By Mary Rezac

The last person hanged for witchcraft in Boston could be considered a Catholic martyr.

In the 1650s, Ann Glover and her family, along with some 50,000 other native Irish people, were enslaved by Englishman Oliver Cromwell during the occupation of Ireland and shipped to the island of Barbados, where they were sold as indentured servants.

What is known of her history is sporadic at best, though she was definitely Irish and definitely Catholic. According to an article in the Boston Globe, even Ann’s real name remains a mystery, as indentured servants were often forced to take the names of their masters.

While in Barbados, Ann’s husband was reportedly killed for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. By 1680, Ann and her daughter had moved to Boston where Ann worked as a “goodwife” (a housekeeper and nanny) for the John Goodwin family.

Father Robert O’Grady, director of the Boston Catholic Directory for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that after working for the Goodwins for a few years, Ann Glover became sick, and the illness spread to four of the five Goodwin children.

“She was, unsurprisingly, not well-educated, and in working with the family, apparently she got sick at some point and the kids for whom she was primarily responsible caught whatever it was,” Fr. O’Grady told CNA.

A doctor allegedly concluded that “nothing but a hellish Witchcraft could be the origin of these maladies,” and one of the daughters confirmed the claim, saying she fell ill after an argument with Ann.

The infamous Reverend Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate and one of the main perpetrators of witch trial hysteria at the time, insisted Ann Glover was a witch and brought her to what would be the last witch trial in Boston in 1688.

In the courtroom, Ann refused to speak English and instead answered questions in her native Irish Gaelic. In order to prove she was not a witch, Mather asked Ann to recite the Our Father, which she did, in a mix of Irish Gaelic and Latin because of her lack of education.

“Cotton Mather would have recognized some of it, because of course that would have been part of your studies in those days, you studied classical languages when you were preparing to be a minister, especially Latin and Greek,” Father O’Grady said.

“But because it was kind of mixed in with Irish Gaelic, it was then considered proof that she was possessed because she was mangling the Latin.”

Allegedly, Boston merchant Robert Calef, who knew Ann when she was alive, said she “was a despised, crazy, poor old woman, an Irish Catholic who was tried for afflicting the Goodwin children. Her behavior at her trial was like that of one distracted. They did her cruel. The proof against her was wholly deficient. The jury brought her guilty. She was hung. She died a Catholic.”

Mather convicted Ann of being an “idolatrous Roman Catholick” and a witch, and she hung on Boston Common on November 16, 1688. Today, just a 15 minute walk away, the parish of Our Lady of Victories holds a plaque commemorating her martyrdom, which reads:

“Not far from here on 16 November 1688, Goodwife Ann Glover an elderly Irish widow, was hanged as a witch because she had refused to renounce her Catholic faith. Having been deported from her native Ireland to the Barbados with her husband, who died there because of his own loyalty to the Catholic faith, she came to Boston where she was living for at least six years before she was unjustly condemned to death. This memorial is erected to commemorate “Goody” Glover as the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.”

The plaque was placed at the Church on the tercentennial anniversary of her death in 1988 by the Order of Alhambra, a Catholic fraternity whose mission includes commemorating Catholic historical persons, places and events. The Boston City Council also declared November 16 as “Goody Glover Day”, in order to condemn the injustice brought against her.

Ann Glover has not yet been officially declared a martyr by a pope, nor has her cause for canonization been opened to date, partly because her story has faded into obscurity over time, Fr. O’Grady said.

“Part of the dilemma here (too) is that when she was hanged, Catholics were a tiny, minuscule, minority in Boston, so picking up her ‘cause’ was not easy or ‘on top of the list,’” he said.

Ann Glover’s trial also set the tone for the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692, during which 19 men and women were hanged for witchcraft, and in which Reverend Cotton Mather and his anti-Catholic prejudices played a major role.

The post Was The Last ‘Witch’ Of Boston Actually A Catholic Martyr? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A response to Bruce Riedel’s article “India-Pakistan Head for Nuke War”

By Hassan Ehtisham and Ahsan Ali Zahid **

Are India and Pakistan heading for a nuclear war? Bruce Riedel will make you believe it will happen today and it will be all Islamabad’s fault. Mr. Riedel is a former CIA officer and was a senior adviser to three U.S. presidents, including President Obama. He is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. While Brookings leads in cutting edge research, Mr. Riedel leads in mythmaking about Pakistan. His recent op-ed India-Pakistan Head for Nuke War is the latest fiction writing, which is based on a priori knowledge rather than facts. His writings are perhaps an expression of his old frustration of 1998 in failing to encourage Pakistan from not responding to Indian nuclear tests. He was shown the door in his mission impossible. If this is untrue, the other possible explanation of his hostility could be that he has a political axe to grind and works as the whip man for poking Pakistan once needed. These are strong assertions and let’s substantiate these with some evidence or we will be liable of Riedelism.

Riedel’s Leading Assertions

Nowadays Mr. Riedel use repetition of two proclamations in his almost every piece. First, Mr. Riedel asserts that Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT) planned a massacre in the Indian consulate in Afghanistan’s Herat province on the eve of inauguration of India’s PM Modi. Simple calculation, Riedel is pointing out a major flaw of the US state department, which is always lacking in evidence and it depends on being told by someone. The US itself refused to divulge details about the credible information on Herat incident, when it was asked.

If anyone accustomed with US state department, one will be aware that the datum provided for the sake of confirmation is always uncertain. For instance, no footage was released publically on the Osama bin Laden’s killing and eventually the changing statements of the white house triggered a ripple effect of conspiracy theories. Previously, varying statements by the US state department can be found on different accounts such as 9/11 attack, procession of WMD’s in Iraq, use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government and the recent ISIS and Ukraine conspiracies, which are the pieces of the same puzzle.

Second, Mr. Riedel is confused in a riddle that LeT is responsible for Mumbai attacks, by following the incongruous Indian narrative on the issue. Ironically, there is lot to learn what happened in Mumbai. It’s his inability to understand the Indian involvement in terrifying its own Mumbai. A whistleblower holding a major position in India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, Satish Verma, has alleged his own government of orchestrating the attack on the Indian parliament, along with the 2008 Mumbai attack. Considering the other confirmations, Wikileaks source has revealed secret US state department wire in which the US had slammed New Delhi’s case on insufficient evidence.

Furthermore, the death of Hemant Karkare, who was investigating state-sponsored terrorism activities by RSS and Mossad, raised questions on the involvement of Indian agencies. With the death threats against him already on record, why ATS Chief Hemant Karkare exposed unprotected by establishment on the streets of Mumbai? To let RSS and Mossad assassinate him! Gautam Adhikari warned that Karkare killing was a message by RSS and Mossad that you cannot investigate this angle.

Rather than jumping on biased conclusion, Mr. Riedel should scrutinize on other sources of information to reinforce more realistic findings on the subject. Besides this, the Italian journalist Austro D. Agnelli investigated the Indian involvement in terrorist activities and disclosed the two permanent joint Indian air force and military bases, Farkhor and Ayni, both are located in Tajikistan are being used as terrorist training camps. These Indian terrorists are being used in Pakistan, for instance in Karachi airport terrorist attack. Also, Indian former Army Chief and Chuck Hagel have statements about opening Butchery and another front in the West against Pakistan. One could not deny the possibility of master planning the Herat attack by India, same as the Parliament and Mumbai attacks to frame Pakistan.

Obsession with Nuclear Pakistan

In India-Pakistan Head for Nuke War, while raising the prospect and alarm of a nuclear war in South Asia, Mr. Riedel completely fails to elaborate the factors that will lead to such a catastrophe. He invites attention to Pakistan’s development of the so-called tactical nuclear weapons without informing gullible audience that India has also developed TNWs – Pragati and Prahaar. While pushing the Indian narrative, he fails to give Pakistani perspective of developing similar weapons – Nasr – to deter New Delhi from attempting a limited war below Islamabad’s nuclear threshold. Secondly, other world powers including the US are testing delivery systems to upgrade their arsenals. If it is not the right time to remove the American tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe and there is no prospect of nuclear war, then why having such fears for South Asia?

There is no official statement by any Pakistani statesman that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are the primary resort for an Indian conventional attack. Pakistan’s defense planners always considered their conventional might as first line of defense against any conventional military attack. In 2001-02 conflict, Pakistan was certain that its military is fully capable of thwarting Indian military advancement. Pakistan strategic deterrence is mostly based on robust conventional military capability and readiness. Any coercive diplomacy by India will always be encountered by deploying Pakistani troops across the international border as exercised in “Azm-e-Nau.”

Likewise, Riedel gives an impression that China’s modest support to Pakistan in overcoming its every challenge is a nuclear weapons overtone. It is interesting to note that their cooperation is legal, under IAEA safeguards and does not violate any international norms. On the other hand a defense research group, IHS Jane’s has revealed that India is increasing its uranium facility that could support the expansion of nuclear weapons. India is trying to buy foreign sources of uranium so it can use its domestic reserves for a nuclear arms race with Pakistan. Comparatively, Riedel chooses to ignore that a dozen nuclear deals that India has signed with so-called champions of non-proliferation violate NPT and their domestic non-proliferation laws. NPT binds its signatories from not sharing nuclear technology with non-members, especially the weapons possessing states. America and Australia made an exception to their domestic laws in opening nuclear trade with India. Pakistan has no NPT or NSG obligation and China had signed civil nuclear cooperation deal with Pakistan before it took these obligations.

Lessons Learned

Bruce Riedel’s diatribes against Pakistan substantiate one lesson from international politics that everything is fair in pursuit of national interests. Knowing that India is the biggest arms importer in the world, why the West wants to create strategic imbalance by offering carrots to India and sticks to Pakistan! Likewise, Pakistan does not currently fit in the larger geopolitical designs of large powers that have created a mess out of Muslim world by fighting proxy wars then fighting more wars to deal with their consequences and are now unbalancing the globe by so-called rebalancing towards Pacific Rim. Proxy’s and militant organizations were used to defeat the Soviet Union, to overthrow the Gaddafi’s regime and in Pakistan, the same forces are likewise being armed and backed by the Americans. Mr. Riedel is a victim of self-denial and finds space and forums to push politically motivated myths. He once confessed that ‘we have betrayed Pakistani people over and over again in pursuit of our national interests.’ One can always forgive him for his prejudices – after all, it pays to bandwagon and move with the tide.

About the authors:

** Ahsan Ali Zahid is a M. Phil student at School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Hasan Ehtisham is a M. Phil student at Department of Strategic Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

The post Riedel’s Mythmaking And Pakistan – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Imagine what happens when electricity is cut off nationwide in a country of 160 million people. In Bangladesh, everyday life was brought to a standstill on Saturday as factories, hospitals, and homes plunged into darkness or had to rely on generators.

