By Paulo Gorjão

In his inaugural speech on 3 October 2014, Sweden’s new Prime-Minister, the Social-Democrat Stefan Löfven, surprised the international community by announcing that Stockholm would recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.1 Also surprising was the expeditious manner in which the Swedish government transformed words into actions: having been in functions for just a month, Margot Wallström, the Foreign Affairs Minister, officially recognized the Palestinian state’s sovereignty in a short communiqué on 30 October.2

The decision by Löfven’s government clearly marks an external and internal rupture. From the external point of view, some EU member-states—the case of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Romania—had already recognized the independent state of Palestine, although the decision was made before joining the Union. Sweden is therefore the first EU member- state to unilaterally recognize Palestine’s sovereignty. Internally, the Swedish government’s decision represents a clear rupture from the policy line by the country’s previous liberal-conservative executive led by Frederik Reinfeldt. It is worth recalling that in October 2011, in a context of profound European division, Sweden was one of the few EU member-states to have voted against Palestine’s adhesion to UNESCO as a full-fledged member. In a way, the recognition of the state of Palestine’s sovereignty constitutes not an end in itself, but a means and an instrument in a wider diplomatic game. On the one hand, as already noted, Löfven is signaling a rupture with the former political cycle, both in a formal and substantial way, while on the other hand, and probably most importantly, Palestine’s recognition represents a return to the traditional roots of Swedish social-democrat foreign policy.3 In an interview granted before the nation’s legislative elections, Löfven complained about the passivity of Sweden’s foreign policy in the former political cycle, and promised to be more active in the UN and on matters related to human rights.4

In fact, with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, Swedish foreign policy was often aligned with that of the US and mainly centered on matters related to the EU. In practice, Löfven and Wallström now promise to refocus Stockholm’s diplomacy, dedicating greater attention to the international agenda and to a number of issues that are traditionally assessed within UN institutions: gender equality, disarmament, peace and security.

Moreover, the perception of the UN’s importance in the purview of Sweden’s foreign policy is surely strengthened by Wallström’s own personal experience—between 2010 and 2014, Wallström held the office of UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Undoubtedly, Palestine’s recognition clears the way for Sweden’s aspiration of placing itself in what it deems to be its place in international politics. In other words, Stockholm seeks to regain the prestige and the position it once held in the UN’s universe. At a time when Sweden has positioned itself as a candidate for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council in the 2017/2018 biennium, Stockholm has not forgotten the humiliating defeat suffered in its bid to the Human Rights Council for the 2013/2015 period.5 Equally important, as in the past, Sweden intends to once again hold more and better positions within UN structures.

To what extend may this be of interest for Portuguese diplomacy?

Much has been said about Portugal with regard to the possible naming of either António Guterres or José Manuel Durão Barroso as UN Secretary-General. As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Guterres finds himself surely better placed than Durão Barroso in a bid to succeed Ban Ki-moon, whose mandate ends on 31 December 2016. However, not every European state will roll out the red carpet for an uncontested run by Guterres. Sweden surely will not, in as much as it is committed to promote a bid by the Swedish diplomat Jan Kenneth Eliasson, who is the current Deputy Secretary-General of the UN.

Having said that, Sweden’s recognition of the Palestinian state’s sovereignty matters to Portugal for additional reasons. Stockholm’s decision has inevitably placed pressure on the remaining EU member-states. In a first reaction to Sweden’s decision, the Portuguese Foreign Affairs Minister, Rui Machete, considered that “for the time being it is too soon” for Portugal to recognize Palestinian sovereignty”, adding that “we do not think that the negotiations process should be interrupted until solid outcomes are achieved”.6 Machete’s “soon” followed the US stance, which considered Palestine’s recognition “premature”.7 Nevertheless, the Minister’s reference to the negotiations process is less understandable when considering that talks failed last April.

It is in this context of a stalemate in negotiations, with new decisions by the Israelis on settlements and a resumption of violence in Gaza, that the recent Swedish decision will be discussed at the next monthly meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on 17 November. The diplomatic stance of Portugal seems very clear: there is in Lisbon a favorable environment towards the recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state. However, instead of a unilateral Swedish decision, with the associated political and diplomatic costs, Portuguese diplomacy prefers concerted actions, i.e. a recognition jointly enacted with European partners, namely with those that are a reference in this matter: France, Ireland, and Spain. In sum, while Portugal understands it has nothing to gain from a rupturing Swedish gesture, it does not regard negatively a collective gesture towards the recognition of Palestine’s sovereignty.

To put it bluntly, the stalemate in negotiations has lasted for far too many decades. Naturally, no European state contests Israel’s right to live in peace and security. Nevertheless, it is a fact that patience and confidence are running out, notably with the perception that Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu prefers a permanent state of war to a difficult peace”.8 In this context, the Swedish decision of recognizing Palestine is clearly the most significant setback suffered by Israel in years. A list of setbacks—which runs the risk of becoming a long one—shows that the wind is not blowing in Netanyahu and Israel’s favor. The non-binding vote that took place on 14 October in the British Parliament, in which 274 MP’s voted in favor of the recognition of Palestine (a meager 12 voted against),9 also illustrates the fact that patience with Israel is running out among other EU member-states.10

In practice, there is only one beneficiary of the statu quo’s indefinite dragging along. With the political and diplomatic endorsement of the US and European states, Israel insists that the recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine has to be a product of negotiations.

However, the truth is that there has always been a pretext, regardless of the level of its legitimacy, to provoke a rupture before reaching an understanding. In this regard, it is not only the Palestinians who are hostages to radicals in Palestine and Israel.

Indeed, the US and European states find themselves hostages to the political and diplomatic support that they have given to Israel.
Einstein observed that “insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results”. Despite a series of failures in negotiations, European states insist in making the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty contingent on an agreement attained via negotiations. Following decades of stalemate, the absence of results is in the plain sight of everyone.

Therefore, it is only logical to seek to redress the balance, to change the existing equilibrium between carrots and sticks. Thus, there is no reason for not accepting as valid the Swedish argument that recognizing the Palestinian state contributes to making the parts “less unequal”. Adding to this, Stockholm’s thesis is equally reasonable, according to which its decision strengthens the political stance of Palestinian moderate forces.11 Certainly, in regards to a subject that does not comprise a priority for Lisbon, Portuguese diplomatic prudence is perfectly understandable, even acceptable.

What matters for Portugal is firstly to avoid being out of step with France, Ireland and Spain over the subject. Having said this, Lisbon could—and should—assume, both publicly and privately, a more assertive and active political and diplomatic stance in the defense of the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty, partly due to the reasons invoked by Sweden.

Considering this, the stance assumed by Rui Machete arises as excessively static and defensive. Being faced with Stockholm’s stance, Portugal should have reiterated that negotiations between Israel and Palestine need to be resumed as quickly as possible.

Equally important, the Portuguese Minister should have also said that the recognition of the state of Palestine will be made according to the pre-1967 borders, or as agreed by the two sides. Last, but not the least, Portugal should have made it clear that, under the indefinite continuation of the statu quo, even if that is not its preference, Portuguese diplomacy does not rule out the possibility of following in Sweden’s footsteps.

Published also in Portuguese: Paulo Gorjão, “O realinhamento da política externa da Suécia: implicações para Portugal do reconhecimento da Pales- tina” (IPRIS Comentário, No. 9, Novembro 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 160, November 2014.

Notes:
1. “Statement of Government Policy” (Prime Minister’s Office [Sweden], 8 October 2014), p. 19.
2. “Sweden recognises Palestine and increases aid” (Ministry for Foreign Affairs [Sweden], 30 October 2014).
3. Ver Christian Christensen, “Sweden rebuffs the US on Palestine” (Al Jazeera, 8 October 2014).
4. Alistair Scrutton e Johan Sennero, “Sweden’s Palestine statement signals start of weightier global role” (Reuters, 7 October 2014).
5. With three openings available for five candidates, Germany, the US and Ireland left Greece and Sweden out of the race.
6. “Portugal considera ser cedo para reconhecer estado da Palestina” (Diário de Notícias online, 31 October 2014).
7. “Daily Press Briefing: Jen Psaki” (U.S. Department of State, 3 October 2014).
8. Ver Philip Stephens, “Israel is losing its friends in the world” (Financial Times, 17 October 2014), p. 9.
9. “MPs back Palestinian statehood alongside Israel” (BBC News, 14 October 2014).
10. Recently, 18 former French ambassadors appealed for the recognition of Palestine: “Urgence pour la Palestine” (Le Figaro, 17 October 2014); the Irish Senate approved on 22 October a non-binding motion appealing that the government would recognize the state of Palestine: “Irish senate calls for recognition of Palestinian state” (AFP, 23 October 2014); last, but not the least, Alon Liel, former general-director at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote an article appealing for the EU member-states to follow the footsteps of Sweden: “EU states should follow Sweden on Palestine” (EUobserver, 23 October 2014).
11. “Sweden today decides to recognise the State of Palestine” (DN Debatt, 30 October 2014).
Portuguese Minister should have also said that the recog- nition of the state of Palestine will be made according to the pre-1967 borders, or as agreed by the two sides. Last, but not the least, Portugal should have made it clear that, under the indefinite continuation of the statu quo, even if that is not its preference, Portuguese diplomacy does not rule out the possibility of following in Sweden’s footsteps.

The post Sweden’s Foreign Policy Realignment: Implications Of Palestine’s Recognition For Portugal’s Foreign Policy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Edward Burke

Britain played a dominant role in Middle Eastern affairs for much of the 19 century and first half of the 20th. The year 1956 marked the beginning of the end of the British Empire in the Middle East: weakened by the economic destruction of World War II, the United Kingdom (UK) – together with France and Israel – was forced to cede control of the Suez Canal. London gave up Aden Colony in 1967 and its Trucial States protectorates – Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman – in the 1970s. The United States (US) took Britain’s place as the most influential Western power in the region. But British policy-makers now say that the trend of decline has been reversed – the UK’s commercial footprint, especially in the Gulf, is growing. Britain has the strongest political, security and business relations of any European country with the Gulf. And London wants things to stay that way.

The UK’s Enduring Interests

Britain’s interests in the Middle East are security and commerce, with security concerns coming first. In the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the UK government stated that transnational Islamic terrorism is the greatest threat to its national security.

The Middle East region lags far behind markets in Europe, Asia – particularly China – and the United States in relative economic importance for the UK. But the substantial increase of UK exports to the UAE and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in recent years, growing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, and the huge investment in the UK from Gulf States, have underlined the potential to develop the UK’s commercial relationship with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. UK trade with Arab countries increased by 11 per cent in 2013 compared with 2012.

In 2013, UK exports of goods and commodities to the UAE exceeded US$15 billion – a three-fold increase in less than five years and approximately 2 per cent of total exports for that year. Meanwhile, exports to Saudi Arabia increased by approximately a third during the 2008-2013 period. Britain in turn attracts high levels of investment from the Gulf. The Dubai port operator – DP World – is investing in the construction of the first major UK port for 20 years.

Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds have made high-profile investments such as London’s signature ‘Shard’ building. British trade with Israel has also grown by approximately a third in the last decade. Britain is anxious to protect and deepen this growing trade relationship as a central dimension of its political outlook towards the region.

Meanwhile, the Suez Canal in Egypt remains the vital conduit for UK exports to emerging markets in Asia (see Figures 1 and 2).

The MENA also remains a key market for British manufactured military equipment – representing over two-thirds of new defence export contracts signed with UK companies in 2013. Although the figures fluctuate, according to the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the UK’s share of the global defence export market in 2013 was 22 per cent or UK£9.8 billion. The DTI reported that defence contracts in the Middle East were worth almost US$60 billion for the period 2004- 2013. It has also reported a marked increase in major orders from the Middle East since 2012, including from Oman and Saudi Arabia (Hawk training aircraft and Typhoon fighter jets).

UK exports of military or police arms and other equipment sit uneasily with Britain’s human rights policy. Trade interests normally win out – in November 2013, the UK government resumed some arms and police equipment exports to Egypt less than three months after a deadly military crackdown on supporters of the country’s ousted former President Mohamed Morsi.

The introduction of a new Arms Trade Treaty, ratified by the UK in 2013, could affect future exports to the region – the treaty obliges exporting countries to make a reasonable judgment on the likelihood of the arms sold being used for human rights abuses. Each signatory – including the UK – is obliged to incorporate the treaty into its national laws. In August 2014, the UK threatened to suspend twelve arms export licenses to Israel if there was further evidence of large civilian casualties during Israeli military operations in Gaza.

