of the 28 member states have bilateral relations with Havana despite the Common Position. On February 12, Truffle Capital, a French biotechnology investment company, announced the creation of ABIVAX in collaboration with the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). ABIVAX specializes in therapeutic vaccines and antivirals, combining the technologies and the product portfolios of three French biotech companies.[10] An exclusive partnership agreement with the CIGB has been approved by the Cuban government and is predicted to further enrich the portfolio.[11] In addition to the creation of a hepatitis B vaccine that could positively impact millions of people worldwide, this is the first ever start-up launched on the basis of a Euro-Cuban R&D collaboration.[12] ABIVAX also signifies the first French company to sign an exclusive partnering agreement with Cuba in healthcare. Philippe Pouletty, president of the Administrative Council of the French firm stated that “Cuba is known for the excellence of its physicians and the quality of its vaccines. This is a project of international importance to put France foremost in this matter.”[13]

Truffle stated in a press release that under the agreement, CIGB will manufacture the hepatitis B vaccine in Cuba, for sale in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, once it receives approval.[14] The licensing agreement will undoubtedly generate massive profits for ABIVAX, but perhaps more importantly, the Paris-based company has stated that the goal of ABIVAX is to become a global leader in therapeutic vaccines and antivirals, with the expectation of many more cooperative efforts involving Cuba in the future.[15]

France, like many other countries, recognizes the significant potential in Cuba’s healthcare system despite ideological differences that the two countries traditionally may have had. With healthcare being one of the top items on the Obama administration’s agenda, one would think that Washington would be more open to working with one of the most distinguished healthcare systems in the world today. Fortunately, for those affected by hepatitis B in the licensed regions of Europe and Asia, France and Cuba were able to set ideological differences aside to produce a medical advancement while forging a landmark partnership in healthcare.

Non-EU Countries Warming to Cuba As Well

Several other countries outside of the EU have also made efforts to engage with Cuba recently. While all the engagements may not have the potential to expand Cuba’s export market to include 500 million European consumers, the interactions still demonstrate the propensity of countries like Canada, several African nations, and China to aggressively seek a warmer stance towards Cuba.

Canada

The “rarest cruise opportunity of 2014” is being offered by a Canadian-based company, Cuba Cruise. The 1,200 passenger cruise ship, LV Louis Cristal, departs Mondays from Havana, Cuba and Fridays from Montego Bay, Jamaica, and completely circumnavigates Cuba in just seven days.[16] The Miami Herald reported in January that several previous attempts to establish Cuba as a regular cruise destination have failed, in large part because of economic sanctions emanating from the United States.[17] Such sanctions forbid U.S. tourism in Cuba and bar any ship that docks at Cuban ports from entering the U.S. for six months thereafter.[18] In 2013 the highest percentage of tourists in Cuba came from Canada, and the creation of Cuba Cruise demonstrates that the trend is likely to continue throughout 2014.

Africa

This past December Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez spent three days in Angola, most notably attending a memorial service in honor of Angola’s first president. Bruno Rodriguez held official talks with his counterpart Georges Chikoti at the Angolan Foreign Ministry.[19] The visit by Cuba’s top diplomat to Angola was part of a tour that included Ethiopia, Seychelles, South Africa and Zimbabwe. On February 17, Cuban Ambassador to Zimbabwe Elio Savon Oliva attended a business symposium held by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce. Oliva gave a speech at the symposium going into detail about the Cuban economy and the opportunities for Zimbabwe to invest in the Special Economic Development Zone in Mariel, the first stage of which was recently opened. [20]

China

In June 2011, then-Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping made an official visit to Havana and concluded the meeting by signing thirteen new cooperation agreements with President Raul Castro. The agreements included a memorandum of understanding for bilateral economic relations over the next five years and stipulate that China will provide interest free loans, economic aid and equipment to repair irrigation projects. [21] China is one of Cuba’s largest trading partners after Venezuela and over the past decade, bilateral trade increased from $440 million USD in 2001 to $1.83 billion USD in 2010.[22]

Moreover, this past November 2013 marked the 31st annual Havana International Fair (FIHAV), which is the largest multi-sector trade fair in Cuba and a key venue for new businesses to make their mark in emerging markets.[23] Cuba’s Foreign Trade and Investment Minister, Rodrigo Malmierca, made a special appearance at the Chinese pavilion, which gathered 65 Chinese companies.[24] Furthermore, Malmierca traveled to Beijing this past September to encourage China to invest in Cuba’s new Mariel Special Development Zone. The minister stated that “China is our first leg in international promotion, as Cuba and China boast long-term friendship and good cooperation.”[25] The first phase of the port opened this past January and its regional location could, according to Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, accommodate Asian vessels where they could transship their goods via smaller ships to their final destination.[26]

The aforementioned examples barely scratch the surface of China’s most recent investment endeavors involving Cuba. As noted above, in 2011 thirteen Sino-Cuban cooperation agreements were signed, each of which could warrant its own in-depth analysis of potential economic benefits. In addition to interest-free-loans and economic aid, the agreements also cover cooperation in digital television and telecommunications, banking supervision and financing for public health projects, as well as an oil refinery expansion project and a liquefied natural gas project.[27]

China’s recent investments come in the wake of Washington’s vocal economic policy of the “Asian pivot,” all the while it seems that China has been making its own pivot towards Latin American and Caribbean markets.[28] This is exemplified by the creation of a CELAC-China forum at the recent summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Havana. The U.S. should be more strategic than to shun the developing economy of its 90-mile-away neighbor to the benefit of its fiercest economic competitor.

