Harvard International Review blogs

The Union Jack Won't Be Missing The Cross of St. Andrew Anytime Soon

Pat Lane — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:28:25 +0000

On Feburary 4^th, the Scotland Rugby Team will stand on the pitch of Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium and listen to “God Save the Queen.” The 60,000 tartan supporters, UK citizens, will remain largely silent throughout. A boo or two may even make its way through the stands. Then with saltires waving and bagpipes playing, the Scots will proudly sing:

O Flower of Scotland,

When will we see your like again

That fought and died for

Your wee bit hill and glen.

And stood proud against him,

Proud Edward’s army,

And sent him homeward

To think again.

On this day, just as at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the opponent is England. The auld enemy. This ancient rivalry, once fought with pikes and guns, entered the sporting world long ago and now wages within Westminster and Holyrood.

First Minister Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party is pushing for a referendum on independence for the home nation. Ironically, David Cameron and his Tories, the bastions of unionist politics are also pushing for a referendum on Scottish independence. As with so many things in life, it all comes down to timing. The SNP want the vote to occur in the fall of 2014; whereas Westminster prefers a vote within the next 18 months. Cameron’s call for an early referendum turns national self-determination—the very foundation of independence movements—against the SNP. It may just pay off.

It’s all-too tempting to say that this vote is a boon for Scottish nationalists. But in reality this vote offers the UK government the chance to put the national question to bed for the foreseeable future. According to UK law, a national assembly cannot simply hold a referendum on independence. Westminster must vote to give it that right temporarily, something which the standing government is willing to do. And soon.

David Cameron is no fool. At least not in this instance, he isn’t. Sure, he’s betting that the Scots will opt for the economic and military security of the UK over the allure of complete autonomy. But any betting shop from Aberdeen to Edinburgh will tell you Cameron has good odds. Only a third or so of Scots support full independence and that figure has stagnated over the 4 years the SNP’s held power in Scotland. The SNP is no doubt aware of these troubling figures, which partly explains its preference for a later vote. The party must rally supporters not just to the nationalist cause, but to the cause of independence—two ends that aren’t necessarily the same thing.

A vote for the SNP does not inevitably make one a champion of a future Scottish state. Scots might vote for the SNP because the party is deemed better than Labour or the Conservatives. Or because they are in favor, not of independence per se, but of more independence. Simply put, SNP voters want the increased devolution of powers from Westminster, including taxation policy and welfare programs. The Scots aren’t willing to sever historical ties just yet. It is quite possible that greater devolution will eventually beget the desire for full independence, though the aforementioned polling data states otherwise.

Some three hundred years have passed since Scotland last stood as an independent state. Though still part of the UK, Scots now control their own national destiny. That destiny appears to remain a home nation of the UK, barring any more Thatcher biopics or discoveries of oil in the North Sea. While it’s too soon to call Cameron’s move a masterstroke, it looks likely that he was able to use the very principles and instruments of the nationalist movement—namely self-determination and devolution, to preserve the union. When the referendum does come and the votes are tallied, Cameron will be left smiling. And Salmond?

He’ll be sent homeward.

To think again.

The Iraqi Christian's Dilemma

Mathilde Montpetit — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:15:34 +0000

Christians in Iraq belong to some of the oldest Christian sects in the entire world, but since the United States pulled out its troops last month, many believe that their future may be threatened. The rise of militant Islam has caused a Christian exodus from Iraq, even during the American occupation.

It is always hard to know how best to defend minority groups – especially religious ones – in hostile contexts. Considering the recent pullout, any pressure on the Iraqis by the American government may do more harm than good, since it could be miscontrued as an attempt to promote Christianity at the expense of the Muslim majority. There has certainly been a vocal anti-Muslim minority since the September 11th attacks in the U.S.; one needs only to look at the controversy over the construction of the Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero to see that. Though this has of course never been the official stance of the American government or even of the vast majority of the country, there is still a pervasive international view – especially in the Middle East -- of the United States as a country that often opposes Muslim interests. American foreign policy has already been damaged by these assumptions on the part of both Muslim and non-Muslim states; it would hardly help our already somewhat precarious position to “confirm” them.

Of course, the Iraqi government should promote the rights of Iraqi Christians independent of international pressure, but thus far the new government has failed to take decisive action on this critical issue. In the meantime, the Iraqi Christians have faced persecution. Many have already been driven from the country: there used to be 1.6 million Christians in Iraq, but now there are no more than 400,000. Most of them have fled to Turkey, seeking a more tolerant social and political climate. Nevertheless, these refugees continue to face a difficult road because the persecution of religious minorities is a problem that extends far beyond the borders of war-torn Iraq.

Owing to the fragile political situation in Iraq, the protection of Iraqi Christians poses a daunting challenge. International pressure from powerful countries will likely put the new Iraqi government on the defensive, and action from non-government actors may prove to be fruitless. Perhaps the solution is for the local, marginally more tolerant Muslim democracies (such as Turkey, Lebanon, and others) to put pressure on their newly independent neighbor. Of course, few of these largely Islamic governments have shown a strong inclination to defend the rights of religious minorities at all, however much they should from a human rights standpoint. Even if there is no expedient solution, the problem is not one that we can ignore. As we celebrate the end of the War in Iraq, we need to make sure that Iraq’s persecuted minorities are not forgotten. It is vital that Iraq’s fledgling democracy finds a way to avoid becoming a tyranny of the majority.

Kazakhstan and the "Road to Democracy"

Mathilde Montpetit — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:06:29 +0000

The riots that have been rocking Southwestern Kazakhstan since Friday have already led to forty casualties and at least fourteen deaths as protestors clash with police. Official government sources have referred to the rioters as mere “hooligans” and remain confident that the government will be able to put down the protests. They continue to assure outside observers that oil production will not be interrupted by the protests. Even so, the situation is reminiscent of the countless anti-government protests that have been spreading across the Middle East and Central Asia all year. Kazakhstan’s government seems to need only a small push to be on the verge of collapse – probably for the best. Whether it is the Arab Spring-esque protests spurred by disgruntled oil workers (reminiscent of the protests that started the situation in Libya) or the pervasive government corruption, there needs to be a stark shift in power if Kazakhstan is to continue on its quest to become a full-fledged democracy.

The Kazakh government shut down cell phone towers and Internet access in Zhanaozen following President Nazarbayev’s decision on Friday to declare a 20-day state of emergency in the province: Mubarak’s government acted similarly in the early days of the Arab Spring. The hacker network Telecomix has been attempting to secure Internet connection for people in the affected areas by providing free dial-up servers and publishing instructions on how volunteers can establish their own dialup service. The network has been successful before, creating modem connections for Egypt’s protestors earlier this year.

The two situations are not completely analogous, since as of now none of the protestors have been calling for Nazarbayev’s removal from the presidency of the former Soviet province. So far they have only been protesting mistreatment by the state-owned oil companies, including the waves of layoffs that occurred at the end of the summer. Nazarbayev’s hold on the presidency seems secure: though the government has held elections during his 20-year tenure, no one has run against him. Furthermore, in 2007, the Kazakh parliament lifted Nazarbayev’s term limit, effectively giving him the ability to remain in office for the rest of his life: all future presidents, however, will be limited to two terms. He has effectively become the state; as the only president since Soviet rule ended in 1991, it is unclear what would happen to Kazakh democracy were he to step down.

Corruption is an enormous problem in Kazakhstan, and the president himself is believed to have transferred up to $1 billion from the state-run oil companies to his own private bank accounts. He may also benefit from a friendship with a Kazakh-Israeli businessman, Alexnder Mashkevich, who may control up to one quarter of the Kazakh economy. The U.S. Justice Department investigated James Giffen, an American former advisor to Nazarbayev, on the charge of bribing the president for exclusive control over oil fields in northwestern Kazakhstan; Giffen pleaded guilty to one count of making an unlawful payment to a senior Kazakh official.

All this coupled with claims of mistreatment from the oil workers – all of whom work for state-owned firms -- does seem to indicate an important need for reform in Kazakhstan. It is as yet unclear whether the current riots will lead to a larger movement against the government, and as of now, it doesn’t seem that it will, though most information leaving the country is released by official government sources. Perhaps it is time that Nazararbayev take his own words to heart in an Op-Ed he wrote for the Washington Post in March of this year: if Kazakhstan’s road to democracy is “irreversible”, maybe he is an obstacle that needs to be overturned.

Taken For Granted: Brazil's Forgotten Laborers

Mathilde Montpetit — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:00:11 +0000

In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. However, even today, many Brazilians – some say as many as 250,000 – are working under conditions not so dissimilar to those faced by slaves over a century ago.

In the northeastern state of Pará, slaves are commonly the ones who do the backbreaking work of turning wood into charcoal.

The men and women are often from neighboring states, most of which are extremely poor and have high unemployment rates. The charcoal farms send recruiters to poor villages, where the men are promised high wages: instead, they find that the companies have created massive debts for them at company stores, and the majority of their wages goes into paying it off. The conditions they live under are just as horrendous: they are not given any protective gear, live in wooden shacks, and many are constantly sick from malaria-infected mosquitoes that are rampant in the newly deforested jungle.

The Brazilian government has been vehement in pursuing those who use forced labor, setting up a Mobile Inspection Unit. The unit has freed 40,000 slaves since its inception, often only fifteen to twenty at a time. They compensate and send home workers and fine the farmers. This approach has discouraged some farmers from using forced labor by reducing their profit margins, but the fact remains that no one has ever been arrested or had their property confiscated. Furthermore, the sheer size of the area that the unit has to inspect makes total eradication of the practice unlikely: Pará is one of the largest states in Brazil, and its inner sanctum is practically inaccessible to most vehicles.

Pig-iron, an essential component of steel, is often produced using charcoal from these farms. These producers are extremely powerful. Brazil exports about 10 million tons of pig-iron each year, and the industry is worth over two billion dollars. There are some industry-based efforts to stem the flow of tainted charcoal: when evidence of slave labor was revealed in 2004, the government and producers established a national pact to monitor the entire production chain, and fifteen companies created the Charcoal Citizens’ Institute (CCI), a way for companies to ensure that no part of their production is supported by slave labor.

However, membership is completely voluntary, so many companies simply ignore it. COSIPAR, a large pig-iron plant that supplies over 300,000 tons of pig-iron to the United States each year, let its membership in CCI lapse in 2009. Its charcoal suppliers have been raided multiple times for using slave labor; it was even fined for purchasing charcoal from such farms. COSIPAR supplies National Material Trading (NMT), an American company to whom major American companies like General Motors, Ford, and Whirlpool were linked.

Since the issue first appeared on the international stage in 2006, General Motors and Ford have both stopped purchasing pig-iron from NMT. However, Whirlpool refused to comment when a recent Al Jazeera segment reached out to them. Though this does not necessarily mean that they continue to use it, they have not publicly rejected their claims to NMT nor released any statements declaring their intent to discontinue their association with the company or to monitor their supply chain more thoroughly.

The issue of modern slavery is usually one that is associated with sex trafficking. It is often easy to forget that slavery exists in many other forms in the modern age, even those that seem outdated; we still use products every day that were created using the work of slaves, just as we would have two hundred years ago.

Europe's Not The Future For Turkey Anymore

Pat Lane — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:23:13 +0000

Maybe Turkey isn’t fit for Europe after all. And maybe, Europe isn’t fit for Turkey either. Many Europeans have long been hostile to Turkey’s bid for accession to the EU, while many Turks have always seen EU membership as central to the country’s future. Now the hostility is mutual.

As the EU bumbles from crisis to crisis, Turkey’s economy has grown tremendously, leaving many Turks no longer seeing the need for European integration. Despite the global downturn, Turkey’s GDP remains on pace to increase this year by a startling 8 per-cent. Long shunned by Europe, Turkey now thrives without the crushing debt of the eurozone. This newfound prosperity has delivered confidence and bravado. The Turks are reveling in the schadenfreude and who can blame them?

While the Bosphorus is not getting any wider, it’s clear that Turkey and Europe are moving farther apart. France looks likely to pass legislation that would criminally punish any person convicted of denying the existence of the early 20^th century’s Armenian genocide. Turkey continues to reject its role in the mass murder and deportation of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Armenians. Ever defiant, Turkish President Abdullah Gul referred to the proposed law as being based on “unfair and groundless accusations.” Turkey has threatened to cut off diplomatic ties with France and a boycott of French businesses remains a distinct possibility. The upcoming vote in the French parliament will be a telling sign of Turkish influence in Europe.

Turkey’s response to proposed French law comes on the heels of the arrest of roughly 40 journalists throughout the country on suspicion of terrorism. The ruling Justice and Development Party is looking to eliminate any dissent, particularly any media outlets willing to give voice to the country’s Kurdish minority. Many sources are now claiming that Turkey, not China or Iran, has the most imprisoned journalists in the world. Brussels has long advocated for greater freedom of speech in Turkey, yet the Turks continue to ignore the demands of the EU. One thing is clear; the EU isn’t necessarily the future anymore.

The Turks’ bitter retort to the French and the recent clampdown on journalists is not just about stifling public criticism. These moves reflect the greater desire to construct a new narrative for modern Turkey. It is a narrative that ignores the sins of the past and the criticisms of the present, while elevating the accomplishments of the current government. Modern Turkey, so the story goes, is self-made (despite the incredible amount of foreign investment). She carved her own path to prosperity sans the EU. She prospers while around her Europe toils and the Middle East implodes.

