By Lisa Curtis and Olivia Enos*

Despite increased U.S. foreign policy attention over the past decade, human trafficking remains widespread and deeply entrenched in many Asian countries. The precise number of people being trafficked is difficult to estimate, but new studies suggest nearly 36 million victims worldwide. Of those 36 million, nearly two-thirds are from Asia.[1] Total profits from worldwide forced labor and sex trafficking could be as high as $150 billion annually.[2]

Human trafficking takes many forms, including sex trafficking, forced labor, peonage, trafficking of children, and countless other forms of abuse. Victims of trafficking are frequently underage and impoverished, and more often than not, they are unnoticed.

Over the past 10 years, the international community has taken note of this global scourge and implemented international protocols, encouraged the passage of laws targeting traffickers and protecting victims, and raised international awareness of the devastating social impact. Nonetheless, U.S. strategy is failing to make significant progress in reducing human trafficking.

The U.S. has a national security interest and vital role to play in shaping effective anti–human trafficking policy in Asia. U.S. interests in encouraging democracy, prosperity, and stability in the region require addressing the problem, which contributes to other criminal activities such as money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, organized crime, and terrorist activities.[3] In addition to helping to develop international laws and norms, the U.S. needs to encourage individual Asian countries to craft policies that solve the problems unique to their local cultures, economies, and political systems.

The U.S. should model positive anti-trafficking policies within its own borders and capitalize on its partnerships in Asia to reduce and eventually end human trafficking. Engaging more closely with Asian countries on human trafficking problems would strengthen U.S. economic and humanitarian involvement in the region and bolster democratic governance by promoting individual liberty and human rights.

International Framework

On the international level, the U.N. and Interpol are taking action against human trafficking.

The United Nations. The United Nations took the first major international action against human trafficking by introducing the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children as part of a broader strategy to combat transnational crime. The Palermo Protocol was implemented in 2000 and has 117 signatories, including the United States.[4]

The U.N. defines trafficking in persons as:

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.[5]

Forms of sexual abuse, forced labor, and organ trafficking fall within the U.N. definition of trafficking.

The Palermo Protocol has helped to raise global awareness of human trafficking and provide a definitional framework for the problem.[6] However, the protocol lacks a way to measure compliance with and conformity to its requirements on domestic human trafficking laws. Nor does it have an enforcement mechanism.

Interpol. The global nature of human trafficking requires a global dimension of information sharing to combat it. Interpol provides an online database to give local law enforcement access to cross-border data on international criminals. It also allows for increased collaboration if local law enforcement has information in one country about a criminal in another country. Interpol’s databases simplify the identification of criminals by streamlining data aggregation and improving access to information for local law enforcement. For example, Interpol’s “Notices and Diffusion” system allows for cooperation between member countries in tracking criminals and suspects and locating missing persons. Additionally, MIND/FIND databases grant local law enforcement access to reports of missing or stolen travel documents.[7] Denying access to travel and identification documents is one tactic that traffickers use to trap their victims, making this database particularly helpful in identifying trafficked individuals.

Since 2009, Interpol has conducted at least six successful anti-trafficking operations that led to the rescue of nearly 900 individuals.[8] Interpol’s operations have also led to the arrest of at least 171 individuals, but have resulted in less than 40 sentences.[9] Most of these operations were conducted in Africa, including the recent raid in Burkina Faso in April 2014.

U.S. Government Framework

The Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and other U.S. government agencies are active in anti–human trafficking efforts.

State Department. The State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) originated from the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). Until 2000, human trafficking received little attention within the U.S. government. The Clinton Administration was the first to acknowledge human trafficking as a significant global problem, and the trafficking issue was not substantively addressed until passage of the TVPA.[10] The Bush Administration continued to prioritize human trafficking as a matter of international concern.

The State Department defines trafficking in persons as “the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.”[11] The U.S. definition, unlike the U.N. definition, does not include organ trafficking, but identifies prostitution, pornography, sexual abuse, forced labor, indentured servitude, bonded labor, inadequate wages, and slave-like conditions as human trafficking.[12]

The State Department’s TIP office has played a key role in making anti-trafficking efforts an important part of U.S. international diplomacy. Each year, the TIP office releases its comprehensive Trafficking in Persons Report, which ranks countries according to their compliance with international human-trafficking standards, pursuant to the TVPA. Standards include signing the U.N.’s Palermo Protocol, passage of a comprehensive law dealing exclusively with human trafficking, and making efforts to comply with State Department standards.[13]

The TIP report ranks countries in four tiers. Countries that comply with anti–human-trafficking standards are placed on Tier 1, while countries that fail to meet the minimum standards, but are taking adequate steps to achieve compliance are placed on Tier 2. Countries that consistently fail to meet minimum standards, but make promises for future compliance are placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. Finally, countries that fail to meet minimum standards and demonstrate limited movement toward compliance are placed on Tier 3, where they can be sanctioned on non-trade and non-humanitarian aid.[14]

This ranking system provides an enforcement mechanism, but sanctions enforcement has been somewhat lax. Between 2003 and 2009, 45 countries were categorized as Tier 3, and 12 were subject to sanctions. Eight were already subject to U.S. sanctions, so the TVPA sanctions had little financial impact on the countries. Countries sanctioned in 2013 include North Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.[15] On the other hand, 19 nations including Russia and China took sufficient steps following their designations as Tier 3 to avoid sanctions. Sanctions were waived for the remaining 14 countries on the basis of U.S. national interests.[16]

USAID. The U.S. Agency for International Development works closely with the TIP office to ensure that aid is disseminated to countries that have the political will to address human trafficking and have demonstrated the greatest need for assistance.[17] Recognizing human trafficking as a growing threat, USAID invests several million dollars in programs to combat the practice throughout the world, especially in Asia. USAID has invested in more than 30 anti-trafficking programs in Asia and spent more than $4 million on programming in Asia in 2012 alone. These programs focus on USAID’s three goals of preventing trafficking, protecting and assisting victims of trafficking, and establishing laws and legal systems equipped to enforce the laws.[18]

One of USAID’s most successful and least expensive programs to counter trafficking in persons is MTV EXIT, which is a campaign using the MTV brand run in cooperation with Australian Aid and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The program’s primary purpose is to increase awareness about human trafficking in Southeast Asia. MTV EXIT has conducted 40 concerts, reaching 1.8 million people through live events and an additional 83 million through television, and has hosted 570 community outreach events.[19] The programs seek to raise awareness about human trafficking and provide opportunities for young people to become directly involved in combating the problem. In late 2014, USAID launched a similar public awareness program in Thailand.[20]

In 2012, USAID made a significant effort to renew attention toward human trafficking by launching and funding the Counter Trafficking in Persons policy (C-TIP), which established a universal set of goals and methodology regarding human trafficking.[21] An audit by the Office of the Inspector General of C-TIP procedures and implementation in late 2013 revealed some deficiencies in USAID programming against human trafficking, such as challenges with implementing programs, applying best practices, and coordinating staff.[22]

Millennium Challenge Corporation. MCC implements transformational aid programs that tie a country’s eligibility to receive aid directly to its willingness to promote economic freedom, protect political freedoms, and ensure social and environmental standards.[23] To qualify for MCC assistance, countries must meet predetermined benchmarks that measure the economic and political climate of the country. The MCC board determines a country’s eligibility using indicators such as free trade, corruption, political freedom, and public health data. Once deemed eligible, MCC countries receive a five-year compact. Since its inception in 2004, MCC has disseminated over $8.4 billion in aid.[24] This aid model, particularly its selection criteria, has been deemed highly effective in encouraging developing countries to achieve reasonable goals and observable reform.[25]

MCC measures the prevalence of human trafficking and how the government is addressing the problem as a component of compact eligibility.[26] MCC’s decision to include human trafficking as part of its selection criteria has given the U.S. additional leverage in encouraging countries to combat it. MCC’s pioneering efforts to create a solid criterion for aid eligibility based on human trafficking conditions in the country is contributing significantly to the fight against trafficking.

The threat of the Philippines jeopardizing its MCC Compact assistance due to human-trafficking concerns motivated the government of the Philippines to make serious policy changes.[27] Partially because of how seriously MCC takes human trafficking as an eligibility issue, the Philippines channeled significant additional resources toward its domestic anti-trafficking body, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking. The Philippines has also experienced a change in government, with President Benigno Aquino coming to power. Under his leadership, the Philippines has more than tripled convictions of traffickers and almost quadrupled the number of victims rescued.[28]

MCC’s attention to human trafficking issues influences its aid allocation in two ways. First, it ensures that MCC aid is not rewarding countries that willfully traffic their own citizens. Second, it ensures that the aid workers and contractors administering MCC aid are not intentionally or unintentionally facilitating trafficking through their programs.[29]

Other U.S. Agencies. The Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, the Presidential Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PITF), and the Senior Policy Operation Group also play significant roles in U.S.-led anti-trafficking initiatives. For example, the Labor Department releases annual reports on forced labor.[30] The Justice Department prosecutes human-trafficking cases that involve international persons in the U.S. The PITF coordinates the myriad U.S. agencies involved in combating human trafficking and offers recommendations for future U.S. anti-trafficking policy.[31]

Regional Trends

Asia’s human-trafficking record is mixed. It is home to some of the worst perpetrators of human trafficking, including North Korea, Burma, and Thailand, but it also has success stories such as South Korea. The vast majority of Asian nations are still building the infrastructure for positive anti-trafficking policy, but U.S.-led TIP initiatives have undoubtedly contributed to the improvements.

China and Northeast Asia. In 2013, China was demoted to Tier 3, but promoted to Tier 2 Watch List in 2014 after passing legislation to eliminate re-education through labor camps.[32] An estimated 2.8 million to 3.1 million[33] Chinese citizens are subjected to forced labor through labor camps and other means, and many Chinese women and children are subjected to sex trafficking. China’s coercive one-child policy, which typically results in favoring boys over girls, has exacerbated trafficking problems, resulting in increased child trafficking for adoption, sex trafficking, and forced marriages.[34]

North Korea is one of the worst perpetrators of human trafficking in the world. Forced labor camps extrajudicially imprison an estimated 100,000–200,000 North Korean citizens.[35] North Korean defectors forcibly repatriated by China often become forced laborers after they return.[36] Defectors smuggled out of North Korea also are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. An estimated 70 percent of defectors from North Korea are women, and some estimate that between 70 percent and 90 percent of female defectors eventually become victims of trafficking.[37] North Korean women are often trafficked into China where they are forced to marry Chinese men and subjected to prostitution and forced labor.[38]

Japan, a Tier 2 country, has made great strides in combatting human trafficking since World War II. In recent years, however, it has underperformed. It has not acceded to the Palermo Protocol nor does it have a broad anti-trafficking law.[39] Japan bans prostitution and has laws against forced labor and child abuse, but does not have laws that explicitly address human trafficking.[40]

Human trafficking in Japan primarily affects women and children. Japanese shortcomings are, in part, attributable to cultural attitudes toward women. The Abe Administration has attempted to elevate the status of women in Japan through the introduction of “womenomics,” a policy that encourages greater participation of women in the workforce. Nonetheless, the general treatment of Japanese women as what many would consider second-class citizens has led policymakers to overlook domestic human-trafficking problems.

South Korea, a country that previously had a significant human-trafficking problem, is now fully compliant with minimum standards for eliminating trafficking in persons.[41] South Korea is not completely free of forced prostitution, forced labor, and other forms of trafficking abuse, but has implemented proper human trafficking laws, adequately prosecutes traffickers, and provides restitution for victims.

Southeast Asia. Thailand’s automatic downgrade to Tier 3 in 2014 is a result of alleged government complicity in human trafficking, severe sex trafficking, and wide-scale labor trafficking in the fishing, textile, and domestic labor industries. Displaced and stateless persons from Southeast Asia are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in Thailand. Thailand has been in the news recently for its severe labor trafficking, particularly in the seafood industry. Many trafficking victims in Thailand’s fishing industry come from neighboring Southeast Asian nations, such as Burma and Cambodia. Displaced Burmese Rohingya are particularly vulnerable.

Since its automatic downgrade to Tier 3 in 2014, the Thai government has sought to focus more attention on combating human trafficking, but only time will tell whether these efforts will produce results. Since the coup in early 2014, there is concern that Thailand is at increased risk for human trafficking.

Cambodia also continues to struggle with severe sex trafficking. Countless children, particularly young girls, are sold for their virginity by their parents.[42] Many Cambodians are trafficked into forced labor in neighboring Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Cambodia’s government has demonstrated its willingness to counter human trafficking by drafting guidelines for a national victim identification system, but enforcement and follow-through have been slow.[43]

The Philippines made great strides in tackling human trafficking under the Benigno Aquino administration. The government of the Philippines has undertaken serious legal and judicial reform, law enforcement training, and victim restitution. The Philippines created the regional Inter-Agency Councils Against Trafficking, a domestic human-trafficking task force, and has cooperated with human-trafficking nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to address localized trafficking problems. The Philippine task forces not only engaged in local law enforcement activities, but also provided assistance for victims. The task forces are engaged at the ports of entry, such as port cities and airports, to rescue victims at transit points. An estimated 2,000 victims were served in halfway houses and rehabilitation centers coordinated by the local task forces between 2005 and 2007.[44] Still, an estimated 200,000 Filipinos are victims of sex or labor trafficking.[45]

Indonesia has achieved similar success in the regions where it has anti-trafficking task forces. While Indonesia has a limited number of district-level task forces (in 88 of the 497 districts[46]), it has the Attorney General’s Task Force on Terrorism and Transnational Crime, a national task force, which facilitated creation of a national database of prosecutions and court cases dealing with human trafficking issues. The database tracked an estimated 102 cases that resulted in prosecution of traffickers in 2012.[47]

Burma was again identified by the State Department as one of a limited number of countries that used child soldiers in 2014.[48] While the Burmese government released at least 100 child soldiers earlier this year, an unknown number of children are still employed as child soldiers.[49] In addition to child soldiers, Burma is notorious for employing children in forced labor. According to the Department of Labor’s “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor,” Burma produces a number of goods—including bricks, rice, rubber, and sugarcane—with forced labor and child labor.[50]

Burma’s trafficking can be attributed to corrupt government, local law enforcement, and military officials. The Tatmadaw, the Burmese military, is well known for its involvement in sexual abuse of women, particularly minority females. The Kachin, Shan, and Rohingya are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in Burma. An estimated 40,000 Rohingya were victims of trafficking in 2013, while nearly 200,000 Rohingya (of which 30,000 are registered with the U.N.) are refugees in Bangladesh and therefore vulnerable to trafficking.[51] The number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has increased substantially since June 2012, when violence broke out between the Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists in Burma’s Rakhine State. Credible reports show that the Burmese military and government have benefitted monetarily from trafficking of Rohingya.[52]

Although Singapore is not a party to the Palermo Protocol, it has one of the lowest rates of human trafficking in Southeast Asia.[53] Arguably, this could be attributed to the robust legal and law enforcement infrastructure in Singapore as well as its relatively robust economic health as compared with the rest of the region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has a role to play in combatting trafficking in the region. ASEAN has already demonstrated leadership with MTV EXIT, its awareness-building initiative. However, ASEAN should play a more significant role in the region by encouraging regional intelligence and information sharing and holding joint law enforcement exercises that target organized criminal activities, including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

South Asia. Human trafficking in South Asia hinders socioeconomic development of the region and contributes to violence and corruption in society, harming both individuals and the state. An estimated 17 million people are trafficked in South Asia today.[54]

Globalization and demographic trends are leading to increased demand for cheap labor and migration of people within their own countries and across national borders.[55] The Global Slavery Index ranks India first, Pakistan third, and Bangladesh ninth on the list of countries with the highest number of enslaved people.[56] The U.S. State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report ranks most of the South Asian nations as Tier 2 states, except for Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which are ranked as Tier Two Watch List.

The problem of child labor in South Asia received attention last year when the Nobel Peace Committee split its annual award between Kailash Satyarthi, a 60-year-old Indian man who has dedicated his life to ending child labor in his country, and Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating for girls’ education. Satyarthi is not as well known as Yousafzai, but is an important human rights advocate in the region. Child labor is endemic in India, where an estimated 50 million children are employed, particularly in brick and carpet manufacturing. Child labor also is a major problem in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

The most common contributing factors to labor and sex trafficking in the region are economic insecurity and poverty.[57] Even though India has experienced relatively strong economic growth over the past decade, poverty remains widespread (nearly 30 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day), and women in the rural areas, in particular, lack access to education and employment. Corrupt local law enforcement officials in India often facilitate the movement of trafficked victims or protect alleged traffickers, magnifying the problem. Indian NGOs report that local police often fail to act against brothels suspected of prostituting minors. India had been on the Tier Two Watch List from 2006 to 2010. In 2011, India was upgraded to Tier Two based on enactment of national legislation acknowledging that bonded labor is a form of human trafficking and its increased efforts to stem the problem at the state level.

Many South Asians are trafficked abroad as physical laborers or domestic servants. Many South Asian governments have little incentive to address human trafficking because they often rely on remittances for revenue. The Asian region, particularly South Asia, receives an estimated $206 billion in remittances annually. For example, remittances comprise 22 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 10 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP.[58] Reliance on remittances has created an unending cycle of abuse in which the government refuses to intervene in trafficking situations or provide the necessary information to would-be laborers going abroad.

Afghanistan is both a source and destination of forced labor and sex trafficking. Child labor is particularly prevalent in the brick and carpet-making industries. Afghanistan improved its TIP ranking from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2 in 2014. According to the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report, Afghanistan is making significant efforts to comply with the minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking and has made modest improvements in preventing human trafficking, although official complicity in human trafficking remains a serious problem.

Bangladesh is primarily a source country for forced labor and sex trafficking. Bangladesh was ranked as Tier Two Watch List in 2009, but went back up to Tier Two after parliament passed the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act. Bangladesh has prosecuted an increased number of human trafficking cases since it passed the anti-trafficking law in 2012, but conviction rates remain low.

A recent case involving the rescue of over 130 Bangladeshis who were trafficked to Thailand has highlighted the scourge of human trafficking, which is usually hidden from the public’s view and receives little attention. The traffickers lured the Bangladeshi men with promises of employment, but once in custody the men were drugged and taken to camps in Thailand, where they were regularly beaten, abused, and deprived of food. Local police and human rights groups say there has been a recent surge in human trafficking along Bangladesh’s southeastern coast as traffickers from Burma extend their reach.[59]

In Nepal, traffickers reportedly use bribes and their connections to politicians, businessmen, police, and customs officials to facilitate their trafficking.[60] Labor brokers in Nepal also engage in fraud and charge exorbitant fees for services, according to the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. The Nepali authorities recently created a new investigative body to pursue trafficking cases and indicted public officials and private individuals for fraudulent labor recruitment.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka remain on the Tier Two Watch List. Pakistan’s greatest human-trafficking problem is bonded labor, in which employers entrap laborers by exploiting their debt obligations, which often carry over several generations. Pakistan has an estimated 2 million to 4 million bonded laborers, mainly in the agriculture and brick-making industries. The Pakistani government has worked with international organizations to address human-trafficking challenges and has rescued an increased number of bonded laborers, but has failed to convict trafficking offenders. Sri Lanka also has failed to convict any traffickers in the past three years and provides minimal protective services for trafficking victims.

There has been some progress in combating human trafficking in South Asia in recent years, but prosecution and conviction rates of traffickers remain relatively low. For example, in India, despite an increase in the number of identified victims, the conviction rate for sex trafficking has declined. Bangladesh’s enactment of human trafficking legislation in 2012 helped in that, among other things, it called for establishing a tribunal for human trafficking offenses to speed up processing of cases. Over the past several years in India, members of the tourism industry in Goa have adopted a code of conduct against sex trafficking, and the state of Goa passed legislation stipulating that managers and owners of tourism establishments were responsible for the safety of children on their premises.[61] The South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Trafficking Convention that was passed in 2002 has been hailed as a landmark effort to combine regional countries’ efforts to eradicate trafficking.

NGOs and corporations play a significant role in anti-trafficking efforts in South Asia. For example, Google invested $11.5 million in grants for 10 NGOs combatting human trafficking in 2011.[62] Google’s investment went toward anti-trafficking initiatives led by International Justice Mission (IJM), Polaris Project, and Slavery Footprint—all reputable anti-trafficking NGOs. Google is leading the way by demonstrating that multinationals have a role to play in monitoring their supply chains and discouraging trafficking in areas where they conduct business.

Limited Enforcement of Laws

Despite the enactment of anti-trafficking laws, there has been very little enforcement of those laws and thus minimal progress in reducing the number of trafficking victims. According to former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Mark Lagon, previous TIP director, “The TIP Report conclusively propels nations to enact comprehensive anti-trafficking laws…but enforcement of those laws often does not follow.”[63]

Low prosecution rates for traffickers and a distinct failure to identify significant numbers of trafficking victims are further evidence that anti-trafficking laws are not being enforced. According to the State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report, only 44,758 victims of trafficking were identified worldwide, only 9,460 traffickers were prosecuted, and a mere 5,776 traffickers were convicted.[64] In other words, of an estimated 36 million victims of trafficking, fewer than 45,000 (0.1 percent) were identified and rescued worldwide in 2013.[65]

Crucial Role of NGOs

The key to implementing human-trafficking law is effective local law enforcement. Without trustworthy, trained, and non-corrupt local law enforcement, human-trafficking laws are virtually useless. Nongovernmental organizations have played a crucial role in breaking up human-trafficking networks and rescuing victims. The most effective international NGOs, such as IJM, have developed a model of intervention that involves working closely with local investigators, law enforcers, prosecutors, and judges. IJM has operations on at least six continents and conducts raids in a variety of countries.[66]

Project Lantern, a successful IJM project in Cebu, Philippines, provided training for local law enforcement to educate and prepare the agents to deal with the unique human-trafficking challenges in their region. In addition to specialized training, IJM’s model required that lawyers and case workers accompany local law enforcement on raids to ensure safety for victims rescued from trafficking.[67] This model helped to limit corruption in local law enforcement and ensure justice for the victims. An Anti-Trafficking Review article about IJM’s project in Cebu reported:

Within the first three years of the project, 225 trafficked girls and women were rescued and 87 suspected traffickers arrested. An independent prevalence survey at the end of three years revealed a 79 percent drop in the availability of minors for sex in commercial establishments. The success of the Cebu model contributed to a decision by the Philippines government to replicate the model with IJM in two other locations.[68]

IJM’s model also recognized the importance of victim rehabilitation. An estimated 2,000 victims were served in halfway houses and rehabilitation centers coordinated by the local task forces.[69] NGOs and civil society in general have a crucial role to play in the rehabilitation and restoration of victims of human trafficking, including counseling, mentoring, and aftercare services.

