US President Barack Obama on Thursday updated leaders from Gulf states on international efforts to forge a nuclear deal with Iran, said Ben Rhodes, US deputy national security adviser.

Rhodes said the US would welcome support from Gulf countries for the deal, which many Arab leaders are concerned would empower Iran to work in destabilizing ways in the region.

The White House said the first day of the summit focused on the Iranian nuclear deal. To go through the details of nuclear talks with Iran, Obama brought along his secretaries of treasury, state, energy as well as CIA director — and former Riyadh station chief — John Brennan.

The summit discussed prospects of speedy US military assistance for the Gulf countries including missile defense systems, the White House said. “We have received requests from the GCC states to get more weapons even before the summit,” a White House spokesman said.

He emphasized that the US would continue its efforts to strengthen the defense capabilities of GCC countries.

Obama is expected to offer the GCC countries more military assistance, including increased joint exercises and coordination on ballistic missile systems.

Rhodes said Obama and Gulf leaders would discuss strategies for Syria. The White House is open to evaluating the option of a no-fly zone to help resolve the Syrian conflict, Rhodes said, although he said the measure is not seen as a viable way to address fighting in urban areas.

Just two heads of state are among those meeting Obama, with other nations sending lower-level but still influential representatives.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman was skipping the summit. The heads of the UAE and Oman have had health problems and were not making the trip. Bahrain’s royal court announced Wednesday that rather than travel to Washington, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa would be attending a horse show and meeting with Queen Elizabeth.

The Gulf summit comes as the US and five other nations work to reach an agreement with Iran by the end of June to curb its nuclear efforts in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions. The Gulf nations fear that an easing of sanctions will only facilitate Iran’s aggression.

The White House says a nuclear accord could clear the way for more productive discussions with Iran about its reputed terror links.

The post Washington Pledges Robust Defense For Gulf Countries appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Khaiminthang Lunkim*

South Koreans’ anti-Americanism is not a recent phenomenon as they nurtured strong feelings against the Americans and American ways and culture from the early post war years in general and their democratization in the 1980s in particular. While prior to the transition to democratization, anti-Americanism was either diffused or suppressed by the government, with the advent of democracy, this was no longer the case as anti-Americanism got wide publicity and popular support. For some, this was the result of the long association between the two nations that began after the World War II and the massive American presence in their country. Growth of nationalism and the feelings that America’s inimical policies towards the Communist North have been hampering the reunification of the two Koreas have increased anti-Americanism among the Southerners. This paper attempts to identify the causes of this rising popular feeling and highlight its implications on the Korea-US relations.

*****

Koreans in general and the Southerners in particular have, witnessed anti-Americanism after their liberation from Japanese colonialism and the years following the Korean War (1950-1953). The authoritarian regime that came to power following the War, however, not only suppressed such sentiment in the South but also sought to justify such measures on the pretext of national security citing the looming threats of a North Korean invasion. The transition to democracy began since the 1980s, however, was a big boost to anti-Americanism. As Kim (2010) rightly points out that, anti-American sentiment and movements in South Korea was a product of domestic politicsi. Therefore, to identify the causes of anti-Americanism, it is not only important to look at the democratic transition but also to analyze the implications of democracy on Korea-US relations.

Defining anti-Americanism is no easy task. Various scholars have treated this anti-Americanism with different motives and patterns such as nationalism, anti-capitalism, anti-Western sentiment and so on. In fact, even its motives have changed over time. Marie France Toinet defines it as a complete rejection of everything and anything Americanii. On the contrary, Meredith Woo-Cumings (2003) feels that one needs to look beyond the popular opinion poll on South Koreans’ anti-Americanism that Koreans’ resentment against the Americans have no meaning except that it is nothing but biting off the hands that fed them so long. As such, she rightly pointed out that it is equally important to examine the unraveling of the Cold War alliance between South Korea and the United Statesiii. However, the best way to understand South Koreans’ anti-Americanism is to look at it through, as Shin (1996), says as cultural criticism of American society and values, political and economic resentments, and an ideological rejection of the USiv.

Historical Background

South Korea’s democratic process began in the 1980s and lasted through the 1990s. It was during this period that the past atrocities of the US and those inflicted by the authoritarian government were revisited, as prior to that protests against both the government and the US were suppressed by the state. From its establishment in 1948 as a separate country, and until the 1980s, South Korea was under authoritarian regimes, but the most important period was the presidency of Park Chung Hee (1962-1979), who bluntly justified his military coup as a necessity to strengthen national security and to bring about economic development. The Park regime saw rapid economic development, lifting millions out of poverty, and thereby increasing the overall standard of living for the masses. Due to the Cold War and the threat of North Korea, President Park Chung Hee focused profoundly on the stability of the state at the cost of the freedom and democracy of the Koreans. For these reasons, his legacy was overshadowed by his leadership style which was more authoritarian than consultative. While the Koreans loved the economic development and better lives under a stable government, at the same time, they also yearned for personal freedom. Thus, with the end of the Cold War, authoritarian regimes was discarded and paved the way for the democratization of the countryv.

The first civilian president Kim Young Sam (1993-1998), focused on human rights and social welfare. It was during this transition that the past atrocities of the authoritarian regime were revisited and revealed. The democratic governments of Kim Young Sam (1993-1998) and Kim Dae Jung (1998-2003) ordered an investigation into the No Gun Ri firing in 1950 involving American forces when they opened fire on innocent civilians after mistaking them to be North Korean soldiers; and the 1980 Kwangju massacre by the army. The revelation from these incidents generated great hatred towards the US and the past authoritarian regimes, which overshadowed the legacy of massive economic growth. Following this, tens of thousands of ordinary Koreans took to the streets protesting against these atrocities. As Katherine Moon observes, “decentralization of government functions and authority emboldened local citizens and politicians, and challenged the central government’s long monopoly of power especially in the area of national security and foreign policy.”vi

This paper attempts to highlight the escalation in protests against anti-Americanism through the following developments: the No Gun Ri incident of 1950; the 1980 Kwangju massacre; the status of force agreement; American policy towards North Korea; Korea’s increasing international muscle and the recent events.

a) No Gun Ri Firing

With the liberation of the Korean peninsula from the Japanese colonialism, the peninsula was divided into two zones after the World War II between the US allied South Korea and Soviet-allied North Korea. On July 25, 1950, North Korea marched towards South in its attempt to unify the peninsula. The United States that fought alongside the South Korean army dispatched its army in an attempt to fight back the North Korean aggression. No Gun Ri is a small village located in the Chungcheon province. The incident occurred in early Korean War on July 26-29, 1950 when American soldiers opened fire on Korean refugees on the pretext of assuming the Korean refugees as North Koreans infiltrators.

While the US administration justified the killing as they presumed the Korean refugees to be North Korean soldiers, the survivors of the incident and their relatives filed a bunch of petitions in the US embassy in Seoul. For many years, the incident was either unknown or silenced, but after the democratic transition, the incident resurfaced. It was only in 1999 when the Associated Press published a thorough report of the incident that US army agreed to conduct a serious investigation. Though the estimates of dead is far from accurate, in 2005, South Korean government report listed 163 dead or missing and 55 wounded along with many being not reported. In 2001, President Bill Clinton offered deep regret; however, public awareness of this incident added fuel to the burning strong anti-Americanism.

b) Kwangju Massacre

The events of Kwangju uprising unfolded after the assassination of former president Park Chung Hee in 1979 which left the country in political turmoil. The unforeseen death of Park Chung Hee was expected to usher in an era of democracy which was long hoped-for by the Koreans. However, General Chun Doo Hwan tried to stabilize the country after a successful coup; the public was against having another authoritarian regime as they have long fought for freedom. As a result, anti-martial law demonstrations took place in various parts of the country. On May 18, 1980 many Koreans took to the streets in protest against the government in the Kwangju province. A salient feature of this protest was the massive participation of students and civilians. With the approval of the United States, the new military government under President Chun (1980-1988) sent out the army to suppress the protest and in the ensuing firing saw thousands of civilians being shot dead in cold-blood. The Chun Doo Hwan government issued a report stating that 144 civilians, 22 troops and four police officers had been killed during the uprisings. However, census figures revealed that more than 2000 citizens of Kwangju disappeared during the uprising.

The massacre left the Koreans traumatized and led to a steep escalation in anti-Americanism because they had once considered the US to be a country that stood for democracy and human rights. Instead, they saw the US administration openly supporting Chun Doo Hwan’s military coup. Prior to this incident, anti-Americanism was directed towards the remnants of the Korean War. But this incident made the hatred towards the US, official and nationwide.

c) The Status of Force Agreement (SOFA)

Apart from the remnants of the Korean War and Kwangju massacre, there were other issues that added oil to the already burning lamp of anti-Americanism such as the Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) and the rising number of crimes being committed by the US military on the civilians. Right from the Chinese domination of the undivided Korea starting from the Silla and Koryo dynasties to the Mongolian rule during the Chosun dynasty to the Japanese imperialism and to the end of the World War II, the Korean peninsula was always under foreign domination, which got further transformed by the pulls and pressures of the Cold War. The permanent American settlement in South Korea during the Cold War era not only insulated Seoul from the threats of a North Korea attack but also helped in netting billions of dollars from the US to nurse its war ravaged economy back to health. Even as government, military and economic ties between the two nations grew rapidly, leading to massive improvement in the overall economic wellbeing of the public, the open conflicts between American soldiers and Korean civilians as also crimes involving them only grew rapidly leading to increased hatred between the two.

The result was the adoption of the SOFA between the American soldiers and the local Koreans in July 1966. The SOFA is “a detailed set of rules, protocols and promises that governs the actual stationing of American troops… is signed with the host nation of U.S. bases and contains the agreements that define the rights and duties of U.S. military personnel and their dependents.”vii According to Cooley (2008), from 1967 to 2003, American servicemen committed over 55,000 crimes over the Koreansviii, which according to him came down after the country moved onto the path of democracy.

d) Death of Two School Girls

The Koreans considered the SOFA favoring the US military, as was reflected in the death of two school girls on June 13, 2002. The importance of this incident to the escalation in anti-Americanism was such that it happened during the FIFA World Cup that Seoul hosted in 2002 and when Korean nationalism was at its peak. The incident took place during a routine US military exercise when an armored truck killed two school girls in the heart of the national capital. What was worse was that the US acquitted the soldiers responsible for the killing, citing the terms of the SOFAix, and the American justice system that emphasizes on intent rather than the result. This created deep-hearted hatred towards the Americans.
Campaigns against the mishandling of the death of two Korean school girls varied widely from the Anti-American citizens’ demand for the U.S. military’s pulling out of Korea to the demand for an apology by U.S. government officials. Following this campaign, Koreans demanded that the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) be amended so that in future U.S. soldiers who commit crimes against Koreans cannot be immune from prosecution in Korean courts.

e) American policy towards North Korea

Initially after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the US received support from various countries in its fight against global terrorism, but anti-Americanism gained momentum after the US invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext of eliminating weapons of mass destruction which were never found but with the covert plan of securing Iraqi oil fields the US companies.