Consolidating power via censorship does not endear Turkey to the liberal democracies of the world. Nor does it help Turkey portray itself as one of that number. But with the Turkish public getting wealthier and the West needing an ally in an otherwise unstable region, the misdeeds of Turkey’s government will be tolerated into the foreseeable future.

International Community and Syria's Civil War

Majid Rafizadeh — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:18:57 +0000

What makes Syria different from Libya is not just its multi-religious, multiethnic societal fabric, but also the different level of domestic, regional, and international involvement in Syria’s crisis. In Libya’s case, there was more domestic and international involvement. Hundreds of thousands of people and opposition groups expressed their dissatisfaction with Qaddafi regime world-wide.

On the domestic level, public demand and the demands of various opposition groups were in alignment. On a broader and international level, there was almost a unanimous consensus about removing Qaddafi from power and ending the violence. The demands of the public and the international community aligned. On the other hand, regional powers did not play a significant role nor did they have a conflict of interest regarding the Qaddafi regime. In Libya's case, Tunisia and Egypt are the two neighboring, regional powers. Tunisia was dealing with post-revolution activities such as building a new government that is representative of the Tunisian population. Additionally, in Egypt the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), is doing everything in its power to maintain its legitimacy by responding to peoples demands. Therefore, these two regional powers have their hands full and were unable to devote national resources to Libya.

Syria’s case is more complicated and multidimensional than expected. There are several conflicted and contradictory interests involved in either maintaining or assisting with Assad’s removal from power. On the domestic front there are millions of Syrians who are discontent with both the brutality and corruption of the security regime (the mukhabarat) that has only benefited a small group of elites, at the expense of leaving the middle and poor classes economically underdeveloped. However, by creating an environment of fear, the regime has succeeded in garnering loyalty and establishing a base of support in Syrian society. The regime has relied heavily on the Faustian bargain it made a number of groups and individuals when the regime came to power. After the trauma of decades of instability and war, the regime promised to protect Syrian in exchange for their loyalty. In the exchange for security, those protected experienced suppression of all forms of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of press and any independent political establishments.

Opposition groups have their own conflicted objectives as well. The three main organized opposition groups are the Turkey-based, Syrian National Council (SNC), the Damascus-based, National Council of Coordination, and the Syrian Free Army (FSA). The SNC is against any dialogue with the regime, their position on foreign military intervention is unclear, and they have expressed an urgency to end the violence committed by the Assad regime. The National Council of Coordination favors conditional dialogue with the regime, they are opposed to any form of foreign intervention, and they are calling for an end to the violence. The FSA, a group mainly comprised of Sunni soldiers who have defected from the lowest ranks of the Syrian military sanction any dialogue with the regime, they are divided on the issue of foreign intervention, and they want an end to violence by Assad’ s state apparatuses (but have revealed a tendency to resort to violence to solve crises). Despite the existence of these groups, most Syrians protesting in the streets don’t feel that any of these groups are connected with ordinary people. Protestors and political organizers have expressed that there is no palpable connection between organized oppositional groups and the ordinary people who comprise the majority of the protestors marching in the streets today (the majority of whom come from the middle class to lowest income families in Syrian society). They are mainly unemployed youth and families living on less than $2 a day (below the poverty line).

On a regional level, there has been some considerable conflict amongst regional powers regarding the decision of whether to allow the Assad regime to survive or to push for regime change. The question on everyone’s mind is what is the alternative to Assad’s regime? Would it be a government that could prevent Syria from descending into a civil war? Would it be a government that can preserve the benefits, interests, and stakes of the other regional powers? What are the stakes? Who will dominate the next government and shape its policies? These questions are fundamental to the national interests of regional powers because any change in Syria can play a significant role in altering the balance of power between not only Arab states but other key players in the region such as Turkey, Israel, and Iran. Turkey and Iran have long competed for influence in Syria. Although, Turkey has recently taken a robust position against Assad’s regime by abandoning it, the Iranian regime is reluctant to abandon its only strong regional ally, even if it means allowing the blood of thousands of innocent men, women, and children to be spilled in the streets, while other innocents are inhumanely tortured in Syrian prisons. Iraq and Lebanon have both recently experienced the effects of decades of instability in Syria as a result of their own civil wars. They abstained from sanctioning Syria during the Arab League Summit because Syria's future is so uncertain. Will Syria descend into civil war? If so, will a civil war spill over into surrounding Arab nations? To what extent will the outcome negatively impact their own nations?

On an international level, there has been an increasing consensus that the international community must demand that Assad step down. However, Russia has shown an unwillingness to abandon its closest ally in the Middle East (its military trading partner and the only Arab country that has allowed it to have a naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea). Tartous, the second largest port in Syria, is being renovated to provide a permanent facility for the Russian navy, giving Moscow a key military foothold in the Mediterranean Sea. For this reason, Russia recently criticized the sanctions placed on the Syrian regime. Russia pointed out that sanctions won’t solve the crisis, but rather hurt the Syrian people and pave the way for alternative foreign intervention.

The interactions, contradictions and excesses between the domestic-, regional- and international- levels of interest and demand make the case of Syria’s future more complicated than expected. If the situation continues, Assad’s excessive and forceful apparatuses will maintain power while the country continues to experience an unrest which has the disturbing potential to evolve into an all-out civil war.

Iran, The US, and Saudi Arabia

Majid Rafizadeh — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 20:04:35 +0000

The alleged plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States has triggered anxieties about Iran’s policies toward Arab countries specifically Saudi Arabia, and its intentions for regional hegemony. With the advent of the Arab Spring, Iran has been attempting to affect developments in almost every nation it believes it has a claim to — Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Many Arab nations view these actions as unwelcome Iranian interference in the internal affairs of the “Arab world,” particularly Saudi Arabia.

Ideologically speaking, by proclaiming itself the safe-guarder of Islamic values Iran has been challenging Saudi Arabia’s position in the Middle East for decades. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution the Islamic Republic of Iran has promote Shia Islam over Sunni Islam throughout the Muslim world. After consolidating power, the Islamic Republic of Iran began to establish special bodies of knowledge derived from religious texts which include the Quran, Khomeini’s personal writings, and Shari’a law rather than from other bodies of knowledge hailing from the Social Science, Humanities, as well as modern and International Law. Other changes included the replacement of secular judges with Islamic clerics, and the removal of all female judges. The Islamist state puts more emphasis on Shiite holidays rather than on traditional and national holidays such as Nowruz (Persian New Year). Advanced Islamic scholarship was established and Qom became the largest center for Shi'a scholarship in the world where an estimated 60,000 seminarians travel from 70 different countries.

The second important issue for Iran is the future of Iraq. Iran’s actions have caused Saudi Arabia to be concerned with Iran’s efforts to interfere with the ethnic and religious make-up of Iraq’s future government. Iran's attempts to influence and interfere with the political process in Iraq, including its attempts to promote Shia dominated, pro-Tehran regime in Iraq's recent elections, has worried the region. Iraqis in Najaf, the epicentre of Shia Islam, say they fear that a power vacuum after the Americans leave next year will be filled by Iran. Tehran’s active efforts to create a majority-Shi’a regime in Iraq have been a major concern for the Saudi Kingdom. Iran has attempted to penetrate Iraq’s socio-political system in various following ways.

Militarily, they have been wielding influence through the Quds Force, a special operations wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Quds Force was born out of the Office of Liberation Movements, which was formed right after the Iranian revolution with the purpose of assisting and supporting radical movements, especially in the Middle East. It is now one of the five branches of the Revolutionary Guard and the most independent; its commander Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is believed to be a source of revolutionary fervor, with proximately 14,000 of its troops being drawn from elite units of other governmental branches. In terms of economy, Iran has emerged as one of Iraq’s largest trading partners. With Iranian exports to Iraq surpassing $6 billion in 2011, Iran has not been significantly affected by the ongoing sanctions being imposed on it. A free-trade zone in southern Iraq has led to the movement of Iranian goods into shops in the Iraqi city of Basra. The goods include Iranian exports to Iraq such as construction materials, petrochemicals, industrial equipments, medical equipment, and food. Iran also exports gas oil to Iraqi power stations. In addition, the Iranian government has been constructing a highway designed to link Basra with Iranian commercial centers. Other projects include the construction of a branch of Iran’s national bank in Baghdad to provide assistance for Iraq’s economic reconstruction, according to Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, former Iranian ambassador to Iraq.

Socially, Iran has been wielding considerable influence in Iraq as well. Many powerful Shiite political parties were trained and acculturated in Iran while they were in exile during the reign of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Baath Party. After Saddam's fall many of these groups returned to Iraq to influence Iraq’s politics. Iran has also been attempting to shape Iraq religiously and politically. Specifically, the regime has been attempting to create a majority-Shi'a regime in Iraq. Additionally Iran has sent thousands of religious students and scholars to the holy city of Najaf. Tens of thousands of Iranians cross the border to visit holy sites each year. In order to facilitate the exchange of religious visitors Iran has been constructing an airport in the city of Najaf.

The third issue of concern for Iran is the situation in Bahrain. Iran is accused of violating Bahrain’s sovereignty and interfering in Bahrain’s internal affairs in order to tilt the balance of power in favor of the Shiite population. Iran has long sought to achieve political, strategic, and religious objectives in Bahrain, more so than any other Gulf sheikhdom. As in 2009, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Shiite Iran had sovereignty over Bahrain. In 1981, Bahrain uncovered a nascent coup plot which it linked to the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain which was based in Iran. The Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated in March 21, 2011 “[Iran] supports all the popular movements which are under the slogan of Islam and (seeking) freedom." Not surprisingly, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is believed to have been an instigator of the recent unrest in Bahrain.

Fourth is case of Syria and Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas is viewed as a destabilizing force for the Arab world by Iran. Syria's role as an Iranian proxy has presented a dilemma for
neighboring Arab countries.. Syria, which was once considered by the Arab world as the “palpitating heart of Arabism”-- who was willing to give up statehood to unify with Egypt for the sake of Arab nationalism in 1958 -- is now believed to have fallen into the influence of religious clerics rather than secular political leaders. Syria’s return to the arms of the Arab world would significantly shift Iran’s position in the Middle East. Additionally, there are concerns that Iranian leaders have been supporting the Assad’s regime technologically or militarily to help suppress the oppositions and protests.

The last issue is related to Iran’s nuclear program which has been the source of ongoing tensions in the region and threatens to alter the balance of power. Various countries in the region have raised concerns about the possibility of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing nuclear weapons. It is also believed that a nuclear Iran will hinder the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This threat has intensified since 2005 after Iran resumed development of its nuclear program after a period of inactivity.

Lastly, the Arab spring seems to have benefited the Iranian regime due to the fact that it has diverted the attention of the international community from Iranian nuclear development to the socio-political transitions in neighboring Arab nations.

Hostages of Iranian Foreign Policy: My students Shaun and Sarah

Majid Rafizadeh — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:42:11 +0000

Having taught Sarah Emily Shroud and her fiancé Shane Michael Bauer in Damascus, Syria, I was able to learn about their goals and aspirations, one of which was to leave the comfort of their homes in the US to help poor communities living in the Middle East. They strived to use their privileged status, education, and experiences to help those living under a dollar a day. Sarah and Shaun did this in various ways such as teaching refugees in Damascus and helping the people to chart their way. Having gotten to know the couple, I learned that their intentions in the Middle East were not political but rather, humanitarian.

I once asked Sarah, why would you leave the comforts of California to live in Syria where the standard of living is deplorable and human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of press are being constantly violated by an oppressive regime? She responded that it would be selfish of her to enjoy life there while people are suffering abroad and that this approach fulfilled and satisfied her human needs.

Unfortunately, Sarah, Shaun, and their good friend Josh Felix Fattal are currently being held in an Iranian prison, not due to legal violations but because they were caught in episode of political crossfire between the United States and Iran. Iran’s decision to release them on $500,000 bail, once again underscores the Islamist regime’s twisted sense of “justice,” which Iranians as well as foreigners are constantly subjected to in order to advance the interests of the regime.

It was not until the day of Sarah’s conditional release, over a year after their initial detainment, that formal charges of espionage were brought against them. Since that time, great efforts have continued—both through international campaigns and attempts to navigate the vagaries of the Iranian justice system—to secure the freedom of Shane and Josh. When various media met with Sarah Shourd, during her recent visit to London, it became clear that the arrest and imprisonment of the Americans was an overtly political exercise from the outset—presumably as leverage for Iran’s nuclear enrichment against the United States. Additionally, this case has become a game of political football and a reflection of the tension within the Iranian regime itself. On the one hand, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed, from the outset, that he believed that these three hikers were innocent and he announced their release. As Sarah herself met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York, shortly after her release, she explained that after presenting evidence of their innocence he said that he accepted it and said ‘I know. You’re very good Kids. I hope that Shane and Josh are free very soon. And that you can get married and have many children.’ On the other hand, tensions rose between President Ahmadinejad and those working in the judicial system when Ahmadinejad undermined the role of the clerics when declaring himself the spiritual person and a delegate of the hidden Imam, has stated that any announcement about the release of the hikers is invalid.