Miami Missing out on Millions

The aforementioned initiatives represent just a few of the most recent engagements that countries across the globe have been participating in with Cuba. In other words, the U.S. stands virtually alone in its isolation towards the island with a diminishing sector of the Cuban-American population in Florida (roughly 5 percent) and their allies in Congress holding the archaic, isolationist policies hostage. For more than two years, Cuban exile politics have dogged a major development project that, as it was conceived, could have brought more than half a billion dollars in revenue over the next five decades to the Miami International Airport. [29] The dispute revolves around Odebrecht USA, the Coral Gables-based contractor that was awarded the “Airport City” development project.

What is the hold up on a project that includes a hotel-conference center, shopping center, gas station and pet spa on 33 acres of county-owned land which is expected to bring in nearly $580 million to the airport via Odebrecht USA’s 40-year agreement?[30] Simply speaking, the answer is Cuba. The contractor has indirect ties to Cuba through its Brazilian parent company, which is currently expanding Cuba’s port of Mariel (west of Havana). Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo, a Cuban-American Republican, is petitioning the county to look into other possible contractors with the end-goal of removing Odebrecht USA from the picture. The project has been in limbo for over a year now with Bovo making several attempts to reduce Odebrecht’s role in the development, despite the company winning the bid fair and square after a presentation to the county back in 2000.

Conclusion

Despite the still non-committal handshake between President Obama and Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s memorial in South Africa, Washington has yet to show any real progress towards normalizing relations with Cuba. U.S. officials traveled to Havana this past January where they discussed the ongoing implementation of migration accords that were negotiated in the 1990s. While the meeting has been described by both Cuban and U.S. officials as “fruitful” and “respectful,” the State Department released a statement saying “This does not represent any change in policy towards Cuba.”[31] An article written by Steven Kurlander published in Context Florida argues an interesting point. Kurlander points to Iran as one of the biggest threats to U.S. national security that mirrors the threat which Cuba and the Soviet Union posed in the 1960s. Kurlander states, however, that “the last few administrations never considered an embargo against a hostile nation that appears to be developing nuclear weapons. Instead, we have imposed lesser sanctions, and then negotiated them away rather easily.”[32]

At the last UN General Assembly vote on the economic embargo, U.S. envoy Ronald Godard stated that “The United States is a deep and abiding friend of the Cuban people.”[33] But the Cuban government estimates that more than fifty years of stringent trade restrictions has resulted in a loss of approximately $1.126 trillion USD.[33] Certainly, Cuba has a ways to go in terms of respect for universal human rights and social justice for political dissidents of the Castro regime. However, it is becoming equally undeniable that the U.S. is carrying out relations in one of the most hypocritical and arcane ways that fails to represent the gradual shift of public opinion in the U.S. As the Council on Foreign Relation’s director of Latin America studies Julia Sweig states, the foreign investments mentioned above “seize on opportunities that the United States is missing out on.”[34]

Lauren Foiles, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

References

[1] “EU Agrees To Launch Negotiations With Cuba,” BBC News, February 10, 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-26123441

[2] Robin Emmott, “Have a Cigar: Cuba and Europe to Write a Business Plan,” Reuters, February 20, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-eu-cuba-insight-idUSBREA1J0AE20140220

[3] Ibid

[4] Brianna Lee, “U.S.-Cuba Relations,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 26, 2014, http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113

[5] Ibid

[6] Marc Frank, “Cuba Continues To Trim State Payroll, Build Private Sector,” Canadian HR Reporter, February 24, 2014, http://www.hrreporter.com/articleview/20289-cuba-continues-to-trim-state-payroll-build-private-sector

[7] Emmott, “Have a Cigar.”

[8] Ibid

[9]Ibid

[10]“Creation of ABIVAX – a Leader in Therapeutic Vaccines and the First French Company to Sign an Exclusive Partnering Agreement with Cuba in Healthcare,” Business Wire, February 12, 2014, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140212005051/en/Creation-ABIVAX—Leader-Therapeutic-Vaccines-French#.UwZ9tPldVIE

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] “Cuba, France Agree on Development of Hepatitis B Vaccine,” Cuban Headlines, February 13, 2014, http://www.cubaheadlines.com/2014/02/13/38583/cuba_france_agree_on_development_of_hepatitis_b_vaccine.html

[14] “French Pharma Startup To Test And Sell Cuban Vaccines,” Cuba Standard, February 14, 2014, http://www.cubastandard.com/2014/02/14/french-pharma-startup-to-test-and-sell-cuban-vaccines/

[15] “Creation of ABIVAX.”