After 2001 terror attack on its soil, the US adopted a stricter foreign policy and it went to the extent of declaring North Korea as the “axis of evil” along with Iraq. Unfortunately in 2002, the Kim Dae Jung government (1998-2003), in its bid to engage North Korea and further the prospects of unification, announced a “sunshine policy.”x But the US move to label North Korea as the ‘axis of evil’ not only impacted Seoul’s engagement with Pyongyang but also hampered its relations with the US.

f) Mad Cow Disease

In 2008, there was a series of protests against the government reversal of the ban on US beef imports which was in place since 2003 when the mad cow virus was detected in American cattle. Since there is a free trade agreement between the two nations, tying the hands of Seoul, the demonstrators accused the government of giving US unwarranted concessions. They also accused their former president Lee Myun Bak (2008-2013) of compromising national interest and public health while ratifying the FTA, which ultimately led to him to tender a public apology. On the whole, “the demonstration contained the undercurrents of anti-American sentiment, proving that it was still a force in the South Korean consciousness.”xi

g) Korea-US Military Exercise

Korea and the US have been conducting joint field training exercise annually from 1997 under the auspices of the Combined Forces Command, and is one of the largest military exercises in the world. Known as Foal Eagle till 2008 and Key Resolve from 2009, the military exercise tests the capability of Korea to defend against foreign threats. The combined military exercise between United States and South Korea as of 2014 under the name Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) primarily focuses on defending South Korea from the treats of possible attack from North Korea. Beginning from 1976, the exercise is conducted annually during August or September. However, these exercises, like that of the UFG exercise, often led North Korea to accuse the US of arming and preparing South Korea to invade them.

h) Attack on US Envoy

The recent attack on the US ambassador Mark Lippert by one Kim Ki-Jong on March 5, 2015 in the Korean capital was bizarre as it was one of the first such incidents in Korea where a personal attack was made on a foreign official. In fact, during the course of anti-Americanism protests, particularly during the 1980s, students used to repeatedly capture American cultural centres but no attempt was ever made on anyone in particular. Such flare-ups are mostly limited to certain sections of the extreme political left who blame the US for the division of the Korean peninsula. Kim Ki-Jong’s ultimate protest was against the recent Korea-US military exercise as he feared this would further escalate the already tense atmosphere on the peninsula.

Interestingly, Koreans were divided in their reactions against the attack. As pointed out by Kim (2010), the two political forces still discernible in the country are the ‘conservative-rightists’ and the ‘progressive-leftists’.xii While the conservative-rightists adopt a pro-American and anti-North Korean stance and looks at the US as a saviour who had sacrificed thousands of lives during the Korean War, the progressive-leftists are openly anti-American and pro-North. Here, Kim Ki-Jong can be thought as progressive-leftist who wanted an end to the Korean-US military drills to improve South-North relations.

As pointed out by Konstantin Asmolov, “nationalism is a rather important part of the Korean state ideology. And when the actions of nationalists, even if they are radical actions, protect the interests of the country, a blind eye is often turned…”xiii, however, the danger of such nationalism-driven violence is that it can turn costly for the country as a whole in the long run.

Conclusion

Any alliance is built on common goals and when either of the party starts looking at the other as a point of no return, the alliance begins to weaken and eventually breaks up. Similarly, the rise of anti-Americanism in Korea will, in the long run, weaken the Korea-US alliance unless necessary steps are taken immediately. Kim (1989) has rightly pointed out that this feeling of anti-Americanism is predominant among the younger generations as they had neither witnessed nor experienced the American role in both the liberation from Japanese imperialism and the Korean War, the older generation on the other hand has been relatively friendly towards the United States.xiv As long as Korea considers US’ ‘war on terrorism’ and its policies towards North Korea as a threat to its own national interest and security, there cannot be a strong relationship between the two. In the foreseeable future, there is bound to be frictions between the two as the rising tide of nationalistic jingoism gains ground in Korea. In fact, one cannot simply ignore the fact that these anti-Americanism rose after the partition of the Korean peninsula in the post-World War II sharing of the booty between the US and the erstwhile Communist USSR. The Koreans tends to be fed up with the crimes being committed by the American soldiers on them and keep getting away from punishment under the terms of SOFA, the rising trade frictions and the lingering prospects of a reunification due to American policies. It would be in the interest of the US to heed to the rising tide of anti-Americanism as the best way to resolve issues is to understand the evolving social and cultural differences.

*Khaiminthang Lunkim is a Research Scholar in Centre for East Asian Studies, Korean Division, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has worked on Community Development in Korea and Middle Class in Korea.

i. Kim, Hakjoon (May, 2010), “A Brief History of the U.S.-ROK Alliance and Anti-Americanism in South Korea”, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 31 (1): 5.
ii. Shin, Gi-Wook (Aug, 1996), “South Korean Anti-Americanism: A Comparative Perspective”, Asian Survey, 36 (8): 789.
iii. Cumings, Meredith Woo (July, 2003), “South Korean Anti-Americanism” JPRI Working Paper, 93.
iv. Shin, Gi-Wook (Aug, 1996), “South Korean Anti-Americanism: A Comparative Perspective”, Asian Survey, 36 (8): 789.
v. Oh, Chang Hun and Celeste Arrington (2007), “Democratization and Changing Anti-American Sentiments in South Korea”, Asian Survey, 330.
vi. Moon, Katherine (2004), “South Korea-U.S. Relations”, Asian Perspective, 44-45.
vii. Alexander Cooley (2008), Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 33.
viii. Ibid, 122-123
ix. Article 22, Section 3 of the SOFA states: (a) The military authorities of the United States shall have the primary right to exercise jurisdiction over members of the United States armed forces or civilian component, and their dependents, in relation to: offenses arising out of any act or omission done in the performance of official duty. (b) In the case of any other offense, the authorities of the Republic of Korea shall have the primary right to exercise jurisdiction. ROK-US Status of Forces Agreement Article 22, Section 3.
x. Buzo, Adrian (2007), The making of Modern Korea, Routledge, 168.
xi. Kim, Hakjoon (May, 2010), “A Brief History of the U.S.-ROK Alliance and Anti-Americanism in South Korea”, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 31 (1): 33.
xii. Ibid, 5.
xiii. Konstantin Asmolov, Attack on the US Ambassador to South Korea. http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/19/rus-k-napadeniyu-na-posla-ssha-v-yuzhnoj-koree/.
xiv. Kim, Jinwung (Aug, 1989), “Recent Anti-Americanism in South Korea: The Causes”, Asian Survey, 29 (8): 752-754.

The post Anti-Americanism In Korea: Causes And Implications – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

“For a long time people have stopped trusting what comes out about bin Laden from the official mouths.” – General Asad Durrani, quoted by Seymour Hersh in London Review of Books, Mar 21, 2015

Seymour Hersh’s article in the London Review of Books was meant to precipitate a harsh intake of breathe, and a range of murmurings from press gallery to blogosphere. The more measured would have been less surprised. While the unmasking by Hersh of the White House account of the Navy Seal operation against Osama bin Laden is welcome, it is fitting to note that little regarding accounts of the man’s life, be it his vocation as a terrorist, or his ultimate death, could ever be regarded as credible. All that he seemed to touch turned to myth.

The cult of mendacity has met the cult of the disingenuous, from the time the “War on terror” was declared to the pornographic violence of Zero Dark Thirty, a sort of haloing of the American effort against unmitigated evil that culminated in that fatal night in Abbottabad. This was Gunsmoke with torture, and it proved just as convincing.

It was fitting, then, that bin Laden would perish in circumstances he lived in: mystery, deception, an Alice in Wonderland variation of hobbled half-truths and discredited accounts. Alexander Cockburn has called this a “volcano of lies,” though it just as aptly might be deemed a factory of dissimulation, reconstruction and fantasy. It was a factory that provided a barely plausible cover story over the Navy Seal mission that would end his life.

The main feature of the entire operation was that Pakistan’s two most senior military leaders – chief of the army staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and director general of ISI, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, were kept in the dark about it. Our only conclusion is that the White House lied, and did so with some enthusiasm.

Naturally, the responses to this account of purported cover-up have been frothily indignant. Max Boot, who tends to see the jackboot of freedom march with determination before the shackle of liberty, accused Hersh as being a fantasist, and a left-wing one at that. Presumably, the report on attempts to cover-up the My Lai atrocity perpetrated by US forces in Vietnam was another sterling effort of a fantasist.

One conspicuous note for the cognoscenti of investigative journalism lay in the forum Hersh ended up publishing in. His effort appeared in the London Review of Books, rather than his traditional home of The New Yorker, to which he has been a contributor since 1971. That, it was surmised, was largely because New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle had written a story in August 2011 hugging the official narrative spun by the White House. As Gabriel Sherman posed, “Was New Yorker editor David Remnick’s decision not to publish Hersh’s piece a sign that Hersh’s account couldn’t be trusted?”

All who sup from the bin Laden cup have been found wanting, largely because those who have been writing the history have been held on a tight leash. Peter Bergen of CNN suggested that Hersh’s piece “reads like Frank Underwood from House of Cards has made an unholy alliance with Carrie Mathison from Homeland to produce a Pakistani version of Watergate.” (Hersh himself makes the same accusation of the Obama administration’s story, though he prefers the inspiration of Lewis Carroll.)

Bergen’s sideswipe falls to the anonymous retired US intelligence source. He deems it a pretty tall order to go about accusing the American president and his top advisors of instinctive and calculated lying on the basis of just one source, though a careful reading will necessitate a dismissal of Bergen’s point. He argues, instead, for his own set of factoids, claiming that the Hersh account “is a farrago of nonsense that is contravened by a multitude of eyewitness accounts, inconvenient facts and simple common sense.” Fanciful stuff indeed considering that nothing about the “war” on terror has involved a shred of common sense.

He also happily puts in his diminished two-cents worth by telling readers that he “was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.” He saw a compound trashed and evidence of “many bullets fired the night of bin Laden’s death.” The point being that more bullets were fired than Hersh is willing to allow. Importantly for Bergen, he finds it impossible that American officials might have even countenanced the very idea of a cover-up. “What did US officials have to lose by saying that bin Laden was being protected by the Pakistanis, if it were true?”

Surely, the one with a smile, crooked as it may be, will be the late bin Laden, his spirit dancing on the narratives that have been springing up around him. Prior to his death, he had died a multitude of times, a body in pieces that seemed to be surviving one assault after another. He was said to be suffering from a host of ailments, yet could muster being the relevant totemic figure in the “war” on terror. He was spectral and dissimulative. He deceived US security forces by dressing up as a woman. He was, at one point, in several locations across the Middle East, suggesting that he had managed the remarkable saint’s feat of bi-location.

Even after his death, there was a debate about where bin Laden’s body should go. An ocean grave it became, but that was hardly the end of the matter. Hersh’s account simply continues a discussion of a myth that continues to enrage and distort.

The post Lies, Lies, And The Death Of Bin Laden – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The leadership of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) should insist that the government of Azerbaijan release journalists and activists ahead of the European Games, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. Azerbaijan will host the games, a multi-sport event for over 6,000 athletes, in Baku from June 12-28, 2015.

“Quick to praise President Ilham Aliyev’s preparation for the inaugural European Games, the EOC leadership has so far maintained a public silence in the face of serious abuse and repression by Azerbaijan’s government against its critics,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The window to finally speak up before the games open is closing fast, but the EOC still has an opportunity to stand up for Olympic values, including by unambiguously calling for prisoner releases.”

The European Olympic Committees, an association of 50 National Olympic Committees, owns and regulates the games. The 17 National Olympic Committee leaders, who make up the EOC’s Executive Committee, or governing board, will meet on May 14 in Antalya, Turkey, in their final gathering before the European Games.

Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to all 17 Executive Committee members on May 12, urging the EOC to call on Azerbaijan to release those imprisoned on politically motivated charges, including journalists and human rights defenders, and to end its crackdown on critical voices before the opening ceremony of the games.

The EOC and its members are part of the Olympic Movement and governed by the Olympic Charter, which has explicit guarantees for press freedom and insists that sport promotes “human dignity” and “the harmonious development of humankind.”

In the year leading up to the games, the government of Azerbaijan has carried out an unprecedented crackdown to silence critical journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition activists, including by arresting dozens on bogus criminal charges carrying long prison sentences. Among those in detention and facing up to 12 years in prison if convicted on multiple false charges is the country’s leading investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayilova.

“Azerbaijani authorities have demonstrated time and again that they will not tolerate criticism but use intimidation, harassment, politically motivated prosecution, imprisonment, and physical attacks to silence independent voices,” said Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “The EOC’s leadership must not keep silent while the journalists most capable of ensuring the full, free coverage of the European Games, as stipulated by the Olympic Charter, languish behind bars.”