As lawyer and Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi points out, there are two legal approaches to this case. First, if these three American hikers are spies, as the Iranian government alleges, the evidence of their activity should be presented to the court. The fact is that the three hikers were arrested on the border which means they had no opportunity to engage in activities of espionage. According to international law, they should be released. Second, if they were arrested for crossing the border without possession of a visa, according to immigration law, they should be fined a sum equivalent to $100 each and then be released. Taking these facts into consideration, there is no legal justification for their imprisonment.

Additionally, if they were intending to enter Iran to spy, Sarah would have worn a headscarf and Islamic dress so as to not be immediately recognized. As she states “From the very beginning it was clear to me that the soldiers that detained us, that captured us and then took us to Iran, knew that we had no intention of coming to Iran.” She goes on to highlight the obvious inconsistency in the allegations of espionage, clarifying, “I wasn’t wearing a headscarf or proper clothing which is mandatory for a woman in Iran. The first thing the soldiers did was to stop in the first town that we came to and buy me a headscarf and a long dress to wear, because I was wearing shorts.” The interrogators intentionally misled the hikers by outright telling them that they would not be charged with espionage. After two months of being held without charge, the case was apparently due to be closed. Sarah consequentially asked her interrogator “does that mean I’m going to trial? Am I finally going to see my lawyer?” However, his answer was bleak. He said “No, I’m really sorry to tell you this but your case has become political and I don’t know what’s going to happen to you. I believe you’re innocent but I don’t know if it’s going to make any difference at this point.” Clearly, the captives had, by this time, become bargaining chips in a diplomatic game of political football, to be tossed back and forth in Iran.

(This Article was published first on Aljazeera)

Beyond the Downgrade and the Debt Limit Debate

Majid Rafizadeh — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:03:28 +0000

Beyond the Debt Limit Debate

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' surprise appearance to the chamber, for the first time since being shot in the head in January, demonstrates a point beyond the vote for raising or limiting the debt ceiling. It also represents the amount of sacrifice and compromise required to serve the needs of millions of students, seniors and unemployed workers whose livelihoods should be the top priority for all public officials in this time of crisis.

Karamargin, Gabrielle Giffords’ communications director said that as Giffords watched Republicans, members of the Tea Party and Democrats debate about the debt ceiling, "She turned to her husband, Mark, and shook her head and said, 'Just get it done.'" As she headed to the House floor to cast her vote on Monday, a new message appeared on Giffords' Twitter account: "The Capitol looks beautiful and I am honored to be at work tonight." Her courageous appearance was an emotional scene, as Giffords' colleagues cheered for her warmly and loudly, with many rushing to her side to welcome her back. She sincerely served her constituents and sacrificed her life. Even after being shot in her home state, she returned to do her best to serve her country.

Though it is significant to reach an agreement about the debt ceiling, the root problems of the crisis must be addressed in order to reach a sustainable solution. If the debt limit is not raised, the government can no longer borrow funds, and federal operations may continue for the period that the Treasury is able to use existing revenue and secure additional resources through special measures. This means that most employees will continue to be paid - at least in the short term. Nevertheless, the Treasury's ongoing inability to borrow further capital and finance its deficit will eventually lead to a default, if significant revenue increases or spending decreases are not instituted. On the other hand, raising the debt ceiling will also probably relieve the economic tension for possibly six months. However, the potentially negative consequences of a debt-limit debacle are much greater and far-reaching than that of a shutdown. This is because the risk of a government default would jeopardize the credibility of the United States government. As David Murrin, chief investment officer at Emergent Asset Management told CNBC on Monday, "It's incredibly frustrating to watch this slow train wreck taking place. All we have are incremental solutions to the problem and that's no good anymore. You need some very drastic solutions to shift America out of its paradigm because it's being chased by a hugely powerful China," Murrin said in an interview.

Various solutions introduced by both parties, policy makers, and other independent scholars are the following: simply tax the wealthy and corporations at 1960 levels, increase corporate tax levels, reverse tax breaks for the ultra-rich, regulate corporate debt and speculative lending, reduce measures that must include both spending cuts such as a reduction in military expenditure, and cut domestic programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, education, environmental protections, public transportation, and food safety. Beyond these debates, there is an increased need for compromise and more bipartisan campaigns to address these issues.

U.S-China Economic Ties: Doubling or Scaling Down Exports?

Majid Rafizadeh — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 04:32:28 +0000

The current administration set goals to double exports by 2015 and to increase exports to China. In order to meet this goal, exports must grow from $1.57 trillion in 2010 to $3.14 trillion by 2015. At present, high levels of economic interdependency have made Chinese and U.S. interests highly intertwined. Some suggest that rather than increase exports there should be a cut back in both exports and imports due to "unfair" trade practices of the Chinese trade system. In both cases, there are several issues that should be addressed.First, one must take into account Chinese violations of intellectual property rights (IPR), piracy, and counterfeit goods. Since becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) the Chinese government has taken steps to strengthen its legal framework to amend its IPR, and regulations to comply with the WTO Agreement on Traded-Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Nonetheless, Beijing has still failed to fully carry out its commitments as a WTO member, particularly in regards to protection of intellectual property rights, patents, and regulations regarding restrictions on hazardous substances, supply-chain safety, information security regulations, and limitations on foreign participation in China's standards development processes.

According to a survey conducted in 2010 by the USCBS , China’s inadequate IPR protection adversely impacts the business of 66% of survey participants in some way. According to one of the copyright industry association , the rate of piracy in China remains among the highest in the world which has led to billions of dollars in losses for U.S. and other foreign companies every year.

Meeting what is referred to as "standards and conformance", which the international commerce is based on and they are the basis for support innovation, interoperability of technologies, and increase consumer trust and confidence, such as technical regulations, process of testing a product, and certification is other significant concern. Not meeting these standards could mean the creation of market barriers, disruption of trade, and severe limitations on foreign and domestic companies to access a broader, international market.

Another issue is the centralization of crucial trade, safety, environmental, health, and quality issues. State monitoring and regulation in addition to the work of independent bodies has created a wide variety of governmental bureaucratic hurdles.

The bureaucracy of licensing, processing, and managing results in wasted time and resources. As a result, foreign companies that undergo global markets inspections and conformity assessment work by qualified private-sector organizations carry out additional costly bureaucratic, certification activities in addition to those that they have already carried out. One example of these cumbersome certification processes is the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) program which requires that certification must be carried out in China by designated certification bodies (DCBs) affiliated with the Chinese government. This not only creates supply delays to the market but also generates major disadvantages for foreign companies competing with Chinese companies who have direct access to inspection, testing, and certification services. For instance, these designated Chinese certifications bodies do not have any branches outside China. This requires foreign companies that export products to China to arrange and fund travel for a Chinese agent to conduct pre-market inspections at the manufacturer's location as well as to submit to subsequent routine inspections. Foreign companies operating in China have reported that obtainment of office licenses and renewals, licensing for different business administrative functions approvals for new or modified products, approvals for different aspects of projects or investments are substantially more challenging and time-consuming in China than any other developed country. These difficulties undermine and create inconsistencies for long-term and short-term business planning. Another issue faced by these companies is sudden changes to requirements without notice and report in regard with the standards, regulations, and other requirements for their products in China.

In order to address these issues there are three possible approaches. First, the World Trade Organization should pressure China to comply with international trade standards and to adhere to the standards set for the protection of intellectual property rights, patents, regulations and inspection’s. In recent years the WTO has ruled several times against China in crucial cases against illicit taxes on imported auto parts and its lax enforcement of counterfeiting laws. On the other hand, both multilateral and bilateral approaches can be applied to address the aforementioned concerns. Since these concerns are experienced by various foreign companies and countries, they can be better addressed through a multilateral approach and in coordination with other governments.

Why Egypt and Tunisia, but Not Syria?

Majid Rafizadeh — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:59:31 +0000

Why Egypt and Tunisia but not Syria?

On the surface, the pro-democracy movements taking place in Syria may appear to share similarities with the revolts of Egypt and Tunisia. Namely, all three uprisings were reactions to the massive physical and emotional daily suffering being felt by large portions of people living in all three countries. Given the harsh conditions being endured by so many people during the last four decades of the Assad regime, it should be no surprise that large swaths of the Syrian people are organizing to create a party that represents working class interests. The movements developing in Syria today were formed through a materialist understanding of the current conditions. They have translated this understanding into a political force that aims to rival the ruling regime and status quo.

Nevertheless, due to the socio-political nature of Syrian society, it is unlikely that a regime-overthrow in Syria will be accomplished in the same way that it was in Egypt and Tunisia. One difference between Syria and its Arab counterparts is that in both Egypt and Tunisia, an organized political elite and a network of trade unions participated in the demonstrations from the outset. Additionally, in both Egypt and Tunisia, local and international civil society organizations (such as the internationally connected “We’ve had enough!” movement) were involved in the uprisings. In Syria, the same type of organizations did not exist since all the individual and social freedoms guaranteed by the constitution, which would allow for the formation of such civil society organizations, were overridden once the regime consolidated its power. For instance, any Syrian who tried to contact any organization located outside of Syria could be tried in a special tribunal after being charged with “communicating with the enemy.” Many revolutionary intellectuals in Syria spent years in prison under such a charge.

Second, the extent to which the ruling regime is employing repressive tactics is much fiercer and belligerent in Syria than in Egypt or Tunisia. Although the scale of the uprisings was larger in Egypt and Tunisia, less people were killed and detained in Egypt and Tunisia than in Syria. According to Human Rights Watch, 300 people were killed in Tunisia and around 800 deaths were reported in Egypt. Meanwhile, so far, up to 1300 people have been killed in Syria. Also, the regime has committed brutal crimes such as torturing young teenagers (some under the age of 15) and subsequently releasing their images and videos to taking potshot at demonstrators.

Third, the Syrian revolts are less centralized than those in Egypt and Tunisia. In addition, the movement does not appear to have any leadership or follow organized hierarchy. The two groups which seem to make up the majority of the demonstrators are unemployed, progressive youth and intellectuals. In Syria there exists a remarkably large socio-economic disparity between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The vast majority of the demonstrators are unemployed youth who have no means of livelihood. They have no social security, benefits, and generally work unstable, low-level jobs as doormen, maids, and porters for the wealthy Syrian elite. The second group is made up of unemployed lower-middle-class university graduates. About 20 percent of young graduates are unemployed in Syria. Due to high levels of unemployment and severe housing shortages, young people must live with their parents and are unable to get married. The median age of Syrian protesters is reported to be about 30.

Despite Syria’s rich culture and ancient heritage, the Syrian people are unable to make a living from the tourism industry. For tourists who seek to visit Syria, obtaining a visa is an extremely difficult process. Even when the visa is obtained, government security agents are known to follow tourists around, making the visit to Syria uncomfortable and unappealing. In regards to the agricultural industry, Syria has the potential to be self-sufficient but the state exports the best wheat and cotton while importing lower quality wheat and cotton.

Both men and women have taken to the streets to protest the Assad regime in unity. Young Syrian men and women have attempted to create new public and private spaces to defy the regime with the goal of bringing about economic and political reforms. In the past, Bashar’s regime promoted the slogan “God, Syria and Bashar, that’s all we need!” Today, the Syrian youth are chanting, “God, Syria and Liberty, that’s all we need!” as well as, “United, united, united, the Syrian people are united!”

The current revolts seem to have two main objectives. The first is to change the constitution. The second is to push for a more representative government that can address the needs of the people. The demonstrators have demanded that Article 8 of the Syrian constitution, which designates “the Arab Socialist Baath Party” and the undefined “nationalist and progressive front” as the official state parties, be abolished. Additionally, the constitutions grants the president of the Syrian Republic sweeping powers which allow him to impose curfews, declare and maintain a permanent state of emergency, suspend or enact any law, and establish a “Tribunal of Supreme State Security.” He also has the power to dissolve the people’s assembly whenever he deems it necessary. The demonstrators believe that instituting real democracy, the rule of law, liberty, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are the remedies to address their needs. Syria seems to represents a complex, geopolitical knot in the region. The question will be whether the decentralized upheavals can give birth to a new left with a strong leadership that can represent the people’ s demands.

Structuralism or Youth Revolution

Majid Rafizadeh — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 03:15:07 +0000

The recent upheavals in Homs, Damascus and Latakia have generally been interpreted from a culturalist or structuralist perspective. Some attribute the emergence of the democratic uprisings to historic long-term tensions between different ethnic groups which include Alaawite, Syrian Turkmen, Armenians, Druze, Sunnis and the Assyrians (a significant Christian minority in Syria). Although the Baa’th Socialist Party dominates Syrian politics, other political parties such as the National Progressive Front as well as Kurdish and Assyrian parties have been viewed, by some, as another source of the conflict.

Those who have applied a structuralist analysis, view the situation in Syria as a class struggle between the middle class, the proletariat, traditional merchant bourgeoisie, and the bureaucrat bourgeoisie (the apparatchiks, Assad’s apparatuses). However, it is crucial to view all the uprisings taking place in the Middle East and Muslim world from a different lens. The new generations of youth existing within the socio-political and socio-religious configurations of this society are striving to achieve a post-Islam era.