[16] Aaron Saunders, “2014 Features By One-of-a-Kind Cruises An Influx of Unique Cruise Explorations,” The Province, February 17, 2014, http://www.theprovince.com/travel/2014+features+kind+cruises/9516335/story.html

[17] Juan O. Tamayo, “Cruise Ship Leaves Havana For Sail Around Cuba,” Miami Herald, February 16, 2014, http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/16/3822505/cruise-ship-leaves-havana-for.html

[18] Ibid

[19] “Cuba Attends Symposium on Business in Zimbabwe,” Prensa Latina, February 17, 2014, http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2387571&Itemid=1-

[20] Ibid

[21] Chen Weihua, Wu Jiao, and Cheng Guangjin, “China, Cuba Sign Host of Cooperation Deals,” China Daily, June 7, 2011, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-06/07/content_12646298.htm

[22] Ibid

[23] “Canadian Success at the 2013 Havana International Fair,” Government of Canada, December 17, 2013, http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/cuba/eyes_abroad-coupdoeil/havana-international-fair_Foire_2013.aspx?lang=eng

[24] “Cuba Seeks Chinese Investment in Special Development Zone,” Global Times, November 4, 2013, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/822337.shtml#.UwtjLvldVIE

[25] “Cuba Woos Chinese Investment With Special Development Zone,” Xinhua, September 25, 2013, news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-09/25/c_132750029.htm

[26] “Cuba Seeks Chinese Investment.”

[27] Weihua, Jiao, and Guangjin, “China, Cuba Sign.”

[28] Shannon Tiezzi, “China’s Push Into America’s Backyard,” The Diplomat, February 8, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/chinas-push-into-americas-backyard/ – asian pivot

[29] Patricia Mazzei, “Miami-Dade Commission To Weigh Future of Airport City Project,” The Miami Herald, February 18, 2014, http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/18/3944438/miami-dade-commission-to-weigh.html

[30] Ibid

[31] “U.S. and Cuba To Hold Fresh Round of Diplomatic Talks In Havana,” The Guardian, January 8, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/08/us-cuba-to-hold-diplomatic-talks-alan-gross-migration

[32] Steven Kurlander, “Flip Flopping on Cuba:Time To End Antiquated Cold War Embargo,” The Huffington Post, February 19, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-kurlander/flip-flopping-on-cuba-tim_b_4815615.html

[33] “UN Urges End of U.S. Embargo on Cuba,” Aljazeera, October 29, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/un-urges-end-us-embargo-cuba-20131029181034233544.html

[33] Lee, “U.S.-Cuba Relations.”

[34] Ibid

The article Washington’s Missed Opportunities: Cuba Successfully Engaging World – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By INEGMA

By Riad Kahwaji

American President Barak Obama is due to visit Saudi Arabia later this month hoping to ease Riyadh’s fears over Washington’s commitments to the Arabian Gulf region after several setbacks in the relations between the two strategic partners caused by U.S. foreign policy in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Iran, amongst other things. The question on the minds of so many analysts and officials is what will Obama bring with him to assure the Saudis besides simple diplomatic talk and more promises? The wide growing perception in the Middle East region, as well as other parts of the world, is that the United States appears to be a fading power incapable of protecting the interests of its allies and unable to stand up to bold challenges. The ongoing situation in Ukraine could not have come at a worse time for Washington because it has only reinforced the perception of a weak America on the retreat. So what should Obama do in the very small time he has remaining before his Saudi visit?

Obama should try to start reversing the perception of a weakened America by taking some bold steps for a change. He has been doing everything possible to avoid being dragged into confrontation on numerous fronts, and the one that concerns the Middle East the most is Syria. If one keeps running away from confrontations he will soon find the fight waiting at his doorstep. Last August Obama took an eleventh hour decision that shocked his allies as much as his enemies which halted an air strike against the Syrian regime’s forces in retaliation for their use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syrian areas under rebel control. Ever since Syria has slipped into uncontrolled sectarian civil war while Russia, Iran and Hizbullah increased their supplies of men and arms to help the regime’s efforts to brutally crush a public uprising. Now, senior U.S. intelligence chiefs describe chaos in Syria as a national security threat to America. Shortly after, Obama shocked his Arab Gulf allies with a major shift in U.S. policy towards Iran by abandoning a hardline approach to end Tehran’s nuclear program and embarked on a rapprochement with Iran under the pretext of accepting a limited Iranian nuclear program.

In Iraq, the U.S. increased its backing to the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki by pledging to provide it with more arms to help combat Islamist groups in the Anbar province, which is witnessing public revolts by Sunni tribes protesting what they see as Maliki’s pro-Iranian sectarian policies that favor the majority Shiites of Iraq. Most Arab Gulf States share the sentiments of the Iraqi Sunni tribes in the Anbar province. In Egypt, the U.S. backing of the Muslim Brotherhood, another foe to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, added another hurdle to U.S.-Gulf relations. The rapid changes inside and outside the region has increased the level of anxiety amongst some Arabian Gulf leaderships to the extent that they were no longer shy to voice their anger even within their own household. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 5 took an unprecedented step of withdrawing their Ambassadors from Qatar after the latter refused to cooperate in halting what the other states perceive as steps that undermine regional stability.