The organizations also called on the EOC to establish a standing mechanism to enable journalists covering the games to report interference in their work and secure a swift response from the EOC.

The EOC vice president, Janez Kocijancic, sought to dismiss any meaningful role for the EOC in addressing human rights concerns in Azerbaijan during a hearing in the European Parliament on May 6. According to media reports, Kocijancic contended that the EOC “cannot accept political engagements,” but also claimed that the EOC will use “whatever influence we have to make this society better and more open.”

“The EOC needs to use its unique leverage with Azerbaijan in the run-up to Baku 2015 to stand up for press freedom and human dignity,” Ognianova said. “These values are universal ones that Azerbaijan has voluntarily committed to uphold.”

In addition to the dozens of journalists and activists behind bars, many other critics have fled the country or gone into hiding, fearing persecution. The government has shuttered dozens of nongovernmental organizations and media outlets and virtually eliminated all possibilities for independent groups critical of the government to secure foreign financing.

“EOC leaders absolutely have a responsibility to use their influence for positive change and ensure that the inaugural European Games are the great success everyone wants,” Buchanan said. “But if the EOC continues to be a silent partner in the face of such serious human rights abuses, the games risk being forever tarnished by both the abuses and the complacency of those who have the power to make a difference.”

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The 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War will be commemorated the day after tomorrow, May 9. Given the time difference, while I write these lines, the soldiers and officials of the Army of the Russian Federation, full of pride, will be parading through Moscow’s Red Square with their characteristic quick, military steps.

Lenin was a brilliant revolutionary strategist who did not hesitate in assuming the ideas of Marx and implementing them in an immense and only partly industrialized country, whose proletariat party became the most radical and courageous on the planet in the wake of the greatest slaughter that capitalism had caused in the world, where for the first time tanks, automatic weapons, aviation and poison gases made an appearance in wars, and even a legendary cannon capable of launching a heavy projectile more than 100 kilometers made its presence felt in the bloody conflict.

From that carnage emerged the League of Nations, an institution that should have preserved peace but which did not even manage to stop the rapid advance of colonialism in Africa, a great part of Asia, Oceana, the Caribbean, Canada and a contemptuous neo-colonialism in Latin America. Barely 20 years later, another atrocious world war broke out in Europe, the preamble to which was the Spanish Civil War, beginning in 1936.

After the crushing defeat of the Nazis, world nations placed their hopes in the United Nations, which strives to generate cooperation in order to put an end to aggressions and wars, such that countries can preserve the peace, development and peaceful cooperation of the big and small, rich or poor States of the world. Millions of scientists could, among other tasks, increase the chances of the survival of the human species, with billions of people already threatened by food and water shortages within a short period of time. We are already 7.3 billion people on the planet. In 1800 there were only 978 million; this figure rose to 6.07 billion in 2000; and according to conservative estimates by the year 2050 there will be 10 billion.

Of course, scarcely is the arrival to Western Europe of boats full of migrants mentioned, traveling in any object that floats; a river of African migrants, from the continent colonized by the Europeans over hundreds of years. 23 years ago, in a United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development I stated: “An important biological species is in danger of disappearing given the rapid and progressive destruction of its natural life-sustaining conditions¬: man.” I did not know at that time, how close we were to this.

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, I wish to put on record our profound admiration for the heroic Soviet people, who provided humankind an enormous service. Today we are seeing the solid alliance between the people of the Russian Federation and the State with the fastest growing economy in the world: The People’s Republic of China; both countries, with their close cooperation, modern science and powerful armies and brave soldiers constitute a powerful shield of world peace and security, so that the life of our species may be preserved.

Physical and mental health, and the spirit of solidarity are norms which must prevail, or the future of humankind, as we know it, will be lost forever. The 27 million Soviets who died in the Great Patriotic War, also did so for humanity and the right to think and be socialists, to be Marxist-Leninists, communists, and leave the dark ages behind.

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Which country is the most attractive market in the world for food and drink exporters?

A study by IESE and Deloitte says it’s not the country with the largest overall population (China), nor with the largest number of middle-class households (also China). Nor is it the country with the highest GDP per capita (Luxembourg), nor the highest food-and-beverage spending per capita (Norway). And it’s not the country ranked highest for its ease of doing business and legal safeguards (Singapore).

Of all the countries analyzed by the latest Food and Beverage Attractiveness (FBA) index, the good ol’ United States sits on top for its continued appetite for the world’s food and beverage offerings. That said, all six indicators mentioned above are included to calculate the U.S. and each country’s FBA score for 2015.

Top 10 on the Food and Beverage Attractiveness (FBA) Index

After the United States comes China, home to 1.37 billion with a rapidly growing middle class, which grew more than 10 percent last year to 232 million households. Third place is occupied by Germany, as it was last year.

Europe is the continent that dominates the top 10 overall, with five entries: Germany (third), the United Kingdom (fifth), France (seventh), the Netherlands (eighth) and Italy (ninth). Asia has three entries: China (second) plus Japan (fourth) and India (sixth). In North America, Canada moves up one spot from last year to sit at tenth place. Notably, of the top 10, the first eight maintained their positions of last year.

In the top 20 entries, Australia (18th) is the only country not hailing from Europe, Asia or North America. Next comes United Arab Emirates (21st).

Within Africa, the most attractive export markets are South Africa (52nd), Egypt (56th) and Nigeria (61st).

Climbers and Shakers

North America, Europe and Asia Take the Top Spots

Notably, Nigeria climbed the most — 13 spots — in just one year among all 82 countries for which complete data was available for all six indicators used to construct the FBA. Nigeria’s gains stemmed mostly from growth in its middle class population and its food and beverage imports. The second biggest mover was the Czech Republic — up 12 spots to 36th. The Czech Republic saw very significant gains in its legal framework as well as in its imports.

Turkey’s gains were also notable, although it only moved up one spot in the rankings to 38th. Turkey scored significantly higher for its legal framework, while its number of middle-class households also grew. That said, its consumer spending on food per capita slipped slightly while its GDP per capita also dropped.

In the Middle East, the hunger for food imports is growing in Saudi Arabia, ranked second in the region and 29th overall. That said, Saudi Arabia slipped six spots year-over-year as its ease-of-doing-business ranking fell.

In Asia, South Korea also bears mention. In the 20th position, South Korea was a top performer (fifth) globally for its ease of doing business / legal framework. At the same time, its economy, spending and middle class also inched up.

Finally, Mexico is notable for being Latin America’s leading food and drink market, with an improving legal framework and increased import volume. For the FBA index, Mexico was ranked 16th overall and third within the Americas.

Who Is Hungry for What?

Homing in on imports by category reveals interesting trends. Last year, the United States was the top importer of every kind of beverage featured in the study. But in the wine category, the United Kingdom moved into the top spot this year, with U.K. wine imports climbing over 21 percent to nearly $6 billion. That climb may be spurred by the relatively weak euro vis-à-vis the British pound, making those French and Italian labels more appealing, combined with more wine from the New World.

In food, the United States’ appetite for certain imports seems to growing while Japan’s seems to be waning. In the fish category, imports to the United States grew 8 percent while those to Japan dropped 15 percent. As a result, the United States and Japan swapped spots, as Number 1 and 2, respectively. The United States also displayed an impressive hunger for bakery and cereal imports, as its imports in this food category surged nearly 16 percent. Japan’s dropped 2 percent.

Over in the dairy-and-eggs category, Germany sits on top of the world for its volume of imports. In fats and oil imports, China is Number 1. For meat imports, Japan consumes the most. For most other categories, the United States is the hungriest, which is how it earned the top ranking for the weighted FBA overall.

Opening Up to New Food Markets

IESE and Deloitte have teamed up for the third year running to produce the Vademecum on Food and Beverage Markets 2015, featuring the FBA index and detailed country profiles for 34 of the most attractive markets around the world, as ranked by the index.

The study was supervised by IESE professor Jaume Llopis. It was carried out by IESE’s Industry Meetings Department, coordinated by director María Puig and lead researcher Júlia Gifra, in collaboration with a team from the consultancy Deloitte, led by Fernando Pasamón of Deloitte in Spain.

The Vademecum is intended as a practical guide for companies located in any country looking to export abroad within the food and beverage sector.

New in 2015: Looking to 2025

The Vademecum on Food and Beverage Markets 2015 includes data from the previous two years, updated to facilitate year-to-year comparisons and spot trends. New in 2015 are population projections to help understand the potential consumer markets for 2025.

In the 34 country profiles, “population pyramids” are presented for both 2015 and 2025, illustrating the potential consumer markets now and for the future broken down by both age and gender. These demographic bar charts look like pyramids when a population is growing, but they appear precariously balanced when a population is shrinking.

Index Ingredients

The FBA index was constructed using six indicators with various weightings, adding up to a possible score of 100. The six indicators are based on data from the IMF, World Bank, the UN and Euromonitor International. Top weightings for the FBA index were placed on import volumes (40 percent), followed by population (25 percent). Weighted scores were determined by the study’s authors together with industry leaders and members of the IESE Advisory Board Council for the Food and Beverage Industry Meeting hailing from the business world.

IESE’s 19th Food and Beverage Industry Meeting, held at IESE’s Barcelona campus on May 26, 2015, provides participants with the latest 361-page Vademecum on Food and Beverage Markets and more industry insights. While the past three reports have been presented in Barcelona, the 2014 edition was also presented to the 1st Food and Beverage Industry Meeting IESE organized jointly with IPADE in Mexico City in February 2015.

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Blues-master B.B. King has died, according to the artist’s attorney. King was 89.

AP reports that King’s Attorney Brent Bryson said that King died peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. local time at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada (US). King had been receiving hospice care from complications related to diabetes.

As recent as 2011, Rolling Stone ranked King as number six of the 100 greatest guitarists ever. King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and was known not only for having a uniquely identifiable style that relied heavily on vibrato, but for also for his mixing of swing and jazz into his blues style.

King was born in Mississippi, and he is widely credited for influencing the styles of guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

Among other songs, King is often remembered “The Thrill Is Gone.”

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UN hybrid tribunal in danger of becoming irrelevant as donor nations overlook Cambodian government’s interference.

By John D. Ciorciari*

The United Nations faces a credibility test. For more than a decade, it has supported the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC, a hybrid tribunal with national and international sides created to try “senior leaders” and others “most responsible” for atrocities of the Pol Pot regime, which enjoyed Chinese support. The ECCC reflects a compromise between western powers that favored UN-led justice and a Beijing-backed Cambodian government keen to exercise primary control. The Cambodian government has repeatedly tested the UN’s resolve, interfering in the court’s work and stalling unwanted prosecutions. UN and donor officials have often glossed over the problem, eager to see the tribunal’s first two cases completed and protect their investments in Cambodia and the court.

However, the compromise between the UN and Cambodia is near its breaking point, as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen refuses to execute arrest warrants issued by a UN-appointed judge. His intransigence, abetted by Chinese support and weak-kneed western responses, is a serious challenge to the UN system. Languid backing from key member states on legal standards at the ECCC may undercut the UN’s capacity to enforce standards on other ventures as well.

The ECCC was created over several years of negotiations starting in 1999. The US government first floated the idea of an international court like the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals, but that proposal floundered. Many states were skeptical of international tribunals, and a Chinese veto loomed over any UN Security Council resolution forcing Hun Sen to submit to western-led trials of China’s former Khmer Rouge allies.

US officials thus floated the idea of a hybrid court – a concept Hun Sen embraced as a means to attract international aid and a stamp of legitimacy without losing control over the process. UN and Cambodian negotiators wrestled over which side would appoint a majority of judges and hold other key levers of influence. Hun Sen dug in his heels, and eventually several donor states including Japan, France, Australia and the United States pressed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his lawyers to compromise. Some officials – particularly in Washington – focused on advancing international criminal justice and saw UN compromise as the only viable path forward. Others saw support for a Cambodia-led process as a way to build or preserve influence in Phnom Penh and counter rising Chinese clout.