Even the prime minister’s official residence was left with no electricity, as the small but extremely densely populated South Asian country experienced one of the worst blackouts in world’s recent history.

“The national grid collapsed so the whole country lost power,” Reuters quoted Mohammad Saiful Islam, a director of the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board, as saying. “Our repeated efforts to restore electricity across Bangladesh failed repeatedly.”

Local media reported that the blackout was caused by the failure of a transmission line transporting electricity from India. India’s Power Grid Corp, however, said there were no problems on their side of the border.

“I can’t run my shop without power and no one seems to care,” Mohammad Ripon, owner of a grocery store in the capital of Dhaka, told the agency. “It has been about eight hours now and still there is no word on when the power will come back.”

The airport and main hospital in Dhaka are running on emergency generators.

Garment factory owner Anwarul Alam Chowdhury said he was able to get 2-3 hours’ worth of power out of his generator, but then had to halt the factory’s output.

“This is a big slap for my business,” he said, explaining that many other factories were forced to shut down production as well.

Bangladesh’s plunge into darkness provides a glimpse into a recently debunked hoax about NASA confirming six days of ‘total darkness’ in December.

The hoax went viral on Twitter, leaving many people shocked and bewildered as to how the experience would feel.

The post Bangladesh: Country-Wide Blackout As Power Grid Collapses appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Egyptian-Turkish relations have been soured for some time. While there are no signs of rapprochement on either side, the cycle of dispute should end amid wider regional challenges.

By Ahmed M. Al-Soukkary

Following closely the political discourse between Egypt and Turkey during more than a year leads to two clear conclusions: first, there is sharp political tension intertwined with stalling on different aspects of bilateral relations, especially in the economic and military fields; second, such escalating bilateral tension is building amid a wave of anger and popular discontent at Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spreading in mass demonstrations against his practices over recent years, particularly in imposing restrictions on freedoms of expression and assembly — to the extent of closing down YouTube and Twitter — and using excessive force against political activists and peaceful protesters.

It seems that Egypt and Turkey are entering a break-up phase after months of gradual disorder, an outcome that will not easily be changed in the middle run, as long as Turkey’s pattern of behaviour towards Egypt remains irrational and hostile.

The cycles of sharp conflict between Cairo and Ankara are based on critical issues of contention. These cycles can be mapped out as follows:

• Turkey’s increasing intervention in Egypt’s internal affairs. Erdogan’s intervention policy aims to try to create a pro-Turkish Egyptian regime. That is why the Muslim Brotherhood’s arrival to power in Egypt in 2012 was important for Erdogan, as Turkey perceived Egypt after its Arab Spring on the path to realising a new elected political elite that could reformulate the Middle East along lines favourable to Turkey. However, the Muslim Brotherhood’s overthrow on 3 July 2013 represented a step back in Turkey’s intervention policy in Egypt’s affairs.
• Turkey’s ambiguous relations with the Muslim Brotherhood was one of the issues spurring Egyptian-Turkish tensions, especially after their removal from power and in spite of the Egyptian decision to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, and the political wing emanating from it, and all of its activities. Erdogan’s statements welcoming Muslim Brotherhood members have drawn strong criticism, not only in Cairo but also inside Turkey’s opposition.
• Turkey sought, and still seeks, to follow its intervention policy, insisting on attacking the new regime in Egypt by describing it as illegal in an attempt to revive the situation before 3 July 2013. That is why Erdogan criticised the Egyptian president during his address at the UN General Assembly on 24 September 2014, which was not the first and will not be the last direct attack on Egypt’s new regime. Erdogan continues to act based on his pro-Islamist belief system, inciting hatred between the two countries and peoples for ideological calculations.
• Turkish external behaviour in the Middle East. Before 3 July 2013, relations between Cairo and Ankara were characterised by limited competition over certain issues, like Turkish-Israeli relations, countering Egypt’s influence in the Gulf, regional leadership in the Middle East, and creating interests in Africa away from the Egyptian sphere. However, after the dramatic changes that took place in Egypt, the competitive aspect sharpened, especially as relations between the two countries deteriorated. This competition peaked as both countries tried to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas, though historically Egypt has played the more important role in the settlement of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Though it poses as a balanced peace broker, the Egyptian government envisions itself as the patron of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which it sees as a counterweight to Israel. Egypt’s policy links full normalisation of relations between Cairo and Tel Aviv with a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, and not before. However, Erdogan claimed that Egypt had “no role” in resolving the Gaza crisis and implicitly defended Hamas, which remain in contention with the PA.
• Weakening Egypt’s negotiating position concerning water issues. Turkey’s support for Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam being built on the Blue Nile was a further step in the hostile policy of Ankara towards Egypt, trying to counter Egypt’s attempts at making a breakthrough in negotiations on the water conflict. It is notable that although Ankara began its African policy in 1998, since the arrival of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (JDP) to power in 2002 Ankara followed a more comprehensive economic-oriented policy away from Egypt’s traditional sphere in Africa.

Though Erdogan recently became president of Turkey for five years, it’s noteworthy that his term began amidst accusations of authoritarianism. Despite the period of economic renaissance that Turkey witnessed during the last 12 years since the JDP arrived to power, its policy towards Cairo has failed as part of a broader failure of Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East. Indeed, Turkey’s refusal to accept the new reality in Egypt’s political scene proves that its foreign policy is ideological, based on a religious outlook, regardless of huge bilateral and regional interests that link the two countries.

If Turkey continues the policy of escalation with Egypt it will be faced with increasing isolation in the Arab world, in which Ankara tried during for more than a decade to regain influence via cultural, economic and political tools. In that case, it is expected that the traditional contest between Cairo and Ankara would deepen further into sharp competition, not only on the bilateral level, but also on the regional level. This comes at a time when the region faces a significant challenge from another direction — the spread of radical jihadist groups, including the terrorist Islamic State or IS.

Turkey has to choose between escalating the competition with Egypt and protecting its core interests in the Middle East. While there is no positive indicator so far that bilateral relations between Cairo and Ankara are going to be normalised soon, it is important to realise that states — regardless of the degree of competition or conflict between them — must find some space to cooperate, even on a low profile basis, amid the wider field of international relations.

While Egyptian-Turkish relations can be described currently as non-friendly, there is a growing need to resume normal relations between the two countries on all issues of concern, in order to break the vicious cycle of dispute and face wider regional challenges.

Dr. Ahmed Magdy Al-Soukkary is an Egyptian academic lecturer in International Negotiation Studies & Mediation Processes with a D.Phil. in International Relations (IR). His academic and research interests include International Relations, Comparative Analysis of Conflict Studies, Cross-Cultural Communication, and Foreign Policy. His areas of expertise encompass mainly Turkish Politics, EU Accession Negotiations. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Politics of European Integration with a concentration in Balkan Studies. For more information on his publications, please click here. He can be accessed on ahmed.soukkary@feps.edu.eg

This article has been republished with the approval of Al-Ahram weekly newspaper, and the original text be accessed by clicking here. 

The post Can Egypt And Turkey Turn A New Leaf? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Political rivals in Yemen, signed an agreement on Saturday that authorizes the President and the Prime Minister to form a new government to end political crisis.

Representatives of the Houthi rebels and their political opponents, the Sunni Islamist Islah party in particular, signed the deal, authorizing Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, together with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to appoint new ministers, according to Al Jazeera.

Yemen has seen intense clashes between the Houthis and the opposing tribes and al-Qaeda-linked fighters in major towns and cities over the recent weeks.

On Saturday the Houthis attacked the Islamist Islah Party, Yemen’s biggest Sunni party and their major political rival, in Ibb province, killing four guards and detaining 25 supporters of the party, according to Al Jazeera.

The Houthis, or the Ansarullah, are the main opposition force in Yemen. The Shiite group has been carrying out protests in the country since mid-August, demanding the resignation of the Yemeni government, which they say is corrupt and marginalizes the Shiite community in the country.

Mass protests were fueled by the government’s announcement of a sharp rise in fuel prices with a view to curb its budget deficit.

Houthi militias have taken over a number of key Yemeni cities and towns, including areas of the capital Sanaa.

The post Yemen: Political Rivals Sign Deal Tasking Country’s Leaders To Form New Government appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Iraqi security officials and a tribal leader say militants from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group have killed at least 85 tribesmen and women in the western Anbar Province.

Sheikh Naim al-Gaood, a leader in the Al-Bou Nimr tribe, said on November 1 that IS militants the previous day killed 50 displaced members of the tribe in the village of Ras al-Maa where many Al-Bou Nimr people fled after homes in the area around the town of Hit were overrun recently by IS.

Al-Gaood said IS militants claimed the tribespeople had offered resistance to IS military advances.

Anbar councilman Faleh al-Issawu confirmed the murders in Ras al-Maa.

In a separate incident, a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said another 35 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in Anbar Province.

The post Islamic State Commits More Mass Killings appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A man claiming to be the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, says more than 200 schoolgirls the group kidnapped in April have converted to Islam and been married off.

In a new video, the person identified as Abubakar Shekau said the girls have memorized two chapters of the Quran and are now in their marital homes. Most of the girls taken from Chibok village six months ago came from Christian families.

The video that journalists saw Saturday conflicts with the Nigerian government’s earlier announcement that it was negotiating with Boko Haram to release the girls. The militant seen in the video said Boko Haram has not negotiated with the government and will not enter any talks. The main claiming to be Shekau said he does not know who supposedly represented the militants in talks with the government.

There was no immediate response from the government Saturday to the militant’s claims. Nigeria’s military has said it killed Shekau last year, and also killed an impostor posing as Shekau last month.

The Boko Haram militant seen in the video said the group is interested in fighting and killing its foes, not in negotiations. He said the issue of the girls taken from Chibok village has been “long forgotten” by Boko Haram.

The video statement also claimed Boko Haram is holding a German hostage. A German teacher was kidnapped in the northeastern town of Gombi in July.

Human Rights Watch published a report earlier this week saying Boko Haram was holding upwards of 500 women and young girls and that forced marriage was commonplace in the militant camps. One former hostage told HRW she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for “special treatment because of their beauty.”

HRW said the statements of witnesses and victims of Boko Haram abductions suggest the Nigerian government has failed to “adequately protect women and girls from a myriad of abuses” or “provide them with effective support and mental health and medical care after captivity.” The 63-page report says Nigeria has also failed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the abuses.