In response to IJM’s efforts in the region, the Philippines has continued to replicate IJM’s model by creating additional anti-trafficking units. In 2013, the Philippines had created fourteen anti-trafficking task forces.[70] These units built on IJM’s model by providing training and assistance for anti-trafficking law enforcement officials and maintained strict requirements on how quickly these specialized units were rotated in and out.[71]

IJM has achieved similar success in Cambodia.[72] When IJM began operating in Cambodia in 2000, a significant number of children under age 15 were working in Cambodia’s commercial sex industry, but a recent prevalence survey reported that number has dropped significantly.[73]

Role of Multinationals

Proactive business practices that prioritize eradicating forced labor are integral to fighting global human trafficking. Many multinational companies inadvertently have forced labor in their supply chains or accidentally facilitate trafficking domestically and abroad. Businesses involved with agriculture or textile producers are particularly vulnerable to forced labor, bonded labor, and peonage in their supply chain.

While many companies—such as Microsoft, Marriott, and Coca-Cola—have recognized the important role that they play in combatting trafficking, many other companies lag in implementing effective anti-trafficking policies.[74] Ambassador Lagon emphasizes that “although thousands of individuals have joined the movement to end human trafficking, corporate commitment has lagged behind.”[75]

Without proactive engagement from the business community, the anti-trafficking movement lacks direct access to many of the supply and demand chains in which forced labor, bonded labor, and peonage occur. If the private sector can be incentivized to combat human trafficking, they can direct local law enforcement to traffickers and coordinate with other businesses in their supply chain to reduce the opportunities for illegal transactions and abuses within the commercial space.[76]

Consumers play a direct role in helping to combat global human trafficking. One key motivator for companies to adopt anti-trafficking practices and policies has been bad public relations and media backlash.

The first step to fighting trafficking in the supply chain is for companies to write explicit anti-trafficking guidelines into company policy. For example, Ford, Apple, Patagonia, Armani Exchange, and other companies write their opposition to human trafficking into their best practices policies, and this has led to further action. Ford audits its supply chain to ensure compliance with human-trafficking law.[77] Armani Exchange states that it is committed to ensuring that no trafficking occurs in its direct or indirect supply chains and provides employees with risk mitigation training on human trafficking.[78]

Some organizations are creating tools to make it easier for companies to comply with human trafficking law. For example, Slavery Footprint created an algorithm to estimate the number of workers it takes to make a given product.[79] In collaboration with the State Department, Slavery Footprint is working to adapt the algorithm to estimate the number of forced laborers in a given company’s supply chain.

One of the largest coalitions fighting trafficking is the Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking (gBCAT), which includes Coca Cola, Microsoft, and LexisNexis. gBCAT provides training and education on trafficking to company employees and vendors, raises awareness about sex trafficking, encourages best practices in business, and encourages companies to identify trafficking in its supply chains.[80]

Through gBCAT, Microsoft instituted a successful program that used technology to fight trafficking. In 2006, Microsoft provided $1.45 million in money and software supplies to build awareness about human trafficking and provide training in computer skills to locals in areas susceptible to trafficking in Asia.[81] In partnership with local NGOs, Microsoft provided support to more than 25,000 people in less than two years.[82] These training opportunities helped participants to find employment and supplied opportunities to locals who otherwise may have been trafficked. Microsoft also provided grants for research on the relationship between technology and child sex trafficking, provided funding to notable trafficking NGOs such as Polaris Project and IJM, and instituted best practices for combatting trafficking in its own supply chain.[83]

Recognizing the vulnerability of the hospitality industry to both sex and labor trafficking, Marriott started the Youth Career Initiative, which provides training in hospitality, banking, and health care to young people, including former trafficking victims.[84]

What the U.S. Should Do

The U.S. needs to step up its efforts to raise global awareness of the human-trafficking epidemic. Tens of millions of individuals in Asia and around the world are trapped in the mire of human trafficking with little hope of escape. This under-acknowledged and under-studied phenomenon is in desperate need of increased international attention.

Just as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has brought realistic and tangible solutions to the global AIDS epidemic, the U.S. should lead the way in acknowledging human trafficking as a major human rights crisis of the 21st century and apply funding and strategy accordingly.

To address human trafficking in Asia better, the U.S. should:

• Bolster the role of the State Department’s TIP office in leading and directing global anti-trafficking efforts. Continued leadership in anti-trafficking means filling the ambassador-at-large position quickly with a candidate who has specialized knowledge of and a strong commitment to combating international human trafficking.[85] To ensure that the TIP report remains the worldwide go-to resource for anti-trafficking best practices and analysis, the U.S. should increase funding and staffing of the TIP office.
• Prioritize working with countries with significant human-trafficking challenges and a demonstrated willingness to cooperate and implement anti-trafficking best practices. The State Department should continue working with USAID and NGOs to ensure that aid is allocated effectively and to prioritize training and assistance for willing local law enforcement in source countries of human trafficking. The TIP office and USAID should consider applying MCC-type criteria to U.S. anti–human trafficking assistance. If MCC criteria were applied to the TIP offices’ grant allocation and aid programs, they could ensure that U.S. anti-trafficking funds are used in the most effective and efficient ways.[86] Adopting a more selective model for anti-trafficking aid dissemination ensures that aid is targeted at the countries that are in the most need and are the most willing to combat trafficking. Prioritizing fewer countries and publishing criteria for country eligibility ensures transparency and provides clarity on aid qualification and dissemination for human trafficking assistance. A compact model would also provide a method for tracking progress in anti-trafficking efforts. The MCC aid model, particularly MCC’s selection criteria, has been deemed highly effective in encouraging developing countries to achieve reasonable goals and observable reform. This could easily be applied to anti-trafficking efforts.[87]
• Focus more aid resources on specialized law enforcement and judicial training programs that address human-trafficking concerns. Combating human trafficking will require greater effort to ensure that individuals in Asia have access to fair and honest legal and judicial protection. IJM President Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros, prosecutor of international human-trafficking cases at the U.S. Department of Justice—both renowned anti–human trafficking practitioners—emphasize that the key to stopping trafficking is effective law enforcement and a judicial system free from corruption. While passing appropriate legislation is important, enforcing the law is even more critical. Corruption within police ranks and inadequate legal institutions are the primary obstacles to breaking up human trafficking networks.[88]
• Encourage Asian countries to create anti-trafficking task forces similar to those in the Philippines and Indonesia. Both countries have increased prosecutions, rescued more victims, and improved local law enforcement response to trafficking.[89] Specialized law enforcement units are better able to recognize the signs of human trafficking, intervene to rescue victims of trafficking, and apprehend and prosecute traffickers. Indonesia’s task force was partly funded by USAID and could likely be replicated in other Asian countries.
• Encourage regional organizations to facilitate regional cooperation against transnational crime, including human trafficking. Ultimately, individual countries in Asia need to address human trafficking problems, but the fight against human trafficking requires regional cooperation. ASEAN, SAARC, and other regional organizations should take a more active role to ensure sharing of best practices, information, and intelligence and in organizing joint law enforcement exercises to improve capabilities for combatting organized criminal activities, including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering.
• Prod multinational companies to play a more significant role in combatting forced labor in their supply chains. Google, Microsoft, and other large multinationals have recognized that they can play important roles in combatting human trafficking. Whether investing in professional development programs or improving oversight in their supply chain, multinationals are uniquely positioned to prevent trafficking and report on it to local law enforcement. Continued research and development is needed to improve supply chain management to ensure that forced labor, sexual abuse, and other forms of trafficking are not occurring in multinational companies’ supply chains.

Conclusion

The fight against human trafficking constitutes one of the major global human rights challenges of the 21st century. Halting human trafficking will require U.S. leadership and effective partnerships with Asian governments, NGOs, and multinational companies as well as a special focus on improving justice systems in countries where human trafficking is prevalent.

About the authors:
Lisa Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia and Olivia Enos is a Research Assistant in the Asian Studies Center, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Source:
This article was published by The Heritage Foundation and reprinted with permission.

Notes:
[1] Walk Free Foundation, The Global Slavery Index 2014 (Australia: Hope for Children Organization Australia, 2014), pp. 17 and 33, http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/download/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[2] Belinda Luscombe, “Inside the Scarily Lucrative Business Model of Human Trafficking,” Time, May 20, 2014, http://time.com/105360/inside-the-scarily-lucrative-business-model-of-human-trafficking/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[3] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, “Human Trafficking: Organized Crime and the Multibillion Dollar Sale of People,” July 19, 2012, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/July/human-trafficking_-organized-crime-and-the-multibillion-dollar-sale-of-people.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[4] Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, November 15, 2000, http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?mtdsg_no=XVIII-12-a&chapter=18&lang=en (accessed November 19, 2013).

[5] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, “What Is Human Trafficking,” https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[6] Lindsey King, “International Law and Human Trafficking,” Topical Research Digest (2007), http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/trafficking/InternationalLaw.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014), and Laura L. Shoaps, “Room for Improvement: Palermo Protocol and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,” Lewis & Clark Law Review, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2014), http://law.lclark.edu/live/files/15325-lcb173art6shoaps.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[7] INTERPOL, “INTERPOL Tools,” http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Trafficking-in-human-beings/INTERPOL-tools (accessed December 31, 2014).

[8] INTERPOL, “Operations,” April 4, 2014, http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Trafficking-in-human-beings/Operations (accessed December 31, 2014).

[9] Ibid.

[10] MaryAnne McReynolds, “The Trafficking Victims Protection Act: Has the Legislation Fallen Short of Its Goals?” Policy Perspectives, No. 15 (Spring 2008), http://www.policy-perspectives.org/article/view/4152/2990 (accessed December 31, 2014).

[11] U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2013, p. 29, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/210543.htm (accessed November 19, 2013).

[12] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2008, p. 6, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/105487.htm (accessed November 19, 2013).

[13] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2013, pp. 41–44.

[14] Ibid., pp. 44 and 46–47.

[15] Yonhap News Agency, “Obama Renews Sanctions on N. Korea for Human Trafficking,” GlobalPost, September 17, 2013, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/yonhap-news-agency/130917/obama-renews-sanctions-n-korea-human-trafficking (accessed December 31, 2014).

[16] Shoaps, “Room for Improvement.”

[17] U.S. Agency for International Development, Counter-Trafficking in Persons Field Guide, April 2013, http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2496/C-TIP_Field_Guide_Final_April%205%202013.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[18] U.S. Agency for International Development, “USAID Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs in Asia: A Synthesis,” November 2009, pp. 11 and 16, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACT220.pdf (accessed January 26, 2015), and U.S. Agency for International Development, “C-TIP Programs in Asia,” August 9, 2013, http://www.usaid.gov/CTIPannualreview/ctip-programs-asia (accessed December 31, 2014).

[19] MTV EXIT, website, http://mtvexit.org/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[20] News release, “USAID and IOM United on New Campaign to Combat Human Trafficking,” U.S. Agency for International Development, October 17, 2014, http://www.usaid.gov/asia-regional/press-releases/oct-17-2014-usaid-and-iom-unite-new-campaign-combat-human (accessed December 31, 2014).

[21] U.S. Agency for International Development, “Counter-Trafficking in Persons Policy,” February 2012, p. 1, http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2496/ctip_policy_onepager_final.pdf (accessed November 18, 2014).

[22] U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General, “Review of USAID’s New Counter-Trafficking in Persons Program,” November 27, 2013, http://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/audit-reports/9-000-14-001-s.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[23] Bradley C. Parks and Zachary J. Rice, “Measuring the Policy Influence of the Millennium Challenge Corporation: A Survey-Based Approach,” College of William and Mary, Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, February 2013, p. 17, http://www.wm.edu/offices/itpir/_documents/reform-incentives-report-mcc.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[24] Millennium Challenge Corporation, “About MCC,” http://www.mcc.gov/pages/about (accessed December 31, 2014).

[25] Parks and Rice, “Measuring the Policy Influence of the Millennium Challenge Corporation,” p. 17.

[26] Millennium Challenge Corporation, “Rule of Law Indicator,” http://www.mcc.gov/pages/selection/indicator/rule-of-law-indicator (accessed December 31, 2014).

[27] Blair Burns, testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, April 29, 2014, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20140429/102167/HHRG-113-FA16-Wstate-BurnsB-20140429.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[28] Republic of the Philippines, Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, “Resources: Statistics,” December 4, 2014, http://www.iacat.net/index.php/human-trafficking-related-statistics (accessed December 31, 2014).

[29] U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General, “Audit of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Monitoring of Trafficking in Persons in MCC-Funded Programs,” February 12, 2013, http://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/audit-reports/m-000-13-004-p.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[30] U.S. Department of Labor, “International Child and Forced Labor Reports,” http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[31] U.S. Department of State, “President’s Interagency Task Force,” http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/reports/pitf/ (accessed January 29, 2014).

[32] U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2014/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[33] Walk Free Foundation, Global Slavery Index 2014, pp. 102–103.

[34] Olivia Enos, “China’s Self-Created Demographic Disaster Is Coming,” The National Interest, September 25, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-self-created-demographic-disaster-coming-11353 (accessed December 31, 2014).

[35] Robert R. King, “U.S.–Korea Policy Coordination Toward North Korea,” speech at Sungkyungkwan University, Seoul, Korea, May 21, 2013, http://seoul.usembassy.gov/p_nk_052113.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[36] Robert Cohen, “Legal Grounds for Protection of North Korean Refugees,” The Brookings Institution, Fall 2010, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/09/north-korea-human-rights-cohen (accessed December 31, 2014).

[37] Jane Kim, “Trafficked: Domestic Violence, Exploitation in Marriage, and the Foreign-Bride Industry,” Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol. 51, No. 2 (December 2010), p. 443, http://www.vjil.org/articles/trafficked-domestic-violence-exploitation-in-marriage-and-the-foreign-bride-industry (accessed January 26, 2015), and Kyla Ryan, “The Women Who Escape from North Korea,” The Diplomat, November 24, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/11/the-women-who-escape-from-north-korea/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[38] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014.

[39] Mark Lagon, “Human Trafficking: Focusing on Key Countries, Demand, and Victim Protection,” testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, April 29, 2014, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20140429/102167/HHRG-113-FA16-Wstate-LagonM-20140429.pdf (accessed January 26, 2015).

[40] Shihoko Fujiwara, “Sex Trafficking in Japan,” World Justice Project, October 22, 2012, http://worldjusticeproject.org/blog/sex-trafficking-japan (accessed December 31, 2014).

[41] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014.

[42] Tim Hume, Lisa Cohen, and Mira Sorvino, “The Women Who Sold Their Daughters into Sex Slavery,” CNN, http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/world/cambodia-child-sex-trade/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[43] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014.

[44] U.S. Agency for International Development, “USAID Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs in Asia.”

[45] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014.

[46] IRIN, “Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia a Complex Issue,” Jakarta Globe, May 7, 2013, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/human-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-a-complex-issue/ (accessed November 19, 2013).

[47] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2013, pp. 198–210.

[48] U.S. Department of State, “The Fact on Child Soldiers and CSPA,” November 26, 2014, http://www.humanrights.gov/dyn/the-facts-on-child-soldiers-and-the-cspa/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[49] Yahoo News, “Obama Maintains Child Soldier Sanctions Against Myanmar,” September 30, 2014, http://news.yahoo.com/obama-maintains-child-soldier-sanctions-against-myanmar-233325117.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[50] U.S. Department of Labor, “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor,” December 1, 2014, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[51] Wakar Uddin, “The Rohingya of Burma: Victims of Persecution and Violence in Burma and a Commodity of Human Smuggling and Trafficking in Southeast Asia,” testimony before Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, April 28, 2014, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA16/20140429/102167/HHRG-113-FA16-Wstate-UddinW-20140429.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014), and “Myanmar to Start Taking Rohingya Refugees from Bangladesh in Two Months,” bdnews24.com, August, 31, 2014, http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2014/08/31/myanmar-to-start-taking-back-rohingya-refugees-from-bangladesh-in-two-months (accessed January 26, 2015).

[52] Todd Pitman and Esther Htusan, “Myanmar Profits off Rohingya Exodus,” Yahoo News, November 6, 2014, http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-myanmar-aiding-rohingya-trafficking-110832613.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[53] United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Human Rights Council—Universal Periodic Review: Singapore,” May 6, 2011, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/Highlights6May2011am.aspx (accessed December 31, 2014), and Walk Free Foundation, Global Slavery Index 2014.

[54] Walk Free Foundation, Global Slavery Index 2014.

[55] M. Bashir Uddin, “Human Trafficking in South Asia: Issues of Corruption and Human Security,” International Journal of Social Work and Human Services Practice, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February 2014), http://www.hrpub.org/download/20140305/IJRH3-19201859.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[56] Walk Free Foundation, Global Slavery Index 2014, pp. 13–28.

[57] Uddin, “Human Trafficking in South Asia.”

[58] Asia-Pacific RCM Thematic Working Group on International Migration Including Human Trafficking, “Situation Report on International Migration in South and South-West Asia,” 2012, http://www.rcm-asiapacific-un.org/pdf/Situation_report.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[59] Syed Zain Al-Mahmood, “Human Traffickers in Bay of Bengal Cast Sights on Bangladesh,” The Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/human-traffickers-in-bay-of-bengal-cast-sights-on-bangladesh-1414536642 (accessed December 31, 2014).

[60] Ibid.

[61] U.S. Agency for International Development, “USAID Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs in Asia.”

[62] David Molko and Lisa Cohen, “Google Joins Fight Against Slavery with $11.5 Million Grant,” CNN, December 14, 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/14/us/google-anti-slavery-grant/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[63] Lagon, “Human Trafficking: Focusing on Key Countries, Demand, and Victim Protection.”

[64] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2014, p. 45, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2014/226647.htm (accessed December 31, 2014).

[65] Walk Free Foundation, The Global Slavery Index 2014, pp. 13–28.

[66] International Justice Mission, “Where We Work,” http://www.ijm.org/where-we-work (accessed December 31, 2014).

[67] Holly Burkhalter, “Sex Trafficking, Law Enforcement and Perpetrator Accountability,” Anti-Trafficking Review, No. 1 (June 2012), https://www.ijm.org/sites/default/files/download/resources/Sex-Trafficking-Law-Enforcment-and-Perpetrator-Accountability.pdf (accessed January 26, 2015).

[68] Ibid.

[69] U.S. Agency for International Development, “USAID Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs in Asia.”

[70] U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2013, pp. 198–210.

[71] Burkhalter, “Sex Trafficking, Law Enforcement and Perpetrator Accountability.”

[72] Private conversations with Holly Burkhalter.

[73] David Shaw, “Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia: A Venue-Based Application of Time Space Sampling to Measure Prevalence in Phnom Penh, Siem Riep and Sihanoukville,” International Justice Mission, Cambodia.

[74] Stoyan Zaimov, “Wells Fargo Ranked Lowest on Corporate Responsibility in Human Slavery Report,” The Christian Post, October 8, 2013, http://www.christianpost.com/news/wells-fargo-ranked-lowest-on-corporate-responsibility-in-human-slavery-report-106228/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[75] Mark P. Lagon, “How to Stop Human Trafficking,” American Enterprise Institute, January 16, 2009, https://www.aei.org/publication/how-to-stop-human-trafficking/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[76] Erika R. George and Scarlet R. Smith, “In Good Responsibility: How Corporate Social Responsibility Can Protect Rights and Aid Efforts to End Child Sex Trafficking and Modern Slavery,” International Law and Politics, Vol. 46, No. 55 (Fall 2013), http://nyujilp.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/46.1-George.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[77] Ford Corporation, “Forced Labor and Human Trafficking in Supply Chains,” http://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-report-2013-14/supply-materials-trafficking.html (accessed December 31, 2014).

[78] Armani Exchange, “Corporate Responsibility,” http://www.armaniexchange.com/category/customer+service/corporate+responsibility.do (accessed December 31, 2014).

[79] Made in a Free World, “About Us,” https://madeinafreeworld.com/about_us (accessed December 31, 2014).

[80] Global Business Coalition Against Human Trafficking, “Focus Areas,” http://www.gbcat.org/#focusareas (accessed December 31, 2014).

[81] University of Washington, Center for Information and Society, “Evaluation of the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Anti-Trafficking Program in Asia,” May 2008, http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/gilmore_08_microsoft_0309.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[82] Ibid.

[83] Microsoft, “Addressing Human Trafficking,” January 2013, http://www.microsoft.com/About/CorporateCitizenship/en-us/DownloadHandler.ashx?Id=03-01-04 (accessed January 26, 2015).

[84] Marriott International, “Our Commitment to Human Rights,” November 2012, http://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/Corporate/HumanRightsCommitment.pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[85] Mark P. Lagon and Judith Kelley, “No One Is Steering the United States’ Fight Against Human Trafficking,” Foreign Policy, November 18, 2014, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/18/no-one-is-steering-the-united-states-fight-against-human-trafficking/ (accessed December 31, 2014).

[86] Private conversation with Holly Burkhalter, and Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, “Recommendations for a Trafficking in Persons Focus Country Approach,” February 2014, http://www.endslaveryandtrafficking.org/sites/default/files/TIP%20Focus%20Country%20Package%202014%20(FINAL%20-%20January%2030,%202014).pdf (accessed December 31, 2014).

[87] Parks and Rice, “Measuring the Policy Influence of the Millennium Challenge Corporation: A Survey-Based Approach,” p. 17.

[88] Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2014).