The result was a preponderantly Cambodian court highly susceptible to domestic political interference.

UN and Cambodian appointees agreed on the subjects of the court’s first two cases. The first featured Duch, former head of the infamous S-21 security center at Tuol Sleng, who was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2010. The second involves two surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, who were convicted of crimes against humanity in 2014 and are now being tried on additional charges. Although problems have arisen during these cases – such as credible allegations of administrative corruption and refusal by some summoned Cambodian officials to appear – the Cambodian side has not tried to prevent the cases from proceeding to judgment. Hun Sen’s principal challenge to the process has been drawing a line on further prosecutions.

For several years, UN-appointed prosecutors have pushed for up to six additional suspects to be tried, but Hun Sen has pushed back. He argues that additional cases could reignite conflict and told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon bluntly in 2010 that there would be no further trials. Compliant Cambodian court officials have towed the government line. They argue that the additional suspects are not among those “most responsible” for crimes of the Khmer Rouge era, even though each stands accused of atrocities against thousands of victims.

Cambodian appointees have also impeded investigations, leading two international judges and several staff members to resign in protest. A government spokesman said UN officials could “pack their bags” if they disagreed with the government’s position. In March 2015, after a UN-appointed judge charged three of the additional suspects, Hun Sen warned that the court has gone “almost beyond the limit of his tolerance.” The government has refused to execute the arrest warrants.

In February, Hun Sen repeated his refrain that additional cases could push some people “back to the jungles,” asking, “How many people will die if war comes again?” However, there is little evident basis for such fears. The Khmer Rouge expired long ago as a fighting force, and the ECCC trials have caused no breach of the peace. The main apparent motive for Cambodian obstruction is to maintain political control over the process. The current government, led by Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, CPP, includes former Khmer Rouge members at the highest levels. Hun Sen himself was a low-level Khmer Rouge cadre before fleeing to Vietnam and helping organize the resistance movement that ousted Pol Pot in 1979. Other members later obtained official posts as enticements to defect from the insurgency they waged during the 1980s and 1990s. A wide prosecutorial net could thus threaten the CPP.

The trials could also embarrass China, the main patron of the Pol Pot regime and principal backer of the CPP today. China’s economic aid and political support help sustain the Hun Sen government, making CPP leaders more loath to offend Beijing and confident defying other powers.

Although UN participation in the ECCC was meant to help ensure international standards, the UN and donor states have responded weakly to repeated Cambodian interference. UN officials have issued statements of “serious concern,” but have said more than once that they would not investigate allegations of political interference. The government’s current refusal to execute arrest warrants has brought a chorus of civil society criticism, with the Open Society Justice Initiative calling the UN’s failure to address the matter “even more appalling” than government obstruction. Nevertheless, donors including the United States, France and Britain have reaffirmed support for the court. Japan continues to furnish a financial lifeline with few questions asked, and the German ambassador has said, “While any form of political interference in ongoing court procedures is unacceptable, withdrawing support for the court would be the wrong signal.”

From the outset, the major states that pushed the United Nations into a difficult marriage with the Cambodian government have failed to invest enough political capital to defend the ECCC’s transparency and independence. This partly reflects a fear that pressing too hard would jeopardize the court’s first two cases – especially the centerpiece case against senior leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. That concern, while legitimate, carries little weight now that the two senior leaders have been convicted. An unspoken reason for donor passivity is loathness to antagonize the Hun Sen government and drive it further into China’s embrace. The Cambodian case thus highlights the special challenge of mounting effective UN operations where China’s rise prompts the western states and Japan to treat difficult partner governments with kid gloves.

The UN and major ECCC donors need to take a strong public stand against political interference at the ECCC, stating clearly that without a prompt correction, funds to the court will cease to flow, and the Hun Sen government will be held responsible. Such a stand would doubtlessly ruffle feathers in Phnom Penh and may entail short-term diplomatic costs, but those are risks worth bearing. At stake is not only the long-delayed justice for the Cambodian people and the ECCC’s legacy, but also the UN’s broader credibility in upholding international standards.

*John D. Ciorciari is an assistant professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and is the co-author of Hybrid Justice: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (University of Michigan Press, 2014).

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By Nicholas Birns*

One of the Western Hemisphere’s last single-party states finally gave way to an opposition government this past week. And no, I am not speaking of Cuba, but of the Canadian province of Alberta, where the Conservative Party held sway for forty-four years, –a record rivaled in the hemisphere only by Mexico’s PRI hegemony from 1929 to 2000 and that of Paraguay’s Colorado party from 1947 to 2008. This development is not just of quaint or local interest, but could signify a tectonic generational and political shift against free-market conservatism and libertarianism, and towards a more populist and egalitarian agenda. It also has the potential to augur a federal Liberal or NDP victory in Canada this year, which would decisively alter the course of Canada’s energy, security, and diplomatic attitudes with respect to Latin America and the larger hemisphere.

Alberta has long been considered the Texas of Canada: oil-rich, pro-free-market, culturally conservative, and adamantly rejecting any form of government regulation or socialism. Whereas Republicans have only held control of Texas for a paltry twenty years, Alberta has been under Conservative sway for twice as long. In other Canadian provinces, parties alternated in a variety of configurations, right and left, and, in Québec, nationalist and federalist. But in Alberta it has been a continuous Conservative rule. An Albertan turning fifty this year would have remembered only a string of Tory premiers: relatively moderate Peter Lougheed, Don Getty, Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach: all white males of affable demeanor, a light and selective comprehension of policy issues, and a hard-right approach to governance. The conservative patrimony was not only electoral but intellectual, as per the prestige and influence of the Calgary school of conservative academic political scientists—including Tom Flanagan, David Bercuson, Rainer Knopff, and Ted Morton, the last of which actually held office in the Stelmach government and ran for the party leadership himself. Indeed, recent attempts to dislodge the Tories from ruling in Edmonton were largely spearheaded from the right–the libertarian WIldrose Party, founded by Danielle Smith and now led by Brian Jean, promised Albertans less a radical shift in policy than a set of new faces. WIldrose was largely favored to win in 2012, but lost, as the Conservatives trumped the novelty of a female leader in Smith by installing a woman, Alison Redford, as the new Tory premier. The failure of the polls to predict the winner in this case, as well as the unexpected triumph of British Columbia Premier Christy Clark in 2013 when the polls had counted her out, led observers to be skeptical when, earlier this year, polls showed the Conservatives, now led by Redford’s hapless and overmatched successor, Jim Prentice, to be trailing not only Wildrose but the leftist New Democratic Party. The NDP had originated as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), founded in Calgary in 1932, and was associated with Prairie radicalism, routinely governing in Alberta’s fellow Prairie Provinces Saskatchewan and Manitoba, in the latter of which its embattled premier, Greg Selinger, is still in office. Alberta has been the incubator of many social movements, both right and left. But Alberta, so similar topographically and culturally to its neighbors, for the most part, has always been very different politically.

Thus the rise in the polls of the Alberta NDP and its leader, Rachel Notley, seemed an anomaly, and journalists and pundits confidently predicted that the actual tally would see the leftists fade and thee Conservatives comfortably back on top. But, instead, the results were directly in line with the polls. The prominent Canadian polling website ThreeHundredEight.com had projected the NDP to win 51 seats; they ended up winning 54. The Conservatives fell behind Wildrose, winning over ten seats to the upstart party’s 21.

Notley’s ascent to the Alberta premiership shows how stark the difference is between her generation and its predecessor, her father, Grant Notley, who died in a plane crash in 1984, was the NDP leader on the provincial level at the time of his death. Grant Notley was an admired man who built up the Alberta NDP considerably, but his quest for power turned out to be a quixotic one in a province whose center of political gravity was so far to the right. His daughter though, will lead a changed Alberta. Edmonton, the provincial capital, has always been politically liberal, but was continually outvoted by rural areas of the province as well as Alberta’s traditionally more conservative other major metropolis, Calgary, But Calgary has changed in recent years, having first elected and then reelected a popular, left-leaning, Tanzanian-born Muslim mayor, Naheed Nenshi, who has galvanized a pro-environment, pro-multicultural base in his city, earning the vituperative criticism of right-wing journalists such as Ezra Levant. With both major cities willing to consider more progressive policies, the rural base that had long been the conservatives’ anchor was free to actually consider alternatives and to buck the oil-driven hegemony that had never truly held a popular consensus in the province, even if dominating its political culture.

The British historian Sir Alistair Horne titled his 1972 book on the election of the Marxist Salvador Allende to the Chilean presidency in 1970 Small Earthquake in Chile. Though earthquakes are more rarely seen on the Canadian prairies than the Chilean cordillera, Alberta’s election of a progressive majority represents a major ground shift in Canadian policies, especially for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who began his political career in Alberta, and is facing an election this year. Harper has enjoyed a nearly ten-year run in Ottawa, forming first a minority government and then building a majority at the expense of two hapless Liberal leaders, the earnest policy wonk Stéphane Dion and the overconfident public intellectual, Michael Ignatieff. Now, the Liberals have returned to the family of their greatest leader, as the young and highly talented Justin Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is neck and neck with Harper in the polls. Politics in Canada are complicated by the fact that the left-of-center electorate is divided between two parties the more moderate Liberals and the more radical NDP. As the Liberals have been largely based in Québec and Ontario, and the NDP on the prairies, the parties have only rarely cannibalized each other’s votes. But recent years have seen a federalization of Canadian politics, with the NDP garnering a substantial number of federal seats in Québec and the Liberals, as said before, holding power for quite some time in the previously NDP-leaning British Columbia. This might complicate the attempts of the Left to dislodge Harper, although a Liberal-NDP coalition is also plausible.

What is undoubted is that the Canada which has provided such succor to US conservatives with its support for war in Afghanistan and its construction of the Keystone Pipeline–is no longer quite so firmly in their camp. A new Canadian government, whether under the leadership of the energetic Trudeau or the more seasoned NDP federal leader Thomas Mulcair, would also change Harper’s policies towards Latin America, Whereas Canada had earlier been­–before the 1960s, generally–uninterested in its southern hemispheric neighbors, and then, during the Trudeau era, espousing a generally progressive line in Latin America, with especial outreach to a Cuban government ostracized by the US, Harper’s Latin American policy has been aggressively conservative and free-market. Whereas Canada had once been the good cop to the US”s bad cop, showing respect and outreach towards leftist forces spurned by the US, the opposite has been true of late. Under Harper, the Canadian government has outdone the United States in its hostility towards the region’s dissident and populist forces. In his book, The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy, Yves Engler noted Harper’s “hostility towards the leftward shift in Latin America, a number of criticisms of the Venezuelan government, and going out of its way to criticize the Venezuelan government.” Harper recognized the post-coup governments in Paraguay and Honduras while few other hemispheric powers did. Engler contends that the Canadian embassy in Caracas has ben a fount of criticism against the Venezuelan regime, openly criticizing then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez without maintaining any pretense of diplomatic neutrality. Though Harper has not carried matters to an extreme—he has not diminished the cordial and lucrative Canadian trade relationship with Cuba, perhaps in knowing anticipation of a US-Cuban rapprochement—his policy towards Latin America has centered around free trade and criticism of leftist regimes, with NAFTA and its laissez-faire implications as a sort of ideological cornerstone.

The web site of the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that “Canada is a country of the Americas and, as such, we place great value in fostering lasting and meaningful relationships with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.” But a Trudeau or a Mulcair administration would construe this relationship in a very different way than Harper and the federal Tories have in ten years of holding power.

