Items related to "Human Security Gateway: News". Sat, 17 May 2008 0:30:13 +0000 Sat, 17 May 2008 0:30:13 +0000 robert_hartfiel@sfu.ca (Robert Hartfiel) Fri, 16 May 2008 15:30:10 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24416 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24416 Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah. "This is a country that was damned by the Americans the moment they stepped on our soil," Burhan Jassim, a farmer from Sichir village just outside Fallujah told IPS. "This is Iraqi land that has always been blessed by Allah with the best production in quality and quantity, but now see how it has been turned into a wasteland." Fallujah faces this new crisis after much of the city was destroyed by U.S. military operations in 2004. The area around Fallujah city, which lies 70 km west of Baghdad, has traditionally been one of the most agriculturally productive in Iraq. Farmers planted tomatoes and cucumbers north of Fallujah, others grew potatoes south of the city near Amiriya. Both areas had plenty of date palm trees and small fruit plantations. Now production is down to a fraction of what it was. SOURCE: Inter Press Service // Global Policy Forum Inter Press Service // Global Policy Forum Fri, 16 May 2008 15:29:10 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24415 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24415 Several hundred kilometres from the simmering conflicts between pastoralists and farmers [over natural resources] in Sudan's Darfur region, the two communities in the village of Gereigikh in North Kordofan State have learnt to cool the tension with watermelons. "Our farmers discovered that whenever the Kawahla tribe [traditionally pastoral] brought their livestock into the fields, the animal droppings helped improve production, so the members of the Gawamha [traditionally farmers] started planting watermelons to attract the livestock to the field," recalled Ad-Dukhri Al-Sayed, a community leader in Gereigikh, about 100km northeast of the state capital, El Obeid. "The situation has improved so much. Now everyone lives in peace, we never have problems." Most of Sudan comprises arid land or desert, and lies in the Sahel, a region described by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) as the most vulnerable in the world to droughts. Historically, there has always been tension over land and grazing rights between nomads and farmers, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conflict resolution project document . "But recently, some parts of the country have been caught in a complex tangle of severe droughts and dwindling resources." As a result, the pressure on scarce resources like water and pasture has become the trigger of most conflicts, and climate change is set to exacerbate the situation. SOURCE: Integrated Regional Information Networks // Global Policy Forum Integrated Regional Information Networks // Global Policy Forum Fri, 16 May 2008 15:20:55 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24411 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24411 Sorting out the victor from the vanquished in Iraq's internal skirmishes is proving increasingly difficult. A deal reached on May 10 (Voices of Iraq) between lawmakers loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and those allied with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought a wave of contradictory proclamations from the Western media punditry. McClatchy Newspapers called the deal to disarm the cleric's Mahdi Army in Sadr City a "surprising capitulation" sure to be hailed as a major win for Maliki's government. The Independent, meanwhile, declared Sadr "the great survivor of Iraqi politics." Attacks on U.S. forces days into the truce raises questions (NYT) about whether the deal will amount to anything in the end. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Fri, 16 May 2008 12:22:21 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24401 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24401 If the intransigence of the Burmese generals continues, it is a very real issue whether in the name of humanity some international action should be taken against their will – like military air drops, or supplies being landed from ships offshore – to get aid to the huge numbers who desperately need it right now, in the inaccessible coastal area in particular. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner opened up a hornet's nest when he argued last Thursday, as others are now doing, that this is a proper case for coercive intervention under the "responsibility to protect" principle unanimously endorsed by 150 heads of state and government at the 2005 UN World Summit. His proposal that the Security Council pass a resolution which "authorizes the delivery and imposes this on the Burmese government" met with immediate rejection not only from China and Russia, who are always sensitive about external intervention into internal affairs, but from many other quarters as well. SOURCE: International Crisis Group // The Guardian International Crisis Group // The Guardian Fri, 16 May 2008 11:27:04 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24396 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24396 On May 10, one of Darfur's key rebel factions, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), struck military targets within Omdurman, the twin city of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Although rumored for days, the long-distance rebel attack seemed to catch the ruling National Islamic Front (NIF) regime by surprise. This was an extraordinary military event, one without precedent under the regime, and its leaders have been badly rattled--perhaps the primary ambition of an assault that had no chance for sustainable military success. But satisfying as the attack may have been for JEM, it is likely to prove extremely bad news for the people of Darfur. There have already been multiple reports from human rights groups and the Sudanese diaspora that Darfuris are being beaten, arrested, and in some cases, summarily executed. Most have been Zaghawa, the Darfur tribal group dominant in JEM and its leadership. SOURCE: Reeves, Eric Reeves, Eric Fri, 16 May 2008 10:32:11 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24394 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24394 Make no mistake, there will continue to be bloodshed in Iraqi streets until Iraq’s leaders decide otherwise—even though various Iraqi leaders have signaled a truce in the ongoing battle for control of Sadr City in downtown Baghdad. And that won’t happen until the United States signals a date certain for