[89] U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2013, pp. 198–210, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2013/215482.htm (accessed November 19, 2013), and U.S. Agency for International Development, “USAID Anti-Trafficking in Persons Programs in Asia: A Synthesis.”

The post Combating Human Trafficking In Asia Requires US Leadership – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

What do you do if what feels right and what is safe are incompatible? Emotional and ethical motivations can collide with security and self-interest when your homeland is Iraq.

When Ammar Al-Rikabi (MBA ’10) accepted a job with a bank in Iraq, it wasn’t just the usual motivations that drew him to it. He had left the country of his birth at the age of nine, and knowing the difficult times it was going through, he felt a need to help in some way.

The job, developing private-sector infrastructure investment, seemed a worthwhile way to help Iraq move forward in troubled times. It would mean spending time away from his family in Europe and his girlfriend in Turkey, but both were supportive.

Rikabi knew that personal security was an issue in Iraq, but after a summer internship the year before, he concluded he understood the risks. The job was interesting, and a promise from his boss to help him transfer to the bank’s London office at the end of the summer helped make up his mind. He took the job.

Then his bank was the target of suicide bombers in June 2010.

In this first-person case study, supervised by IESE’s Alberto Ribera, Rikabi reflects on his experience working in Iraq and the many questions it raised as his sense of purpose came into conflict with other considerations about what was right.

Structural Instability

Baghdad in June 2010 was a different place than the city Rikabi had experienced just a year before. While sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite factions had decreased, unsuccessful parliamentary elections had led to a political stalemate.

“The power vacuum had been filled with violence,” Rikabi writes. Moreover, U.S. troops were due to pull out in September to make way for an Iraqi security force; the levels of violence looked likely to surge higher. Was al-Qaida behind some of the new wave of attacks? The truth was that no one really knew.

Rikabi found the situation on the ground to be tense. In mid-June, bombers and gunmen attacked the Central Bank of Iraq. The attackers, it seems, were led by someone determined to destroy the economic infrastructure of the country, and he began to worry that his job would make him a target. Still, the only way to put such thoughts out of his head seemed to be to throw himself into his work.

A Bad Day at the Office

On the morning of June 20, Rikabi was brainstorming ideas for a large-scale infrastructure project aimed at helping Iraq get back on its feet. Around 10:30 a.m., he left his bank to get something to drink. By 11 a.m. he was taking a bathroom break. As he was washing his hands he heard a sound like thunder followed by high-pitched screaming. A cloud of dust blew in the window behind him.

Bombs always come in twos here, he thought numbly, and even as the words formed there were more bangs and another cloud of dust. Back out in the hall, Rikabi found panic and chaos, with doors blown in, glass shattered and papers scattered everywhere. He also saw one dazed-looking security guard wandering about, bleeding from the head. Yet everyone else seemed fine. Was it possible there had been no casualties?

Later he learned that 26 people had died, all of them outside the building, after a security guard, in his last act, had closed the gate on a suicide bomber. Another bomber had barreled in after with more explosives, but fallen into the hole left by the first. The street outside was littered with rubble and with the dead and wounded.

His bank had been the intended target of the bombers, but it was still standing, thanks to the security personnel and effective blast walls.

Pulling Together Through Times of Trouble

“Don’t worry,” said his housekeeper, later that afternoon in the residential compound where he lived. “You’ve just had your first boom.”

In the midst of the stress and disillusionment, Rikabi was impressed by the community spirit he saw everywhere around him. People worked hard to make him laugh. A friend quietly gave his laptop a deep clean to remove all traces of the dust from the bomb. He saw the surviving security personnel laughing and playing football — getting on with life in the midst of crisis. Meanwhile, his bank’s investment team moved their operations to the residential compound, for safety’s sake, and worked harder than ever, even holding meetings at 1 a.m. It was a time of confusion and fear, but also of inspiring work ethics and camaraderie.

Even so, the blasts had shaken Rikabi’s sense of what was the right thing to do. Not only was his safety clearly at risk, but he also started reconsidering his reasons for being in the country. What was the point in working to improve Iraq when some of his fellow Iraqis targeted the very enterprises that were trying to help them? He was working in part to support his mother, but was it fair to risk his life to that end? Since he had the option of getting out of Iraq, how much was he prepared to risk for the altruism of staying?

Ammar Al-Rikabi worked with Professor Alberto Ribera on a series of first-person case studies covering his summer internship in 2009, his first summer of full employment (as discussed here) and then two more on what happened in the following four years in terms of his career and the geopolitical and economic developments in Iraq, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan. The cases include facts about Iraq and Rikabi’s immediate and subsequent thoughts on his circumstances. One exhibit is a reprint of Rikabi’s letter written less than 24 hours after surviving the bombing of his bank.

Case studies are meant to serve as launching points for class discussion. This dramatic case raises questions about doing what is right on a personal, professional and ethical level. Would you continue to work after the bombing? Why or why not?

The post Working In Iraq: The Choice Between Safe And Right? appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Waleed Abu al-Khair

Christian and Muslim clerics and Egyptians from all walks of life turned out in force to condemn the slaughter of 21 Coptic Christians at the hands of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) in Libya and to pray for their souls.

Religious services, processions and funerals took place across the country last week, with many sermons focusing on national unity and solidarity as Egyptians expressed their anger and grief over the horrific crime.

On February 15th, ISIL’s Libyan branch posted a video to extremist websites that shows the kidnapped men, clad in orange jumpsuits, being forced to kneel on a beach before being pushed to the ground and killed by masked gunmen.

“The Coptic Church has held a Central Mass for the souls of Egypt’s martyrs who were betrayed in Libya at the hands of the terrorist ISIL,” the Rev. Michael Boutros of the Diocese of Shubra told Al-Shorfa.

The Cathedral of St. Mark in al-Abassiya, headed by the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark Tawadros II, held the mass on February 17th.

Following the service, a large number of Coptic activists and several politicians took part in a symbolic funeral procession, Boutros said.

Similar memorial services were held simultaneously in churches across the country, he said, in addition to masses for three consecutive days in the hometowns of the victims.

“Not only churches, but some mosques also joined in with prayers for the souls of the martyrs and condemnation of this barbaric act,” the Coptic priest said.

Churches around the world also held memorial services in which Christian and Muslim expatriates and staff from diplomatic missions took part.

The Coptic Orthodox Church in London held a service to memorialise the victims, as did the Virgin Mary Coptic Orthodox Church in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Services also took place in the city of Houston in the US and in Melbourne, Australia, among others.

“The only and best way to confront the extremism spread by terrorist organisations led by ISIL is for members of society in all its sects and denominations to stand together,” said Samir Ratib, who is a member of the executive committee of the Free Egyptians Party.

“This extremism has gone global and is being perpetrated by a gang that has nothing to do with Islam, as they claim,” Ratib told Al-Shorfa.

Secular political parties will roll out several campaigns to highlight the real identity of ISIL and to raise awareness among young Egyptians so they do not fall prey to extremist ideology, he said.

After taking part in the funeral for the slain Copts, Mustafa Sherif who serves on the executive committee of the al-Wafd party, expressed his deepest regrets for what happened in Libya “under the cover of Islam”.

There is an urgent need for solidarity to face the threat of ISIL’s ideology, he said, adding that it is everyone’s responsibility to help spread awareness.

In this regard, he added, political parties have a very important role to play in raising awareness, fostering a culture of accepting others and safeguarding minds from radicalism.

Sheikh Samih al-Zein, imam of Salahudin Mosque in Cairo, also took part in the Cathedral of St. Mark’s mass and symbolic funeral with a group of Muslim and Christian residents from his neighborhood.

A tragedy for all Egyptians

Al-Zein said he took part in the service to express his solidarity with the martyrs’ families and to stress that “this painful tragedy has affected everyone without exception”.

“Copts constitute the foundation of the Egyptian people and their roots go back thousands of years,” he said.

Cairo merchant Mahmoud al-Bolti, who also participated in the religious services, described his decision to take part as a “compulsory national duty”.

As a Muslim, he said, he feels obliged to stand against any behaviour that would harm anyone.

“Egypt has been known throughout history for the solidarity of its people,” he said. “I give thanks to God that Copts are aware enough when it comes to the conspiracies concocted against Egypt and Egyptians and repeated attempts to create sectarian strife.”

“Those that killed the Coptic workers in Libya are not Muslims and are nothing more than terrorists that wear the mask of Islam,” civil engineer Magdi Ibrahim, who is a Copt, told Al-Shorfa.

“The Central Mass held at the cathedral has turned into a popular and national movement, with everyone taking part without exception,” he said. “You could not tell Muslims and Christians apart, nor could you differentiate between Catholic Copts, Orthodox Copts, Evangelicals or Catholics. It was a spectacular scene.”

The post Egyptians Of All Faiths Pray For Copts Killed By Islamic State appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Sukant Chandan*

Malcolm X is esteemed as a towering figure in the history of resistance against the ‘Western’ capitalist-colonial order for, in the main, two reasons: he and those he worked with took inspiration, leadership and positive examples from actually existing global ‘Third World’ or Black Resistance against colonialism and neo-colonialism and applied that to the struggle of Black people against the system of oppression.

Malcolm X brought a no compromising approach to the Black liberation struggle in the USA at a time when the Black masses were intensifying their struggle against the equally intensifying white supremacist resistance that withheld – and still withholds – the rights and liberation of our peoples. He took the example of the growing victories of Asia and especially Africa and explained that Black people in the USA should be taking a lead from them in terms of ideologies and organisational forms of struggle. At the same time Malcolm X advocated that the Third World or Global South liberation struggles and newly independent radical countries should come to support the struggle of the Black masses in the West against both sections against the common enemy.

It was for those reasons that Malcolm X, making serious headway in marrying the global and localised struggles, that the powers that be killed him and made him a martyr. Therefore across the planet people recognise Malcolm X as one of the highest personifications of the potentiality of struggle in the West. It is no wonder that he remains a primary inspiring example informing our understanding and struggles today, and for these reasons amongst others, some of us are developing the Malcolm X Movement in Britain.

Inspired by the man himself, The Malcolm X Movement is a Black and Asian decolonial and anti-imperialist initiative launching in August 2015, which is trying to develop unity among the peoples of the Global South. White comrades are involved in the MXM and work just as hard as any other members, but have no veto power in the structure of the MXM. The reason why we decided on this is that there is a dearth of radical Black and Asian organisations in Britain and a preponderance of white left and westernised left organisations who either are uninterested, hostile to or/and ignorant of the histories, legacies and on-going challenges and advances of the peoples, countries, movements and governments of the Global South against neo-colonialism and all the oppressions of the ‘colonial matrix of power’ including amongst others white supremacy, misogyny, environmental destruction and the physical and mental genocide against those resisting and being oppressed by neo-colonialism.

The genesis of the MXM starts in June 2012. A network of around 30 activists mostly in their late 20s came together from a variety of political backgrounds to plan launching the movement in 2015. The initiators of this process knew back then that 2015 was a big year as it is the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination.

Before the Malcolm X Movement (MXM) has even launched properly, we are delivering the first annual Malcolm X Film Festival in March-April and have conducted a year-long free course on white supremacy through the MXM initiative of the Assata-Tupac Liberation School, as well as our first public event, attended by nearly 200 overwhelmingly Black and Asian youth in June 2014, entitled Strike the Empire Back.

In late 2014 we began tentatively organising towards the first annual Malcolm X Film Festival as a three-day event only in London, which has now turned into a series of seven events in at least six cities including in occupied Ireland (‘Northern Ireland’) in Belfast with other cities as other activists wanted to host events. The film festival is a truly historical political event for radical Black and Asian politics on this island for several reasons. It is the biggest initiative of decolonial Black- and Brown-led politics on this island for the last 25 years or so. Unfortunately not since the last years of the radical Third World Bookfair has this country seen such.

The amount of support it has and is receiving is similarly unprecedented, with some 36 (and counting) organisations involved.

The event is being supported by some of the most inspiring political movements on the planet today fighting neo-colonialism such as the revolutionary Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Their iconic leader Leila Khaled will be speaking at an event. The Libyan Popular National Movement are also an official supporting organisation despite one of their main spokespersons – Dr Moussa Ibrahim – still being wanted by NATO! Speaking via video link he will be imparting how Malcolm X inspires the peoples of Libya to struggle against those who have lynched, raped and persecuted dark-skinned, Black Africans and Libyans and those opposing NATO’s project there.

Also important, we have the Black Panther veterans association, which gathers all the Black Panther veterans in the Black Panther Alumni, supporting the film festival. Members of Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic-Front) are also speaking from of one of the most effective decolonial Pan-African and radical anti-imperialist states on the continent. And of course it is a real honour to have someone from the Shabazz family speaking via video link at the Malcolm X Film, sister Ilyasah Shabazz, an articulate and inspiring political activist and author in her own right and one of the daughters of Malcolm X. One cannot underemphasise how powerful it is to have the Shabazz family, the PFLP, ZANU-PF, the Black Panthers and Irish revolutionaries and many others supporting such an event.

The Film Festival will feature three panels with related themed speeches and interviews from Malcolm X, especially from the last few years of his life. The speakers and discussions will echo the themes being discussed in the three panels:

• Civil Rights & Black Power
• Global Unity & Internationalism
• Legacy, Continuity and Challenges

The idea of the first annual Malcolm X Summer Festival came out of the simple recognition that there is no flagship annual event in Britain focused towards celebrating and learning about Black and Asian struggles, our culture of resistance and humanity and on-going challenges. The Malcolm X Summer Festival seeks to celebrate through a diversity of workshops, panels, film showings, and other cultural and political activities engaging thousands across the country.

The Assata-Tupac Liberation School is the educational arm of the MXM which starts another annual course this May hosted in central London but accessible to people beyond who cannot physically attend via live streams, podcasts, youtube uploads and reading outlines and reading lists delivered by revolutionary experts and participants of struggles of the Global South. And it’s free! The Liberation School is where young people can develop themselves with the ideological tools for becoming revolutionaries, no other organised structure other than this liberation school exists in this country which delivers an on-going professionally constructed and free educational course in basically: Revolution.

Furthermore to all of the above, the MXM is launching grassroots campaigns at the Malcolm X Summer Festival, which will address some of the direct and immediate problems that our communities are facing and exposing how they impact us on a global level.

The reason the MXM has conducted a liberation school course, a well attended and successful public event, a film festival and a summer festival before we have even launched, is that we have seen too many times when organisations seek to recruit and be active that they have actually done very little and have very little to offer. Rather, the MXM has sought to show people what we are capable of achieving, what we stand for, how we operate and who we are and what we strategically and tactically seek to do for the years ahead.

When the entire so-called ‘west’ is going deeper into crisis on all levels, as the west increasingly strikes, as its global positions of hegemony are slowly being whittled away by the growing capacity of the Global South, while the repression in the west in the forms of oppression of women and girls, of young people, white supremacy, housing and social problems all of which is an asymmetric mirror reflection, a microcosm, of the neo-colonial and NATO covert and overt wars against the peoples of the world, it is imperative more than ever to build a base of resistance to this order from right here in the UK, within the heart of whiteness. The MXM invites people to get involved, to contribute what we can in our modest way to the process of standing up against this system of oppression and standing with those who have and continue to effectively counter and destroy oppression and open up a new liberated future to Humanity.

*Sukant Chandan is one of the coordinators of the Malcolm X Movement. He has been involved in global solidarity with struggles of the people of Global South against neo-colonialism for nearly twenty years including work around struggles in Palestine, Colombia, Korea, Turkey, Zimbabwe and Libya. He was one of the co-founders of the radical youth coup the Che-Leila Youth Brigades in the early 2000s, which was launched from occupied Ramallah, Palestine at the height of the Second Intifada in 2002. He has also been involved in grassroots work in initiatives such as the Culture Move and other projects around issues of police brutality and racist and religious hate crimes. He appears regularly on Russia Today and Press TV in advocating for the rights and resistance of peoples against neo-colonialism.

The post Introducing The Malcolm X Movement – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

In the days following the brazen murder of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov directly in front of the Kremlin, Russia watchers have been agog with rumours, theories, and warnings of the darkness to come.

But in as frequently as we have come to use terms such as “new low” and “turning point” with regard to political events in Russia, it remains a question whether this event will trigger a genuine departure from the normal repressive operations of this administration and how the rest of the world deals with its profoundly reckless leadership.

On the one hand, it fits a depressingly familiar pattern of politically charged violence in Russia, preceded by the infamous slayings of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, former spy Alexander Litvinenko, and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov (among many others – see a list here). Pretty much nothing has happened as a consequence when the Russian government is involved in or obstructs investigations into murders of its own citizens.

On the other hand, the slaying of Nemtsov is completely unprecedented – it’s the first time a former Deputy Prime Minister and a sitting municipal member of parliament has been killed in such a fashion. This is a man under constant state surveillance at all times. The murder was done with a similar attention toward theatrics used in Islamic State videos – on the middle of the famous Bolshoi Moskvoretsky bridge over the Moskva River, directly south of the Kremlin, under the iconic gaze of the St. Basil’s Cathedral domes. There are fewer places you could select under greater security and CCTV surveillance – and the authors of this barbarity saw it as a perfect stage.

We now will have to painfully watch the international community go through what is sure to be an excruciating process of (once again) granting Vladimir Putin “the benefit of the doubt,” just like was done with the shooting down of flight MH-17, unprovoked invasions and annexations against multiple sovereign states, the repeated brutal murders of his critics, and the festering rot of corruption that has subsumed the structures of the Russian government.

How Putin is able to patiently await his absolution of responsibility is possible in part due to the Herculean propaganda effort that confuses citizens, misleads media, and diminishes the importance of basic facts, logic, and reason.

Within hours of the incident, the machine was at work, casting Nemtsov’s murder as an elaborate opposition conspiracy to embarrass the Kremlin (a tireless classic), a terrorist plot by Islamic extremists, and even a lover’s revenge. And the absurd idea that it was his own friends who killed him isn’t just being peddled by dim-witted Internet trolls, it was officially declared in a statement by the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office that this would be one line of their investigation. It’s pretty unusual for investigators to begin speculating on theories of motive to the media within 8 hours of a homicide, but this clearly isn’t going to be a normal case.

Over the course of the coming weeks, confusion will only deepen.  This familiar process has been brilliantly described at length by Peter Pomerantsev, who argues that the Kremlin’s strategy is to disorganise “the enemy” by pushing out multiple levels of fake, distorted, or partly true but misleading news stories.

“At the core of this strategy is the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth. This notion allows the Kremlin to replace facts with disinformation,” Pomerantsev writes, citing the example of the MH17 coverage on Russian propaganda media like RT. “The aim was to distract people from the evidence, which pointed to the separatists, and to muddy the water to a point where the audience simply gave up on the search for truth.”

They are certainly hoping that we give up on Nemtsov, too. But we shouldn’t.

The main argument in Putin’s defence will be that this murder serves him no strategic interest, and actually damages the standing of the administration.

First, this line of argument should be discarded based on the presumption of regularity problem in the Russian government – just because something appears irrational doesn’t mean it won’t happen. If the Russian state operated always operated as a rational actor, then we wouldn’t have a war in Ukraine but instead a flourishing economy focused on deepening political and economic integration with Europe.

Secondly, people are being very uncharitable toward Nemtsov’s value and his impressive body of research. Yes, it is true that he has taken steps back in terms of public visibility, and yes it is true he can’t pull the kinds of crowds that rally for Alexei Navalny or other younger leaders who don’t carry the stain of 1990s liberalism. He was always a guy more popular in DC and London than in his hometown, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But his series of well researched reports, including an upcoming exposé on the true costs of the war in Ukraine as well as detailed accounts of Putin’s massive personal corruption, should not be discounted.

Even if people didn’t view Nemtsov as the most powerful among the opposition, these themes touch a very raw nerve among Putin and the ruling security clan.  Boris understood and sought to raise awareness of the fact that under the Vladimir Putin era the Russian government, without exaggeration, has become involved in a level of criminality not seen in Europe since the Third Reich.  Calling him a “kleptocrat” does not come close to contextualising his geostrategic game, because unlike many of the world’s authoritarian-leaning leaders, Putin sits atop an immense fortune that permits him a much wider range of action than most people realize.

We also cannot discount the level of desperation in the Kremlin right now in terms of the economic crisis, rapidly depleting reserves, unaffordable food, and no end in sight for low oil prices. The killing of Nemtsov in such a symbolic manner sends a grave threat to any group seeking to challenge the state during this moment of weakness, and will become an obsessive controversy that will distract attention from other areas of interest.

We can only hope that the international community will understand the fact that Putin is to blame for killing Boris Nemtsov.  As Janusz Bugajski writes, “major figures do not get assassinated within smelling distance of the Kremlin without orders from above.” Even if he did not personally order it, he oversaw the creation of an environment of hatred and rabid nationalism in which such an act would logically be viewed as a patriotic gesture. Even worse, he has created a state structure that is held together not by law but by diktat – so even if some morally repugnant entrepreneurs did the dirty deed, they can never be revealed as it would be an admission that Putin does not have control.

Sadly, the emperor would rather watch the kingdom go down in flames than acknowledge that he wears no clothes.

The post Yes, Blame Putin For Nemtsov’s Murder – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By William Chislett*

Spain’s merchandise exports rose for the fifth consecutive year in 2014 and set a new record, but their growth was the slowest since 2008. With the economy now firmly recovering, thanks to stronger domestic demand, this slowdown raises the question of whether the export success will tail off (see Figure 1).

Exports rose 2.5% to €240 billion and imports increased 5.7% to €264.5 billion. Import growth was faster than that of exports for the first time since 2006. As a result, the trade balance was 53.4% higher at €24.5 billion, but still low by traditional standards (the second-smallest figure since 1998). The lower trade deficit (€100 billion in 2007 at the peak of the boom when the country was living beyond its means) has helped to turn a staggering current account deficit of 10% of GDP into a modest surplus in the last two years.

The key coverage ratio (the percentage of imports covered by exports) remained high in 2014 at 90.7%, up from 66.8% in 2008, the year the Spanish economy went into a prolonged decline. That year exports were only €189.2 billion.

