Category: 11

The Higaonon, an indigenous tribe in Northern Mindanao in the southern Philippines, have preserved an ancient system of conflict resolution which has enabled them to be a truly peaceful community. However, there is a need to ensure that this knowledge is not lost in the future.

The Higaonon described as “people of living mountains” and “people of the wilderness” are one of the lumads (indigenous peoples) in the mountainous areas of Northern Mindanao in southern Philippines, who have resisted assimilation or acculturation, with their traditional systems, practices, beliefs remaining relatively intact (Tri-people Consortium for Peace, Progress and Development in Mindanao, 1998).

They have continuously lived as an organized community on communally bounded and defined territory, and have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, possessed customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits. They are one of the indigenous people (IPs) recognized as the true natives of the islands, who at one time occupied and controlled a substantial portion of Mindanao and Sulu archipelago (Tri-people Consortium for Peace, Progress and Development in Mindanao, 1998).

Mercado (1998) has argued that unlike the early IPs who embraced Christianity, the lumads have retained their original primal religion because they refused to accept either Islam or Christianity at the early times of colonization. Though a Christian sect penetrated the  communities in Bukidnon in 2007 and baptized at least 50 members from a tribe in Kagahuman area, these members still practice their original religion while at the same time joining weekly worship with their Christian group.

One of the indigenous practices that the Higaonons have retained up to this day is their system of conflict resolution, locally called paghusay (meaning “to settle”). With its tribal council composed of a Supreme Datu (chieftain), 11 delegates, 3 baes (women delegates), and 25 alimaong (tribal police), they resolve all kinds of conflicts as long as they take place within their jurisdiction. Cases that reach the tribal authorities for possible resolution include thievery, fighting, murder, misunderstandings, adultery, land conflicts, contempt against rituals and conflicts involving rebels.

The ability of the Higaonon to effectively solve internal conflicts has led to them being described as a genuinely peace loving community and the “weavers of peace“.

Cases of Higaonon Tribal Conflicts: Adultery and Land Disputes

Adultery and land disputes are the most prevalent form of conflict in the tribe and are often the root causes of other conflicts. For instance, misunderstanding, fighting, and even murder are sometimes due to adultery and disputes concerning the land.

Concerning adultery, the tribal chieftain has said that the practice is considered a serious crime in the tribe because the Higaonons believe that it actually brings bad luck. During a wedding, the datu (the one performing religious duty as the Babaylan of the tribe), inculcates in the couple’s minds the sanctity of marriage, which would become impure when a wife or a husband practices adultery (personal communication, May 24, 2008).

Though pagduway (or having two wives) is allowed in the tribe, the consent of the original wife is required; otherwise, the husband could not engage in duway (have two wives). A man intending to have two wives must see to it that he can afford to provide the basic needs of his wives and their children. However, the respondents revealed that there was no such case when a wife allowed her husband to have two wives; there were reported cases of adultery instead. These cases of adultery led to lido or war between families. This was due to the fact that the Higaonons are by nature protective of their family.

Thus, in cases like this, the wrongdoers disrespect their own families and the family of the betrayed partner. The Higaonons believe that in due time, the spirits of their ancestors would punish them, thus “magabaan” (cursed). As an old Filipino remarked, “kay ang gaba muduol dili magsaba” [bad karma comes without warning]. Gaba is quite similar to the doctrine of karma in Hinduism and in Buddhism. It is also similar to the biblical doctrine of reaping what one sows and is considered a form of immanent justice (Mercado, 1993).

As to conflicts involving lands, the Higaonons consider the soil not just their material property. It is actually regarded as their life and part of their legacy from their ancestors. They inhibited over 150 hectares of lands in Bukidnon Province with the boundaries marked by either a tree alone or by just a butig (big stone). Even if the original occupant of the land is not occupying or tilling the territory, the land can no longer be owned by anybody else.

Today, the Higaonons do not have land titles. Fortunately, the chieftain commented that the Impahanong Amosig Higaonon Tribal Community Organization (IAHTCO) through the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples-10 (NCIP-10) is actually working towards the grant of Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) for the Higaonons. Chapter 2, Section 3 (c) of the IPRA Law of 1997 referred CADT to a title formally recognizing the rights, possession and ownership of IPs over their ancestral domain.  The lack of clear boundary usually led to conflicts between the Higaonons in the tribe who own adjacent land. It is really a source of conflict when somebody extends his boundary.

The Higaonon’s System of Conflict Resolution

The Higaonon tribal council inherited the procedures of resolving conflicts from their ancestors who bestowed it through stories alone. Through stories, the procedures were transferred from generation to generation. Even up to the present, they do not have any written documents about their system of resolving conflicts, yet they are assured that their tradition and culture will continue. According to one member of the tribal council, “even my four-year-old son knows what are to continue in the tribe. We told them stories of our tradition before bedtime and in the morning too. They also witness the rituals in the tribe.”

The process of conflict resolution starts with the submission of the case to a member of the tribal council who is delegated in a particular area. A complaint may be lodged in the house of the datu or wherever the complainant meets him. Moreover, lodging a complaint can be done anytime of the week. Wherever disputes arise, especially concerning a single or a particular group of individuals only, the council waits until someone refers the case to them for possible resolution. However, in cases where the general population is involved, the council acts right away. It is a traditional practice which actually best describes the principle of motu proprio (by one’s own motion or initiative).

Cases like rebels threatening the people and destroying their properties, or a drunkard inflicting hazard on the community requires no prior submission to the tribal council. Once a complainant has referred a case, it is considered filed. As a general requirement, a ritual must be performed at all times prior to the hearing of the case being filed. A conflict resolution session is considered legitimate only when there is a ritual. In the ritual, one or two live chickens are offered to appeal the Halangdong Magbabaya (God) and the spirits of their ancestors to arrive a good resolution of the dispute.  Therefore, the absence of a ritual in conflict resolution processes invalidates all the agreements or decisions made in that session.

The referral of the case in the Higaonon tribe of Kagahuman is hierarchical in nature. Thus, no case is brought to the Supreme Datu prior to its hearing in the lower body. All cases must be brought first to a member of the tribal council who is delegated in a particular area. If the case is not resolved, that is, the complainant is not satisfied with the decision and therefore appeals to the higher body, the case is then forwarded to the Vice Supreme Datu.

At this level, this higher body explores all possible alternatives in order to resolve the dispute. If the decision has been rendered and both parties are satisfied, the case is closed; otherwise, the case is brought to the highest judicial body of the tribe, the Supreme Datu. The latter will then schedule the time and place of the hearing. Once the Supreme Datu has rendered his decision, it is considered final. In case a party fails to come to the hearing scheduled, a summons is served through the assistance of the alimaong (tribal police).

Locally known as sala, the Higaonon justice system of punishment generally varies depending on the nature, motive and incidence of the crime. Through the years, the form and nature of sala in the tribe have undergone a number of amendments already. Among others, the abolition of death penalty was agreed upon by the tribal chieftains of the eight (8) talugans (villages) during a tagulambong datu (chieftains summit) in 1969 through the initiative of Datu Indangag of Impahanong. Also, the respondents recalled that pigs were never used as payment before, until the time when the people learned to raise pigs. Penalties include payments in the form of animals, tibod, money, non- inheritance of ancestral domain and banishment from the tribe. Tibod is a special kind of jar made from clay and is believed to be plated with gold in the internal portion (Sagayna, 2007).

It can be inferred that the penalties imposed in the Higaonon tribe of Kiabo is restorative in nature since “the application of punitive sanctions such as death penalty would,” according to the Chieftain “make the situation worse.” This traditional system is recognized as providing a win-win situation to all parties involved. It is a condition which would best describe the theoretical point of Stewart (1990) that in the early stage of struggle, one possible outcome is the accommodated agreement between parties which may lead to both parties being satisfied. Moreover, the abolition of the death penalty in 1969 is an indication that the Higaonons cherish the value of a person’s life.

After the ritual is performed, the hearing procedure begins. It can be inferred further that the tribal council plays a very crucial role in maintaining the peace and order of the tribe. Also, the hierarchical nature of conflict resolution can also lead to a more egalitarian practice since a case can be forwarded whenever a party is not satisfied with the decision of only one judicial entity. Also, the credence for a Divine Intervention is seen to be an important preliminary habit in a resolution process – both in the Higaonon tribal council and in the barangay as manifested in the opening ritual and prayer, respectively.

The ritual and the whole paghusay system is so effective because the Higaonons have high regard for the spirits and it is part of their belief system. Also, in day-to-day activities – planting, harvesting, child delivery, making a house, and paghusay – they must start with a ritual for the spirits in order for the spirits to help them and bring them success in their endeavors.

The Future of the  Higaonon’s system

There are some serious issues with the conflict resolution system which need to be addressed. Firstly, it is desirable for a functional tribal hall within the Higaonon tribe of Kagahuman to be built. Establishing a tribal hall for conflict resolution is very necessary for two reasons: first, there is a fixed place for settling disputes; second, it actually develops the sense of justice, peace, and belongingness among the Higaonons in the tribe.

Another important issue that needs to be addressed is gender. The female representation in the tribal council, though accounting for only 20% of the populace, is a good sign of gender-awareness and development in the tribe. However, the role of women in the resolution process is actually very limited. They must therefore have a higher role so their voices can be heard.

Moreover, based on the observation that the tribe does not document every case being resolved, it is highly recommended that the tribal council should have a record in every paghusay. These records will contain the date, time, venue, present persons during the hearing, and also agreements or decisions made. More importantly, a secretary must be appointed to perform the recording tasks. Also, a written document on the resolution processes and penalties imposed is necessary to have clear and detailed presentation of their traditional methods of settling disputes. Penalties must be presented in a very detailed manner, especially on murder cases wherein self-defense does not warrant any penalty.

Perhaps the most immediate concern, though, is the need to ensure that this knowledge of conflict resolution is not lost and becomes sustainable. Due to forces of modernization in the Philippines, it is very likely that not codifying this indigenous system of conflict resolution among the Higaonons will lead to extinction of this useful system. This is not impossible as the pattern of migration (especially among the younger Higaonons) is increasing, where the young leave the tribe and head towards the cities for the quest of greener pastures and opportunities. Unfortunately, maintaining the minutes of paghusay proceedings is a challenge for the tribe for two reasons.

Firstly, the Higaonons are not used to writing. There are literate tribal members, but they are no longer staying in the tribe — they either work in the city or are busy with their own business. Secondly, they are not equipped with the basics of writing minutes of case hearings. It is in this light that the intervention of the local government and other civil society organizations is crucial in empowering the Higaonons, especially the young who are left in the tribe.

It is important that they are taught the basics of making paghusay proceedings, codifying them for future purposes, and being able to share it with other communities who might find their system as effective for replication. Young Higaonons must preserve and continue to practice their lumad tradition and culture. To make this happen, they must put into practice the teachings and activities that are conferred to them by the older tribal members.

The Higaonons of Bukidnon province in the Philippines are teaching us the lessons that upholding community security, respecting all members of a community and adhering to the traditions of cultural heritage are crucial to building a peace in the community.

Some References and Suggested Additional Readings

 Abu- Nimer, M. (1999). Dialogue, conflict resolution, and change: Arab- Jewish encounter in Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Barcenas, T. B. (1985). Maranao traditional system: structure and roles. Mindanao Journal, XI: 1- 4, 113- 158.

Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, Philippine Republic Act 8371 § Section 15.

Mercado, L. N. (1993). Elements of Filipino philosophy. Tacloban City: Divine Word University Publications.

Pailig Development Foundation, Inc. (2007). Rido: A traditional conflict in modern times. Iligan City: PDIF.

Rodil, B. R. (1994). The minoritization of indigenous communities of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. Davao City: AFRIM.

Starr, H. (1992). Why don’t democracies fight one another: Evaluating the theory-findings feedback loop. Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 14 (1), 41-59.

Stewart, J. (ed.). (1990). Bridges not walls. (5^th ed.). New York City:   McGraw- Hill, Inc.

Tri-People Consortium for Peace, Progress and Development of Mindanao (1998). Defending the land: Lumad and Moro peoples’ struggle for ancestral domain in Mindanao. Manila: TRICOM 

Valmores, C. (2008). The Higaunon people of Northern Mindanao. Retrieved from: http://www.philippines.hvu.nl/higaunon1.htm

Primitivo Cabanes Ragandang III is Philippine Director of Move This World, Inc and a PhD candidate in Sustainable Development Studies at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology.

 

Award-winning reporter Jakob Sheikh talks about his work interviewing the Danes who travelled to Iraq and Syria to join the jihad. 

Q. Since 2001, there has been much written on terrorism and more specifically the global jihadi movement, and this trend has continued with the rise of Islamic State. Your research is quite unique as it has involved interviewing those who have joined the Jihad. Why did you decide to take this approach to understanding jihadism and what did you hope to learn from talking to jihadis?

When I started covering militant Islamism in 2012, I noticed that the great bulk of articles written on this topic dealt with jihadists quite superficially. Most often, reporters where talking about jihadists; not with jihadists. So I began building trustful relations with Danish militant Islamists. I put a lot of time and effort in meeting consistently with figures—even rather unimportant ones— in the Danish militant Islamists milieu, enabling me to get access to  otherwise unavailable sources and interview foreign fighters in Denmark, in Syria during their time with the Islamic State, and even back in Denmark when some of them had returned.

The goal of my reporting is quite simple. In order to deal with a challenge that is generally considered a threat to national security in most Western countries, we need to understand the very nature of this challenge.

Sadly, we often tend to simplify or generalize when it comes to foreign fighters. We alienate radical Islamists from ourselves as if they have nothing to do with our society. However, the fact is that most European foreign fighters are born—or at least raised—in Europe. They are shaped by upbringings in European societies; they attend public schools, play in the local football club and so forth. By many measures, they are products of modern Europe.

This leads to a very important question: How does modern Europe deal with this ever-evolving problem? I hope that my reporting has shed light on the backdrop of this question.

Q. In your research, have you noticed any common traits in the backgrounds of Denmark’s foreign fighters (age, gender, profession, geographical location) and their pathways into joining the Jihad?

This is an interesting question as some of the foreign fighter traits are in fact quite counter intuitive. It’s easy to state the obvious: most foreign fighters are young men and the vast majority have family roots outside the European continent.

But there are other interesting traits to mention. When I started collecting socioeconomic background data on Danish foreign fighters, I was expecting to find individuals from poor families who were economically and educationally marginalised. However, while the main part had struggled with social challenges of some sort—their parents’ divorce, a mental diagnosis, deaths in the near family, etc.—I discovered that a great number of Danish foreign fighters were average middle class kids, not raised at the bottom of society (one even played the cello and lived in a sumptuous villa with his well-educated parents).

Also, I would have assumed that most foreign fighters would come from strictly conservative Muslim families. But in fact, a significant number of Danish foreign fighters with non-Western backgrounds came from families that were remarkably secular and liberal. I find this particularly interesting as it says something important about the way we deal with the notion of converts. We generally consider converts to be ethnic Danes or ethnic Swedes or ethnic Brits who suddenly converts to Islam and get radicalised—as opposed to individuals with Muslim family backgrounds. But what we see now is that most foreign fighters are in fact converts—some may just have Muslim family roots. In many ways, these converts from Muslim families share their pathway into the jihadist milieu with that of “regular” ethnic Danish converts; they do not feel strongly about religion, something happens along the way, they are socially marginalized, perhaps they enter a criminal environment, and at a certain point in time they are intrigued by Islam as a way out of their problems. Often, the radicalisation process that follows completely changes their approach to Islam—just as with the Danish converts who have no previous experience with Islam whatsoever.

To me, this shows that we need to study the inner motivations of jihadists. Common socioeconomic traits simply doesn’t do the job when it comes to explaining why foreign fighters decide to wage jihad. Despite many so-called experts’ attempts to tell you otherwise.