the redeployment of U.S. forces out of the country. No matter whether the United States exercises what President Bush and U.S. Army General David Petraeus call “strategic patience”—an indefinite commitment of 140,000 U.S. troops—or begins a reduction and redeployment of U.S. forces, the lasting political accommodations necessary to produce a stable and democratic Iraq will not occur until the United States issues a definitive timeline for troop reduction. Only then will Iraq’s leaders work to find political solutions to the country’s instability. SOURCE: Center for American Progress Center for American Progress Thu, 15 May 2008 12:10:58 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24380 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24380 Two agreements signed since the end of 2007 offer some hope for an end to more than a decade of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), even if fighting has continued and a lasting solution has yet to be found to the presence in the region of Rwandan Hutu rebels, according to analysts. Since the DRC government and various armed groups in the chronically unstable North Kivu province signed a ceasefire in January, the truce has been repeatedly violated and the number of displaced civilians in the province has increased. The ceasefire was one of the highlights of an ‘Act of Engagement’ signed on 23 January in Goma, capital of North Kivu province, where some 847,000 people are displaced. SOURCE: Integrated Regional Information Networks Integrated Regional Information Networks Thu, 15 May 2008 11:00:51 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24377 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24377 The problem of killings is a significant one in Afghanistan. In the past four months, hundreds of civilians have been killed. They have died from bombs, missiles, explosive devices, police fire, beheadings and domestic violence. Those responsible include the police, militia groups, the Taliban and other anti-government elements, and the international forces. In the absence of urgent action by all parties, the months and years ahead will see many more civilians killed unlawfully. The message of my report is that a great many of these deaths can be readily avoided. SOURCE: United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights Wed, 14 May 2008 15:18:24 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24366 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24366 Michael Young, a political analyst in Beirut, says Hezbollah’s efforts to impose its will in Lebanon have led to “a prolonged crisis that is a reflection of the cold war in the region” between Iran and the United States and their respective allies. He worries that Hezbollah’s latest efforts to show off its military power may spawn genuine hatred between Shiites and Sunnis in Lebanon. “Things could get a lot worse before they get better,” he says. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Wed, 14 May 2008 11:33:02 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24337 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24337 Is there any end to Chinese ambitions in Asia? China wishes to dominate Asia with blockades, blockages, military diplomacy and political Machiavellism. China’s building of the port of Gwadar at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in fact is meant to blockade the oil supplies of the world. Its military diplomacy is on display at the Tibet-India border, where for the last ten years it has strengthened its military infrastructure to intimidate India. In its blockage diplomacy, it is planning to divert the flow of the River Brahmaputra, also called the Tsandpo in Tibet, toward China’s northeast, hence in the process starve 100 million people in India. SOURCE: United Press International Asia United Press International Asia Tue, 13 May 2008 09:47:26 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24316 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24316 Recently, the Trans-Afghan gas pipeline (TAP) project has been given new momentum, as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan are pressing for the TAP project to go forward even though everyone concerned recognizes that fighting in Afghanistan casts serious questions over the entire project. Nevertheless, the project is now estimated to cost US$6 billion and is supposed to export some 33 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas from the Dauletabad field in Turkmenistan annually. The field is not expected to be completed earlier than 2018, so this, like the Iran-Pakistan-India energy coalition, is a project for the future. American and Saudi Arabia governments initiated the TAP project in 1998 with active participation from a third party, Argentinean Company Bridas, and was intended to connect Turkmenistan to Pakistan and de-monopolize Russian presence in the Central Asia. SOURCE: The Georgian Times The Georgian Times Mon, 12 May 2008 14:48:04 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24309 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24309 The First Nuclear Age ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (Walton and Gray, 2007: 210). The end of bipolarity, arguably the most peaceful period in European history (Howard, 2001: 136), raised new questions about national security: specifically, the role of nuclear weapons in international relations. During this period nuclear weapons were not actually used per se, but used tacitly; as a means of deterrence (Segal, 1988: 13). We are now in the Second Nuclear Age, and the role of the nuclear weapon is still contested. Should they be retained or should they (or can they?) be abandoned? Is deterrence still a plausible strategy? Can we actually engage in international discourse without them? These questions, and many others, are debated by theorists, scholars, moralists, politicians and military commanders throughout the world; from Washington to Moscow, London to Beijing, and Paris to New Delhi. This essay will question the role of nuclear weapons in international society; namely, nuclear weapons as a deterrent, nuclear terrorism and proliferation. Before we embark on this analysis we must first ask the question: Why do states go ‘nuclear’? SOURCE: E-International Relations E-International Relations Mon, 12 May 2008 13:36:20 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24303 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24303 The brutality of the Khartoum regime's military actions in the Darfur region of western Sudan continually forces a question that seems to have no morally intelligible answer: Is there no act of civilian