The €50.8 billion rise in exports since 2008 (more than 5% of GDP) is a remarkable achievement, enabling the country to weather its recession more smoothly. But for the positive contribution of external demand every year since 2008 (reversing eight years of negative external demand), Spain’s recession would have been deeper.

The spurt in exports moved Spain from 20th position in 2012 in the world league table of exporters to 18th place in 2013 (latest year available), as its global market share rose from 1.6% to 1.7% (the same as India). Germany’s much larger share dropped to 7.7%, France stood still at 3.1% and Italy increased to 2.8% (see Figure 2).

Export growth has been faster than Germany’s and France’s, albeit from a smaller base. It has been spurred by productivity gains, restored cost competitiveness and firms, particularly medium-sized ones, making a much greater effort to sell abroad which in some cases has been a matter of survival.

The sharp rise in unemployment has reduced wages in real terms and lowered unit labour costs. The government’s labour market reforms have also enabled companies to negotiate wages and working conditions more flexibly. These factors, in turn, have spurred foreign direct investment in Spain, some of which has gone to major exporting industries, notably the automotive industry.

Not only has the volume of exports increased, but there has also been some success in diversifying Spain’s markets outside the EU, which takes almost 70% of total exports (see Figure 3). Sales to the US, a difficult market to penetrate, rose 22.6% and those to Asia 16.3%. Exports to Latin America, however, fell 6.7% and accounted for 5.8% of the total compared with 7.5% for tiny neighbouring Portugal.

The main sectors that contributed to the 2.5% growth in exports (see Figure 4) were the automotive (0.9 pp), consumer manufactures (0.7 pp) and food, drink and tobacco (0.7 pp).

The question now is whether Spain will be able to consolidate its success and build on it, or whether those companies that only began to export after 2008, as a result of the crisis, will give up because of the stronger domestic market and the ease with which they can sell in it. In other words, is Spain’s export success due to structural or cyclical factors? If it is structural, then Spain will have achieved an important change in its economic model. This year’s exports will give an indication. The European Commission forecasts export growth of 5.4% this year, more than double that in 2014 and above the average EU-28 rise of 4.1%.

Domestic demand is forecast to contribute 2.6 percentage points to this year’s GDP growth, while net exports’ contribution (external demand) will be 0.3 points negative (leaving overall growth at 2.3%), according to the European Commission. In 2013, the last year when Spain was in recession, domestic demand’s contribution was 2.7 points negative and net exports 1.4 points positive, leaving growth at -1.3%.

In order to build on its export success, Spain needs more medium-sized and large companies. Almost 40% of employment in Spain is generated by large and medium-sized companies, which respectively account for 0.1% and 0.7% of total companies, while the remaining 60% of jobs are generated by 99.2% of companies –and 95% of firms employ fewer than 10 people–. Only 0.8% of Spain’s more than 3 million companies employ more than 50 workers, compared with 3.1% of German firms (see Figure 5).

Spain’s 100 largest exporters out of a total of more than 135,000 exporters account for around 40% of total exports. Bigger companies tend to be more likely to export and successful at it, as they are likely to be more productive, better able to compete and more resilient in hard times.

The Circulo de Empresarios, a business people’s organisation, and ICEX, the foreign trade institute, among others, are supporting the Cre100do project, which offers information, advice and coaching to 100 medium-sized exporters.

One factor holding back the creation of more medium-sized companies (50-250 workers) is that they suffer the highest effective tax rates, as small ones enjoy concessions and the big ones often manage to find loopholes. Once a company’s annual turnover surpasses €6 million, tax audits become more rigorous. The government needs to change regulations so that medium-sized firms do not feel penalised.

The export success is galvanising the government’s enthusiastic support for the free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the US, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which began to be negotiated in June 2013 and could benefit Spain more than the EU average.

About the author:
William Chislett is Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute.

The post Spain’s Merchandise Exports Continue To Flourish, But Lose Steam – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

South Korea’s nuclear safety regulator has approved a seven-year licence extension for the refurbished and uprated Wolsong 1 pressurized heavy water reactor. The unit has been offline for two years while discussions continued on renewing its licence.

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) announced today that it had voted in favour of the 32-year-old Candu 6 reactor operating until 2022. Following a 14-hour meeting, seven government-appointed members of the commission voted in favour of the licence extension, while two members abstained.

Wolsong 1 – the country’s second-oldest power reactor – began generating power in 1983 but was taken out of operation in April 2009 for an extended maintenance outage that included replacement of all its pressure tubes and calandria tubes. Candu reactors are designed to undergo refurbishment after approximately 25 years of operation, requiring a major outage but allowing reactor life to be extended by up to 30 years. For all Candu reactors, this involves complete retubing. The reactor came back into operation in July 2011 with its performance raised from 629 MWe to 657 MWe. However, Wolsong 1’s operating licence expired around the end of 2012.

The NSSC began a process of stress tests, checks and discussions which culminated last October with a conclusion by the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety that the unit is suitable for operation until November 2022 given certain engineering improvements over the long term.

Plant owner Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) welcomed the commission’s decision and said it aims to return the unit to operation in April.

In December 2007, Korea’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) gave approval for Kori 1 – the country’s oldest reactor – to continue operating for a further ten years. The 576 MWe pressurized water reactor started up in 1977.

The post South Korea: Regulators Approve Wolsong Heavy Water Reactor Extension appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Shahriar Kia*

In April, 2013, the US and UN were warned that a terrorist attack may be about to take place by the Iraqi forces affiliated with Iranian Qods force, based on the preparations being made for it outside a refugee Camp, 60 miles north of Baghdad, home to 3000 Iranian dissidents. The result of ignoring those warning was that there was a massacre inside the camp on September 1, 2013 after attackers dressed in Iraqi army clothing entered the camp. 52 unarmed civilians inside the camp were killed. Of course, that was definitely not the end of the line.

Recently there have been very suspicious activities and measures against the same people now in Camp Liberty, adjacent to Baghdad international airport which are the reminder of Iraqi forces’ measures before the Ashraf massacre on 1 September.

On Sunday 18 January, three militiamen entered Camp Liberty under the pretext of going to the Iraqi clinic inside the camp for treatment. Contrary to their known duty of preventing the entry of outsiders and checking their identities, the police officers at the Camp’s entrance did not stop them.

The three individuals had military uniform on, but they were neither from the army nor from the police. Their physical appearance and having beard showed they were militias. At a time that the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq is growing day by day, the terrorist militias affiliated to this regime have intensified their reconnaissance activities and preparations for attacking Liberty.

The security of Camp Liberty residents, supposedly protected by the United Nations, and guaranteed by the United States of America, is under threat. Silence and turning one’s back to these threats by the terrorist groups affiliated with Iranian regime is itself the main element allowing the growth of this fundamentalist octopus all over the world. This time, France and Europe have been targeted. The horrific massacre of 10 journalists and two police officers in Paris can be easily described as the latest sign of the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, and if we follow up on such ideas we will reach Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie.

The important question that comes to mind here is that is the world condemned to living in fear of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism? And is there a solution to end this crisis and maintain world peace and security? The answer is simple: First one must see the root of this crisis, and then pay the price to uproot it!

When terrorism feeds from one ideology, the scope of its threats and destructive consequences are much wider than nuclear bombs.

Amongst the political regimes of the new age is a regime that has ruled Iran for the past 35 years, known as a religious and terrorist dictatorship with its intellectual pillars founded on terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. With the Ayatollahs coming to power in Iran back in 1979, the violent way of thought of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism have become political power, in a country with the importance of Iran in the Middle East. This way of thought has become the force behind the development of fundamentalism in Islamic countries.

Terrorism and crimes against innocent people in the name of Islam was first founded by Khomeini, the founder of the “Islamic republic” in Iran. The fatwa (An official order from an Islamic religious leader) to murder English writer Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born British author for writing “Satanic Verses”, and terror attacks afterwards were launched against a number of publishers and interpreters of this book, a path followed today by Islamic extremist terrorists in Paris. Until the source and roots of this phenomenon is not destroyed in Tehran, it will grow like cancer.

Godfather of Terrorism and extremism is in Iran

The Iranian daily newspaper of ‘Yaletharat al-Hussein’ belongs to the Ansar Hezbollah, which is financed and given a four-story building by the office of Iranian regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in its latest issue no. 780, welcomed the assassination of four caricaturists and eight journalists of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris.

The result of this state-sponsored terrorism is the growth and increase of number of extremist cells and groups across the Middle East from Yemen to Lebenon, which is currently seeking to establish an “Islamic caliphate” of their own. Beheadings, amputating hands and feet, torture to the point of death against those accused of enmity against God, are all actions first founded and instituted by the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

However, one must take into consideration that the Iranian regime profits from advertising and promoting this policy in the minds of its political counterparts, and this is the same philosophy of political terrorism and the final use of terrorism, meaning creating a rule of fear and horror.

The deal for the sake of having the deal is a dangerous misconception by Obama

In November 2014, in a letter to Khamenei, US President Barack Obama promised to include the Iranian regime in the international coalition’s operations against ISIS in return for a nuclear deal. Exchanging letters to Khamenei, the senior leader of the state which, according to Obama’s own State Department, is the leading sponsor of global terrorism and one of the main human rights violators in our day and age, results in encouraging terrorism and fundamentalism, the rise of ISIS, the current crisis in the Middle East from Yemen to Lebanon, massacre of Iranian opposition members (PMOI) in Iraq, and of course most recently the Paris massacre.

Therefore, to stop terrorism, one must target the source of its mentality and the historic cradle of terrorism in the name of Islam. And by supporting Iranian regime’s alternative under the leadership of a Muslim woman, Maryam Rajavi, founded on a democratic and pluralist Islam, with over 35 years of experience fighting fundamentalism in Iran, is the sole solution and cultural-political alternative in the face of Islamic extremism, and will respond to the international community’s vital needs.

*Shahriar Kia is a political analyst and press spokesman for Camp Liberty residents in Iraq, members of Iranian opposition PMOI, also known as MEK, which advocates for a democratic, secular and nuclear-free Iran, with separation of church and state and gender equality. He graduated from North Texas University.His Twitter handle is @shahriarkia

The post Terrorist Threat To Iranian Dissidents Is Threat To World Security – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

I’m just catching up on a story from two weeks ago that I was unable to post at the time because I was busy with another couple of stories — the dismissal of David Hicks’ Guantánamo conviction, and the ongoing campaign to free Shaker Aamer.

The story I didn’t have time to report involved the European Court of Human Rights and the CIA “black site” that existed on Polish soil from December 2002 to September 2003. In July last year, the court delivered an unprecedented ruling — that, as the Guardian described it, Poland “had violated international law by allowing the CIA to inflict what ‘amounted to torture’ in 2002 at a secret facility in the forests of north-east Poland. The court found that Poland ‘enabled the US authorities to subject [the detainees] to torture and ill‑treatment on its territory’ and was complicit in that ‘inhuman and degrading treatment.’”

The ruling dealt with two of the “high-value detainees” held in the site — Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia, for whom the torture program was specifically developed, even though it was subsequently discovered that he was not involved with Al-Qaeda, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi accused of involvement in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Both men were subjected to the ancient torture technique known as waterboarding, as well as a variety of other torture techniques, and, while Abu Zubaydah is still held without charge or trial, al-Nashiri is facing a war crimes trial in the military commissions at Guantánamo, a process that has been stuck on the pre-trial phase for years, as his defense team tries to raise the question of his torture and prosecutors do all they can to keep it hidden.

Reporting on the ruling, the Guardian added:

The July ruling marked the first time an international court condemned a nation for its part in the CIA’s “high value detainee extraordinary rendition program”, which aviation records and other clues suggest kept black sites in Romania, Afghanistan, Thailand and the British atoll of Diego Garcia. The court found it “inconceivable” that the CIA operated its international rendition program without Poland’s knowledge and consent.

The ruling was hugely significant, of course, as the quest for accountability for the Bush administration’s program of torture and extraordinary rendition and “black sites” continues.

Since the ruling last July, of course, acres of newsprint and hours of airtime have been given over to the executive summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into the CIA torture program, published in December — an extremely important addition to our knowledge of the torture program, but there is still no accountability in the US, where President Obama made it clear from the start of his presidency that he was not interested in holding his predecessors accountable for their crimes, and has blocked any attempt to do so in the US courts.

This map identifies the nine “black sites” named in the report — in Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Guantánamo, and four more in Afghanistan.

As I explained in an article last February, “Poland and Lithuania Haunted by Their Involvement in Hosting CIA Torture Prisons“:

In the long search for accountability for the torturers of the Bush administration, which has largely been shut down by President Obama, lawyers and human rights activists have either had to try shaming the US through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or have had to focus on other countries, particularly those that hosted secret CIA torture prisons, or had explicit involvement in extraordinary rendition.

Successes have been rare, but hugely important — the conviction of CIA officials and operatives in Italy, for the blatant daylight kidnap of Abu Omar, a cleric, on a street in Milan in February 2003, and the court victory in Macedonia of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen kidnapped in Macedonia, where he had gone on a holiday, and sent to a CIA “black site” in 2003 until the US realized that his was a case of mistaken identity. In the UK, the whiff of complicity in torture at the highest levels of the Blair government led to pay-offs for the British nationals and residents sent to Guantánamo.

Court cases were also launched in Spain, although there were strenuous efforts to suppress them, in part because of US involvement (under President Obama) — although one case is still very much active, with a judge ruling just three months ago that it can proceed despite a government appeal — and currently there are efforts to hold the US accountable before the the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for its use of Djibouti in a number of cases involving “extraordinary rendition” and “black sites.”

Those efforts have been reinforced since the publication of the executive summary of the CIA torture report, which is opening up new avenues for those seeking accountability. On December 17, for example, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, in Germany, “lodged criminal complaints against former CIA head George Tenet, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the administration of former US President George W. Bush,” accusing them of “the war crime of torture” under the German Code of Crimes against International Law.

In addition, following up on the mention of Diego Garcia above, in January this year Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, said “nefarious activities” had taken place on the island in the Indian Ocean, which the UK leases to the US military, and added that it was “difficult to think” that the UK authorities could have been unaware of prisoners being questioned there. To date, the UK has only admitted that two flights carrying prisoners stopped on Diego Garcia, which is clearly a far from complete admission.

As I also explained in my article from February last year, “Perhaps the most enduring of the ongoing investigations is in Poland, one of three European countries that hosted CIA “black sites,” the others being Romania and Lithuania.”

All three countries are featured in the Senate torture report, but while Poland has been permanently under the spotlight since October 2010, when al-Nashiri was granted “victim status” as a result of a prosecutorial investigation (followed by Abu Zubaydah in January 2011) — and, as soon as the torture report was issued, “Alexander Kwasniewski, Poland’s president from 1995-2005, admit[ted] for the first time that Poland had agreed to host a secret CIA ‘black site,’” as the Daily Telegraph put it — Romania had persistently stonewalled efforts to address its role in the torture program since the existence of the prisons first surfaced nearly ten years ago.

However, in December, the country’s former spy chief, Ioan Talpes, said that Romania had cooperated with the US torture program, with the provision of “at least” one prison in the country, in which “it is probable that people were imprisoned, and treated in an inhumane manner” between 2003 and 2006. He added, however, that Romania had “explicitly taken no interest in knowing what the CIA did there,” and was only involved in an effort to join NATO.

Lithuania, which briefly investigated its role in 2011, is also under the spotlight again, as Vice News reported in January, stating:

A dossier and briefing submitted to the Lithuanian prosecutor cross references newly obtained flight records with extracts from the US Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA detention and interrogation, which was declassified in December.

Investigators working for human rights NGO Reprieve pieced together information on detainee movements, contained in the Senate report, with court records, freedom of information requests and documentation obtained from European air traffic management organization Eurocontrol, as well as other sources. The dossier substantiates allegations that the “Violet” black site referred to in the Senate Intelligence Committee report was a secret prison operated in Lithuania between 2005-6 as part of the US’s post-9/11 extraordinary rendition program.

It also provides the firmest evidence yet that detainees were in fact held on the site, a claim which has consistently been met with Lithuanian denials and US silence.

In Poland, meanwhile, the European court rejected Poland’s appeal, which was filed in October, without providing an explanation on February 17, and, as the Guardian described it, “ordered Poland to pay €100,000 ($114,000) to al-Nashiri and €130,000 ($148,000) to Zubaydah.” The court “also demanded that Poland conduct an immediate and unsparing investigation into what happened at the jail, finding its previous inquiry into the prison flawed and insufficient.”

Responding, Poland’s foreign minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, said that the country would comply with the court order. “We have to do it,” he said in an interview on Trójka Polish Radio, “because we are a country that abides by laws.”

He stated that details would have to be worked out in the next few weeks, addressing the “question of how the money will be spent and if we will have to pay it directly to the people who sued us,” and added, “They will have a hard time using it while still in jail.” Joe Margulies, one of Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers, told The Bureau of Investigative Journalism that his client would donate the payment “to victims of torture.”

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Afghanistan’s new government should commit to including women on the negotiating team for any future peace talks with the Taliban, Human Rights Watch said Sunday.

On February 24, 2015, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told a cabinet meeting that peace talks would begin “within weeks,” but declined to provide any additional details. These would be the first negotiations since the government of President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah assumed office in September 2014.

“If peace talks in Afghanistan move forward, all parties should ensure that women have a meaningful presence on the negotiating teams,” said Heather Barr, senior women’s rights researcher. “President Ghani should protect human rights – especially women’s rights – by including women on the government’s negotiating team.”

Recent Afghan government statements indicate efforts to restart peace negotiations, but provide no clarity on government plans to “ensure increased representation of women” in all decision-making and mechanisms regarding conflict resolution, as set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and later resolutions.

Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, played a historic role in stressing the importance of women’s “equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.” In years since, the Security Council passed six additional resolutions on women, peace, and security. In 2015 the Security Council will convene a high-level review to push for greater implementation of resolution 1325 around the world.

During past efforts at peace negotiations, Afghan women’s rights activists have repeatedly spoken out about their fears that the government will trade away women’s rights in an effort to reach an accommodation with the Taliban. These fears have been exacerbated by the exclusion of women from the process. A 2014 study by Oxfam found that in 23 rounds of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban since 2005, one woman from the government was present on two occasions. No women were ever included in discussions between international negotiators and the Taliban.

Previous negotiations have typically occurred with little transparency, with the public often learning of them only after they occurred. This has prevented Afghan civil society groups, including women’s rights activists, from providing meaningful input to the government on their human rights concerns and their recommendations for ensuring human rights protections in the event a settlement is reached. For instance, activists seeking justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity have had no real opportunities to ensure that amnesty for these crimes will not be on the table in the negotiations.

“President Ghani has an opportunity to pursue peace negotiations in a manner that will reassure all Afghans that their human rights concerns will be taken into account,” Barr said. “He should seize this opportunity, and Afghanistan’s donors should press him to do so.”

The post Don’t Leave Women Out Of Afghanistan Peace Talks, Says HRW appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By John Rosenthal*

His jihadist career has taken on nearly mythical dimensions. According to some reports, he is the mastermind behind Islamic State media operations. According to another, he was recently the target of a “honey-trap” set by a female FBI agent sent to Syria in order to extract information from him. On February 9, the US State Department designated German citizen Dennis Cuspert as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Formerly known as “Deso Dogg,” during his days as one of Germany’s most well-known gangster rappers, Cuspert more recently adopted the nom de guerre Abu Talha al-Almani (the German). The State Department designation comes after Germany itself submitted Cuspert’s name to be included on the UN Security Council’s list of designated terrorists and terrorist entities.

There is no doubt that since arriving in Syria in summer 2013, Cuspert had become a very significant recruiter of foreign and, above all, German-speaking jihadists. There is, however, significant doubt whether Cuspert is today even still alive. His death was announced on Arabic-language jihadist websites and Twitter feeds last April. According to the initial reports, he was killed on April 20 in a suicide attack on an ISIS safe house carried out by the rival jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra.

Since that time, there appears to have been no verifiable sign of life from Cuspert. While numerous “new” pictures and videos of Cuspert have continued to emerge on the internet, none of this material is dateable. At least some of it has clearly been misconstrued in Western media reports and hence misdated. Moreover, since his reported death in April – and contrary to the impression given by the State Department announcement – Cuspert’s own activity as propagandist/recruiter has stopped cold.

This activity essentially involved two components: firstly, his appearance as featured “performer” in a series of highly-produced, professional quality videos celebrating jihad in Syria and encouraging German Muslims to join the fight; and, secondly, social media engagement via his own Twitter feed. Cuspert’s tweeting had been extremely prolific in the period immediately preceding his reported death. Thus, for example, on April 7 alone, Cuspert posted nearly sixty tweets.

Cuspert posted a last tweet on the morning of his reported death and then his Twitter feed went silent. (The tweet in question is no longer in his timeline, but it has been archived elsewhere.) The silence was momentarily broken on April 23 by a tweet announcing, “as salamu alaikum dear brothers and sisters i did not become shaheed [a martyr], it was a mistake, may allah accept the other bro.” This denial, like similar denials posted in other social media, was widely and enthusiastically disseminated by Cuspert fans and followers. Cuspert’s Twitter activity did not, however, resume. A cryptic tweet two weeks later, on May 7, announced, “Insallah soon back online with News around the State from the State of Honor [i.e. the Islamic State].with Love your Brother Abu Talha.” The promise was not kept.

Virtually all the very limited activity on the Twitter feed since then consists just of re-tweets and uncommented links to videos. The handful of “original” tweets are, like the April 23 and May 7 items, all in English. Cuspert had begun to experiment with tweeting in English, a language that he clearly did not master, before his reported death. But the great bulk of his Twitter activity was in his native German. This included extended conversations with a wide variety of interlocutors, including well-known German journalists Alfred Hackensberger and Florian Flade. There have been no such conversations since.

Following his reported death, Cuspert’s video activity likewise came to a halt. Some of his last tweets served to publicize the latest and in fact last videos in which he would star: For Allah and His Messenger, which shows Cuspert leading a chorus of masked mujahideen in a six-minute long nasheed or chant, and My Oath to the Islamic State. An over hour-long production, My Oath to the Islamic State contains both the famous oath in question and somewhat meandering reflections by Cuspert on why he decided to give it. Seated under a tree in a bucolic setting, Cuspert is filmed from several camera angles and 3D computer-generated captions are blended into the image from time-to-time to highlight particularly important points.