Q. In terms of the motivations of Denmark’s foreign fighters, you’ve previously stated that grievance over Denmark’s activist foreign policy has been an important driver. Yet one of the things that stands out in your interviews with foreign fighters is this idea of “the state” as a cause. What does this concept of “the state” mean to the foreign fighters you spoke to and why is it such a powerful idea that it is worth travelling many miles across the world to fight and die for? 

As mentioned, many of the things the foreign fighters told me during interview ran counter to common assumptions. My own, at least.

The very idea of a state was a recurrent narrative among IS fighters. In fact, several fighters consider this notion a direct motivation for joining the battlefield.

They stress the fact that they are not just joining an insurgency; they are joining a state. As much as they see themselves as fighters, they see themselves as immigrants who want to settle down and build a future.

As I have pointed out before, when jihadists use the term “dawla” [“state” or “nation”] they are often not referring to the group, but rather to the so-called caliphate itself. They speak of a place that represents a home to them. This also explains why foreign fighters usually are more likely to refer to propaganda videos released by IS about the daily life in IS held areas rather than brutal executions and so on.

A Danish born Salafi with Pakistani roots named Shiraz Tariq, who is perhaps the most prominent jihadi figure in Denmark, often spoke of the state as a goal in itself.

“My goal is to fight the infidels until the state is implemented,” he told me in an interview from Syria.

To at least some parts of Danish foreign fighters, institutional aspects such as economic systems, schools, and legal systems are key in their justification of violent jihad. They talk about “protecting the state” rather than protecting Islam, or protecting the group.

That said, the fall of Raqqa completely changes this motivation. In many ways, I see the fall of Raqqa as way more decisive than the fall of Mosul. It is a major blow to IS’ ability to mobilize and recruit soldiers to the local war in Syria and Iraq. Not just because of the military defeat but even more so because the defeat destroyed the notion of state building that IS offers to its followers.

Q. How did the fighters you interviewed describe life inside the state and what sort of roles did they undertake?

Like in many other countries, Denmark has foreign fighters in the upper ranks of IS and regular foot soldiers in the fields. I spoke to jihadists who were very close to the local “emir” or “wali” and to jihadists who were not even taking part in the fighting.

I’ve met with returnees who’ve returned further radicalized in terms of both ideology and fighting skills. But—and this is important—I’ve also met several jihadists who’ve returned to Denmark deeply disillusioned about what they experienced in Syria and Iraq. A prominent 28 year old jihadist told me upon his return to Denmark that he’d “never seen anything that un-Islamic”. The notion of “takfir” is taken to a level where some jihadists—despite the official IS narrative about jihadists having no scruples killing non-IS-fighters—are left in deep disagreement with the strategy.

To me, this disillusion upon return may be the best chance in terms of aiding counter-radicalisation efforts.

Another important aspect we need to be aware of is the mindset of foreign fighters. Before and after our talks, several jihadists would often send me pictures and videos that would somewhat glorify the daily life in the caliphate. Here, we’re talking about videos of children fooling around and playing in a fountain, women shopping in the bazaar, pictures of toyshops, and so on.

What’s striking about these pictures and videos is that they often ran counter to the actual situation and reality of life inside the IS-held territories. While IS as a group were losing ground and were severely hit by drone strikes, the propaganda spoke of harmony and almost heavenly peace.

The question, then, is: Were the jihadists I interviewed consciously neglecting the fact that they were on the verge of losing their war? Or were they simply not aware of what was going on?

In my opinion, the answer is none of the two. In fact, it seemed to me—though psychiatrists may need to study this further—that the “real” world and the “imaginary” world of peace and harmony existed side by side, next to each other. In the mind of a jihadist, it is not necessarily contradictive to live in a real world of fighting and a virtual world that enables you to dream about how a perfect caliphate should look like or how a new Islamic golden age should look like. These two perceptions actually seem to complement each other. The frightening thing, however, is that when the border between these two perceptions gets blurred, some jihadists don’t seem to be able to separate the two.

Q. There has been a lot of discussion about the role of religion as a driver of the foreign fighters, including the role played by mosques. How influential have Danish mosques been in the radicalisation of foreign fighters?

Interestingly, very few militants mention that they get their religious inspiration from the mosques. In fact, militant Islamists—at least in Denmark—are quite skeptical towards the mosques, especially mosques that are considered to be “moderate” by mainstream society. I would assume this goes for other European countries as well. This is due to widespread conspiracies that the mosques are in fact right-hand men for the Danish government or the intelligence service.

Rather than trusting what is preached in the mosque, many Danish foreign fighters rely almost exclusively on their close friends—and certainly not open communities such as mosques where rumors are spread quickly.

That said, I think it would be a huge mistake to underestimate the role of religion when it comes to foreign fighter mobilization. While you can argue that the social and political dimension were more prevalent driving factors during the first years of the Syria civil war, I find religion—or at least arguments rooted in Islamic texts—to play a quite decisive role today and even since early 2015.

The fundamental ideology of IS is deeply Islamic.

Jakob Sheikh is a multi-award-winning investigative reporter who worked as staff writer with Danish daily Politiken, one of Scandinavia’s leading newspapers. Since 2012, he has focused on radicalization and foreign fighters. In 2015, he released his book on Danish Islamic State fighters based on numerous interviews with returned and current jihadists as well as key figures in the militant Islamist environment in Scandinavia. In February 2017, he joined the Danish Ministry of Justice as a special advisor to the minister.

The vast majority of civil wars occur in a small number of countries. What causes conflicts to geographically cluster in this way?

Studies of intrastate armed conflicts show that the majority of civil wars cluster in a small number of states. According to the widely-used Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s Armed Conflict Database, 30 states experienced more than 60 percent of all new armed conflict onsets between 1946 and 2013. In this period, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and Sudan alone account for about 30% of the world’s new ethnic conflicts.

The conflict trap

Conflict researchers and development economists such as Paul Collier attribute the clustering of internal war to state failure and conflict traps: weak states cannot deter rebellion. Civil war, in turn, impoverishes individuals, destroys institutions, and plants feelings of revenge. All of these factors increase the risk of conflict recurrence.

Yet neither India and Burma nor Ethiopia and Indonesia qualify as failed states. Moreover, their political regimes cannot explain the frequency of rebellion either. Burma and Sudan have been repressive autocracies for most of the period but India has been democratic for the vast majority of its existence. Existing explanations, then, do not fully account for why armed conflict clusters in these countries.

Civil war diffusion within states

In a recent study in International Studies Quarterly, my co-author Jesse Hammond and I highlight an alternative explanation for the concentration of so many conflicts in these multi-ethnic states. We explore the diffusion of ethnic civil wars within one country. Unlike earlier research on the diffusion of armed conflict across international borders, we study how government’s decision to fight one rebel group can trigger additional rebellions by rebels from other ethnic groups.

To separate diffusion from recurrence dynamics, we move from country-level to ethnic-group-level analysis. Our study includes all states between 1946 and 2009 that (1) experienced at least one civil war and (2) contain at least three distinct ethnic groups – two in conflict, and one potential challenger. This selection leaves us with 49 states, 415 ethnic groups, and 127 ethnic armed conflicts.

On the basis of this data, we model the yearly probability of a new ethnic conflict breaking out. According to our theory of diffusion, the location of ongoing conflicts as well as the duration and number of armed challengers are the main factors that affect the probability of new conflicts. Nearby conflicts should increase the motivation for additional rebellions; longer conflicts and more rebels should increase the opportunity for fighting.

To construct those measures of motivation and opportunity, we combined data on the geographic location of ethnic groups’ settlement areas from the Geographic Research of War – Unified Platform at ETH Zurich with data on conflict zones from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Whereas the left panel in Figure 1 shows the settlement areas of ethnic groups in Chad, the right panel shows the extent of an active armed conflict between 1999 and 2002. For these years, we compute the distance between peaceful ethnic group and the conflicts zones and note whether some groups are directly affected by fighting. We repeat this for all ethnic groups in all states in our sample.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Equipped with these measures our study argues that there are four pathways of conflict diffusion within states– two that affect the motivation of potential challengers, and two more that increase their opportunity to rebel.

How armed conflict increases the motivation for additional rebellions

On the motivation side, ongoing fighting may harm members of nearby but previously neutral ethnic groups. Even if fighting does not directly affect other ethnic groups, increased state repression that results from fear of additional uprisings might. In turn, members of previously peaceful ethnic groups become aggrieved about state violence and decide to take up arms to defend themselves. India’s repressive policy in its Northeastern states may have had exactly this effect.

Our second motivational mechanism states that an ongoing civil war encourages already disaffected groups to take up rebellion as a strategy. Witnessing nearby groups’ rebellions provides a blueprint on how to potentially overcome political and economic inequalities such as exclusion from state power.

On its own, political discrimination does not frequently trigger rebellion; disadvantaged groups exist for long periods of time without mobilizing. However, seeing nearby groups with similar political disadvantages rise up against repressive political regimes can provide the spark for additional rebellions.

Patterns of armed uprising against the Burmese and Indonesian states soon after decolonization exemplify these patterns at the domestic level. Although it goes beyond the scope of our study, we argue that similar mechanisms operate at the international level.  Although the states in North Africa and the Middle East have been among the most repressive and ethnically discriminatory regimes in the world for decades, Arab citizens only rose up their rulers in 2011 after witnessing the Tunisian revolution.

How armed conflict increases the opportunity for additional rebellions

Turning to our opportunity mechanisms, we argue that ongoing internal armed conflicts can provide important signals about the government’s repressive capacity. If the government is strong, it will crush any rebellion quickly. If it fails to quickly and decisively defeat one rebel organization, other ethnic groups may perceive the government as weak and rebel to gain concessions from the state.

While the 2003 rebellion in Sudan’s Darfur region has various causes, our opportunity logic offers a good explanation for its timing. For two decades, the Sudanese government was unable to decisively defeat the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and its various offshoots. As the southern rebellion endured, aggrieved groups in the Darfur region realized that Khartoum might be vulnerable to extending concessions to them when facing additional violence.

A similar dynamic is at play when the government fights multiple challengers at the same time. The economic and military costs of armed conflict drain governments’ resources. This makes it possible for additional ethnic challengers that were too weak to confront the government alone to join the fray. The increasing number of ethnic challengers in Burma exemplifies this last pathway to domestic conflict diffusion.

Conclusion

To summarize, governments that violently confront rebel groups rather than negotiate enter a slippery slope that may lead to even more civil wars. Armed conflicts with one ethnic rebel group have inspired members of other ethnic groups to rebel in Northeast India, Burma, Indonesia, Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why then do governments fight rebels rather than accommodate them? One answer may be that government leaders prefer monopolizing power rather than sharing it to extract more resources from the state or to reduce the risk of coups. Where the cost of conflict is not borne by elites but by citizens, such a strategy may pay off.

Other research shows that giving in to rebel demands makes governments appear weak and potentially triggers additional challenges. Future research will have to uncover the exact conditions under which governments prefer one risk over the other.

Our study adds to our understanding of countries caught in conflict traps. We believe that our study’s findings are particularly relevant for counterinsurgency and peacekeeping strategies. In addition to ending one civil war and keeping it peaceful, governments and international institutions need to contain armed conflicts in space. Otherwise, they are very likely to infect other ethnic groups in the same country.

Nils-Christian Bormann is lecturer and Humanities and Social Science Fellow in the Politics Department at the University of Exeter.

Jesse Hammond is assistant professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

China’s increasing demand for oil and gas means that it is searching abroad to secure new sources of imports. With its rich resources, the Arctic region could serve this purpose, and Chinese oil companies have shown interest in exploration and production opportunities there.

Decades of high and sustained economic growth have substantially increased China’s need for energy. China is the world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest energy consumer. Importantly, as domestic production has not kept pace with raising consumption levels, China is forced to import most of its oil and natural gas. China today is the world’s second largest oil importer and third largest importer of natural gas. Crucially, China’s oil import dependency is high and increasing. For instance, in 2016 more than 60% of China’s oil demand came from overseas imports, up 3.5% from 2015.

To meet its growing energy import demand, China has, in the last decade or so, embarked on an energetic effort to search for overseas supplies. A central objective has been to diversify the origin of its oil and natural gas sources, and means of delivery. Today, China imports oil from the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Russia, via the sea, railway and oil pipelines. China imports liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a variety of sources (for instance from Qatar, Australia, Indonesia, and Malaysia) but also pipeline natural gas from Central Asia, Myanmar and has contracted large future imports from Russia.

However, more than 50% of Chinese oil imports originate in the Middle East and North Africa and up to 80% of China’s maritime oil import must travel through the narrow Malacca Strait, a stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. In the eyes of China’s strategic planners, this makes their country vulnerable to potential disturbances of oil supplies, not only due to volatile political conditions in these regions but also, however unlikely, a potential U.S. naval blockade.

Enter the Arctic region. According to the widely cited 2008 report by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil is estimated to be in the Arctic region. Energy imports from the Arctic, Chinese strategist calculate, would help mitigate China’s supply and transport vulnerabilities by presenting an alternative to existing import sources and delivery routes.

Expanded engagement 

China is not an Arctic littoral state, but officially defines itself as a “near-Arctic state”. China has in recent years incrementally stepped up its engagement in the Arctic region. China sought, and in 2013 secured, permanent observer status in the Arctic Council (AC), granting Beijing a new platform, albeit with limitations, to participate on issues regarding Arctic governance. Importantly, China acknowledges and respects the sovereignty claims and rights of Arctic states, a pre-condition for observer membership status acceptance in the Arctic Council. China also recognizes the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the legal foundation governing the Arctic. This helped alleviate concerns over China’s growing Arctic presence, which some viewed as potentially challenging the regional Arctic order.

China is active in scientific research in the Arctic pertaining to global climate change. While such research is sometimes brushed off as a mean to hide China’s other goals, the daunting environmental challenges currently facing China surely motivates genuine international scientific climate work and collaboration in the Arctic. China’s icebreaker, The Snow Dragon (Xuelong), has conducted seven scientific research expeditions as of 2016 and a second icebreaker under construction (ready to sail by 2019). In 2004 the Yellow River Station (Huanghe zhan) research facility in Norway’s Svalbard was established. China is also engaged in numerous scientific bilateral and multilectal cooperation projects with Arctic States, for instance the China-Nordic Arctic Research Center, while simultaneously boosting its domestic polar competence.

The EU is China’s biggest trading partner and China is the EU’s second biggest. As the Arctic ice-cap continues to retreat, opportunities for new trade links between transiting the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from China to Europe are opening up, shortening the shipping time and fuel savings considerably compared to the conventional route through the Malacca Strait and Suez Canal. There have been some optimistic estimates made by the Chinese. For instance, according to one figure, 5 to 15 of China’s total trade could use the route by 2020, if constructively prepared. China’s largest shipping company, China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), has over the years conducted a few, but increasing, intra- and trans-Arctic voyages and announced that it plans to begin with regular trans-Arctic sailings. However, prospects such as the above estimate seem overly optimistic as utilization of the NSR is dependent on variety of factors (commercial, infrastructure, technical, environmental etc.), reflecting  overall low numbers of trans-arctic maritime trade. Importantly, most of the Chinese commercial actors remain hesitant to make large-scale investments and the optimistic scenarios must be taken with caution.

Energy – a cautious tale

Natural resources, particularly oil and gas, constitute another area of Chinese interests in the Arctic, according to some the principle motive. While the Chinese government has of late been more open about its economic interests in the Arctic, and also taken steps to promote energy bilateral cooperation with Arctic states, notably with Russia, Chinese commercial players on the ground have been cautious. It is often stated by the industry itself that China lacks the technical skill to operate in harsh Arctic conditions. The goal for Chinese oil companies is instead primarily to learn and obtain technical know-how from more advanced international companies. Western sanctions against Russia, due to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, further complicate the situation. While Russia has turned increasingly to China for capital and investments, the lack of technological skill limits China’s actual participation in exploration and production. Moreover, the current low oil price has made the global energy market a “buyer’s market”. Today’s big buyers such China have more options. In other words, Arctic oil and gas needs to be “cheap” enough to be commercially attractive compared to other available import sources.