destruction so cruel, so savage, that the international community will finally respond vigorously and unambiguously? On May 4, at about 4 p.m., a school was bombed in the village of Shegeg Karo in North Darfur; one classroom was destroyed, killing six students and injuring others. The village marketplace was also bombed, killing several people and destroying most of the shops in this vestige of a shattered agricultural economy. SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor // Reeves, Eric Christian Science Monitor // Reeves, Eric Fri, 09 May 2008 14:41:52 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24281 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24281 Pirates hijacked a record number of ships off the Somali coast this year, fighting in Mogadishu has driven hundreds of thousands from the city, and the aid workers that supply critical food and medical supplies to displaced Somalis are now targeted by Islamic insurgents (TIME). Yet perhaps the most telling indicator of Somalia’s deepening crisis is this: Not only has the country’s weak transitional government failed to protect civilians, according to a new report from Amnesty International, it routinely targets them. Somalia’s transitional federal government has tried to legitimize its hold over the country since December 2006, when Ethiopian troops invaded to oust the Islamic Courts Union, a fundamentalist militia. Some eighteen months later, the Ethiopian troops remain, the Islamist insurgency has intensified, and moderate elements of the Islamists that split from the courts are refusing to negotiate with the transitional government. As this Backgrounder describes, the transitional government is an amalgam of warlords vying for power. The United States has backed it in the hopes of eliminating the country’s Islamic extremists, but many experts say that strategy has led to further radicalization. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Fri, 09 May 2008 10:16:55 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24264 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24264 In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a curious export phenomenon occurred in the countries of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. In spite of the fact that none of these countries had major domestic mining operations, their exports of copper, gold, diamonds and coltan jumped drastically. Not coincidentally, these were the exact same minerals found in abundance in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the jump in mineral exports coincided perfectly with the invasion of DRC by these three countries. While each country justified its invasion based on security concerns, the United Nations found that the battlefields were most commonly centered around areas that held large stocks of valuable minerals. SOURCE: World Politics Review World Politics Review Thu, 08 May 2008 15:14:10 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24252 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24252 A cyclone in Myanmar last weekend has so far left tens of thousands dead and missing and many more homeless, exposing the vulnerabilities of a repressed population under an isolationist military regime. Even while the government sought international aid, its resistance to allowing entry to Western agencies has resulted in a delay in relief efforts (BBC). Daily estimates of the death toll have mounted, with a U.S. diplomat saying the number of fatalities could rise up to 100,000 (WashPost). SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Wed, 07 May 2008 13:30:18 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24216 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24216 Accusations regularly fly between Washington and Tehran about their involvement in Iraq, but the past few weeks have seen these charges take a more specific turn. The U.S. military in recent weeks has accused Iran of arming Shiite militias inside the war zone. What’s more, an unnamed U.S. official told the New York Times that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist group, has been training Iraqi fighters at a base near Tehran. The government of Iran, meanwhile, has pulled out of a fourth round of bilateral talks over Iraqi security to protest what Tehran calls the “massacre” (aj-Jazeera) of innocent civilians in Iraq by U.S.-led forces. The Pentagon says it is only bombing fighters suspected of receiving Iranian backing. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Wed, 07 May 2008 10:16:19 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24184 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24184 During a visit to Burma a few years ago, I decided to avoid the country's legendarily deadly airlines and instead hire a car to take me along the somewhat less deadly roads. Distances that on the map looked like they should take an hour to cover took entire days. The criminal extent of the country's neglect was already obvious in Rangoon, where I saw a mother sitting with a large crowd on a downtown sidewalk, despondently holding in her arms a baby so malnourished that I'm sure it died not long after I gave her a small amount of money, probably more than she had ever held in her hand at one time, and definitely more than the country's malignant military government spends on any of its desperate citizens in an entire year. SOURCE: World Politics Review World Politics Review Tue, 06 May 2008 15:11:13 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24169 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24169 After a US missile killed a senior leader of an Islamist militant group in Somalia, the BBC's Rob Watson considers how serious the West considers the militant threat from the region. The precise links, if any, between Somalia's Islamists and al-Qaeda are decidedly murky. But there is little doubt that the US and other western countries see Somalia in particular - and East Africa in general - as a potential breeding ground for violent Islamic extremists. SOURCE: BBC News BBC News Mon, 05 May 2008 14:51:43 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24137 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24137 The so-called “surge” in Iraq, a reinforcement of U.S. forces by thirty thousand troops which began in spring 2007, has been credited by many with slowing civilian casualties, building morale among Iraqi security forces, and helping restore some order to the country, particularly in its capital, Baghdad. Yet critics see it as little more than an unsustainable holding action which has propped up what they regard as an essentially flawed strategy in Iraq. Two CFR experts on the war, Max Boot, senior fellow for national security studies, and Steven Simon, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, debate whether the surge has put Iraq on the path to sucess. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Mon, 05 May 2008 14:48:54 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24136 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24136 The latest spike in cross-border attacks (NYT) into Afghanistan by militants based in Pakistan has once again exposed the vulnerabilities of those fighting the war for a stable Afghanistan. In a repeat of past instances, Afghan officials blamed (IHT) the recent assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai on insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas with links to al-Qaeda. A spokesperson from Pakistan’s army denied (Daily Times) the allegations. But all recent U.S. intelligence and investigative reports have pointed to the growing strength of the terrorist groups in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Afghan border.“Using the sanctuary in the border area of Pakistan, al-Qaeda has been able to maintain a cadre of skilled lieutenants capable of directing the organization’s operations around the world,” said the 2008 Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Mon, 05 May 2008 12:16:31 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24119 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24119 When I meet with the Dalai Lama today, I fully expect him to reaffirm his strong commitment to engaging Chinese officials in dialogue. President Bush has repeatedly expressed his own steadfast support for dialogue between the Dalai Lama and China's leadership. Meaningful dialogue presents the only viable way forward. In March, demonstrations in Lhasa that began peacefully escalated into violence and quickly spread to other Tibetan areas of China. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed deep concern regarding these events, has called on all sides to refrain from violence, and has strongly urged China to exercise restraint in dealing with the protesters and to respect the fundamental right of all people to peacefully express their religious and political views. Underlying these tragic events is China's long-standing repression of religious, cultural and other freedoms for the Tibetan people, repression that has been extensively documented in State Department human rights reports and elsewhere. Since 1949, the cycle of protests followed by crackdowns has repeated itself several times, but the end result has always been the same: Control is restored but only temporarily, while the underlying causes of Tibetan grievances remain unaddressed. SOURCE: United States Department of State United States Department of State Fri, 02 May 2008 14:38:07 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24105 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24105 The first car bomb attacks on unarmed civilians began in early 2004. More than 200 Shias were killed on 2 March during the festival of Ashura as bombs ripped through crowds in the holy city of Kerbala and at the main Shia shrine in Baghdad in the northern suburb of Kadhimiya. Body parts and strips of flesh were scattered all over the blood-stained streets. The vast number of deaths, the biggest on a single day, as well as the symbolic impact of attacking unarmed pilgrims during a religious festival, shocked Iraqis. “Our movement began as Shia but we have many Sunni members. History has taught us that nothing has happened between the Sunnis and the Shias in the past,” Duaffar said proudly. “I’m sure there won’t be sectarian clashes in the future. The Sunnis and the Shias know the enemy want to provoke clashes, but we are containing the danger successfully.” Duaffar was one of many political leaders who worked hard to prevent retaliation in the hours after the bombings at Kerbala and Kadhimiya. He assumed they were probably the work of Sunni militants from abroad or from the Salafis. In March 2004 in Fallujah, which the Americans saw as a “Sunni bastion” and a hotbed of militant Islam, Abed Ruzuqi, a retired employee in the agriculture department, was keen to tell me that the town had a well-integrated Shia minority and there were no sectarian problems. As his brothers offered us rice and chicken at a shaded table in his front garden, he described an American attack a few nights earlier which, the Americans said, was a response to grenades being fired at a US patrol. SOURCE: Global Policy Forum // Guernica Magazine Global Policy Forum // Guernica Magazine Fri, 02 May 2008 12:11:55 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24087 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24087 For several years after war erupted in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002, children were recruited to fight on all sides of the conflict. But with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement last year, such recruitment has essentially ceased, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council at the end of January. Because children are no longer being conscripted, the Ivorian groups that were previously cited by name in the annexes to the Secretary-General’s annual reports on children in armed conflict have now been “delisted.” Sierra Leone and Liberia used to have large numbers of child soldiers. But they are now at peace and are also no longer included in the report’s annexes. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy calls the annexes a “list of shame,” intended to put pressure on named groups to stop such abuses. SOURCE: Africa Renewal // United Nations Africa Renewal // United Nations Fri, 02 May 2008 12:10:54 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24086 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24086 Kenya’s post-election violence, which claimed an estimated 1,000 lives and displaced 350,000 people, appears to have abated. An agreement at the end of February to share power between government and opposition leaders has raised hopes of a return to stability. Because of Kenya’s role as an economic powerhouse in the East African region, the seemingly brief crisis has already had significant economic and social repercussions well beyond the country’s borders, and many worry that a resumption of conflict could have truly devastating consequences. Violence broke out in Kenya on 30 December after Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent, was declared winner of the presidential election over Raila Odinga, despite objections by the opposition and election observers that the vote tally was seriously