The post Nigeria: Boko Haram Claims Kidnapped Schoolgirls ‘Married Off’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By N Sathiya Moorthy

A Colombo court’s recent awarding of death sentence to five Tamil Nadu fishers, for alleged drug-smuggling in 2011, has underscored the urgent need for the Governments of India and Sri Lanka to amicably resolve the vexatious fishing issue, without further loss of time. With this verdict on Thursday, the core issue may have also moved away from livelihood concerns of fishers from both sides, to be possibly replaced by legalities of alleged illegal actions of not only fishers but also other citizens of one country in the other.

Along with the five Indians, the Colombo court had also sentenced three Sri Lankans to death for allegedly partnering with them. Indian media reports, particularly those in Tamil Nadu, are mostly silent on the matter. As coincidence would have it, a Pollonuruva court in another part of Sri Lanka awarded death to four others for clubbing to death a fellow Sri Lankan in 1996. The convicts in both cases are entitled to appeal their conviction and sentencing.

Sri Lankan law provides death sentence for drug-related offences. Indian laws too now provide for death for ‘repeat offenders’. Even otherwise, Indian laws for drug-smuggling are harsh. At present, close to 100 Sri Lankan citizens are facing drug-smuggling charges before Indian courts, most of them in Tamil Nadu. As with the case of most domestic offenders, their cases also get delayed for a variety of reasons.

Protest, reassurance

As was only to be expected, fishers across southern Tamil Nadu coast have protested strongly to the Colombo court verdict. At least one bus has been burnt, and railway track removed for a distance in Rameswaram, from whose neighbourhood the five fishers hailed. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Pannerselvam lost no time in writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Centre to take up the issue with the Sri Lankan Government. Other political party leaders and social groups have also joined the appeal.

In New Delhi, Syed Akbaruddin, official spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), tweeted that “India-Sri Lanka in constant touch in aftermath of judgment”. The Indian government, which has been pursuing their case for the last four years, “maintains that it has done ‘due diligence’ and found them to be innocent”, he said further.

Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Yash K Sinha spoke to the Sri Lankan Minister for External Affairs, Prof G L Peiris, as soon as the verdict was known. Indications are that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may take it up with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, on the sidelines of the Kathmandu SAARC Summit in mid-November. In between, the Government of India, through the High Commission in Colombo, can be expected to extend all help, including appropriate legal assistance, to the condemned prisoners.

Livelihood issues

At the bottom of the Sri Lankan problem dogging Tamil Nadu fishers, polity and Government – and by extension, the Centre – are the livelihood issues of Tamil fishers in the two countries. Attached to that is the Sri Lankan State’s concerns about the possible revival of the LTTE – particularly its lethal ‘Sea Tigers’ arm, and the past temptation of fishers from both sides to play courier.

From the Indian side, too, the LTTE-related concerns remain, though to a much lesser extent, so to say. Or, so it would seem. Its place has possibly been taken by Pakistani ISI and jihadis using Ocean neighbours like Sri Lanka and Maldives – and also their citizens in some cases — for terrorist targeting of India, using the seas, a la 26/11 ‘Mumbai attacks’. All three nations have been constantly concerned about their land and shared seas being used by international drug-traffickers in a very big way.

In this background, Tamil Nadu’s case for shared fishing in the Palk Strait, based on ‘traditional rights’ and ‘livelihood concerns’ come with consequences. In legal terms, ‘traditional rights’ are suspect at best, particularly in the light of the bilateral IMBL agreements of 1974 and 1976. ‘Livelihood concerns’ in context are more and even more immediate for the Tamil-speaking fishers in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.

Minus this drug-smuggling case, Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has been arresting Tamil Nadu fishers on charges of either violating Sri Lankan territorial waters, or using bottom-trawlers and fishing gear, banned in the country, or both. In purely theoretical terms, if drug-smuggling is proved, the Sri Lankan law provides for death-sentence. Having failed to convince the trial court of their innocence, it remains to be seen how the Indian defence will fare at the appeal stage(s).

Deep-sea fishing, the way?

Larger questions remain. What if in similar cases of the kind in future, Indian ‘due diligence’ process of the kind is unable to convince itself about the ‘innocence’ of the accused standing trial in Sri Lanka or elsewhere? Can the nation’s political leadership and diplomacy be pressured into working their way to obtain freedom for offenders of other crimes, just as they have been ensuring the release of innocent Tamil Nadu fishers from Sri Lankan detention over the past years in particular? If not, what are the domestic political and bilateral diplomatic consequences?

Even as the Indian MEA may be expected to apply its mind to these questions and more, it may be time for both the Centre and the Tamil Nadu Government to actively consider the alternate, ‘deep-sea fishing’, away from the Sri Lankan waters, if India’s Palk Strait fishers and bilateral relations were not to run aground. On more than one occasion since the AIADMK returned to power in Tamil Nadu in 2011, the State Government has shown an active interest in the project.

Successive State Chief Ministers, namely, Jayalalithaa and now Panneerlselvam, have mentioned ‘deep-sea fishing’ in their missives to Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi, over the past three years. The State Budget for 2011 provided for 25 percent subsidies for converting bottom-trawlers to deep-sea vessels – the aid-quantum doubled to 50 percent in 2014 budget after a ground-study.

Both in the State Government’s memorandum to Prime Minister Modi when then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa called on him, and other correspondence have demanded over Rs 1000 crore in Central aid for the purpose. Maybe, it’s time the Centre took a comprehensive view of things and worked out modalities for the purpose – including loans for individuals or credit-line for the State Government.

Shifting the focus

Manmohan Singh belatedly began taking a practical view of things, by shifting the focus away from the MEA, to include the Fisheries Department under the Union Agriculture Ministry. Under the MEA-centric scheme, much of bilateral initiatives would end with the release of Tamil Nadu fishers, detained in Sri Lanka – until the next episode arrived. However, it is unclear if the Centre’s Fisheries Department has been alerted and tuned to take the lead in assisting the troubled fishers with information of fishing fields, gears and equipment – and also work with the State Government in identifying markets for available fish, price-fixation, etc.

Whatever communication that was/is possible between the Centre and the State Government (whoever was in power, wherever) too has been confined to the subject – or, would extend to cover the technicalities. If the inclusion of a Tamil Nadu official in the Indian delegation at official-level talks with Sri Lanka on the fishing issue was expected make the State Government appreciate the complexities involved, that was not to be – or, so it seems.

That way, the two rounds of well-meaning, officially-supported fishers’ talks earlier this year also got extremely politicised on either side of the Palk Strait, with the result, no solution became possible. Otherwise, successive rulings of the Madras High Court, banning Tamil Nadu fishers from crossing the mutually agreed upon IMBL with Sri Lanka has had little effect either on the fishers or the State Government. The case, along with the more ticklish ‘Katchchativu case’, initiated by AIADMK’s Jayalalithaa and joined in by rival DMK’s M Karunanidhi, is now pending before the Supreme Court.

(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter)

The post Sri Lanka: Death Sentence For Indians Stresses Urgent Need To Resolve Fishers’ Problems – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By John Feffer

Vladimir Putin, the wily strategist of Russian revanchism, is well on his way to reconstructing the Warsaw Pact. That, at least, is what the pundits of The Washington Post are making it out to seem. Last week, Jackson Diehl penned a column on how Putin has driven a wedge between NATO and its easternmost members. Anne Applebaum, meanwhile, pins the failure to maintain quiet on the eastern front on NATO itself and its decision not to establish bases in the region 10 years ago. The resulting crisis of confidence in what were once Soviet satellites, she laments, has undermined alliance cohesion.

These misreadings of what’s taking place on the eastern stretches of Europe contribute to an almost 1946-like sense of foreboding and inevitability. The small countries of Eastern Europe are bending to Moscow’s will, and the West is doing little more than appease the bear. Diehl and Applebaum stop short of declaring a new Iron Curtain and insisting that the region choose sides (over and above membership in NATO). But their all-or-nothing logic tends in that direction.

Contrary to these assertions, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the rest of the region are not replaying 1946. Although these governments are pursuing very different strategies, they all know that a new Cold War would exact a terrible price on their countries. In most cases, they are quite sensibly trying to forestall this scenario. NATO’s imperative to push ever eastward, which pundits like Applebaum are urging it to do now under the cover of demonstrating resolve, will only make matters worse.

To understand why these pundits are wrong, first it’s important to understand how Russia and NATO arrived at this impasse.

After the Berlin Wall fell nearly 25 years ago, the new democratic governments in East-Central Europe couldn’t wait to leave the Warsaw Pact. Who could blame them: the Pact was a symbol of their subjection to the will of the Soviet Union. They showed a measure of caution, however, and didn’t disband the alliance until February 1991. Then, again at a rather cautious pace, they crept under the umbrella of NATO. First the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland took the plunge in 1999. In the second wave of expansion in 2004, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltic countries joined the fold. Albania and Croatia had to wait until 2009.

Russia was not overjoyed at these developments, to put it mildly. The Kremlin was under the impression that it had received guarantees that NATO would not expand to its doorstep. As Mary Elise Sarotte writes in Foreign Affairs, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and company received unwritten assurances early on that not even East Germany would be part of NATO. Then, in exchange for what amounted to a huge Deutschemark bribe, Gorbachev assented to a united Germany entering NATO. The Soviet Union didn’t expect NATO to move further eastward. But then, the Soviet Union also didn’t expected to disappear with the stroke of a pen. It is to the Russians’ perennial dismay that they never got any of these promises down on paper.

NATO didn’t have to twist the arms of the former Warsaw Pact members to switch sides. The coup in Moscow in 1991 and the outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia were both reminders of the importance of a security guarantee – against a revival of Russian imperialism and the potential of internecine conflicts. Also, whatever reservations they might have had about joining an alliance that had lost its original overarching purpose and however ambivalent they might have felt about the costs of modernizing their militaries to achiever interoperability with NATO, the countries in the region realized that membership conferred enormous non-military advantages. With accession to the European Union still in the future, NATO’s imprimatur was a powerful signal to investors that it was safe to pour money into the aspirant countries.

Still, significant portions of the population throughout the region expressed reservations about NATO membership. In Hungary and the Czech Republic, support for joining was actually quite low: at 32 percent and 28 percent respectively in 1997. Bulgarians were generally split down the middle. Only in Romania, often an outlier in the region, was support consistently in the 70 percent range.

Then the governments went to work on persuading their citizenry. Bulgarian opposition to NATO fell to a mere 1 percent by 2002. In Slovenia, where the public was quite skeptical of the alliance in the 1990s, opinion turned around sufficiently by 2003, when the country held a referendum on membership in both the EU and NATO. Citizens backed both measures, though their enthusiasm for the EU (89 percent) overshadowed their approval of NATO (66 percent). The populations in the other countries in the region similarly fell in line.