This has undoubtedly impacted on the scope and nature of concrete Chinese Arctic energy projects. Most of what has been done is limited. For instance, the attempt to explore oil and gas in the Dreki area off the coast of Iceland by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) together with Icelandic Eykon Energy and Norwegian Petoro remains uncertain. The often noted purchase by CNOOC of Canadian Nexen in 2013 for 15.1 USD billion and the company’s investments in Canadian oil sand have yielded limited returns so far. Russia’s Rosneft has invited China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to explore three offshore fields in the Barents and Pechora Seas, but open information on progress is scant.

There is one project, however, which seems to have materialized significantly, namely CNPC’s involvement in the Yamal LNG terminal project in Russia’s Arctic Siberia. The project is one of the Arctic’s most ambitious infrastructure projects with an estimated cost of 27 USD billion. The terminal will supply costumers with LNG gas and aims at being operational by 2017, offering a future annual capacity of around 16.5 million metric tons per year. CNPC entered the project in 2013 in buying a 20% equity stake while committing to import 3 million tons LNG annually for a 20-year period (price so far undisclosed). Then in 2015 China’s Silk Road Fund bought 9,9% making China the project’s second largest investor after Russia’s Novatek with owns 50,1% percent and French Total with remaining 20%. The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank, China’s “political banks”, in 2016 offered loans of a total of 12 USD billion, lending important financial support to the project. Additionally, Chinese companies supply Arctic modules for the construction of the terminal. Finally, Chinese shipping and construction companies are involved in the manufacturing of specialized ice-breaking LNG carriers which will be used for shipping LNG to customers. As of 2015, Chinese shipping companies have been involved in the construction of fourteen of the fifteen commissioned.

Conclusion

China’s Arctic energy interests have been limited. The Yamal LNG project is the only significant Chinese project, in part reflecting changing external circumstances as Russia’s isolation due to western sanctions literally opened up for more Chinese capital, and thus involvement. Despite the current modest Chinese concrete involvement, Arctic energy will nevertheless play a part in China’s overall energy strategic outlook in the years to come as demand for oil and especially natural gas will continue to be substantial. Arctic energy imports will not replace any of China’s main energy import sources, but more likely serve as an (limited) additional supply source.

Christopher Weidacher Hsiung is a researcher at the Asia Centre at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS) and PhD Candidate at the Department for Political Science at Oslo University. His main research areas include China’s foreign and security policy, Sino-Russian relations and China’s Arctic interests.

This interview was conducted by the Remote Control project. 

Tara McCormack is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester.

In this interview, Dr McCormack discusses the British military interventions in Libya, Iraq and Syria, the shift that these interventions mark away from the longstanding Royal Prerogative on war-making and how the use of remote warfare is effecting the democratic oversight of the use of military assets in conflict.

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Q. In Britain, the power to declare war and deploy troops in conflict is one of the few remaining Royal Prerogatives. Recently, however, British military interventions in Iraq, Syria and Libya were all first put to a vote in the House of Commons. Did these cases mark a move towards greater democratic oversight of the decision to go to war in Britain?

The Royal Prerogative (RP) is a set of (not fully defined) powers that used to belong to the Monarch but are exercised by the government and Prime Minister. In essence, the RP allows the Prime Minister to make a decision without consulting Parliament or even his/her Cabinet. The power to commit armed forces to a conflict is one important RP power. Since the end of the Cold War the RP has been seen to be increasingly problematic for a number of reasons to do with a decline in trust in government and broader problems of legitimacy.

The power to take the country to war has been seen as particularly problematic and during the 90s and 00s there were a number of Parliamentary debates and reports that considered this question of the Prime Minister’s power to declare war without broader Parliamentary authorisation.

However, historically when Britain has gone to war, although Parliament has not voted on the decision it has been customary for some kind of debate to take place, often as the military action has begun. This was so for the Kosovo (1999) war. In March 2003, under pressure from a number of MPs, Tony Blair agreed to a vote on a motion about British military intervention in Iraq on the eve of the American invasion.

The Conservative Party pledged that if they came to power would make it a matter of course that Parliament would have a substantive vote on taking Britain to war, and this was done over the Libyan intervention and then Syria. The debate and vote to go to war in Syria received a great deal of media coverage and was reported on hour by hour as indeed was the vote to go to war and even the first military planes that flew.

This new parliamentary convention on authorising military intervention is now well established.  It is a very important convention as, in principle, this new parliamentary convention gives democratic authority and legitimacy to decisions to commit British armed forces to war.

However, at the same time there has been another significant trend in warfare, and that is that governments are increasingly using methods of intervention that are in essence ‘off the books’, for example the increasing use of special forces, or drones. Paul Rogers has called these modes of intervention ‘security by remote control’. This is an excellent phase as it highlights the way in which these methods of intervention allow governments to intervene militarily but without the clear lines of public and democratic accountability that more traditional methods entail.

Q. Why do you think there was this shift towards making the process of going to war more democratic under the Conservative Party?

The shift away from the Royal Prerogative (RP) has been an on-going process since the end of the Cold War for the reasons I mentioned in my first answer, in particular questions of trust and legitimacy combined with a number of observable changes in voting behaviour, e.g. falling voter turnout, increased voter volatility and so on. What we see from the mid-90s are a number of parliamentary debates and reports about what is perceived to be the problem of the RP in this context. Of course, the decision to take a country to war is something that is particularly problematic in a context in which there seems to be a loss of trust in the government.

I think that the reason why the Conservative Party made it an explicit pledge was not that Hague and Cameron (for example) were greater democrats than Blair and New Labour, but because of this on-going debate within the political elite about the RP.

Q. Could the high financial, human and regional geopolitical costs of the Iraq War may have also contributed to the shift away from the Royal Prerogative?

I do think that the Iraq War has been significant in terms of British politics certainly. The Iraq War, the ‘dodgy dossier’ and Blair’s claims exacerbated the problem of trust and raised a question over British military intervention.

However, I do want to stress that the underlying dynamics behind the new parliamentary convention are pre-Iraq, e.g. loss of trust in government, as is clear from the debates and discussions in the House of Commons.

I think it is also worth remembering that many of our politicians have ‘mis-remembered’ the Iraq debate and the immense political support there was for this most disastrous intervention.   Tony Blair did hold a debate and vote on the Iraq intervention (albeit on the eve of military action). There was strong support for the intervention. But there were some brave voices arguing against the intervention whatever the ‘evidence’.

It is easy now to blame Tony Blair and his ‘dodgy dossier’ for all the ills in British politics.

Q. So how is this use of ‘remote warfare’ affecting the democratic oversight of armed conflict in the UK?

I think that the shift towards what Paul Rogers has called ‘remote control warfare’ means that there is less democratic oversight of armed conflict in the UK. This is because methods of intervention such as the use of special forces, drones and also cyber warfare are carried out with little public scrutiny or political debate.

It is not that information about these methods of intervention is impossible to find out, it can be found out through Freedom of Information requests, and sometimes Parliamentary questions and similar. However, compared to the very public political debate and media coverage about what might be called traditional modes of military intervention, there is very little public knowledge or scrutiny or indeed, crucially, parliamentary debate.

Q. Due to remote warfare often being highly secretive, public knowledge of the UK’s use of this tactic may be limited. But is there any reliable data on the British public’s views of remote warfare and the democratic oversight of this practice? For example, are there any opinion polls on the British public’s attitudes to security, armed forces and democratic oversight?

That is a really important question. As far as I am aware this is not something that has been fully investigated yet but it is something that needs to be looked at.

There are polls and surveys that look at public attitudes to armed conflict. Basically, British people are reluctant to intervene militarily (the idea of the ‘post-heroic’ West is more or less true) in particular for ‘wars of choice’.  So for example, a recent Gallup International poll found that only 27% percent of British people would be willing to fight for their country. A YouGov poll found a minority in favour of Britain attempting to influence events around the world.

Interestingly, however, the YouGov poll has found that whilst the majority of people oppose sending regular troops to somewhere like Syria, 60% support airstrikes or use of drones (note this is against ISIS not Assad).

This suggests that public perception is that intervention by remote control is less consequential than conventional intervention. However, I would suggest that this is not the case and that the consequences of warfare by remote control need to be more openly discussed.

Q. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s (FAC) recent report on the 2011 Libyan military intervention acknowledged the presence of UK special forces currently operating in Libya, which is arguably a surprising move given the ‘culture of no comment’ surrounding UK special forces. Looking to the future, do you feel that this may offer some grounds for optimism or do you think that the erosion of the democratic oversight of Britain’s military actions will continue?

Yes I noticed that and also that the FAC report specifically mentioned that this is not really publicly scrutinised. The thing about ‘remote control warfare’ is not that it is totally unacknowledged, information does come out in reports (such as the FAC report on Libya), FoI requests (the website Drone Wars is very good on this) but it is very limited. Compare, for example, the high level of debate and discussion given to Britain’s decision to launch airstrikes on Syria, and of course the vote under the new Parliamentary Convention.

I just do not know the answer to the final part of the question, it depends on so many factors. Certainly it is something that I think is very important to get into the public realm as much as possible.

Action sports are increasing in popularity in the Middle East. For youth in conflict zones, these collaborative projects provide space for local voices and means of empowerment.

In 2001, Kofi Annan founded the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace (SDP), advocating sport as having ‘an almost unmatched role to play in promoting understanding, healing wounds, mobilising support for social causes, and breaking down barriers’. Since then, the SDP movement has continued to proliferate with groups and organizations using sport and physical activity to help improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities around the world.

Of the 1000+ organizations currently working under the SDP umbrella, many are focused in sites of war and conflict with the aim of peace building, with growing interest in the potential of sports programmes as psycho-social interventions following natural disaster.

SDP organizations such as Football 4 Peace, Right to Play, Hoops 4 Hope, Skateistan, and Peace Players International have been acclaimed as making valuable contributions to the quality of many individual’s lives in contexts of war, conflict, and poverty.

Despite the best intentions, however, too many SDP programmes adopt a ‘deficit model’ that assumes poor youth in war-torn or disaster stricken contexts need ‘our’ western versions of sport for their empowerment. Sport sociologists Douglas Hartmann and Christina Kwauk, for example, are concerned that officials of sport-based intervention programmemes tend to “ignore the ways in which youth interpret and actively and creatively negotiate poverty and inequality as well as the ways in which their sport-based interventions actually commit symbolic acts of violence while reproducing conditions of marginalization”.

Instead, they advocate a more critical alternative to youth development that pays attention to “local practices, local knowledge, the sociocultural and political-economic contexts as well as the needs and desires of communities themselves”.

My research (funded by a three-year Marsden, Royal Society grant) has been a direct response to this call by focusing on the multiple and diverse ways youth are actively and creatively engaging with recreational, non-competitive sports in their responses to conditions of war, conflict and post-disaster. The case study of Gaza provides an interesting example of the grassroots approaches being developed by youth in contexts of conflict.

Youth Engagement with Sport in Conflict Zones: The Case of Gaza

Parkour (also known as free running)—the act of running, jumping, leaping through an urban environment as fluidly, efficiently and creatively as possible—reached Gaza in 2005 (shortly after the withdrawal of the Israeli army and the dismantling of Israeli settlements), when unemployed recent university graduate Abdullah watched the documentary Jump London on the Al-Jazeera documentary channel in his over-crowded family home in the Khan Younis refugee camp. He promptly followed this up by searching the Internet for video clips of parkour, before recruiting Mohammed to join him in learning the new sport. Continuing to develop their skills, they soon found parkour to be so much more than a sport, “it is a life philosophy” that encourages each individual to “overcome barriers in their own way”.

To avoid conflicts with family members, local residents and police, members of PK Gaza (the name chosen by the group) sought out unpopulated spaces where they could train without interruption. Popular training areas included cemeteries, the ruined houses from the Dhraha occupation, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) schools, and on the sandy hills in Nusseirat, formerly an Israeli settlement now deserted in the centre of Gaza City. The latter is particularly meaningful for the youth who proclaim that by practicing parkour in the space, “we demonstrate that this land is our right”.

As part of the younger generation of technologically savvy Gazan residents, the founders of PK Gaza are explicitly aware of the potential of the Internet for their parkour practices, and for broader political purposes. “We started filming ourselves with mobile phones and putting the videos on YouTube”, explains Mohammed, and have continued to develop more advanced filming techniques using borrowed cameras and editing the footage on a cheap computer.

The PK Gaza Freerunning Facebook page has thousands of followers from around the world, their Instagram account has almost 3000 followers, and the group also posts regular YouTube videos that can receive upwards of tens of thousands of views. Each of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are key spaces for interaction and dialogue with youth beyond the confines of the Gaza strip. In so doing, “we contribute very significantly to raising international awareness of what is happening in Gaza. We offer video clips, photographs and writings related to the situation in which we live in the Gaza strip and deliver the message to all the people’s that’s watching online that there are oppressed people here”, proclaimed Mohammed.

As well as raising awareness of the conditions in Gaza and offering a temporary escape from the harsh realities of everyday life, the PK Gaza team strongly advocates the socio-psychological benefits of their everyday parkour experiences. They proclaim the value of parkour for their resilience and coping with the frustrations, fears, anxieties and pains of living in the Khan Younes refugee camp. As Abdullah explains, “I have witnessed war, invasion and killing. When I was a kid and I saw these things, blood and injuries, I didn’t know what it all meant … this game [parkour] makes me forget all these things”. As the following comments from Gazan psychologist, Eyad Al Sarraj (MD) suggest, some medical and health professionals also acknowledge the value of such activities for young men living in such a stressful environment:

Many young people in Gaza are angry because they have very few opportunities and are locked in. An art and sports form such as free running gives them an important method to express their desire for freedom and allows them to overcome the barriers that society and politics have imposed on them. It literally sets them free”.

Such observations are supported by a plethora of research that has illustrated the value of physical play and games for resilience in contexts of high risk and/or ongoing physical and psychological stress (e.g. refugee camps), and the restorative value for children and youth who have experienced traumatic events (e.g. natural disaster, war, forced migration).

Conclusion

To conclude, a key finding from my research to date is the need to move away from the ‘deficit model’ that assumes poor youth in developing or war-torn contexts are victims needing ‘our’ versions of sport for their empowerment. If the SDP community can begin with a recognition of the agency, creativity and needs of local youths, then we can better work with them to achieve their self-defined goals in contexts of conflict.

Dr Holly Thorpe is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health, Sport and Human Performance at the University of Waikato. As a sociologist of sport and physical culture, she has published widely on youth sport, action sports, and critical sport for development, including six books and over 60 journal articles and chapters. In 2016, she founded Action Sports for Development and Peace (www.actionsportsfordev.org), and gave a Ted talk ‘Action Sports for a Better World’. She continues to work on a Royal Society funded project—Sport in the Red Zone—examining the power (and politics) of sport in sites of conflict and disaster, including Afghanistan, Gaza, New Orleans and Christhcurch. She welcomes your feedback, so please feel free to get in contact:

 

There will be no sustainable security if we do not equally value the needs, experiences and input of men and women. A new report published by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), funded by ActionAid and Womankind Worldwide, examines the role women play in local community peacebuilding in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. The report states “despite the increased international attention to women’s participation in peacebuilding, the achievements and challenges facing women building peace at the local level have been largely overlooked”.

Last week’s Guardian article entitled Who creates harmony the world over? Women. Who signs peace deals? Men points to some surprising data on female participation in official peacebuilding initiatives. “There have been no female chief mediators in UN-brokered peace talks and fewer than 10% of police officers and 2% of the soldiers sent on UN peacekeeping missions have been women”, reports the article. Furthermore, “fewer than one in 40 of the signatories of major peace agreements since 1992 have been female […] and in 17 out of 24 major accords- including Croatia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo- there was zero female participation in signing agreements”.