flawed. In addition to attacks by armed groups from the two sides, protesters’ roadblocks along the main highways between Kenya and neighbouring countries curtailed trade and manufacturing in the region. SOURCE: Africa Renewal // United Nations Africa Renewal // United Nations Fri, 02 May 2008 12:09:27 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24085 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24085 When an older man raised his hand to speak on the third day of a gender workshop in Hoedspruit, a rural community in northern South Africa, Bafana Khumalo’s heart sank. As the facilitator of the workshop, which specifically targeted men, he had already touched on concepts of manhood and how gender inequality contributed to the sky-rocketing HIV rates in South Africa. Mr. Khumalo worried that the participant would deliver a lecture on how equality between men and women is contrary to African culture or how women’s empowerment is dividing families. Older men are deeply respected in rural communities, and he knew this man had the ability to derail the workshop. SOURCE: Africa Renewal // United Nations Africa Renewal // United Nations Fri, 02 May 2008 11:34:22 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24080 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24080 This week marks a grim and largely unnoticed anniversary. On April 27, 2007, International Criminal Court judges issued arrest warrants for two men involved in the massive, ongoing atrocities in the Darfur region of western Sudan: Former state minister of the interior Ahmed Haroun, and Ali Kushayb, a key leader of the brutal Arab militia known as Janjaweed. Both are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Evidence in the ICC cases against both men is overwhelming, including numerous eyewitness accounts from victims as well as compelling documentary evidence. Yet Khartoum refuses to extradite or lift a finger in prosecuting either man. No surprise there. Were Mr. Haroun and Mr. Kushayb to testify in the Hague, where the ICC is based, the most senior members of the Khartoum regime would be at obvious risk of indictment themselves. Mr. Haroun in particular could point far up the military and civilian chain of command. SOURCE: Wall Street Journal // Reeves, Eric Wall Street Journal // Reeves, Eric Fri, 02 May 2008 11:32:33 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24079 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24079 Whatever happens in their country during the foreboding days ahead, Zimbabweans know that an "after" is inevitable. An "after Mugabe" will come even if Robert G. Mugabe, the country's 84-year-old president, manages - through a campaign of violence or other means - to claim another term in office. Zimbabwe's political crisis did not begin with this disputed election. Its roots include long-standing limits on free speech, widespread human rights abuses, the failure to resolve issues of land distribution dating from colonial times, cataclysmic mismanagement of the economy, corruption on a gargantuan scale. And, not least, the impunity of the wrongdoers. Fortunately for Zimbabweans, even impunity has an "after." Wrongs of the present and the past have victimized millions and generated deep bitterness. SOURCE: International Center for Transitional Justice International Center for Transitional Justice Fri, 02 May 2008 10:24:45 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24076 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24076 With escalating sectarian violence, the need for a political solution to stabilize Iraq has become imperative. In the first part of his Globalist Paper, David Apgar argues that the most common proposals — a three-way ethnic partition of the country and direct talks with Iran and Syria — are inadequate. He views a two-way partition as the most pragmatic solution. SOURCE: The Globalist The Globalist Thu, 01 May 2008 15:10:05 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24066 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24066 Southeast Asian officials and analysts have complained about the waning US interest in the region due to the US preference for a bilateral approach to Southeast Asia. This US approach is out of sync with the rapidly changing security environment of the region, which can be redressed by looking at non-traditional security threats. SOURCE: S Rajaratnam School of International Studies // Nanyang Technological University S Rajaratnam School of International Studies // Nanyang Technological University Thu, 01 May 2008 15:07:26 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24065 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24065 There has been much fanfare about rising opium production in Afghanistan but little attention paid to Myanmar's Shan State. Nonetheless, the region has seen a spike in production levels of both heroin and amphetamines, with China presently bearing the brunt of this 'boom'. This may have a knock-on effect in Northeast India as well as Thailand. SOURCE: S Rajaratnam School of International Studies // Nanyang Technological University S Rajaratnam School of International Studies // Nanyang Technological University Thu, 01 May 2008 12:46:22 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24055 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24055 An August 2007 survey by Terror Free Tomorrow, a nonpartisan policy group in Washington, offered a window into Pakistanis’ views about Al- Qaeda and terrorism. Many surveys in poor nations give a distorted picture of people’s attitudes toward controversial issues because the surveys are confined to urban areas that are safe and easily accessible, and where the inhabitants tend to be educated and better off economically. By contrast, this face-to-face survey of Pakistani opinions seems representative, in that it interviewed about a thousand Pakistanis, age 18 or older, living in urban and rural areas in all four provinces. The vast majority were married Sunni Muslims who lived in towns and villages and had ten or fewer years of schooling. Slightly fewer than half were women. (Unfortunately, the results published so far do not separate responses by years of schooling, income, urban-rural location, sex, or other useful personal characteristics.) SOURCE: Hoover Institution Hoover Institution Thu, 01 May 2008 12:45:02 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24054 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24054 A military solution in Iraq would take a different form from that we associate with conventional strategies, but it would be no less vital to the country’s future in providing the calm for