Post-Islamism should not be characterized as anti-religious but rather as a movement which combines civil rights and religion. This new generation endeavors to merge rights and religiosity, freedom and faith, liberty and religion. Therefore, rather than over-emphasizing mandatory duties, post-Islamism emphasizes rights, rule of law, and pluralism as opposed to adherence to a singular authoritative voice. In addition, it aims to marry Islam with modern values such as individuality, democracy, and freedom. The new generation does not oppose secularism. Rather it strives for secularism by struggling for liberation from rigid authoritarian and theocratic regimes. A wide range of people including youth, students, women, and state employees, are calling for individual rights, tolerance and gender equality. The daily resistance and struggle of ordinary people, which sparked the on-going demonstrations, has compelled political actors to initiate crucial paradigm shifts.

One example of this daily resistance includes the success that women have experienced in their attempts to challenge patriarchal power despite limited domains and opportunities for open political activism. Other examples include urban youth struggling to create a space for “fun” lifestyles and ideologies which are not approved by the state or by Islamist movements; urban poor running their own parking services; Iranian youth throwing parties behind closed doors; daily cosmopolitan co-existence between Muslims and Christians in an Egyptian suburb; Muslim women wearing the veil, or hijab, based on their individual preferences; Egyptian and Iranian youth expressing themselves by balancing God, fun and sex; and the ways in which urban public spaces have transformed into locations of struggle in many parts of the Middle East.

Resistance in Syria centers on the struggle against hunger, poverty and unemployment rather than general civil disobedience. According to UN figures, about 25 percent of the people live below the poverty line. According to opposition economist Aref Dalila, 50 percent live below the poverty line. When the Baath Socialist Party rose to power, modes of the production remained the same as during the previous party. Under the rule of Bashar al-Assad, capital is accumulated in a few new sectors that are controlled by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and dominant modes of production remained intact. Bashar continues the policies of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who fractured the middle class during his reign which led to a vast increase in the disparity between the rich and poor.

While, a small portion of the middle class has been able to accumulate capital, others have experienced a decreased in their quality of life as they have joined the ranks of the wage-earning classes who make up the majority of the population. Today a civil service employee or school teacher must work two or three jobs just to meet the basic needs of his or her family, which is likely to include some unemployed members. For example, he might teach by day and drive a taxi by night. Additionally, the peasant class has expressed support for the uprisings because, although the rural bourgeoisie and wealthy landlords are not politically allied with the regime, their economic interests are aligned.

Lawyers under an Authoritarian Apparatus

Majid Rafizadeh — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:40:19 +0000

In recent months, human rights lawyers and defenders have increasingly been threatened with arrests, unfair persecutions, and constant government harassment in multiple cities of Iran including Tabriz, Gilan and Zanjan. Many are being arrested for their work defending human and women’s rights activists, many of whom are students. The regime has attempted to reduce the number of the lawyers by imprisoning or banning them from practicing law. These actions question the legitimacy of the regimes application of the rule of law.

In a statement released recently, Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned the recent arrests of Iranian human rights lawyers Mohammad Seifzadeh and Alireza Rajai. Mohammad Seifzadeh is a founding member of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, an organization that Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and distinguished Iranian lawyers like Abdolfattah Soltani and Mohammed Oliyaiefard are associated with.

The Centre for Human Rights Defenders is a coalition of human rights activists and lawyers who help defend cases of political rights violations. In 2006, the government announced that the organization’s activities were “illegal”- a charge that is being highly disputed. Mr. Seifzadeh has also defended imprisoned journalists in the past. On April 22nd, two weeks after his disappearance, his family was informed that he was being held on charges of “acting against national security”. In October 2010, the revolutionary court sentenced Mr. Seifzadeh to nine years in prison and banned him from practicing law for 10 years because of his work for the Centre for Human Rights Defenders.

Reporters Without Borders asserted that the Islamic Republic is systematically punishing human rights lawyers. They urged international legal groups to stand against these actions and to demand the lawyers’ immediate release.

Another prominent lawyer at the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was also arrested. She is currently serving an 11 year jail sentence, a 10 year ban on professional activities, and a 10 year travel ban.

Karim Lahidji, Vice-president of International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and President of the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LDDHI), stated “We call on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to intervene to stop harassment and persecution of lawyers in Iran, who are increasing targeted for practising their profession.”

Hard Power and Soft Power; Assad and Ordinary People's Resistance

Majid Rafizadeh — Thu, 19 May 2011 02:54:39 +0000

Human rights groups have reported that more than 1300 protestors have been killed since the demonstrations broke out in Syria in mid-March. At first, Syria’s militaristic, harsh, and stubborn dictatorship seemed to be immune to the wave of unrest that swept through most of the Arab world, specifically after the successful Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of January and February 2011. However, in mid-March, demonstrations broke out in several Syrian towns and cities such as Homs, Dar’a, Banias, Latakia and suburb of Damascus.

Despite the unsuccessful responses employed by the Egyptian and Tunisian governments, Assad’s regime insists on responding in the same way. He has employed repressive 19th century tactics in response to the Syrian people’s legitimate 21st century demands.

In order to halt the brutality of the Assad regime some approaches can be effectively utilized. The International Criminal Court should investigate the government’s abuses. The United Nations should condemn the Assad regime for persecuting and killing its own citizens; They can start with multilateral and unilateral penalties such as issuing asset freezes and travel bans against Mr. Assad and his top supporters, which the United States took the lead today. Additionally, an absolute arms embargo should be implemented. The United Nations Human Rights Council should also bring attention to the Syrian regime’s abuses during their upcoming session this Friday.

Bashar al-Assad, the son of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad who ruled with an iron fist for three decades, belongs to the Alawite sect. The Alawite sect is a minority religious group whose members occupy high level military and government positions in Syria. Alawites account for about 10% of the population while the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims (74 %). Druze and Christians make up 10% of Syria’s population.

The human rights situation has deteriorated significantly over the past few years and there have a number of concerns about Syria’s human rights performance with regard to arbitrary arrests, intimidation, torture, travel bans, freedom of expression, and lack of respect for the rights of Kurdish minority.

Although Bashar al-Assad has taken some steps towards political, economic and social reform, his regime remains one of the region's most repressive. Protests broke out in Daraa when citizens were outraged by the arrest of more than a dozen school children for spraying anti-regime graffiti.
The regime has chosen to protect itself with varying degrees of force, at the expense of thousands of people’s lives. When the regime felt threatened it vacillated between offers of concessions and crackdowns. However, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt, it was too little, too late.

The Assad regime seemed reluctant to learn from the recent revolutions that further violence could have been avoided if the regime listened to the grievances the first wave of demonstration rather than respond by firing at them. They demonstrators were initially asking for jobs and better living standards but after people witnessed their relatives being killed after the governments brutal crack down their demands shifted. Today’s demonstrators are demanding the fall of the regime and the Baath party.

Today, the people are chanting, “The people want the fall of the government,” a slogan which made famous in both Egypt and Tunisia. As the 23 year-old protesters Abu Ahmad said, “There is no more fear. No more fear. We either want to die or to remove him [Assad]. Death has become something ordinary.”

Since 1963, Syria has been under Emergency Law, which enables the autocratic regime to effectively suspend most constitutional protections. Moreover, this law allows the president to enact, suspend or abolish any law when he feels that his regime is being threatened. This law legitimized regime violence against any opposition groups and democratic movements in the country. The president also has the right to appoint ministers, to declare war and a state of emergency, to declare amnesty, to amend the constitution, and to appoint civil servants and military personnel as he pleases.

Ultimately, Assad’s government as well as other authoritarian regimes appears to be reluctant to recognize that their people are making legitimate 21st century demands which cannot be met with 18th century tactics of pure sovereign power. There is a need for the use of soft power. As we witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt, the collective action of non-collective actors can quickly turn into demands for revolution by millions of people. If the Syrian regime examines these events closely it will realize that no matter how much hard power and violence they use against their own people, history has shown that people power always eventually prevails.

Getting By With a Little Help From Our Friends

Eoghan Stafford — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:01:42 +0000

Operation Odyssey Dawn may mark the end of the American Century and the beginning of a more multipolar world.

To be sure, the U.S. has done plenty of heavy lifting in the intervention against Qaddafi’s forces: American warplanes flew more than 100 missions a day over Libya in the first couple weeks of the conflict. But the operation represents a profound shift away from the unilateral model of the Iraq war.

Other NATO countries – particularly Britain and France – have been taking the lead in air strikes against the Libyan military in the last few weeks, as the U.S. has stepped back. Britain, France, Norway, and Canada are now flying around 70 flights over Libya a day between them. Other NATO countries, as well as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, are also contributing military or logistic support. And crucially, the operation was endorsed by NATO, the Arab League, and the United Nations Security Council.

The war in Libya may herald a broad shift in geopolitics. As the Obama administration proposes cuts in military spending, the United Kingdom is reconsidering its own plans to shrink its defense budget in light of the Libyan operation. In the coming decades, the United States will likely rely increasingly on other countries to help shoulder the costs of maintaining international stability. And the Libyan conflict gives some reason to think that many countries in Europe and elsewhere are willing to accept that responsibility.

Libya also suggests that the transition to a more multilateral world won’t be easy. NATO countries have been bickering from the start about the precise scope and strategy of the mission. Such confusion, and America’s lukewarm commitment to the intervention, may have contributed to the current stalemate on the ground in Libya.

But with the U.S. struggling to create stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and a looming deficit crisis, policing the world alone looks increasingly unsustainable. The U.S. currently spends almost half of global military expenditures, but with China and other developing countries rapidly expanding their economies and militaries, America’s unparalleled dominance can’t last forever. That fact behooves America to pursue a more consensual foreign policy than in the past. But our many allies who have benefited from U.S. security guarantees while spending little on their own militaries will also have to play a more active role in confronting global threats.

It would be strategically foolish and morally craven for the U.S. to retreat into isolationism as new powers rise. America must sometimes use its forces in distant regions to preserve global security and prevent humanitarian crises, as we are attempting to do in Libya. America will still have such a responsibility even in a world in which it is simply one great power among many. But we can contribute to global security in a more legitimate and sustainable way by sharing that responsibility with others.

Egypt: Not Out of the Woods Yet

Eoghan Stafford — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:25:54 +0000

On March 19, Egyptians reached a major milestone on the road to democracy. In the first election since the fall of Mubarak in February, a record 18 million Egyptians (41% of eligible voters) turned out to vote in a referendum on amending the country’s constitution. 77% endorsed the amendments, which limit future presidents to two four-year terms and set the stage for open parliamentary and presidential elections later this year to replace the military-led transitional government. The election seems to have gone smoothly, with few reports of fraud or violence.

There are other signs that Egypt is moving in a democratic direction. The transitional government has fired many of the high government officials appointed by Mubarak, including his Prime Minister. A fact-finding committee set up by the transitional government has called for former President Mubarak to be charged with the murder of protestors. It also calls for the indictment of other members of his government and party, the so-called National Democratic Party (NDP). So far, Mubarak simply remains under house arrest, but Egypt’s public prosecutor has brought charges against some of the other individuals named in the committee’s report. Most prominently, the former Minister of the Interior, already on trial for money-laundering, has been indicted for killing protestors during the uprising.

But just because the dictator and many of his henchmen are gone doesn’t mean democracy has arrived. Last Wednesday, the Egyptian government banned any strikes or other protests that harm “national unity.” On March 9th the army arrested nearly 200 protestors that refused to leave Tahrir Square and many of them have been tortured, according to Human Rights Watch.

Nor do the constitutional fixes go far enough. They leave the concentrated powers of the presidency untouched and fail to introduce due process to the courts. The public was essentially blackmailed into voting for the referendum. If voters failed to endorse the timid package of reforms, the military threatened to make their own rules about who could run in the elections. Mohamed Atiya, whom the army selected to oversee the referendum, declared before the vote: “It doesn't matter whether the measures are accepted or rejected. Although if they are rejected, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will have to fill the void.” The liberal, secular groups that led Egypt’s revolution also worry that, because of the referendum, elections will now come too soon for them to organize political parties and effective campaigns. That gives an advantage to the Muslim Brotherhood and to the NDP.

The fear of a Khomeini-style takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood remains unlikely. They lack a charismatic leader with mass support, for one thing. In any case, the military would probably intervene if the Brotherhood tried to assume sole control.

More likely is the risk that the military and the Muslim Brotherhood will work together to boost the electoral prospects of the Brotherhood and the NDP at the expense of new parties representing youths, the urban middle class, and secular liberals. Or the military might simply do things the old-fashioned way and establish a new military dictatorship by rigging elections in favor of their chosen candidate. There is some cause for cautious optimism about Egypt, but democracy is far from being a foregone conclusion.

Peeling back the skin of 'blood' resources (Part 2)

Khadija Sharife — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:43:44 +0000

Continued from: http://hir.harvard.edu/blog/khadija-sharife/peeling-back-the-skin-of-blo...

Take South Africa's coal industry, the primary source of the country's electricity generation. On the surface, South Africa is governed by '"one-man, one-vote" electoral democracy --by the people, for the people.

But dig a little deeper and the nature of agreements reveal much that goes against the public interest, unveiling a web of multinationals aligned with the state.

Eskom, the State's electricity parastatal, provides multinationals with arguably the world's cheapest electricity via iron-clad 'sweetheart' deals negotiated during the apartheid regime, and endorsed by the liberation government. Known then as cost-plus contracts, the terms of long-term supply contracts were solely drawn up by mining houses (on whom the apartheid state had become dependent) for the purposes of attracting investors to capital-intensive extractive industries. The broader system, described by apartheid-era Prime Minister John Vorster as “bricks in the walls” of the regime's “continued existence,” was located at the center of the military-industrial complex, pillared by multinationals such as Anglo American, one of the world's largest mining companies.