The UK has traditionally been one of Israel’s strongest international supporters, but British attitudes towards Israel are changing. London recently backed European Union (EU) efforts to identify and label goods produced on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Meanwhile, against Israel’s wishes, in June 2014 the British government backed a ‘unity accord’ between Fatah and Hamas – a shift in UK policy and an implicit acknowledgment that Hamas is an integral part of any revived peace process.

In August 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron used unusually strong language to condemn the recent building of settlements in the West Bank. Later that month, he condemned the annexation of 1,000 acres near Bethlehem as ‘utterly deplorable’. Cameron also supported the United Nation (UN) Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon’s description of the attack on a UN school in Rafah ‘as a moral outrage and a criminal act’.

Energy Producer Turned Consumer

The UK is the largest producer of oil and the second-largest producer of gas in the EU. However, the UK became a net importer of hydrocarbons in 2004 because of dwindling supplies from the North Sea and a prolonged (ongoing) debate over shale gas exploration. UK natural gas production has fallen more sharply than domestic oil supplies in recent years (see Figure 3).

Domestic production met 61 percent of demand for oil products in 2012, and imports constituted the remaining 39 percent. According to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, oil imports are set to rise – net oil imports will likely constitute 20 per cent of primary energy supply by the mid-2020s and almost 25 per cent by 2030.

The UK has invested heavily in its capacity to import and store liquefied natural gas, which in turn has seen a significant increase in gas imports from the Gulf. The UK is now the largest market for LNG in the EU, surpassing Spain in 2011 (reflected in the exponential rise of Qatari imports in Figure 2 between 2008 and 2013). However, Norway will continue to be by far the most important source of UK imports for the foreseeable future, both for oil and gas – Norwegian exports to Britain are set to increase in 2014 following the essential maintenance of pipelines between the two countries (see Figures 4 and 5).

The UK – An Agent Of Change In The Middle East?

The UK initially saw the 2011 Arab popular uprisings as a major geopolitical opportunity – a unique moment to remake its relations with the Arab world and to tackle the root causes of extremism in the region. Prime Minister Cameron compared the 2011 ‘Arab spring’ with the fall of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989.

Historically, the UK has not spent much of its overall development assistance in the Middle East– with the exception of the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Yemen. However, Iraq became the regional focus of UK development efforts from 2003 to 2009 when British troops were deployed there, with a vertical drop of aid volumes to the country after their withdrawal. In the initial aftermath of the 2011 popular uprisings, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID) established the Arab Partnership Economic Facility (economic development – UK£70 million) and the Arab Partnership Participation Fund (political reform – UK£40 million) – a major increase for UK support for democracy promotion in the region. As shown in Figure 6, the UK also increased its (already very limited) aid to North Africa.

Since 2011, the UK has emerged as a strong backer of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in the southern Mediterranean – seeing it as a means of advancing UK interests in countries where London does not have strong influence.

In 2011, the UK began to push for a more conditional approach to development assistance under the ENP. British diplomats have argued that, although constant relations must be maintained with reform laggards such as Egypt and Algeria, special EU funds – such as those under the Support to Partnership, Reform and Inclusive Growth (SPRING) mechanism – should only be paid to genuine reformers.

Today, however, British hopes for the region are being scaled down. There is a broad feeling that relations with important strategic actors such as Egypt cannot be jeopardised over concerns about democracy and human rights. The rise of terrorist movements such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Islamic State (IS) have drawn the UK closer not only to old allies such as Jordan and Bahrain, but also to new partners like Algeria, with whom the UK recently signed a security partnership.

The planned re-opening of the UK Embassy in Tehran at the end of 2014 has prompted a preliminary discussion on improving economic ties if there is a deal on the nuclear issue – Iran was a major trade partner in the region until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In September 2014, David Cameron met with President Hassan Rouhani – the first such meeting between the two countries’ leaders in more than three decades – where they discussed operations against IS in Iraq and future trade relations in the event of an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme.

In August 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron lost a vote in the British parliament that would have authorised the bombing of the Syrian military and its allies – in direct response to the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in rebel-held areas. Earlier the British and French governments had found themselves in a highly acrimonious debate with other EU member states in Brussels over whether to lift an EU embargo on sending arms to opposition groups in Syria. In May 2013, some EU sanctions were lifted. But the subsequent advances of Islamist extremists in Syria and Iraq in 2014 changed the debate; London’s plans to substantially increase its military assistance to opposition forces in Syria were quietly shelved amid concerns that weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. On 26 September 2014, David Cameron secured the British parliament’s consent to begin a bombing campaign against IS forces in Iraq.

As the UK prepared its military campaign against the IS organisation, London – together with Paris and Washington – successfully petitioned Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to join the air campaign. However, Cameron, unlike the US, ruled out attacks against the same group in Syria. Hesitant to work with or provide any advantage to the Assad regime, but equally conscious of the hundreds of British citizens fighting with IS and other extremist groups, the UK has simply run out of good options in Syria.

The Exceptional Gulf

Britain’s enthusiasm for Arab spring regime change did not extend to the Gulf. For example, in 2011 British leaders praised the UAE for taking part in NATO’s aerial assault to help liberate Libya from Gaddafi’s forces. But the UK government subsequently ignored a 2012 crackdown against civil society activists in the UAE. Some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from Prime Minister Cameron’s own Conservative Party went so far as to vote against a resolution condemning the arrest and arbitrary detention of UAE civil society activists.

The 2010 ‘Gulf Initiative’ was a signal of intent by the new Conservative-led government of David Cameron to re-build strong political ties with the six GCC states. Since 2010 the UK has signed commercial and defence agreements with each of the GCC member states. A number of Royal Navy ships and submarines/Royal Air Force aircraft are normally based in the region and there are high-levels of counter-terrorism and military cooperation, including joint exercises between the UK Armed Forces with some Gulf militaries – most frequently with Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Despite such high levels of security cooperation, senior UK government officials recognise that the Gulf is part of the problem as well as part of the solution, especially when it comes to the funding of terrorist groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and elsewhere by the security services and private citizens from Gulf countries.

The UK is susceptible to considerable diplomatic pressure from the Gulf. In 2014, David Cameron ordered an investigation into the alleged role of the Muslim Brotherhood in fomenting violent extremism in the UK and around the world. The inquiry was largely seen as a sop to Riyadh. Meanwhile, the UK continues to develop working relations with the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere, including in Tunisia and Yemen, where Brotherhood members have served as government ministers.

On balance, the UK government believes that maintaining generally friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries is better than a confrontational approach that would yield little in the way of human rights, harm UK security and commercial ties and would indirectly strengthen regime hardliners and extremists.

Conclusion

The UK’s priorities in the Middle East are unlikely to change over the next decade. Attempts at regime change by full-scale military intervention or by assisting local insurgents to overthrow regimes are seen to have failed, most critically in the case of Iraq and Libya, and have led to a rise in extremist movements. London has reverted to a much more cautious approach towards regime change in the region.

Two major recent shifts in British policy towards the region have been with non-Arab states, namely Iran and Israel. Engagement with Iran is set to increase following the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between the two countries, but much rests on the successful resolution of talks over Iran’s nuclear programme. Conversely, UK relations with Israel have substantially deteriorated – and will likely continue to do so if Israel continues to build more settlements and cause more civilian casualties among the Palestinian population.

Britain is willing to risk some influence over matters of principle with strategically important countries in the Middle East; the UK has condemned the use of excessive force on the part of countries such as Bahrain and Egypt – even if it has then moved quickly to try to repair relations afterwards. London is willing to gently chastise long-standing allies such as Jordan for stalling on reforms and even withdraw limited amounts of funds. However, aside from occasional grumblings and limited reform initiatives, it is clear that the UK is not willing to sacrifice key interests in the region in order to take a strong stand on human rights issues. This is particularly true in the case of the most strategically important countries in the region such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The security and economic rationale of developing cooperation with these governments in the short- term continues to be compelling. The importance of the Gulf has been reinforced since the Arab uprisings. The UK desperately wants to capitalize on its growing economic ties with the UAE and other GCC countries as part of the government’s push to increase global trade. In that sense, British foreign policy towards the Arab countries has remained relatively constant despite the tumultuous events of recent years.

About the author:
Edward Burke is Associate Fellow at FRIDE.

Source:
This Policy Brief belongs to the project ‘Transitions and Geopolitics in the Arab World: links and implications for international actors’, led by FRIDE and HIVOS. We acknowledge the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. For further information on this project, please contact: Kawa Hassan, Hivos (k.hassan@hivos.nl) or Kristina Kausch, FRIDE (kkausch@fride.org).

This article was published by FRIDE and may be found here.

The post An Awkward Embrace: UK’s Re-Emerging Role In The Middle East – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Waleed Abu al-Khair

The Egyptian army is intensifying its security operations in the Sinai amid an escalation in clashes with armed groups in the peninsula including the al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis .

The Egyptian army announced Monday (October 27th) that it deployed reinforcements to the peninsula in the wake of a car bomb that killed at least 26 soldiers Friday, AFP reported.

The army said eight gunmen were killed in a shootout in Sinai and seven others were arrested, while additional army forces fanned out across the peninsula, accompanied by special police units, the news agency said.

Egyptian authorities have imposed a curfew in some parts of north Sinai in response to the bombing, and announced it will start evacuating civilians from the area, AFP said.

Political researcher Abdul Nabi Bakkar, who teaches at Al-Azhar University’s faculty of sharia and law, said the perpetrators of Friday’s car bomb attack targeted the army’s armoured vehicles as well as ambulances which had tried to transport the wounded from the site of the attack.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Ajnad Misr and Jaish al-Islam, all al-Qaeda inspired groups, are carrying out these attacks on the army, targeting checkpoints, armoured vehicles, security personnel and civilians, Bakkar told Al-Shorfa.

These groups engage in constant incitement against the Egyptian army and clerics affiliated with government institutions such as Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Endowments, he said, adding that he believes these gunmen are conducting such attacks in response to heavy losses they suffered after the army raised its readiness level and deployed reinforcements to Sinai.

Curfew imposed

“The Egyptian army took a sovereign decision to decisively settle its battle with the terrorists in Sinai, and its military operations from now on will be carried out under a state of emergency that will see the creation of buffer zones ahead of the start of operations to purge [Sinai] of terrorists,” military analyst Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Ahmed, who is retired from the Egyptian army, told Al-Shorfa.

The army imposed long curfews in “hot spots” to facilitate its pursuit of gunmen, he said, adding that the military campaign involves evacuating civilians to safe areas to protect their lives.

In addition, the army took measures at all land, air and sea ports which include stringent inspections and comprehensive and full co-operation with other countries in the region and Interpol to monitor and prosecute those whose names are on international terror lists, he said.

Ahmed said security agencies updated watch lists in order to apprehend suspects immediately on any attempt to sneak into Egyptian territory.

At the same time, he said, cyber teams continue to play a crucial role in scouring hundreds of postings, pictures and videos “posted by terrorist groups” to identify suspects to be included on security lists.

‘Daily security operations’

Strategy analyst Maj. Gen. Yahya Mohammed Ali, who also is retired from the Egyptian army, said the Egyptian security services announced they have determined the identities of the eight people involved in the Friday (October 24th) attack targeting a security checkpoint in Karm al-Qawadis in the Sinai Peninsula.

“Egypt will continue its counter-terrorism efforts in the coming period with domestic security campaigns and on-going daily military operations in hot spots,” he told Al-Shorfa.

Egypt also maintains “close co-operation with neighbouring countries on the military and political levels, particularly countries that have joined the international coalition against terrorism,” he said.

Security efforts are not only confined to the Sinai, Ali said, but also encompass the whole of Egypt, wherein security personnel are actively monitoring public places, government facilities and factories to ensure they do not become targets of acts of sabotage.

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By Hassan al-Obaidi

Fallujah resident Latifa al-Dulaimi has not seen her son Hossam since the beginning of last June, after he was detained by “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) elements.

Al-Dulaimi, 57, told Mawtani that her 36-year-old son was standing near the door to the house with his friends when he was detained on charges of contempt against ISIL.

“I have not seen him with my own eyes since then,” al-Dulaimi said. “They do not let me see him in spite of my begging to see him and to be reassured. They also did not let me bring him winter clothes, despite the fact winter is coming. It is the same for food or medication as he has suffered from a bronchitis allergy since he was a child.”

Hossam is in one of five prisons ISIL set up in Fallujah where hundreds of residents, including many elderly people, reportedly suffer from torture and lack of food and medicine, officials said.