But this fundamental ambivalence never entirely disappeared. In fact, latent dissatisfactions sharpened when the countries in the region began to understand that NATO wasn’t just a security guarantee: it was a set of obligations. And those obligations were not simply to modernize their militaries and participate in periodic exercises. It meant authorizing combat missions (in Kosovo in 1999) and contributing soldiers to out-of-area operations, such as Afghanistan.

The Czech Republic joined NATO only six days before the alliance started bombing former Yugoslavia over the issue of Kosovo. “Javier Solana phoned me up and informed me that NATO would start to bomb former Yugoslavia the following Monday, and we as a new member of NATO should formally accept that decision,” then-Czech foreign minister Jan Kavan told me last year. “Given the traditional friendship between the Czechs and the Serbs going back many many years, this was a very difficult decision. After a very acrimonious debate at the cabinet level that lasted until early in the morning, we finally agreed. But we only agreed to allow NATO planes to fly over our airspace, no other form of cooperation. Neither our air force nor the army played any role in an action that most of us had major problems with.” It was not the kind of cooperation NATO expected. “Because it took us such a long time and was obviously a reluctant decision, NATO made it clear that it was not happy with us,” Kavan concluded.

The war in Afghanistan two years later was even more controversial. When Polish soldiers began to die in the NATO mission, enthusiasm for the more confrontational style of the United States began to wane. By 2009, 77 percent of Poles wanted their troops out of Afghanistan.

Then came the war in Georgia in 2008. It didn’t last long, and the origins of the conflict are murky. But what was abundantly clear, particularly to the countries of East-Central Europe, was that NATO didn’t do much in response. Of course, because Georgia wasn’t a member of NATO, the alliance’s collective security clause didn’t come into play. But that was a fine distinction for many in the region. They were fighting in wars far from their borders but sitting on their hands when it came to conflicts closer to home.

Jump to the present. Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its military involvement in eastern Ukraine have sent shock waves through East-Central Europe. These moves should ordinarily promote greater NATO cohesion, not less. And indeed, at the most recent NATO summit, Poland pushed for a proposal to permanently base 10,000 NATO troops on its territory. NATO politely said no. The Baltic members wanted missile defense batteries to protect against Russian missiles. Again, NATO said no.

But although Washington would have liked to see a solid anti-Russian front from Poland down to former Yugoslavia, the region has been much more nuanced in its policies. The ambivalence of the 1990s has resurfaced.

Consider, for instance, what’s happening in Poland where a new prime minister and foreign minister are sending different signals about their Ukraine policy. On the one hand, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has suggested that Poland needs to pay more attention to its own security and has no plans to intervene in Ukraine. At the same time, Kopacz has renewed calls for greater U.S. military presence in her country, and her defense minister has signaled that Poland is ready to sell arms to Ukraine. So, Poland has certainly not lined up on Putin’s side. But it’s not going to take on Russia by itself.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia, meanwhile, came out against economic sanctions on Russia. It’s not that these countries are prioritizing the health of their economies over the fate of Ukraine. In fact, their commercial relationship with Russia is relatively modest. The two countries trade first of all with Germany, then with each other and other Central European countries. The decision to oppose sanctions is nevertheless pragmatic. Both countries worry that an overall downturn in EU-Russian relations, and a resumption of conflict over oil and natural gas transfers, would have a devastating impact on the entire region.

Serbia and Bulgaria, meanwhile, have long had closer relations with Russia, Putin or no Putin. Neither country wants to be put in the awkward position of having to choose between the east and the west. And, until recently, they didn’t really have to do so.

The obvious exception to this pragmatism is Hungary. Led by the right-wing Fidesz party, Hungary has grown ever more distant from both the European Union and NATO. In July, for instance, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared that “since the rule of Soviet empire, no other external power has dared to try to curb the sovereignty of Hungarians openly, choosing a legal form.” Was he referring to Russia? No, he was reserving his wrath for the European Union. The European Parliament had recently issued a scathing report on the Hungarian government’s performance, and Orban was fuming. It only reinforced his turn eastward.

Hungary’s relationship with Russia has been on an upward swing, in part for reasons of energy. Hungary has signed deals with Gazprom for the delivery of natural gas and with Rosatom to build two new blocks at Hungary’s nuclear power plant in Paks. But there is also an ideological affinity between Orban and Putin. The Hungarian leader has declared his preference for Hungary to be an “illiberal democracy,” and he definitely has Putin’s Russia in mind as a potential model.

So, the countries of the region don’t have a unified position on Russia, nor are they succumbing to Putin’s arm-twisting or his charm offensive. Serbia and Bulgaria have longstanding ties to Russia, Hungary is forming an illiberal partnership with Moscow, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have larger economic concerns, and Poland wants to be even more firmly anchored in NATO even as it distances itself from direct entanglement in Ukraine.

But it’s not just a misreading of Eastern European motives that plagues the analysis of Diehl and Applebaum. By emphasizing Putin’s malevolence and NATO’s fecklessness, they fail to appreciate the impact that austerity measures dictated by Brussels and military costs dictated by NATO have had on the small countries of East-Central Europe. The rebellion in the East has been growing over a long period of time. Even if Putin wasn’t engaging in strong-arm petro-politics or attempting to reconstruct Novorossiya, the region would be expressing its reluctance to follow every order issued by Brussels or Washington.

It wasn’t long ago that East-Central Europe experienced a long-anticipated “return to diversity” with the collapse of the Soviet template. NATO and the EU provided them with some initially welcome institutional structures to fill the vacuum. Now, the countries of the region are all chafing, to one degree or another, at the “adult supervision” provided by these multinational entities (much as they once chafed at the directives provided by the multinational entities of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union).

Both Brussels and Washington should learn to respect the diversity of East-Central Europe and stop trying to force the former Warsaw Pact countries to toe the line when it comes to Russia. The region knows a cold war when it sees one, and it certainly doesn’t want to go through all that again.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.

The post NATO: Rebellion In The Ranks? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Col R. Hariharan

Here are my answers given to a columnist’s e-mail questions on the subject.

1.       The main source of anti-India terrorism is Pakistan. In the event of a hijacking, for instance, by a Pak-based group, will Sino-Indian co-operation be possible? What is the scope of operational cooperation in counter-terrorism between India and China?

This question on operational cooperation in counter-terrorism between India and China covers two different issues: one pertains to aircraft hijacking and the other relates to the scope of such cooperation in general.

China is a party to two multilateral treaties relating to hijacking. Under the Hague Hijacking Convention of 1970 (Convention on Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft), China has agreed to prohibit and punish hijacking of civilian aircraft (other than aircraft of customs, law enforcement and military). Based on the principles of this convention China must also prosecute the hijacker if he is not extradited.

As a signatory to the Beijing Convention of 2010 (Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation) adopted after the 9/11 Al Qaeda terrorist hijacking, China has also agreed to criminalise terrorists using civil aircraft as a weapon and the use ofa dangerous materials to attack aircraft or other targets on the ground as well as for the illegal transportation of bacterial, chemical and nuclear weapons.

So if India seeks China’s operational cooperation in a case of hijacking, China will be expected to positively respond under these two conventions. One can expect China to conform to this requirement, as it increasingly wants to be accepted by the international community as a responsible power in keeping with its growing global influence. Moreover, China is a promoter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) formed with the primary aim of fostering cooperation and coordination through networked action among the member-countries against terrorism.  And China has invited India to join the SCO.

However, as if the hijacking is carried out by a Pak-based terrorist body, China’s response is likely to be qualitatively different. If the hijacker lands the aircraft in Chinese territory we can expect the response to be swift as it would be difficult for the Chinese to discern the aim of the terrorist group. China hates Pak-based Jihadi terrorist groups and suspects their hand in the increasing Uighur extremist acts in Xinjiang. It is also wary of Tibetan insurgency sprouting once again.

However, Indian Special Forces are unlikely to be permitted to carry out the operation to apprehend the hijackers on Chinese soil. The PLA Special Forces have been carrying out intense training in refining their anti-hijacking drills. Anti-hijacking, hostage rescue, and bomb disposal now form part of the counter terrorism training regime of the Police and People’s Armed Police (PAP) also in the last three years after Uighur extremists’ stepped up their acts. So China would not like India or any other country to carryout operations against hijackers. To do so would be a loss of face for China.

However, if Pak-based hijackers are apprehended, Pakistan would not want China to hand them over to India. As Pakistan is a close and long-standing strategic South Asian ally of China, Beijing would be averse to handing over the apprehended hijackers to India. So the extradition process could be delayed using bureaucratic and legal process as a ploy. China might provide provided secret access to Pakistan to meet with the hijackers in custody before India is extended the same facility. In the unlikely event of the hijackers managing to take off (or being let off) in the aircraft after using Chinese territory as an intermediary stop, China can be expected to share all available information with India. Of course China is likely to take into consideration of Pak sensitivities while sharing such information.

2.       To what extent have joint military exercises contributed to confidence building between India and China?

Mutual confidence is built by understanding achieved through cooperation between the two countries. Even between two democracies, say the U.S. and India, military plays only a small but important part of the confidence building process. Joint military exercises provide hands on opportunity to build professional and social networking between the two forces at various levels which helps the Process to progress.

Indian and Chinese armed forces enjoy have a totally different say in the overall confidence building measures between the two countries.  Indian armed forces are creatures of the government. They have a very limited say in even in strategic security issues. Progressively their role has been pruned over the years to that of being on ‘listening watch’ (to use military terminology).

Nothing illustrates this better than the India-China Defence and Security Consultation programme meeting held in New Delhi February 24, 2014. It was co-chaired by Indian Defence Secretary RK Mathur and Deputy Chief of General Staff of the PLA General Wang Guanzhong. The decision to hold the joint military exercise Hand-in-Hand 2014 was taken at this meeting.

Unlike Indian armed forces, the PLA enjoys an exalted status as one of two ‘sword arms’ (the other being the government) of the Chinese Communist Party to further the Party interests. This gives PLA a vastly superior status in deciding national policy let alone on strategic security policy. Moreover, the Chinese General Staff Department lays great emphasis on military diplomacy and has a foreign relations institute to train its officers.

Indian armed forces at present can play only a peripheral role in confidence building measures between the two countries.  And as a corollary, the joint military exercises serve as the barometer of progress of the confidence building process between the two countries rather than a major influence in shaping it.