political reconstruction to follow. The miraculous political achievement of postwar Japan or Europe was clearly the dividend of a military solution: the destruction of wartime fascism and the prevention of its re-emergence by vigilant military policing. Likewise, there will be peace in a constitutional Iraq only when its citizens believe that they can safely participate in government, express themselves somewhat freely, prosper economically, and feel safe from internal and external threats and reprisals. SOURCE: Hoover Institution Hoover Institution Thu, 01 May 2008 12:36:38 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24052 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24052 Last month in Iran, supporters of a long-shot parliamentary candidate stuck campaign materials to a handful of chickens and set them loose in the village in what a local official called “a new way to campaign.” Though the chickens were an innovative way to remind voters that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad failed to deliver on his campaign promise to put a chicken in every pot, this candidate and others were forced to find obscure ways to reach voters because they were prohibited from putting their faces on campaign materials. Because of this and other arbitrary election rules, the large margins of victory by conservative hardliners in the March 14 election came as no surprise. SOURCE: Foreign Policy in Focus Foreign Policy in Focus Thu, 01 May 2008 12:33:40 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24051 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24051 In November 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS that U.S. saber-rattling toward Iraq had “nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.” In 2003, Rumsfeld called the assertion that the United States had invaded Iraq to get at its oil “utter nonsense.” (“We don’t take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s . . . resources, their oil. That’s just not what the United States does.”) In 2005, speaking to American troops in Fallujah, Rumsfeld reiterated the point: “The United States, as you all know better than any, did not come to Iraq for oil.” Strong denials for sure, but were they true? SOURCE: Foreign Policy in Focus Foreign Policy in Focus Thu, 01 May 2008 12:27:52 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24049 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24049 One battle rarely wins or loses a war, at least in the moment. Gettysburg crippled Lee’s army in 1863, but the Confederates fought on until 1865. Stalingrad broke the back of the German 6th Army, but it would be two-and-a-half years before the Russians took Berlin. War – particularly the modern variety – is a complex mixture of tactics, technology, and politics. Then there are the intangibles, like morale. But while a single battle may not end a conflict, it can illuminate an underlying reality. This reality generally gets lost in the thunder of propaganda, illusion, and wishful thinking that always accompanies the horsemen of the apocalypse. Now that some of the dust has settled over the recent battle of Basra that pitted Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army against the armies of the United States and Iraq, it is time to examine what that clash meant, and what are some analogies that might help bring it into focus. There were certainly echoes of Vietnam in last month’s fighting, and some of those parallels, particularly to the 1968 Tet offensive, are worth a closer look. SOURCE: Foreign Policy in Focus Foreign Policy in Focus Thu, 01 May 2008 10:33:02 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24037 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=24037 There is a feeling on both sides of the Atlantic that this is the right moment for rapprochement. But times have changed. Both France and the United States have good reasons to reassess the utility of NATO to their foreign-policy objectives. Through their experiences of relative powerlessness—France during the Balkan wars and the United States in attempting to cope with Iraq and Afghanistan—both countries have rediscovered NATO as an important and useful instrument of their security policies. The United States is moving away from the haughty “toolbox” approach it developed after Kosovo. The French are giving up their self-imposed isolationism, which caused their army to lag behind the United States and the U SOURCE: The National Interest The National Interest Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:08:45 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23979 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23979 Faut-il croire le Hamas sur parole ? Alors que l’ancien président américain Jimmy Carter vient d’achever une « tournée pour la paix » moyen-orientale d’une durée de 9 jours, le débat (ré)amorcé aujourd’hui sur l’actualité du conflit israélo-palestinien a au moins un aspect positif : celui de contribuer à mettre les points sur les « i ». On ne compte en effet plus le nombre d’hypothèses et diverses contre-thèses qui ont pu accompagner les évolutions du principal épicentre conflictuel du Moyen-Orient depuis le 26 janvier 2006 particulièrement, date d’accès du Hamas au pouvoir dans les Territoires palestiniens. Les uns y voyaient l’émergence d’une nouvelle donne compromettante pour la paix dans la région, arguant du déni existentiel affiché par cette formation vis-à-vis de l’Etat d’Israël ; les autres tentaient, au contraire, d’y voir une opportunité pleinement exploitable, conformément au principe selon lequel seuls les ennemis mutuels (soit le Hamas d’une part, et l’exécutif israélien) peuvent négocier concrètement les termes d’une paix. Il aura cependant fallu passer par de profonds tiraillements inter-palestiniens, de nouvelles – et graves - inflexions dans l’état des relations israélo-palestiniennes, ainsi que par une donne israélo-libanaise exacerbée, pour en arriver à un constat : le Hamas, pas plus que le Hezbollah libanais, n’ont finalement courbé l’échine. Deux ans après l’accès du Hamas au pouvoir, et un an et demi après la fin officielle du dernier des affrontements israélo-libanais d’ampleur, retour à la case départ donc, avec l’échec des Israéliens, des Américains, et de leurs alliés occidentaux à tordre le cou tant à leurs principaux ennemis régionaux (Hamas et Hezbollah) qu’à leurs parrains supposés (la Syrie et l’Iran). SOURCE: Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:16:32 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23974 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23974 The UK's Terrorism Act 2006 has made the "glorification" of terrorism