A confidential memo written by former Eskom head Jacob Maroga in 2007 states, “For reasons unknown, however, few of these documents required performance on the part of the mining houses to deliver coal of the quality for which the associated plants were designed. Nor did these documents make provisions to fuel stations at 100 percent load if the station was so required. More troubling is that Eskom's Generation Primary Energy (GPE) has historically and consistently failed to enforce what little performance the contracts required.” Apartheid's downfall brought with it a renegotiation of contracts between Eskom and various multinationals, with the mining companies demanding Eskom convert “cost-plus” contracts to iron-clad “fixed price” contracts at “low prices fixed for the remaining (or renegotiated) contract terms.”

Simultaneously, the removal of pariah status from South Africa enabled mining houses producing saleable product (chiefly Anglo-Coal, BHP Billiton, Kumba, and Xstrata) to begin exporting large amounts of high quality coal at Eskom's expense. Contracts allowed for multinationals to recover 100 percent of capital investments, coupled with significant returns, irrespective of supply or performance.
These days, Anglo-Coal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anglo American, supplies as much as 30 percent of its coal to Eskom.

Maroga even admitted that buying back power from BHP Billiton, another multinational coal supplier, would be too cost prohibitive at almost R6 trillion. This is in spite of the country's rolling blackouts and crippling energy shortages, much of which is caused by the export of coal resources and the use of energy by foreign companies for foreign interests at highly cheapened costs.
South Africa has been applauded by many developed countries and corporations for providing the cheapest electricity in the world to multinationals. It is an entirely different story for the country's citizens, however. They are required to subsidize corporate exemptions and tax holidays through increasing tariffs and burdensome costs. Within Africa, Eskom's footprint is enormous, rendering such exploitation a pan-African problem too: South Africa is the world's third largest coal exporter, exporting 25 percent of production which is estimated at over 220 million tons annually. It is also the world's fifth largest coal producing country and the seventh largest electricity generator in the world. Eskom also supplies approximately 45 percent of Africa's energy consumption.

This should be good news as the continent, chiefly dependent on mega-dams, desperately requires energy. But like the situation in South Africa, much of the electricity 'exported' to client states such as Mozambique, is earmarked for use by foreign multinationals, completely bypassing citizens. As with mega-dams, transmission lines are much too costly to consider.

The government claims that Eskom's current R400 billion coal-focused expansion mega-project, is worth the immense debt that will be imposed on South African citizens. But as Eskom admitted to local media, it has “struggled to find all the funds needed.” Eskom's Medupi plan the first pillar of the expansion programme, requiring a $3.75 billion hard currency loan from the World Bank, was justified by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan who framed the expansion plan as designed to supply the “strong new demand for electricity” owing to the “millions of previously marginalized South Africans…now on the grid.” His opinion editorial failed to mention the wide-ranging economic and environmental impacts of the R125 billion 4800 MW Medupi plant. This includes acid mine drainage and pollution from mining responsible for 75% of water contamination and toxicity in South Africa, one of the world's most water scarce countries. which coupled with other water issues - including the increased strain on the three water catchment systems from 40 new coal mines, will cost the country R360 billion in mitigation during the next two decades. He also glossed over the the loan's impact on citizens, via unaffordable rising tariffs projected at 35 percent annually for a cumulative 127 percent increase , even as he evaded the issue of just how--and who--coal-fired electricity production would benefit.

For South African citizens, living in one of the world's most unequal societies with a gini coefficient of 0.67, basic services have been commodified in a 'cost recovery' context. This means that while free basic electricity (FBE) is supplied to citizens, the amount of electricity (50 kWh - equivalent to boiling a kettle every day for 17 days) is scarcely enough to make a tangible impact. Known as the 'disconnection epidemic', SA citizens now have access to electricity meters they cannot afford to use.

Had he delved into the issue of “For whose beneft?”, he would have come across the very same mining houses that appear to have arrested development and democracy in South Africa. The enormous debt acquired by Eskom cannot be justified as existing coal resources have been downsized from 50 billion rendering extraction of coal too costly to be feasible in 40 years, according to scientists and geologists such as Dr Chris Hartnady. Paradoxically, as the government shoulders the massive costs of Eskom coal expansion, the R150 billion Uppington solar project, capable of generating one tenth of the country's energy needs, has been packaged by the government as “for private investors” only.
But the holes in the pockets of citizens appears to also match the holes in the pockets of the country's wallet - the tax base. Each year, African countries like South Africa experience mass capital flight. In 2007, for instance, the country lost 27% of GDP or R450 billion to capital flight, chiefly through illicit but technically legal corporate mispricing. The bulk of multinationals operating in SA are resource-seeking entities generating wealth from electricity, water and other resources provided to them as artificially cheapened costs. And while South Africa has become the 'protest capital' of the world, with as many as 10 000 annually until 2007 chiefly related to issues around basic services - namely that of the costs of water and electricity, little changes as the State claims the budget cannot accommodate greater volumes of free basic electricity.
Just as South African citizens have limited influence over the way in which their resources are used, irrespective of the ability to vote, so too are they unable to penetrate the corporate veil and demand 'capital flight recovery'.
A lack of both multilateral automatic information exchange (as opposed to “on request” voluntary Tax Information Exchange Agreements) and mandatory corporate country-by-country disclosures, ranging from pre-tax profits to intra-group sales, creates an opaque environment.

Thanks to the global corporate system facilitating secretive transfer and payment of capital and resources - known as supply-side conflict vehicles, demand-side corruption - or the local political forces seeking foreign players for mega-projects or resource exploitation, find themselves in perfectly legal but illicit operating environments. The government's opaque 'sweatheart' electricity deals, negotiated in secrecy, coupled with the lack of financial regulation disclosing capital flight, is yet another example of how political systems legitimise conflict 'exploitation' of minerals in the name of the people, and at their expense.

Starving masses of David to feed a few giants Goliaths?

The Forgotten Crimes

Eoghan Stafford — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:52:03 +0000

After weeks of foot-dragging, the U.S. and other countries are finally taking decisive action to prevent Muammar Qaddafi from violently crushing the rebellion in Libya. But while the U.S. is taking bold action to defend Libya’s civilians and its democratic uprising, our allies on the Arabian Peninsula are murdering unarmed civilian protestors, with barely a response from America.

In Bahrain last Wednesday, security forces assaulted Pearl Square in Manama, the capital, driving out the protestors that had gathered there. At least three protestors were killed in the process. The raid was a disturbing reprise of a previous incident in Bahrain. In a pre-dawn ambush on February 17, riot police attacked thousands of sleeping protestors camped out in Pearl Square, killing five and injuring hundreds. In recent days, security forces have begun forcibly preventing injured protestors from reaching hospitals. Since the protests began last month, at least 13 people have been killed and over 1,000 injured in this tiny island kingdom.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia – U.S. allies who supported the intervention in Libya to defend civilians from their government – have deployed thousands of troops to Bahrain to help crush the demonstrations. In Saudi Arabia itself, police opened fire on a crowd of protestors on March 10. Meanwhile, in Yemen – another U.S. ally – snipers fired on demonstrators on Friday, killing at least 40.

America has close relationships with the leaders and militaries of each of these countries. Yet we have so far failed to put real pressure on governments in the Arabian Peninsula to refrain from violence against their own citizens. Instead, our response to violence against peaceful protestors has been a slap on the wrist. Questioned by reporters about Bahrain’s attack on demonstrators in Pearl Square last week, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said simply that “We certainly object to the use of excessive force and violence against demonstrators.” But the he did not spell out any steps the U.S. was taking to actually get the Bahraini government to cease its violence. Nor would the U.S. take any action to pressure the Gulf states to withdraw their troops from Bahrain. After the massacre in Yemen, the State Department issued a press release stating that Washington is “alarmed” by the violence and calling on Yemen to “exercise maximum restraint.” But again, no actual consequences were mentioned.

Perhaps the Obama administration is reluctant to pressure its allies because we rely on them for oil and cooperation on security issues. But the governments of the Arabian Peninsula also depend on us for military aid and protection from Iran. America benefits from being able to base the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, but Bahrain’s government also benefits from the security guarantee that fleet represents. We should make clear that the continuation of those benefits depends on the cessation of violence against civilians. Indeed, Senator Patrick Leahy has called for the U.S. to reconsider military aid to Bahrain noting: “U.S. law prohibits aid to foreign security forces that violate human rights.” That law has long been a cruel joke, and it’s high time for us to start honoring it. We have leverage with our allies on the peninsula. For the sake of their imperiled citizens, we should use it.

Peeling back the skin of 'blood' resources

Khadija Sharife — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:41:26 +0000

Much has been written about conflict—or "blood”—resources such as coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of electronics, and diamonds, from Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sierra Leone. Far less information, however, has been provided about the broader processes that facilitate and finance conflicts in these places. It is rare that the questions "In whose interest?" or "For whose benefit?" are posed.

During a recent investigation into suppliers of "blood coltan" (traditionally defined as coltan exploited by, and used to finance, militias) from the DRC, I learned that whether or not the system, is characterised as one supplying 'blood' minerals, it is, invariably, broken. Coltan production is so often correlated with the deprivation of basic needs, weak, corrupt government, dismal labor conditions, arrested and indebted political economies, and the fundamental lack of just institutions and rule of law, means that even coltan produced in 'non-militarised' areas, is deemed a conflict mineral.

This is because exploitation of the mineral is 'incentivised' through desperation, limited employment options, and the type of seen and unseen coercion that imprisons citizens by default. As such, the natural – and national - resources of the DRC, estimated at $24 trillion, is depleted through a 'first-come first-serve' mentality that facilitates conflict rather than development. International and national institutions and actors, including multinational corporations and some well-intentioned donors, contribute to the system's corruption and are in turn corrupted by it.

Posing as a small import-export firm based in Tanzania, I was offered 70 tons of 40-percent pure coltan for $3,000 per ton by a local comptoir officially registered as an "import-export" agent. He informed me that mines and areas of origins for the coltan could never be ascertained since comptoirs only note the volume, purity, amount, and recipient—eliminating in one swift move the paper trail of the mineral. I was told that the supplier could meet me in a matter of hours.

Other sources informed me that for anywhere from $3 to $10, quality large-gem diamonds from the DRC also could be provided. These gems, I was told, could quickly fund the build-up or maintenance of an armed group, since Kalashnikov rifles could be purchased for about $15.

Even in "non-militarized" regions where coltan is mined, conditions can be brutal. Miners, many of them very young, work for very little simply to survive. They see very little of the $1 per kilogram paid to their employers by comptoirs (trading houses).

Does this type of “demilitarized” labor—seemingly by choice or voluntary coercion due to a lack of alternative options—remove the imprint of "conflict?" Or does it simply cloak it in legitimacy? If resources are liquidated in transparently exploitative arrangements—minimal wages, brutal working conditions, socio-environmental damage, as well as significant fiscal exemptions for the respectable multinationals involved – do they qualify for the title of "conflict" resources? And if such resources often correspond to financial flight, whether illicit (revenue avoidance/ corporate mispricing) or outright illegal, does this add yet another layer of conflict?

If not, where have we gone wrong?

It would be easier at this point to unpack the issue of Zimbabwe's 'blood diamonds'. In August last year, the eight year-old 'blood diamond' watchdog, Kimberly Process, supervised $72 million in sales from the country's Marange diamond fields. These diamonds were largely mined under the direct surveillance of the brutal ZANU-PF military as well as companies operating in complete secrecy. The Marange fields are estimated at $800 billion in wealth, yet as the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZDMC) revealed before the Zimbabwean parliament, little or no revenue since the discovery of the mine in 2006 had been remitted to the State. The revenue, in fact, was channeled through a secrecy jurisdiction (Mauritius) effectively preventing any scrutiny.

Yet Zimbabwe's corrupt and autocratic government does not fit the bill of 'blood diamond' – defined by the Kimberly Process - as diamonds used to fund rebel militias. Nor would the role opaque jurisdictions even register as an act of corruption - though it very clearly is.

“The Zimbabwe diamonds are not blood diamonds. The mines are modern and they are well managed, but they’re apparently in the wrong political system,” said Chaim-Evan Zohar, President of Tacy Ltd. Diamond Industry Consultants.

Could it be said, however, that irrespective of the real or imagined 'physical' conflict in a country or region, systems that dispossess and marginalise the public interest constitute the root of 'conflict', requiring us to broaden the geography to include these political structures? If so, it might be time to take another look at resources like cotton, water, oil, coal and iron that are cousins of, yet seems a hundreds miles away from, the blood minerals that have the world's undivided attention.

The Myth of Authoritarian Stability

Eoghan Stafford — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:57:56 +0000

About a year ago, international relations scholar Charles Kupchan praised the Obama administration in Foreign Affairs for deemphasizing human rights and democracy in its foreign policy. "Obama is fully justified in putting the democratization agenda on the back burner and basing U.S. diplomacy toward other states on their external behavior, not their regime type. Even repressive regimes can be reliably cooperative when it comes to their conduct of foreign policy."