It should be noted that prior to his pledge of fealty, none of Cuspert’s videos were devoted to proselytizing specifically on behalf of the Islamic State. Indeed, in Raqma #3: And Allah is the Sustainer, a video released just months before his oath to ISIS, Cuspert can be seen cooperating with Jabhat al-Nusra and pleading for unity among the rival jihadist factions in Syria.

All of the supposedly “new” Cuspert videos that have emerged since his reported death are in fact just short amateur videos, which appear to have been shot with cell phones or cheap camcorders. Cuspert is present in these clips, along with other German- or Arabic-speaking jihadists, but he is not the focus. The clips have been posted on the web – in one case by an anti-ISIS organization – but, unlike Cuspert’s own videos, they have not been released under the logo of known jihadist media.

Some of this material appears to implicate Cuspert in atrocities. In one clip, for instance, he can be seen picking up a severed head. It must be said that he does not do so with the enthusiasm that one would expect of a seasoned jihadist and he quickly puts the head back down again. The clip was released in November by Deir ez-Zor is Being Slaughtered Silently, a group dedicated to documenting ISIS atrocities.

Efforts have been made to connect these clips with events that postdate his reported death: in particular, ISIS’s bloody conquest of the Shaer gas field near Homs in July and the massacre of hundreds of members of the Shaitat tribe in the region of Deir ez-Zor in August. But it is not in fact clear when exactly and under what circumstances the clips were filmed.

Just how hazardous such exercises can be, moreover, is demonstrated by another supposed pictorial sign of life of Cuspert: a famous photo reportedly showing him at Mosul dam in Iraq. ISIS briefly seized control of the dam in July. An alert Twitter user, however, identified the location rather as Tabqa dam in Syria.

Comparison of the photo to satellite imagery of Tabqa dam (see photo above right) makes clear that the photo is indeed taken at Tabqa. Note the cluster of small islands in the background of the Cuspert photo and the same small islands in the satellite image. The three steel towers in the background of the Cuspert photo are likewise visible in the satellite imagery. Tabqa dam is located roughly twenty miles from the ISIS stronghold Raqqa.

The Deir ez-Zor is Being Slaughtered Silently clip provides perhaps the most compelling evidence that Cuspert may indeed still be alive. The victims are identified as members of the Shaitat tribe, and Cuspert can be seen standing next to an Arabic-speaking jihadist who also figures prominently in some of the horrifying images that have emerged of the August massacres. It should be noted, however, that the man is dressed differently and the setting does not appear to be the same.

The Shaitat tribe is native to the region of Deir ez-Zor. As it happens, Cuspert was reportedly killed near Deir ez-Zor, at a time, namely, when ISIS was fighting to take control of the region. Does the clip document an earlier atrocity?

In any case, if Cuspert is still alive, why is he staying silent? In My Oath, he encouraged interested viewers to communicate with him on social media. There has been no such communication.

Cuspert’s silence, moreover, contrasts sharply with his vigorous reaction to an earlier report of his demise. In November 2013, Cuspert was reported killed in an airstrike by the Syrian air force that had taken place two months earlier. Video that emerged at the time showed his apparently lifeless body covered in blood in the aftermath of the attack. In early December, however, a clearly still convalescing Cuspert would re-emerge, displaying his scars and holding forth in an over hour-long interview on his injuries, the obligation of jihad, and the prospects that he would still become a shaheed or martyr. Cuspert noted matter-of-factly that he did not expect to survive the Syrian war.

As Cuspert got back on his feet, his propaganda activity, if anything, became even more intense, with several new videos being released and his Twitter feed being rolled out in January. Until, that is, April 20 and the Jabhat al-Nusra suicide attack against ISIS.

*John Rosenthal is a guest contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com, and author of The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion.

Source: This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com.

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By Brig D.S. Sarao*

Alok Bansal and Prodyut Bora (IE Feb 19) in their article have analysed the need for reconfiguring the existing tri–service command and control structure fairly well. There is no denying that inter-service rivalries, lack of jointmanship and the absence of a single point military adviser to the defence minister are major drawbacks responsible for weak strategic planning and higher direction of war at the national level.

To this add the absolute lack of confidence and an undercurrent of ‘us against them’ which exists between the Service HQs and the Ministry of Defence/bureaucracy. Compound this with the fact that the home ministry (with the Border Security Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police), has been made responsible for certain major aspects of border security and border management with China and Pakistan. That there is a problem, is well appreciated.

Where Alok and Prodyut have lost the plot is when they start comparing the American model and the challenges that the American military faces vis-à-vis the Indian context. The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, with over 160,000 of its active-duty personnel serving outside the United States and its territories, and an additional 70,000 deployed in various contingency operations to safeguard its interests. This type of power projection all around the globe by a country is based on its foreign policy and likely threats to its national interests or to its territorial integrity. Military analysts do not foresee India in any major expeditionary roles beyond its shores or borders.

For the threats which India is facing or is likely to face and the limited power projection capability which we envisage, the configuration of the three services in terms of the command and control structure existing at present is more than satisfactory and battle tested. The Indian army has six tactical (theater) commands based on clear cut geographical areas of responsibility. A Command Headquarter is akin to a field army headed by a three-star Lieutenant General. These army commanders are responsible for all combat operations within their area of responsibility (AOR) and have the mandate to operate with a remarkable degree of autonomy and independence within the military aim and parameters laid down by the IHQ of MoD, as tasked by the government.

A matrix structure of the type recommended by Alok and Prodyut, wherein the operational and support roles are split is already in place. There exists a very robust and flexible system of logistic support at the operational level in terms of the various combat support arms and services (supply, ordnance, medical, telecommunications, repairs etc) integral to the six field armies along with static areas and sub-areas supporting the field forces. The ‘ push’ system followed by the logistics support system ensures that the soldier at the front is provided with all necessities from hot food to boot laces and ammunition irrespective of where the formations are operationally deployed – within the sub-continent or outside.

Each of these logistic support services is headed by a three star general answerable to the army chief with a similar arrangement going downwards in the hierarchy up to the brigade level. In that sense, what is being suggested in terms of separation of operational and support roles, is actually old wine in new bottles. Coming on to the training part, the Indian Army has a Training Command (ARTRAC), also headed by a three star general, responsible for formulating and testing doctrines, training standards, norms and operational concepts including tri-service joint operations.

As in any other army, the training on ground per se, in accordance with the norms, quality and standards laid down, is the responsibility of the field force commanders at all levels. A largely similar arrangement exists in the Air Force (five operational ‘ theater’ commands along with a Training Command and a Maintenance Command) and the Navy (three ‘theater ‘ commands plus a Flag Officer Sea Training and 16 training establishments plus a Directorate of Logistics Support). In addition, the Strategic Forces Command is a tri-service organization which forms part of India’s Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) and is responsible for the management and administration of the country’s tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile. The Indian military’s chain of command runs from the President of India who is the supreme commander of the armed forces.

For functioning and employment, the armed forces are under the management of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), led by the minister of defence. All decisions for the employment of the military, including as part of the United Nations, is by the highest decision making body (CCS or the Cabinet Committee on Security) based on the advice of the three chiefs, in the absence of a five-star Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Herein lies a problem which has been correctly identified by Alok and Prodyut, more of which later.

The question which needs to be addressed is whether the India military in its present configuration has the ability to be a net provider of security, mainly in the Indian Ocean region. The answer is – Yes. Considering our national ethos, foreign policy and the absence of any territorial ambitions or desire to ‘police’ the world, the military is well configured to contribute effectively in enhancing mutual security of its neighbouring friendly countries, including dealing with transnational piracy or responding to disasters. The military with a 1.3 million-strong and well trained army, a potent air force with multi-dimensional ability and a navy which can dominate the Indian Ocean from the Straits of Hormuz to the Straits of Malacca and onwards to the Australian sea board, is well placed to enable India in fulfilling such a role in terms of capacity building, military diplomacy, military assistance or for deployment of forces to stabilize a situation in our area of interest. A point to be considered here is that military interventions are avoidable as the employment of military force, if done outside the purview of the United Nations, will always invite adverse international reaction and cause external as well as internal political turmoil, a lesson which India has learnt. However, this does not necessarily preclude the employment of the Indian military in out-of-area contingencies, for which it has the capacity and the capability even today, in its present form.

When and if CDS is in place, there will be an inherent ability to operate under a single command as per the tactical or strategic requirements. For looking after the Indian Ocean Rim and adjoining sea lanes of communication, we already have an amphibious brigade stationed in Port Blair under Fortress Commander, Andaman and Nicobar (a naval officer), this being the only true integrated command in the Indian military. Coming to special forces, which constitute the special operations capability of the Indian military, there are the MARCOS (Marine Commandos), an élite special operations unit of the Indian Navy and the highly trained Special Forces battalions of the army. Some time back, a proposal to have a joint command for the Special Forces was mooted in the Indian Cabinet Committee on Security. These élite forces operating under a single command (Joint Special Operations Command or J-SOC), are expected to be under the Integrated Defence Services headquarters and will include the existing special forces of the army, navy and air force.

These measures, if not killed because of bureaucratic intransigence and lack of military knowledge, will strengthen the clandestine and unconventional warfare capabilities of the armed forces to effectively tackle the challenges of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, both in and outside Indian territory. Once all this is in place, the armed forces will be in a position for contingency operations requiring rapid deployment in support of national policy, short of war. There is also the very powerful Para Brigade which is capable of rapid deployment and can be used in the airborne or the air assault role. There is no need for large amphibious forces or for an air assault corps considering the type and scope of operations which India is likely to be involved in.

If anything, it is not the revising of the command structure (other than having a CDS with full military authority and the implementation of the Kargil Review Committee Report) that is the need of the day. It is the requirement of the Indian Military keeping in pace with the revolution in military affairs. Amongst other things, speeding up the acquisition process of military equipment also requires immediate governmental attention. Procedural delays and getting approvals is a long drawn out procedure entailing clearances from as many as 18 MoD and related departments/agencies. Even the urgently needed equipment via the Fast Track Procurement (FTP) route with a 12-14 month timeline, is rarely ever met. Replacement of obsolete equipment, including the basic rifle of the Indian soldier, night vision and surveillance devices, guns for the artillery, revamping of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and the ordnance factories (so that ‘Make in India’ becomes a reality), modernizing air defence weaponry, pushing through the deals for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) and the long overdue naval platforms, overhauling the intelligence gathering and sharing ability — to name a few, are the matters which require rectification. Today the money and the ability to make our country more secure is there, but do our politicians and bureaucrats have the will?

(This article was written in response to  “Reconfiguring the military”  by  Alok Bansal and Prodyut Bora, orginally published in The Indian Express)

*Brig D.S. Sarao is a recently retired Army officer settled in Chandigarh (India) working as a free lance writer and have written a number of articles on current affairs and military matters. He can be contacted at tonysarao@gmail.com

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By Mrinal Kanta Das*

Two troopers of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) – Constable Gulab Yadav and Constable Narottam Das – were killed and another 12 were injured when Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres blew up a mini-bus carrying personnel near Nandai on the Imamganj – Dumaria route in Gaya District on February 24, 2015. The unit also came under fire from the Maoists after the improvised explosive device (IED) blast. According to Police sources, there was ‘heavy force mobilization’ in the area in the wake of an encounter in the vicinity a day earlier. The site of the explosion was part of an area believed to be safe, with regular traffic flows, and was not, prima facie in the ‘vulnerable’ category, which is why the COBRA unit took the liberty of travelling in a mini bus. A measure of complacency may also have crept in because of the decline in Maoist violence in the State in 2014.

According to the partial data compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), Bihar recorded 17 fatalities in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) related incidents in 2014, including seven civilians, seven Security Force (SF) personnel and three Maoists; these numbers represented a sharp drop from the 48 fatalities in 2013, including 21 civilians, 25 SF personnel and two Maoists. Indeed, on January 9, 2015, Bihar Police claimed that it had successfully contained LWE in the State, with the arrest of a number of Maoists and the recovery of explosives. According to figures released by Bihar Police Headquarters, though there were 105 incidents of Maoist violence in 2014, as against 103 in 2013, only 20 civilians were killed in 2014, against 36 in 2013. The number of Police killed also saw a sharp drop, to six in 2014, from 25 in 2013. [Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) data indicates that the number of civilians killed by Maoists in 2014 in Bihar was 26]. Maoists were also able to drastically reduce their own casualties in the State over 2013 and 2014, suggesting that the decline in Maoist violence may not entirely have been enforced by state, and could represent a choice by the Maoists to observe strategic silence. The February 24, 2015, explosion in Gaya is a reminder that Maoist strike capabilities are intact.

Bihar recorded one major incident (resulting in three or more fatalities) in 2014, in comparison to five such incidents in 2013. Three SFs were killed and another eight were injured under the Dhibra Police Station limits in Aurangabad District on April 7, 2014, while diffusing an IED.

The Maoists engaged in six encounters, 11 arson incidents, three attacks involving their Peoples Militia, and three recorded incidents of abduction in 2014. Crucially, as in 2013, Gaya, Aurangabad and Jamui saw the maximum number of violent incidents. The Maoists were also involved in several act of violence during the 16th Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) election. On March 27, 2014, for instance, about 100 Maoist cadres blew up two mobile towers, exploding powerful bombs at Manjhauli and Dumaria Bazar villages of Gaya District, ahead of then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Prime Ministerial Candidate Narendra Modi’s election rallies. Further on April 5, 2014, the Maoists ordered the closure of Janata Dal-United and BJP election offices at the Dumaria Block Headquarters in Gaya District. However, despite these actions, threats, and calls for election boycott, the voter turn-out in Bihar during the 2014 Lok Sabha election, at 56.28 per cent, was 11.82 per cent higher than the 2009 elections (44.46 per cent).

Huge amounts of arms and ammunition were recovered from 10 Districts of the State in 2014, particularly from Rohtas and Munger. East Champaran (21), Munger (25), Patna (6) and Muzaffarpur (31) recorded the maximum number of arrests, 83, out of a total of 164 arrests in the State in 2014, as compared to 110 in 2013. Among those arrested in 2014 were Azad Paswan, ‘secretary’ of the Sone Vindhyanchal Zonal Committee; Sunil Kumar aka Shambhuji aka Lambuji, a member of the ‘special area committee’; five ‘commanders’, one ‘central zonal area commander’, two ‘zonal commanders,’ two ‘sub-zonal commanders’ and five ‘area commanders.’

Maoist-related incidents (both violent and non-violent) were reported from 21 Districts, out of a total of 38 Districts in Bihar. On the basis of underground and over ground activities, three Districts – Aurangabad, Gaya, and Jamui – were categorized as highly affected in 2014; another three – Rohtas, Muzaffarpur and Munger – were moderately affected; while fifteen Districts – East Champaran, Patna, Arwal, Banka, Nawada, Kaimur, Lakhisarai, Jehanabad, Sheohar, Buxar, Vaishali, Saran, Khagaria, Bhojpur, Begusarai – remained marginally affected.

Under pressure of a rapidly changing situation, the Maoists claimed to have introduced ‘structural changes’ in their organization, introducing a ‘new committee’ with a focus on the Jharkhand-Bihar region, dismantling the existing Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee (BJSAC). The newly constituted East Bihar Eastern Jharkhand Special Area Committee (EBEJSAC) will include Dumka, Godda, Pakur and Jamtara under Santhal Pargana Division of Jharkhand; and Bhagalpur, Banka, Jamui, Lakhisarai and Monghyr in Bihar. This was part of the strategy adopted during the ‘fourth central committee meeting’ held in 2013.

The decline in tactical errors by state Forces was reflected in comparable declines in Maoist violence and strength. Unfortunately, the political situation in Bihar hardly provides a conducive environment to a sustained response to the enduring Maoist challenge in the State. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has often reiterated his position that development will result in a decline in Maoist activities, and this mantra was repeated by Jitan Ram Manjhi, who briefly served as the State’s Chief Minister between 20 May 2014 and 20 February 2015. On June 28, 2014, Manjhi declared that he disagreed with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s position that no talks would be held with the Maoists and that a befitting reply would be given to Maoist attacks: “Theoretically I disagree with what he (Singh) has said. Naxalism cannot be solved with the help of gun. We have to find the underlying reasons behind it. The only solution lies in all-round development of society… Frustration over lack of socio-economic-educational development and employment, as well as unavailability of justice among the weaker sections has led to Naxalism. The answer to it lies only in development.” Going a step further, on January 4, 2015, Manjhi stated, at a gathering at Tarapur in Munger District, that Maoists were “not wrong in demanding levy from contractors if quality of work is poor.” He also recounted his interaction with three Naxals before he became Chief Minister. According to media reports, Maoists were happy that in the wake of the Aurangabad Police firing on July 19, 2014, [two persons killed], Manjhi effectively intervened and ordered a high-level inquiry into the Police firing. The then Chief Minister also questioned the Police claim that the villagers, who were fired upon by the Police, were, in fact, Maoist sympathisers. Media reports suggest that anti-Maoist operations in the State slowed down considerably after the Aurangabad Police firing and the then Chief Minister’s intervention.

Taking a serious stand on the State Government’s lackadaisical attitude, the UMHA, on June 30, 2014, warned that the Centre could stop allocating substantial funds to the Bihar Government under various schemes for security and development in areas affected by Naxalism if the State Government failed to act in accordance with a uniform national policy against the Maoists.

According to National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) data, Bihar had 77 Police personnel per 100,000 population, as on December 31, 2013, the worst ratio in the country, and far below the national average of 141. At the request of the State, at least six battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have been deployed in the State, though this number is far from what is required to cover the shortfall. On October 1, 2014, the State Government decided to recruit Police Women from the Scheduled Tribes category and deploy them in the Maoist affected zones as part of a ‘two-pronged strategy’ to provide employment to tribal women and check the Maoists. A proposal to this effect was forwarded by Police Headquarters to the State’s Home Department, arguing that, since tribal women were hard-working and well-versed with the topography of the difficult terrain, a separate battalion of tribal policewoman should be raised. The Cabinet meeting, chaired by the then Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, approved the proposal, though recruitment is yet to take place. In any event, this is seen more as a gesture to play to the galleries, rather than any serious response to the Maoist insurgency.

Bihar has long been at odds with the Centre on the strategy to counter the Maoist insurgency, and this is unlikely to change till Assembly elections take place in the State late in 2015. With the State currently in the control of an opportunistic alliance between former political rivals, and all focus on the impending elections, it is unlikely that any substantive initiatives to deal with the Maoists are going to go forward.

*Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

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By Tariq Shadid*

In Jordan, opposition against the Israeli-Jordanian gas deal is growing. While politicians are working out the details, there appears to be widespread criticism of plans by the Jordanian National Electric Power Company to import gas from the Leviathan fields. The fields are located in the Mediterranean waters controlled by Israel, operated by US company Noble Energy, and co-owned by three Israeli companies.

An overwhelmingly majority in the Jordanian Parliament voted in December 2014 to urge the government to cancel the letter of intent. Campaigners started mobilizing as soon as the news came out of the signing, and held a series of activities and calls to action, and have been preparing for the ‘Day of Refusal‘ on March 6th.

Khaled Al Shakaa is a member of Jordan BDS, and the National Jordanian Coalition against the gas deal. He feels strongly about this issue, and is determined to express his opinion about it. He hopes to mobilize as many people as possible to join in the protests organized by national committee.

“I do this for Jordan and its sovereignty, first of all. Secondly, for Palestine, as part of the boycott movement, as I believe the way forward is non-violent forms of resistance. I am an activist and member of the Jordan BDS movement. We ask the public to help us Jordanians raise awareness about the Jordanian public’s refusal of the gas deal that the government of Jordan and the Zionist state are preparing to sign, without the public’s consent.”

He vividly and passionately describes how this coalition came about, and what its aims are. “We have formed a coalition in Jordan, consisting of professional associations (Naqabat), political parties, institutions, movements, parliamentarians, and activists. Our movement was able to persuade 110 parliamentarians (out of 150) to raise this matter officially in Parliament, and to direct an official interrogation of the government that was carried out for two full sessions of parliament upon the opening of the new term.’’

‘’In Jordan, we have currently formed committees in the governorates such as Karak, Madaba, Zarqa and Irbid, and we are supporting the committees to mobilize their constituents, to send people to the day of the march in Amman (March 6th), and to also hold a stand at their governorates for those who cannot join us.”

Jordan BDS has no hierarchical structure, and it is not affiliated to any political party or organization. “We do not use formal titles in our movement, it’s more of a grassroots and informal movement, and we prefer to keep it that way.’’

Despite this apparently loose organizational structure, the movement appears to be effective, as well as widely supported. “We also published a statement letter, stating our disapproval of the gas deal and calling on Jordanians to action. We asked all the formal parties, professional associations and institutions to sign, and we published it in traditional and social media. A public petition was also created and distributed to the general public to sign as individuals, and it was handed by one of our supporting parliamentarians to the Prime Minister in a Parliamentary session.”

Al Shakaa is happy to explain the details of the deal, and to specify the reasons for the widespread disapproval of it among Jordanians.

“The deal is for 15 billion dollars for 15 years; it ties up most of Jordan’s demand for energy in the form of electricity. The deal will fund the Zionist state 8 billion dollars in tax that will be used to create a sovereign wealth fund that will support the creation of settlements and go into their war budget including infrastructure and enabling occupation and creating settlements, enough money to wage 3 more wars on Gaza.’’

‘’In order to extract the gas and sell it, the Zionist state needs to ensure a customer. We are not only paying for the gas, we will also be paying for the infrastructure that will be used to extract it.’’

‘’This deal is not about feasibility or the cheapest price, the plan is to tie up Jordan with the Zionist state, so that the economy of Jordan becomes dependent on them, and to erase any form of resistance including non-violent forms.’’