a criminal offence, the difficulty with this provision is clear because when freedom of speech is outlawed, civil liberties are violated. These new powers not only make Britain less free but also less safe by driving dissent underground and alienating minorities. Swept up in this new anti-terror safety net could be those who protest against dictators like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, for example. This has created further difficulties regarding freedom of expression. For instance, a statement published in a book, newspaper, pamphlet or magazine may be read, either in hard copy or on the Internet, by UK nationals, foreign visitors, and people abroad. SOURCE: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:37:25 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23964 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23964 An estimated 30 individuals, presumed to be members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), raided a bar near the city of Tizi Ouzou in the mountainous Kabylie region of Algeria on April 6 (Liberté, April 9). The men reportedly robbed the bar’s owner and patrons of 15,000 dinars and proceeded to destroy window panes, liquor bottles and furnishings. A similar event reportedly occurred in the town of Tadmait just days earlier. Additionally, on April 5, an off-duty policeman was killed at a fake roadblock, also near Tizi Ouzou (El Watan, April 6). Immediately following the incident, vehicle passengers stopped at the roadblock were given material depicting recent AQIM activities in the Kabylie region. SOURCE: Global Terrorism Analysis // The Jamestown Foundation Global Terrorism Analysis // The Jamestown Foundation Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:14:31 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23953 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23953 On Feb. 17, after almost a decade of legal limbo and two years of unsuccessful international mediation, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. The U.S. moved swiftly to recognize the new country, and nearly 2 million ethnic Albanians celebrated their long-awaited freedom, dancing in city streets, releasing fireworks and waving flags. Having bristled under Serbian rule and then U.N. administration, Kosovars were elated by the prospect of at last controlling their own affairs. The Serbs weren't quite so thrilled. On Feb. 21, some 200,000 protested in Belgrade, chanting "Kosovo is Serbia" and holding placards that read, RUSSIA, HELP. Rioters set the U.S. embassy on fire; Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed never to recognize Kosovo and threatened to support secessionist movements in Georgia and Moldova. SOURCE: TIME Magazine TIME Magazine Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:38:09 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23948 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23948 A 2006 victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections thrust Hamas into a postition of political leadership in the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, the group forcibly ousted its political rivals, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, from Gaza. Since then, Hamas has allowed, and possibly instigated, almost daily rocket attacks on Israel from its Gaza stronghold. President Bush’s attempt to revive the Mideast Peace Process through the November 2007 Annapolis Conference and subsequent diplomacy has to date excluded Hamas, which the United States and European Union continue to label a terrorist group. Hamas’ refusal to disavow violence or recognize Israel’s right to exist has prompted the United States and its diplomatic partners from isolating the group, despite its significant role in the ongoing conflict. Mohamad Bazzi, CFR’s Murrow press fellow, and Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, debate whether Hamas should have a role in the current peace process. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:32:54 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23947 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23947 In his opening briefing to the Congress recently, US Gen David Petraeus, named Iran 105 times to emphasize how important the Islamic Republic has become to the future of the American occupation of Iraq. In doing so the general gave belated recognition to the reality everyone in the Middle East has known for years: Iran is the big winner of the American decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Iran is a big winner because it benefits from a weak and malleable Iraq. Its greatest enemy, Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq, is dead and gone. Hussein’s Iraq fought an eight-year war to destroy the Islamic Republic, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians and devastating its economy. In its place is a Shiite-Kurdish government in Baghdad filled with former exiles that spent that war in Tehran. Baghdad and Tehran have ever-closer relations: Iranian intelligence operates throughout the country; pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities. Many believe it was Iran that vetoed Iraqi participation in US President George W Bush’s Middle East peace summit at Annapolis last fall. Iran has certainly pressed its friends in Baghdad not to have any serious contact with Israel. SOURCE: The Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:05:47 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23940 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23940 At the passing of the 25th anniversary of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon—the first large suicide bombing to target Americans—the time is right to ask the perennial question: has the Bush administration’s “war on terror” since 9/11 made Americans safer? Although the Bush administration regularly boasts that its war on terror has been effective because no large terrorists attacks on U.S. soil have occurred since 9/11, such terrorism in North America has historically been a rare event. It’s like bragging that efforts to prevent lightning strikes have succeeded because a dwelling has not been struck or burned. In fact, 9/11 was shocking to Americans not only because of the magnitude of the casualties, but because North America had seen very little terrorism coming from abroad. The last major international terrorist attack on U.S. soil was eight years before, in 1993 (also on the World Trade Center). Predictions of terrorist attacks are hard to make, but the dramatic surge in suicide bombings overseas since the Bush administration’s war on terror began should increase our worries