America’s relationship with Egypt seemed to be a paradigmatic example of how America could buy stability by selling out other people’s freedom – until the fall of Hosni Mubarak earlier this month. But as the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa should remind us, this kind of realpolitik is based on very unrealistic assumptions.

First, trying to maintain stability by propping up unpopular dictators is inherently self-defeating in the long run, as Andrew Albertson argued in conversations we had when he was director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. From Batista’s Cuba to the Shah’s Iran to Musharaff’s Pakistan, the U.S. has often allied itself with dictators to promote stability, and achieved precisely the opposite. The problem in these cases, according to Albertson, was that the U.S. focused only on security issues, without putting pressure on the regimes to reform politically.

By denying their citizens opportunities for political participation, our authoritarian allies ultimately sowed the seeds of future upheaval. (In some cases, such regimes even strengthen the appeal of violent extremists, including terrorists.) Siding with unpopular dictators has also frequently fueled anti-Americanism, as these examples underscore. In Egypt and Tunisia, virulently anti-Western governments are unlikely to arise. But for decades the U.S. relied heavily on its ties to Mubarak to pursue its goals in the Middle East, rather than cultivate a relationship with the Egyptian people. That leaves American influence in the region in an uncertain position now.

Another myth has provided comfort to U.S. officials who advocate coddling dictators: that non-Western cultures – particularly Arab and Muslim societies – don’t really want democracy anyway. Western academics like Samuel Huntington and John Gray have asserted that liberal democracy is an intrinsically Western concept, at odds with the values of non-Western societies. (As Amartya Sen points out, this idea is also quite popular with many dictators.) The durability of authoritarianism in the Arab world seemed to support this view, as global waves of democratization over the decades passed the region by.

But the protests and revolts in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, and (as of Sunday) Oman belie these stereotypes. People in the Middle East do want a voice in how they are governed. That fact should not have been a surprise. A decade ago, the World Values Survey found that in every major region of the world, more than 80% of citizens agreed with the statement: “Democracy may have its problems, but it’s better than any other form of government.” In the six Muslim Middle Eastern countries surveyed, 88% agreed, the same percentage as in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and only 4% less than in Western countries.

Of course there is incredible diversity in the fundamental values of different societies, including their political values. (Of course individual values are also diverse within every society, too, making attempts to divide people neatly into civilizational categories simplistic.) But democratic institutions and the protection of basic freedoms are the best means of empowering people to chart their own futures, as individuals and communities, according to the goals they value.

Democratic revolutions have to be driven, as the current uprisings have been, by internal forces. But the U.S. should dramatically rethink its self-serving rationales for propping up compliant dictators.

Why Israel Doesn't Take Us Seriously

Eoghan Stafford — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:31:17 +0000

And we wonder why Israel doesn’t listen to us anymore. The Obama administration has called on the Israeli government to freeze the construction of settlements in the West Bank. So on Friday, to show we mean business … the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

This is just embarrassing. Officially, Republican and Democratic presidents oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Obama, like Bush before him, has rightly noted that settlement expansion threatens the already gloomy prospects for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. And yet Washington’s protests have gone unheeded, with the Israeli government going so far as to authorize a new settlement during an official visit to Jerusalem by Vice President Biden.

The US gives Israel about $3 billion in aid annually. So why does Washington appear to have zero leverage with its ally?

A big reason is that America keeps undermining itself by enabling Israel to flaunt its responsibilities. And America’s Security Council veto is its favorite implement of self-punishment.

The recent resolution declared that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967 are illegal and a “major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.” All 14 of the other countries on the Security Council voted for the resolution, including close US allies like Germany, France, and Britain. And yet the Obama administration could not bring itself to support the resolution, or even abstain from voting. Instead, Secretary Clinton lamely declared that the settlements were not “illegal” but merely “illegitimate.”

If America is not willing to back up its stern words to Israel with meaningful action, it is no surprise that the Israelis don’t take us seriously. Once again, we’ve blown our own credibility.

By failing to put pressure on Israel to take real steps toward peace, the Obama administration is also undercutting the message of the 2009 Cairo speech, when the President promised a new partnership with Muslim countries. In particular, Arabs had high hopes for a new chapter in their relations with America after the disastrous Bush years, but those hopes were quickly dashed. In 2009, a public opinion poll in six Arab countries found that 51% of respondents were “hopeful” about the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East. When the poll was conducted in the same countries a year later, only 16% were still “hopeful,” with 63% now saying they were “discouraged.” And when asked what policy most disappointed them during Obama’s first year in office, 61% said “Israel/Palestine.” Even David Petraeus – the former head of US Central Command, who has led the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan – acknowledged last year that “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” is fueling “anti-American sentiment” in the Middle East.

The Obama administration needs to put real pressure on both the Palestinians and Israelis to show good faith about achieving peace. Because right now, its policies toward Israel are making America look both weak and insincere.

Egypt: Getting around the blackout

Khadija Sharife — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:31:16 +0000

For net connection from Egypt: traditional phone lines using the following instructions: French ISP FDN to access the Internet anonymously at the following number: 33172890150 with login: toto and password: toto

According to one twitter user (Telecomix Microblogging), "French ISP FDN told us the modem connections being tweeted around were used 1-2 times every 2-3 minutes."

For those unable to access, Al Jazeera writes, "Egypt can call a number to post a "voice tweet" -- Call +16504194196, +390662207294 or +97316199855 to leave a tweet and hear tweets."

The Financial Crisis and Social Trust

Guest Blogger — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:34:30 +0000

By Gert Tinggaard Svendsen. Gert Tinggaard Svendsen is Professor of Public Policy, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. He earned his PhD (Econ.) in 1996 and a MSc (Pol.Sci.) in 1991. Director of the Danish Social Capital Project (SoCap) since 2002. Visiting scholar at the University of Maryland, Department of Economics (1994-95) and member of a steering committee on Social Capital in the World Bank (1997-99). Author of seven books and about 50 scientific articles in international refereed journals. Award for Best 2007 JCPA Article

What is the role of trust in mitigating shocks? One overlooked factor during the financial crisis may exactly be that of social trust. Countries with higher social trust may be better equipped to deal with a financial crisis like the current one. Strikingly, pure, blind panic and general distrust seemed to hit the United States and the United Kingdom particularly strong, especially in comparison with the four Scandinavian welfare states (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland). This contribution suggests that the ‘missing link’ in explaining the calm waters of Scandinavia may be the accumulated stock of social trust.

Social trust is one way of measuring social capital which can be defined as the ability to cooperate voluntarily without the need for thid party intervention or written agreements. We use social trust as the standard measure for this ability to cooperate because it expresses how people estimate the risk of being cheated in a society. Thus, social trust is measured as the percentage of a population answering yes to the question “Do you think that most people can be trusted, or can’t you be too careful?”

The Social Trust data in 86 countries are drawn from the World Values Survey and the Danish Social Capital Project headed by the author. The data clearly indicates that the four Scandinavian welfare states indeed stand out as countries with much more social trust than the rest of the world.

On this indicator, three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) clearly stand out from the rest of the world by covering the first three places on the trust measure with scores of 66 %, followed at some distance by a fourth Nordic country, Finland, and the Netherlands (both about 59 %) and the English-speaking parts of Canada (54 %). Below this leading group, we generally find other Western European countries. Most strikingly, the United States has experienced a drastic drop in social trust from about 50% in 1990 to 35% in 2000 and the United Kingdom a drop from 44% to 29% in the same period.

African and South American countries fall along the bottom tier of social trust. Brazil, Philippines, Costa Rica and Uganda are the lowest with scores below 10%. Brazil is lowest with a 3% score. The average of the 86 countries in which credible surveys have been undertaken is slightly below 30 %.
The superior levels of Scandinavian social trust presumably tell us that people there are less likely to panic during a crisis simply because they are less distrusting in general. As a famous jazz tune goes in Denmark: the people of Scandinavia are more inclined to “Take it easy boy boy.”

Notably, the Scandinavian countries also rank the highest in the world in terms of non-corruption. In the new 2008 Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International, Denmark ranks number 1 (9.6 score) whereas the United States ranks number 18 (7.3 score) and United Kingdom number 16 (7.7 score).

Arguably, one explanation for the huge variation in social trust across countries could be the quality of institutions as measured by the level of corruption. There is no sense in trusting ‘most people’ if they are generally known to bribe, threaten or in other ways corrupt the impartiality of government institutions in order to extract special favours. In other words, well-functioning formal institutions reduce the likelihood that individuals will be cheated.
People, for example, should be able to trust that tax payments are not stolen by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians but are invested well in public goods by the state. In non-corrupt countries, citizens get their ‘bang for the buck’ as one Pentagon general once put it. If Scandinavian and other countries, such as the United States, are to maintain and enhance their stocks of social trust, one first step could be to preserve and improve the quality of institutions by fighting corruption efficiently.

Thus, one way to fight future financial crises is to investigate the role of social trust. One possible explanation why people in the United States flocked to the banks during the financial crisis could be the missing buffer of social trust. As it is, average Americans and British generally trust other people less than average Scandinavians. The current distrust seems irrational when most households and businesses are still doing well. Still, people (including bankers) are nervous and the public’s trust in banks, politicians and companies is on the decline. Consequently, people cut back on consumption, which puts further pressure on businesses and escalates fears of job losses.

Social trust brings the crisis down to more ordinary levels. In a low-trust society, people have to be relatively more careful in trusting the advice of those working in the financial sector, for example. The problem is that in the absence of social trust, a financial chock is more likely to cause people to become Robinson Crusoes and forget about cooperation and social responsibility. The situation will only become worse. Overall, the underlying problem of a worsening financial crisis may not be that of banks and stock markets only, but also that of the social trust level in a population. If social trust really is an important factor in understanding the collective psychology behind mitigating shocks from the current financial crisis, a major question is how to create more social trust in a society. Further research into the roots of social trust in Scandinavia may provide new insight into how social trust accumulation can be enhanced all over the World and perhaps reduce the risk of severe financial crises in the new Millenium.

South Africa: Economic Apartheid In the Name of the People

Khadija Sharife — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:50:26 +0000

When going too far to the right, one often meets the same opportunists (and idiots) coming from the 'left'. Such is the case with ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema, bent on nationalization of mines, a notion believed to be grounded in the Freedom Charter (1955). The Charter embodies the sacred 'freedom demands' of SA's oppressed, collected by some 50 000 volunteers, during the apartheid era.
Those opposing Malema's statement argue that the Freedom Charter, endorsed by the ANC, never mentions the brand of mines 'nationalization' promoted by Malema.
Instead, it demands that 'national wealth be restored to the people...the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.'
Such could be interpreted as a strategic value system designed to restore national resources to the people by way of a democratically elected government as custodian ie: legal owners acting on behalf of the people. Moreover, Charter does not negate private property, but simply places the right of ownership and negotiation in the political hands of those mandated by the 'people'.