Rachel Notley’s victory has led to an exuberant outpouring among the Canadian left, with T-shirts bearing the legend “Notley Crue” being widely sported, and with supporters delighting in Nutley’s initial gestures, including a historic acknowledgement of the province’s Indigenous people The large intake of inexperienced legislators, though, means that Notley’s government will perhaps have an awkward adaptation to holding office. Thus there should be a bit of caution in any of the auguries stemming from the Alberta convulsion. The Alberta election results stemmed largely from local factors and a frustration with a party that had stayed in power much too long to suit a democratic electorate. Yet it is also a token of a rising progressive and socially activist spirit among a Canada that is changing culturally and demographically, and a popular revolt that, across the globe, is defying neoliberal prescriptions of austerity and favoritism towards the wealthy, and demanding a more responsive governance.

As such, this provincial election on the prairies could lead to far wider and more fundamental hemispheric implications.

*Nicholas Birns, Senior Research Fellow at COHA; His book on contemporary Australian literature and neoliberalism will be out from Sydney University press in September.

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Saudi Arabia’s Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman instructed authorities Thursday to include some 12,000 male and female Saudi students studying in the US at their own expense in the government’s foreign scholarship program.

The royal gesture came on the recommendation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, deputy premier and minister of interior, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second deputy premier and minister of defense, who are currently in the United States.

However, the directive said the students should fulfill certain conditions to benefit from the scholarship program.
Saudis living and studying in the United States pledged Wednesday their allegiance to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The citizens met the two princes at their residence in Washington. The two leaders, who are attending the Camp David summit, used the opportunity to speak with their fellow citizens and listen to their concerns.

The Saudi leaders also met with Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Jim Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to discuss issues of mutual concern.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, meanwhile, held talks with US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the prospect of expanding cooperation between the two countries.

Also on Wednesday, Prince Mohammed bin Naif met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates’ armed forces, and discussed the agenda of the Gulf Cooperation Council talks with the US.

Prince Mohammed bin Naif and Prince Mohammed bin Salman held talks with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday ahead of the Camp David summit.

Obama welcomed the two Saudi princes to the Oval Office, where he lauded “an extraordinary friendship and relationship” between the two countries. “We are continuing to build that relationship during a very challenging time,” Obama said, a reference to conflagrations in Yemen, Syria and Iraq that have reverberated across the Middle East.

Obama praised his guests for their work on counterterrorism, which he described as “absolutely critical” to the US. Washington.

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Police in Baku arrested Nizami Piriyev, a high-profile Azerbaijani businessman closely associated with President Ilham Aliyev.

Mr Piriyev, media reported, was charged with various financial crimes. He is in prison ahead of a trial in what appears to be a spectacular public fall.

One of Azerbaijan’s richest men, Mr Piriyev was the official owner of the Azerbaijan Methanol Company, a large and high-profile operation on the outskirts of Baku.

He paid for former British PM Tony Blair to fly to Baku in 2009 to open the plant. Mr Blair, criticised for taking cash from governments with dubious human rights records since he left office in 2007, was photographed at a press conference in Baku sitting between Mr Piriyev and his son, Nasib.

Mr Piriyev’s holding company PNN Group also owned franchise rights to a number of Western brands in Azerbaijan and across the former Soviet Union. It’s website said that this included the British high street news agent WHSmith and US fast food chain KFC. A spokesman for WHSmith, though, said that Mr Piriyev did not hold its franchise in Azerbaijan.

Mr Piriyev used to work in Russia for Gazprom and had businesses stretching across Central Asia.

It’s unclear what triggered his arrest and whether he has been associated with Azerbaijan’s increasingly marginalised opposition or if he had fallen out with President Aliyev. The United States and Europe have been increasingly critical of Mr Aliyev for cracking down on opposition.

This story was first published in issue 231 of the weekly newspaper The Conway Bulletin on May 13, 2015.

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man convicted of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent crimes in April 2013, was sentenced to death by a Massachusetts jury after 14.5 hours over 2.5 days of deliberation.

On April 8, almost exactly two years after the bombing occurred, the 21-year-old ethnic Chechen was found guilty of all 30 charges he faced, 17 of which were eligible for the death penalty. On Friday, he was sentenced to death in some ‒ but not all ‒ of the capital charges.

The same jury of seven women and five men who condemned Tsarnaev for the crimes was also responsible for deciding his punishment.

Tsarnaev had no reaction as the jury condemned him to die for his actions, media in the courtroom reported.

“We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families.”

Tsarnaev’s attorneys had argued vociferously against capital punishment.

“If you sentence him to life, this is where he will be,” defense attorney David Bruck said during opening statements in the trial’s penalty phase, referring to a photo of a federal supermax prison in Colorado, which is also the home to several convicted terrorists, NBC News reported.

“Maybe we could’ve shown you this and stopped,” Bruck said. “He’d go here and be forgotten. His legal case would be over for good, and no martyrdom. That might be, that should be, a vote for life.”

The parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest of the four people who died during the Tsarnaev brothers’ multi-day spree of terror, had also supported life in prison over the death penalty. Other victims and their families supported the death penalty, though, NBC News reported.

Bruck told jurors there’s no punishment Tsarnaev can receive that would be equal to the suffering of the victims, according to AP.

“There is no evening the scales,” he said. “There is no point in trying to hurt him as he hurt because it can’t be done.”

Prosecutors argued the brothers were equal players, and that it did not matter when the younger Tsarnaev was radicalized, the Boston Globe reported.

Assistant US Attorney Nadine Pellegrini told jurors that they will probably hear about Tsarnaev’s dysfunctional family life, and they will hear stories of him at school events, dances, and at camp, but she argued, “nothing will explain his cruelty and his indifference.”

“This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, unconcerned, unrepentant, and unchanged,” she said, showing the jury a photo of the convicted bomber in his holding cell on July 10, 2013, the day of his arraignment. He is flipping his middle finger at the camera. “Without remorse, he remains untouched by the grief and the loss that he caused. And without assistance, he remains the unrepentant killer that he is.”

The Boston jury sided with the prosecution despite the fact that the death penalty is not popular in Massachusetts, where a convict has not been executed since 1947. Capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional in the commonwealth in 1984, but that ban isn’t applicable to this case because Tsarnaev was tried in federal court.

A Boston Globe poll published in April showed that less than 20 percent of state residents favored death for Tsarnaev ‒ down from 33 percent in September 2013, five months after the bombings.

Tsarnaev was convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, possession and use of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy to bomb a place of public use, bombing in a place of public use, conspiracy to maliciously destroy property, and malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive, all of which caused death.

He was also found guilty of 11 charges in which the crimes did not result in death. Those counts included carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury; interference with commerce by threats and violence; possession and use of a firearm during a crime of violence; and use of a weapon of mass destruction.

The firearms and weapons of mass destruction used included a Ruger P95 9mm semiautomatic handgun, three pressure-cooker bombs and three pipe bombs.

During the first ‒ or guilt ‒ phase of the trial, Tsarnaev’s lawyer, Judy Clarke, acknowledged that her client “fully participated” in the bombing, conceding that it was her client shown in surveillance footage leaving behind a bomb hidden in a backpack.

However, she argued, he was an impressionable young man in the sway of his older brother, Tamerlan, who had become a radicalized Muslim and whom she accused of masterminding the attack. Clarke said her client should thus be spared the death penalty.

Only two members of the jury felt that Tsarnaev would not have acted without his brother’s influence.

On April 15, 2013 twin blasts, 12 seconds apart, rocked the finish line of the storied Boston Marathon. Over 260 people were injured, with three killed, including an eight-year-old boy. Four days later, in the early morning hours, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was killed and a man was carjacked, leading law enforcement on a manhunt from Cambridge, Massachusetts to the nearby suburb of Watertown.

By that point, officials had identified the two suspects as Tsarnaev, then 19, and his older brother Tamerlan, 26.
In Watertown, the suspects engaged in a firefight with law enforcement, during which Tamerlan was killed. The area was placed on lockdown as SWAT teams from multiple local and federal jurisdictions searched for the surviving brother. He was eventually found hiding in a boat on a resident’s property.

Tsarnaev still needs to be formally sentenced by Judge George O’Toole. He will then likely report to the US Bureau of Prison’s death row facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. At 21, he will become the youngest person on federal death row, which currently contains 61 prisoners.

The defense is expected to appeal the sentence, a process that will likely drag on for several years. If the sentence is upheld by all subsequent courts, Tsarnaev will die via lethal injection.

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“A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere”

Almost a billion Indians now face the fearsome prospect of living under the shadow of an Indian nuclear lust. The Indian Nuclear Power Industry remains shrouded in secrecy and opacity refusing to reveal details on safety. Following the nuclear diplomacy of India, one of the crowning achievements by Government of India was the pact with USA which showered out India from the list of nuclear pariahs allowing full access to nuclear technology and materials without signing Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The nuclear power generation is controlled by a government entity Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) which remains cloaked in secrecy. Details about leakages and accidents are not forthcoming and not transparent. However, the Indian establishment is pushing ahead with nuclear energy where chronically inadequate management continues to dog the program.

Around the world, safety concerns surrounding nuclear power have intensified as a result of Fukushima. Operating nuclear power plants requires sophisticated technical, industrial, institutional, and legal capacities. Even the most advanced countries can struggle to manage nuclear power when things go wrong. Also, important piece of evidence about past events remain classified; thereby empirical analysis on nuclear safety organizational designs and strategies is circumscribed. This can also be assessed on the basis of nuclear history that has witnessed three severe nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Diachii.

Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, one might have expected nuclear power to lose much of its appeal. But in many developing countries, India among them, the desire for nuclear power has remained strong among officials, even if public may harbor deep concerns about governmental inability to operate nuclear facilities. This is music to the ears of the global nuclear establishment.

Concerns about nuclear power are prevalent in every country where the technology exists or is being developed. Whereas, India with abysmal records in disaster management has simply shrugged off, the Fukushima experience. It is a national catastrophe.

India plans a large expansion of power from nuclear energy over the next few decades. Many reactors and other facilities associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, and operated by the country’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and its subsidiary organizations, have had accidents of varying severity. The DAE also does not appear to be learning the appropriate lessons, and this is demonstrated through repeated failures at different sites of nuclear power plants in India. (See)

The absurdity is further demonstrated where numerous incidents of fires and structural damages have occurred in India’s civilian nuclear power sector and there may be many other accidents that we do not know about. Under the circumstances other examples of oil leaks, hydrogen leaks, fires and high bearing vibrations have often shut plants, and sometimes not.

Taking into account all these scenarios, the probability of a serious accident still lingers around the nuclear industry of India. Inevitably, there is a price to be paid for such bull headedness where the government’s response to past disasters has often been poor. A simple question that still needs to be worried about is: What if such an accident like Fukushima and Bhopal Gas Tragedy were to occur? How well would the machinery of the state respond? There exists not a single answer for these fatal actions, and I don’t intend to provide one. On this count, there is ample reason to worry about.

The story is one of ignorance, lack of adequate regulation, and finally a total breakdown of institutional responsibility within the Indian republic. They are consuming and bathing in nuclear poison. In India, seeing their behavior of having numerous deals going around the government seems to have abdicated its responsibility to effectively regulate the civil nuclear industry to safeguard the people.

In an article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1999), T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj writes: “The department [of atomic energy] has happily exploited the ignorance of India’s judiciary and political establishment on nuclear issues. In the past, it has even used the Atomic Energy Act to prevent nuclear plant workers from accessing their own health records. While nuclear establishments everywhere have been notorious for suppressing information, nowhere is there an equivalent of India’s Atomic Energy Act in operation. Over the years, in the comfort of secrecy, India’s nuclear establishment has grown into a monolithic and autocratic entity that sets the nuclear agenda of the country and yet remains virtually unaccountable for its actions.”

As wisely said, Governments in the developing world must establish good systems for nuclear governance if they are to avoid controversy and maximize their chances to operate nuclear power safely. The foundations of nuclear governance include least three things: transparency, accountability, and trust.