“ISIL uses five buildings within the city as big prisons for hundreds of civilians, including tribal leaders, intellectuals, human rights activists and ordinary citizens who refused to swear allegiance,” said Fallujah police chief Col. Faisal al-Zawbaie.

Elderly men are among those detained, he said, and they have been subjected to daily torture along with others and suffer from a lack of nutrition and psychological oppression.

“ISIL’s creation of prisons and the increasing number of detainees within them indicates residents are refusing to respond to the group or to remain silent about its crimes,” al-Zawbaie added.

Reports by local observers suggest that ISIL detains about 1,800 citizens in prisons — former factories and government buildings — inside Fallujah, said Hadi Ahmed, chairman of the Human Rights Commission in Anbar province.

ISIL “intentionally detains people under several pretexts, including their refusal to pledge allegiance, their previous work in the security forces or out of fear they might volunteer in the ranks of police and the army in the future”, Ahmed said.

ISIL resorts to painful psychological methods to deal with detainees, he added, as it threatens to execute detainees every dawn, pretending to take them to kill them and then bringing them back at the last minute.

ISIL elements prevent detainees’ families from visiting their children and prohibit them from providing their relatives with clothes, food or medicine, he said. In addition, they do not provide the detainees with healthcare, which has led to the spread of different skin and respiratory diseases among prisoners, killing some.

Iraqi Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghabban told Mawtani he believes ISIL’s detention of Iraqis indicates the breadth of the rejection of the group, particularly in areas under its control.

Ministry reports indicate there are a growing number of detainees in Fallujah, Mosul and Tikrit, he said, as well as an increase in the number of volunteers to fight ISIL.

“There are those who volunteer to take up arms and those who fight it by opinion and by words and this means the beginning of the end for ISIL,” he said.

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Interview by Mawassi Lahcen in Casablanca for Magharebia

The threat from the Islamic State, the crisis in Libya and other security issues will top talks next week in Tangier at MEDays 2014. Billed as a meeting for global players, the 7th edition of the influential forum will focus on the most pressing concerns for the region.

Panellists and participants at the November 12th-15th event will include heads of state and governments, foreign ministers, business leaders and civil society representatives from 50 countries.

Brahim Fassi Fihri runs the Amadeus Institute, which organises the conference. He met with Magharebia in Tangier to preview the hot-button issues for this year’s meeting.

Magharebia: Does the world have more to fear today than when you first held this forum?

Brahim Fassi Fihri: Unfortunately, the security problem seems to be more complicated than six years ago…. Today, terrorist groups include, but are not limited to the following: the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram, Ansar al-Din, Ansar al-Sharia, Al-Shabab, al-Mourabitounes, and Djound Al-Khalifa….

Terrorist threats have become more intense and dangerous in the region with the appearance of the Islamic State (ISIS) We have seen how a number of AQIM members, not leaders, decided to join ISIS, and we have seen how new groups appeared in the region and swore allegiance to ISIS.

Magharebia: Does this mean that ISIS has gained a foothold in the region?

Fassi Fihri: In my opinion, the Sahel and Sahara area has now become a natural extension for the Islamic State, or ISIS. It’s a dismembered region where terrorist groups reproduce at an alarming pace, taking advantage of the deteriorating security situation in some failed countries, and the poor capabilities of others…

If we look at the situation in Mali and Libya, we’ll find the same elements and conditions that led to the appearance and domination of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, I think that as part of its overall strategy, ISIS is considering the Sahel to be the natural extension of its activities and ambitions.

There are actually terrorist groups in the region that have already sworn allegiance to ISIS, including Mauritania’s Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou, the leader of MUJAO, and the Mourabitounes, who swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi less than a month ago.

The new terrorist threat posed by ISIS has reached unprecedented levels and has become more comprehensive; it now has important repercussions on Sahel and threatens to make the region’s problems even more complicated…

Magharebia: Where does Mali factor in?

Fassi Fihri: …The resolution of the Mali crisis has created new security problems elsewhere, as jihadists moved to Libya, Chad and Niger, and as new hotpots of terrorism appeared. Even Mali is still far away from realising the stability it aspires to… The same thing is true in Niger and Chad, where not a single days passes without confrontations between local armies and jihadist groups.

Magharebia: What about Tunisia? Has it succeeded in its political transition?

Fassi Fihri: As a Moroccan, I’m very delighted with what Tunisia has achieved in this election….

Experts and analysts expected an overwhelming victory for Ennahda Islamists. This simply didn’t happen. Today, the issue of political Islam, at least in Tunisia, is different from how it was because of the somewhat unsuccessful experience of the former Islamist government.

We will be proud to receive Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaâ during the MEDays forum in Tangier to shed light on what Tunisia has achieved and how it is now moving steadily and persistently in its democratic transition.

Magharebia: Does this mean that the fragile internal situation in Tunisia is now over?

Fassi Fihri: The dangers threatening Tunisia’s stability are certainly there… The election was a great achievement and a source of happiness and optimism. However, we shouldn’t forget that Tunisia is still witnessing daily clashes…

The first victim of the continuation of the Libyan crisis is Tunisia, and therefore, we can’t look at Tunisia as a stable country in the long run, so long as Libya is unstable.

In addition to Tunisia, the Maghreb and the entire region suffer from the security chaos and crisis in Libya.

It’s enough to know that there are more than 800,000 pieces of weapons in Libya, and that there are more than 1,700 armed militias in the country, including groups that have already sworn allegiance to ISIS.

Magharebia: Is there any hope for national reconciliation in Libya?

Fassi Fihri: The Libyan crisis affects all countries of the region… none of them should be excluded. The situation in Libya doesn’t concern Tunisia, Egypt or Algeria alone, given the joint border, arms proliferation, and spread of jihadist and terrorist networks across the region.

The terrorist threats are comprehensive, and therefore, the response should be also comprehensive.

Magharebia: What about foreign military intervention to resolve the Libyan crisis?

Fassi Fihri: …It shouldn’t take place without finding a long-term political solution, establishing an agenda for reconciliation between the various political forces, disarming the militias, and combating the jihadists in the country.

As for talk about a military intervention without a political and strategic plan, there is no room for that. It would be enough to ask this question: where are the jihadists who were fought last year in Sahel?

The answer: they’re in Libya now.

Magharebia: What about Morocco? Is it the next country to see attacks?

Fassi Fihri: The danger is imminent, the terrorist threat is a reality and none can deny it. Morocco is targeted by ISIS and AQIM leaders, and also by Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia and Libya, which, by the way, is an organisation under the same leadership. This is in addition to the threat linked to about 2,000 Moroccan fighters in Syria.

The reassuring thing is that Moroccan officials are quite aware of these dangers, as shown by the vigilance of security and military agencies, which was recently stepped up with “Operation Hadar”…

As I said, the terrorist threat has become comprehensive, and therefore, confronting it requires the concerted efforts of all world countries.

Magharebia: How can this be done?

Fassi Fihri: Now that the threats are comprehensive, they need a comprehensive solution… At the Amadeus Institute, we’ve suggested creating a framework between Maghreb and Sahel countries, similar to the 5+5 initiative between Maghreb countries and their western Mediterranean counterparts. The new framework must focus its work on security and defence issues.

I think we’re a lot late. We should have done that a long time ago.

The post Maghreb On ‘Brink Of A Volcano’ – Interview appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ivana Jovanovic

During the past 18 months, Montenegro citizens’ support for NATO accession has increased by 4.4 percent. Experts and officials said the crisis in Ukraine and the Podgorica campaign to garner support for the Alliance are both responsible for the shift.

Currently, more than 35 percent of the population is pro-NATO, and the number of those opposing the accession has decreased by 8 percent to 44.5 percent, according to the Montenegrin Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM).

About 20 percent of citizens are undecided on the NATO integration of Montenegro at the moment.

Nenad Koprivica, the executive director at the CEDEM, told SETimes that joining the Alliance is also strongly connected with EU accession.

“NATO is a political-military organisation which is committed to the same values, principles and goals as the EU. Twenty-two EU member-states are NATO members as well. Because of that, NATO should be seen as an alliance of values,” Koprivica told SETimes.

According to Aleksandar Dedovic, the executive director of the Niksic-based Alfa Centre, the government effort and the Ukrainian and Syrian crises have given citizens more reasons to support NATO. The efforts by local NGOs have also been responsible by allowing the public better access to information about NATO values.

“Citizens have been affected by decades of war, humanitarian crisis, hard economic and social situations that have followed Montenegro during its transition. They are now seeking a solution in the collective security system of NATO. Aware that NATO integration is a long-term solution for peace and stability, citizens are going to be more dedicated to NATO values,” Dedovic told SETimes.
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He underlined that a majority of citizens expect Euro-Atlantic integration to strengthen institutions and rule of law and to reduce corruption. According to the CEDEM research, 54 percent of citizens believe that NATO integration will positively impact reforms in society.

Milan Milanovic, a bar manager in Podgorica, said he hopes that NATO will help Montenegro to become better place to live, as membership will force its government to make some changes.

“Montenegro is a small country, but there is too much corruption. [NATO membership] could force us to build a state with a safe and stable territory,” Milanovic told SETimes.

The post Montenegro Support For NATO Integration Increases appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Barack Obama says there is a “big gap” between Tehran and international negotiators over Iran’s nuclear program and that a deal to end a decade-long standoff could be out of reach.

In an interview broadcast on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on November 9, Obama said economic sanctions led by the United States have pushed Iran to the table for negotiations with six global powers on a deal to rein in its nuclear activities.

A final step would involve Iran providing “verifiable, lock tight assurances that they can’t develop a nuclear weapon,” Obama said.

“There’s still a big gap,” he said. “We may not be able to get there.”

Obama made his comments as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, European Union advisor Catherine Ashton, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif have been holding talks in Oman as a deadline for a deal on Iran’s nuclear program approaches.

On the eve of the informal talks in Muscat on November 9, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi said his country is eager to reach a deal, and expressed confidence that an agreement can be reached by a November 24 deadline.

Kerry, Ashton, and Zarif appeared briefly for a photo opportunity but made no comments to the press before they headed into their meeting.

A final round of negotiations is scheduled to be held in Vienna on November 18 with representatives from Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia due to join U.S. and Iranian officials.

The group is hoping to reach a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against Iran.

The post Obama Says Still ‘Big Gap’ In Iran Nuke Talks appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Vijay Shankar

Islamic State’s Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a July 2014 speech at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul vowed that “this blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot conspiracy.”

At the start of the First World War a curious informal group took shape in Egypt. It called itself the ‘Intrusive Group’ comprising surveyors and archaeologists; it was headed by the Director of Civilian and Military Intelligence, Cairo. Sensing the rot in the Ottoman Empire, the Group saw in the vitality of the Arab desert tribes a latent power that could upend the Turks in the Hejaz, Syria, Mesopotamia and Kurdistan; if they banded together, were motivated by the belief in a Pan-Arabic State and led by the British. Amongst the adherents was a diminutive British archaeologist Lt Col TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence-of-Arabia. Patrons of the idea included Kitchener, Wingate and McMahon.

The British foreign office would have none of it as the campaign against the Ottoman Empire was being waged vigorously and very successfully, till the Dardanelles Campaign came along and by end-1915 the British were facing a wretched defeat. The idea of raising the Arabs in revolt Northward from the Hejaz became more palatable.

By early 1916 the Arab bureau was created in Cairo to foster and whip up the revolt. The remarkable guerrilla campaign against the Turks led by Lawrence brought victories to the Arab Army and conquest of Syria and Palestine. At the peace conference Lawrence pleaded the Arab cause, but unbeknownst to him and the Arab Bureau was the machination of Foreign Office which had other plans for war termination. This took the form of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, an Anglo-French Pact hatched as early as May 1916 to carve the Middle East into British and French spheres of control and influence (Czarist Russia played an undermined part in the Pact). The rest is history as the League of Nations awarded the Palestine mandate to the British and French and ratified their spheres of control.

Lawrence was the first to recognise the difficulties of the Arab estate on the one hand while on the other, their readiness to follow to the ends. One could never answer, with any conviction, a fundamental civilisational question: “Who were the Arabs if not ‘manufactured’ people whose names were ever changing in sense year-by-year?” (Seven Pillars of Wisdom). He further noted that the harshness of both climate and terrain made the tribes desert wanderers circulating them between the Hejaz, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia with neither attachment to lands nor systems that inspired settlement; what established fanatic bonds was their character that despised doubts and the disbeliever; found ease in the extremes, and pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends carrying their beliefs from “asymptote to asymptote.” They were people to whom convictions were by instinct and activities intuitional so they required a prophet to lead and set them forth; and Arabs believed there had been forty thousand of them. To sum their mystique Lawrence notes most prophetically: “they were a people of spasms for whom the abstract was the strongest motive and were as unstable as water, and like water would perhaps finally prevail.”