In short, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have become intolerant to any steps or policies that they see as threatening to their stability that might contribute to empowering Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. They are adamant on preventing an Iranian victory in either Syria or Iraq or Lebanon. They remain highly suspicious of the Iranian nuclear program having a military dimension. They are not sure whether the U.S. is still a reliable ally, and if not what would be their best options in light of Russia’s resurgence in Ukraine, making a comeback to the international scene bringing an end to the unipolar world order that prevailed after the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. Many officials and experts in the region are wondering now whether they are back to the days of a bipolar world engulfed in a Cold War between the two super powers.

Human nature dictates that when there are two individuals or powers fighting the first instinctive reaction would be to either to side with the stronger side, or at least avoid antagonizing the stronger one even if his actions are not ideal. Russia today is not communist but more or less a capitalist state with national control over its key industries. Its struggle with the West is taking on a nationalistic as well as an ethnic and religious dimension, which is bringing an end to globalization. Russia is getting stronger and getting its way in Syria, Ukraine and Iran, while the U.S. and the West are on the retreat. Russia is not afraid to use military force to achieve its objectives, while the U.S. and Europe are running away from fights and challenges. The Kremlin is taking advantage of this reality. Russia’s defense budget is increasing while the U.S. and Europe are slashing defense budgets annually. So the tide seems to be reversing. Although many would argue that the U.S. is still the strongest military and economic power in the world, however many in the region ask until when and what use is America’s strength if Washington is not willing to use it to uphold its interests or those of its allies.

President Obama should not expect any easy discussions or soft polite words when he meets soon with Saudi and other Gulf officials. He will be expected to present clear, solid and sellable policies that would produce short-term tangible results. His pleas to reduce military support to Syrian rebels will not be heeded without a convincing alternative from the U.S. side that would ensure the removal of Syrian leader Bashar Assad from power with a containment of Iranian influence in Syria and subsequently Lebanon and Iraq. Obama will not be able to secure full support to his rapprochement with Iran if he would not guarantee a change in Tehran’s policies towards the Arab world, especially interference in its internal affairs. Saudis and other Gulf leaders would expect unconditional American support to the new Egyptian government and to cease support to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, it is not clear whether talk and promises would be enough to reverse the perception Saudi and many Gulf officials have of Obama and America today. Perhaps some clear actions by Obama with respect to Syria or the Israeli-Palestinian struggle must be taken before his anticipated visit in order to pave the way for successful talks. It is time for Obama to be more assertive and get on the same page with Arab allies or risk losing them in a rapidly changing world order.

Riad Kahwaji, CEO, INEGMA

The article Crucial Obama Visit To Saudi Arabia Requires Decisive Action – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By William Donohue

The latest survey of Catholics conducted by the Pew Research Center highlights the difference between practicing and non-practicing Catholics. It also taps the extent to which Catholics appear to be conflicted on moral issues.

On questions regarding birth control, married priests, women priests, and same-sex marriages, the average approval difference between practicing and non-practicing Catholics is 23 percent. That is an enormous difference. It suggests that non-practicing Catholics have more in common with non-Catholics on these issues than they do with those who attend Mass weekly.

The survey did not distinguish between practicing and non-practicing Catholics on the following: Catholics were asked to assess Pope Francis on his “Standing for traditional moral values.” He received his highest rating on this issue (tied with “Spreading Catholic faith”): 81 percent. It can be surmised that this figure would be even higher among practicing Catholics, but that is not why this matters.

How can Catholics say they are okay with birth control, married priests, and women priests (only a third of practicing Catholics say the Church should recognize gay marriages), yet say Pope Francis is doing an excellent/good job in “Standing for traditional moral values”?

Equality, which is a key value of the American Creed, tugs Catholics to give their blessings to married priests and women priests (birth control wins approval for lots of other reasons). But almost none are demanding changes. On the other hand, Catholics respect adherence to traditional moral values. This is a reflection of the uneasiness many of them have with the prevailing winds of moral relativism, and the pride they have in the Catholic Church as a reliable moral anchor.

The strong support for traditional values suggests a continuity in Catholic thought that is typically underplayed, if not totally ignored, by the media.

The article Conflicted Catholics? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

NDTV’s Barkha Dutt did a fine piece in Hindustan Times last week. Bemoaning the continuing degeneration of Indian politics coupled with the rise of the Right, she voiced eminent jurist Fali Nariman’s concerns raised in the recent National Integration Council meet in Delhi. Meeting in the wake of Muzaffarnagar riots, Nariman shook everyone with his moving intervention when he said, “I was born in a pluralistic, tolerant India, but I fear I may not die in one.”

The feisty NDTV journalist goes on to argue that long years of political hypocrisy has weakened the idea of secularism. So much so this once lofty ideal, enshrined in Indian constitution, has become a joke and almost a curse word to be jeered at by the Right.
She blames the opportunism of politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav, once called ‘Maulana’ for his proximity to Muslims, for this state of affairs. But let us not lose sight of the fact that it was the Congress that invented and perfected this fine art of tokenism, paying endless lip service to minorities while doing precious little to improve their lives.