The context informing the Charter's drive to restore wealth was the militarized capitalism of the apartheid regime, exploiting lucrative minerals, using 'cheapened' black labor. (South Africa's Anglo-American, for instance, was the world's largest producer, at the time, of gold and diamonds in addition to being the world's largest private employer of black people. In 1988, Anglo controlled 85% of the company's listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange via banking, insurance, brewing, steel, electronic and other corporations; half the country's gold and platinum and almost all of SA's diamonds).
But the political climate in which the Charter was born, and the ideological language used to interpret the 'freedom demands' had fallen away since the demise of the countervailing socialist power - the Soviet Union. Similar to the capitalist ideology of the Soviet Union's enemies, the Kremlin used the language of 'justice' to concentrate power and resources in the hands of political elites and 'tenderprenuers' - politically connected elites milking state contracts.
The 1990s not only symbolized the demise of the Berlin Wall, but also the powerful rise of South Africa's liberation movement as ruling party in a world governed by the victors of the Cold War. These days, the neoliberal deregulated free market, presented as the non-negotiable condition of Western democracy, has been imposed on, and internalized by, many developing countries, including South Africa.
In his first public address, former President Nelson Mandela said, "nationalization of the mines, banks and monopoly industry is the policy of the ANC and a change or modification of our view in this regard is inconceivable."
Yet, as was disclosed in his latest book, Conversations With Myself', "The decisive moment... was when I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where....I realized, as never before, that if we want investments we will have to review nationalization without removing it altogether from our policy... we had to remove the fear of business that their assets will be nationalized."
In SA, the World Bank-approved Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy implemented a system of 'welfare capitalism': liberalizing trade and financial flows while embedding ill-designed privatization, tax holidays and monetarism. Meanwhile the poor were required to subsidize corporation exemptions through 'cost recovery', a fiscal policy requiring those classed as the poor to finance basic services that the State should have provided at no charge.
The result? South Africa currently hosts one of the world's highest inequality rates. People now had increased access to taps, but no money to afford the water. Africa's worst cholera outbreak occurred in Kwa-Zulu Natal (2000) when high pricing schedules evidenced water cut-offs in the province, quickly spreading to nine other provinces.
Many South Africans perceive the new vocabulary of a neoliberal democracy as inexorably working for those already possessing privilege. It was chiefly for this reason that in 2007, former President Thabo Mbeki was toppled.
The quiet coup was delivered just after South Africa's then-Finance Minister Trevor Manuel revealed, "GEAR was the ANC government's macro-economic program....which itself was an elaboration of the Freedom Charter."
The spirit of discontent catalyzed President Jacob Zuma's ascendance to power (and with him, that of Malema's own star). Yet Zuma's faction is sustained and fattened by the same neoliberalism integrated within the global financial architecture.
It is this brutal want that the Sandton-residing Malema strategically mines as his political anthem, particularly as it relates to the majority of the impoverished: SA's desperate youth.
This is not accidental: GEAR's strategy was to maintain the capitalist mineral-industrial system by bartering 'equity' or shares in multinationals through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), creating in the process a politically connected black capitalist class.
As the country became progressively poorer, BEE elites raked in on SA's lucrative mineral resources creating uber-wealthy mining magnates such as Patric Motsepe and Tokyo Sexwale.
Then came the recession, forcing South Africa's fat political elites to contemplate lifestyle diets. In 2007, the value of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) deals listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was estimated at R105 billion. Last year, the figure plummeted to R20 billion, decreasing from 111 deals to just 13. It was in the wake of this lifestyle recession exclusively enjoyed by politically connected tenderpreneurs - elites cashing in on patronage politics, that the Malema began banging on nationalisation of South Africa's mineral resources as a means of lifting the poor out of poverty and income equality.
Does Malema himself have a stake? Though he was registered as an active director of SGL Engineering Projects, on the receiving end of R140 million in state tenders, Malema claimed his signature was forged. Hre may well be right.
Such a mistake would also be too sloppy. Tenderprenuers often work through nominee shareholders and directors, tapping into the most lucrative contracts of all: provincial tenders.
Nominees are those persons and companies selected by beneficial or ultimate owners to conceal their own identities from the public. In this way, citizens and the media remain largely unaware of who owns what in SA as piercing the corporate veil remains almost impossible.
But the broader call for nationalization must be put in context:
Malema's focus on nationalization coincided with (in fact, was delivered a week after) a major deal, developed in his home province of Limpopo. The major players included 60% owned by China's Sinosteel subsidiary (Eastern Asia Metals Investment Co Ltd) and the Limpopo Economic Development Enterprise (Limdev).
Malema was linked to the R250 million deal as a negotiator connected to the BEE consortium. Limdev was expected to receive R700 million for the sake of its shares to BEE partners, retaining 10%. On August 29, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu wrote to Limdev, not regarded a legitimate BEE partner, instructing it to halt its sale to BEE partners. In May 2010, Parliament's mining portfolio committee blocked the sale.
To date, the Congress of the South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), the twin left legs of the tripartite alliance with the ANC, have cautioned against the selective drive to nationalize mines.
Ironically, both are supporters of strategic state intervention. Yet they have called out 'political hyenas' and the 'narrow "black economic empowerment" (BEE). "Narrow BEE focus has actually set back the real transformation of the critical mining sector and, therefore, the overall transformation of our economy," declared the SACP.
The truth is the current leadership trying to capture the center of the ANC is empty of any real historical or ideological grounding. The elegant but lethal conservatism of Mbeki has been replaced by a crude looting breeding greater and greater resentment.
In many ways, Malema - who once called a BBC journalist a 'bloody bastard agent small boy', does not represent the rank and file of the ANC supporters, bearing the burden of very real socio-economic injustices. Rather, he is a kind of political parenthesis, a convenient – and deliberate distraction from the reality of business-as-usual. And mines nationalisation? Well, that too appears to be another strategic and very lucrative way to bring wealth to the people, I mean ….BEE-ple.

Noisy neighbors? – Europe’s new diplomacy

Guest Blogger — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 13:24:57 +0000

The new European External Action Service gives the European Union the opportunity to better project its collective voice on the world stage. But it also brings new challenges. The role of the Service in the European ‘neighborhood’ is one of them.

“Speaking and acting together we can achieve more”. With these words Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, inaugurated the new European External Action Service (EEAS) on Wednesday, December 1st. With the EEAS - the world's first supranational diplomatic service - come new opportunities for member states to coordinate their activities on the world stage. There also come new challenges.

In its dealings with the twenty-seven national diplomatic services the EEAS will have to navigate cautiously between under-performance and over-encroachment. Issues of financing and legislative scrutiny remain thorny ones. But perhaps the greatest long-term challenge will be that of “speaking and acting together” in the European neighborhood.

The case of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) is instructive. The ENP was established in 2004 “with the objective of avoiding the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbors and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all.” It offers sixteen countries in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, the Levant and North Africa a privileged relationship, including political association and economic integration. The job of hammering out common EU positions on these sixteen neighbors has not always been easy.

The 2008 Georgia crisis, for example, stymied the ENP by splitting the Union down the middle, with Central Europeans, Brits and Nordics on one side and the likes of France, Italy and Germany on the other. The latter, for historical, geographical and cultural reasons, sought a conciliatory stance towards the Russian Bear; the former favored a more robust line.

On Europe’s southern borders too the policy has fallen foul of internal splits. In 2007 German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the new, French-led ‘Mediterranean Union’ as “very dangerous”. She accused it of undermining the common Euro-Med policy by excluding Northern Europeans, who, she warned, “also share responsibility for the Mediterranean, just as the future of the borders with Russia and Ukraine is an issue that concerns those living on the Mediterranean”.

Divisions over energy security have further undermined the notion of a coherent ENP; each of the rival Nord Stream, South Stream and Nabucco pipelines (which, with EU financing, will pump gas to Europe via the Baltic, Black Sea and Turkey respectively) has different supporters and detractors amongst member and neighborhood states. South Stream, for example, is championed by the Italians, quietly backed by the pro-Nord Stream Germans, denigrated by the pro-Nabucco Czechs and wished a “peaceful death” by the Ukrainians. The ‘common external energy policy’ envisioned within the ENP remains a distant prospect.

These are not isolated examples. Whether on human rights in Syria, sanctions on Belarus, Turkish-Armenian relations or the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan, an engaged, unified European agenda is often elusive. The precise nature of the ENP is itself disputed; whether it is an alternative to membership - or a stepping-stone - depends on which EU government you ask. Small wonder then, that some ENP components, such as counter-terrorism, are simply not used, and that NATO’s new Strategic Concept, like its predecessors, envisions no clear role for the EU’s neighborhood partnerships.

So does the ENP’s record portend badly for the EEAS? Not necessarily. In each of their 137 operational locations, the EU’s envoys will have to cultivate a sensitive role within the diplomatic community. Counter-intuitively, this may prove easiest in major centers such as Washington, Beijing and New Delhi. Where Europe wants a seat at the top table it has most to gain by pooling its diplomatic capital.

Nearer to home the fragmented imperatives of geography, demography, culture and security make a monolithic EU position less feasible, and in some cases less desirable. The relative benefits of clubbing together are fewer, and the challenge of reconciling member states’ asymmetrical interests and priorities is greater. For example, Italy patently has less at stake in the relationship with Ukraine than Hungary. The UK’s strategic calculus when dealing with Syria is different to that of France. Slovenia might be less concerned with Moroccan security issues than Spain. Et cetera.

The EU’s relations with the varied countries in its neighborhood will always be complex. As such, they represent a key test for the capabilities of the EEAS. Will the Service make the EU a better steward of its own intractable margins? If so, its prospects of projecting Europe’s influence elsewhere will be strong indeed.

Jeremy Cliffe is a graduate student at Harvard University.

SABMiller: Flying Dutchman?

Khadija Sharife — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:25:29 +0000

SABMiller, one of the world’s top five brewing companies, has over 150 brands, including my all time favorite Appletiser and my buddy's most prized beer, Castle Lager, an award-winning concoction introduced to the market over a century ago, in 1895.

The company, which used to benefit from the migrant labor system, received a major boost when the apartheid system formalised racial segregation as a means of cheapening labor and access to South Africa’s vast mineral resources and agricultural land.

One 'Rand Lord', the German-born George Albu, founder of Genmin (later Gencor, now BHP Billiton - one of the largest mining concerns in the world), proposed in the late 1890s, that legislation be created to devalue the labor of black people ('The law is not the same for the kaffir as for the white man,' he said).

The Land Act of 1913, a piece of legislation known as the 'original sin,'- appropriatied 87% of land for whites (originally 93%), with just 13% of largely arid land reserved for native peoples.. Statutory racism intentionally created a climate of dispossessed people anxious to secure employment by way of major companies.

By 1902, the only non-mining company with significant volumes of invested capital was SAB. Developments off the market mattered too: In 1962, the prohibition against consumption of alchohol by black laborers was lifted, much to SAB's relief. They claimed native peoples were suffering from the effects of the illicit alchohol industry.

'Kaffirs' forced to carry the dompas (documentation) could at least drink the good stuff. (By 2005, 8 of 10 favorite beers in South Africa carried SAB trademarks!). Even in Zimbabwe, until recently wracked by inflation, unemployment, and overall hell, turnover has increased by 51% for Zimbabwe's largest beverage firm Delta Corporation, in which SABMiller holds 36.8% stake.

Aside from the booze (and in my case, the Appletiser) it might be said that South Africa - then and now - receives little of the benefits: Major multinationals quickly shifted headquarters to London following liberation from apartheid (1994), facilitating capital flight. This was a policy approved of by the democratically elected government of South Africa, heavily indebted, and eager to provide economic capitulation in exchange for the political support of multinational corporation.

During apartheid, as the battle between the regime's protectionists heated up against neoliberal market-players, companies like Anglo-American began voicing their corporate opposition to the financial impact of sanctions on profit, coupled with that of travel restrictions of laborers and 'wasteful', bloated and expensive state-financed industries. As Anglo's chairman Harry Oppenheimer stated in 1985, "Nationalist policies have made it impossible to make proper use of Black labor."

But long before that, more specifically during the 1970s and 1980s, when sanctions on the apartheid regime hit the country's economy hard, SAB relocated to the Netherlands (a 'conduit' country used extensively for shifting corporate profits) to circumvent sanctions and expand into international markets.

Initially called Niagara 18 BV, SAB ceded trademarks, and other forms of intangible assets to holding companies as a means of shifting profits to low-tax regions. Revenues are remitted to 'resident' regions such as the Netherlands, on the receiving end of royalty payments from lucrative brands such as Carling Black Label.

The benefits of a Dutch holding company includes no requirement to have local economic substance, little or no taxation on repatriated profits, and full tax exemption on capital gains and dividends received from qualifying subsidiaries. Holding companies such as these are cheap and easy to incorporate and administer.

SABMiller Africa and Asia BV and SABMiller Africa BV act as holding companies handling subsidiaries in these regions, while SABMiller International BV, remains the trademark owner. While not technically illegal, aggressive tax avoidance is certainly unethical and contrary to the spirit of the law.

Of course, when it comes to protection of the trademark, such as the satirical t-shirt (Black Labor, White Guilt) created by a company in SA playing off the Company, SAB was quick to go to court in defense of their corporate rights, reputation and the impact on intangible assets.

Why then does this not extend to the rights of others?

When governments allow for the uber-wealthy to avoid basic duties to the societies in which they operate, the financial burden shifts to the middle and low income groups. While the best and brightest deserve their privileges, rule of law was determined to ensure that such is earned fairly.

Opting out of societies, after aggressively reaping full benefits, should not be an option.

Nigeria: MEND's Jomo Gbomo - Person or Living Politics Persona?

Khadija Sharife — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:18:26 +0000

I recently came across an article in The Sunday Independent directly querying whether 'the mild-manner Henry Okah', who resided in South Africa at the time of his arrest, was the 'warmonger Jomo Gbomo', the mouthpiece for Nigeria's Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

My interview with Gbomo as correspondent for Africa Report magazine coincidentally took place at around the same period that Okah was arrested in SA. The geographic location of Gbomo's IP address - the same email used to frequently correspond with myriad journalists from around the world, was Nigeria, not South Africa. While this does not clarify Okah's role, directly or indirectly, in the bombings claimed by MEND, if indeed, he did participate in any way or form, it should at least draw into question the notion of Gbomo as Okah. It may certainly be that Jomo is a persona, that one or a number of 'Jomos' step in, acting a substitutes for the primary voice or narrator, when and if the appointed person is inconvenienced. Yet the consistency of language - and Gbomo's distinct way of presenting himself, may go some way toward negating this assumption.

At this point, it is highly probable that South Africa's National Intelligence Agency amongst other units have already penetrated Okah's email, mobile and other accounts, drawing out crucial information. According to the article, 'prosecutor Shaun Abrahams hopes to link the two beyond a shadow of a doubt.' Contacting Jomo via email as a means of using Gmail's IP tracker to source his location, takes little time or effort. It may also certainly be that Okah submits messages to a contact in Nigeria as a means of thwarting the use of IP tracking technology cloaking his physical location. But it is far more likely that MEND's spokesperson is located on the ground and in close proximity to its selected battlefield and environment.

The bigger question looms against the backdrop of Nigeria's maldevelopment and its subsequent incorporation into the global economy: is MEND a 'just war' response to the gross corruption, pollution and exploitation that has characterised the Nigeria's rent-seeking state for over four decades? And as such, even if individual characters packaged as strategic architects are taken out of the equation, is MEND not a 'monster' or 'social justice movement' (depending on the eye of the beholder) of the system's own creation, a product of its living politics?