Kobani, a Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey, is today under siege and under partial occupation by Baghdadi’s Islamic State (IS). Already this lethal spasm which fuses 21st century American technology and equipment with Arab fanaticism has rolled across parts of Syria, Iraq and through dozens of Kurdish villages and towns in the region sending over 200,000 refugees fleeing for their lives across the border.

Predictably, the lightly armed Kurdish militias desperately holding out in Kobani are fighting and losing to the IS. So why has the American grand coalition not been able to relieve the town or why has air power not been able to destroy the rampaging forces of the Islamic State? And why, the question begs to be asked, has Turkey, not done anything substantial to relieve the hapless Kobani?

In what is a historically awkward irony, the very destruction of Saddam’s Iraq has paved the way for fragmentation of the Sykes-Picot borders and the tri-furcation of Iraq into a Kurdish enclave in the northeast, a Shia enclave in the south and the IS running riot in the centre. The US delusion that it was building a new Iraq flies in the face of the current situation which tragically is more reminiscent of Lawrence’s Arabia.

In the meantime Turkey’s President Erdogan stated his nations position in unequivocal terms – “For us, IS and the (Kurdish) PKK are the same” – the crisis in Kobani is a case of terrorist fighting terrorist. The Kurdish fighters in Kobani are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK which has long been considered Turkey’s top security threat and has been officially classified as a ‘terrorist’ group by the US.

Further South, the Saudis want to destroy the Assad regime in Syria because it is allied with their Shiite enemy, Iran. Consequently, they see the fight against IS as essentially a pretext for escalating their war against Syria and show little interest in militarily engaging the Islamic State. The Emirates appear content to show token participation in the ‘Grand Coalition’ while at the same time seeking economic opportunities that Islamic State may offer.

Indeed it would appear that neither does the US have the resolve to confront and neutralise the Islamic State that is having a free run in the Levant, Syria and Iraq; nor does the coalition share common purpose. The situation in the region is evocative of the appreciation made by the “Intrusive Group,” a fading imperial power waging a strategically irrelevant war amidst the rise of the IS led by one more prophet driven by a fanatic belief. Lawrence, in the circumstance, would have suggested, demolish the belief, dry up the water and attack the prophet.

All the while, the esoteric call for Jihad and the establishment of a Pan-Islamic Caliphate under al-Bakr Baghdadi that the IS has put out has not fallen on deaf ears particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Vijay Shankar
Former Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Forces Command of India

The post Of Lawrence, Sykes-Picot And Al-Baghdadi – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Did the election last week really mean that much? I took to my Twitter account on Tuesday to point out that the change in control of the Senate from Democrat to Republican actually means very little, despite efforts by politicians and the mainstream media to convince us otherwise. Yes, power shifted, I wrote. But the philosophy on Capitol Hill changed very little. The warfare/welfare state is still alive and well in Washington.

Some were critical of my comment that, “Republican control of the Senate equals expanded neo-con wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming!”

But unfortunately my fears were confirmed even sooner than I thought. Shortly after the vote, President Obama announced that he would double the number of US troops on the ground in Iraq and request another $5.6 billion to fight his war in the Middle East.

The President also said on Wednesday that he would seek a new authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Syria. He said that a new authorization was needed to reflect, “not just our strategy over the next two or three months, but our strategy going forward.”

That sounds like boots on the ground in an endless war.

Senate Democrats had been competing with Republicans over who would push a more aggressive foreign policy. This may explain their miserable showing on Tuesday: it is likely the honest, antiwar progressives just stayed home on election night. But with the Republican victory bringing to leadership the most hawkish of the neoconservatives like John McCain, the only fight over the President’s request to re-invade Iraq will be Republican demands that he send in even more soldiers and weapons!

Likewise, the incoming Republicans in the Senate have expressed a foolhardy desire to continue resurrecting the Cold War. They demand that Russia be further sanctioned even as the original reason for the sanctions – claims that Russia was behind the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 – has been shown to be false. They want to send weapons to the US-backed government in Ukraine even through it will result in more civilians killed in east Ukraine. Their dangerous Russia policy may even turn the new Cold War into a hot war, which would be catastrophic.

On the domestic front, I do not hold out much hope that the next Congress will give more than lip service to reducing spending. What is more likely is Republicans will support dramatic increases in welfare spending as long warfare spending is increased by an equivalent, or greater, amount. That is what is called “compromise” in Washington.

One positive development from Tuesday is the slightly improved chance for a roll-call vote on “Audit the Fed.” Most of the Senators who are likely to assume leadership roles next year are co-sponsors of the bill. However, special interests that benefit from Fed secrecy are very influential in both parties, so it will be up to the people to continue to pressure Congress for a Senate vote.

Elsewhere, there may also be some rollbacks and reforms of some of the worst parts of ObamaCare, but a full repeal of the bill is unlikely. This is not just because there are still not the votes to override an inevitable veto. The insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies that benefit from ObamaCare are equally influential in both parties and have very deep pockets.

I ended my comments on election night by pointing out that while it may have been an important election, it was not most important ever. Ideas are what really count. And that is where we are winning!

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

The post Ron Paul: What The Mid-Term Elections Really Mean For Peace And Liberty – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By David W. Murray

“But if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have done it, right. I opposed it from the very beginning. All right, what the hell — I’ll say it was reckless.” — (Governor Hickenlooper, on legalizing marijuana in Colorado.)

There are currently two types of residual questions about marijuana. Some are genuine and understandable, given the difficulty in comprehending the underlying medical and social realities.

Other questions, however, take on a different cast. Some persist, even though the answers have been long available for those who asked with an open mind and followed the evidence. In some cases, it would appear that we are not dealing with genuine questions, but rather an advocacy stance, which is to defend a position driven by political imperatives and in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to answer both types of queries, setting forth the persistent myths concerning marijuana and its impact on the criminal justice system and its consequences for public health, and then counter-posing those myths against the known facts.

Obstinacy in the face of the facts certainly plays a prominent role in the argument over marijuana’s legal status. Time and again in debate the same charges are brought forward, however false, and correcting them publicly seems to change nothing. For instance, there is commonly the argument that the laws against drugs do more harm than good, the evidence being that prisons are filled with low-level non-violent marijuana users, with a particularly unjust impact on minorities.

It follows, for advocates, that making marijuana legal should remedy a host of injustices in the criminal justice system and free us from unnecessary costs, without endangering public health.

A review of the actual criminal justice realities, as well as the medical facts, support none of these claims, no matter how politically effective it has been to make them.

Medically, confusion and contradictory claims mar our understanding of marijuana’s health risks. Some argue that the drug, used in moderation, is benign. Others see considerable damage already in evidence, and the portent of far worse as potency and exposure grow.

At this point, nearly everyone grants that there is great risk in one scenario: heavy use in early adolescence, particularly for the vulnerable, wreaks havoc, and may be irreparable. At best, such use threatens the future well being of any vulnerable youth.

Given the widespread acknowledgement of this risk, it remains troubling that some marijuana marketing in Colorado, under recreational legalization, nonetheless targets this very population of the vulnerable, against all assurances to the contrary given at the time the policy was presented to the public.

Perfidy aside, there is almost uniform agreement that for one type of user—developmentally young, genetically predisposed or with prior mental susceptibilities—using heavily forms of marijuana with excessive doses of THC is catastrophic, and perhaps permanent in the damaged caused and should be prohibited.

But regarding scenarios other than this one case, whatever agreement one may find splinters. For other, more common types of users, arguments have assumed little damage from casual or occasional marijuana exposure, begun perhaps in young adulthood by otherwise healthy individuals, particularly use that tapered off as adult responsibilities led to changing drug use habits.

Recent evidence from brain imagery, however, now challenges even this assurance of relative safety. Casual use among young adults, neuroimagery shows, alters brain structure and function in a manner that has been heretofore undetected.¹ If this research is borne out, the implication is that there is no safe dose, for anyone.

The overall risk from marijuana further depends on whether or not one takes seriously the implications of the “gateway” hypothesis, which is the claim that heavy marijuana exposure predisposes to the use of additional drugs, expressed as an increased risk or probability for subsequent use of drugs such as cocaine or heroin.

If the “gateway” represents a correct understanding of the science, the actual epidemiological impact of youth marijuana use would be magnified substantially. Further, it follows that marijuana policy should then be seen as a critical factor in countering the entire pathology of unquestionably dangerous substances.

Regarding “casual” use by those over 21, or even “experimental” use by the young, advocates steadfastly decline to express worry, and will counter most any research report by digging out what they regard as its refutation, or will dodge the implications by citing putative weakness in the findings. “For every medical result,” they seem to hold, they can find “an equal but opposite study.”

For instance, the Washington Post reported on a recent study by Dr. Wayne Hall in the journal Addiction, summarizing 20 years of research on adverse health effects from marijuana use.² The summary included conclusions about the validity of the marijuana “gateway” hypothesis, which the Post largely dismisses.

The Post concludes with the line, “Many researchers suspect that to the extent there is a gateway drug, it’s tobacco, not marijuana.” (“No, marijuana is not actually ‘as addictive as heroin’” October 9, 2014).

There is a reference provided for the otherwise gratuitous line about tobacco. It links to an interview with a Dr. Henry Abrahams found in the International Business Times. Abrahams reports his opinion regarding tobacco, but no research concerning its possible gateway effect. Nonetheless, the headline in the IBT stresses that he is a “Noble prize winner.”

That seems pretty authoritative, until you do a bit more digging and discover that Abraham’s Noble is a shared prize for the Noble Peace Award, which was given to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. (The role of tobacco in either starting or preventing nuclear war was not addressed.)

Aside from being an illustration of the inclinations of some in the press to underplay the risk from marijuana, this account is also revealing about the lack of willingness of Post reporters to read carefully the studies upon which they comment. If they had read the actual Hall article, for instance, they would indeed have found a passing reference to tobacco. But it leads to the opposite conclusion from the one posited by the Post.

According to Hall, “Cannabis smoking is initiated increasingly by young people who have not smoked tobacco. A number of recent studies have reported that these cannabis smokers are now more likely to become tobacco smokers after using cannabis, a pattern described as a ‘reverse gateway.’”

To put the matter simply, it is hard to sustain the argument that youth tobacco use (or even alcohol use) serves as a “gateway” to subsequent marijuana use when the use of these substances is falling at the same time that marijuana use is rising among youth. What should trouble us, instead, is the demonstrated association between youth marijuana initiation and the increase in the use of drugs like heroin—which is indeed what we see in the recent literature on respective prevalence of these drugs from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). (Cocaine use, which is falling, presents a special case, in that the availability of cocaine in the U.S. has been sharply curtailed, while heroin supply is increasing dramatically.)

The underlying problem for all studies is that marijuana use is not a uniform condition. Studies find different degrees of risk contingent on:

• The age of first exposure (the developing adolescent brain is particularly susceptible);

• On the condition of genetic predisposition for damage or the presence of other pre-existing mental or cognitive conditions (co-morbidities—depression, neurosis, psychosis, thoughts of suicide), for which marijuana serves to either accelerate or deepen the dangers, where it is not itself a contributory cause;

• The length and frequency of exposure (there is a clear dose-response relationship to the damage; longer-term exposure and heavy, almost daily use, are harmful without equivocation); and finally,

• The increasing potency of the marijuana as expressed in the dose of the neurotoxin THC. The implication is that the earlier the study, the lower the potency, and hence, the less reliable the findings for understanding the risks from exposure today.

That is, some studies finding little damage are no longer relevant when compared to the dosage encountered by users today (and the changing circumstances of youth initiation); the sheer concentrated quantity of THC may make of marijuana a qualitatively different and more dangerous drug than in previous decades, and only the most recent research captures this true risk.

Nonetheless, it is easier now to grasp why so many advocates for legal marijuana seem self-assured that the damage has been overblown, or even hyped by government fear-mongers. They are mystified by the claims of considerable risk, and distrust those who bring that message.

The advocates have known too many casual users (or may even have personal experience with the drug) and because they do not detect obvious manifestations of harm among their associates, assume that there has been none.

In reality, it now appears that damage is nonetheless present in a wide population of those previously exposed to even low-potency THC, and the damage can be found in the absence of other risk factors and among those commencing use post-adolescence. (Albeit, the damage may be subtle.) A recent article in the New York Times summarized this research and its implications well (“This is Your Brain on Drugs,” October 29, 2014).