Apparently, it was the BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani who first came up with the word ‘pseudo-secularism’ to describe the Congress’ so-called appeasement of Muslims while his more ingenious protégé Narendra Modi would spell it as ‘sickularism’. And if pundits and pollsters are to be believed, he would be India’s prime minister in less than two months!

If the Right has managed to turn secularism, once the proud cornerstone of Indian democracy and its defining identity, into an expletive today, it has been ably aided and assisted by the party that has ruled India for the better part of its independent existence and other fellow travelers. They have used it repeatedly and shamelessly to cover their naked ambition and bankruptcy of principles.

Talking of the essentially self-serving nature of politics, Russian leader Khrushchev had explained that politicians are the same everywhere. But then he hadn’t seen our politicians in action. They have turned rank opportunism, shifting loyalties and ideological and political somersaults into a fine art and science altogether.

Twelve years ago, Ram Vilas Paswan won millions of hearts when he stormed out of the NDA coalition led by Vajpayee, giving up his ministry over the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.

Today, hemmed in from all sides in Bihar and at home from his insecure son, he has embraced Modi. He cited Gujarat as the “model of good governance where no riots have taken place since 2002” at the first public meeting with Modi in Patna. Paswan and son still insist that they remain committed to ‘secularism’ even as Modi trashed it and drove it into the ground again and again at the same rally.

One week, Sharad Power of the Nationalist Congress Party, one of the sharpest and wiliest minds in Indian politics, bats for Modi citing the so-called clean chit given by the special investigation team. Another convenient week finds him trashing the Gujarat leader in the name of secularism and all that is holy. He could now conveniently recall the carnage that went on for months on the Gujarat leader’s watch.

Pawar doesn’t have any qualms in accommodating the leading lights of Shiv Sena, notorious for their role in the 1992-93 riots that killed nearly as many people as in Gujarat incidentally on the watch of a Congress government led by his minion Sudhakar Naik. They all become secular overnight as soon as they shed color saffron to wear white Congress crisps.

There have been numerous others who have used the fig leaf of secularism to get away with murder. From dumb cosmetic gestures like hosting iftar parties to wearing skull caps to offering false promises and empty rhetoric, every political party, from the Congress to Samajwadi Party to BSP and from Lalu and Mayawati to Nitesh, is guilty of abusing it.

None of these champions of secularism and minorities have anything concrete to show for their long years in power, save perhaps the glory of their own extended families and clans.
Secularism is not photo ops with Muslims during elections or Ramadan and Eid or visits to dargahs and mushairas waxing eloquent about the lyrical beauty of Urdu and its contribution to freedom struggle. Added to this is the faux sympathy and rhetoric of the so-called secular parties invoking Muslims and secularism whenever it suits them, as if secularism was the concern and headache of the Muslims alone.

And the BJP and extended Hindutva family have over the years exploited this whole farce as the “Muslim appeasement” and ‘vote bank politics’ to project themselves as the guardians and well-wishers of Hindus and India. More ominously, the fiction about pampering of Muslims has poisoned Hindu-Muslim relations fueling a silent wave of hostility and antagonism against a hopelessly marginalized and dispossessed minority. The devastating consequences of this dangerous, insidious game are seen in the harvest of hatred reaped from time to time, from Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh.

No wonder secularism has become the most abused word in Indian politics today. So much so, in the words of American Indologist Ronald Inden, the poorly educated Indian “intelligentsia” has today come to identify Indian brand of secularism with anti-Hinduism and appeasement of Muslims.

Yet it was once the guiding spirit of Indian democracy and constitution. Jawaharlal Nehru and other leading lights of Independence movement understood that it was the glue that held the nation together and it did in great crises and most trying circumstances.

The first prime minister went to great lengths to point out that India embraced secularism not in the European sense of the word, which meant rejection of all religion and disassociation of state with faith. In the Indian context and under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and other luminaries of the freedom movement many of whom were all proud of their faiths, secularism was adapted as something that respected and embraced all faiths and favored none.

It was pluralism Indian style, celebrating the diversity of the republic in all its resplendent glory. More importantly, it has served the nation well and kept it united defying its impossible complexities and inherent fault lines in a volatile neighborhood.

Following the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution brought in by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution clearly asserts that India is a “sovereign, socialist secular, democratic republic.” The laws implicitly require the state and its institutions to recognize and accept all religions and respect pluralism.

And this Idea of India with its all-embracing pluralism and democratic ethos and its existence is not defined or determined by a minority or the majority. It is in the long-term interest of a diverse and incredibly complex, melting pot of a nation that is a world in itself. India’s strength lies in its pluralism, and not in its being drowned and overwhelmed by one single, dominant, overpowering hue.

As for Muslims, I have said this before and I say it again. They need no special treatment from anyone, not from the Congress, nor from the BJP or other assorted parties. All they need is their fair share and part in the India story.