An excerpt from The Guardian datablog:

The IDS report found that “women are more likely than men to adopt a broad definition of peace which includes the household level and focuses on the attainment of individual rights and freedoms such as education, healthcare and freedom from violence. In contrast, men have a greater tendency to associate peace with the absence of formal conflict and the stability of formal structures such as governance and infrastructure”. It is important to include women in formal peace mediations and agreements as “peace means different things to women and men because of their unique experiences as a result of war”.

Additionally, the research established that women have a lot of experience, and are principal actors, when it comes to mediating and decision making within the home and the family. Women are also more likely to come together collectively to create change. However, their “experiences building trust and dialogue in their families and communities are frequently dismissed as irrelevant or are not sufficiently valued by national governments, and the international community”.

Some barriers to women’s participation in peacebuilding include: restrictive social norms and attitudes, violence against women and girls, poverty and economic inequality and inequality in access to education. The report suggests empowering women through access to justice, creating safe spaces for women’s participation and changing attitudes towards peace and valuing women’s contribution as key elements to support women peacebuilding.

The 2000 United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 calls for “equal participation for women in the maintenance and promotion of sustainable peace”.

Only yesterday, Foreign Secretary William Hague called upon UN Security Council resolution 1325, announcing to the UN General Assembly that the UK  “will contribute £1 million this financial year to support the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict”. “It’s our purpose in gathering here this morning to ensure that preventing sexual and gender-based crime in conflict and post-conflict situations is an urgent priority for the international community”, William Hague declared, and went on to say “We are convinced in the United Kingdom that we can do more to help […] we can do it as a permanent member of the Security Council, a leading member of NATO, the European Union and the commonwealth and as a nation with one of the most extensive international development programmes in the world.”

The IDS report states that although Security Council resolution 1325 was passed in 2000, it has since then been almost totally ignored, not least by the UN itself. Hopefully this time, the international community, including the UK government, will take serious steps towards its implementation. At the same time, it is important to commit to preventing sexual and gender-based crimes, not only in “conflict and post-conflict situations”, but also in times of “peace”.

No sustainable peace and security will ever be possible, if women’s voices are marginalised and if women and men do not work together equally on national and international peace mediations and agreements.

Anna Alissa Hitzemann is a  Peaceworker with Quaker Peace and Social Witness. She currently works with Oxford Research Group as a Project Officer for the Sustainable Security Programme, with a focus on our ‘Marginalisation of the Majority World’ project.

 

IDS, ActionAid, Womankind Worldwide report From the Ground Up can be read here.

The Guardian, Who creates harmony the world over? Women. Who signs peace deals? Men is available here

The Guardian, datablog Women’s participation in peace- how does it compare is available here

Remarks by the Foreign Secretary William Hague to the UN General Assembly can be read here

UN Security Council resolution 1325 is available here

Image Source: UNAMID

The 2011 Libyan intervention and the anarchy which ensued has highlighted an aspect of the responsibility to protect principle that has, to date, been overshadowed by the debates on the use of force; the responsibility to rebuild.

While the carnage in Syria has dominated policy agendas and newspaper headlines in the recent years, the aftermath of the 2011 Libyan intervention elicited much deserved attention following Obama’s candid review of his foreign policy legacy and, more recently, the UK Foreign Select Committee report on the government’s handling of the intervention. Obama openly accused David Cameron of having become ‘distracted’ over Libya and failing to follow through the military intervention. A similar accusation was levelled against Downing Street by the Foreign Select Committee report on Libya published in August that berated Cameron for having failed to develop a coherent plan for post-intervention Libya. This was evident in the fact that the UK government spending on reconstruction was less than half of its spending on the intervention, the report points out. The report argues further that the intervening governments, with particular focus on Britain and France as the leaders of the intervention, had a distinct responsibility to help to reconstruct the Libyan state. The failure to de-arm and de-mobilise fighters after the ousting of Gaddafi and the subsequent violence rendered the construction of political and economic institutions an impossible task.  Indeed, Libya today has made little headway to becoming a stable state; fighting between militant factions and the emergence of ISIS have left many wondering whether civilians are better off today than they were under the Gaddafi regime.

The intervention to protect civilians in Libya was hailed by some as an example of successful realisation of the ‘responsibility to protect’ principle that sets out the joint responsibility of states and the international community to protect civilians from so-called atrocity crimes (crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing). Where governments fail to do so, the international community has the responsibility to assume the duty to protect. The emergence of the principle in the late 1990s and early 2000s stirred much debate. While some rejected it as a thinly-veiled attempt by Western states to legitimize use of force for political purposes, others lauded the principle as a first step in finding consensus on the contentious issue of conducting humanitarian interventions. Libya, as is well-known now, provided few answers to those seeking clarification on issues pertaining to civilian protection and responsibility to protect.

As I have argued elsewhere, the Libyan intervention has highlighted an aspect of the responsibility to protect principle that has to date been overshadowed by the debates on the use of force; responsibility to rebuild. The responsibility to protect principle was first formulated by the Canadian government-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). The Commission famously argued in its 2001 report that state sovereignty was no longer an irrevocable right but a responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities such as genocide and ethnic cleansing. In its initial formulation, responsibility to protect entailed three interlinked duties; to prevent, react and rebuild. While prevention of mass atrocities was the starting point for any government endorsing the principle, rebuilding societies in the aftermath of military interventions was seen to logically follow the ‘reactive’ pillar of the principle.  The rebuilding pillar was seen to consist of providing security in post-intervention states, promoting reconciliation between former enemies and promoting economic development. These measures, it was argued, are crucial for stability and self-sustaining peace in societies targeted by protection interventions.  One of the key aims of the principle was, in other words, to ensure that the need for protection intervention would not arise again as the capacity of domestic authorities to realise their protection responsibility would be augmented through rebuilding assistance.

This sequential conception of the principle was short-lived, however. While many Western governments were reluctant to commit to costly and often long-drawn out rebuilding missions, some in the Global South saw the notion of responsibility to rebuild as a throwback to imperialist foreign interference. In the light of these and other concerns, the R2P was refashioned along more statist lines; the rebuilding component was dropped from the framework and the responsibilities of states to protect their citizens were emphasised at the expense of the international community’s obligation to protect. This was evident in the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document where governments, for the first time, endorsed the R2P principle. This recalibration of the R2P was outlined in detail in the UN Secretary General’s report on the responsibility to protect in 2009. It proposed a three-pronged understanding of the principle, centred on the states’ responsibility to protect their citizens, the international commitment to capacity-building assistance and, finally, the international community’s responsibility to protect. The rebuilding component was, again, notable in its absence; the principle was largely understood in terms of the preventative responsibility of governments. Although preventative and rebuilding measures overlap to a certain extent, lack of attention to specific rebuilding tasks, such as the provision of post-intervention security, was striking in the UN Secretary General’s 2009 report and in those thereafter.

The Future of the Responsibility to Rebuild

The Libyan experience indicates that this change in the focus of the responsibility to protect has not been a matter of mere semantics. Although Libyans, eager to take charge of their own affairs after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, rejected plans for UN peacekeepers, they requested capacity-building assistance. Some assistance was provided by the intervening governments – for example the UK government’s Security, Justice and Defence Programme – but on the whole the immediate aftermath of the intervention was marked by the policy of disengagement as Libya observers have argued. The UN reconstruction strategy and donor government policies were premised on the emphasis of domestic ownership, coupled with references to the wealth of the Libyan state that could be utilised for the reconstruction process. It was not until emergence of the ISIS threat in the region that the Libyan authorities’ appeals for assistance gained attention in the Western capitals.

While it is of course impossible to state with certainty the effects that an alternative course of action (continued engagement in the rebuilding of Libya in the immediate aftermath of the intervention) could have had, it is not hard to see how the rebuilding measures outlined by the ICISS in its 2001 report may have helped to stabilise Libya.  In the absence of the permission to dispatch peacekeepers, more extensive assistance to the Libyan authorities in providing day to day security after the intervention would have not gone amiss. Perhaps more importantly, concentrating international efforts and resources to supporting inter-communal reconciliation would have been vital, given that the precarious security situation in the country following the fall of the Gaddafi regime has been caused by the lack of political solution on how, and by whom, the country should be governed.

The instability and violence that has plagued Libya since the 2011 intervention suggest that if the aim of protection interventions is to generate self-sustaining peace rather than just carry out regime change operations, re-incorporating the rebuilding pillar into the current responsibility to protect framework is crucial. Doing so would not necessarily mean overhauling the entire principle: many of the measures regarded as ‘pillar II’ responsibilities provide the basis for incorporating rebuilding tasks into the framework. Pillar II, the commitment by the international community to assist the capacity and resilience-building in conflict-affected societies, refers to a range of measures such as fostering dialogue between communities and indigenous conflict resolution skills. Adding measures that address the short-term issues faced by societies in the wake of military interventions would strengthen the pillar and the framework as a whole.  This would inevitably mean increased costs and commitment on behalf of those undertaking protection interventions, something that is likely to be deeply unpopular in the context of the lengthy engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the increasing pressure on public spending. The alternative, however, as the refugee flows from Libya and the rise of ISIS in the country have shown, may mean having to face even more troublesome questions in the long run.

Outi Keranen is Teaching Fellow in International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University College London. Her research interests are in post-conflict statebuilding and the responsibility to protect. Her monograph ‘The Contentious Politics of Statebuilding’ (Routledge) is coming out in May 2017. In addition to post-conflict statebuilding, Outi has researched and written on identity-building, symbolic politics and the responsibility to rebuild.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the USS George Washington and her battle group from Hong Kong to the Philippines to provide humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of the Typhoon. Already, about 90 U.S. Marines and sailors have deployed from Okinawa to the Philippines and are on the ground providing support. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered the Royal Navy’s HMS Daring to the region as well. This disaster response mission is part of the Department of Defense’s growing humanitarian response mission to help affected regions. Simply put, if the U.S. military and allies did not provide fast-acting logistical support to relief missions like this, there are no other entities that can provide the heavy lift or logistical expertise necessary to get large quantities of aid to a region in time.

Last week, prior to the storm, in reference to Pacific Command’s disaster response mission and capability, the PACOM Commander Admiral Locklear said:

It’s the right thing to do… Also, if something is going to happen in the Pacific that is going to create a churn in the security environment, the most likely thing will be a humanitarian disaster problem of some kind – whether it is horrific typhoons or tsunamis or floods or something else.

He’s right. Beyond the clear threats to the human security of the residents of the affected area – loss of life, home, food, electricity, and clean water – natural disasters can act as a clear threat to national security, especially when the government is unable to respond effectively. That’s because a government failure can create the opportunity for other security threats to develop, ranging from crime and corruption to insurgency or terrorism. Unfortunately, we may already be seeing this in the Philippines; there are reports of massive looting after the storm passed over, and unverified reports that the Filipino military has engaged and killed a group from the New People’s Army, a communist rebel group in Leyte, as they tried to attack a government relief convoy.

I’m not going to spend much time debating whether or not man-made climate change was responsible for this storm in particular.  There is an ongoing debate about whether climate change will both increase the number of tropical cyclones as well as their intensity. The latest IPCC report only expressed a ‘low confidence’ in the impact of climate change on tropical cyclones – that doesn’t mean there’s no impact, but it means we don’t know. What we do know is that the water in the Pacific has been warmer than average –and that warmer water is an important part of cyclone intensity. Phil Plait’s blog, Bad Astronomy, has a good explanation of the climate-cyclone link. Suffice it to say that climate change is another risk that must be considered when planning for security threats in the region.

These are precisely the reasons that the U.S. Department of Defense has labeled climate change as an “accelerant of instability” in the 2010 QDR. PACOM, which has responsibility for all American forces in the Pacific region, has operationalized that guidance from the QDR to include real and significant planning for the many natural disasters that happen around the Pacific Rim. Admiral Locklear has stated that climate change “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”

As ASP has determined in our Global Security Defense Index on Climate Change, the U.S. is not the only country that is planning for the security threats of climate change; over 70% of the world also deems climate change to be a security threat. The Philippines’s National Security Policy specifically gives the security forces the mission to “Help Protect the Country’s Natural Resources and Reduce the Risks of Disasters” and goes on to say that “the government must focus on establishing disaster and calamity preparedness and effective response mechanisms.” Clearly, Typhoon Haiyan has overwhelmed the ability of the Filipino security services to effectively respond to this calamity; it is appropriate for the U.S. and international community to help as much as possible.

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier and an accelerant of instability. Whether this storm was ‘caused’ by climate change is a moot point now. Even with concerted international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, like those proposed at the UNFCCC negotiations in Warsaw, the Pacific will likely see these disasters for decades to come. Efforts to reduce risk should include military preparations for response, readiness that increases the capacity to prevent such harm, as well as greenhouse gas mitigation to reduce the chance of future storms. The net effect, unfortunately will be that the military is likely to have many opportunities to practice disaster response: it should be treated as a key mission.

Andrew Holland is Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate at American Security Project, a Washington D.C based think tank. He is an expert on energy, climate change, and infrastructure policy. He has over seven years of experience working at the center of debates about how to achieve sustainable energy security and how to effectively address climate change. He tweets regularly via @TheAndyHolland.

One of the main problems for supporters of nuclear disarmament, in terms of their advocacy efforts, is that the experience and process of disarming will be unique for each nuclear possessor state and constitute a journey into the unknown. Thus while South Africa and former Soviet states Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus dismantled or gave up their nuclear arsenals, there is a limited amount we can learn from their experiences in terms of how existing nuclear possessors may disarm.

What’s more, nuclear disarmament can seem negative and intangible, perhaps because there is no common idea of what it would look or feel like. In order to address this it is useful to explore different approaches to abolition, for example, the debate between unilateralists and multilateralists, so we can be clearer about the causes and consequences of disarmament. This article therefore focuses on what the UK can do to help create a nuclear weapons free world (NWFW) as a vital public good.

The fall and rise of unilateralism 

Labour’s new leader Jeremy Corbyn has long been committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and has recently revived the debate over whether the UK should be a nuclear weapon state (NWS). Unilateralism would entail the UK eliminating its nuclear arsenal without seeking concessions from other states. From the late 1980s up to the Scottish National Party’s breakthrough in 2015, all of Britain’s main political parties rejected this stance. The parliamentary consensus has instead favoured multilateral disarmament, commonly understood to mean a step-by-step negotiating process involving the other nuclear powers with Trident as a bargaining chip. Other steps the UK has taken in order to support this approach include ratification – unlike the US – of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and support for a verified Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, albeit one which only limits future production of such materials.

This approach might appear, at first glance, to be practical, with the US and Russia taking the lead, based on the fact that they have 93% of the world’s nuclear weapons, and to align with public opinion. For example, whilst some surveys show that a majority of voters (54%) would prefer Britain to abandon its nuclear weapons and not replace them, other surveys show that a larger majority (81%) favour an international plan ‘for totally eliminating nuclear weapons according to a timeline’. Thus, as a 2007 study by the Simons Foundation found, the UK ‘boasts a high level of support for elimination of nuclear arms and nuclear testing all over the world’.

Given the significant public support for abolition and the fact that the UK, like all other NWS, has dual obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – firstly to eliminate its own nuclear arsenal and secondly to help create the conditions for a NWFW – it is apparent that the UK could be doing much more and without waiting for reconciliation between China, Russia and the US.

As the NPT makes clear, the elimination of nuclear weapons and the achievement of general and complete disarmament will be facilitated by ‘the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States’. This should lead the UK – both as an NWS and a permanent member of the UN Security Council – to consider how it may act responsibly, both enabling nuclear possessors to move towards disarmament and reducing the incentives for others to seek non-conventional deterrents.

British interpretations of multilateralism

During Gordon Brown’s tenure as Prime Minister the Foreign and Commonwealth Office produced an information paper entitled ‘Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the Conditions for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons’, wherein the government outlined how it would fulfil its commitments under the NPT. The document stated that the UK would ‘continue to work towards the total elimination of our own nuclear arsenal and all others through multilateral, mutual and verifiable agreements’. Furthermore, when ‘useful’, the government would willingly include in any negotiations ‘the small proportion of the world’s nuclear weapons that belong to the UK.’