What has changed today is that research methods and tools have become more capable of detecting the impact even in these conditions of casual exposure, and the message from the last decade has been more troubling and more confirmatory year by year that the drug does harm, regardless of the level of exposure.

Finally, there are some areas of impact that researchers weren’t expecting and hence did not examine. Examples can be the recent findings regarding cardiac episodes among young and otherwise healthy marijuana users. Because a link to their marijuana use was unexpected, physicians were not seeking that relationship, but as the evidence begins to mount, they are now finding more reasons to suspect that marijuana use has been implicated in some cardiac conditions all along.

Similar discoveries of other unsuspected effects in areas such as behavior, memory, emotional problems, attention deficit, and learning are even now being confirmed by research that is more careful and able to disambiguate the impact of the drug from confounding, non-drug social or personal circumstances.

In general, it is important to follow the broad trajectory of marijuana studies. Over the decades, the research has contended with a shifting landscape, with a multitude of variables changing almost simultaneously.

• The drug itself has changed, with potency spiraling upward and the relative proportion of the various “cannabinoids” found shifting towards a preponderance of THC over other compounds.

• The circumstances of its use have changed, becoming not only more widespread but also more regular and frequent, just as the age of principle use has declined in recent years.

• The social forces for legal acceptance have changed, becoming more insistent and well-funded, while pushing misleading information, including claims of medical efficacy for the drug, that have clouded public (including media) perceptions.

• The methods and tools of science have changed, becoming more acute in detecting damage, and at an earlier stage, than previously, just as researchers have found ways to control for and counter alternative explanations for the results.

With regards to nearly every early worry, the subsequent literature has moved in one direction: confirming and justifying the concerns, and widening the scope of the drug’s impact on the mind and body.

The earliest findings were often based on animal models of the brain, but they have now been supplemented by numerous human epidemiological studies, including those longitudinal in scope (following users for many years into adulthood), or involving twins, one of whom used marijuana while the other didn’t (discordant twin studies). The case for damage keeps getting stronger and more comprehensive.

Further, many plausible alternate interpretations have been explored, and many, if not most, have been shown to be inadequate to account for the persistent results. Though advocates posit explanations such as “pre-existing conditions” for which marijuana use represents “self-medication,” or that stress the social dimensions of poverty or stigma to explain educational failure, or that look to concomitant use of other drugs or alcohol that might account for the damage, research has addressed these possibilities and adjusted for their potential impact.

Researchers have explored the proffered alternatives, and either by study design or statistical correction been able account for, or dismiss, the putative alternate “explanation” for the effects. What remains is stronger evidence for seeing the drug itself as the major factor. That is, it becomes harder and harder to evade the fundamental truth about the drug, as plausible but unlikely alternatives are systematically ruled out.

That is what is meant by phrases we find (such as in Hall’s 20-year review of literature since 1993), with regards to a large variety of health concerns, when we read:

• “This effect [on offspring of mothers who used marijuana] has generally persisted after controlling statistically for other drug use.”

• “Statistical methods of control have been used to test the plausibility of confounding as an explanation of these relationships…”

• “Longitudinal studies have found that a relationship between cannabis use before the age of 15 and early school-leaving persisted after adjustment for confounders…”

• “These effects persisted after adjustment for parental social class and other measures of disadvantage.”

• “[A Swedish study] found a dose-response relationship between frequency of cannabis use at age 18 and risk of schizophrenia during the whole follow-up period. This effect persisted after controlling statistically for confounding factors.”

• “The relationships between regular cannabis use and other illicit drug use have persisted after statistical adjustment for the effects of confounding variables in both longitudinal studies and discordant twin studies.”

(All emphasis mine)

Since the last example concerned the marijuana “gateway hypothesis, it is worth emphasizing what Hall’s 20-year review stressed:

• “The order of involvement with cannabis and other illicit drugs, and the increased likelihood of using other illicit drugs, are the most consistent findings in epidemiological studies of drug use in young adults.”

Still one hears advocates argue that all we are seeing is correlation, and not causation. Or they continue to postulate factors and variables of a social or an economic nature, seeking to explain away the otherwise troubling results. The point is that researchers are bright people, and by and large they have thought of these possibilities, and where possible, controlled for them. After these adjustments, it is the effects of the drug itself that continue to manifest and explain the outcomes.

Importantly, it is the cumulative record of results from so many areas of medical science—from animal studies to human neuroimaging to mental health disorders to cognitive impairment and to social and educational outcomes, that taken together leads to our conclusions.

Correlation is not causation, granted. But multiple and consistent and comprehensive findings of correlation, statistically robust, combining behavioral outcomes with evidence of underlying brain transformations, each persisting after control for potential confounders, become in their totality convincing for all but the most resistant advocate.

To believe that marijuana use is safe is to be deceived. To believe that legalizing marijuana will make America a better, more just nation represents the end stage of Reefer Madness.

1. Gilman, J. 2014 The Journal of Neuroscience, “Cannabis Use is Quantitatively Associated with Nucleus Accumbens and Amygdala Abnormalities in Young Adult Recreational Users” April 16, 2014 • 34(16): 5529 –5538. ↝

2. Hall, W. 2014 Addiction “What has research over the past two decades revealed about the adverse health effects of recreational cannabis use?” October 9, 2014 ↝

The post Why We Believe Marijuana Is Dangerous – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In northern Nigeria dozens of young people were killed in a bombing at an all-boys school Monday.

The blast occurred at 7:50 a.m. (0650 GMT) in the town of Potiskum, in the northeastern state of Yobe, as the students were gathering for assembly before the start of morning classes.

Witnesses said as many as 35 to 48 people were killed.

Nigerian police and witnesses said the suicide bomber had been dressed as a student.

Many people were also injured in the bombing, some of them seriously. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Monday’s bombing comes exactly one week after more than two dozen people were killed in a suicide bombing attack in Potiskum, when suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a religious procession.

Nigeria has been plagued by dozens of terrorist attacks in recent months by the Islamist separatist group Boko Haram, which seeks to establish a strict Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

The group has carried out numerous attacks on schools in the region in recent months, most notably in April, when they kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Borno state.

The post Nigeria School Bombing Kills Dozens appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Egypt’s extremist group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, responsible for multiple terror attacks, has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State in an audio clip, further expanding the Al-Qaeda offshoot’s influence in the region.

The audio file was posted on the official Twitter account and on the website of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Champions of Jerusalem) on Sunday and is now circulating across the social media, including on YouTube.

The recording, that runs for 9 minutes and 26 seconds, says Ansar Beit al-Maqdis decided to join the Islamic State group “whose emergence resembles a new dawn raising the banner of monotheism,” according to AP.

The man speaking on the audio file identifies himself as part of Ansar’s “information department,” Reuters reports, adding that the group’s Twitter account had been suspended and reopened shortly before the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) allegiance announcement was posted.

The authenticity of the declaration is yet to be verified.

Last week, there were reports of Ansar pledging loyalty to the head of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Egyptian jihadists were however quick to deny those reports.

Analysts and politicians have so far said Ansar de facto sympathizes with the IS, referring to Baghdadi, as “caliph of all Muslims.”

“They are just different names for the same terrorists,” Egypt’s Interior Ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif told AFP, adding the Egyptian troops will fight Ansar regardless of whether it is part of the IS or not.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis is a Sinai-based jihadist group which emerged following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak in the Arab Spring revolution of 2011.

The group has stepped up attacks in the Sinai Peninsula after the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’ militants are believed to be behind two deadly attacks last month which resulted in deaths of 33 security personnel. Egypt was forced to declare a three-month state of emergency in parts of North Sinai, as a result.

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By Col. R. Hariharan

Sri Lanka Deputy Minister Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan, known as Karuna Amman in his earlier incarnation as LTTE commander of Batticaloa, accused the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) of rape and killings during its war against the LTTE in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 90.

Speaking in Parliament on November 4, he said the IPKF had raped several Tamil women and also killed Tamils and “there is evidence for that.”

Of course, as a parliament member Karuna has every right to draw attention to human rights violations, though it was made 26 years too late. In a democracy, human rights violations committed by any person including the army, police or anyone including political parties is totally unacceptable and cannot be condoned. They have to be inquired into. Human rights watchdogs have been created for this purpose.

But I have a problem when Karuna talks about human rights violations and killings. When he took over as Special Commander of Batticaloa in 1990, LTTE cadres under his command perpetrated some of the heinous killing of innocent civilians including women and children. These included the massacre of 175 Muslims praying in Kattankudy mosque and many other Muslims (some estimates say up to 300) including women and children in Kattankudy and Eravur.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) report of March 28, 2013 lists his other “achievements” in this period as LTTE leader: “In June 1990, 400 to 600 police officers who had surrendered to LTTE forces, many of whom may have been under Karuna’s control, were bound, gagged, and beaten. The LTTE then executed the Sinhalese and Muslim police officers among them. Karuna has admitted that the LTTE committed these killings in an interview with the BBC, but claims he was not at the scene. Under the legal principle of command responsibility, though, Karuna could still be criminally liable for the massacre even if he was not physically present.

“In another case, in July 1990, Karuna’s forces stopped a convoy of Muslims traveling in eastern Batticaloa district and executed about 75 people, including women and children. In August 1990 Karuna’s forces killed more than 200 civilians in two incidents in Batticaloa district,” it adds.

After Karuna broke off with the LTTE in 2004, he worked in support of Sri Lanka Army. During this period, he and his supporters have been accused of indulging in forced disappearances, recruitment of children as cadres, intimidation, extortion and even killings.

In March 2013 when Karuna asked for war crimes investigations for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)’s alleged links of with the LTTE, Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said “his [Karuna’s] LTTE forces were implicated in some of Sri Lanka’s most horrific abuses, so the government’s long-stalled war crimes investigations might as well begin with him.”

President Rajapaksa had chosen to ignore Karuna’s crimes for the support rendered by him and his cadres in aid of the Sri Lanka forces during the Eelam War. So far Karuna has not even apologized for his conduct during the LTTE days and thereafter, let alone showing remorse for the crimes.

This is not the first time such allegations against the IPKF have been aired. LTTE talked about them till its dying days. During IPKF days even the then Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi had spoken derisively of Indian People Killing Force; so did many other fringe Tamil parties (of course AIADMK was an exception to this).

But the DMK leader never thought of taking follow up action on the allegations during his nearly two decades of association as a coalition partner with the Congress at the Centre. Even Defence Secretary Gotabaya made a sly reference to IPKF’s alleged human rights violations when India voted against Sri Lanka in UN Human Rights Commission meeting. But he never went beyond this.

If Karuna had seriously wanted Sri Lanka’s human rights record set right he should have cooperated in an inquiry into the alleged killings and other crimes committed under his watch. Then his call for inquiry into the IPKF’s alleged human rights violations would carry conviction. But this has not happened. So why is Karuna raising this old issue now? Is he contemplating some serious follow up on it?

No such thought seems to have crossed Karuna’s mind. Karuna has been driven to political wilderness, marginalized by Rajapaksa and ignored Tamils. With little or no influence either personally or politically, his future looks bleak as he faces the parliamentary election next year. He runs the risk of being totally sidelined in the run up to the elections unless President Rajapaksa lends a helping hand.

So he is probably trying to ingratiate himself with President Rajapaksa by raising “vote-catching” issues in the coming elections. He probably wants to deflect the attention from the UN inquiry into Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes by raising the IPKF atrocities issue. Similarly Karuna has used the issue of President Premadasa (of the UNP) arming the LTTE to settle scores with the UNP which had sought action against him for involvement in crimes during his LTTE days.

In his speech Karnua has also accused Northeastern Province Chief Minister Wigneswaran of working against Sri Lanka by supporting the UN probe into alleged Sri Lanka army war crimes in 2009. TNA has become bête noire of Mahinda Rajapaksa and any attack on them by a Tamil politician would be welcomed by him.

So Karuna’s parliamentary speech is not merely about IPKF only. Allegations against the IPKF indirectly whip ups the hardy perennial of Sri Lanka politics – India-baiting – which comes to the fore during the run up to the elections. So Karuna’s purpose of the whole exercise appears to be limited to shoring up his own dwindling political fortunes and nothing more. It deserves to be ignored by Indian public because Karuna has little say in the scheme of things of Rajapaksa or Tamils.

As regards Karuna’s allegations against the IPKF one may say wars always lead to human rights violations, though it does not lessen the seriousness of the allegations. But I feel, neither India nor Sri Lanka paid the attention the issue deserved either because human rights was not considered a big issue either politically or militarily at that point of time.