China’s joint military exercises with most of the other countries including the U.S. are at platoon or lower levels. The focus of these exercises is mostly on basic techniques of counter-terrorism or “drills” as the Chinese call it.

The fourth “Hand-in-Hand” India-China anti-terrorism joint exercise lasting nine days has concluded last week. The armies of the two countries organised the first-ever “Hand-in-Hand” joint exercise in Yunnan in 2007 as a part of the overall confidence building measures agreed upon by the two countries. The second Hand-in-Hand exercise was organised in Belgaum in 2008. About 60 troops (a company minus) from both sides participated in these exercises.

The exercises were to be an annual feature. However, India called off the 2009-exercise after China denied a regular visa to the Army Commander of the Northern Common to attend a meeting in China as he belonged to Jammu and Kashmir, which it said was a disputed territory. However, both countries agreed upon resuming the annual training event after China relented and started issuing regular visas to Jammu and Kashmir residents last year.

The third joint exercise was held in Chengdu in November 2013 with 144 troops (nearly two companies) from the Sikh Light Infantry and an equal number of PLA troops participating. According to the Chinese media, the 10-day exercise included demonstration of weapons, exchange of tactics and training in arrest to suspects and rescue of hostages.

These low level, basic exercises have limited value in confidence building between the two armies. At best they contribute to providing a window of opportunity towards confidence building at higher levels in the future.

However, naval forces are an exception to this; the world over they have a culture of joint exercises and cooperation at sea. Indian Navy and PLA-Navy also have taken part in joint and multilateral exercises at sea.

3.       Have all the military exercises between India and China so far focussed on counter-terrorism only? Why?

This question is probably best answered by the army chiefs of both countries. PLA’s main focus in training for the last four years has been at two levels: on refining its joint operation capabilities in a modern C3IS battlefield scenario and the other on improving their basic drills at subunit level.

China has been using joint exercises with the armies of other nations to broaden the PLA’s military knowledge as well as understand their operational techniques particularly relating to counter-terrorism. Indian army has a rich experience in combating extremism, and insurgency and its Special Forces are trained in counter-terrorism strategies. So China’s interest in Indian army’s combat techniques in counter-terrorist setting is understandable.

PLA has been carrying out regimental level combat group (equivalent to Indian army’s brigade combat group) exercises mostly with Russia to improve its ability to optimise its modernised weapons and delivery systems and logistics by improving the coordination between the three wings of armed forces in what the Chinese call ‘informatized’ scenario (it refers networked command, control and information systems using land, sea, air and space) of modern battlefield. Even in these exercises the emphasis has been on counter-terrorism operations at the regimental group level.

China’s singular focus of China on counter-terrorism is probably related to the CPC’s concern in maintaining internal harmony due to ethnic minorities dominant in the border regions of the country like Tibet and Xinjiang, which have sustained movements demanding independence for over five decades.  China has a long history of warlords from these regions challenging the central authority. Considering this, it would be reasonable to conclude India-China joint exercises also focus on counter-terrorism at the request of China.

4.       Aren’t other agencies like NSG and CRPF the ones who will respond first in a terrorism situation? Why then do the Sino-Indian counter-terrorism exercises involve the

China considers all unconventional armed anti-state threats as terrorism.  The PLA controls the armed police forces used in counter-terrorism operations along with troops. These operations are controlled by the military district accountable to the military regional headquarters. Police work is also closely coordinated with the military operations.

In India the Home Ministry of the state or the Centre controls uses state and central police forces and paramilitary forces for operations against unconventional anti-state threats including terrorism. The operation against Left Wing Extremism is a case in point. Of course armed forces Special Forces are also requisitioned in certain operations i.e., 26/11 operations. Army is given charge of operations in exceptional circumstances as in Jammu and Kashmir or in the North East when the Centre feels the situation is beyond the capability paramilitary forces. The command and control of such operations has always been amorphous as we have not been able resolve it satisfactorily between the Home and Defence departments.

With such doctrinal differences between the two countries in handling such threats, it probably makes more sense for China to organise joint exercises with Indian army rather than with central paramilitary forces.

(Col R Hariharan a retired MI specialist on South Asia is associated with Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group.   E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info)

The post India-China Cooperation In Counter-Terrorism: Q & A appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Paulo Gorjão

Dilma Rousseff secured a second term as President of Brazil with 51% of the votes in the second round of the Brazilian presidential election, against Aécio Neves, who gathered 48% of the popular vote.

This was not the result that Portugal desired. During her first mandate, from 2011 to 2014, Dilma showed little interest in cultivating and deepening bilateral relations between Brasília and Lisbon. In four years, Dilma paid only one short visit to Portugal, and that was in March 2011. Worse still, in January 2014, in an evident show of diplomatic discourtesy, while returning from Switzerland and on her way to Cuba, Dilma transited in Lisbon for some hours and without prior notice. Dilma’s disinterest for Portugal extends to the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPlP), something which is clearly represented by her absence from the Heads of State and Government Summit in Maputo (2012) and Díli (2014).

In practice, Dilma’s approach reflects the view prevailing among certain traditional sectors of the Itamaraty, which has never prioritized bilateral relations with Portugal or the CPlP. The dominant thought in Itamaraty circles is that this is not a league worthy of having given that Brazil is not only part of the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—but has an eye on grabbing a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. This is the Brazil that has José Graziano da Silva and Roberto Azevedo as general-directors of FAO and the WTO, respectively. According to this grand vision, relations with Portugal and the CPlP do not warrant significant diplomatic commitment.

Therefore, unless something unpredictable occurs, the recent past tells us that within the next four years bilateral relations between Brazil and Portugal will continue to be marked by distant cordiality. As far as can be anticipated, nothing seems to point at an inversion in this tendency.

As it is often the case that a smaller country must work harder to gain the attention of larger one, Portugal must exert significant effort to keep Brazil’s attention. This is even more the case because Portuguese foreign policy has been built around relations with other Portuguese-speaking countries in recent decades.

Unfortunately, on the Portuguese side the conditions for a strong investment on the bilateral relationship are far from available. Since 2011 Lisbon has focused almost exclusively on its economic and financial problems, and foreign policy has not been a top priority.

Therefore, and even recognizing that Portugal has every interest in politically reacting to the little attention given by Brasília, the truth is that it does not seem possible that it may happen soon.

Having said this, if Dilma’s reelection means the continuation of a cordial but distant relationship, on the economic side everything seems tilted the exact same way, and in a mutually reinforcing logic.

Between 2009 and 2013 Brazil rose from 11th to 10th biggest Portuguese client, and represented 1,6% of Portuguese total exports in 2013. Moreover, Brazil was last year the third-largest market for Portuguese exports outside the European union (the 4th was Angola and the 6th was the US). However, so as to better understand Dilma’s disinterest for Portugal, it is worth noting that Portugal is the 40th biggest supplier to the Brazilian market, representing a mere 0,5% of total imports, while being the 46th biggest buyer of Brazilian exports, making up 0,4% of total exports.1

Surely one can see that economic relations are healthy. Nonetheless, bilateral economic relations, like political ties, are asymmetrical, and Brazil matters more to Portugal than Portugal matters to Brazil. As a result, nothing seems to point to a change in the economic aspect in Dilma’s second term.

Could things have been different with Aécio Neves? We will never know. Beyond the reset button that such an electoral outcome would press, Neves said exactly what Lisbon wished to hear: Portugal deserved greater attention.2 In fact, not long ago authorities in Brazil had this kind of consideration for the historical partner. A sense of nostalgia is very present when Portugal looks at Lula da Silva’s two presidential terms. Unlike Dilma, and certainly going against influential voices at the Itamaraty, Lula carefully cultivated the relationship with Portugal and the CPlP. Not by chance, Dilma’s visit to Portugal in 2011 coincided with Lula’s distinction with the title of doctor honoris causa by Coimbra University. It is worth noting that Lula was a frequent visitor to Portugal between 2003 and 2010 at an official level, and privately afterwards.

* Published also in Portuguese: Paulo Gorjão, “Dilma Rousseff e Portugal: a continuidade de uma relação cordial, mas distante” (IPRIS Comentário, No. 5, outubro de 2014).

About the author:
Paulo Gorjão
Portuguese Institute of International relations and Security (IPRIS)

Source:
This article was published by IPRIS as IPRIS Viewpoints 157, October 2014 (PDF).

Notes:
1 In addition, it is also worth noting that: “as a supplier to Portugal, Brazil ranks 12th, representing 1.5% of total imports in 2013, while being the 5th largest sup- plier to the Eu28 (6th to angola, 9th to China, 10th to russia, and 11th to the uS). (…) It should be pointed out that within the European union, some of Brazil’s important suppliers are Germany (4th largest supplier in 2013), Italy (8th), France (9th), Spain (12th), the united Kingdom (15th), and Switzerland (19th). See “ Brasil – Ficha de Mercado (AICEP, May 2014), p. 13.
2 Ricardo Rego, “Aécio Neves: ‘Portugal merece muita atenção’” (Sol, 24 octo- ber 2014), p. 48.

The post Dilma Rousseff And Portugal: Continuity In Cordial, However Distant, Relationship – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A senior Palestinian official has censured Israel for its latest decision to build 500 new illegal settler units in East Jerusalem, terming the plan “a slap in the face” to the United States and the international community.

“With the situation in occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem) at boiling point, Israel’s latest settlement announcement is a slap in the face to [US Secretary of State John] Kerry, to the international community, to the Palestinian people, and to peace,” chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said in a statement late on Monday.

He added that the Israeli decision depicts that the Tel Aviv regime “chooses settlements over negotiations, colonization over the two-state solution, and apartheid over equality and coexistence.”

Meanwhile, senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official, Wassel Abu Yusef, says the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority will submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council later this month, calling for a date for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

The Palestinians have emphasized that if Washington torpedoes the motion against Tel Aviv, they will seek membership of the International Criminal Court, where they will sue Israeli authorities over their war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli Interior Ministry gave the go-ahead for new settler units to be built in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem.

On October 27, Israel approved plans for the construction of 1,060 new settler units in East Jerusalem.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 settlements, built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East al-Quds, in 1967.

Much of the international community considers the settlements illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are thus subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

Original article

The post Palestinian Official Calls Israel Settlement Plan ‘Slap In Face’ For US appeared first on Eurasia Review.

On November 4, King Mohammed VI received at the Royal Palace in Fez,  Chinese top political adviser Yu Zhengsheng Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference who is on an official visit to Morocco.

It is worth noting that the Chinese official’s visit comes before the upcoming Royal official visit to China that King Mohammed VI announced in his throne speech on July 30.