Using such vague and misleading language to wriggle out of national responsibilities is an unedifying but unfortunately common trait of official documents, with the government having previously stated that the NPT ‘does not establish any timetable for nuclear disarmament’. Firstly, as former US Ambassador for the NPT Lewis Dunn notes, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement ‘has long argued for negotiation of a time-bound framework for eliminating nuclear weapons’, yet this has been strenuously resisted by the UK and other nuclear powers.

Secondly, does the UK’s stance mean it concurs with NATO’s 2012 Deterrence Defence Posture Review, which declared that ‘as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance’? The question here is how soon Trident would be put on the table in a multilateral negotiating process for disarmament given that it is assigned to NATO. For example, does the UK government think that including Trident would only be ‘useful’ after Russia and the US agree bilaterally to reduce their nuclear arsenals from over 7,000 weapons each to low numbers approaching the 200-300 weapons that China, France and the UK each maintain? The need here is for more clarity from the government so the public can get a better sense of the timescale that is being proposed.

Lifting the Nuclear Shadow goes on to acknowledge that NWS have a ‘special responsibility’ to lead on eliminating nuclear weapons, but that this first requires certain ‘political and security conditions’ to be met, via ‘a co-operative project with the active engagement of the entire international community.’ If it is accepted that a more cooperative and peaceful world will benefit multilateral disarmament efforts how can we judge whether the UK has lived up to its ‘special responsibility’ in this area?

Creating the conditions for a NWFW 

A brief review of the UK’s actions in recent years shows that in several ways the UK has directly undermined efforts for disarmament to make headway. This point is most obviously illustrated by the fact that the UK is planning to spend tens of billions of pounds on replacing Trident – an immensely powerful type of nuclear weapon integrated within an aggressive military alliance that does not rule out the first use of nuclear weapons. Significantly, the UK does this whilst seeking to portray itself as the most progressive NWS and an active supporter of a NWFW in its public diplomacy.

In reality the UK has, so far, not taken any unilateral or multilateral disarmament steps. What the UK has done, since the end of the Cold War, is to make quantitative reductions to its nuclear forces whilst acquiring, as Nick Ritchie points out, a nuclear weapons system – Trident – that provides an increased capability over its predecessor – Polaris. The reductions trend continued with the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, which announced that ‘the number of warheads on board each submarine would be reduced from a maximum of 48 to a maximum of 40, the number of operational missiles on the Vanguard Class submarines would be reduced to no more than eight, and the number of operational warheads reduced from fewer than 160 to no more than 120.’

These reductions, while unilateral, cannot be described as disarmament, because they have not taken place in a verifiable, irreversible and transparent manner as envisaged by the 2000 NPT Review Conference’s 13 steps. While the UK has so far not undertaken disarmament, it has begun to investigate how this might occur in future through initiatives with Norway and the US. These projects have brought together experts aiming to address the technical and procedural challenges of verifying nuclear warhead dismantlement.

Understanding how nuclear possessors think

Adopting truly progressive policies capable of fostering international cooperation would require the UK to develop an understanding of other state’s threat perceptions. For example, disarmament advocates and scholars often assert that the UK’s nuclear status legitimates nuclear possession for all, encouraging proliferation, and that this undermines the NPT.

While it is true that Russia sees the UK’s nuclear arsenal as part of NATO’s overall military capabilities, the UK’s nuclear arsenal alone cannot be considered, from a strategic point of view, a key factor in the decision-making of any state currently possessing or with the potential to acquire nuclear weapons. Rather, it is clear from the strategic studies literature that US conventional superiority – at the head of the NATO alliance – and domestic political dynamics are far more important considerations for states, including China and Russia, because nuclear weapons are ‘force equalisers’. China and Russia thus primarily see their nuclear weapons as deterrents against the West’s overwhelming conventional military superiority and policies of containment and expansion. This should lead British decision-makers to consider carefully the legal and political consequences of overseas power projection.

Take, for example, the UK’s involvement in NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia (code named Operation Allied Force), which was, according to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee ‘contrary to…the basic law of the international community – the UN Charter’. According to Russian defence analyst Nikolai Sokov, the significance for Moscow of NATO’s bombing campaign was that it showed how the US could use force without the authorisation of the UN Security Council. Such considerations, for Sokov, led Russia to ‘enhance reliance on nuclear weapons in a departure from all documents adopted in the 1990s’ in order to deter the West from conducting ‘limited conventional wars’, principally in Russia’s near abroad.

More widely, as Raju Thomas notes, NATO’s ‘unrestrained use of force’ gave ‘an additional post-hoc justification for an Indian nuclear deterrent’, in the ‘context of the new Western-dominant world order’, bringing nuclear powers China, India and Russia together in protest against the bombing. These three states shared concerns about aggressive intervention being justified on humanitarian grounds, as each had to deal with a potentially secessionist region with parallels to Kosovo. For China this was Tibet and Xinjiang, for India, Kashmir, and for Russia, Chechnya. Subsequent US- or NATO-led regime-change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have also stoked concerns, not least in Iran, about where the West would seek to intervene next.

Profiting from proliferation 

Perhaps as a means of placating Indian anger and drawing it into the Western orbit, in 2008 Washington made a highly controversial deal with New Delhi, providing assistance to India’s civilian nuclear energy program, and greater help with other energy and satellite technology, despite India refusing to join the NPT. The UK followed the US in July 2010, sealing an agreement with India for the export of civil nuclear technology that continues to this day. As Nicolas Watt reported, this move raised ‘fears of leakage’ to India’s ‘military nuclear programme’, meaning the UK would be engaged in blatant proliferation which would likely lead to responses from New Delhi’s rivals in Beijing and Islamabad.

The British government has also in recent years lobbied for India to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was interpreted as a way of boosting India’s standing as ‘an atomic power’ and thus provide a larger export market for Western technology. Yet, as Fredrik Dahl explains, China and other states have questioned whether India should be given exceptional access ‘into a key forum deciding rules for civilian nuclear trade’ despite being outside the NPT, under which it would have to commit to disarmament.

The UK could also support non-proliferation by carefully considering how arms transfers affect political dynamics in regions suffering from conflict. For example, arming human rights abusing regimes in the Middle East contributes to tensions and reduces the chances of establishing a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, which the government claims to support.

Overall, if progress on non-proliferation and disarmament is to be made, short-term economic and political goals must not be allowed to trump critical national and international security concerns. Advocates of multilateral disarmament therefore need to produce and enact policies that make sense across government. Moreover, without a clear understanding of the various economic, psychological and strategic factors driving proliferation and what might enable disarmament, it will be a meaningless exercise for politicians to argue that Britain favours the international elimination of nuclear weapons.

Tim Street is the Senior Programme Officer on the Sustainable Security programme at Oxford Research Group (ORG) and a PhD student at Warwick University.

 

Published last week, Myanmar: Storm Clouds on the Horizon is International Crisis Group’s latest Asia report. It focuses on the potential for political violence and social instability as Mynamar’s leaders are undertaking reforms “to move the country decisively away from its authoritarian past”. For most of the past 50 years, the government of the Republic of the Union of Mynamar (also referred to as Burma) has been under direct or indirect control by the military. Since independence in 1948, the people of Myanmar have suffered civil wars which have mainly been struggles for ethnic and sub-national autonomy. The country has consistently been in the news for human rights violations. Perhaps one of the world’s most well-known political prisoners, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi, also chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) was released in 2010 after 21 years under house arrest.

Thein Sein, current president of Myanmar, has put in place a far-reaching and radical reform agenda. The ICG’s report focuses on what reforms have been achieved and what this may mean for a possible resurrection of violence because “political prisoners have been released, blacklists trimmed, freedom of assembly laws implemented, and media censorship abolished. But widespread ethnic violence in Rakhine State, targeting principally the Rohingya Muslim minority, has cast a dark cloud over the reform process and any further rupturing of intercommunal relations could threaten national stability.” With former political prisoners being released, 2,000 high-profile activists and opposition politicians being allowed to return home, and further liberalization of the media, “social tensions are rising as more freedom allows local conflicts to resurface”.

The report notes that “The easing of authoritarian controls has created the space for the population to air grievances, the ability to organise in a way that was not possible before, and the opportunity to have a real influence on government policies and decisions” which has led to an “exponential growth in civil society activity”. In order for the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy to be stable, and for peace and security to be sustainable, the government of Myanmar will have to face and resolve major challenges. Widespread militarization and the political and social marginalization (past and present) of ethnic and religious groups will have to be addressed. For example, it has been estimated that the recent 2012 violence between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists in Rakhine State led to an estimated 90,000 displaced people in addition to dozens of casualties. It will not be sufficient to react to past and present violence by allowing more freedom of speech and liberalizing the press. Trying to contain the violence and reducing state repression alone will not address the underlying drivers of insecurity. The government will have to take a sustainable security approach and make great efforts in order to actively address the causes of long-standing grievances. Addressing only the symptoms cannot lead to long-term stability and the rebuilding of trust between communities.

The ICG offers several options to minimize the risks associated with single party dominance during Myanmar’s political transition. These include changing the electoral system to some form of proportional representation, building coalitions between the NLD and other political parties, and building bridges between the NLD and current president Thein Sein as well as other political forces- particularly the old guard. The ICG recommendations underscore the importance of all parties, and the majority of people, to feel involved in the political process. The marginalization of any political or ethnic/religious groups will most probably lead to further violence and insecurity in the future.

ICG’s full report and details of the policy recommendations can be read here.

Anna Alissa Hitzemann is a  Peaceworker with Quaker Peace and Social Witness. She currently works with Oxford Research Group as a Project Officer for the Sustainable Security Programme, with a focus on our ‘Marginalisation of the Majority World’ project.

Image source: Rusty Steward

Dr Michael Nest has expertise in political and social issues around mining. He is also an anti-corruption expert and formerly worked for the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney, Australia. He has recently focused on building capacity to prevent corruption in community development programmes, including a research paper on corruption in local-level development schemes funded by mineral revenues.  Michael is the author of Coltan (Polity Press, 2011), which is about the changing global supply chain for the mineral ‘coltan’ (or tantalum), the new US legislation focused on conflict minerals, and China’s emerging role in the market for this mineral. In 2012 and 2014, Michael advised African governments on the new certification mechanism for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold being established to prevent conflict minerals from Central Africa entering the supply chain.  His latest co-authored book, Still a Pygmy: the unique struggle of one man’s fight to save his identity from extinction (Finch, 2015) is the first memoir by a Pygmy ever published.

In this interview, Dr. Nest discusses the political, environmental, ethical and social issues surrounding the mining of columbite–tantalite (coltan).

Q. In the past, arguably very few had heard of coltan. Yet in the past two decades it has entered into discussions in the UN and featured in several international media outlets’ reports. What is coltan and what is it used for?

Coltan is the nickname for the mineral ‘tantalite’.  When processed, the mineral tantalite is called tantalum – so tantalum is the metal.

Coltan – or properly speaking, the metal ‘tantalum’ – has a wide application.  About two-thirds of coltan is used in a device called a ‘capacitor’.  Capacitors are found in electronic products, especially consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, laptops, gaming platforms, and ipads, and are used to store and regulate the flow of electricity from the source of power (such as a battery) to the working parts of the device.  Capacitors have a crucial role in ensuring there is no power surge or fluctuations to the device that could disable or break it.  Coltan is also used for special alloys (mixtures of different metals), in memory chips for electronic consumer goods, and special coatings (such as on camera lenses).

Q. In which parts of the world is coltan mined?

Coltan comes from three sources: as a by-product of tin slag (20% of supply) – ‘slag’ is the waste material that sits in dumps around historic tin mines; recycling (30% of supply); and mines (50% of supply).

Coltan is extracted from tin slag in Brazil, Malaysia and Thailand.  Coltan that comes from recycled scrap materials is extracted at metal recycling plants in many countries around the world.

In terms of mines producing coltan/tantalite, these are found around the world.  In 2016, according to the US Geological Survey, the biggest producers of coltan are Rwanda, D.R. Congo, Brazil, China, and Australia (in this order), although historically Canada and Ethiopia have also been significant producers, and Australia was the largest producer until the global financial crisis in 2008.  There are lower levels of mine production in Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.  Tantalite deposits have been identified and are being explored in Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Greenland, Madagascar, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Q. There has been some literature examining the relationship between coltan extraction and violence with a fair amount of discussion focused on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). What role did coltan play in the DRC’s war?

The allegation made by activist organisations focused on reducing conflict in the D.R. Congo is that profits from coltan mining were a primary source of funding for armed militias waging war against the government.  These militias, so the argument goes, used coltan profits to buy weapons and food, which allowed them to wage war.  Militias in the DRC are notorious for their attacks on civilian populations, so the argument was not just that coltan profits perpetuated conflict against the government, but also that these profits were a chief cause of massacres of civilians, systemic rape and widespread destruction of property of civilians who live in Eastern DRC where coltan mines are located.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, activist organisations – as well as some media, academics and the UN – made connections between coltan profits and conflict in Eastern DRC, and focused overwhelmingly on coltan and not other minerals.  Many journalists continue to portray coltan as a major cause of conflict, although other commentators have now backed away from such simplistic claims and talk more broadly about ‘conflict minerals’ and acknowledge that conflict in the DRC occurs for a complex range of reasons.

Conflict in Eastern DRC occurs for multiple reasons, including:

• Local level struggles by powerful individuals for political domination
• Competition for land for agricultural purposes
• Ethnic rivalry
• For control of natural resources, especially minerals
• To protect land from outsiders seeking to exploit it (e.g., miners and loggers)
• Poor men waging war as a means of making a living through theft and looting

There were also broader factors around national-level conflict over the past 20 years that have drawn in local level actors and created incentives for war, including: military campaigns in DRC territory by the Rwandan and Ugandan armies (supposed by their local Congolese allies) focused on security concerns regarding opponents of their respective governments; defensive military campaigns by the DRC armed forces and government-allied local forces against the Rwandans and Ugandans and their proxies in the DRC, including retribution against civilian populations when they have regained territory; and armed groups with regional political agendas that oppose the DRC national government.  Fighting over mineral deposits was a minor element in all of these conflicts (a UN estimate of 1,500 local-level conflicts in the early 2000s was that fighting over natural resources accounted for only 8% of all conflicts), and conflict over coltan deposits was even less significant.

As I argue in my book Coltan (Polity 2011), some armed groups did, however, profit from coltan and undoubtedly these profits were used to buy weapons, food and other material used to wage war.  These profits were gained in four ways: armed groups stole coltan stocks from mine sites and mining companies’ depots; armed groups directly controlled production of coltan by controlling mines themselves; armed groups taxed the trade of coltan into and out of territory they controlled (as they did for other minerals and goods); and armed groups became directly involved in the export of coltan from Central Africa to the buyers on the international minerals market.  Calculating profits made from coltan is difficult, but I estimate that the total amount made by the Rwandan army from coltan in 1999 was approximately US$62m; by the Rwandan army and its Congolese-based ally (the RCD-Goma) in 2000 approximately US$10m; and by all armed groups in 2008 approximately US$11.8m.  Note that the high total in 1999 was largely because the price of coltan on the international market boomed that year and in 2000.

In sum, the war in the DRC was never just about minerals, and was certainly never just about coltan (gold, tin and tungsten were also importance sources of mineral revenue in the 2000s).  Tracing the role of coltan in war in the DRC, however, can tell us a lot about the connections between natural resources and conflict generally and research into these connections have helped broaden our understanding of the relationships between these natural resources and war.

Q. Were any Western corporations responsible for indirectly financing armed groups during the war in the DRC through purchasing coltan from the country?

During the wars between 1998 and 2003 companies from many different countries were involved in the coltan trade, including Western corporations.  The UN’s Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the D. R. Congo (April 2001) identified scores of private trading, brokerage, banking and transportation firms that participated in the illegal exploitation of natural resources from the DRC by trading or importing coltan from the DRC.