Personally, I felt that at least in two instances- Jaffna Teaching Hospital killings on October 27, 1987 (the day our family friend Rajendra Doraisamy SLAS, former Secretary, Ministry of Local Government, was also killed a few hundred yards from the hospital ) and the Valvettiturai retaliatory operations on August 2, 3, and 4, 1989 – Indian army should have done better than holding routine internal inquiries. But I am glad Indian army is now serious about human rights violations and has a mechanism in place to handle these issues.

[Col R Hariharan, retired MI officer, served as the head of intelligence of the IPKF (1987-90). He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://www.col.hariharan.info]

The post Sri Lanka: Karuna’s Allegations About IPKF’s Human Rights Violations – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Col. R. Hariharan

India expressed “serious concern to India’s national security” to Sri Lanka Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa when he met the Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval at New Delhi on October 20, 2014 over the docking of a Chinese submarine “Great Wall No.329” in Colombo harbour along with the support ship “Changxing Island” from September 7 to 14, 2014.[i] The wrong identification of the diesel-electric Song class submarine as a nuclear-propelled submarine (SSN) sensationalised the first reports on the incident adding to public concern in India.

The two Chinese naval ships were docked in the Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) in which China has invested $500 million, indicating the possibility of China using its commercial infrastructure assets in Sri Lanka for military purposes.

After the Defence Secretary’s visit, Sri Lanka Naval Chief Vice Admiral Jayantha Perera also visited New Delhi at the invitation of his Indian counterpart Admiral RK Dhowan apparently to discuss the same issue. Talking to the media Admiral Perara allayed India’s fears on increasing Chinese military presence in the island nation. He said “We will never compromise on national security of India. India’s security is our security.”[ii]

Admiral Perera also downplayed the worry about China making any strategic inroads into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). “They are coming normally for operational goodwill visit….For your information there is no Chinese military presence….the interest is very commercial,” he added.

But even after all this, yet another Chinese submarine – this time a nuclear-propelled one – “Changzheng-2” along with a PLA Navy (PLAN) escort warship “Chang Xing Dao” docked in Colombo on November 6, 2014.[iii]

Even as the SSN submarine and its escort ship were waiting to dock in the Colombo harbour on November 4, 2014 Sri Lanka Petroleum Industries Minister Anura P Yapa told the media that the government would not be having talks with India on this issue. This leaves no doubt that Sri Lanka has opted to ignore India’s security concerns over PLAN warships using Sri Lanka’s port facilities.

Media has raised some doubts about the applicability of the 1987 India-Sri Lanka Agreement (ISLA) to the use of Sri Lanka port facilities by Chinese warships. Paragrah 2(II) of the letters exchanged between the President of Sri Lanka and the Indian Prime Minister of July 29, 1987 along with the ISLA stipulates: “Trincomalee or any other ports in Sri Lanka will not be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests.”[iv]

While legal pundits might rake their brain whether foreign war ships on anti-piracy mission in peacetime constitute an operational force or not, Sri Lanka’s stand appears to be perfectly legal as Paragraph 2(II) quoted earlier does not form part of the ISLA. Perhaps for this reason India had not objected when Pakistan warships had regularly been berthing in Colombo.

India’s security concerns are not limited to the PLA N submarine’s visit to Colombo only, but to the larger issue of Sri Lanka becoming China strategic ally and partner in China’s strategic power projection in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

The reason for this is simple. The security interests of both India and Sri Lanka are closely interwoven and India plays a big role in their close strategic security relations. This applies to Maldives’ security also. India’s military training facilities are used extensively by Sri Lankan and Maldivian defence forces. The three nations entered into a trilateral agreement in 2013 under which the Indian Navy and Coast Guard patrol to protect the Extended Economic Zones (EEZ) of India and the two island neighbours.[v]

In keeping with the spirit of close relationship, usually President Rajapaksa is cautious in handling critical concerns of India. Accustomed to the laid back style of Manmohan Singh government, Rajapaksa is probably not very comfortable with Modi’s assertive leadership posture. In spite of this, what has made Rajapaksa to drop his caution and ignore India security concerns, to allow Chinese submarines to use the facilities of Sri Lankan ports?

Is it a forerunner of Sri Lanka’s participation in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route (MSR) promoted by President Xi Jinping? Does the cooperation under MSR involve extending all the facilities to Chinese war ships transiting IOR on a mission?

Or is it part of the bilateral “strategic cooperation partnership” agreement of 2013 that was substantially expanded after President Xi Jinping’s visit to Colombo in September 2014?

Hambantota port and the expansion of the Colombo harbour are important infrastructure assets created with Chinese-funding and expertise. Are there any secret clauses in their project agreements to extend all facilities in these ports to Chinese warships?

These are some of the issues Indian strategy planners and the government would be debating in the coming months.

But President Rajapaksa’s compulsions to concede to China’s demands might be more mundane and down to earth. They could be related to Rajapaksa desire to garner China’s financial assistance and loans to service Sri Lanka’s debt repayment as well as indulge in some populist schemes to woo voters when he contests the presidential elections for a third time in January 2015.

China has already emerged as the biggest lender to Sri Lanka government with loans to the tune of $ 5 billion. This has helped Rajapaksa to implement most of his ambitious but low yielding infrastructure projects including roads, railways, international airports and power projects. Sri Lanka-China trade is rapidly expanding. Sri Lanka is poised to sign a Free Trade Agreement with China in 2015 to balance Sri Lanka’s lopsided trade equation. Sri Lanka ports stand to gain from increased maritime traffic when China fully implements the MSR. And last but not least China has cash in the kitty. So Rajapaksa would probably like to keep the Chinese in good humour to benefit from China’s ambitious mission to expand into South Asia.

Rajapaksa also knows that neither Sri Lanka nor India can wish away each other’s umbilical links bound by geo-strategy, history and culture just because Sri Lanka allowed China to enter their strategic space.

Even though China has been furthering its strategic interests in Sri Lanka for a decade now, it says it respects Indian interests in Sri Lanka as well as IOR. China has also made clear that it was not looking for bases in IOR. Last December, China’s Ministry of National Defence had informed Indian military attaches two months in advance about the deployment of a PLA N SSN attack submarine in IOR to show “respect for India” as per Indian media report. China’s caution was evident in reporting on the September 15 incident also. Chinese media reports on the submarine’s presence in Colombo merely reproduced Sri Lankan media reports.[vi]

However, Chinese media prominently carried the Ministry of National Defence Geng Yansheng’s denial that docking of a submarine in Colombo was a sign of China’s power projection in the IOR.[vii] At a regular press conference on September 25, he played down the submarine’s visit to the Colombo port describing it as a “routine port call” of an escort mission to the Gulf of Aden and Somalia. Sri Lanka also maintained the same.

The timing of the submarine and the support ship’s visit to Colombo around the time President Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka conforms to the Chinese pattern of power projection familiar to India. The intrusion of PLA troops across the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh even as the Chinese President was flying into India in the final leg of his four-nation tour was one more such instance. Probably China wanted to remind India and its island neighbours of the PLA’s expanded strategic reach both on land and sea, even as President Xi spoke eloquently about China’s desire for peace and development.

Sam LaGrone writing in the US Naval Institute website saw the visit of the Chinese submarine to Colombo only in the context of counter piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.[viii] However, as incidents of piracy in the Gulf have now come down drastically there is no operational reason for the Chinese to strengthen the anti-piracy flotilla with a submarine. So it would be reasonable to conclude the submarines were on their operational familiarisation of Indian Ocean waters.

PLA N submarines’ regular presence in IOR has larger security implications not only for India but also for other littoral countries of the region. According to the US Department of Defence Annual Report to the Congress 2014 assessment the PLAN has continued to expand its operational and deployment areas further into the Pacific and Indian Oceans. [ix]

It says PLA N could induct nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in the IOR when PLA N’s current strength of three JIN-class SSBNs (Type 094) is augmented. Over the next decade five more JIN-class nuclear-powered SSBNs are likely to be added. The JIN-class SSBN will carry the new JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with an estimated range of 7,400 km.

It concludes “the JIN-class and the JL-2 will give the PLAN its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent. China is likely to conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols with the JIN-class SSBN in 2014.”

The DOD report also noted that Chinese naval exercises in 2013 had emphasized multiple PLA objectives including long-distance mobility and logistics, joint air-ground, and joint air-naval operations under realistic, high-tech conditions, and a series of amphibious landing operations in network-centric scenario.

The message is clear: Chinese naval forces are now enlarging their operational reach beyond the South China Sea and the eastern part of Indian Ocean. India may well encounter PLAN fleet with the SSBNs with nuclear deterrent capability in IOR frequently in the coming years. In the coming months we can expect to see Sri Lanka ports receiving many PLAN submarines and warships on operational familiarisation missions to IOR.

However, China’s immediate strategic priority is likely to be the domination of the East and South China seas with the IOR occupying a lower order of priority. As both India and China are keen to expand their trade and economic relations, China probably expects New Delhi to recognize its interest in extending it to other South Asian countries. While this might be acceptable, India cannot afford to ignore the reality of China’s strategic power projection in the IOR that accompanies Chinese economic endeavours and trade.

With India’s depleted naval forces set to achieve their optimal capability in the next five to ten years, it would be prudent not to ignore even symbolic activities like the Chinese submarines and warships making regular logistic calls in India’s close neighbourhood. India’s foreign and defence policy makers will have to suitably strategise their policies in respect of India’s strategic prioirities in the IOR and its littorals.

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

Notes

[i] India conveys concern at China presence in Sri Lanka, October 26, 2014 The Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-conveys-concern-at-chinese-presence-in-lanka/article6533496.ece

[ii] ‘Lankan Navy Chief allays India’s fears on China, says his nation will not compromise on India’s security, October 2, 2014 The Nation, Colombo http://www.nation.lk/edition/breaking-news/item/34668-sl-will-never-compromise-on-indias-national-security-sri-lankan-navy-chief.html

[iii] ‘New Delhi perturbed’, November 2, Ceylon Today, http://www.ceylontoday.lk/31-76834-news-detail-new-delhi-perturbed.html

[iv] Text of Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement 1987 http://www.tamilnation.co/conflictresolution/tamileelam/87peaceaccord.htm#a1

[v] Karthikeyan TC, “India, Sri Lanka & Maldives: Regaining India’s Strategic Space” August , 2013 http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/ipcs-debate-india-sri-lanka-maldives-regaining-indias-strategic-space-4076.html

[vi] ‘PLA Navy submarine visits Sri Lanka’ September 24, 2014 China Military online http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/china-military-news/2014-09/24/content_6152669.htm

vi ‘China: Submarine docking in Sri Lanka was routine’ September 26, 2014 http://www.ecns.cn/cns-wire/2014/09-26/136331.shtml

[viii] LaGrone Sam, ‘Chinese Submarine Headed to Gulf of Aden for Counter Piracy Operations’ September 30, 2014 http://news.usni.org/2014/09/30/chinese-submarine-headed-gulf-aden-counter-piracy-operations

[ix] United States Department of Defense Annual Report to the Congress 2014 www.defense.org

The post Security Concerns Over Chinese Submarines Visit To Colombo – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Deepak Kumar Nayak

A group of heavily-armed cadres of the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI), a breakaway faction of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), ambushed an SUV and killed all seven persons travelling in the vehicle between Harup and Rerwa villages under the Kamdara Police Station limits in the Gumla District of Jharkhand, in the evening of November 3, 2014. Media reports suggested that the persons killed belonged to the ‘Shanti Sena’ (Peace Army), an anti-Maoist resistance force backed by the Police, and identified three of the victims as Madan Sahu, a local Shanti Sena leader, and two of his brothers, Karnal and Lalmohan. The Police, confirming the killing, claimed they had no connection with the Shanti Sena. On November 4, Gumla Superintendent of Police (SP) Bheemsen Tuti, nevertheless, confirmed, “Two of the seven killed were SPOs [Special Police Officers] and working to halt PLFI activities.” The Police are yet to confirm details of their identities. Sources indicate that Madan Sahu’s ‘cousins’, Karnal and Lalmohan, were in fact the SPOs referred to by the Police, and that the remaining four who were killed were civilians and had nothing to do with either the Police or Shanti Sena.

The November 3 incident was the third major (resulting in three or more fatalities) incident of LWE-related violence in Gumla District in 2014. The Maoists killed three persons on July 25, 2014 for refusing to allow their children to join the outfit. Police claimed that terrified villagers had not lodged any FIR, nor did they recover the bodies. On October 9, 2014, three PLFI cadres were lynched by villagers at Baghima Narotoli village in the District. Azra Bodra, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), Basia, disclosed that the ultras arrived in the village in the afternoon of July 25 and started threatening the villagers, as they had in the past, when a large number of irate villagers assembled on the spot and lynched them.