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf-based commentator. Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

The article Why Secularism Is The Most Abused Word Today – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

The US Navy has confirmed that a guided missile destroyer, the USS Truxtun, is heading to the Black Sea, for what the US military said is a “routine” deployment, decided long before the crisis in Ukraine, which has divided world powers.

The US Navy said in a statement that the USS Truxtun left Greece on Thursday on the way to the Black Sea and was going to conduct training with the Romanian and Bulgarian navy.

“While in the Black Sea, the ship will conduct a port visit and routine, previously planned exercises with allies and partners in the region,” The US Navy said in statement.

“Truxtun’s operations in the Black Sea were scheduled well in advance of her departure from the United States,” the statement added.

The ship has a crew of about 300 and is part of an aircraft carrier strike group that left the US in mid-February.

The announcement comes after Turkish authorities confirmed on Wednesday they had given permission to a US navy warship to pass through the Bosphorus Straights, which is the only entrance to the Black Sea, it was reported in the Hurriyet Daily News.

However, Turkish sources told the Hurriyet Daily News that the ship in question was not the nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, as was suggested in some news reports. The USS George Bush is too heavy in terms of tonnage to meet the standards of the Montreux Convention, which governs what can and can’t access the Black Sea.

The Pentagon also said on Wednesday that US fighter jets would join NATO patrols on missions in the Baltic countries, which include Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

On Sunday the Tass news agency reported that the guided missile frigate USS Taylor, which had been assigned to the Black Sea for the Sochi Winter Olympics, was still in the Turkish port of Samsun for repairs, after running aground on February 12.

Two Russian navy ships also entered the Black Sea through the Bosphorus on Tuesday, as well as a Ukrainian navy vessel which was heading for Odessa and not the Crimea.

The article US Confirms Missile Destroyer USS Truxtun Approaching Black Sea appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Said Temsamani

The Lalla Salma Association Against Cancer was founded in 2005. The association is now called “Lalla Salma Foundation – Prevention and Treatment of Cancers.” In less than three years since its founding, the Lalla Salma Foundation has mobilized efforts to raise public cancer awareness throughout Morocco, launched an ambitious building campaign, organized the first national cancer registry and linked arms with an array of international partners in the fight against cancer. Inspired by the vision and leadership of Her Royal Highness, Princess Lalla Salma, the non-governmental organization is already making significant inroads in improving the quality of cancer management and the ensuring that all Moroccan patients have access to a high standard of cancer care. Early detection projects in breast and cervical cancer are underway, and the Foundation oversees a program of tobacco control is partnership with the Ministry of Health and business and education leaders.

In 2006 the Foundation became associate UICC member.Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Salma, Chairwoman of the “Lalla Salma Association to Fight against Cancer” known by its French acronym ALSC innauguarates a increasing number of “House of Life for Children”. Those houses are built and equipped by the ALSC in partnership with the National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD). Its construction was part of a partnership agreement developed between the ALSC, the cities councils, the Ministry of Health and regional hospitals.

The houses consist of many rooms with double beds and studios, dining rooms, classrooms, living rooms, play areas for children, computer rooms, meeting rooms, treatment rooms, kitchens, laundry rooms and gardens. They were created to encourage children with cancer from all regions of Morocco, who come for treatment. They provide young patients and their families housing, psychological and moral support necessary for a successful treatment in a friendly environment where they can also enjoy social activities.
Cancer treatment is often long and difficult for both patients and their families. The problem of accommodation is one of the causes of the abandonment of treatment.

Under the National Plan for Prevention and controlled cancer, the creation of spaces for temporary accommodation, called Maison de Vie, near each cancer center, has become a necessity to encourage patients to follow treatment and improve the care and support families.

The houses offer living assistance and psychological support to patients and their families and can also facilitate the procedures for consultation and decision appointments with specialist physicians.

Residents living in these houses are surrounded by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals, psychologists and social workers who ensure their well being during their stay. A group of volunteers runs the various social and cultural activities, organizing outings, dinners, musical evenings, as well as education sessions on dietary and hygiene.

They are designed to accommodate patients and their families during their outpatient treatment, to ensure regular monitoring of patients, accompany patients by providing them with the necessary moral and psychological support, and their social and cultural activities.

To date, the ALSC has built many houses already operational. Still Princess Lala Salma is committed to build more houses and to start more programs to help cancer patients to fight this disastrous disease. Lalla Salma Association to Fight Cancer has as main objective to raise public awareness on cancer. In this sense the Princess launched an ambitious campaign, organized the first national cancer registry and linked arms with many international partners in the fight against cancer.

The article Princess Lalla Salma, Motivational And Inspirational Commitment For African Women‏ – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Eurasia Review

By Rupak Bhattacharjee

The strategic location of Bangladesh which connects the nations of South and Southeast Asia helps Dhaka to play a pivotal role in regional forums like Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), ASEAN and the Forum for Regional Economic Cooperation among Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM). In addition to SAARC, these platforms offer excellent opportunities for Bangladesh to expand its economic, commercial and cultural ties with the neighbouring nations. The Sheikh Hasina government is keen to develop close relations with the fast growing economies of ASEAN, China and India through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms.