that another major attack could occur in the American homeland. SOURCE: The Independent Institute The Independent Institute Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:47:07 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23939 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23939 Nearly seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious domestic terror threat, is the War on Terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda’s most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes, but to hijack our political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups, professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and state governments and federal agency officials, the War on Terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, project, grant and contract proposals. For the country as a whole, however, it has become a maelstrom of waste and worry that distracts us from more serious problems. SOURCE: The Independent Institute The Independent Institute Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:44:08 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23938 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23938 When Kosovo seceded from Serbia earlier this year, Russia opposed UN recognition of an independent Kosovar state on the grounds that it violated the sovereignty and wishes of Moscow’s ally, Serbia. Moscow also warned the move opened the door for Georgia’s separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which rely heavily on Russia, to seek independence. Now, just weeks after NATO leaders irked Russia by signaling a willingness to expand ties with Georgia and Ukraine (AP), Moscow seems to have made its response. Much to the consternation of Georgian authorities, the Kremlin announced it might increase trade relations (WSJ) with the breakaway Abkhazis and Ossetians. SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:29:21 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23929 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23929 As Canada watches its government's once-alarming terrorism case against the "Toronto 18" gradually shrink, it may be time to assess the threat Islamic terrorists present more generally. In a recent interview, America's Homeland Security czar, Michael Chertoff, thundered that terrorism presents "a significant existential" threat -- carefully differentiating it, apparently, from all those insignificant existential challenges the continent has so heroically faced in the past. And the New York Times assured us a few days ago that "the fight against al-Qaeda is the central battle for this generation. As an earlier "greatest generation" once confronted Adolf Hitler and allies in a tumultuous multi-front war in which tens of millions of people perished, ours gets to earn its stripes in what Mr. Chertoff labels the "struggle" against Osama bin Laden and his allies and minions. SOURCE: Ottawa Citizen Ottawa Citizen Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:28:20 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23928 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23928 A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there might never be an “end date” in the “struggle” against terrorism, a point when it would be possible to say, “There, it’s all over with.” More than six and a half years later, his wisdom seems to have been vindicated, though perhaps not quite in the way he intended. At least in its domestic homeland security aspects, the so-called War on Terror shows clear signs of having developed into a popularly supported governmental perpetual-motion machine that could very well spin “till who laid the rails”, as Mayor Shinn so eloquently, if opaquely, puts it in The Music Man. Since none of the leading Democrats or Republicans running for president this year has managed to express any misgivings about this development, it is fair to assume that the “war” will amble on during whatever administration happens to follow the present one. SOURCE: The American Interest The American Interest Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:21:57 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23927 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23927 Gian P. Gentile is an active duty Army lieutenant colonel who has served two tours in Iraq, most recently as a combat battalion commander in west Baghdad in 2006. Last month, his World Politics Review article, "Misreading the Surge," brought a fierce internal debate over the Army's new emphasis on counterinsurgency operations and its potential impact on conventional capabilities to the attention of the general public. In the context of this week's congressional hearings on the Surge, WPR asked Gentile for a follow up email interview, to which he graciously agreed. SOURCE: World Politics Review World Politics Review Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:02:47 -0700 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23915 http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/showRecord.php?RecordId=23915 For the past several weeks, U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling the Jaysh al-Mehdi, the militia of Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Supported by U.S. airstrikes, U.S. and Iraqi troops have steadily moved into Sadrist neighborhoods in Basra and the Sadrist stronghold of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad. The fighting has resulted in heavy casualties. Voices of Iraq reported Sadrist Member of Parliament Falah Shenshel's claim that "at least 400 civilians were killed and 1,720 others, including women and children, were wounded in the armed confrontations and bombarding operations that took place in Sadr city over the last three weeks." According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the weeks of fighting in the Shi'ite neighborhood "have destroyed the main market and isolated civilians from supplies of food and water," and several hospitals in Sadr City "have run out of basic medical supplies, including anesthesia and dressings." Despite President Bush hailing Iraqi efforts at the onset of hostilities in mid-March, subsequent accounts reveal that the Iraq army has performed poorly, requiring U.S. forces to play a much bigger role in the fighting than they had intended. The BBC reported that it was "clear that although the initial military planning was Iraqi, U.S. and British forces [were] deeply involved." Sadr is now giving indications that he may set aside his political ambitions and restart "a full-scale fight against U.S.-led forces." SOURCE: Center for American Progress Center for American Progress