Nigeria's economy - structured as an export-oriented system is characterised by income inequality, poverty, ecological degradation, lack of basic services and human rights violation (extending to various levels or 'generations' such as civil and political rights as well as collective, economic, social and cultural rights) as well as the intentional political marginalisation of states and peoples interlocked with the systemic supply and demand-side corruption draining the country of several hundred billion dollars. The country's corporate-state faultlines, it is evident, are located neither in the person (or persona) of Gbomo, or even that of MEND.

It is instead, as Gbomo stated in the interview, a problem extending to the root - one that has yet to be properly interrogated given that states remain the primary creators, defenders and duty-holders as regards international law (whether positive or negative soft or hard laws), specific types of development as mobilising ideologies, and human rights implementation.

"It was Theodore Roosevelt who once remarked that "wars are of course as a rule to be avoided, but they are far better than certain kinds of peace", he said. "The peace in Nigeria is deception. Even Nelson Mandela realized that certain types of system requires some force. When you have been talking over an issue for 50 years without result, it is logical to change tactics and this is what we have done.

"The fish," he revealed, "gets rotten at the head."

The Hoover Effect

Khadija Sharife — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:20:08 +0000

We are bound by our confidentially agreement with our clients,' disclosed a Barclays official based in the Seychelles. 'No other branches can access our client details.' Practices such as banking secrecy, peddled by secrecy jurisdictions - better known as tax havens, to foreign clients criss-crossing the globe, may seem marginal, even irrelevant to the global financial architecture. But there legal and financial corporate services are in fact integral and remain a root cause of the artificial impoverishment of 'developing' countries. For South Africa, which loses an estimated 20% of GDP annually when adjusted for capital flight, 'supply-side' corruption services have long constituted the fabric of the country's political economy, utilized by both mining corporations such as De Beers, as well as the apartheid state.

Soon after the Iranian revolution, South Africa lost its primary oil supplier under the US-backed Shah. The Gulf countries, chiefly Saudi Arabia, stepped in as the main exporters, using the Seychelles as a sanctions-busting offshore hub, concealed from the public eye via the perception of the island as a socialist state. In 1977, Prime Albert Minister Rene overthrew then-President Mancham in a smoothly executed coup, allegedly with the help of Tanzania and China. But there existed another more secretive source of aid: apartheid South Africa, deliberately selecting the Seychelles for its positioning as a pro-Soviet state - and tax haven. As with all tax havens, the island intentionally supplied ring-fenced services to foreign clients keen to access secrecy and zero taxation, in this case enabling apartheid South Africa to circumvent sanctions.

The key figure, a close unofficial advisor to President Rene, and resident of the island since just prior to liberation, was Giovanni M Ricci, head of the Seychelles Trust Company (STC). STC was granted sole right to incorporate foundations and corporations on behalf of the government. In the early 1980s, the government sold its shares, rendering it an entirely private operation. It was to Ricci that the government turned when they, 'needed to finance something for which they didn't immediately have the money.'

While traipsing the globe on a diplomatic passport - and wallet - Ricci also established a company called GMR - after his initials, composed of a conglomerate of companies, 'operating throughout the world', chiefly secrecy jurisdictions such as the UK, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Panama. One of company's branches, situated in South Africa, was established by apartheid military and police intelligence super-agent, Craig Williamson in the early 1980s.

According to Williamson, GMR had its background in oil, and other strategic commodities. 'I would like to assist South Africa in the economic warfare facing it...If [GMR] is faced with anti-sanctions law, it will restructure activities...'

The Seychelles, alongside the US Virgin Islands, was one of three crucial transshipment centers used to circumvent UN embargos. The wheels were greased using secret slush funds opaquely invested by the South African Treasury into special funds, such as R320 billion from 1978-1994 (2005) into the SADF's 'special defense account'. Funds were apportioned not infrequently for the 'control of sanctions and disinvestment'. ‘Although we are effectively prevented from buying oil openly, we still get exactly what we want,’ stated Dennis Fletcher, head of one of apartheid South Africa's leading oil suppliers, Caltex (then part of US corporation, Texaco, currently Chevron).

Not much has changed these days. Capital hopping, arms deals, circumvented sanctions, and resource looting still occur as frequently as ever, cloaked in opacity, thanks to various 'international finance centers' respectably dotting the globe. Closer to home, Bostwana's lack foreign exchange controls has rendered the country 'the Switzerland of Africa' facilitating easy transfer and repatriation of laundered profits. The country's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), structured after that of Dublin's, was created in 2003 to 'facilitate cross-border financial services ie: the Hoover effect, sucking up illicit flight from neighboring regions, including SA.

'We do not intend to ruin our international reputation by embracing practices which place us in the category of a tax haven', declared the IFSC, established with the intention of competing with another tax haven, Mauritius. But Botswana's IFSC allows for foreign clients to escape withholding and capital gains tax, while accessing a 15% corporate tax rate that may be circumvented using a selection of services available including the age old trick of mispricing. Though SA provides secrecy vehicles such as trusts, the proximity of the IFSC, allegedly shaped, as in Ghana, by foreign banks such as Barclays, does not bode well. The IFSC's CEO himself is an old Barclays hand. The country's IFSC is one of only three in the world and Botswana offers one of the world's lowest tax rates. One client, Zimre Holdings Ltd, a Zimbabwean investment and insurance entity keen to engage in 'oil, gas and other energy forms in Africa, especially Angola'. The company, only recently delisted from sanctions by the EU, is almost 70% controlled by the government of Zimbabwe.

While Botswana is not a traditional tax haven, it is well on its way to becoming a secrecy jurisdiction hoovering up the sub-region's siphoned development revenue. For corporations 'springboarding' into Africa, concealing demand-side corruption through supply-side vehicles has become as easy as flicking a switch.

Education For All: The Glass is Half-Empty?

Zehra Hirji — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:15:04 +0000

In light of International UN day and the commemoration of the Millennium Development Goals, the global community is evaluating the successes, the trials, and the tribulations of these ambitious goals set out by more than 200 countries in the year 2000.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cover a range of areas necessary for promoting global equity, social justice, and peace in the world today. In the area of education, one of the most ambitious yet most dire of the MDGs, is the goal to establish universal primary education by the year 2015 (MDG #2). Access to learning and education is one of the most crucial of the eight goals, because I believe education is the foundation to achieving all of the others. Gender equity, poverty reduction, health, safety, and sanitation, reducing child mortality and so on, all of these global aspirations rest on establishing universal access to education.

So what progress has been made in the last 10 years since these goals were established? While we are not on target to achieve universal primary education by 2015, we have made considerable progress in increasing the rate of school enrollment for children across the globe. In 1999, 106 million children were not enrolled in schooling of any kind, and today that number has been reduced to 69 million. Between 1999 and 2004 the number of new primary school entrants in sub-Saharan Africa alone increased by more than 30 percent, increasing the rate of enrollment up to 90% in some African countries, such as Ghana for example.

The progress in Sub-Saharan Africa was largely a result of the initiative to abolish school fees, making primary education free for all children in many countries and communities in the region. While the progress is commendable, the unfortunate reality in many cases is that the quality of education has not kept up pace with increased enrollment. While more children are in school, there are few indications that children are actually learning more. According to MIT Professor and founder of the MIT Poverty Lab, Esther Duflo, "The campaign to achieve universal primary education might have been the victim of its own success: budgets have not kept pace with enrollment, leading to large pupil-teacher ratios, over-stretched physical infrastructure, insufficient number of textbooks etc."

Additional studies indicate that dropout rates in these same communities continue to skyrocket, upwards of 30% in some African countries. While the abolishment of school fees has been able to introduce new children to formal schooling, it has not necessarily been able to retain them. Further, other evaluations from South Africa to Ghana demonstrated that in many cases less than a quarter of high school students were able to answer simple math questions and in South Asia almost 1 in 2 students were unable to read a simple children's book following their graduation from primary school.

At the World Economic Forums and G20 Summits education has been declared, not as a cost, but as a necessary investment from the perspective of economic prosperity. From an empirical and scientific research perspective education is directly linked to economic gains. Studies indicate that each additional year of schooling raises the average Gross Domestic Product between 0.37% and 0.58%. Additionally, education also yields higher economic returns for individual households in the long-term by cultivating skilled workers with the potential for significantly higher wages. A single year of primary school increases the wages earned later in life by 5% to 15% and each additional year of secondary school by 15% to 25%. For girls, these numbers are even more profound, where an extra year of primary school will boost a girls' wages by 10% to 20% and for secondary school 15% to 25%.

Access to schooling is not enough for society to be able to yield the full returns of an educated population. Whether in or outside of a formal school structure more needs to be done to ensure that children are actually learning; quality is as important, if not more than, access and enrollment. While the benefits gained by learning and knowledge building are end-goals onto themselves, education is also a catalyst for all of our other goals. By elevating a single child, education supports the elevation of an entire community and an entire country.

The Outsiders

Khadija Sharife — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:42:00 +0000

Several years ago at the local Pick N Pay grocery store in Durban, South Africa, I met a Kenyan Maasai, who had walked on foot, he said, from Kenya to Cape Town. The mall was located in an up market urban area where most can shop but scarce few can afford to live. Towering there above all others in his flowing red robe and carrying a copy of the local newspaper (the Sowetan), he told me that back in Kenya, the Maasai were made to stand in the queue too. 'They tell us there is only one door, one way of living.'

Briefly mentioning the effects - alcoholism, prostitution, menial jobs, destitution, he said the Maasai were fighting to protect the right to choose how to live. This way of life allowed for the Maasai - pastoralists, raising cattle - to accommodate drought, by structuring grazing patterns with the climate. But in the name of the 'national interest', Maasais, given no more than a cursory glance by the modern Kenyan states, and dismissed as primitive, were politically and socio-economically marginalized following the privatization of communal land.

'It is a question of rights, of land, and freedom,' he said.

In Kenya, the living politics of the Maasai has changed little from the days of colonialism, when 90% of Maasailand was 'signed' over by an indigenous medicine man Laibon Leinana to corporate entities representing the British Crown, such as the East Africa Syndicate. No matter that he was not vested with the legitimate power to represent the Maasai. Such royal elders are a dime a dozen on the continent where elites at the helm of regimes, (chiefly financed by external resource revenue) are relevant and powerful only insofar as they 'represent the people', through the captured political vehicle of the sovereign state.

In Kenya, the biggest industries are tourism and horticulture. Much of the tourism industry, where Maasais have been reduced to low-paid jobs 'celebrating' their culture (usually in the form exotic teaboys) is owned by foreign investors. The result? Massive GDP growth, coupled with considerable capital outflow, and a little bit on the side to the politics that keeps the wheels greased.

According to Transparency International, Kenya's police rank as the most corrupt institution in East Africa, in addition to the Ministry of Defense, Labor, Public Works, Judiciary and crucially, Ministry of Land.

Maasais evicted from 325 000 hectares by 'investors' in 1904 and onward, were herded into annexed lands termed protection areas. This was not dissimilar to the policies of the Kenyan government in collaboration with the UK Department for International Development (DFIF) when 40% of allocated lands, decades after independence, were turned into 'private ranches'.

As a people, the Maasai constitute the face of Kenya's famines, deprived of equitable access to critical grazing areas and water resources such as Lake Naivasha, now roughly half its original size (10 700 hectares) because of overuse.

To what extent is this hunger caused by politically-manufactured destitution?

On the surface, their hunger appears puzzling in a country hosting some of the world's best and most fertile farmland thanks to fertile volcanic soils and near perfect climatic conditions. The country exports 450 000 tons of food annually - green beans, baby corn, you name it, mainly to Europe. But agro-industry's biggest buddy in this equation is floriculture. These companies, export 97% of fresh cut flowers to Europe and command 25% of the world's global market, a decade-old trend in the country's four decade industry.

Water-intensive flower corporations are allowed self-regulated access to Lake Naivasha's resources. Often, dumped back into the Lake are toxic pesticides, fertilizers, fumigants and other chemicals, cause eutrophication. Some, like DDT and dieldrin, flown out in the 88 million ton floriculture cargo, are no longer allowed for use in export-destinations.

The lake is also bearing the weight of a city: from a population of 7000 (1970s) to 300 000 (2008), and the ecosystem, previously one of the world's top ten bird sites, is buckling.

One decade ago, just 10% of fertile farmland was utilized. The government of Kenya has pledged to tackle the issue of idle land. But this is easier said than done - many of those who hold the reigns of the political economy, also own the land. This was the product of a study (2004) identifying 300 000 illegal land titles. Former President Daniel Arap-Moi held 100 000 hectares.

During colonialism, Maasai were deplored as 'wanderers', and expropriated land deemed 'a treaty' between 'two states' by British courts. The ever-corrupt Moi killed the issue of land reform when he came to power. But the impacts of climate change, intensifying drought, renders the decision of the Kenyan government - endorsing the same policy, an intentional death sentence.

Sadly, the 'save Maasai culture' mantra has not only hijacked and distorted the exotically caricatured Maasai, but has also reinforced exploitation in game farms and reserves where 'you too can meet a real live Maasai - and have him serve your whiskey all dressed up'. A greater indignity is hard to imagine.

At question, of course, are not property rights but the way in which such rights have been used as weapons, packaged as solutions, and transformed to represent the interest of a small corrupt elite.

What happens when the issue of land in Africa is left for too long, breeding resentment, structural inequality, and mad mullahs of 'liberation on behalf of the people'?

Two words - Robert Mugabe.