Though initially slow to develop, Sino-Moroccan relations today are
multifaceted—expanding both in scale and in scope. China and Morocco lie at the center of a complicated set of cross-regional relationships. Morocco has become a regional economic hub in Africa while China, having rapidly emerged as a major player in the international economy. Indeed, these countries might rightly be regarded not only as the twin engines of growing African-Asian broader economic and geopolitical trends that are just beginning to take shape.

Both countries have undertaken efforts to further develop the relationship. The number of personal and professional contacts and exchanges has risen in recent years, overcoming the linguistic-cultural divide, and establishing in both countries a widening band of educated elites who are familiar with each other’s societal norms and traditions, knowledgeable about each other’s distinctive ways of conducting business, and attuned to their counterparts’ national and institutional interests. High-ranking official visits and business delegations have become routine.

In the economic sphere, the reputation of Chinese products has improved, overcoming earlier concerns in Morocco (and the MENA region in general) about poor quality and non-price competitiveness. Chinese firms have made significant advances in skills, technology, business practices, and marketing strategies.

From 2000 to 2012, there are approximately 36 Chinese official development finance projects identified in Morocco through various media reports. These projects range from a $248 million MOU with the Export-Import Bank of China to build the Berchid-Beni Mellal highway to a CNY 150 million preferential loan agreement in Rabat to build and equip eight private general hospitals in various regions in Morocco. In a statement to the Moroccan Press Agency MAP, the Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Yu Zhengsheng, hailed the Kingdom’s political and economic achievements. He stated that “Under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, Morocco achieved major progress in terms of economic and social development,” He added, “I am sure that the close Moroccan-Chinese relations will grow stronger to serve the strategic interests of the two peoples,”.

Morocco and China need to strengthen the cooperation on major development projects as well as the iconic livelihood projects, and to establish the relevant institutional arrangements which could promote the bilateral trade and investment.

Both sides need to make efforts to upscale the practical cooperation between China and Morocco. This will create new opportunities and broad prospects to the development of the relations between China and Morocco. Morocco is willing to work together with China to further deepen bilateral strategic friendly relations, to promote common economic and social development of both sides, and to jointly build a bright future of China-Morocco relationship.

The post Moroccan-Chinese Strategic Ties Reach New Heights – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

A Christian couple was burned alive in a brick-making kiln after being accused of desecrating the Qu’ran in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Tuesday, police said.

Police have arrested at least 40 people in the killing of Shahzad Masih, 26, and his wife, Shama Masih, 24, in Kot Radha Kishan town on the outskirts of Kasur district, said Jawad Qamar, a district police officer.

“So far police have rounded up 40 suspects, including the owner of the kiln,” he said.

Muhammad Afzal, a supervisor at the kiln where the victims also worked, allegedly accused Shama Masih of burning pages of a Qu’ran outside her house on Sunday, according to eyewitness Muhammad Rasheed.

Rasheed said that the two were then locked in a room until Tuesday morning when a mob armed with clubs brutally beat the couple before throwing them into the kiln.

“The dead bodies were charred beyond recognition,” said Christian rights activist Sardar Mushtaq Gill, who visited the crime scene.

Gill also alleged that the couple were killed in the presence of police, who could not stop the mob.

He quoted another eyewitness, Muhammad Rafiq, as saying that announcements were made from a mosque’s loudspeaker accusing Shama Masih of committing blasphemy, which instigated the vigilante violence.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has set up a three-member committee to fast track the investigation into the killings and ordered police to beef up security in Christian neighborhoods in the province, according to an official from his media office.

In a statement, Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan also condemned the killings.

“I condemn, in strongest terms, the burning alive of the Christian couple,” he said. “Oppression and killings of minorities must end.”

Global rights watchdog Amnesty International in a statement urged the Pakistani authorities to bring to justice those responsible.

“This vicious mob killing is just the latest manifestation of the threat of vigilante violence which anyone can face in Pakistan after a blasphemy accusation — although religious minorities are disproportionately vulnerable,” said Amnesty’s Deputy Asia Pacific director David Griffiths.

“Those responsible must be brought to justice and the Pakistani authorities have to ensure at-risk communities are proactively given the protection they need.”

Blasphemy laws, which carry life imprisonment or death, are a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, where in addition to members of minority religions, several high-profile Muslims have been killed for seeking changes to the law.

Former Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, and the federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, were assassinated in 2011 for speaking out against the controversial law.

The latest blasphemy case comes after a Pakistani court last month upheld the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad.

The post Pakistan: Mob Kills Christian Couple For ‘Blasphemy’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In the absence of a viable solution the crimes committed by ISIS, it is arguable that intervention is the only available route. However, the first step to securing sustainable peace is to iron out creases in the extant legal system and install peaceful alternatives to conflict.

By Kirthi Jayakumar 

The United States has used a series of fighter and bomber planes to launch attacks against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). One set of strikes, near Kobani in Syria, have been aimed at suppressing or destroying nine fighting positions and an ISIS building. The other, in Iraq, destroyed an ISIS vehicle situated to south-west of the Mosul Dam, besides hitting four vehicles and four buildings used by the militants. While on the one hand these air strikes have reportedly helped keep some of the beheadings at bay, they haven’t quite prevented the movement of ISIS. ISIS, for its part, remains undeterred, even carrying out a mass killing campaign to wipe out resistance. By and large, the other target of the US attacks is the Korasan – the senior al-Qaeda membership that operates in Syria.

The US appears to have had a strategy in mind to keep ISIS in check through military attacks. In light of ISIS’s rampage, however, US plans appear to be failing. More and more reports are coming to light that the rebel coalitions in Syria which were originally working with the US are now turning against them.

The basis of US attacks is grounded in Article 51 of the UN Charter, pivoted towards collective security. The right of self-defense in public international law is open to a state that has been subject to an armed attack, and the responsive use of force must be necessary and proportional to the original attack. The use of force is prohibited in International Law – explicitly under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and tacitly through the rubric of practice, in customary international law. The only known exception to the use of force is the right to self-defense, which is clarified under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and under the dictates of customary international law as crystallized by the Caroline case – where the right to self-defense exists only where it is necessary and overwhelming. In both instances, the use of force as self-defense requires the elements of a prior armed attack, necessity and proportionality in the response. Under the UN Charter, prior reporting to and approval from the Security Council is mandatory. In all instances, the strict rule is that the right to self-defense exists only against a state – and no other entity.

In addition to the extant legalese, there are two norms that have evolved in practice, (but remain unsupported in legislative form) – namely, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. “Humanitarian intervention” is generally intervention in the territorial confines of another state on the pretext of seeking to prevent or put an end to gross human rights violations.[1] The essence of sovereignty and the values attached to it is responsibility, and a state is obligated to take care of its people. When a state fails or refuses to do this, per the norm of Responsibility to Protect, the state’s responsibility can be said to “devolve” to the international community.[2]

The argument that the concepts of Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect collectively suffuse into the use of force rhetoric is that a country can intervene in another country – when the latter is either unable or unwilling to take action, the former can intervene. However, there is no legal basis for such intervention, and there is no acceptance in the international community to such effect.  Legally speaking, these US-led attacks are a flagrant violation of the prohibition on the use of force in public international law.

To begin, the attacks are directed at ISIS and the Khorasan for their attacks on Iraq and Syria. The fact that Syria and Iraq have neither consented to, nor approached the United States seeking help for an attack in response to the use of force by ISIS and the Khorasan still remains a fact. The US intervention in Iraq this year began with its intention to protect its own facilities in Iraq – which then grew in size to push back ISIS forces. The intervention in Syria branched out from the attack on Iraq, with the chief aim being to push ISIS back. Neither country consented to the intervention, nor approached the US or any of its allies for an intervention.

Second, ISIS and the Khorasan, both of which are targets of the attack, are not states. The right to self-defense can only be exercised against a state. Both entities in this instance are militant outfits. Exercising a right to self-defense against a non-state actor is permitted only in limited situations, as the International Court of Justice decreed in Nicaragua v. the United States in 1986 and in the Advisory Opinion in the case of the Palestinian Wall in 2004. It is only when the acts of a non-state actor can be attributed to the state where the intervention takes place.

Third, assuming that the former two conditions are non-issues – there is no basis for the contention that Iraq and Syria are unwilling, or unable to, respond to the use of force against them by the militant outfits. Given that the concepts of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect are not technically accepted under international law in no uncertain terms, there is very frugal basis for justifying US attacks in this weak contention.

It is certainly deplorable to note that there is, for all practical purposes, a campaign of genocide against the Yazidi community. It is a horrific crime and must not be allowed whatsoever. In the absence of a viable solution to address such crimes, it is arguable that intervention is the only available route. However, intervention itself raises many questions – legally, practically and logistically. There is more to be gained by using a peaceful method of resolution rather than violence. This raises some very significant questions: how does peace as a tool of negotiation operate in the face of an impending genocide? How does the international community engage with a violent outfit that may refuse to come to the negotiating table ? What options can there viably be in the face of such violence and persecution? The international community should be focusing on this in order to make peace a priority. Peace is a developmental goal, not just an empty word. The first step to sustainable peace is to iron out creases in the extant legal system and install peaceful solutions and alternatives to conflict.

Kirthi Jayakumar is a Lawyer, specialized in public international law and human rights. A graduate of the School of Excellence in Law, Chennai, Kirthi has diversified into research and writing on public international law and human rights. She has worked as a UN Volunteer, specializing in human rights research in Africa, India and Central Asia and the Middle East. She also runs a journal and consultancy that focuses on international law, called A38.

Footnotes

[1] Carlo Focarelli, “The Responsibility to Protect Doctrine and Humanitarian Intervention: Too Many Ambiguities for a Working Doctrine” J Conflict Security Law (2008) 13 (2): 191-213

[2] J. L. Holzgrefe, Robert Owen Keohane, Humanitarian intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.267

The post Confronting ISIS: Military Intervention Or Peaceful Alternatives? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

It is that cyclical season of winner takes all. It is that all too familiar gladiatorial executive combat all over again. Yes, the Villa Somalia has once again turned into a roaring amphitheater. The President and his Prime Minister are at each other’s throat, and, as engraved on the walls of the theatre, the worst is yet to come.

Of course, there is nothing new in this latest drama. A year ago, after current President—Hassan Sheikh Mohamud—has succeeded in sacking his last Prime Minister—Abdi Farah Shirdon—I co-authored an article with Professor Afyare Elmi for Al Jazeera titled Spectre of Political Meltdown. In it we argued that the problem is systemic and that it would reoccur again and again so long as the system is not overhauled.