The post Indian Nuclear Muddle – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By R.S. Kalha*

The rise of China as a great power is no longer a matter of speculation; it is a given fact. Most nations today seriously consider the Chinese factor when determining policy. The question uppermost in the minds of Indian policy makers is: should we contain or oppose the rise of China, singly or in tandem with others, or should we seek an accommodation? There are no easy answers. No doubt Modi’s closest advisors would be grappling with this question on the eve of his first official visit to China as the prime minister of India.

Just as India became independent, a vast strategic shift in the power matrix of Asia took place. Japanese power lay completely shattered at the end of the Second World War. The British withdrew from India leaving India politically divided into two states and its armed forces split – and soon in serious conflict over Kashmir. On the other hand, China wracked by civil war in the last century, with warlords holding sway, not only became politically united, but a new invigorated and a determined government assumed office. The strategic fulcrum of power had shifted in Asia from south to the north of the Himalayas.

The question therefore that faced India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was how to deal with Chinese power on our northern borders. In short, Nehru’s answer was to seek an accommodation with China and play for time till India was able to fully develop economically and militarily to meet the emerging challenge. That he failed is another question.

Unfortunately, for present-day policy planners, the power equation with China has worsened since Nehru’s time to the detriment of India. China’s economy is five times larger than that of India; its military budget three times larger; and its foreign exchange reserves are ten times larger than ours. The Chinese have developed first-rate communications infrastructure right up to our borders; we are still struggling. But we still retain one great strategic advantage – the Indian Ocean where the Indian Navy dominates.

The Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean in the world covering about 20 percent of water on the earth’s surface. The Indian peninsula, which stretches about 1,600 km straight into the heart of the ocean, dominates its geographical space. The importance of the Indian Ocean region also lies in the fact that nearly 100,000 ships traverse it on an annual basis carrying 700 million tonnes of cargo, but most important of all there are four transit ‘choke-points’ of which the Straits of Malacca dominate. The Malacca Straits are a shallow, narrow waterway that connects the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea. At some points it is only 23 metres deep.

China relies heavily on imported oil, gas and other natural resource commodities to feed its growing economy and it is estimated that its crude oil imports may exceed 300 million tonnes shortly. Nearly 18 percent of China’s total energy consumption is based on imported oil and at current trends, nearly 80 percent of oil imports pass through this route. In case the Straits of Malacca were ever to be blockaded, it would mean a detour of at least three to four days extra through unsafe waters.

Since Nehru and the 1962 conflict, successive Indian prime ministers have sought neither strategic accommodation nor confrontation with China. While serious attempts were made to settle the boundary question, it was realized that a settlement was not imminent. Therefore it made better policy to first stabilize the border areas to minimize incidents. From denying that a dispute existed under Nehru, to stating that till the issue was settled, there would be no normalization, to Rajiv Gandhi’s assertion that relations may develop side by side with the boundary negotiations, the Indian position has moved quite significantly.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee went even further and agreed that a boundary settlement be explored “afresh from a political perspective”, thus abandoning Nehru’s stance that the Sino-Indian boundary was established by “treaty, custom and usage”.

Finally, in Article III of the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles Agreement signed in April 2005, Manmohan Singh accepted a “package settlement” and “adjustment of its position” on the boundary issue. So with India having moved so far, why then does China not agree?

Suffice it to say that China senses no pressure from India, be it military, political or economic. In fact, if gestures be read as harbingers of policy change, we seem to be signalling a move towards the old policy of accommodation. The Rafale deal has been reduced from 126 fighters to a more financially viable 36 fighters; the strength of the Mountain Strike Corps reduced from 90,000 to 35,000 soldiers and politically there has not even been a pro-forma protest when President Xi Jinping announced the building of railway lines, oil and gas pipelines and the China-Pakistan economic corridor through Pakistani-occupied Kashmir. The Chinese remain protectionist on facilitating Indian exports in the key pharma and IT sectors, thus ensuring a continued massive trade deficit.

The task before Modi is daunting as no easy solutions are obvious. He would need the unstinting support of all, for whichever policy option he adopts it will have momentous repercussions.

One thought: Modi should announce the upgrading of the Andaman and Nicobar base to a full-fledged naval command before departure. It would be a signal of intent that the Chinese will not miss.

*R.S. Kalha is a former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, India, and author of book “India-China Boundary Issues – Quest for Settlement (ICWA 2014). He can be contacted at rskalha@gmail.com

The post Modi’s China Visit: Signal Of Intent? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jabin T. Jacob*

It is now slowly but increasingly evident to Indians across the board that China, their largest neighbour, will likely be their most important foreign policy challenge for decades to come. Gradually but surely, China will come to occupy regular attention in India across a range of fields – from geopolitics to scientific research and development to political and ideological creativity. In this context, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to China and the media coverage it will generate will be an important milestone in how Indians perceive and understand China.

Possible Outcomes

Modi has gained a reputation for extreme secrecy and last minute ‘deals’ during visits abroad. China, however, will not be such an easy place to do this. Unless, of course, Communist Party of China (CPC) General Secretary and Chinese President, Xi Jinping, is willing to play ball. This however, is unlikely, given the Chinese self-image of being in a league of just two, contending with the US for regional and global domination while everybody else is for all practical purposes, and despite any rhetoric to the contrary, slotted into lower tiers of importance.

What then are the possible agreements that the two sides might reach during the Modi visit?

The agreements related to economic cooperation, including infrastructure construction, industrial parks and sister-city and sister-province/state ties will likely number quite a few, even if they will not match the 51 agreements that resulted during the Xi visit to Pakistan. Boosting bilateral trade and investments at the service of the prime minister’s flagship ‘Make in India’ campaign will be a big item on the agenda, if not the most important one.

More sister-city and sister-province/state agreements could help accelerate a trend of Chinese sub-national enterprises targeting specific sectors and localities or states in India for economic opportunities. It also makes immense sense for two countries the size and complexity of India and China for their cities and regions to develop their own independent economic linkages with each other. Along the way, there could be significant spillover effects in terms of increasing mutual understanding, greater familiarization with each other’s cultures and ways of working, tourism, educational exchanges and so on.

An agreement for a more liberalized visa regime between the two countries was to be signed during Xi’s India visit in September but was finally abandoned. The agreement will be extremely important for Chinese investors, businessmen and tourists seeking to explore and commit to India.

It is also quite possible that an agreement of some sort on trans-boundary river waters will come to fruition. To expect an all year-round sharing of information might be too much to expect from the Chinese. It is more likely that China will agree to give India another 15 days’ worth of data on any one river.

An India-China think-tank forum is a proposal that has been doing the rounds for some time now and will likely reach fruition during this visit. This would be an important avenue for a frequent and unhindered exchange of views between the policy and scholar communities on both sides and replicates a similar exercise in the Sino-US context.

Asian Century?

One important marker of the Asian century will be how India and China are going to cooperate in the science and technology sector to create solutions for uniquely Third World problems as well as to overcome problems that come from copying a Western model of economic development. To this end, cooperation and joint development of renewable energy technologies, to name just one sector, should be a big part of the agenda, capable of being slotted into both the infrastructure construction and ‘Make in India’ campaigns.

Scientific research can also provide the opportunity to avoid or overcome suspicions in other areas. One idea doing the rounds is cooperation between the two countries on the development of deep sea mining in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese are already engaged in this in the southwest Indian Ocean and so is India, so perhaps, this is an opportunity to not just cooperate but also keep an eye on what the other side is doing.

The problem, of course, arises since it is China that is expanding opportunities and finding reasons to be in the Indian Ocean while India’s opportunities to partner with China in similar endeavours along or opposite China’s coast are limited either because of China’s large territorial and consequently EEZ claims or because India does not often have the wherewithal or the incentives to venture that far. Where it has, New Delhi has preferred to partner with the Japanese or the Vietnamese.

This then leads to a major issue that is also likely to crop up during the visit, namely of Indian receptivity to China’s new ‘One Belt, One Road’ idea and in particular, the Maritime Silk Road. Given the particular version of historical reinterpretation, rewriting even, that the initiative involves, India is wary of joining in. However, given also the potential of the Chinese initiative to transform the economic, and possibly, the political landscape of Asia, New Delhi must seriously consider if staying out and being unable to exert influence on the process is an option.

*Jabin T. Jacob is Assistant Director & Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, and can be reached at jabinjacob@gmail.com

The post Is It Wise For India To Stay Out Of Silk Road Initiative? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Mainak Putatunda*

The Narendra Modi government’s pledge to ‘Act East’ promises a new emphasis on solidifying India’s relations with East and Southeast Asia. Indonesia, with its large market, functional democracy and with the distinction of having the world’s largest Muslim population cannot be ignored if this policy is to succeed. However, Indonesian domestic politics is sending some worrisome signals for the past few years.

Current Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the first ever president of Indonesia without an elite background and with a scrupulously clean image, was elected to office in 2014 with vociferous promises of combating corruption. However, in February this year, Jokowi, as the president is commonly known, suggested the name of Budi Gunawan, a veteran police officer, for the post of Police Chief Commissioner of Indonesia. The move caused widespread criticism from Indonesian people and media since Gunawan is accused of serious corruption.

Indonesian people are familiar with corruption; the country has consistently fared poorly in international corruption indexes. Indonesia has a long history of bureaucratic corruption throughout the Dutch rule and the presidencies of Sukarno and Suharto. Peculiarly enough, members of bureaucracy and military are still paid poorly. During the independence war and Sukarno period, the poorly paid military often had to run illegal smuggling operations to provide for themselves. Though the situation has improved lately, but the salary of a government official is less compared to a country of equal means. This has become one of the main reasons for petty corruption.

Economists’ debate about the role corruption plays in a country’s economic and democratic development. Pranab Bardhan, in his article ‘Corruption and Development’(1997) compared these views, arguing that although corruption seem to be an easy way of cutting through bureaucratic hassles for investors, in reality, corruption almost always hurts the economic efficiency of a developing country.

Bardhan argues that corruption ensure government does not get its due taxes from business transactions, which affects its ability to execute public projects. He considers the argument that a process of competitive bribery for the procurement of government contracts are as efficient as an open bidding process, since only a company with the most efficient delivery system will be able to bear the burden of bribes and still make a profit. However, this argument can be refuted. Such a system will ensure that big businesses who can afford to pay higher rates of bribe will gain contracts consistently, thereby blocking new entrants to the market and blocking the exercise of new ideas or methods of business. Secondly, in such a system the winning company can try to achieve higher profit by using low quality material. Moreover, a deal secured through corruption is not a legal contract. A bribe does not ensure that more bribe will not be demanded at a later period or that a contract for allocating resources will be respected in case the ‘gatekeeper’ bureaucrat to that resource strikes a better deal with another competitor.

After the fall of Suharto, who ran a tightly centralized government, there were strong demands for decentralization of government functions in Indonesia – both from within and outside the country (mostly from financial institutions like IMF and World Bank). This resulted in local government agencies at both provincial and district level receiving considerable level of autonomy in administrative and financial matters in 2001. However, decentralization has not helped in reducing corruption. Instead, it has created more nodes of bureaucratic control through multi-level clearance systems, thereby increasing the number of officers needed to be bribed. This has given rise to what Bardhan calls ‘Overgrazing of the Commons’.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was established in 2003 as a result of strong demands from the common people who were reeling under the severely corrupt system which milked them at every given opportunity. KPK had considerable power and autonomy. It could independently investigate government officials and could use surveillance tools such as wiretapping. It also had the power to arrest those accused of corruption. Armed with these powers, KPK became a crusader against corruption in the country. It persecuted top government officers, police officers and even politicians and ministers. By doing so, it earned accolades of Indonesian people, the press and of the outside world. Indonesia’s standing in global corruption indexes improved considerably as a result of KPK’s efforts.