Bangladesh is an important member of BIMSTEC — a sub-regional grouping comprising seven geographically contiguous South and Southeast Asian nations in the Bay of Bengal, namely: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan. The third summit of heads of state and governments was held at Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar on March 3 and 4. Formed in 2004, BIMSTEC seeks to promote cooperation and strengthen connectivity among the member countries in 14 priority sectors. Some of them include trade and investment, technology, transport and communication, energy, tourism, fisheries, environment and disaster management, counter-terrorism and transnational crime etc.

The present summit, held after a gap of six years, is significant for Bangladesh in many ways. Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed has observed that trade issues would dominate the third summit of BIMSTEC. A number of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were finalised to be signed at the summit. The sectors covered by the MoUs include energy, agriculture and tourism. Another MoU inked at the summit paved the way for establishing a secretariat in Bangladesh. BIMSTEC was initiated with the purpose of combining the “Look West” policy of Thailand and the “Look East” policy of India and Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is also an integral part of Forum for Regional Economic Cooperation among Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM). It was floated on Aug 17, 1999 in a regional conference held at Kunming, the capital of China’s southwestern Yunan province. BCIM is designed to integrate the region economically through market access, investment opportunities and improvement of infrastructural facilities. Bangladesh’s commerce minister has stated that the process for setting BCIM Economic Corridor is at the final stage. He said, “Once it’s set up, trade volume will increase significantly.”

Over the years, China has emerged as a key supplier of Bangladesh armed forces’ military hardware and financer of the country’s development and infrastructural projects. Sino-Bangladesh ties have been sustained by the successive governments in Bangladesh since the late 1970’s in the national interest. China also attaches importance to its relations with Bangladesh and competes with India for influence in the South Asian country. The Communist-ruled state became an observer in SAARC primarily due to Bangladeshi initiative. Both Beijing and Dhaka consider broader regional cooperation vital to stability and prosperity in the future. The quadrilateral grouping, BCIM Economic Corridor is an effort in that direction.

The proposed transnational highway and railway lines between Bangladesh and Southeast Asian states underscore the geo-strategic significance of the country in the wider regional framework and beyond. Bangladesh is one of the 31 countries associated with the highway project. The Asian Highway would link Bangladesh to 15 countries, provide improved access to Southeast Asia and eventually reduce pressure on Chittagong port. The high potential of bilateral trade with its immediate neighbour Myanmar — a key component of almost all the regional forums, has remained untapped due to the lack of shipping and road connectivity. Bangladesh-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industry leaders maintain that Bangladesh stands to benefit from the coastal shipping line as import of basic commodities would be much cheaper, easier and quicker.

There is a growing realisation for widening and broadening economic cooperation between ASEAN and Bangladesh in many areas of mutual interest and benefit. Bangladesh was included in the ASEAN Regional Forum on July 28, 2006 as the 26th member. Numerous common economic and security interests persist between both the sides in areas like expansion of trade and investment, agriculture, communication, tourism, transfer of technology and counter-terrorism. ASEAN could make optimum utilisation of the low infrastructure costs, cheap labour and natural gas of Bangladesh. Though Dhaka is yet to emerge as a leading trading partner of ASEAN, the volume of trade between them has been increasing rapidly.

Bangladeshi economic analysts are of the opinion that Dhaka and ASEAN should explore the possibilities of a comprehensive trade partnership through free trade agreement. Disheartened by the tardy progress of SAARC, Bangladesh of late is looking towards its eastern horizon to pursue trade and economic interests. This new policy thrust is aimed at integrating Bangladesh’s economy with ASEAN — already an economic powerhouse.

Bangladesh’s recent strategy has been to diversify the country’s foreign economic relations in order to relieve itself from over-reliance on its giant neighbour India. Dhaka’s efforts to woo the East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea are to be seen in the light of prevailing ground realities. Bangladesh’s foreign policymakers believe that broader engagement with ASEAN and East Asian countries would better serve its long-term strategic, economic and other interests. However, chronic political instability and crisis of governance might spoil Bangladesh’s chances of emerging as a key regional actor in the foreseeable future.

(Rupak Bhattacharjee has worked as Senior Research Fellow at Kolkata’s Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies and New Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management. He can be contacted at drrupakbhattacharjee_2011@hotmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor.

The article Bangladesh: Looking East To Play Key Regional Role – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RSIS

The forthcoming leadership transition in Indonesia will not result in a radical foreign policy change. However, Indonesia is likely to diversify its foreign policy choices by promoting its emerging middle power status. This article continues a series on this year’s national elections.

By Awidya Santikajaya

INDONESIA will undergo a significant transformation this year as the country will hold national elections to choose new legislators at both the national and regional levels and elect a new president to succeed incumbent Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has been in power since 2004.

During his presidency which spans two terms, Yudhoyono has been lauded for reviving activism in Indonesia’s foreign policy after years of difficulty following the 1997-1998 Asian financialcrisis and the fall of President Suharto. Will the forthcoming leadership transition result in a drastic change in Indonesia’s foreign policy?