With elections to the State Assembly due on November 25, militant violence in the State will raise a number of problems. There is speculation that the most recent incident may well be a bid on the part of the PLFI to state its claim to being the ‘most effective muscle power’ in the region, given the expected high demand for various patterns of thuggery during the Assembly elections. Indeed, the murky world of Left Wing Extremist (LWE) violence in the State has long been intertwined with crime, caste and politics. The Shanti Sena, for instance, was floated by Tileshwar Sahu, a Politician belonging to the Sahu community (a powerful business-moneylender community) in 2002, ostensibly to take on the LWE with the backing of the State Police. Some Shanti Sena members reportedly possess licensed weapons, and licenses to others have been issued smoothly because of Sahu’s rapport with the then NDA Government of the State. Later, Sahu is said to have helped the NDA Government win a trust vote in 2005, reportedly procuring the support of independent MLAs, and was ‘rewarded’ with the post of Chairman of the State Pollution Control Board.

Unsurprisingly, the armed Shanti Sena has gradually degenerated into a lawless force, and has reportedly engaged in indiscriminate killings, extortion, and other criminal activities in its areas of influence, especially in the Gumla and Simdega Districts. Its successes in taking on the Maoists or helping the Police, on the other hand, are not very clear. The Shanti Sena’s involvement in the killing of six tribals in Gumla District on September 19, 2006, provoked widespread outrage. The group has little presence now, and has attracted heavy reprisals from the CPI-Maoist and the PLFI alike. Some of the prominent incidents of such reprisal include:

January 10, 2009: A group of about 40 to 50 CPI-Maoist cadres killed two villagers, identified as Vijay Nayak and Charku Nayak, at Anjan village, about 16 kilometres from the Gumla District headquarters. Both were reportedly members of Shanti Sena. The Maoists also ransacked the houses of village Shanti Sena chief Satyanarayan Thakur and another Sena member, Rampyare, and set ablaze a motorcycle.

April 8, 2008: Nine persons were killed and another two were injured when CPI-Maoist cadres fired on a vehicle and subsequently set it ablaze in the Semra Forest area under the Palkot Police Station in Gumla District. Among the victims were Bhado Singh, chief of the Shanti Sena, and his family members.

July 5, 2005: CPI-Maoist cadres beheaded three members belonging to the Shanti Sena, after seizing all their household goods and destroying their houses, at Khairpani village in Gumla District.

However, it was PLFI that targeted Tileshwar Sahu personally. PLFI cadres killed Sahu’s father, Gajendra Sahu, at Jamdih village under Kamdara Police Station limits in Gumla District on April 16, 2008. Finally, Tileshwar Sahu, who had joined the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party, was killed on March 8, 2014, at his Barhi residence in Hazaribagh District, where he had shifted, sensing a security threat in his base in Gumla. Sahu’s political fortunes had, in fact, started deteriorating since 2006, after his fallout with Enosh Ekka, a politician and former State Minister considered to be his political protégé, who pulled out support from the then NDA government much to Sahu’s displeasure, and joined the succeeding Madhu Koda (UPA) Government in 2006, moving closer to PLFI. PLFI, moreover, increasingly and personally targeted Sahu because of his support to the Jayanath Sahu gang, PLFI’s main adversary.

PLFI has repeatedly been exposed as a group with no ideological moorings, and has principally flourished as a result of tactical inaction by the Police, who have sought to exploit the turf war between the group and the Maoists. PLFI cadres seldom confront the SFs, with rare exceptions. The group thrives on extortion from contractors, businessmen, Government employees and any person of means that they can lay their hands on. Violence has principally been a tool to enforce extortion demands.

At present, PLFI is dominant in at least 10 of Jharkhand’s 81 Assembly seats – Khunti, Torpa, Kolebira, Gumla, Lohardaga, Sisai, Tamar, Mandar, Bishunpur, Simdega – and the group is known to throw its weight behind candidates of their choice. Interestingly, the Police claim that PLFI is the second biggest threat to internal security in Jharkhand, after the CPI-Maoist.

Significantly, PLFI consciously targets SPOs. While the Police accepts that the SPOs work with them to halt PLFI activities, this has not altered the broader Police strategy to look the other way when PLFI cadres engage in violence. SPO fatalities appear to be dismissed as a marginal cost of the games being played in the State.

PLFI’s utility to the establishment was demonstrated during the April-May 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when its cadres stopped several candidates from campaigning in their constituencies and asked villagers to vote for particular candidates. FIRs were lodged against the rebels, who had ordered villagers of Khunti District not to vote for anyone other than Enosh Ekka of the Jharkhand Party. Those who opposed PLFI diktats were threatened. An unnamed Congress leader from Gumla thus warned that, with Assembly elections approaching, “PLFI rebels will use Monday’s (November 3) massacre to create an environment of terror and force villagers to vote for certain candidates. The incident has sparked panic.” Several candidates of various political parties in PLFI strongholds are known to be hand-in-glove with the rebels. In May 2014, the Police filed an FIR against Enosh Ekka for traveling in a car that belonged to a wanted PLFI rebel.

The LWE problem in Jharkhand remains acute, with the rebels active in 16 of the State’s 24 Districts. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 91 persons, including 46 civilians, 34 LWE cadres and 11 SF personnel have been lost their lives in 50 incidents of killing in the State in 2014 (till November 9). Of these 50 incidents, PLFI was involved in 11, and CPI-Maoist in 28. The 11 remaining incidents were attributed to Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), Jharkhand Prastuti Committee (JPC) and others.

CPI-Maoist has now called for a ‘peaceful boycott’ of the impending Assembly elections, and has appealed to polling parties to refrain from travelling with SF escorts, adding, “Do not blame us if you risk your lives travelling with the Security Forces.” Meanwhile, SF personnel seized 400 kilograms of explosive material and over 1,700 detonators during an anti-Naxal operation in the Bokakhar-Ranidah area of Latehar District on November 10.

In the wake of the November 3 attack, Director General of Police (DGP) Rajiv Kumar declared, “Forces are combing parts of Gumla District. The entire area will be sanitized before polls. The rebels are frustrated because of repeated Police action against them”.

Nevertheless, the unholy nexus of crime, caste, politics and misgovernance is likely to keep the pot boiling in Jharkhand. The Gumla incidents indicate that, despite the relative weakening of the Maoists, the LWE problem in Jharkhand will take much more before it is brought under control. Protracted political volatility in this resource rich state has enormously compounded the problem, and it remains to be seen whether the electoral outcome this time around produces a more stable outcome.

Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The post India: Growing Disquiet In Jharkhand, Gumla – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By M. A. Athul

Like a multi headed hydra, the insurgency in Meghalaya is just refusing to die, despite several successes against rebel formations. The ongoing counter insurgency Operation Hill Storm has hurt insurgent formations, but the emergence of new threats has ensured that enduring successes remain elusive.

A trader identified as Bharat Singh Sekhawat, who was abducted on October 15, 2014, from Samanda village in East Garo Hills District by A’chik Matgrik Elite Force (AMEF) was killed by the militants on October 21. His body was exhumed on October 24. His family had paid INR 1.6 million to the abductors as ransom, despite which he was killed.

On October 23, 2014, Meghalaya Police Sub-Inspector Pramoth Sangma, who was leading his team against a suspected Garo militant hideout close to the international border in the Purakhasia area of West Garo Hills, was killed in an exchange of fire. The operation against the militants began in the evening of October 22, after the West Garo Hills Police received intelligence reports about the presence of a camp in the Songmagre village of the Purakhasia area. It was later stated that AMEF and ULFA-I militants were present in the area.

Meghalaya, a State that remained relatively peaceful while insurgency was peaking across India’s Northeast, has now emerged as the second most violent province in the region, after Assam. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data base, there have been a total of 69 insurgency-related fatalities in 2014 (till November 9), including 20 civilians, four Security Force (SF) personnel, and 45 terrorists. These numbers acquire greater significance in view of the fact that Meghalaya has a population of just over 2.65 million (2012 data). Assam, the worst affected State in the Northeast, accounted for a total of 206 fatalities (98 civilians, 5 SF personnel and 103 militants) in 2014 (nearly three times the fatalities in Manipur), and had a population of 30.94 million in 2012 (nearly twelve time Manipur’s population).

Meanwhile, Operation Hill Storm, which was launched on July 11, 2014, has so far led to the killing of just 11 militants, though another 25 have been arrested and some 13 militant camps have been detected and neutralised by SFs. According to SATP data, in the month of October and the first week of November, there were twelve incidents of arrest in which 23 persons were detained.

The pressure created by the counter insurgency (CI) operations has also led to a spike in surrenders by militants. The surrenders, especially by Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) militants have happened at a time when intelligence reports indicated that the GNLA “commander-in-chief” Sohan D. Shira had taken shelter in Bangladesh. A Government source stated that, with Shira taking shelter in Bangladesh, the cadres were left to fend for themselves, and were demoralized, leading them to surrender before the Police. Between October 6 and October 24, in 12 incidents of surrender, 34 militants of various groups [18 GNLA; 8 A'chik Songna An'pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK, earlier known as Garo National Liberation Army-Faction); 1 Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC); 5 A'chik Matgrik Elite Force (AMEF); and two United Achik Liberation Army (UALA)] have surrendered before the SFs. Some of the significant incidents of surrender include:

October 22: Five AMEF militants surrendered before the Police with three pistols, three magazines, 13 rounds of ammunition and a hand grenade, at a remote location in the South Garo Hills District. They were later arrested for the killing of a trader identified as Bharat Singh Shikawat.

October 20: Five GNLA militants surrendered before North Garo Hills District Superintendent of Police (SP) F.K. Marak at Bajengdoba Police Station in East Garo Hills District, after having deserted their command post in the West Khasi Hills. The militants informed authorities that they became disillusioned with the outfit’s ideology and leaders and, together with several other cadres, fled their camp in the West Khasi Hills three months earlier. The militants surrendered with a US made automatic carbine rifle with two magazines and a hundred rounds of ammunition, two 7.65 pistols with two magazines and nine rounds of ammunition, and a wireless handset.

October 6: Six GNLA militants, including the organisation’s Dadenggre ‘area Commander’ Manan Ch. Sangma aka Kimpret, surrendered before the Police at Tura in the West Garo Hills, with an AK-56 along with two magazines, 82 live AK rounds, two 7.56 pistols with 2 magazines, 12 rounds of 7.65 pistol ammunition, and one grenade. All of the surrendered cadres were recruited by the outfit between the years 2010-11, with most of them having received training in the Durama Hill Range.

Meanwhile, on September 24, a tripartite agreement was signed between the Government of India (GoI) and the Meghalaya State Government, on the one hand, and the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) and the Breakaway faction of ANVC (ANVC-B), on the other. According to the agreement, both ANVC and ANVC-B will be disbanded by the end of November 2014, and their cadres will surrender arms and ammunition to the authorities. Further, a sum of INR one billion will be disbursed as a package over the next five years for development of the Garo Hills area and steps would be taken to strengthen the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC).

Despite recent SF successes and the inking of the Peace Agreement with both factions of the ANVC, an environment of peace and security is still a distant dream in Meghalaya. According to partial data compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), just between September 27 and November 6, 2014, there have been at least thirteen reported incidents of abduction in which 18 people were taken hostage. Of these, two persons were released and another was rescued by SFs, while one was killed. The whereabouts of the remaining 14 are not available in open media sources. According to SATP data, there have been a total of at least 48 incidents of abductions in 2014 (till November 9), in which 62 civilians were abducted, of which 24 persons were rescued or released. Information about the other 38 is not available. 2013 saw 17 incidents of abduction, in which 36 people were abducted, of whom two were rescued or released, and another two were killed. There is no information available regarding the 32 others. According to data available at SATP, the month of October has already seen 11 incidents of abductions, the highest in a month this year.

The emergence of new militant groups and factions in the State is the principal factor causing lawlessness in Meghalaya. In 2013 alone, a plethora of militant groups cropped up, including the United Achik Liberation Army (UALA), A’chik Matgrik Liberation Front (AMLF), Achik National Liberation Army (ANLA), Achik Tiger Force (ATF), Achik National Liberation Central Army (ANLCA), and Achik Youth Liberation Front (AYLF). In 2014, another two insurgent groups surfaced: a group of senior GNLA leaders, led by former ‘finance secretary’ Reding T. Sangma broke away from the outfit’s ‘military chief’ Sohan D. Shira and formed their own organization, the A’chik Songna An’pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK), earlier known as Garo National Liberation Army-Faction (GNLA-F); later, a section of militants from ASAK, in turn led by its ‘finance secretary’ Jack Marak, abandoned ASAK with three AK rifles and eight pistols, to form the A’chik Matgrik Elite Force (AMEF).