However, its good work earned KPK serious enemies in Indonesia. The powerful elite, many of whom were controlling the country’s business and politics since Suharto era or even before that, found KPK to be the most substantial threat they ever faced. KPK also had enemies in the police force. Since the official division between the police (POLRI) and the army in 1999, the police officers have amassed immense wealth and power through corruption and intimidation. When KPK moved against their top brass, the police retaliated. The ex-chairperson of KPK, Abraham Samad, and one of the commissioners have been charged with criminal offenses. Several other KPK investigators face similar or graver charges. The DPR, Indonesian parliament has openly attempted to limit the powers of KPK to install wiretaps etc. Amidst all this, President Jokowi’s indecisiveness and his compromises with the elite have become plain. After he withdrew his recommendation for Gunawan, President Jokowi named Badroddin Haiti, another police office considered equally corrupt, to head the police. Despite nationwide protests against the police’s move, neither the president nor the parliament has done much to alleviate the situation. Making matters worse, some politicians are opening dummy anti-corruption NGOs to demean the real ones, who are at the forefront of the public protests.

The situation in Indonesia is grave. Along with religious intolerance, sectarian violence and poverty, corruption perpetuated by the colluding elite is destroying people’s faith in the democratic system. Some already long for the orderliness of the Suharto regime, forgetting its ruthlessness and corruption. There is hope in the people’s movement to save KPK and the free, boisterous media. But it remains a tough fight.

*Mainak Putatunda is an M.Phil Research Scholar at Center for Indo Pacific, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The author can be reached at mainakputatunda@gmail.com

The post Indonesia’s Domestic Politics Sends Worrisome Signals – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Dr.Ningthoujam Koiremba Singh and Shashank Niar*

On April 21, The Central Tibetan Association issued a statement stating that they plan to hold a movement next month and appealed to the Chinese government to release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, or The Panchen Lama who was abducted by the Chinese government when he was six years old. This year will mark the 20th year of his disappearance. Simultaneously, the yearly phenomenon of monks committing the act of self-immolation in their demand for a separate state was also seen, with the latest display on April 16, 2015. The Tibet issue which has always been a huge hurdle in the relationship between China and India has only been growing in size.

As refugees keep entering through Nepal every year they only add to the growing community of Tibetans. On an average almost 600-700 enter through Kathmandu into India, even though the numbers have clearly reduced from 2008. They still add to the formidable number of Tibetans protesting in the movement as almost 85,000 of them reside in India. The biggest question we face is the future of the exiled population and as to where they can go. As mentioned before with no clear solution to the issue and with India’s already growing population, we wonder how our country will be able to accommodate the increasing Tibetan population. Even though those born after 1987 are technically given legitimate citizenship in the country, many of them face problems as they still have to carry their Foreign Registration Certificate, and this lack of clarity gives rise to the question whether they have the same rights as other citizens. Making them live a semi-refugee lifestyle.

Our current relationship with China has not been in the best of terms. While India has stopped recognising China’s claim over Tibet since 2010, the latter’s insistence that Arunachal Pradesh forms a part of South Tibet has not helped in either country entering into any sort of negotiation with each other.

The stalemate on the Tibet issue has been in existence since the Nehru government and the growing movement by the Tibetan population has not reduced in its nationalist fervor. As both countries refuse to reach a solution on the issue, Tibet will always stand out as a thorn in the relationship between India and China. The truth of the matter is that an amicable solution will require a compromise from both sides. The reality of a complete separate state for the community seems unrealistic and so does China’s demand of South Tibet seem impossible at present. The prospect of Tibet acting as an effective buffer state for both nations still prominently exists even today.

These lead us to the question as to how India and China are to proceed in their political dialogue as these issues will have to be resolved. There is a common failure to realise that conventional methods of diplomacy fail to address this issue while both countries proceed with caution waiting for the response of the other. There is no constructive solution that has come forth. So far any dialogue has only ended with no clear consensus, implying that neither country wants to take a firm stance on the issue and compromise. It has become a forum for each country to prove their military and political might by refusing to back down on its demands. At present one cannot say if there can be a clear solution to the issue and if frustration of the Tibetan people may continue for a long time.

The upcoming movement is a clear sign that the Tibetan people will continue in the intensity of their protest. The British government has washed its hands off the entire matter and has contradicted its stance on the Simla accords by recognising China’s demand over Tibet. The discord only continues between the Indian government and China. If peaceful and productive dialogue is to start with China, it begins with Tibet.

*Dr.Ningthoujam Koiremba Singh is Assistant Professor Christ University, Bangalore, and can be reached at ningthoujam.singh@christuniversity.in, Shashank Niar is Research Assistant, Christ University, Bangalore, and can be reached at shanktheman@gmail.com

The post Tackling Tibet: For A Productive India-China Dialogue – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

How much money will the Canadian government spend in its futile effort to demonize Omar Khadr? A week after the former child prisoner — now 28 years old — was freed on bail after nearly 13 years behind bars (ten years in Guantánamo, and the rest in Canada), winning over numerous Canadians with his humility as he spoke in public for the first time, the Canadian government, which had unsuccessfully argued that releasing him on bail would damage its relations with the US, faced another humiliating court defeat, this time in Canada’s Supreme Court.

The government was claiming that Omar — just 15 years old when he was seized ate a firelight in Afghanistan, where he had been taken by his father — had been sentenced as an adult, not a juvenile. The intention was that, if Omar is to be returned to prison if his appeal against his conviction in the US fails (which, it should be noted, seems unlikely), he would be returned to a federal prison. The ruling followed an appeals court ruling in Omar’s favor last July, which I wrote about here.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that Omar had been sentenced as a juvenile, and that, if he were to be returned to prison, it would therefore be to a “provincial reformatory,” as the Globe and Mail described it.

In the Toronto Star‘s words, “The high court said Ottawa made a grave mistake in how it interprets the International Transfer of Offenders Act in Khadr’s case, and he should never have been placed in the federal penitentiary system, given the American eight-year sentence he faced. The judges said it is clear under Canadian law Khadr should have been placed “in a provincial correctional facility … for adults.”

Adding to the government’s humiliation, the court took “only a few minutes after the hearing ended to deliver its unanimous ruling from the bench,” as the Globe and Mail put it, adding, “Most rulings come several weeks after a case is heard.”

The Globe and Mail also noted that the symbolism of the ruling “looms larger than the practical effects,” adding, “The Canadian government was intent on demonstrating, as it has since the United States military captured Mr. Khadr on an Afghan battlefield when he was 15, and accused him of throwing a grenade that killed a soldier, that it believes he should be punished as severely as the law allows. And the Supreme Court said that the law is much less severe than the federal government thinks it is.”

As Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin explaining, the court’s ruling was “a straightforward matter,” as the Globe and Mail described it, the reasoning being that a US military commission had “sentenced Mr. Khadr to eight years in prison for the war crime of murder, and the mandatory adult penalty for murder in Canada is life. Therefore it had to be a juvenile penalty.”

In contrast, the Canadian government had tried to argue that Khadr “had received five concurrent penalties of eight years for murder and other charges,” but the judges “expressed bafflement” at this argument. Justice Marshall Rothstein, described as a conservative member of the court, said, “We can’t slice and dice the eight years.”

This was Omar Khadr’s third victory in Canada’s Supreme Court. In 2008, after he had been held by the US for six years, the court “ruled unanimously that the government had to disclose all records of interviews conducted by Canadian officials with him, and information given to US authorities,” and in 2010 the court ruled that interrogations undertaken by Canadian agents at Guantánamo in 2003, when he was just 16, after three weeks of sleep deprivation, “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

Speaking after the ruling, Omar’s lawyer, Dennis Edney, with whom he is living, accused the government of “persecuting his client to make a political point,” as the Globe and Mail described it. He said Omar is “enjoying his first few days of freedom.” As he stated, “He has been embraced by the community, he has a new bike. He is happy to be out. It will be a slow journey.”

Omar wasn’t present at the ruling, but his lawyers, Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney, “rejoiced,” as the Toronto Star put it. Edney said he was surprised that the ruling had come so quickly. “Perhaps there’s a message there, less for myself and more for this government, that continues to waste taxpayers’ dollars persecuting my client,” he said.

He also said Khadr “has a new bike, hasn’t stopped cycling since he got it, and has been embraced by neighbours” in the community where he is living with Edney and his wife as part of his bail conditions.

The Toronto Star also noted that Edney “did not backtrack from his remarks last week that put the blame squarely on Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Khadr’s plight having been ‘abandoned’ in Guantánamo as a child.”

Edney said, “I’ve come to the conclusion, an honest conclusion felt by many, many Canadians throughout Canada, that Mr. Harper is a bigot, and Mr. Harper doesn’t like Muslims, and there’s evidence to show that.”

He added that Khadr is moving on with his life. “What happens next is he gets on with life,” he said, adding that Khadr “will go to university, and he will start to adjust and he will keep a low profile. He wants to be part of Canada and he doesn’t want the publicity.”

The post Canadian Supreme Court Rules Omar Khadr Was A Juvenile Prisoner, Not An Adult – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Daniel Koehler believes that right-wing terrorism is a unique form of political violence. As his analysis of the German DTGrwx dataset confirms, it’s a type of violence that’s carried out by well-defined actors who use specific methods to target distinct types of victims.

By Daniel Koehler*

After the discovery of the German right-wing terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) in 2011, which allegedly assassinated at least 10 people, committed two bombings, and went completely undetected over the course of 14 years, right-wing terrorism has received greater international attention. In the same year, the attacks by Anders Behring Breivik caused 77 casualties. Compared to Jihadist, separatist or anarchist terrorism however, terrorist activities by the extreme right remain under-researched. In recent decades, only a small number of academic studies focus exclusively on right-wing terrorism. In part, thedifferentiation between hate crime and terrorism has created problems in defining and identifying right-wing terrorism. Due to the lack of research regarding the nature of right-wing terrorism, statistics about the phenomenon vary massively. The Global Terrorism Database, for example, lists 103 terrorist incidents perpetrated by right wing extremists or neo-Nazis between 1992 and 2008 in Germany, causing six casualties and injuring 98 people. By contrast, the Database on Terrorism in Germany: Right-Wing Extremism (DTGrwx), hosted by the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies (GIRDS), reports a significantly higher number of cases.[1]

This article provides an overview of some of the main characteristics of right-wing terrorism in Germany and compares it with other well-known incidents in Europe and North America in order to assess the implications for security policy. Based on the DTGrwx, right-wing terrorism in Germany tends to be carried out by certain types of actors, using distinct methods and targeting distinct types of victims. In many respects, these features resemble those of right-wing terrorism throughout Europe and North America. This suggests that right-wing terrorism may indeed be a distinct form of political violence – one that poses a unique challenge for security policy.

Right-wing terrorism in Germany

According to the DTGrwx, the main characteristics of German right-wing terrorist operations since 1963 are the following:

• 52% of identifiable actors are between two and nine members in size. An additional 22.7% are lone actors, meaning that 72.7% of actors are either small cells and groups or lone actors. Only six large associations with more than 100 members are known so far.
• The tactics used by right-wing terrorists mostly include bombings, assassinations, and arson, and only rarely hostage taking or kidnapping. Over the last 50 years bombings have been the tactic of choice, especially since 1990. In earlier decades assassinations and arson were used widely, though this has decreased in the last 20 years. There have, however, been two recent waves of arson attacks against refugee homes – in the early 1990s and since 2014.
• Target groups have unsurprisingly included ‘foreigners’, Jews, and ‘leftists’. However, until the 2000s government representatives (e.g. police officers, politicians, and military personnel) made up for around half of the identified targets, making democratic governments and their representatives a primary target of right-wing terrorism. Since the 2000s, though, target groups have differentiated more widely.
• The vast majority of actors (70.45%) is active for no longer than a year before either being killed, detected and arrested by the authorities or disbanding. It seems, however, that if an actor ‘survives’ for more than a year, its chances of long-term activity significantly increase, with 12.5% being active between one and five years and 13.64% for more than five years.
• One of the most distinctive aspects of right-wing terrorism in Germany is the lack of public communication regarding the attack, e.g. through letters, statements, and communiqués. If only those actors who carried out attacks (successfully and unsuccessfully) are counted (45.45% of all actors in the database) only 25% use any kind of identifying mechanism. In general, public statements by right-wing terrorist actors only rarely contain concrete political claims or programs. In most cases swastikas or similar symbols and statements disparaging the victims or target groups were found at the crime scene.