Likely Outcome

I am afraid this latest dramatic episode will most likely have the same finale as the ten previous times when high level political contention took place in the past two or so decades. The prevalent scenario: the Prime Minister would be sacked, and the President would be left severely bruised. The outcome would further weaken the nation’s barely existing institutions. Furthermore, it would further corrupt the Parliament and severely undermine the capacity of Council of Ministers by aborting continuity and sustaining the culture of ushering in new clan-based ministers each year who must start rolling up the boulder to the top of the hill. The miracle scenario: international community would successfully pressure the contending executives to put their acting hats on and finish their term together. In both scenarios, outcomes would be the same.
Meanwhile, systematic assassinations of Parliament Members, government officials and civilians with sense of patriotism, experience, or institutional memory continues. Conveniently, each and every assassination is attributed to that dreaded usual suspect; no questions asked!

A case in point, on Saturday when a car bomb killed a person and wounded at least two others, the Hodan District Police Commander had this reassurance to offer: “We are still investigating the incident but we are convinced that (al-Shabaab) terrorists are behind the attack.” This is not only the epitome of incompetent policing; it is a dangerous public disservice. Now al-Shabaab may very well be the culprit, but, arbitrarily attributing them all such crimes only emboldens other sinister characters (domestic and foreign) who might be motivated to ‘settle old scores’ or permanently eliminate one human obstacle or another. Mogadishu has its share of such characters.

Galvanizing al-Shabaab

Make no mistake, this latest nasty political rancor within the executive branch is likely to give boost to al-Shabaab and motivate them to forget about their differences and intensify their nihilistic objective of wreaking havoc throughout Somalia.

Al-Shabaab, though they lost a number of strategic cities and towns to AMISOM and the Somali forces, they were not defeated in the battleground as they done tactical retreat each time AMISOM and government forces approached their locations. So, they still collect “taxes,” rather, Mafia-style protection money from almost all areas that they do not technically control, all the while planning their next deadly strategic move.

Phantom solution or fool’s errand?

Against its better judgment as it relinquished its sovereign right to forge a Somali-owned national salvation strategy, the current “permanent” government, like the transitional ones before it, has illustrated its chronic dependency and unwavering faithfulness in the schizophrenic “international community” strategy into oblivion. Here I would respectfully ignore President Mohamud’s latest statement as it is nothing more than rhetoric intended to clear the runway for a political fait accompli.

The government is expected to secure and stabilize the country by defeating al-Shabaab in the battle fields. Since it has no well-trained, adequately equipped and consistently paid army, the government must rely heavily on AMISOM which is under de facto Ethiopian command. While Ethiopia and Kenya are publicly the most vociferous opposition to al-Shabaab, both find its threat as a convenient pretext for their respective strategic interests of exploitation and keeping Somalia Balkanized. [Should you need to read more on this, you may visit my blog hosted by Foreign Policy Association]

Second, the government must put “development” before national reconciliation and inclusively negotiated social contract. In the current arrangement, the government and all other political entities and fiefdoms are to contract out all resources and borrow heavily before system of checks and balances is well established. The government and its miniature twins are often lured into lavish international investment conferences for crisscross contracting of the same oil blocks and same mining fields located in highly disputed and volatile geographical areas.

Meanwhile, civilian individuals who are mostly from the diaspora and businesses (foreign and domestic) continue to invest and lavishly build new building and rebuild artillery-devastated old ones.

Third, government must facilitate and help develop Federal States. Considering the current constitution—a document that I refer to as ‘constitution of ambiguity and deferment’—any step forward toward this end opens the curtain into a dizzying three-ring circus and a deadly political freak show. There is not a single entity that declared itself as a Federal State or declared its secession that is not built on active fault-lines.

Candidly speaking, one has to be delusional to believe that Somalia is on the right path to sustainable federalism or a negotiated secession. Every argument that makes a good case for an Alpha clan to concoct a “federal state” inadvertently makes a case for rivalry clan(s) to concoct their own sub-federal state. The same is true for Somaliland’s declared secession. The current trajectory leads onto a slippery slope of perpetual partition, hostilities and indeed bloodshed.

Fourth, government must build national institutions. While this particular priority has especial merit in democratic societies, how sustainable would these institutions prove in a broken nation that is yet to be repaired? To make matters worse, under the current arrangement, building non-essential ministries take precedence over reforming the judiciary system. For instance, since year 2000 the establishment of a Constitutional Court to arbitrate cases such as the one at hand has been suffering one setback after another-always putting the cart before the horse.

Fifth, the government must outsource all reconciliation-related matters to IGAD (read Ethiopia). Ethiopia has been the masterful political trickster in the center stage of Somali politics. There is not a single militia group or a political actor that it did not or does not empower and arm against another Somali entity.
Addis Ababa is a busy hub. It is where Somalia’s reprehensible political dysfunction is showcased and Ethiopia’s capacity to manage that dysfunction and its byproduct is amplified. Higher officials from Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Garowe, Kismayo, etc. make virtually bi-weekly visits to pay homage, attend one futile meeting or another, take orders or to fill up their respective political fuel tanks.

Meanwhile, their meager resources are drained and less fortunate Somalis are deprived of food and essential public services.

Business continues as usual. Casting doubt on the necessity of a comprehensive Somali-led genuine reconciliation, periodically, artificial “reconciliation” powwows are organized only to further complicate matters by forcing together clans with overlapping territorial claims and mutually exclusive interests. Each time myopic concessions were made only to create newer problems. Today, Somalia is on perilous tracks. Even Somaliland and Puntland—once considered oasis of peace—are manifestly unsustainable.

Resilience is a state mind; it is the willingness to rise above adversities and misfortunes by consciously managing or changing one’s outlook and attitude. The Somali people have demonstrated their capacity to undergo such process, whereas the ‘Somali elite’—political, intellectual, traditional—still find the status quo exclusively empowering and, yes, lucrative.

Soon the current episode would come to an end and our collective attention would turn elsewhere. Already many have their eyes blindly casted on 2016, when the current government’s term is scheduled to end. Rest assured, nothing would change before attitudes are adjusted and the system is overhauled.

The post Frailty And Gladiatorial Combat In Somalia – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key said on November 5 that his country will not send troops into combat roles in Iraq as part of international efforts against Islamic State militants.

But Key said his government would consider sending soldiers to help train local Iraqi forces behind the front lines.

Key made the remarks during a speech on national security in Wellington, the capital of his Pacific Island nation.

He said government agencies have a watch list of up to 40 New Zealanders who are thought to be engaged in Islamic extremist activities — including some who have traveled to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State militants.

Key said 10 military planners from New Zealand are to travel to the Middle East to assess the situation and provide further information to the government about the proposal to send trainers to Iraq.

The post New Zealand Rules Out Combat Troops In Iraq appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Michael Lelyveld

China has promised major social and economic benefits from its push to promote the “rule of law,” but the prospects for success remain unclear, experts say.

President Xi Jinping made legal reforms the focus of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CPP) Central Committee’s fourth plenary session on Oct. 20-23, giving rise to a range of hopes and concerns.

Was the party embracing judicial independence and advancing individual rights, or simply demanding obedience to the government under the “rule of law” banner?

Official commentaries leading up to the plenum seemed to have it both ways.

In one editorial comment, the official Xinhua news agency said China must “shake off the past shadows of the ‘rule of man,'” citing those “in a position of power” who would “place one’s authority above the law.”

“Such governance no longer suits a modern society which features greater individual independence, more diversified values and more complicated interests and interpersonal relationships,” it said.

But farther down in the same commentary, Xinhua seemed to subordinate law to the ruling party’s authority.

“Also, it should be made clear that rule of law will not conflict with the leadership,” of the CPP, the agency said.

Consolidating power

Such contradictions have led to conclusions that the rule of law is about consolidating rather than compromising the central authority’s power.

“The choice of theme for the plenum has nothing to do with implementing the rule of law as an independent check on party power,” wrote Fordham University law professor Carl Minzner in Foreign Policy magazine.

“Xi has ruled this out. Like his predecessors, he remains committed to one-party rule,” Minzner said.

The CPP is “the most fundamental guarantee” for advancing the rule of law, Xinhua quoted Xi and party leaders as saying at the plenum’s conclusion.

At a post-plenum meeting on Oct. 25, disciplinary chief Wang Qishan stressed CPP control, saying members must “be obedient to the Party and act as ordered.”

CPP regulations “should be sterner than laws,” Wang was quoted as saying.

Among more hopeful signs, the plenum called for establishing circuit courts and other measures to curb local influence over the legal process.

The reform plan “includes ensuring the independence of courts and prosecutors,” according to Xinhua.

Control over the law

But several statements also raised concerns about the CPP’s power over the law.

“The decision notes that sticking to the Party’s leadership is the fundamental requirement for socialist rule of law,” the plenum document said.

“The Party’s leadership and the rule of law is consistent with each other, as socialist rule of law must adhere to the Party’s leadership, while the Party’s leadership must rely on socialist rule of law,” it said.

Ultimately, it appears that the law will be what the party says it is.

The CPP “will predominate the rule of law. It’s a tool of governance that’s not a constraint on official policy,” said David Bachman, a China scholar and political science professor at University of Washington in Seattle, although he also expects more administrative regularity and legal transparency.

Bachman sees the initiative as an effort to end interference by local officials in civil and ordinary criminal cases, which has led to widespread rights abuses, including arbitrary verdicts and wrongful imprisonment.

“The country will enhance the protection of human rights in judicial procedures,” according to a Xinhua summary of the plenum communique.

“China will try to recruit lawmakers, judges and prosecutors from qualified lawyers and law experts,” it said.

But Bachman believes judges are still likely to be political appointees.

A hopeful sign

In another more hopeful sign, official reports from the plenum carried English-language references to the “rule of law” rather than “rule by law,” downplaying the authoritarian implications, he said.

Bachman also detected a shift from previous party pronouncements that China has nothing to learn from outside influences or international legal standards.

“In some ways, that’s a step forward from where we were a year ago,” Bachman told RFA.

While the plenum promised that “China will work to build a law-abiding government,” the strong role for central authority appeared to leave the CPP as the ultimate arbiter of accountability.

In another commentary, Xinhua interpreters tried to sell the economic benefits of the rule of law initiative.

“Almost all the pains currently suffered by the Chinese economy—ranging from overcapacity, real estate bubbles, risks of local government debts and shadow banks, to restricted growth in non-public sectors and insufficient innovation—could find their roots in excessive administrative interference, corruption and unfair competition, all of which are the result of the lack of rule of law,” Xinhua said.

One reading is that the government is seeking to blame all its economic challenges on illegal activity rather than past policy decisions.