Although CI operations have blunted the major violent groups, such as GNLA and ULFA-I, and the peace settlement has brought ANVC and ANVC-B violence to an end, moderately well equipped and trained breakaway militant groups continue to constitute a security threat. Significantly, the insurgency in Meghalaya is moving in the same general direction of such movements in the North East, with little or no ideological underpinnings and no popular support. Almost all militant groups are no more than criminal undertakings, aimed at making quick money through abduction and extortion. On October 16, 2014, the Meghalaya Police described AMEF as a group of ‘hardcore criminals’, originally from GNLA, who created a splinter groups with the sole aim of making quick money through criminal activities.

Significantly, an October 9, 2014, report indicates that there have been at least 20 cases of militants being lynched by villagers’ in the five Garo Hills Districts over the preceding eight months. The lynching occurred mostly in remote villages where there is virtually no Police presence.

With an unfenced border with Bangladesh being used by various militant groups, including NSCN-IM and NDFB, to sneak in and out of Bangladesh, as well as for smuggling weapons and ferrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and with no effective presence of the structures of Governance across much of the ‘remote’ Garo Hills areas, the culture of violence refuses to ebb away. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs [UMHA] has already raised concerns at the State Government’s “tardy” approach to completing fencing of the Bangladesh border. Around 70 kilometres of the 443 kilometre border are yet to be fenced. On June 11, 2014, Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma stated that illegal arms were entering the State from countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar and China. Again, on June 24, 2014, Meghalaya Director General of Police P.J.P. Hanaman reiterated that Bangladesh, Myanmar and States like Nagaland were weapons suppliers for Meghalaya-based militants. Nevertheless, the State Government has done little to accelerate processes, such as the construction of the fence along the international border, that could immediately improve the situation.

The neglect of vast regions of the State deemed ‘remote’, and the virtual abandonment of the populations there to extremist depredations, remain the core issue in the persistence of militancy in Meghalaya. The State’s vulnerabilities to destabilizing influences from the neighbourhood have also never been adequately addressed, despite the availability significant options. Despite the lack of political will, nevertheless, SF operations have created dramatic opportunities for consolidation. It remains to be seen whether the Government can discover the will and the focus to exploit these to establish a more permanent peace in the State.

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

The post India: Mutating Threats In Meghalaya – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Fortum said Monday it has agreed to sell its 51.4%-shareholding in the associated company AS Võrguteenus Valdus to the Estonian electricity transmission system operator Elering AS.

AS Võrguteenus Valdus is the owner of the Estonian gas transmission grid company AS EG Võrguteenus, which is the only gas transmission system operator in the country.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Fortum said it expects to finalise the transaction latest during the first quarter of 2015. The sale is expected to have a minor impact on Fortum’s Q1/2015 result.

Fortum said the divestment of the shareholding in AS Võrguteenus Valdus is a part of the company’s efficiency programme launched in October 2012 and aiming at the disposal of non-core assets.

The core of Fortum’s strategy lies in strong expertise in CO2-free hydro and nuclear power, resource-efficient combined heat and power (CHP) production as well as in operating in the energy markets. Furthermore, Fortum’s decision to sell is in line with the Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and the Estonian Natural Gas Act that require ownership unbundling of natural gas transmission and gas sales.

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An Islamic State spokesman has confirmed that U.S. airstrikes injured IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

Using an account believed to be operated by Mohammed al-Adnani, the spokesman tweeted confirmation that Baghdadi had been injured and that he wished him “a speedy recovery.”

U.S. officials have not said whether Baghdadi was in the convoy that was targeted in a Friday airstrike against IS, also known as ISIL, leaders.

“I can confirm that coalition aircraft did conduct a series of airstrikes yesterday evening in Iraq against what was assessed to be a gathering of ISIL leaders near Mosul, destroying a vehicle convoy consisting of 10 ISIL armed trucks,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Patrick Ryder said Saturday.

In response to speculation that Baghdadi had been killed in the operation, Britain’s Chief of the Defense Staff, Gen. Nicholas Houghton, said, “I can’t absolutely confirm that Baghdadi has been killed,” adding that such confirmation would take “some days.”

In an unusual public statement, Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said the Iraqi air force wounded Baghdadi and killed some IS senior leaders in an airstrike Saturday on the Iraqi town of Al-Qaem, CNN reported.

Original article

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By Bhaskar Roy

The docking of two Chinese submarines in Sri Lanka within a space of two months raises pertinent questions. As any naval expert would agree docking of submarines is essentially different from port-calls or docking by a warship, because a submarine is a stealth weapon.

In the next five years Chinese nuclear submarines like the Type 93 and Type 94 armed with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles will be prowling these waters along with aircraft carrier battle groups. China acquired an Ukrainian aircraft carrier by “stealth” and refitted it as the “Liaoning”. It is understood that China is going to build another four aircraft carriers.

China has the Gwadar Port of Pakistan at its command. But currently, the Chinese are not taking the risk of port calls for their naval craft in Pakistan after Pakistani Taliban tried to hijack a Pakistani frigate. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping decided to drop Pakistan from his itinerary for security reasons when he visited India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka in September.

Nevertheless, China and Pakistan are all-weather friends and the ties between the two militaries are very close.

China has also lined up the Maldives and Male is in full resonance with Beijing including promoting Xi Jinping’s eastern silk road. All this happened while India was fumbling with a Maldives policy while the Indian company GMR managing the Male airport was kicked out and replaced by a Chinese company.

The Chinese are a little calm in Bangladesh given the fact that the present government in Dhaka enjoys good relations with India. Notwithstanding this, China continues to pursue participation in the proposed deep sea port, and is vigorously pursuing the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) land corridor to enable China’s exit and entry into the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

China’s strategy in and through Myanmar is another challenge India needs to consider actively. An isolated Myanmar was easy prey for China, but the situation has begun to change after limited reform was initiated a few years ago. Myanmar’s leaders wanted to get out of China’s suffocating clutches. This will not be easy as China controls and arms some of the Myanmarese insurgents. But this is not shutters down. In the power corridors of Naypyidaw, India is eagerly expected. It depends upon how India plays in Myanmar, but it will need much more than is being done at the moment.

In the north China’s pressure on the border is becoming more aggressive as witnessed in the last year or so. Major incursions along the undemarcated but generally understood line of Actual Control (LAC), when the Chinese premier and president were paying their separate visits to India, does not make for warm relations and strategic partnership.

India is being squeezed simultaneously from the land and the sea. We need to await the unveiling of the third dimension- air. Indian experts should be engaged in deciphering air. Would it be limited to aircraft or would it also involve missiles? Will China deploy Russian surface-to-air missiles like S-400 along the Indian border eventually?

Whatever Beijing does is argued as normal activity. Any move by India to strengthen its border defence is seen by China as an unfriendly act.

China has the loudest propaganda machinery in the world, developed astutely over many decades. It is a very effective weapon and used with success. India has also been affected with government leaders and senior security officials asking the Indian media to go soft and not provoke China. One refrain during the UPA regime was, ‘China is our first, second and third strategic concern, but do not provoke China’.

This type of advice coming from the government was nothing new. But over the years it created a piquant situation among senior officials dealing with China. Developments have either been hidden or swept under the carpet to come out later after the initiative was given away.

At the same time it is also not advisable for India to go out of the way and pick on China. India’s position must be stated with forthright confidence and defended.

If it is required to construct new roads along the borders which should have been done many years ago, then it must be done. If more observation posts are required, that must be done. Raising a mountain strike corps is as per India’s security defence requirement. It is not offensive but defensive.

On the other hand certain statements by senior leaders on foreign soil, howsoever friendly it may be, are avoidable. These must be done through the media or think tanks and at important international conferences like the annual Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore. Publicity is a sorely weak area of the government of India and many intelligence and security chiefs are dumb about psychological and media warfare, areas in which China is the reigning Champion.

All large countries have problems with neighbours. In India’s case, the British truncated South Asia in a manner to serve their future interests, leaving a complex situation. India must prosecute its relations with neighbours demanding immediate attention and action.

In terms of this article Sri Lanka has emerged as a new Chinese domino at India’s doorstep. The Tamil issue will continue to dog India-Sri Lanka relations. If Sri Lanka is serious about resolving this issue in a political manner it can be done. But the Sinhala nationalistic approach would continue to create problems.

It has become difficult to read the mind of President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka. His government is being run, apparently, by “Rajapaksa Family and Friends Unlimited”.

Given the proclivity of the Rajapaksa family, the Chinese reportedly have almost bought them over. Chinese investment in Sri Lanka is growing rapidly and so is the kickback to the Rajapaksa Family and Friends (RFF).

In particular, an article “China’s Forays in Sri Lanka” which appeared in the Colombo Telegraph dated October 27, 2012 details this network and these activities in some detail with no real reaction from either the president or his associates.

It is very well known how the Chinese buy up politicians and military top brass in small countries. They had done this in Bangladesh too, in the past.

When the Chinese government takes a major foreign policy decision they do so thoroughly. Think tanks and experts including retired officials are employed to give their inputs, then the distilled policy comes out. The Chinese government focused on their energy and raw material requirements most of which were imported. They wanted to break out of the Asia Pacific region and play a greater international role. They decided they had to be the first country in Asia and, apart from Japan, which requires different parameters, India had to be neutralized.

This was not cold war strategizing. This was the emerging China which Xi Jinping has described as the “China Dream” or “Chinese Dream”. In their India plan evolving in the mid-1990s it was decided to befriend the small Indian Ocean countries with military aid and infrastructure and thus tighten the space around India. China has been largely successful.

Returning to the current situation, the Chinese leadership appears to have assessed their strength as capable enough to push through the China Dream in certain areas including India. In pushing through the Maritime silk road China is determined not to suffer any obstruction, challenge or competition from any country.

There is a question-Has the more assertive position demonstrated by the NDA government in India drawn Beijing’s ire? Very unlikely. The timing had been drawn up. If anything, China appreciates strength though they would not admit it.

Chinese think tank experts had variously assessed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and felt they could do business with him. One thing the Chinese counted upon but were proved wrong was that India-US relations would take a sharp downturn. The official assessment, as given by the Xinhua, is Modi is a “hard-line nationalist”.

India cannot complain about what China is doing in its neighbourhood. New Delhi will most likely see Chinese obstruction to its Look East Policy. India, in turn, would have to strongly project its determination.

It may be noted that both China and Japan are quietly working to stabilize their bilateral relations. China is also very keen to establish a new great. power relationship with the US, which is ostensibly non-antagonistic. The reverse pressure created by its emphatically assertive and, sometimes, threatening behaviour may be telling.

India needs to navigate deftly through these new developments. Prime Minister Modi’s upcoming visit to Australia could be the first step.

In bilateral relations with China, India must avoid both despondency and euphoria. India cannot hope its development would come through China. This is simplistic thinking. Chinese cheap goods for India’s mineral wealth, or India’s market is no big deal. China must be held to deliver on its talks on trade balance.

India-China bilateral relations must be dealt with at multiple levels simultaneously. Strength, especially military strength, augurs peace and stability. Once this is established, it will become easier to work in other areas.

(The writer is a New Delhi based strategic analyst. He can be reached at e-mail grouchohart@yahoo.com)

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For the first time since 2007, fish caught by Palestinian fishermen in Gaza was allowed to enter the West Bank on Monday, an official said.

The PA director of crossings and borders told Ma’an that a truck carrying 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of fish was allowed to exit Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing to be sold in the West Bank.

Israeli authorities had said two weeks earlier that agricultural goods and fish would be allowed to be transferred to the West Bank.

On Thursday, a truck of cucumbers grown in the Gaza Strip was allowed by Israeli authorities to pass through the Kerem Shalon headed for Hebron, Gaza’s first agricultural exports in seven years.

Israel agreed to ease the siege on Gaza in the ceasefire agreement that concluded a massive military offensive on Gaza over summer, which left nearly 2,200 Palestinians dead.

Before the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza following the Palestinian division in 2007, Gaza exported fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and products to the West Bank.

However, after Hamas won democratic elections in 2006, Israel imposed an economic blockade, which was severely tightened after clashes broke out between Hamas and Fatah and Hamas took full control in Gaza.

The siege has caused severe and recurrent humanitarian crises in the tiny coastal enclave.

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