While almost none of these transactions were directly with armed groups (with the probable exception of some transactions involving Rwandan and Congolese firms), foreign firms were an important element of the coltan commodity chain that enabled armed groups in the DRC to profit from the production and export of illegally mined coltan to the rest of the world.

Because of the conflicted and dangerous conditions in Eastern DRC at the time, few foreign companies sent representatives into the country.  Instead, smaller Congolese or Rwandan trading firms bought and transported coltan into Rwanda, from where international minerals trading companies then imported it.  The UN identified twenty-seven firms from the following countries that imported coltan from the DRC via Rwanda: Rwanda (2 firms), Malaysia (1 firm), Germany (3 firms), Belgium (10 firms), Switzerland (1 firm), Netherlands (4 firms), UK (2 firms), Kenya (1 firm), India (1 firms), Pakistan (1 firm), and Russia (1 firm).  These firms sold the coltan they imported on to other minerals trading firms, or they sold it directly to processing plants.

Three big minerals processing plants bought much of the coltan that was exported via Rwanda during the early phase of the Congo Wars: Cabot from Canada, HC Starck from Germany and Ningxia Non-Ferrous Metals Smelter from China.  After 2001, Cabot and HC Starck released statements saying they no longer bought Congolese coltan.

Several airlines were involved in flying coltan out of Rwanda to second destinations, including Alliance Express (then 49% owned by South African Airways and 51% owned by the Rwandan government), Kencargo International (20% owned by Martinair), Airflo, Astral Aviation, and Martinair Holland, as well as the former Swissair and Sabena before these airlines collapsed.

The UN’s final report into the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC (published October 2002), recommended placing financial sanctions on 29 companies from Belgium, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC itself, that were identified as being involved in the illegal coltan trade.  The same report identified businesses from OECD countries that the UN considered to be in violation of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, including from the UK, USA, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany.  Firms from non-OECD countries that were also identified as having violated these guidelines were from Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, South Africa, and St Kitts.  The UN did not recommend sanctions on these OECD and non-OECD firms.  Rather, it brought attention to the firms’ breaches of these guidelines, presumably with a view to the companies then being reported to the national reporting contact point for such breaches in the relevant OECD country.

Q. In addition to the human rights issues attached to the coltan industry, is the mining process itself environmentally harmful?

Yes, there are environmental harms associated with coltan mining.  In the DRC, coltan mining overwhelmingly uses artisanal and small-scale (and occasionally medium scale) methods, although the harms these methods cause to the environment are not distinctive in that there is nothing specific about mining coltan that creates a different kind of harm to, for example, tin or tungsten.  Compare this to gold, where there are harms associated with the use of mercury.

 

In the DRC when a coltan deposit is found, miners rush in to exploit the site, regardless of whether it is on agricultural land or in a national park, and the mining destroys the potential for the land to be used for grazing or cropping, or as a biological reserve for fauna and flora.  Like other artisanal mining of minerals, artisanal coltan mining involves stripping forest and bush cover, then any topsoil, and digging pits to a depth of about 6m to get access to the ore deposit.  Water, provided through a pump system where a generator can be used, or by diverting a creek or river if a generator is not available, is used to soften the earth and rock, to break it up, and then to separate mineral ore from soil and to wash away the soil.  Water use is a major factor in the environmental harm caused by mining.

As I outlined in my book Coltan on pp.49-50, specific environmental effects of artisanal coltan mining include the following:

• Forest clearance to expose soil for mining;
• Cutting of timber to build worker camps;
• Cutting of firewood;
• Removing the bark from trees to make panning trays to wash coltan;
• Pollution of streams by silt from washing process;
• Diversion of streams from their original course;
• Cutting lianas to make baskets to carry coltan;
• Hunting animals, including for food, ivory and other body parts;
• Animals injured after escaping snares;
• Disturbance of fauna due to people resident in, and moving through, reserves;
• Reduced population of invertebrates and reduced photosynthesis in aquatic plants due to silting of streams;
• Reduced fish stocks in lakes and rivers affected by silt pollution;
• Erosion, including landslides, of unprotected ground during rains;
• Ecological changes due to loss of key species, such as elephants;
• Long-term changes in watershed due to rapid run-off in deforested areas;

There have been some studies that document these impacts.  A study of mining communities in the Kahuzi Biéga National Park in 1999 found that they ate elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, buffalo, and antelope – all poached from the park.  However, a subsequent report in 2001 found that tortoises, birds, small antelope, and monkeys were being eaten because all the big animals had been killed.

Q. Do you feel that there are any plausible ways for companies to be certain that the coltan they use in manufacturing their products is not from a conflict zone or unethically produced?

A company can improve certainty around the origins of any coltan used in its products, if it sources metals directly through a smelter that has an exclusive long-term contract with a coltan producer in a country such as Brazil, China, or Mozambique.  In such smelters, supply from these producers is so consistent there is virtually no likelihood of it being ‘contaminated’ by ore from other destinations.  The conflict-free smelter programme, which works with over 200 smelters, has safeguards in place to verify the origins of minerals processed by its members.  While there is always a chance that these consignments of minerals could be mixed with ore from militia-controlled mines in the D.R. Congo, this would be fairly unlikely as the reputation of the smelter (and the programme) is at stake and there is considerable due diligence around the provenance of minerals.

The challenge of sourcing ethically produced coltan is complicated when companies are buying components, especially components manufactured from yet other components, to manufacture their final goods, e.g., electronic items.  It is impracticable for an end-manufacturer to check the origin of all the metals that are used in all components – because literally thousands of components may be involved – and unrealistic to think that companies are able to do this.  The best they can do, is try to identify component manufacturers that have declared they will abide by ethical standards for sourcing minerals and have systems in place this claim to be verified – and of course end-product manufacturers should insist on seeing evidence of such checks.

It is important that all D.R. Congo coltan is not seen as being a ‘conflict mineral’, in a way that become common after the US Government first passed its conflict minerals Dodd-Frank legislation in 2010.  Civilian Congolese producers of coltan should be allowed to sell their product on the world market, and such production and trade is one of the few economic opportunities available to many Congolese.  The emphasis in terms of due diligence around ethical production of coltan should be on determining if coltan comes from conflict zones and is produced by armed groups, rather than if it comes from the DRC itself – this is an important distinction.  There are various schemes in place, or being established, in the DRC to ensure civilian-produced coltan is traced through to export.  The most well-known of these is the industry traceability and due diligence programme for coltan, tin and tungsten, which is managed by the International Tin Research Institute.

Q. As you mention, there have been a range of international efforts that have endeavoured to address the ethics surrounding coltan mining. Overall, do you feel that current efforts are succeeding or falling short?

Efforts have brought attention to ongoing violence and instability in the DRC, which is a good thing.  The problem is that the focus of activists, and even government initiatives such as the US Dodd-Frank legislation, has often been solely on conflict minerals as a cause of violence rather than a range of factors.  Thus, while there is heightened attention, there is also a simplified narrative being propagated that is detrimental to understanding the causes and consequences of the conflicts.

There is no doubt that international efforts have had an effect on the mining industry in DRC, but also Rwanda.  The passing of US legislation and consequence temporary embargo by the DRC government in late 2011 on any exports of conflict minerals, severely curtailed mining and trading of these minerals in eastern provinces (it was business as usual for mining in other provinces, such as Katanga).  This showed that international efforts can definitely have an impact (presumably President Kabila of the DRC felt that he had to impose the embargo to appear to be doing something about the conflict minerals trade).  New OECD regulations, the conflict-free smelter program and the International Tin Research Institute’s ‘tag and bag’ scheme for tin and coltan in Rwanda and some mines in DRC are also closing opportunities for ‘laundering’ conflict minerals through civilian-controlled supply chains, while also guaranteeing opportunities for civilian-produced and traded minerals.

There are criticisms of these schemes, especially ITRI’s tracking scheme which is expensive for participants, and regional governments and officials feel they are excluded from its data or operations.  Nevertheless, in a complex and difficult political and economic environment, the combination of regional and international efforts have resulted in more mines and more mineral transactions coming under civilian control, and therefore generated economic opportunities for Congolese civilians.  This said, anti-government militias and the DRC army are still involved in some mining and trading of the 3Ts and gold.

The big question is whether current political tensions around President Kabila’s possible election to a third term, will cause the ITRI scheme to be suspended, see renewed militias activity in Eastern provinces, and a resumption of widespread smuggling of minerals out of Eastern Congo into Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Q. Do you think China will complement the efforts of Western organizations and the DRC’s own efforts at cracking down on the conflict mineral trade or will China’s status as the world’s largest coltan refiner make matters more difficult?

To answer this question properly, we have to pull apart the idea of ‘China’.  The Chinese government may have some interest in protecting its international reputation by participating in or publicly supporting international government initiatives to control the production and trade of conflict minerals.  This might include passing some minimal regulation on its own industry (possibly that it has no intention of enforcing).  It will have no interest in supporting activist initiatives, as it will not to want to fuel or strengthen independent civil society, let alone one that might actually have influence over aspects of international commerce.  The Chinese minerals industry, on the other hand, is aware of its strong and growing position in the global mining and minerals sector – a sector that the Chinese government itself sees as strategic.  Without pressure from its own government to desist from importing, smelting or otherwise trading in conflict minerals, the Chinese minerals industry will see no reason to change the current situation.  Some Chinese consumer product manufacturers, especially in the electronics sector, will be aware of the potential for boycotts by Western consumers to damage their sales and reputation, but Western consumers are not significant for some electronics manufacturers.  Asian (especially Chinese), African and Latin American consumers will be far more important, and awareness or concern by these consumers about conflict minerals is low.  In sum, while Chinese actors may be interested in some international efforts to regulate the trade of certain products, conflict minerals will be low on the list of priorities and there is unlikely to be any Chinese effort in this regard.

Q. Looking to the future, what impact do you feel Donald Trump’s presidency may have on talking the problem of conflict minerals?

Trump made it clear during his campaign that he is in favour of minimal regulation for business and that the US should be more isolationist in terms of spending less time and effort worrying about global affairs.  Given that responses to conflict minerals are based around additional regulations for business (regulations that everyone agrees have a cost in terms of compliance), which also represent an effort by OECD governments to shape conflict minerals production and trade in Central Africa, a Trump administration is highly unlikely to have much, if any, interest in such initiatives.  US business groups have already contested the regulations of the Dodd-Frank Act, and they will see a Trump presidency as creating another opportunity to exert pressure and have the regulations pared back or abolished.  A Trump administration is also likely to cut funding for USAID projects focused on capacity building for Central African governments to regulate production and trade of the mining industry.

States recently embraced a new policy regarding the fight against maritime piracy, and many began authorizing their cargo ships to carry private armed guards to help protect them when travelling through pirate-infested waters. Whilst this approach has yielded some success in protecting ships, it has also produced some major problems.  

Author’s Note: For a more detailed argument about why states should cooperate to regulate armed guards providing anti-piracy protection, see the article “Gunslingers on the High Seas: A Call for More Regulation,” 24 Duke J. Comp. & Int’l Law 105 (2013), written by Yvonne M. Dutton, which is available on SSRN.

In 2011, the fight against maritime piracy changed. Until then, the world’s navies were primarily charged with providing the bulk of anti-piracy protection, and individual ships were encouraged to do their part in deterring piratical acts by employing the industry’s “best management practices” – a set of primarily passive defense measures.  But, in early 2011, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the main trade association for the shipping industry, announced that it had changed its previous stance opposing the use of armed guards on ships. Instead, it stated that the decision of whether to hire armed guards should be left to ship owners and their flag states.

States embraced the new policy position, and many began authorizing their cargo ships to carry armed guards to help protect them when travelling through pirate-infested waters. The reason for the change was simple: the world’s navies had managed to prevent many pirate attacks after they began patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean in 2008, but they simply could not control enough of the high seas to make travel safe for all.  By 2012, some 60% of cargo ships employed armed guards. Hiring the guards is not cheap—costing ship owners about $60,000 for a four-person team to accompany travel through the Gulf of Aden. On the other hand, the evidence suggests that no ship protected by private armed guards has been the victim of a successful pirate attack. In 2009, despite the presence of the world’s navies, Somali pirates attacked more than 200 ships, resulting in more than 40 successful hijackings. The contrast with 2015 is significant, with the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre showing no attempted or successful Somali pirate attacks.

Although apparently no ship protected by private armed guards has been successfully attacked, there are reasons to be concerned that the guards will not perform their anti-piracy duties in a way that does not escalate violence, involve unlawful use of force, or cause international incidents.  A March 2011 incident between private armed guards hired to protect the cargo vessel Avocet and alleged pirates in the Gulf of Aden illustrates this point. Video footage shows PMSC personnel firing dozens of shots at an approaching skiff after their team leader ordered them to fire “warning shots.” The guards continued to shoot even after the skiff crashed into the Avocet. The Private Maritime Security Company (PMSC) defended the actions of its personnel as justified, stating that the guards feared for their lives and were acting in self-defense. A maritime industry expert, though, expressed the view that the failure to fire actual warning shots and the rapid and sustained rate of gunfire show the guards used excessive force.

A recent New York Times report suggests that the risk that private armed guards may mishandle potential pirate attacks has increased, rather than decreased, over the last several years. The report centers on a video showing four unarmed men being gunned down at sea by someone who industry experts believe is a private armed guard wielding a semi-automatic weapon. Other private armed guards interviewed for the article lamented a booming $13 billion-a year security business teeming with untrained guards. They stated that many armed guards employed by a shipping industry concerned with cost-cutting “lack combat experience, speak virtually no English (despite a fluency requirement), and do not know how to clean or fix their weapons.”  And untrained guards can panic and fire too soon or hesitate for so long that they miss the chance to employ preventative measures that could prevent resort to deadly force.

However, no coordinated set of international guidelines regulates PMSCs and the hiring and training of private armed guards to aid in the fight against piracy. States instead each make their own rules. Germany and France are examples of states that have taken a more hands-on approach, requiring PMSCs to meet certain criteria to help ensure that guards are thoroughly vetted and well-trained in the use of force before the company can obtain a special license or certificate to provide services on the state’s flagged ships.  The Marshall Islands is similarly hands-on, requiring ship owners to hire only from PMSCs that have been certified to the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 2015 Guidelines for PMSCs by an accredited certification body. The United Kingdom takes a different approach and refrains from mandating particular licensing or certification standards. It does, however, encourage its ship owners to employ guards from PMSCs that have been voluntarily accredited under the ISO’s 2015 Guidelines for PMSCs. Finally, some states are more hands-off as regards vetting and training of guards. For example, Singapore states that the decision of whether to hire armed guards is a matter for ship owners to decide. It does warn that the decision should be made “after a thorough risk assessment and after ensuring all other practical means of self-protection have been employed.”

A Call for More Regulation and Coordination

States that have employed a more hands-on approach to vetting guards and ensuring that PMSCs meet certain standards of operation and training should be commended. However, unless all states are similarly vigilant, we cannot eliminate the risk that untrained “cowboy” guards will indiscriminately shoot to kill when the law and facts do not warrant that use of force.  All states should accept responsibility for making sure that the world’s oceans are safe from “cowboy” guards by negotiating an international convention establishing one set of regulations to govern PMSCs and the qualifications and training of maritime security personnel. A world where each state’s PMSC standards differ can create an incentive for ship owners concentrating on the bottom line to choose to sail under the flag of a country with looser regulations.  Similarly, absent an agreed-upon international standard, PMSCs may choose to register themselves in a jurisdiction with lax laws.