Parallels with right-wing terrorism elsewhere

Compared with other widely known acts of right-wing terrorism in Europe and North America, several striking similarities are evident. Many incidents outside Germany were also a) carried out by individuals or small groups, b) involved explosives, and c) targeted ‘foreigners’, ‘Jews’, or government representatives. The bombing of the Bologna train station in Italy on 2 August 1980 , for instance, which killed 85 and wounded more than 200, was carried out by two members of Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR) – a splinter cell of the right-wing terrorist group Ordine Nuove. Similarly, the devastating attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995, which remains one of the most lethal terrorist attacks in the history of the United States, was carried out by Timothy McVeigh and two accomplices using a car bomb. In planning the attack McVeigh was also inspired by the explicitly racist and anti-Semitic Turner Diaries, which has been called “a bible of the extremist right”.

Neo-Nazism is also a common theme among right-wing terrorist actors outside Germany. Four years after the Oklahoma City attacks, in April 1999, the British neo-Nazi David Copeland orchestrated three nail bomb attacks in 13 days in London , causing 3 casualties and wounding 137. Copeland was a long-time member of several neo-Nazi organizations in England and targeted homosexuals and immigrants with his attacks. Another (foiled) attempt of right-wing terrorism became public in the United Kingdom in 2009, when the neo-Nazi Ian Davison and his son (as part of the right-wing terrorist organization ‘Aryan Strike Force’) planned attacks with chemical weapons, manufacturing a large amount of the poison ricin. On 5 August 2011, the US neo-Nazi Wade Michael Page also fatally shot six and injured four during an attack at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

More recent incidents of right-wing terrorism have targeted government representatives. On July 22, 2011, the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb in Oslo city centre and drove to the island of Utøya to continue his attack with a mass shooting. Causing 77 casualties in total, Breivik had previously published a manifesto explaining his ideology, which was based on Christian fundamentalism and cultural racism. Attempting to save Norway from a perceived attack by Islam, Breivik was trying to kill members of the Social Democratic Party – which he held responsible for Norway’s growing multiculturalism and for undermining Norway’s traditional ‘culture’ and ‘race’. Directly influenced by Breivik, a Polish university researcher and two aides were arrested in 2012 for planning to detonate a four ton bomb in front of the Polish parliament building in Warsaw. Motivated by nationalism and anti-Semitism, the small group was allegedly trying to copy Breivik’s attack in Poland.

A unique form of political violence?

Based on the DTGrwx dataset, right-wing terrorism in Germany seems to closely resemble other well-known incidents of right-wing terrorism in Europe and North America. This suggests that it may be worth treating right-wing terrorism as a phenomenon distinct from other forms of political violence. Right-wing terrorism has traditionally operated using very small groups, cells and lone actors to target mainly ‘foreigners’, ‘Jews,’ and government representatives by mainly using explosives and targeted assassinations. Moreover, these attacks, which mostly do not attempt to inflict indiscriminate mass casualties (a tactic which nevertheless seems to gain more attention), have only very rarely been accompanied by some form of public communication. This indicates that right-wing terrorists may not need or want to communicate their course of action to a potential audience. Indeed, many right-wing attacks may be considered ‘self explanatory’ by their perpetrators, or are successful in creating fear and terror within the target group without anyone claiming responsibility for the attack.

It may be that violence is simply an inherent part of right-wing extremist ideology and thus not perceived by the perpetrators as requiring explanation. This raises the danger of attacks being dismissed as unplanned, erratic, spontaneous or isolated incidents. The findings above suggest that this is not the case. Right-wing terrorism is a dangerous form of political violence and a legitimate threat precisely because it frequently aims to blend in with society in order to minimize repression and counter-measures and to more effectively pursue its goals.

*Daniel Koehler is the Director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies (GIRDS) . His research focus lies on right-wing terrorism, radicalization and de-radicalization. He has studied religious studies, political science and economics at Princeton University and the Freie Universität Berlin

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By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

On a recent visit to Sri Lanka, the first by a senior American official after the January 8 presidential polls, US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the “enormous progress Sri Lanka has made in just a few months”. In a rare and at times controversial personal reference to President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, he reportedly said, “As the government heads into the parliamentary elections this summer, Sri Lankan will continue to rely on their tremendous leadership and commitment.”

Kerry did not stop there. In reference to war time ‘accountability issues’, he wanted Sri Lanka to ‘find the truth’ behind disappearances. The US position on the matter becomes all the more important in these weeks and months after the decisive presidential polls, which has put the remnants of the decades-old ethnic war and divides behind the nation, for Sri Lanka to begin a new beginning.

The US is not the only ‘sole super power’ in the world, with enormous and at times undefined geo-strategic and consequent politico-diplomatic interests and concerns in Sri Lanka’s Indian Ocean neighbourhood. In this specific instance, the US was the prime mover behind the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution and consequent initiatives on the nation’s war-time human rights record, with particular reference to the last days, weeks and months.

As may be recalled, the US had taken the lead at the UNHRC in 2012 after an earlier EU draft got cancelled out in limine (at the start) by the joint efforts of India, Pakistan and China, less than a fortnight after the decisive conclusion of the Eelam war. That the US put its name at the top of the initiators of the resolution and also employed all its political initiatives and diplomatic pressures on UNHRC’s voting members for three years in a row since, became apparent even without anyone having to find out the how and why of it.

Yet, as Kerry was reported to have pointed out — and rightly so — that “despite the fairly poor relationship the US had with the former Sri Lankan government, the US welcomed the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). He also noted that no country has a perfect human rights record, not even the United States. In this context, Kerry said that he had pledged to counterpart Samaraweera “that the US wants to work with Sri Lankans and help in any way to shape the future the people of Sri Lanka want”.

The US visitor, who met with the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), said that the Tamils’ lot has improved under the new dispensation. Already, hard line peripheral sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) community and polity have contested his observations, nearer home in Sri Lanka and overseas.

Kerry, during the visit, and President Sirisena afterwards asserted that the US was not trying to influence Sri Lanka in any way whatsoever. Kerry even clarified that the US was not concerned about the kind of relationship that Sri Lanka might have with other nations – an obvious reference to China.

Election issue

Despite such references to China and other globalised concerns of the US in the Sri Lankan context, the latter should be concerned ever more so about ‘accountability issues’ and the upcoming UNHRC session in September. Kerry himself has made a positive reference to the promised parliamentary elections. He has even spoken favourably about ‘human rights conditions’ in the US context as a comparison of sorts for the future.

However, the present leadership that he has hailed in unequivocal terms would require greater and more visible guarantees that ‘war crimes’ would not come to haunt the nation, its political leadership — not just the past but also the present one — and the armed forces even more. Considering that President Sirisena was the all-important acting defence minister at five crucial stages in the war, particularly the decisive Mullivaikkal phase at the end, contemporary Sri Lankan history could repeat itself if the UNHRC in general and the prime US mover otherwise are willing to make concessions.

What could those concessions be? Soon after taking over, and ahead of the scheduled March session of the UNHRC, the government despatched Minister Samaraweera to the US, the UN and the UNHRC, not necessarily in that order, seeking six months time for the new leadership to come to grips with matters on the ground and take forward the expectations of the ‘international community’. In return, the UNHRC did agree to defer the presentation of its ‘independent probe’ findings, which had already been reportedly tied up, by six months, to the September session.

Now, ahead of the September session could come the parliamentary polls. The initial question would be if the UNHRC resolution and follow-up could continue to haunt the present regime as a core election issue or not. The predecessor political leadership of president Mahinda Rajapaksa would invariably tell the world to take a walk on the UNHRC front.

It did not stop there, though. Almost since the commencement of the UNHRC process, for which the West began doing the ground work in mid-2011, the Sri Lankan state machinery in its entirety had focused all its energies, time and intentions to facing off yet another round of UNHRC session and resolution, one way or the other. It meant that the government of the day did not have any energies left for anything much more substantial to do in the more immediate and contemporary contexts.

In the absence of a full closure of the UNHRC processes one way or the other, the problems of the past could continue to linger. It could vitiate the ethnic atmosphere, and revive war-time jingoism across the ethnic divide even more than in the post-war past. It can be worse if the current, ‘cohabitation type’ leadership were to continue after the parliamentary polls, yet the jockeying for political control of the government, which is now wholly one sided and is in favour of Prime Minister Ranil’s United National Party (UNP) were to assume new propositions and different proportions.

Controlling the controls

By referring the human rights track record of the US, Secretary Kerry was possibly telling the Sri Lankan Tamil leadership that there was a point after which compromises had to be made – and accepted in good faith. All of it might smack of American decision to get rid of president Rajapaksa through Sri Lanka’s democratic and constitutional processes, yet for Kerry’s message to have any impact the US would have to start working on its home front.

There can be no denying the diaspora spade work, which either contributed to, or was projected, as among the causes for the US-led initiative at the UNHRC. Nearer home, it brought extraordinary pressure on the TNA leadership, contributing in turn to the sudden yet anticipated breakdown of political negotiations with the government of the day.

Ahead of the parliamentary polls, peripheral hardline SLT political parties inside Sri Lanka and those presenting themselves to be ahead of every election time from within the TNA, if only to cut a ‘fair deal’ in seat-sharing talks, too could revive dormant problems. They could have an electoral impact both in the Tamil as well as Sinhala areas, and with exactly opposite effects.

Behind it all are SLT diaspora hardliner groups, operating independent and at times collusively in Europe and the US. The self-styled ‘trans-national government of Tamil Eelam’ (TNGTE) is based out of the US, with a diaspora Tamil as its ‘elected prime minister’. Around the time, Kerry was in Sri Lanka, the outfit had its annual dinner conference at Toronto, Canada, where its leader, Visuwanathan Rudrakumaran, an American lawyer by profession, delivered a hard-hitting speech.

The less said about the more militant groups based out of some European nations, the better. Many are still identifiable with the LTTE, which Secretary Kerry said, the US wanted defeated. There are others, SLT ‘political moderates’ both within Sri Lanka and elsewhere, whose so-called soft-line pertains only to their methods, not their motives and motivation.

After the Kerry visit, the Sri Lankan government is reportedly setting up teams to work with international organisations, to try and locate those that had ‘disappeared’ (possibly in other countries, citing prevailing conditions for them to seek ‘political asylum). Just ahead of the visit, the Rajapaksa-appointed three-man commission, headed by retired high court Judge Maxwell Paranagama, in its interim report had said that 60 percent of all war-time disappearances owed to the LTTE and another 10 percent to other Tamil militant groups, and that 30 percent owed it to the armed forces.

The Maxwell panel was one of the few inherited apparatuses that the new Sri Lankan leadership did not disturb. In this light, it remains to be seen what the US and UNHRC can expect Sri Lanka (now under a different and very well acceptable leadership) to do – and what the Sri Lankan leadership can expect in turn from the US and the UNHRC. What Sri Lanka may now require is not any ‘full disclosure’ on ‘accountability issues’, which are also difficult to prove to the entire satisfaction of a criminal court under the Westminster scheme, but a ‘full closure’ of the past, and linked to a permanent political solution, for the nation as a whole to shed the past and move forward, in the greater spirit of mutual ethnic accommodation and electoral cooperation.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at email: sathiyam54@gmail.com

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