Continuity rather than change

Some analysts of Indonesia’s foreign policy are worried that the new president may be inward-looking and more interested in pursuing a nationalistic agenda. This prediction is somewhat exaggerated. While the new president may be more nationalistic, he or she will be unlikely to radically change Indonesia’s foreign policy direction. There are three reasons for this.

First of all, just as in the case of domestic politics, foreign policy issues involve a broad range of domestic aspirations, from a more protectionist trade policy to human rights and democracy promotion; from a more active stance in ASEAN to one that is more globally-oriented. The new president, like the incumbent, will likely choose the middle ground by continuing Indonesia’s current diplomacy. He or she will not do any extreme foreign policy makeover and will prefer to satisfy demands from diverse foreign policy interests inside the country.

Secondly, Indonesia does not urgently need to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, which requires energy and resources. Indonesia has been criticised for not taking a proactive leadership role in ASEAN during difficult times. For instance, Indonesia did not take a firm stand towards China over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea – until after ASEAN foreign ministers were in disarray over the issue following their annual meeting in Cambodia in 2012.

Nonetheless, this position is understandable because adopting an aggressive policy toward China would not only incur economic costs with China but would also require a huge effort to rival China’s dominant economic influence in some ASEAN members such as Cambodia and Laos, something Indonesia current lacks.

Thirdly, the new president will not become an inward-looking president because he/she will be driven by domestic aspiration to see Indonesia play a constructive role in world politics. Indonesians are increasingly getting more mature and rational in responding to international affairs because many of them have international exposure. More government officials from various agencies, including at the regional level, and parliament members have more experience in networking from their involvement in international fora.

The private sector is also intensifying its lobby of the government for more participation in economic diplomacy. It is true that when there was political tension between Indonesia and its neighbours, such as with Malaysia over Indonesian migrant workers, some protests followed in front of the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta. Nonetheless, nationalist rhetoric of a few groups does not necessarily reflect the real public interest and concern. The public in general prefer to see increasing mutual trade, cultural exchanges, and people-to-people relations despite some difficulty in bilateral relations.

Likely future foreign policy

The next president will likely try to play a more active and innovative role in global affairs, but this will not be accomplished by exercising an obsolete “Konfrontasi” spirit. There are indications to support this prediction. Some presidential candidates have tried to convey to both domestic constituents and foreign observers that they are able to manage foreign relations well.

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo or “Jokowi”, the front runner for the presidency according to surveys, initiated the first-ever meeting between the governors and mayors of ASEAN’s capital cities a few months ago, a signal that he aims to promote the growth of a Southeast Asian community. Former Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, who is running for nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, has been portrayed as a capable negotiator in difficult meetings of the WTO last December.

Previously, Aburizal Bakrie, the Golkar Party chairman, toured Australia, Malaysia and Thailand to meet leaders of the ruling parties in those countries, apparently to raise his profile as a strong internationalist. Even Prabowo Subianto, who often advocates more protectionist and nationalistic policies, was also declared by his brother, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, to support foreign investment.

Moves of an emerging power?

While there will likely be no substantial and ideological change in Indonesia’s foreign policy under the new leadership after this year’s elections, the next president will need to deal with both regional and global developments which will influence Indonesia’s strategic choices. In Southeast Asia, despite progress towards ASEAN Community 2015, some countries in the region are facing the threat of domestic instability. The political stalemate in Thailand, unresolved protests in Phnom Penh and other internal tensions could weaken enthusiasm for regional integration.

In the broader region, there are tendencies of conservatism and self-serving nationalistic agendas, such as growing tension between China and Japan over territorial dispute and the controversial “stop-the-boat” policy in Australia.

Amidst an uncertain and unpredictable regional and global situation, Indonesia will strategically try to refocus its foreign policy. It will likely reduce its diplomatic weight from traditional, but increasingly less effective organisations such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – two groups in which Indonesia was very active between 1960s and 1990s. ASEAN will still be important for Indonesia, but Jakarta may seek to diversify its foreign policy orientation as a consequence of its self-perceived status as an emerging middle power.

For example, together with Mexico, Korea, Turkey and Australia, Indonesia formed an informal consultative group dubbed MIKTA last year. It is too early to predict whether MIKTA could have significant influence in world politics, especially within the G-20, but MIKTA countries have started to meet regularly at the working group level.

As shown by its move on MIKTA, Indonesia in 2014 and beyond will creatively either initiate or join informal groupings, which is a new phenomenon in world politics. For any future Indonesian president, joining the club of middle and emerging powers across different regions will not be entirely aimed at influencing global governance. More importantly, it will have a domestic goal. If the new leader intensifies efforts to raise Indonesia’s image as an emerging power, he or she will be regarded by constituents at home as a competent leader of this big and complex nation.

Awidya Santikajaya is a PhD candidate at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, the Australian National University. He contributed this to RSIS Commentaries.

The article Indonesia’s Leadership Transition: Will Jakarta’s Foreign Policy Change? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.