Getting states to agree on a regulatory scheme for PMSCs will require effort. On the other hand, states need not start with a blank slate: the ISO has already created guidelines for PMSCs.  The ISO’s 2015 Guidelines for PMSC address security management system elements and operational planning for PMSCs providing armed guards in high-risk areas.  For example, Section 4.2.5 of the Guidelines states that the PMSC “should establish and document its processes for compliance with home state, coastal and flag state laws as regards the procurement, licensing and transshipment of firearms for each transit.”  That same section more precisely also states that the PMSC should “comply with any home or flag state or local requirements in respect of identifying and licensing individuals who will use such firearms, including ‘end user certificates’ where national laws apply.” Section 4.3.2 discusses procedures PMSCs should employ for background screening and vetting of guards, stating that “[s]election of qualified personnel should be based on specific competencies and criteria defined by the organization including knowledge, applicable and relevant military, law enforcement or equivalent experience, skills, abilities and attributes.” Section 4.4.3 states that the PMSC “should establish, implement, and maintain procedures to ensure all security operatives carrying out tasks on its behalf are aware of and receive training” on, among other things (1) the maritime environment; (2) ship security systems and defense arrangements; (3) rules on the use of force generally and as they apply for specific transits; (4) competence with specific firearms and how to properly store arms; (5) the prohibition of consuming alcohol or dugs while on the ship; and (6) procedures to document any incidents involving the use or arms. In terms of operational planning, for example, Section 5.1 states that the PMSC “should establish and document processes and protocols for legal authority and licensing, preparation, deployment, command and control and communication with its security personnel.” (ISO makes the Guidelines available for download from its website for a fee.)

As noted above, the Marshall Islands now mandates that its shippers hire armed guards only from PMSCs certified to the standards of the 2015 ISO Guidelines by a United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) authorized certification body.  The United Kingdom encourages its shippers to “use independent third party certification” to the ISO Guidelines “as an important component of their criteria in selecting a PMSC.” States have little excuse not to follow their lead—the ISO standards and certification processes already exist.

Certification, though, should not be the end of the process. To make certain that PMSCs continue to deliver quality, reputable services, states should create a regular monitoring mechanism that can be implemented by either an existing institution or one that is newly-created. And all states should ensure that the PMSCs their shippers hire are subjected to that regular monitoring mechanism. The process of monitoring PMSCs necessarily will not be without costs. But both ship owners and states should be willing to fund the effort. To continue with a system in which each state creates its own rules or not rules at all puts innocent lives at stake and risks escalating levels of violence at sea. All civilized states should instead work towards making the seas safer for all, not riskier.

Yvonne M. Dutton is an Associate Professor of Law teaching international criminal law, comparative law, evidence, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Dutton has practiced law as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she tried narcotics trafficking and organized crime cases. She also practiced as a civil litigator in law firms in New York and California.  Dutton’s research interests include international criminal law, international human rights law, and maritime piracy. Broadly speaking, her scholarship examines questions about international cooperation and the role and effectiveness of international institutions in deterring and holding accountable those who commit crimes of international concern. Dutton has published a number of law review articles analyzing issues associated with maritime piracy. 

Due to the absence of a functioning government, a counterinsurgency in a failed state can be a difficult enterprise. Since Somalia’s state collapse in 1991, various actors have been combating the threat of Al-Shabaab with mixed results.

Counterinsurgency measures, as the name suggests, are meant to suppress an insurgency and in the long run create an enabling political environment for the establishment of a functional state capable of ensuring sustainable security. These goals are, however, difficult to achieve under conditions of state collapse given the virtual absence of a functional government. As a collapsed state that has had no functional government since the end of Siad Barre’s rule in 1991, Somalia represents an interesting case.

Since 1991, many of Somalia’s counterinsurgency operations launched have been driven by concerns regarding the impact of Somalia’s conflict on regional security and the desire to create a functional state capable of providing basic human and physical security to its citizens. Given that Somalia is a collapsed state, the initiative of adopting and effecting counterinsurgency measures in the country has been externally driven by regional and international organisations such as the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), as well as Western countries such as the United States (US) rather than by the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS).

This article focuses on the military component of the peace enforcement African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which has positioned itself as a counterinsurgency force against the armed insurgency group Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujaheddin group, commonly known as Al-Shabaab.

Somalia’s insurgency and counterinsurgency

The nature of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Somalia is complex as it involves a variety of non-state, state and international actors. The militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab, the most significant armed non state actor, describes and perceives itself as an insurgent movement but is labelled and depicted by the FGS and external actors as a terrorist group as they see it as a transnational violent armed non-state actor. The conceptualisation and labelling of Al-Shabaab both simultaneously as an insurgent and terrorist group only complicates counterinsurgency operations in the country. This is so, in that it is not effective enough to conduct counterinsurgency as counterterrorism to suppress a group that perceives itself and thereby conducts its operations as an insurgent rather than a terrorist one.

The combination of state collapse with the complexity and paradoxical nature of insurgency and counterinsurgency operations in Somalia has adversely affected human and physical security in the country and has provided Al-Shabaab with new political opportunities to sustain violent action. The AMISOM’s strategic concept of operations (CONOPS) and rules of engagement (ROE) indicate that its short-term repressive security measures are better clarified as counterterrorism rather than counterinsurgency, as they appear to focus on both simultaneously national and transnational terrorist activities, rather than efforts to defeat the insurgency in Somalia and ultimately create a functional state.

The AMISON’s CONOPS combine all ongoing separate military operations in Somalia into a coordinated and coherent effort against Al-Shabaab so as to extend the authority of the FGS country-wide. It also aims at creating an enabling environment for the effective implementation of AMISOM’s mandate. AMISOM’s CONOPS have, however, been adversely hindered by the mission’s lack of adequate financial, human and military resources, thereby rendering it ineffective in its mandated operations. AMISOM’s ROE are key to ensuring that military operations are conducted in compliance with international humanitarian law obligations in Somalia’s socio-political context.

Though the ROE are in conformity with the operational realities of the mission, AMISOM continues to operate in extremely volatile conditions created by state collapse, whereby Al-Shabaab’s asymmetrical warfare targets civilians within populated areas. This situation makes it extremely difficult for AMISOM to ensure civilian protection in the conduct of its operations and to consistently apply the mission’s ROE Counterinsurgency operations that cannot consistently sustain themselves for long periods are ineffective and will not achieve the intended outcome of enhancing sustainable security.

A success or failure?

The successes or failures of insurgency and counterinsurgency operations in Somalia depend on population support.  So far, the counterinsurgency strategies in Somalia conducted by AMISOM and its coalition forces, especially the Somali National Army, have been unable to gain the support of the people. Al-Shabaab’s led insurgency has gained popular support among the local-level communities, largely due to the social services and more importantly the local-level security governance it provides, in the absence of a functional state. All these strategies of Al-Shabaab, which are aimed at legitimising itself, are implemented through variants of Islamism. The movement was very effective in the provision of alternative governance structures at the local-level prior to the pre-2010 military intervention of AMISOM. The literature on counterinsurgency operations in Somalia indicates that the security vacuum created by Al-Shabaab’s departure as a result of AMISOM’s operations in these areas has led to an increase in the levels of insecurity thereby questioning the legitimacy of the latter’s operations.

The Somali populace also perceives these counterinsurgency efforts as externally driven and extremely hesitant to engage, positively, with the fundamental Somali socio-political structures such as the clan structure and Islam. In order to be effective counterinsurgency measures, should take into account the legitimacy of these socio-political structures that play a significant role in local-level peacebuilding and governance processes.

Doomed from the start?

Counterinsurgency operations in Somalia have also been adversely affected by poor planning and their inability, so far, to create an enabling environment which enhances state capacity. Any credible counterinsurgency operation with a military component requires careful planning before any military incursion begins. A number of indicators suggest that, in the early stages, AMISOM neither planned nor implemented an effective counterinsurgency strategy. The initial objective of Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia through Operation Linda Nchi and subsequent incorporation into AMISOM was not peace enforcement countering the direct physical threats posed by Al-Shabaab on its territory.

Counterinsurgency measures were later driven by socio-political and economic interests rather than peacebuilding in Somalia. Kenya’s military intervention in Somalia can be perceived as counterterrorism rather than counterinsurgency efforts given that they were initially driven by short-term strategic interests.  The establishment of a functional state has so far not been achieved in Somalia as it has been has been compromised by the manner in which regional and international peacekeeping efforts, have been conducted in the country. Most of these, if not all have been characterised by failures rather than successes. For example, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia constantly accuses the Kenya Defence Forces component of violating AMISOM’s mandate. AMISOM has not been effectively taking the appropriate measures aimed at supporting the creation of a functionally effective state due to the strategic interests of its member states. This has compromised peacebuilding and security governance in the country.

The resilience of Al-Shabaab as a transnational violent non-state armed actor, is partly a function of ineffective repressive counterinsurgency measures in Somalia. The repressive counterinsurgency operations conducted largely by external actors in the country are reactive, achieve unintended consequences ande hence counterproductive. A political strategy supported by security operations in the formulation and implementation of counterinsurgency operations is still ideal for any country facing an insurgency.

Counterinsurgency measures, however, that do not require repressive security operations that focus on causes not symptoms are best suited for Somalia in the medium and long-term.  Since Somalia does not have a functional government capable of providing effective counterinsurgency operations let alone human and physical security, non-repressive measures would best be conducted by non-state actors such clan leaders and clans, and Islamic civil society organisations.

Non-state actors are appropriate in the implementation of non-repressive counterinsurgency measures in that they not only located within fundamental Somali socio-political structures, but also have the capacity to use informal process oriented means rather than formal goal-oriented ones. Informal process-oriented methods are more appropriate when it comes to addressing the root causes of the insurgency while formal goal-oriented ones are reactive focussing on symptoms. These measures, such as those that focus on countering violent extremism, take into account fundamental Somali socio-political structures, and their corresponding customs norms and traditions thereby gaining population support and subsequently legitimacy. Such counterinsurgency measures will achieve their intended outcome of dealing with insurgency, the grievances of that insurgency and ultimately create the socio-political environment required to establish a functional state.

Oscar Gakuo Mwangi (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political & Administrative Studies National University of Lesotho.

Jenny Nielsen and Nathalie Osztaskina

With geopolitics and deterrence doctrines back in the ascendant, the prospects for multilateral nuclear disarmament look worse than for a generation; many options are on the table but whether states will engage constructively and pursue any of these proposals remains an open question.

Following the failure of the states parties to the NPT to adopt a consensus Final Document at the 2015 RevCon due to significant divisions on key issues, the voting and statements at the UN General Assembly First Committee (which deals with disarmament and threats to peace) highlighted the ‘even stronger polarisation and hardening of positions’ between the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) and NWS given the latter’s refusal to make meaningful progress on their disarmament obligations.

As recently heard at the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference, ‘the First Committee has confirmed the polarisation and also the deep mistrust that is there between nuclear-weapon states and a considerable part of the non-nuclear weapon states’. To aggravate this, no state or group of states seemed to be capable of playing ‘a bridge-building role’. As a result, the world was left without a consensus on how to begin disentangling the tight knot of nuclear politics so that NWS could move towards their NPT commitment to disarmament.

The re-emergence of nuclear deterrence

Following Moscow’s aggressive actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the salience of nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear deterrence in security and defence doctrines is re-emerging in European political discussions, particularly regarding NATO’s posture.

At the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference, Russian analyst Alexei Arbatov stressed the regrettable paradox that despite the lower number of nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War, ‘the probability of their use is now higher’. Chillingly, Arbatov added ‘it is not only higher than 25 years ago, it is probably higher than at any time since the early 1980s’.

Based on ‘the resurgence of state-based threats’, Professor Wyn Bowen argues that the UK’s recently published 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has ‘brought deterrence back to the centre stage for the United Kingdom more than any other time since the end of the Cold War’.

At the same time, in the UK, the recently elected leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn — a long-standing opponent of nuclear weapons and vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) — has stated that he would not condone the use of nuclear weapons if he were elected prime minister. Corbyn’s Trident statements have clearly ruffled feathers amongst some in the military and political establishment, with a parliamentary ‘Main Gate’ decision on renewing the UK’s nuclear weapons system confirmed for 2016.

Despite Corbyn’s recent statements, elite debates have largely remained limited to discussions of whether the UK should build four new nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines in order to ensure continuous at sea deterrence (CASD).

Another key debate within NATO concerns how the alliance might re-articulate, refresh and clearly communicate its nuclear posture to reflect the current geo-strategic environment. NATO’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy and Director for Nuclear Policy, Guy Roberts, recently argued that ‘to be fully credible, NATO’s nuclear posture and policy needs to be firmly articulated and communicated to Russia and other would-be adversaries’.

Furthermore, it was recently argued at the 2015 EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference that ‘we no longer have a debate about the potential withdrawal of’ the 160-200 theatre nuclear weapons (TNW) still in Europe. The debate instead now focuses on the role of nuclear deterrence in the broader defence posture of the NATO alliance. Guy Roberts argues that ‘if Russia continues to use nuclear threats and intimidation tactics, then the West will need to plan deterrence, response, and escalation control options that are credible and particularly tailored to the mindset of the Russian leadership. Otherwise, Russia may see its own rhetoric as validated and NATO as weak’.

Possible ways forward

So, what are possible ways forward vis-à-vis multilateral nuclear disarmament goals as mandated by the NPT in the current security environment? Given the re-ascendance of perceptions of imminent state-based security threats, how can we move from increasing frustrations among NNWS and procrastination or obstruction by states towards constructive engagement? Technical, legal and normative proposals exist to further progress towards nuclear disarmament commitments by NPT member states.

Legal Approaches

Many NNWS that are supporting the evolving Humanitarian Initiative are pursuing a legal measure that would ultimately delegitimise nuclear weapons use and possession. Proposals exist for a group of NNWS to pursue such a legal ban on nuclear weapons even without the participation of the five NWS and the other four non-NPT nuclear possessors (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). Proponents argue that by concluding a legal ban, an international norm delegitimising nuclear weapons will be established, regardless of engagement by states with nuclear arsenals. The multilateral fora addressing nuclear disarmament have been subject to intense contention given the postures on this issue.

As voted for by 135 states at the 2015 session of the First Committee, the 2016 sessions of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) could serve as a multilateral forum for discussions on nuclear disarmament. This is a measure specifically taken to avoid the polarisation that has characterised the Humanitarian Initiative and the refusal of the NWS to engage with it. Since 2009, the five NWS have been pursuing their own discussions on disarmament, known as the P5 Process, with limited results even before the NATO/Russia schisms over Ukraine. It is still unclear whether the five NWS and some NNWS under extended deterrence arrangements (i.e. the other 25 NATO members plus other allies) would participate in the OEWG.

In 2014, the Marshall Islands initiated a different legal approach towards demanding accountability vis-à-vis nuclear disarmament progress through the Global Zero lawsuits. Whether this approach through the lawsuits filed in the International Court of Justice will bring effective results – other than grabbing headlines and elevating the issue of nuclear disarmament on the international agenda – remains to be seen.

While a nuclear ban may be a key long-term normative and legal aim for some NNWS, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) (and its sophisticated International Monitoring System) is a realistic short-term objective. The CTBT is a developed and available legal and technical step towards nuclear disarmament. With the 20^th anniversary of the CTBT due in 2016, its entry into force should be a policy priority for states looking to bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

In democracies at least, civil society and disarmament advocacy groups could funnel their energy and passion to promoting the establishment of the CTBT, educating the electorate on this issue and lobbying parliamentarians. With broad declaratory support voiced by NPT states parties (and Israel) for the CTBT, further ratifications of this treaty by states with some nuclear capabilities (called ‘Annex II’, including signatories China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the US) would significantly strengthen the non-proliferation regime and states’ commitment to disarmament. Recent declaratory support by US officials (including Kerry, Gottemoeller and Moniz) and efforts to re-energise the CTBT debate in the United States are therefore a positive development.

Technical Approaches

Another approach to furthering progress vis-a-vis nuclear disarmament is the US-launched International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification (IPNDV). This initiative aims at addressing the technical challenges of disarmament verification, bridging NNWS’ and NWS’ understanding of the key measures and practical issues involved in verifying disarmament agreements. At a recent Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation event following the IPNDV’s November meeting in Oslo, US Assistant Secretary of State Frank Rose, provided an overview of the IPNDV. The Partnership made progress in establishing three Working Groups and authorised them to move forward with their important technical assignments. Rose believes that, by concentrating on technical tasks, the Partnership ‘can make real and important progress’ in achieving multilateral cooperation and towards realising disarmament goals.