‘’After the Wadi Araba agreement, Jordan entered into a phase of normalizing relations with the Zionist including economic and trade ties. But citizens of Jordan were left with a choice of either buying these products, however should the gas deal go through, normalization will be forced upon all Jordanians since our electricity will come from gas purchased from the Zionist state. The result will not only be forced normalization but forced direct financial support to the Israeli war machine.’’

When asked what message he has for concerned people around the world, he answers with the same clarity.

“Share our message! Especially on the day of the event, on March 6th 2015. Perhaps people could have a peaceful activity on that day in solidarity, making their voices be heard. There is also a thunderclap campaign that online folks can share and promote, and the hashtag #AgainstStolenGas for any related articles and posts about the deal. And if you are in Jordan, join us.”

* Tariq Shadid is a surgeon living in the Arab Gulf who has been contributing articles to the Palestine Chronicle for many years. Some of these essays have been bundled in the book ‘Understanding Palestine’, which is available on Amazon.com. He also is the founder of the website ‘Musical Intifada’ featuring his songs about the Palestinian cause, on www.docjazz.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

The post Jordanians Prepare For ‘Day Of Refusal’ Against Jordan-Israel Gas Deal – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists by Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher
Published by Zero Books

By Mike Kuhlenbeck*

Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists-The Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980 recovers a “lost” but crucial portion of the history of the New Left of the 1960s and 70s. Co-authors Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher masterfully chronicle the tumultuous history of the leading Maoist group in the United States and the government’s attempt to crush dissent under an iron heel.

Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists by Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher

The 1960s gave birth to a new generation of activists who were galvanized by the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements. Many young militants viewed racism and militarism as byproducts of the capitalist system, specifically the imperialist efforts of the United States during the Cold War. At this time, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was the largest anti-racist and anti-war youth organization in the country with an estimated 100,000 members.

“The program of SDS has evolved from civil rights struggles to an anti-Vietnam war stance to an advocacy of a militant anti-imperialist position,” according to an internal assessment by the FBI. By the end of the decade, however, SDS was nearly fatally split by numerous factions arising from political differences.

James Miller, author of Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, recalls that during the fragmentation of SDS, “For the first time in the decade, the born-again Marxist-Leninist sects turned out in full-force—there were Trotskyists, Maoists, Castroites, even some old-fashioned Communists.”

In Heavy Radicals, the authors examine the lives and deeds of the homegrown revolutionaries who looked to the Red Star that rose in the East in the People’s Republic of China under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. For this cadre, the future of China would help determine the future of worldwide revolution.

Readers are introduced to Leibel Bergman, a veteran of the Communist Party USA and founder of the Revolutionary Union who had an important role in serving as a bridge from the “Old Left” to the “New Left.” Robert “Bob” Avakian, the charismatic co-founder of the RU and RCP, who continues to lead as party’s chairman. Other nearly forgotten figures who were instrumental in forming one of the most controversial political groups in US history like H. Bruce Franklin and Steve Hamilton are also rescued from obscurity.

Leonard and Gallagher are not attempting a memoir but rather a “first-pass at a history of this organization,” as Leonard states in the book’s preface. In this task, they have succeeded. Their claims are substantiated by original interviews, newly unearthed government documents and scholarly research. This gem will help readers understand the broader context of what was going on with the shift in the American political climate at that time, using one of the most misunderstood factions of the New Left as a starting point.

As with any New Left group, the RU and their ilk were targeted by the FBI’s notorious counter-intelligence program COINTELPRO. It was established in 1956 purportedly to “disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States.”

The program would continue on in the next decade with a specific operation entitled “Disruption of the New Left.” It was designed to “expose, disrupt, and otherwise neutralize the activities of the various New Left organizations, their leadership and their adherents. The Bureau even admits on its own website that “COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons.”

That is putting it mildly. COINTELPRO targeted the Black Panther Party, the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party, SDS and numerous individuals affiliated with the Anti-War movement. Author Brian Glick summarized the program’s methods, in his book “War At Home,” with the following:

“Harassment, intimidation and violence: Eviction, job loss, break-ins, vandalism, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical violence were threatened, instigated or directly employed, in an effort to frighten activists and disrupt their movements. Government agents either concealed their involvement or fabricated a legal pretext.”

Studying the enduring tradition of the Palmer Raids (1919-1920) and the Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts of the 1950s, Leonard and Gallagher painstakingly describe the role the FBI and other intelligence agencies infiltrating and creating rifts between party members in the hope that the RU would dissolve due to infighting and no longer pose a threat to the Establishment.

Avakian’s memoir From Ike to Mao: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, describes how he and the RU became targets of the FBI: “…once the RU [Revolutionary Union] was formed, it was increasingly targeted by the political police—the FBI on a national level and the different Red Squads that existed in different parts of the country.”

In 1972, US president Richard Nixon appointed L. Franklin Gray to the role of FBI director following the death of long-reigning bureaucrat J. Edgar Hoover. Gray reportedly told his subordinates that Avakian was the “kind of extremist I want to go after hard and with innovation.”

After a major split amongst RU members, the Revolutionary Communist Party was formed in 1975. The RCP is often dismissed as an ineffective political cult, but the authors recognize the social significance of the group, capturing the highlights of the RCP’s activities, such as the 1979 demonstration against Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in Washington D.C. and the 1984 flag-burning protest in Dallas, Texas (which led to the court case of Texas v. Johnson, which held that flag-burning is protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution).

The main focus of this analysis is not the ideas that drove the RU/RCP’s actions, but the destructive and anti-democratic measures put in place by the government of a nation that calls itself “the Land of the Free.” The deliberate undermining of civil liberties belonging to groups and individuals under COINTELPRO should remind people that such activities are still alive, and endangering the very freedoms of the US Constitution.

The US Government’s crackdown on activists, journalists and whistleblowers is evident with the large-scale assault against the likes of WikiLeaks, the Anonymous collective, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, James Risen, Jeffrey Sterling and martyrs like the late Aaron Swartz.

Heavy Radicals will serve as a warning to those who stand on the side of free humanity to fight against all encroachments of civil liberties at home and abroad.

*Mike Kuhlenbeck is a  journalist and researcher whose work has appeared in The Humanist, Z Magazine and The Des Moines Register. He is a member of the National Writers Union and Investigative Reporters and Editors.”

The post The FBI’s War On Dissent – Book Review appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(EurActiv) — Tens of thousands of Russians marched through central Moscow yesterday (1 March), carrying banners declaring “I am not afraid” and chanting “Russia without Putin” in memory of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.

Families, the old and the young, walked slowly, with many holding portraits of the opposition politician and former Deputy Prime Minister, who was shot dead while walking home from a nearby restaurant on Friday night.

The authorities have suggested that the opposition itself may have been behind his shooting in an attempt to create a martyr and unite the fractured movement.

His supporters have blamed the authorities.

“If we can stop the campaign of hate that’s being directed at the opposition, then we have a chance to change Russia. If not, then we face the prospect of mass civil conflict,” Gennady Gudkov, an opposition leader, told Reuters.

“The authorities are corrupt and don’t allow any threats to them to emerge. Boris was uncomfortable for them.”

His murder has divided opinion in a country where for years, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many yearned for the stability later brought by former KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

A small but active opposition now says Putin’s rule has become an autocracy that flaunts international norms after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula last year, fanned nationalism over the separatist war in eastern Ukraine, and clamped down on dissent.

“[Nemtsov] was harmful to the authorities, but the authorities themselves are criminal. The authorities have trampled on all international rights, seized Crimea, started war with Ukraine,” said Yuri Voinov, an elderly physicist.

Police said 21,000 people attended the march. The organizers put the numbers at tens of thousands, but attendance appeared smaller than the 50,000 people the opposition had hoped for.

Reuters reporters at the march estimated the numbers in the tens of thousands.

People walked in the rain within view of the Kremlin’s red walls and past the spot, now covered in flowers, where Nemtsov was shot dead.

Some carried large banners carrying Nemtsov’s face reading “Heroes Never Die”, the same slogan used in Ukraine to celebrate more than 100 people killed in protests that overthrew Moscow-leaning President Viktor Yanukovich a year ago.

One elderly woman, her hair tucked into a woolen cap, held up a hand-written sign to cover her face: “It’s a geopolitical catastrophe when a KGB officer declares himself president for life. Putin resign!”

Putin remains dominant

Putin has vowed to pursue those who killed Nemtsov, calling the murder a “provocation”.

National investigators who answer to the Russian leader offered a 3-million-rouble reward, around $50,000, for information on Nemtsov’s death. They say they are pursuing several lines of inquiry, including the possibility that Nemtsov, a Jew, was killed by radical Islamists or that the opposition killed him to blacken Putin’s name.

Nemtsov’s funeral is due to be held on Tuesday in Moscow.

Putin’s opponents say such suggestions, repeated over pro-Kremlin media, show the cynicism of Russia’s leaders as they whip up nationalism, hatred and anti-Western hysteria to rally support for his policies on Ukraine and deflect blame for an economic crisis.

“We are told on TV that a conspiracy by the West and those among us who have sold out to them are behind our poverty. People should throw away the TV set and go to protest,” said Olga, 42, who declined to give her last name.

Some Muscovites have accepted the official line and appear to agree that the opposition, struggling to make an impact after a clampdown on dissent in Putin’s third spell as president, might have killed one of their own.

“The authorities definitely do not benefit from this. Everybody had long forgotten about this man, Nemtsov … It is definitely a ‘provocation’,” said one Moscow resident, who gave his name only as Denis.

Some young people walking in central Moscow asked: “Who is Nemtsov anyway?”

Fractured opposition

Nemtsov, who was 55, was one of the leading lights of a divided opposition struggling to revive its fortunes, three years after mass rallies against Putin failed to prevent him returning to the presidency after four years as prime minister.

With an athletic build and characteristic mop of curly hair, Nemtsov had been a face of the opposition for years, along with anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, though no one figure has succeeded in uniting the ranks of opposition-minded Muscovites.

The opposition has little support outside big cities and Putin has now been Russia’s dominant leader since 2000, when ailing President Boris Yeltsin chose him as his successor, a role Nemtsov had once been destined to play.

Even many of Putin’s opponents have little doubt that he will win another six years in power at the next election, due in 2018, despite a financial crisis aggravated by Western economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and a fall in oil prices.

Many opposition leaders have been jailed on what they say are trumped-up charges, or have fled the country.

Nemtsov, a fighter against corruption who said he feared Putin may want him dead, had hoped to start the opposition’s revival with a march he had been planning for Sunday against Putin’s economic policies and Russia’s role in east Ukraine.

The Kremlin denies sending arms or troops to Ukraine.

In a change of plan, the opposition said Moscow city authorities had allowed a march of up to 50,000 people alongside the River Moskva to commemorate Nemtsov’s death.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Nemtsov had told him about two weeks ago that he planned to publish evidence of Russian involvement in Ukraine’s separatist conflict.

The post Thousands In Moscow Chant ‘Russia Without Putin’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

One wonders how much culture influences economic development of a country. Such discussions become relevant to countries like Bangladesh where the rate of growth, high compared to developed economies crawling out of recession and the emerging ones with predictable reduced growth rate in the immediate future and some mired in middle income trap, has to remain high where we have to run all the time to remain in the same place like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who said: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

We have been doing well as reported by reputed international institutions but for the recent political instability injected by the terrorist group in the opposition camp who in the name of recouping democracy are effectively destroying the very institutions on which democracy is sustained. In a fit for self-immolation Bangladesh political opposition parties, to the utter amazement and concern of the international community, appear to be hell-bent to inflict upon the poverty stricken “under class” and the people in general death and destruction, a paradigmatic turn in our history of political agitation, through the introduction of murder of innocent people by using petrol bomb throwing terrorists.

Our relative underdevelopment perhaps caused by our inability or lateness in adapting to Niall Ferguson’s six “killer apps”—competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and work ethics– that had enabled the West “to dominate the world for the better part of 500 years”, do not explain the suicidal behaviour of some of our political leaders. One wonders whether the agitating opposition have forgotten the extinction of Muslim League, a party that led then Muslim aspiration for independence and consequent partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, through democratic means by defeating Muslim League in 1954 elections, that similar fate may be waiting for the opposition combine.

The departure of Muslim League after an interregnum of several coalition governments in then East Pakistan led to the popular installation of Awami League as the main political party leading ultimately to our War of Liberation and the emergence of Bangladesh. It is conceivable that the current course of BNP-Jamaat politics may lead to peoples’ refusal to give mandate to BNP in the next elections to rule, as provided in the Constitution, and by default make the Islamists main effective opposition bringing along their culture of violence so alien to democratic, non-communal, and egalitarian traits inbuilt in our traditions and culture.

As it is the brutalities by ISIS, Taliban, al-Shahbaab, Boko Haram and assorted terrorist groups have raised questions in the minds of some people about the future of democracy. The decline of democracy is also credited to lack of performance in economic and political arenas by advanced economies, new self confidence and seeming vitality of authoritarian nations, and shifting power balance from the developed to emerging economies. Happily though both President Obama and John Kerry have made it abundantly clear that in countering violent extremism there is no room for Islamphobia and success will require global partnership and inclusivity of those who feel betrayed and excluded from mainstream society. Herein India comes in.

Some commentators have posited that India is shackled by her neighbors. India with its new leader wants its position as a great global power. Yet paradoxically she is unable to shape events in its immediate environs. As a consequence, India has missed out on the important economic gains that would accrue if normal trade ties were allowed to take hold between South Asia’s largest economies as a more liberalized trade regime would increase bilateral exchange as much as twenty times above current figures, along with boosting general prosperity in both India and Pakistan. Countries. In a 2012 report the Confederation of Indian Industries, for instance, found that cross-border trade between India and Pakistan could easily quadruple in just a few years if both governments moved to increase economic linkages.

South Asia remains one of the world’s least integrated areas, with intra-regional trade amounting to less than two percent of aggregate GDP compared to over twenty percent in East Asia. It is further posited that (India, Glimpses of Economic Optimism and Frustration FEB. 11, 2015 Vikas Bajaj New York Times) as the World Bank and the IMF are projecting that India will become the world’s fastest-growing major economy in the next several years, surpassing China while the Indian government is saying that its economy may already be growing as fast or faster than China’s then India may be looking beyond the SAARC region for its economic development.

India has the advantage of demographic dividend while China’s population is aging and its labor force is shrinking. A question being asked by many Indians is what kind of economy Modi government will give to the people. Nearly two-thirds of Indians surveyed in a recent poll commissioned by The Times of India revealed that Hindu nationalist groups allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party, were hurting “the development agenda”.

Then the question of equitable distribution of the benefits of development, raised by Indians and articulated by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze (An Uncertain Glory-India and its Contradictions) that the promised growth is hampered by underdeveloped social and physical infrastructure and neglect of human capabilities has to be addressed.

Like India, Bangladesh is also threatened by inequitable income distribution that threatens to become structural. Some may point out the situation in the US where “surging income inequality doesn’t create just an economic divide. The gap is cultural and social, too. Plutocrats inhabit a different world from everyone else. The technocratic solutions to public-policy problems they deliver from those Olympian heights arrive in a wrapper of remote benevolence. People might not mind that if the political economy were delivering for society as a whole. But it is not: wages for 70 percent of the work force have stagnated, unemployment is high and many people with jobs feel insecure about them and about their retirement. Meanwhile, the plutocrats continue to prosper” (New York Times Plutocrats vs. Populists by Chrystia Freeland November 1 2013).

An allied question that remains to be answered is if societal development is an essential prerequisite for development then even if we are given the requisite killer apps of Niall Ferguson would we be able to effectively use the apps to transform ourselves to a middle income and then to a developed economy as we want given our work ethics ? Why is it that Paschim Banga which was the most industrialized state of India in 1947 is now lagging behind most of the other states of India?

Gregory Clark in his book Farewell to Alms–A Brief Economic History of the World argues that the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain and not in some other country because Britain’s development was not a sudden leap forward that was propelled by the invention of a few power-driven machines. It was gradually taking place over the course of several hundred years prior to the 19th century. In Clark’s way of thinking, the Industrial Revolution would have never occurred without the changes in values that were happening for centuries before. From the Middle Ages on, following the Magna Carta in the 13th century that limited royal authority, Britain had the stable political, legal and economic institutions so often touted as the preconditions for economic growth. Besides stable political institutions, a reliable legal system, predictable land values and functioning markets were the necessary along with gradual development of precisely that set of deep cultural changes, especially a sense of competitiveness and a strong work ethic, that was required if sudden technological breakthroughs were have to have any real impact on the society.

Modern technology alone will never be able to turn around an economy and to boost the standard of living among a population. The development of a mindset, with accompanying values and habits, is a big part of the equation. Economists generally are not optimistic about the less developed parts of the world due to dependency syndrome. While infusion of sufficient capital might help strengthening of institutions, political and economic, is essential for economic growth. But proponents of the cultural dimension of economic development are suggesting that the creation of such political and economic institutions would need further cultivation of attitudes and values before a country is fertile for economic development.

As mentioned earlier President Obama in his speech at the Summit on countering violent extremism called for an end of the cycle of violent conflict especially sectarian conflict, address the economic and political grievances exploited by terrorists, empowering women, and welcome and respect inter-faith adherents. India battered by decades of state sponsored terrorism should welcome international cooperation.

In our case Bangladesh has the advantages of homogeneity as most of the people are Sunni Muslims and thereby having no sectarian conflicts, a moderate Muslim country where inter-faith conflicts are rare, culture of tolerance, and demographic dividend enabling us to increase productivity of a large working population making them market competitive both at home and abroad. Price Water House report on The World at 2050 published recently puts Bangladesh having GDP at US $ 536 billion ( at PPP) in 2014, increasing to US $ 1291 billion in 2030 and then reaching US$ 3367 billion in 2050 indicating an upward curve reflecting growing international trust in the fundamentals of our economy. In the case of India the figures are US $ 7277 billion in 2014, $ 17138 billion in 2030 and $ 42205 billion in 2050.

For Bangladesh Price Water House projections may be denied by the violence let loose by the opposition political parties and we may fail to reaffirm our image as a moderate Muslim country that brooks no tolerance to any kind of extremism, an image we were born with and cannot be allowed to be smeared by sociopathic terrorism by the opposition politics. We owe it to this generation to live in tranquility and pass on to the future generations the inheritance of a peaceful and prosperous Bangladesh. The international community may wish to be on guard so that the contagion of violent extremism does not affect their development plans as well.

The post Passage To Salvation: The Case Of Bangladesh – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By John R. Haines*

God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others. – Aleksandr Pushkin

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end, in its turn, also must be justified. – Leon Trotsky

____________

Ukraine finds itself sandwiched between a smoldering conflict to its west and a still-hot one in its east. The latter has remained mostly confined to its Donets’k and Luhansk regions or oblasts.  Together they comprise a geographic area known formally as the Donets Basin and colloquially as the Donbas.^[1]

The Insurgency in Eastern Ukraine
Source: Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine

Among the many scenarios threatening Ukraine, a most serious one is a resurgent Donbas conflict that expands west toward Transdniestria, a separatist region in eastern Moldova. A 1992 conflict there left some 200 kilometers of Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine under the control of the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.^[2] A westward-expanding Donbas conflict could reignite the one between pro-Western Moldova and Russian-supported Transdniestria where a truce has held, if at times uneasily, for a decade.  Its graphic effect would be to reduce Ukraine to a near rump state.

Novorossiya Imagined: The Donbas to Transdniestria
Source: European Observatory for Democracy & Elections (EODE).
http://www.eode.org/eode-think-tank-geopolitics-putin-moves-his-pawns-on-the-grand-chessboard-and-proposes-the-neutralization-of-kiev-and-moldova/

One question with great bearing on whether the Donbas conflict re-erupts is whether the principles agreed to in Minsk suffer the same fate as the 2010 Meseberg Memorandum.^[3]  It, too, was the product of a German initiative, in the instance to form a joint European Union–Russia council to resolve the Transdniestrian conflict.  It was not coordinated with other European Union member-states or with the European Commission.^[4]  And as it turned out, neither Germany nor Russia was prepared to deliver on its Meseberg commitments.  One assessment asked a question that bears repeating today, viz., “Why did Germany abandon the traditional German negotiating method for a meeting of unprepared and uncoordinated principals?” It also posed a longer, perhaps more important one:

“[W]hy did Merkel assume that a Russian leader could deliver on personal commitments in the same way that Soviet leaders up to Brezhnev did—just by giving the order? […]  Modern Russia is a collection of satrapies, all owing nominal allegiance to the ‘power vertical’ but all jostling against one another to protect their institutional, political, and financial interests. A Russian leader—whether Medvedev or Putin—cannot just issue a fiat. To keep the system running he must also ensure that satrapies are compensated for any damages their interests suffer.”^[5]

A recent commentary on the Russian think tank portal Materik^[6] declared “Transdniestria-in-the Donbas” would be a compromise, not a victory, for Moscow, especially in the context of a federal Ukraine.^[7]  Paul Goble suggests it may signal the Russian government’s judgment about the best practicable outcome, thus its preemptive use of “compromise” as a concession to Ukrainian (and Western) sensibilities.^[8]  Another commentator wrote that paradoxically, what President Putin said in Minsk was meant to signal the opposite, viz., that he wants a “Transdniestria-II variant [in order] to retreat with a triumphant look on his face.”^[9]  Consistent with those readings, President Putin within days highlighted Kyev’s commitment in Minsk to undertake “deep constitutional reform in order to satisfy demands for independence—call it what you will, devolution, autonomy, federalization—by certain parts of the country.”^[10]

Germany, presuming to speak for Europe, demonstrated at Minsk its imperative to maintain relations with Russia for fear of leaving a nuclear-armed Putin without any alternatives. Russia, some analysts believe, will exploit this “to demonstrate that NATO is not relevant” to resolving the situation in Ukraine. President Putin’s purpose in supporting separatist forces in the Donbas is to “punish Ukraine,” and in so doing, “to send a message to other post Soviet territories.”^[11]  This is, of course, an extension of the argument John Mearsheimer made in his much-debated Foreign Affairs essay: “The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West.”^[12]

It can be argued that NATO expansion was a continuation in the security realm of one in the civil realm—European Union (EU) expansion—that transformed “even technical issues of border management into highly politicized dilemmas.”^[13]  For example, while Ukraine and Moldova agreed at end of 2001 to control their common border jointly under a stricter border-crossing regime, Transdniestria did not support the agreement causing it to fail.