Motives in doubt

Such self-justification may raise doubts about some of the motives behind the campaign.

Arguably, problems like industrial overcapacity and excessive property development have at least as much to do with previous economic policies as with lawbreaking.

Now that China’s economic growth has slipped to its slowest pace in five years, the new government has launched its rule of law quest at a sensitive time.

The leadership recently declared an end to Xi’s “mass line” campaign to stamp out “undesirable work styles such as formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance.”

Under that campaign, some 63,000 officials were sanctioned in the first five months of the year.

China prosecuted 21,652 officials on bribery charges and convicted 13,414 in the first nine months, an official of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said last week.

Although the wave of cases has had unsettling consequences for party cadres, Xinhua cited perceptions that “the rule of law could help institutionalize the popular anti-corruption campaign,” essentially replacing one slogan with another.

How soon that would lead to a more stable political environment or sustainable economic growth is anyone’s guess.

Corruption, transparency

Corruption among local officials and resistance to central government policies are likely to be top targets of the new campaign.

“I think what they’re looking at particularly is doing away with corruption, following whatever the law says,” said Thomas Bellows, political science professor at University of Texas at San Antonio and editor of the American Journal of Chinese Studies.

“It’s not going to increase civil liberties, civil rights, or things of that nature,” Bellows said in an interview.

The official English-language China Daily cited hopes among analysts that the rule of law “will create a more transparent and fairer business environment for the private sector and foreign investors.”

“Strict and standardized law enforcement and an efficient judicial system and professional judges and procurators will help promote social fairness and justice,” said Chang Jian, Barclays Plc chief economist in Hong Kong, according to the paper.

‘These will help to improve market efficiency,” he said.

Bellows expects more clarity from Chinese courts, which are now required make written decisions public, but that does not necessarily mean they will be free from outside influence.

“The fact is that they are not in any way going to challenge the supremacy of the Communist Party in China, so that means no independent judiciary,” said Bellows.

Foreign firms targeted

One recent measure of legal fairness has been the wave of antitrust cases and fines brought against foreign automakers and multinational corporations in China between July and September this year.

While Chinese authorities denied targeting foreign interests, the investigations drew criticism from business groups including the American Chamber of Commerce.

Although many foreign firms paid fines or were forced to lower their prices, none were reported to have contested the charges in court, suggesting little confidence in the system.

Bellows said foreign investors will have to weigh their chances carefully before seeking recourse to Chinese courts.

“If the auto companies see a glimmer there, they may reconsider appealing. If an appeal is going to hurt them more in the future, no,” he said.

Gary Jefferson, a Brandeis University professor of trade and finance, said the foreign companies are likely to have chalked up the anti-monopoly fines as a “cost of doing business,” despite their concerns about fairness.

“I haven’t heard of anyone packing up and leaving,” he said.

The post China Seeks Economic Gain From Rule Of Law Drive – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Ukraine elections add to struggle between Russia and the West, disrupting trade, energy flow, military ties.

By Chris Miller

In the midst of ongoing war and a deepening economic collapse, Ukraine held two sets of elections in the past week. Though both elections went off without a hitch, their results will only further complicate the nation’s politics and exacerbate the biggest security crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War. Returning pro-West candidates in the Ukrainian election and pro-Russian ones in the rebel enclave, the election could heighten confrontation between Russia and the West. Russian interest in bolstering rebellious elements within Ukraine introduces a long-term source of instability.

The larger of the two elections was for Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Voting took place across the country except in Crimea, which Russia annexed in March, and in parts of Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk and Lugansk provinces, which have declared independence. The second election was for leadership of the would-be independent republics in Donetsk and Lugansk.

The parliamentary elections produced results more encouraging for the country’s stability than expected. The parties of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk will have no difficulty forming a majority in parliament, giving the government power it needs to enact badly needed economic and political reforms. Far-right parties, which whipped up nationalist sentiment during the war, did worse than expected; only one right-wing party made it past the 5 percent threshold needed to secure seats in parliament.

The second election – for the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic – is more problematic. The incumbent leaders, Aleksandr Zakharchenko of Donetsk and Igor Plotnitsky of Lugansk, won easily. Turnout was high, as voters went to the polls to express disapproval of the way Kiev conducted the war, which, along with rebel actions, led to widespread destruction and civilian deaths in both regions. Yet the West and the United Nations claim that the elections in Donetsk and Lugansk violate the peace deal signed in Minsk in early September. Russia’s foreign ministry, by contrast, issued a statement recognizing the elections.

These dueling elections bring greater uncertainty, muddling prospects for resolving a crisis that has not only led to war in Ukraine, but also destroyed relations between Russia and the West. Not only do they signal that the Ukraine crisis is unlikely to be resolved soon, they also suggest that the broader confrontation between Russia and the West is likely to continue to disrupt ties in spheres as diverse as trade, energy and military relations.

The elections have led both Russia and the West to double down on support for their allies in Ukraine. The West, for example, cheered the victory of moderate forces in Ukraine’s election. Had far-right parties done well, the West would have found it harder to support the Kiev government. The centrist coalition that will govern Kiev, however, will focus on rebuilding Ukraine’s economy and reducing corruption, two initiatives that Western governments fully support.

The new government in Kiev is also committed to integrating with the European Union and with the West more generally. Here, the new leaders may be disappointed. Western governments are happy that Ukraine has signed an association agreement and trade deal with the EU. But few of Europe’s powerbrokers, including Germany, France and Italy, would support a path to EU membership for Ukraine. Even less significant steps such as visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the EU are unlikely soon. As a result, the practical benefits of Ukraine’s Western orientation may be less pronounced than many Ukrainians hope. Nonetheless, Europe appears willing at least to take the steps needed to ensure that Ukraine does not revert to Russia’s sphere of influence.

Russia, meanwhile, appears to be doubling down on support for its proxies in Ukraine’s eastern provinces Donetsk and Lugansk. Most observers believe that the Kremlin wants to keep Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine, but build up the power of the proxies that it supports. That will give Moscow a veto over Ukrainian politics, allowing it to prevent Ukraine from joining Western institutions such as the European Union or North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

That explains why Russia’s foreign ministry decided to recognize the elections, despite European officials threatening further financial and trade sanctions if it did so. Predictably, after news came out of the Kremlin’s backing of the elections, some European officials called for new sanctions.

Many in the business community had hoped that the tenuous ceasefire agreement signed two months ago would lead to rollback of the sanctions, by which Russia had banned most food imports from Europe, and the West restricted Russian companies’ ability to raise capital abroad or import technology needed by oil and gas companies. Now, it appears that those sanctions will be in place for some time, despite the economic damage they have caused to both Europe and Russia.

The competing elections in Ukraine also call into questions energy relations between Russia and the West. Most European countries import a large share of their natural gas from Russia, and some Central European countries are entirely dependent on Russia for imports. About 15 percent of Europe’s total gas imports from Russia come via pipelines that pass through Ukraine. Ukraine also needs gas from Russia, and after Ukraine’s Maidan revolution this winter, the Kremlin demanded that Ukraine pay higher prices.

Until last week, Kiev and Moscow could not agree on a deal, and Russia stopped sending gas to Ukraine, which also cut off gas supplies to countries dependent on pipelines that transit Ukraine. After protracted negotiations, the EU, Russia and Ukraine signed a new deal last week, whereby the EU would help Ukraine fund gas payments, and Russia would compromise on the price. Yet the current deal lasts only until March, presuming that neither side reneges. Either way, a new set of gas negotiations will soon be back on the agenda, creating chaos for consumers in Europe and further complicating relations between Moscow and Brussels.

The post Dueling Elections In Ukraine Test EU-Russian Ties – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Women are being used to manipulate Muslim men into joining forces with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) as so-called “white feather girls” did during the First World War, an anti-extremism think tank says.

Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank that works to defend religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy, has identified over a 100 social media accounts of ISIS sympathizers presumed to be located in Britain.

Erin Marie Saltman, a senior researcher with the organization, told The Times women who journeyed to Syria to wed ISIS militants were deploying online blogs as a “soft tool of recruitment.”

She further claimed these women are attempting to shame British men via social media platforms, suggesting they are not “real Muslims” or “real men” unless they joined the conflict.

“It is similar to the First World War, where men were branded cowards if they did not enlist. Jihadist wives are using language to degrade the machismo of British men.

“They use physical comparisons to shame the ‘fat and lazy British Muslims’ into joining the ‘physically fit and strong mujahidin’ in Syria and Iraq,” she said.

One such women, a blogger who has adopted the pseudonym ‘Bird of Jannah’, reportedly offers a romanticized account in English of being the bride of a jihadist. Her blog site is adorned with Kalashnikovs and roses, The Times reports.

A report published by Quilliam today uncovers two social networking sites it warns are havens for ISIS propaganda. But this tide of propaganda never remains static, the body reveals, and is constantly in flux.

Dr Erin Marie Saltman, a senior researcher at Quilliam, told The Times: “As one front line becomes more censored, then [ISIS] will move to another platform. Currently, we are seeing lots of activity on Ask.fm and VK and yet these companies have not been involved in the Downing Street and EU talks to tackle this.”

While Google, Facebook and Twitter are considered to be the most prolific social media sites in operation, it is more difficult to monitor other fringe and recently emerged platforms, Saltman said.

“Social media organizations don’t want jihadists using their networks and yet they’ve created these civil-society platforms to be used without censorship,” she added.

The deployment of social media sites to channel and disseminate ISIS propaganda is “unprecedented for a terrorist organization,” and has sparked “the first social media war,” the think tank’s report warns.

Online jihadists in Britain reportedly provide direct links to ISIS and other extremist militants in Syria.

In a separate report released by the counter-terrorism organization Tuesday, Quilliam said the use of social media cannot be adequately tackled with censorship.

“This can only be done through community-led counter-speech initiatives,” the think tank argued.

Quilliam also warned the global intervention against ISIS is creating a reunion between al-Qaeda and Islamic State, who are finding renewed commonality in a “Crusader vs. Muslim” paradigm. The think tank said this binary must be “shattered by stronger intervention from regional, Sunni-majority states.”

“IS will never be bombed into obscurity, the long-term problem of jihadist terrorism will not go away unless governments and civil society around the world counter the Islamist ideology as a whole,” it added.

It emerged on Tuesday that ISIS has set fixed prices to sell Yazidi and Christian women who have been abducted by members of the militant group. The barbaric tariffs range from around $40 for older women to $170 for children, Iraqi media reported.

The post British Jihadi Brides Shame Muslim Men Into Joining ISIS appeared first on Eurasia Review.