This illustrates a larger point with direct bearing on the Donbas conflict. The political regimes that emerged in Moldova, Ukraine, and Transdniestria were each formed in conditions of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The loss of the Soviet Union’s managing role forced “a cardinal restructuring of political power in the post-Soviet space.”  A result was a “fast process of ethno-politicization.”^[14] In Moldova, that process gave rise to the “Romanianization of Moldovan society”^[15]and a military conflict in anti-Romania Transdniestria. In Ukraine, it manifested as nationalism that defined itself in contradistinction to Russian interests.

It was foreordained that Russia’s reentry into these now-restructured, ethno-politicized spaces would conflict with how political power had restructured there. Moldova eventually found an uneasy stasis, a “cold peace” described as “neither war not peace.”^[16]  While it is too early in Ukraine’s hot conflict to tell, a “cold peace” seems likely there as well. Thus the central questions: (1) is the Transdniestria conflict a useful lens to assess the one in the Donbas; and (2) could a metastasizing Donbas wreck Transdniestria’s cold peace?

The Donbas’ many crosscurrents raise analogies to the Moldova-Transdniestria-Ukraine triangle. It is possible that a metastatic conflict in eastern Ukraine might spread west to reignite smoldering separatism in the eastern Moldovan territory. It is worthwhile, therefore, reassessing Transdniestria as a guide and an admonition for conflict resolution (or protraction) in Russia’s near abroad.

Transdniestria and the Donbas: Similarities & Differences

Deterritorialization originated in French psychoanalytic theory but has come to be more commonly associated with the concept of territorial sovereignty, anchored in (and fixed to) the framework and geographical space of the sovereign state. Geopolitical concepts that deterritorialize—Aleksandr Dugin’s highly influential Eurasianism for one—do so by intentionally blurring traditional rationales for borders and directly challenging the concept of territoriality.  Eurasianism cannot be understood by reference to territorial sovereignty because it does not require a clearly demarcated geographical space.  So while Dugin may speak of Eurasianism as “the ideological foundation of the Republic of Novorossiya,”^[17] its basis is not geographic but abstract, e.g., “the projective logic of opposition to the West”^[18] and “against Ukrainian nationalism.”^[19]

That being said, territorialized and geographically delineated state borders are still important for legal stability and military security.  Thus a paradox: every deterritorialization creates the conditions for reterritorialization by what one scholar calls “the fetishism of the parochial”—separatist movements that destroy a nation-state’s territorial integrity^[20]—that makes ideas of culturally and ethnically distinct places even more pronounced.^[21]

There is, if nothing else, an abiding consistency in Russia’s assertion of interests in its near abroad, which is mistakenly (if nonetheless frequently) ascribed to factors ranging from a hazy nostalgia for the Soviet period to abject revanchism.  It instead reflects the increased prominence of an ethnic dimension of Russian foreign policy since 1991. Transdniestria and the Donbas depart somewhat from this trend.  Russian foreign policy there is animated more by political considerations—preventing the westward integration of Moldova and Ukraine—and lacks the abject ethnic dimension of, for example, separatism in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.

This does not mean Russia’s preferred outcome is an independent Transdniestria and Donbas, since the burden of supporting these irredentist states would fall immediately and heavily upon Moscow.  Rather, it is to force Moldova and Ukraine to accept a constitutionally grounded federal structure (modeled on the earlier Kirov Agreement) that grants Transdniestria and the Donbas the conditional right to seek independence, e.g., upon Moldova’s unification with Romania or Ukraine’s accession to NATO and/or the European Union.

Transdniestria and the Donbas are useful to Russia only for so long as they remain part of their respective national territory and provide leverage against the national governments in, respectively, Chișinău and Kyev. Despite resistance to reintegration in both Transdniestria and the Donbas, Russia has persisted in seeking special legal status for the territories while engaging their respective national governments on strategic issues. So far, the Moldovan and Ukrainian governments have only tentatively embraced an indefinite “decentralization” policy.

While there is an undoubted ethnic dimension to the Transdniestrian conflict^[22]— the same might be said of all conflicts in the former Soviet Union—its essential character is political.  It is not primarily an ethnic conflict between Moldovans and assorted Russophones. It is more accurate to say that Transdniestria was the only post-Soviet ethno-territorial controversy that was not only a matter of territorial re-distribution among former Soviet nationalities but also a question of an irredenta of another European state, Romania.^[23]

The Donbas differs in some significant ways from Transdniestria. Historical imaginings of Novorossiya notwithstanding, the Donbas as a whole has been part of Ukraine continuously since 1922. It neither shares Transdniestria’s historical and territorial identity nor its (albeit-brief) legacy as an autonomous area.^[24]  Nor does the Donbas appear likely to yield Russia the same leverage in negotiations with the West.^[25] At the 1999 Istanbul Summit, Russia bartered a promised withdrawal from Transdniestria (and Georgia) for NATO member-states’ consent to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe; so, too, the instrumental role of Transdniestria under the 2010 Meseburg Memorandum.^[26]  From an economic perspective, the Donbas poses a potentially serious burden for Russia, something complicated by several considerations: the territory’s sheer size; the extensive war damage to property and infrastructure; and the direct economic cost to sustain the Donbas as well as the indirect one to Russia from the sanctions regime.^[27]  Moreover, the Donbas porous shared borders with Russia exposes the latter to the security risks of criminal and other illicit activities made possible by existence of a political “black hole.”^[28]

The Lessons of Transdniestria

The roots of the Transdniestrian conflict trace to the Soviet era. Industrialization (especially defense) and the consequent inflow of mainly Russian and Ukrainian workers to the eastern or “left” bank of the Dniester River (formerly part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic^[29]) meant Transdniestria’s effective integration into the Soviet Union was far greater than rural western or “right” bank Moldova.

Seeking to distance “right bank” Moldovans from their historic, language and cultural ties to Romania, the Soviet Union attempted to propagate a new Moldovan culture and identity.  This extended to declaring “Moldovan” written in Cyrillic as the national language. While Moldovans speak what linguistically is a Romanian dialect, “Soviet policymakers strenuously maintained that Moldovans were culturally and linguistically separate from Romanians.”^[30]  As the Soviet Union faltered in the late 1980s, the pro-Romanian Moldovan Popular Front demanded adoption of Latin-script Moldovan as the only national language, to which the Moldovan Supreme Soviet responded by declaring Russian to be “the language of inter-ethic communication.” By 1989, however, Latin-script Moldovan was declared the national language, something interpreted by many Transdniestrians (and Russian leaders) as the leading edge of Moldovan-Romanian unification.

Transdniestria assumed a different, instrumental value to Russia once Moldova declared itself sovereign (though still part of the Soviet Union) in September 1990 by raising the prospect that Moldova would suffer territorial losses if it left the Soviet Union.  Left unresolved after the latter’s dissolution and Moldova’s August 1991 declaration of independence, the question of ethnic Russians living in Transdniestria^[31] led to the conflict escalating in early 1992.

Moldova’s newly elected president, Mircea Snegur, declared martial law in March 1992 when the self-declared “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union” openly refused his ultimatum to accept the authority of the Chișinău government. This led to an outbreak of fighting in central Transdniestria’s Dubăsari District, which by June expanded to Bendery near the Transdniestrian capital, Tirasopol, where the Soviet 14^th Army was stationed.

Moldova and Transdniestria
Source: http://idlewords.com/2009/06/transnistria.htm Last accessed 17 February 2015.

Russia’s June 1992 military intervention on the side of Transdniestria led to a political settlement and ceasefire the following month.  Russia was motivated more by domestic considerations than geostrategic ones.  This changed, however, over the next year, as Russia sought to keep Moldova within the nascent Commonwealth of Independent States and to prevent its unification with Romania. Russia went so far as to break off official contacts with Transdniestria in April 1993 as an inducement for Moldova to sign the Alma-Alta Protocol, which formally dissolved the Soviet Union and established the CIS.

The principle of synchronization—withdrawing Russian armed forces concurrent with a political settlement—was incorporated into an October 1994 agreement, under which Russia agreed to leave Transdniestria within three years. Russia immediately began to press Moldova to grant Russian armed forces a peacekeeping mandate, the effect of which would allow Russia to sidestep certain provisions of the Conventional Armed Forces treaty.^[32]  The Russian force declined in size between 1992 and 1999, from 9250 to 2000 troops, due to a mix of budgetary considerations and Russian perceptions that Transdniestria’s strategic value was declining. In 1996, Russia initiated negotiations with a document known as the “Primakov Memorandum”^[33] (for Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov); it stipulated that Moldova and Transdniestria would build a “common state.” Russia and Moldova signed it in Moscow in May 1997.

While some commentaries claim the Primakov Memorandum de facto federalized Moldova, this judgment may well conflate the 1997 memorandum and a later effort also led by Primakov.  In August 2000, he presented Moldova and Transdniestria with an official but relatively vague proposal to establish a loose federation, one that resembled a confederation in important respects. Transdniestria would gain extensive influence over Moldovan government policy and Russia was guaranteed an important role in Moldova’s internal affairs. While Primakov’s proposal ultimately stalled by the end of 2000 after an internal Moldovan political crisis (and the use of dilatory tactics by both Moldovan and Transdniestrian officials), Russia persuaded Transdniestria to accede to the withdrawal of CFE-limited military equipment by the end of 2001. In exchange, Russia forgave a USD100 million debt for the purchase of Russian natural gas.

In early 2001, a customs dispute emerged between Moldova and Transdniestria, in partial response to Russia’s refusal to end its practice of selling discounted natural gas to Transdniestria and allowing these deliveries to go unpaid.  Transdniestria’s debt to Russia for unpaid natural gas deliveries amounted to more than three times the territory’s annual gross domestic product.  As the dispute continued without resolution into the second half of 2002, Moldova backed off earlier concessions over the use of the Russian language, and a commitment to join the Russia-Belarus customs union. Moldova also insisted Russia immediately withdraw all “peacekeeping” forces from Transdniestria.

It is against this background that Russia^[34] along with Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) proposed a July 2002 plan to federalize Moldova under a three-party guarantee (the so-called “Kyiv Document”).  In February 2003, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin proposed to collaborate with Transdniestria to draft a new federal constitution.  His counterpart, Igor Smirnov, rejected Voronin’s proposal, claiming it would create an asymmetric federation.  Smirnov instead demanded a confederation between two equal states.

An OSCE-sponsored Joint Constitutional Commission (JCC) started work by midyear with representatives from Chişinău and Tiraspol.  The JCC members—the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Transdniestria—were also known as the “OSCE-5,” and their discussions quickly stalled by October 2003. The United States insisted during this process that NATO members refrain from ratifying the 1999 amendment to the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty^[35] until Russian armed forces withdrew completely from both Transdniestria and Georgia.

Amidst the OCSE-5 JCC process, Russia in mid-2003 secretly initiated negotiations between Chișinău and Tiraspol.  The intermediary was Dmitry Kozak, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative. Inexplicably, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry declined an OSCE request to include Kozak in the OSCE-5 discussions, and by 11 October, Kozak declared his effort a failure. By early November, the OSCE, Ukraine, and Russia (again, represented by the Foreign Affairs Ministry) reached agreement on a new federalization proposal.

When the OSCE presented it to Kozak on 14 November, he disclosed a heretofore-secret plan later known as the Kozak Memorandum.^[36]  It called for the formation of a “Federal Republic of Moldova,” a loose confederation of two sovereign territories modeled on Serbia and Montenegro.  Moldova’s Voronin formally endorsed the plan on 17 November, declaring that it “provides an unique opportunity” to settle the Transdniestria conflict. By most estimates, the Kozak Memorandum was an attempt by Russia to cement its domination of Moldova, and to ensure that it remained within the Russian sphere of influence by imposing a distorted political and economic system on a fragmented country.^[37]

Under the terms of the Kozak Memorandum, the two “parties”—Moldova and Transdniestria—agreed to “the transformation of the state structure of the Republic of Moldova” into a new Federal Republic of Moldova.  It would be comprised of two sovereign territories, the “subjects of the federation” and the “federal territory,” respectively.  The “subjects” consisted of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic^[38] and Găgăuzia (a so-called autonomous territorial formation), each of which would have its own parliament, government, and judiciary. The balance of Moldovan national territory (basically, historic Bessarabia) would comprise the “federal territory,” and would be governed from Chișinău. Its parliament, government and judiciary would be federal institutions in which the two “subjects” would have representation. In the case of the federal parliament, the “subjects” would have a blocking minority in what were referred to as “joint competencies,” e.g., matters involving both the “subjects” and the “federal territory.”

A key question in November 2003 was the status of the Russian “peacekeeping” force scheduled to withdraw from Transdniestria the following month.  For its part, Transdniestria demanded the Russian force remain in place for at least thirty years as “guarantor” of the intended federation. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov agreed to maintain a peacekeeping force of 2000 troops for a period of twenty years, which was made part of the Kozak Memorandum. Within a week, a coalition of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties formed the “Committee for Defending Republic of Moldova’s Independence and Constitution.” These parties collectively represented more than a third (35 percent) of votes cast in Moldova’s last local elections.

On 23 November, the OSCE rejected the Kozak Memorandum based largely on the previously undisclosed provision for a 20-year armed Russian presence and the “joint competencies” provision. The following day, Moldova’s Voronin acceded to pressure from the OSCE and the United States, and from domestic opponents of Kozak’s federalization plan. He cancelled President Putin’s planned visit to Chișinău during which the two were to sign the Kozak Memorandum.

OSCE opposition to the Kozak Memorandum’s plan focused on three objections: 1) the plan lacked clarity regarding the proposed division of powers between central government and federal “subjects”; 2) one “subject,” the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic, would have an effective veto over joint competencies for at least ten years; and 3) it lacked an acceptable system of international guarantees, i.e., a multilateral peacekeeping force with an international mandate. If the Kozak Memorandum was moribund by November 2003, it officially died in May 2004 when the Baltic nations—Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—entered NATO without its member-states ratifying the CFR-II treaty.^[39]

The European Court of Human Rights dealt a further blow in July 2004, when it held both Moldova and Russia responsible for the continuing conflict in Transdniestria.  This ruling ended a period during which much of Europe acquiesced in Russian policies and practices there.  The Transdniestrian regime, the court concluded:

“[S]et up in 1991-1992 with the support of the Russian Federation…remains under the effective authority, or at the very least under the decisive influence, of the Russian Federation, and in any event…survives by virtue of the military, economic, financial and political support given to it by the Russian Federation.”^[40]  The ruling condemned both Moldova and Russia for their failure to protect human rights in Transdniestria, and concluded Moldova had “the obligation to re-establish control over that territory” and “to refrain from supporting the separatist regime.”^[41]

Ukraine cautiously approached the question of the political status of Transdniestria given longstanding political-cum-ethnic tensions in its own borderlands—notably Crimea and Transcarpathia, and of course, the Donbas—as well as long-held Romanian territorial ambitions in Ukrainian northern Bukovina and southern Bessarabia. At the time, many Ukrainians interpreted the strong odor of revanchism that hung over Romania’s June 1991 declaration on the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact as an expression of Romanian territorial ambitions. It was reinforced when the Romanian parliament protested Ukraine’s December 1991 independence referendum on the grounds that it was held in “disputed territories,” going so far as to call on other states to exclude northern Bukovina and southern Bessarabia when extending recognition to the new Ukrainian state.^[42]  There were suggestions in Romania that irredentist claims to northern Bukovina could be settled if Ukraine traded the territory to Romania in exchange for Transdniestria,^[43] which of course presumed the antecedent of Romanian-Moldovan unification.

Kyev signaled in early 1992 that it was open to Romanian participation in talks to resolve the status of Transdniestria. That changed, however, by midyear after which Ukraine’s position largely paralleled Russia’s. Ukraine found the Transdniestrian conflict increasingly jeopardized its territorial integrity.  Ukraine’s border was routinely violated by Transdniestrian and Găgăuz volunteers and paramilitary, and Moldovan security services alike.  Ukraine also faced a mounting refugee crisis as upwards of 100,000 people crossed into its territory to escape the escalating conflict.  Ukraine responded in mid-1992 with a 50km border security zone.

Again in early 1992, the Transdniestrian government organized a front organization called the “Union of Ukrainians in Pridnestrovie.”  While its main purpose was to encourage Kyev to end its “one-sided” approach to the crisis,^[44] its secondary effect was to popularize (at least among Transdniestria’s Ukrainians) the idea of annexing Transdniestria to Ukraine.^[45]  In June 1992, Ukraine declared support for Transdniestrian autonomy within the framework of a united Moldovan state.^[46]  Its interest in resolving Transdniestria’s status reflected interests that were tactical—the status of the estimated 600,000 Ukrainians living in Moldova who comprised 28 percent of Transdniestria’s population (another one-quarter of which is Russian) and the existence of an unregulated border—as well as strategic ones—the withdrawal of Russian “peacekeepers” and lessening Russian influence in Transdniestria.^[47]  While Ukrainian foreign policy overall vis-à-vis Transdniestria was driven more by the former’s strategic relationship with Russia than either Romania or Moldova, one commentary described Ukraine’s stance on Transdniestria as “a pendulum movement, from an initially greater skepticism towards the Romanian position, to an even greater skepticism towards the leadership in Moscow, and back to the first position.”^[48]

Moldova claimed that illegal trade and trafficking across the Transdniestria-Ukraine border caused it to suffer substantial financial (from custom evasion) and unspecified economic losses throughout the 1990s. In mid-2001, Moldova required the use of a new custom stamp at all border crossings, including those between Transdniestria and Ukraine. Transdniestria immediately declared this an attempt to establish an economic blockade, and when Moldova requested Ukraine’s permission to deploy customs officers on the Ukrainian side of the border, Ukraine hesitated. Moldova in early 2000 submitted a memorandum on the border matter to several European institutions that accused Ukraine and Transdniestria of promoting smuggling.  It declared Ukraine was reluctant to establish joint Moldovan-Ukrainian customs controls solely because corrupt Ukrainian officials profited from illegal trade, something Ukraine dismissed as “unfriendly.” While Ukraine conceded the custom stamp matter was a Moldovan internal affair, it declared it inconsistent with a 1997 bilateral agreement that required Moldova to obtain Ukraine’s consent.  The old custom stamps—which were in the possession of Transdniestrian customs officials—“remain valid according to international law,” declared Ukraine.

In sharp contrast, Ukraine resisted repeat calls by Transdniestria’s Smirnov for Ukraine also to establish a military presence in the so-called security area in which Russian “peacekeeping” forces were already deployed. As one commentary put it:

“After the withdrawal of Russian militaries stationed in the conflict zone, Ukrainian ‘Slavic brothers’ would serve as a reliable force to protect predominantly Slavic population of the PMR against the possible military aggression from Chisinau.”^[49]

The counterpoint was made by a Ukrainian think tank:

“Ukraine, however, does not share this approach.  On the contrary, its concept consists in reducing the level of military saturation in the security area after a mechanism to ensure the political and military guarantees of security is worked out, reduction in the level of military presence should go hand in hand with increase of the role of military observers.”^[50]

Delimiting the Russian-Ukraine Border: A Contentious Past

It is perhaps unsurprising that the earliest recorded use (1187CE) of ukraina was to name the modern-day state’s northwest and north central borderlands state.  That perspective—Ukraine as a subordinate borderland, defined by its relationship to Russia—remains widely held among Russians (and some Russian-speaking Ukrainians).

The Russian government’s North Caucasus policy circa 1990s specified that ethnic Russians should comprise no less than 40 to 50 percent of the population in each constituent republic (and its cities, towns and districts) so as to preserve Russia’s presence and ensure its continued influence.^[51]  It is conceivable (though, the author believes, unlikely for reasons discussed later) that an element of Russian territorial ambitions in Ukraine’s borderlands may be to amalgamate select non-Russian areas with contiguous, predominantly ethnic Russian regions.^[52] Russian regions from time to time revise geographic borders: for example, central Russia’s Sverdlovsk Oblast organized an inter-regional working group earlier this year to review and revise borders.  President Putin has cautioned, however, that any re-division of constituent borders must considered in the larger context of Russia’s many inter-territorial disputes.^[53]

The practice is certainly not unknown in Russia history: when Ukraine’s Donbas region was first formed in 1920, several Russian territories including the Azov Sea port city of Taranrog were added in. The border issue reemerged in 1922 when Ukraine claimed two Russian borderlands—the Kursk Oblast north of Kharkiv, and the Voronezh Oblast north of Luhansk—parts of which were inhabited by predominantly Ukrainian-speaking populations. Russia eventually ceded Ukraine approximately one-third of the claimed territories while Taganrog and Shakhty reverted to Russia.

The post-Soviet period’s Tuzla Crisis foreshadowed border disputes to come. In September 2003, Russia commenced construction of a bridge to connect the Taman Peninsula with Tuzla, a Ukrainian-claimed island in the Azov Sea. Russia countered that Tuzla was not an island until the 1920s, prior to which it was connected with the Taman peninsula and therefore originally Russian. Ukraine answered that Tuzla has been officially attached to Crimea some years before the latter became Ukrainian territory in 1954. After open demonstrations of military force by both sides and intensive consultations between their foreign ministries, the crisis resolved in December 2004 when Russia and Ukraine signed a cooperation agreement to govern exploitation of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, which links the Azov and the Black Seas.

Russia’s Taman Peninsula
Source: http://crudeaccountability.org/campaigns/taman/background-on-taman/
Last accessed 17 February 2015.

The Kerch Agreement confirmed the Azov Sea’s status as “inland waters” of both countries. Anticipating Ukraine might seek NATO membership, Russia sought the inland-waters status because it prohibits third-country military vessels from entering the waterway. Ukraine sought unsuccessfully to define the Azov Sea as international waters. It also refused to consent to Russian plans to build a bridge across the strait that would link Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula and the Taman Peninsula on the Russian mainland.  That issue remained unresolved until March 2014, when the Russian government approved the project the day after it signed the Crimea accession treaty.^[54]

Resolution of the 2003 Tuzla crisis cleared the way for the Russian and Ukrainian parliaments to ratify an earlier one to “delimit”^[55] the boundary that defined the geographic limit of their sovereign territory (that process took until April 2004).^[56]  Ukraine and Moldova earlier went through a process of border delimitation and demarcation. With the November 1940 Soviet-era administrative border as the starting point, it took from June 1996 until June 2001 to delimit the border, and another four years to fully demarcate it.

The Ukrainian-Russian Commission for Border Delimitation delimited all but 5 percent of that land border by mid-2001, completing the rest in 2003. Russia’s position was that the border should be delimited but not demarcated, and by October 2003 reopened its delimitation when it laid claim to the island of Tuzla.^[57] Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych politically instrumentalized the issue during his 2004 presidential campaign, pledging his opposition to border demarcation and support for Russian as an official language. What some in the Ukrainian media called a “parade of language separatism” continued into the 2006 parliamentary elections, coinciding with an anti-NATO campaign in Crimea.^[58]

In October 2008, Ukraine declared that it might demarcate the border unilaterally, and threatened to take the Azov Sea matter to the International Court of Justice.^[59]  Fast-forward to March 2014, Ukraine excavated a two-meter ditch along the Donets’k region’s border with Russia and raised a two-meter wall; and later in the month, did the same along the border with Crimea and erected watchtowers. In July 2014, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council disclosed its plan to demarcate the border, the initial proposal for which consisted of an electrified, wire-topped 2000km fence protected by ditches and anti-personnel mines. A month earlier, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had dubbed it Proekt Stina (“Project Wall”) and called for a new military doctrine condemning Russia as “an aggressor nation.”^[60] Sergei Ivanov, Putin’s chief of staff, quickly condemned the demarcation as “a low budget Mannerheim Line,”^[61] adding:

“The construction of a wall, to my mind, will make impossible the very restoration of any kind of relations… I am sure there will be no wall in the end.  Rhetoric is rhetoric and life is life.”^[62]

Ukraine was unmoved. By mid-October 2014 it excavated a 62km-long anti-tank ditch along the Russian border; a month later, it had erected 136km of fencing along with antitank ditches, artificial barriers, and checkpoints. Concurrently, the Ukrainian parliament authorized the Kyev government to change administrative borders in the Luhansk oblast unilaterally.  It sought to dismember separatist-controlled districts and integrate them into districts controlled by Ukrainian authorities.  Igor Plotnitsky, head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, dismissed the effort, responding that “[Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko may dream of anything he wants.”^[63]

What is Russia’s End Game?

“To the Russian mind, contradiction is part of life itself.”^[64]

The Transdniestria experience is instructive for Russia in some non-obvious ways. One is an economic lesson, summarized in the pithy observation that “Transdniestrian leaders promised in the early 1990s that it would become Switzerland, but the reality is closer to Somalia.”^[65] Whether or not it overstates the case, it nevertheless makes the point that Transdniestria is economically untenable.  The commentary continues:

“With a 70 percent budget deficit, Transdniestria’s economic situation is, to put it mildly, volatile. The region appears deserted: at least half the 700 thousand people who lived here in the early 1990s have left, and of those who stayed, some 60% are pensioners.  Economic problems are increasingly evident: social benefits like free passes for pensioners in public transportation are canceled; and employees of state enterprises work part-time. Russia, which supplies free natural gas to the region, pays for most pension allowances, social assistance, and so on.

“Russia spends at least $1 billion each year to support Transdniestria. Now imagine that Russia has to pay even more on account of its occupation of the Donbass, the population of which is almost ten times greater than Transdniestria’s. It would cost Russia at least $10 billion a year just to maintain a minimum living standard living, not to mention the cost to develop the region.”^[66]

Russia is determined to avoid this scenario in the Donbas. So it comes as no surprise that Russia sought (and, perhaps surprisingly, obtained) Ukraine’s agreement under the February 2015 Minsk-II^[67] agreement to “full restoration of social and economic connections, including social transfers, such as payments of pensions and other payments.” Ukraine last year suspended the payment of public sector wages, social security pensions, and other social benefits in the Donbas, claiming that doing so was impossible to do so since it did not control the region.^[68]  A commentary in the pro-Ukraine Euromaidan Press questions whether it is possible to do so now: “With crime rampant in the separatist-controlled Donbas, will it be safe to transfer funds for social payments and pensions from Kiev to the region and for taxes to be transferred back to the central government?”^[69]

Russia has gained both strategically and tactically under Minsk-II.  Its strategic gain consists of an incipient rapprochement with Germany, which “has tired of the Ukraine ‘problem’,”^[70] and sidestepping a “fiscal Transdniestria” in the Donbas.  Its tactical gain is less obvious:

“Moscow suddenly metamorphoses into a supporter of Ukraine’s ‘territorial integrity’…Russian officials from President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov [are intent on] turning this issue into a test of Ukraine’s adherence to its own territorial integrity. If Ukraine is serious about this, they routinely argue, Ukraine should then re-start social payments to residents of that that territory—they are Ukraine’s citizens after all.”^[71]

The inability of Ukraine to fulfill this commitment would feed the Russian narrative that the Kyev government is either incompetent or acting in bad faith, unwilling to fulfill its Minsk-II commitments and intent on punishing the hapless residents of the Donbas. Minsk-II imposes an obligation on Ukraine (and political responsibility) to resume these payments; it does not, however, specify a date by which they must resume or any payment mechanism.  Many analysts question Ukraine’s ability (and some, its intent) to fulfill its Minsk-II commitments:

“Most of the provisions in today’s declaration have very little to no chance of being implemented. […] Poroshenko [is not] in a position to convince the Rada to resume payments of pensions and other ‘social transfers’ or to restore the banking system even if he wants to, which he clearly doesn’t.”^[72]

Minsk-II expanded the original Minsk contact group^[73] and charged it with establishing “working groups to fulfill the various aspects of the Minsk agreements.” The operational intent was to shift the negotiation of specific issues away from the so-called “Normandy group” comprised of state-level representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France. It also allowed Germany and France to downgrade their participation to the ministerial level.^[74]  An overlooked but important aspect of the Minsk-II agreement:

“[I]nvites Russia into negotiations about implementing the European Union’s free trade agreement with Ukraine (hitherto a bilateral EU-Ukraine matter). It also refloats the idea of creating a common economic space of Europe with Russia (‘from the Atlantic to the [Russian] Pacific’), an idea that Germany had temporarily shelved in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”^[75]

To the west, the situation in Transdniestria is bleak. What Russia’s influential Nezavisimaia Gazeta calls “Russia’s unsinkable aircraft carrier on the banks on the Dniester” may “be on the verge of a humanitarian disaster.”^[76]  A recent commentary in that newspaper accuses Ukraine and Moldova of conspiring to encircle Transdniestria with an economic blockade intended “to push Transdniestria over the edge.”  It also accuses the two of a series of provocations, the claimed intent of which is to establish a pretense for military action against Transdniestria:

“Ukraine must find a solution to ‘the Transdniestria problem,’ which Kyev believes jeopardizes its security to the south.  It also fears that a Transdniestria scenario is developing in its east.”^[77]

The commentary maintains that once Ukraine’s trade agreement^[78] with the European Union goes into effect in January 2016, Transdniestria’s door to EU and Russia will close, thereby exposing its exports to Moldova’s punitive customs regime.

Another story in Nezavisimaia Gazeta (gleefully reprinted by Moldovan media portals) detailed Russia’s refusal, for the first time, to fulfill Transdniestria’s request for financial assistance. Transdniestrian leader Yevgeny Shevchuk, asked for USD100 million to cover pension payments and other expenses.^[79] Political analyst Anatol Tsaranu^[80] wrote, “Russia is in a difficult situation due to the situations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine as well as the economic crisis in Russia itself.”  Thus, another Nezavisimaia Gazeta headline: “Unlike Transdniestria, there will be no decade-long Donetsk People’s Republic: it cannot survive as independent.”^[81]

Much has been made about Russian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Grigory Karasin referring to Transdniestria as a “district.”  Heretofore, only Moldovan officials used that term to refer to Transdniestria.  Some contend Karasin was signaling a shift in Russian policy, the logic of which is that reintegrating Transdniestria into a newly federal Moldova would increase the proportion of Moldova’s pro-Russia population (which Karasin claimed is already half).  The implication is clear: Russia sees Transdniestrian reintegration as instrumental to arresting Moldova’s figurative drift westward, toward Romanian unification and accession to the European Union and NATO, all of which are anathema to Russia.^[82]

This factor—foreclosing further NATO and European Union accessions in its near abroad—animates the Russian policy imperative to impose a federal structure on Moldova and Ukraine, willingly or otherwise. The presence of putatively pro-Russia territories within a federal Moldova and Ukraine is seen to accomplish two ends. First, it would strengthen Russia’’s hand in both countries’ internal affairs, especially if Russia extracts something along the lines of the Kirov Memorandum proposal to enshrine a constitution right to secession, this time around the matter of NATO/EU accession. Second, it would definitively shift the economic burden of supporting Transdniestria and the Donbas to the federal governments in Chișinău and Kyev.  It is not likely Russia would reopen the question of delimiting borders.  While it has demonstrated a willingness to negotiate exchanges of territory when it serves Russian self-interests—witness the current negotiation with Kazakhstan to exchange borderland territory as part of demarcation^[83]—this does not apply to Transdniestria, where Russia has no common border, and for reasons discussed is antithetical to its objectives in the Donbas.

“Although, of course, we will win in the end. And then we all lose.”^[84]

Russian adamance over maintaining a Cold War-era territorial status quo in its near abroad is no less adamantly disputed by Moldova and Ukraine, neither of which is perceived—by Russia, nor it must be said, some Europeans—as it wishes.  Both are flanked by conflicts fueled by “policy, lapses of sobriety, and deficiencies of understanding.”^[85]

Western fatigue with the one in Ukraine (and, by extension, the delitescent one in eastern Moldova) and fears that the Donbas conflict’s sequela may further depress European economies both are rising perceptibly. Europeans may come to see the geopolitical prism as the only interpretive model worth applying, American ideational prodding notwithstanding.  If so, we should expect a quiet shift toward Moldova and Ukraine as a de facto cordon sanitaire, with notions of European integration quietly shelved in favor of geopolitical self-interest. If so, it would resemble (albeit more benignant) Russian policy since neither would be prompted by concern for Moldovan or Ukrainian national interests.^[86]  It would reflect plus ça change of Russia’s near-abroad policy:

“[S]ecurity through creeping buffer zones combined with astutely coordinated diplomacy and military operations against weak neighbors to ingest their territory at opportune moments.  Russia surrounded itself with buffer zones and failing states. […] Such areas generally contained non-Russian populations and bordered on foreign lands.

“Russia repeatedly applied the Polish model to its neighbors. Under Catherine the Great, Russia partitioned Poland three times in the late eighteenth century, creating a country even less capable of administering its affairs as Russia in combination with Prussia and Austria gradually ate it alive. Great and even middling powers on their borders were dangerous. So they must be divided, a fate shared by Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, China, and, post World War II, Germany and Korea.  It is no coincidence that so many divided states border on Russia.  Nor is it coincidence that so many unstable states sit on its periphery.”^[87]

Pavel Felgenhauer believes Russia seeks dominion over Ukraine to ensure Kyev honors its constitutional commitment to “non-alignment” (what Sherr calls “the strategic emptiness of non-bloc status”^[88]) and to give Russia an effective veto over its actions.^[89]   For Russia, maintaining influence is more than a foreign policy priority; it is an existential imperative.^[90]  Thus, it “is less concerned about controlling the Donbass than controlling Kyev,”^[91] given such priorities as the security of Russian energy pipelines that transit Ukraine. One acerbic commentary argues that President Putin “does not want the Donbass or even the mythical ‘New Russia’.” Instead, he wants to restore Russian suzerainty through “a ‘Second Yanukovych’.”^[92]

While dominion likely overstates Russian ambitions in Moldova, it would not invest significant effort into projecting power over another state if not guided by a firm conviction that significant interests were at stake: virtually all Russian natural gas bound for Europe is transported in pipelines that cross Transdniestrian territory. Russia would contentedly accept Europe abandoning Moldova to the fate of a defense-in-depth buffer between NATO member Romania and a non-aligned Ukraine. Russian actions in Ukraine, and earlier, Transdniestria, have certainly had unintended effects. In early January, for example, Russia’s stalwart ally, Belarus, redefined what constitutes a foreign invasion under its statue authorizing the imposition of martial law.^[93]  Belarus’ new statutory definition is intentionally descriptive of Russian actions in Transdniestria and eastern Ukraine, e.g., massing troops on the border, mobilizing troops in preparation for an invasion, and supporting insurgent forces.^[94]

That being said, critics of President Putin’s “improvisation”^[95] bring to mind Mike Tyson’s oft-quoted “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”^[96] It is an error of analysis to conflate activity and improvisation: with unintended application to modern Russia, Stonewall Jackson wrote “Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength.”^[97]  One might dispute General Jackson’s conclusion, but Russian activism exemplifies the aphorism.

And if President Putin is prone to improvisation, it is not necessarily without instrumental effect.  Take the re-centralization of political power we are witnessing in Russia. On 24 February, the Russian government released a transcript of President Putin’s remarks to a State Council Presidium meeting on the socio-economic status of the regions.^[98] He addressed the implementation of so-called “anti-crisis measures” in Russia’s “federal subjects” or regions.^[99]  These include “a mechanism to co-finance” the region’s budgets.  This means federal loans will be substituted for regional governments’ practice of accessing credit markets.  Described in press reports as a “bailout plan,”^[100] the proposed “consolidation of inter-budgetary subsidies and exclusion of violations of the terms under which subsidies are distributed” translates as substantially greater federal control over the fiscal affairs of regional governments. And among its practical effects, the move would give the Kremlin direct control of regional government reserve funds, if remarks toward the end of President Putin’s statement can be taken at face value.^[101]

James Sherr’s observation about Ukraine’s “capacity to dishearten supporters and exasperate antagonists”^[102] fairly extends to neighboring Moldova as well.  It is fitting to end with another of Sherr’s observations:

“Russia’s discontent with the international order is overshadowed by its despondency about itself…Its geopolitical advances have produced few geopolitical advantages. […] It would be unwise to expect predictability and prudent to expect the unexpected.”^[103]

The traditional Russian proverb “between two fires” [Russian: Ме́жду двух огне́й. Russian transl.: Mézhdu dvukh ognéy] expresses much the same dilemma as “between a rock and a hard place.”

About the author:
*John R. Haines is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and directs the Princeton Committee of FPRI. Much of his current research is focused on Russia and its near abroad, with a special interest in nationalist and separatist movements. The translation of all source material is by the author unless noted otherwise.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] The portmanteau word Donbas is formed from the Ukrainian words Donetskyi basein [Ukrainian: Донецький басейн].  Its Russian homophone, Donbass, is similarly derived from Donetskiy bassein [Russian: Донецкий бассейн].

[2] The territory of Transdniestria in Moldova has been governed since 1992 as the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (aka Pridnestrovie) with its capital in Tiraspol.  Ethnic Russians (30.4%) and Ukrainians (28.8%) comprise a majority of its population, with Moldovans (32.1%) accounting for most of the remainder.  For clarity’s sake, the author has elected to use the terms “Transdniestria” and “the Transdniestrian government” to refer to the geographic territory and the Pridnestrovie government, respectively.

The post Between Two Fires: Ukraine Amidst Transdniestria And The Donbas – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Subir Bhaumik*

Avijit Roy had been threatened with death frequently but he had never taken it seriously. A senior police official, when pulled up for failing to protect him, made the point: “He had never asked for security, so what do we do”. Dhaka is the city Avijit was born and grew up in, and like many a free thinker in Bangladesh, he was unwilling to surrender to fear. His last blog post in bdnews24.com, where I work as senior editor, was filed five hours before his death. Like many other free thinkers in Bangladesh, Avijit received death threats from Islamist bloggers who went to the extent of announcing on the Internet that he cannot be killed when in the US but he will be killed once he comes back to the country.

Bangladesh has a powerful tradition of free thinking and secularism born out of the spirit of the 1971 Liberation War. The new generation of bloggers who take on the Islamist fanatics in the battle for Bangladesh’s soul are the latest in the long generation of Bengalis who have fought against communalism and fundamentalism. Their numbers and the intensity of their commitment have grown over the years. Two years ago, they hit the streets of Dhaka in huge numbers and turned Shahbagh Square into a showpiece of mass mobilisation against Islamist fundamentalism at a time when Cairo’s Tahrir Square was taken over by the supporters of Muslim Brotherhood. Their agitation forced the government to amend the law for trial of 1971 war criminals and led to the hanging of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla. Avijit, a bio-engineer and a naturalised US citizen, was one of the spearheads of this progressive blogging fraternity in Bangladesh.

But even as the Shahbagh movement was gathering strength, blogger leader Rajib Haider was murdered near his home in Dhaka’s Mirpur in February 2013. Two years later, in the same month when Bangladesh celebrates its Amar Ekushe (Immortal 21st – or 21st of February for saluting the martyrs of the Bengali Language movement) and the wonderful Bengal spring, you have a new martyr for the cause. In many ways, Avijit Roy’s murder resembles those of Rajib Haider and the Rajshahi University teachers, Mohammad Yunus and Shafiul Islam. Or the murderous attack on popular writer Humayun Azad in 2004, who later died in Germany while under treatment.

The 1999 attack on popular poet Shamshur Rahman was the beginning of this new wave of periodic attacks against the secular Bengali intelligentsia, whose undying spirit made Bangladesh a reality. Islamist radicals, many returning from the jihad in Afghanistan, were organised into radical underground outfits like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam (HuJI) or later the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). One can find a striking resemblance between these new Islamist radical groups and the Pakistan army and its local cohorts like the Al Badr, Al Shams and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Barely two days before Dhaka fell to the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini in December 1971, the Pakistanis and their cohorts had picked up the leading lights of the Bengali cultural brigade and brutally murdered them by dozens. The nation continues to observe December 14 as ‘Shahid Buddhijibi Dibas’ (Martyred Intellectuals Day) to remember the likes of Shahidullah Kaiser and Munir Choudhury who were butchered by Islamist fanatics supporting the Pakistani war effort. For Pakistan’s military rulers, these intellectuals were the specific targets because they were the ones who sold the dream of an independent secular Bangladesh to millions of their people.

Lawrence Lifschultz describes Bangladesh as an ‘unfinished revolution’. The radical Islamist challenge has grown over the years since the Afghan jihad and 9/11 created a space for pan-Islamist jihad across the world. Secular Bangladesh anchored by powerful Bengali linguistic nationalism is an anathema for the thought leaders of the global jihad. No wonder, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri calls for a ‘powerful uprising’ against the present Awami League government. If Hasina government’s determination to push for the 1971 war crimes trials is part of the effort to complete the ‘unfinished revolution’, the attacks on bloggers Rajib Haider and Avijit Roy, teachers Mohammed Yunus and Saiful Islam, writer Humayun Azad or poet Shamsur Rahman are all part of this ‘counter revolution’ – to turn Bangladesh on its head and bury the spirit of 1971.

So for those who see the violence during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-sponsored agitation as a ‘battle of the Begums’, the murder of Avijit Roy will hopefully drive home the point that Bangladesh stands dangerously close to a violent confrontation that involves a fundamental challenge to the spirit of 1971 that led to its birth. That confrontation is linked to the one for political power, of the street battles and the fire bombings, because without political power neither the unfinished revolution nor the counter revolution can be won. Avijit Roy was murdered not by a foreign jihadi using sophisticated weapons but by homegrown fanatics using machetes, by people who know him well and who surely followed him for a week since he landed in Dhaka and started visiting the Ekushe Book Fair to launch his latest books. Books that advocated the spirit of science and the voice of reason in a world threatened by religious fanaticism.

Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death Roy on Feb 27 while returning from a book fair.

His murder will not silence the voice of secularism and reason in Bangladesh, if the responses of free thinkers and bloggers are anything to go by. The country has more men and women of courage and conviction espousing the spirit of 1971 than the jihadis can possibly kill. They transcend generations. But the police failure to track down the killers of Avijit Roy so far does point to serious weaknesses of state power in the fight against Islamist radicalism. Months of relentless violence during the ongoing BNP-sponsored transport blockade seems to be adversely impacting on the police and security forces.

*Subir Bhaumik is a veteran journalist and author. He can be reached at contributions@spsindia.in

The post Bangladesh Blogger’s Murder: Islamists Can Never Win – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ghazanfar Ali Khan

Saudi Arabia and Turkey are embarking on a “new era” in their relations after talks between the nations’ leaders on Sunday, which included Yemen, Syria and Iran’s nuclear program, a senior diplomat said on Monday.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led the talks, accompanied by senior officials from both sides.

“The wide-ranging talks between the two leaders were very fruitful,” said Adel bin Siraj Mirdad, Saudi ambassador to Turkey.

The visit “will open a new era of relations between the Kingdom and Turkey,” said Mirdad. The gathering marks a thaw in diplomatic ties between the two countries, several Saudi and Turkish officials said, but did not divulge more details.

Mirdad confirmed that the leaders discussed bilateral ties, the Middle East peace process, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Palestine, the threat of the Islamic State group and Iran’s nuclear program. “Turkey is an important country with which the Kingdom has had historic cordial relations,” said the envoy.

He said a number of “critical and dangerous issues were tackled by the two leaders very candidly” within the framework of the bilateral consultations on Sunday. The nations are crucial role players in regional peace and security initiatives, said Mirdad.

A top Turkish diplomat said that King Salman and Erdogan touched on all bilateral and regional issues during their meeting.

“No separate meeting was held between Erdogan and other high-ranking Saudi officials, because all top Saudi and Turkish officials were present at the talks and at the lunch banquet,” he added.

Observers see Erdogan’s visit as an indicator of recovering relations between the two old allies. The Turkish president also attended King Abdullah’s funeral earlier this year.

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