Several other pragmatic, technical proposals exist in support of reducing nuclear salience in security doctrines, including de-alerting arsenals and reducing stocks of delivery systems. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, former Defense officials William J. Perry and Andy Weber argued against the implementation of a US nuclear-armed cruise missile system which could heighten the risk of miscalculation by an adversary.

From entrenched postures to dialogue

Given the current deep divides on how to move forward on nuclear disarmament goals amidst heightened strategic discontents, pragmatic and confidence-building measures, including dialogue and trust-building activities, which enjoy broad support by international actors should be pursued. Frustrations, ineffective criticism and outright obstructions need to be channelled into constructive efforts, at the core of which should be frank and respectful dialogue. This applies to both sides of the debate. Only through unpacking the core assumptions underlying the extreme postures and perspectives on the perceived value of nuclear weapons, can these social constructs begin to be appreciated.

Effective progress towards a secure world without nuclear weapons as the ultimate security guarantee and ultimate insurance policy remains a long and arduous journey that will require open minds, constructive dialogue and a mix of various technical and legal measures at the right time. The dislodging of deeply entrenched postures and institutional cultures won’t happen in the short-term, even if a normative and legal ban is attained by a group of NNWS.

Following the outcome of the 2015 NPT RevCon, the five NWS are faced with the challenge of soothing perceptions of their lack of commitment to their Article VI obligation to pursue “a treaty on general and complete [nuclear] disarmament”. Whether the current international tensions between Russia and the West will test the NWS’s solidarity within the NPT P5 Process, as well as bilateral arms control measures, remains to be seen.

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Jenny Nielsen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP). Previously she was a Visiting Scholar at the NATO Defence College (NDC), Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland (UQ), Research Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park.

Nathalie Osztaskina is an Intern at the VCDNP. Her research focuses on disarmament efforts and the humanitarian movement, nuclear security, and promotion of CTBT’s entry into force. She worked previously at the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, doing research on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

This article by Sustainable Security’s Richard Reeve was originally published on openDemocracy on 29 November, 2013.

All wars end, sooner or later. With an interim deal signed on Iran’s nuclear programme, the great powers, Middle Eastern diplomats and the mediators of Geneva are returning their attention to ending the war in Syria. As figures released by Oxford Research Group on 24 November reveal, at least 113,735 Syrians had been killed by August, one-in-ten of them children. No conflict is currently deadlier. The 25 November announcement that the so-called Geneva II conference would finally convene on 22 January is thus overdue but good news. But what are the chances of it bringing peace?

Securing Syrian participation

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the Syrian actors to the crisis, the Geneva process has not yet secured domestic participation, let alone commitment. Convened in June 2012, the original Geneva conference was a meeting of the Action Group for Syria, an initiative co-sponsored by the UN and League of Arab States and including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (‘P5’), the EU, Turkey and, as office-holders within the Arab League, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. The ensuing Geneva Communiqué set out a six-step plan to peaceful transition. But this was a commitment of the Action Group, not the Syrian parties to the conflict.

Geneva II, by contrast, is all about brokering agreement between Syrians. This has become very much more difficult since mid-2012, when up to 25,000 Syrians had died in the conflict. Based on data up to end of August 2013 analysed by ORG and ongoing casualties recorded by Syrian civil society, this casualty figure is now around five times higher. Levels of destruction, displacement and brutality have similarly multiplied.

The character of the war has also changed since 2012. It has increasingly become sectarian and internationalised. Sunni militants from across the Arab world and beyond have transformed the nature of the armed resistance. Shi’a militia from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria’s Alawite community have played a decisive role in recent regime offensives. Secular Kurdish militia control the northeast.

Healing these divisions may take generations. Peace or a cessation of violence is an immediate imperative. Securing a deal in Geneva is likely to be a case of a ‘good enough’ compromise from an ‘inclusive enough’ coalition of interests. This is likely to have at least three dimensions.

First is the problem of securing meaningful participation in even initial talks. The largest and most widely recognised opposition political force, the National Coalition insists that President Bashar al-Assad must leave power. The regime insists it will neither ‘talk to terrorists’ nor negotiate surrendering power. The National Coalition faces greater internal resistance to negotiating, while the Assad regime is reassured by negotiating from a position of increasing strength on the battlefield.

Second is the problem of linking political settlement with battlefield realities: without the buy-in of combatants, no peace deal will be ‘good enough’ to hold. The National Coalition and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) have never coalesced the myriad of armed local resistance units into a capable force. Pulverised by regime armour, artillery and air power, opposition forces have increasingly rallied from secular to Islamist command to access more effective leadership and resources. The Islamic Front merger of the largest such groups on 22 November hugely undermines the National Coalition’s credibility. Conversely, association with the main armed Kurdish party has boosted the National Coordination Body, a moderate coalition of otherwise unarmed opposition parties still operating within Syria. The question of how civil society groups or minorities opposed to armed struggle can be involved in Geneva II remains unresolved. These should not be considered niche perspectives.

Third, ‘inclusive enough’ probably means side-lining some Jihadist groups that in 2013 have become dominant in the east and major players on the northern (Idlib and Aleppo) and southern (Daraa) fronts. Funded, organised and to a significant extent manned from abroad, the extent to which these groups represent Syrian interests is debatable. Affiliation with al-Qaida suggests these groups’ leaders are opposed to political compromise. As with AQ affiliates in Somalia and Mali, their radicalism may not be shared entirely by the Syrians who fight with them. The consolidation of the Islamic Front could serve to divert resources from al-Qaida affiliates.

Securing international commitment

If the responsibility for making peace rests with the international actors who have waged a war through armed Syrian proxies, the Geneva process so far looks equally constrained. Global rivals Russia and the United States play a leading role in the Action Group, but this leaves unrepresented the far more heavily committed (in military and financial terms) rivals for influence in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Qatar are also key supporters (and hosts) of the armed opposition but their presence adds to the sense that the Action Group is weighted against the Assad regime, which may count only Russia, Iraq and, more loosely, China as allies in Geneva.

Bringing the Iranians and Saudis into the process is thus crucial to the success of Geneva II. Iran’s opening to the west since the election of President Hassan Rouhani is partly driven by the draining of Iranian resources in Syria. With the Assad regime advancing on the battlefield, and Russia and the western powers sharing its concern over the rapid rise of Sunni extremists on the Syria/Iraq border, Iran is more likely to back peace in Syria. Its interests include a veto on Sunni dominance and continuance of its access to Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, with Shi’as and Alawites representing under 15% of Syria’s population, it is unclear how it can secure these interests without the Assads in charge.

Saudi Arabia looks a harder sell, not least because it feels its privileged status as US regional ally slipping as Iran pursues rapprochement. Recent Saudi tensions with Turkey and Qatar over influence in Egypt further undermine the unity of foreign pressure on the opposition. Yet reshuffles within the National Coalition and Islamic Front since July suggest that pro-Saudi elements have gained prominence in both. Riyadh may have the influence to bring these rivals together, but only if the Coalition assumes a more overtly Islamist identity. Reconciling Syria’s Sunni Arab majority and an Islamist agenda with either the Assad regime or western expectations is an enormous challenge, although the Geneva Process foresees a National Dialogue followed by constitutional and legal reforms to determine just such issues.

What way forward, then? It seems axiomatic that the rivalry between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbours needs to be addressed directly through talks and confidence-building rather than through proxies over Syria. This is of particular urgency as talk re-emerges of a Saudi nuclear weapons programme to counter Iran. It could also be that the National Coalition is overly constrained by its disparate backers’ demands for opposition unity. The divisions that have hampered it in making war may also hamper it in making peace. Representation in Geneva that allows disparate Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood, secularist and pacifist currents to express themselves may be beneficial.

Judicial pressure

While the parties and their regional backers remain far apart in their expectations, international judicial mechanisms have potential importance as leverage towards peace, in restraining the behaviour of combatant parties, and eventually pursuing post-conflict justice. Although Syria has not signed the Rome Statute, international war crimes prosecutions could be brought if the UN Security Council refers Syria formally to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Due legal process and systematic gathering of evidence, including data on casualties, is crucial if the threat of prosecutions is to be realistic. The UN Commission of Enquiry has been investigating a wide range of alleged crimes committed by both sides, with a view to future prosecutions. Growing P5 consensus on the need for conflict settlement could make referral to the ICC possible in the case of Syria, as it did over Sudan in 2005.

As with the now dissipated threat of military intervention, at least the threat of prosecutions could increase pressure on Syrian combatants to curb the most egregious atrocities and negotiate peace. With both Iran and Russia appalled at the use of chemical weapons in Syria, pressure of prosecution could even be used to unstick the question of whether Bashar al-Assad presides over any transition government.

Richard Reeve is the Director of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme. He works across a wide range of defence and security issues and is responsible for the strategic direction of the programme. Richard has particular expertise in global security, Sub-Saharan Africa, peace and conflict analysis, and the security role of regional organisations.

Russia’s conflictual relationship with the West has been described as a Cold War-like confrontation. In reality, these powers are engaged in an asymmetric rivalry, not a Cold War.

Russia’s relations with the United States and other Western nations have been increasingly conflictual. The Kremlin has challenged the position of American hegemony globally and in regional settings. Following election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President, Russia’s military strategy, cyber activities, and media role have been under particular scrutiny although the Kremlin has acted assertively since the second half of the 2000s.

While many Western observers place responsibility for the conflict on Russia, some tend to blame the West. However, most observers agree that a Cold War-like confrontation is set to define the two sides’ relations. Today the narrative of a new Cold War commands the attention of political and scholarly circles.

The Misleading Cold War Framework

As compelling as it may seem to some observers, the Cold War framework is misleading. In particular, it fails to address the global power shift and transitionary nature of the contemporary international system. In today’s world, the old ideological rivalry is no longer applicable. The new world is no longer divided by the communism-capitalism dichotomy. Instead the competition of ideas is predominantly one between liberal and nationalist principles of regulating the economy and political system. While in the eyes of many the West continues to represent liberalism, the realities of Brexit, Trump, and tightening migration regulations in the European Union demonstrate the global power of nationalist ideas. On the other hand, China, Russia, and other allegedly autocratic and nationalist polities continue to favor preservation of liberal global economy, and oppose regional autarchy and Trump-favored protectionism.

Instead of reviving old Cold War rules and principles, new rules and expectations about the international system and state behavior are being gradually formed. China, Russia, India, Turkey, Iran, and others are seeking to carve out a new space for themselves in the newly emerging international system, as the United States is struggling to redefine its place and identity in the new world.

The described changes altered position of the only superpower in the international system. Structurally, it is still the familiar world of American domination with the country’s superiority in military, political, economic and symbolic dimensions. Yet dynamically the world is moving away from its US- and West-centeredness even though the exact direction and result of the identified trajectory remained unclear.

As a result, many non-Western countries are developing their own rules and arrangements in world. Russia and other non-Western countries increasingly have international options they never had before as new global and regional institutions and areas of development outside the influence of the West gradually emerge.

This does not mean re-emergence of a new international confrontation. Most non-Western nations are not looking to challenge the superpower directly and continuing to take advantage of relations ties with the West. The U.S.-balancing coalition or a genuine alternative to the West-centered world has not yet emerged. Unlike the previous eras, the contemporary world lacks a rigid alliance structure. The so-called Russia-China-Iran axis is hardly more than a figment of the imagination by American neoconservatives and some Russia conspiracy-minded thinkers. The world remains a space in which international coalitions overlap and are mostly formed on an ad hoc basis depending on issues of interests.

Partly because of these global developments, the Cold War perspective also misunderstands Russia’s motives and power capabilities. Unlike the old era, Russia does not seek to directly confront or defeat the other side. Rather, the objective is to challenge the rival party for the purpose of gaining recognition and negotiating a greater space within the still largely West-influenced global order.

Furthermore, Russia is in no position to challenge the Western nations globally given the large – and in some areas widening – gap between the U.S. and Russian capabilities. The importance of defending Russia’s interests and status by limited means has been addressed through the idea of asymmetric capabilities applied on a limited scale and for defensive purposes. When the chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov first described the so-called hybrid war he did not mean to provide a template for an offensive military strategy. Rather, as several military analysts noted, he intended to recognize that the West had already being engaged in such war against Russia and that Russia had to be better prepared for the new type of war. While Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is not acquiescing to American pressures, he is engaged in asymmetric rivalry. The latter targets the competitor’s selected vulnerable areas and is designed to put on alert and disorient, rather than achieve a decisive victory. Asymmetric methods of Russian foreign policy include selective use of media and information technology, cyber power, hybrid military intervention, and targeted economic sanctions.

Finally, the Cold War narrative underestimates a potential for Russia’s cooperation with the West in selected areas. The described asymmetric rivalry does not exclude the possibility of Russia and Western powers cooperating in some areas (nuclear non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, cyber issues) and regions (Middle East and North Korea) while perceiving each other as competitors over preferred rules and structure of the international system. In the increasingly fragmented world, Russia and the West may move beyond viewing each other as predominantly rivals if they learn to focus on issues of common concern and find a way to reframe their values and interests in non-confrontational terms.

Future Co-operation?

Cooperation with Russia remains possible and indeed desirable. Russia’s constant attempts to engage the United States and other Western nations in cooperation, including those over Iran and Syria, demonstrate the importance to the Kremlin of being recognized in relations with the outside world. Despite its internal institutional differences from Western nations, Russia sees itself as an indispensable part of the West and will continue to reach out to Western leaders in order to demonstrate Russia’s relevance.

Although the West continues to possess the power of influence, Western leaders have not been effective in using such power. Instead of devising a strategy of selective engagement and recognition, they largely rely on containment and political confrontation in relations with Russia. The West remains fearful of Russia and wants to force the Kremlin to comply with Western demands to relieve pressures on Ukraine or conduct a more restrained foreign policy.

These pressures are not likely to work. If the West continues to challenge Russia’s perceived interests, there are indeed reasons to expect that Putin may fight back. Even with a stagnating economy, the Kremlin commands a strong domestic support and an ample range of asymmetric tools for action.

However, for reasons of psychological and economic dependence on the West, Russia, unless provoked, is not likely to engage in actions fundamentally disruptive of the existing international order. If the United States does not engage in actions that are viewed by Russia as depriving it of its great power status, the Kremlin will refrain from highly destabilizing steps such as abdication of the INF treaty or military occupation of Ukraine or other parts of Eurasia.

As difficult as it might be to accept for the West, there is hardly an alternative to engaging Russia in a joint effort to stabilize the situation globally as well in various regions including Ukraine and wider Europe. The new policy must be based on understanding that the Kremlin’s “revisionism” is partly a reaction to the West’s refusal to recognize Russia as a potential partner. The alternative to the new engagement is not a compliant Russia, but a continued degradation of regional and global security.

Andrei P. Tsygankov is professor of political science and international relations at San Francisco State University. He has published widely in the United States, Russia, Europe, and China. His books include Russia’s Foreign Policy and Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin, and he has recently edited the Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy (to be published in 2018).

The significant imbalances in the distribution of aid between different geographical areas in the current Syrian war threaten not only the immediate survival of civilians, but also the future prospects for peace.

The Syrian crisis counts among the direst of our times, and never has there been a humanitarian emergency reaching comparable volumes of assistance. Formerly a relatively prosperous middle income country of about 21 million people, more than five years of war have plunged Syria into staggering poverty. Having lost their livelihoods, 13.5 million people are dependent on humanitarian aid.

Irrespective of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), belligerents have targeted residential areas and vital infrastructure such as water and electricity supplies, as well as medical facilities. In a desperate effort to survive, half the country’s population have been forced to leave their homes, not knowing whether they will ever be able to return. Of these, 4.8 million have crossed the borders as refugees, while a further 6.1 million people remain uprooted within the country.

While humanitarian assistance such as food and water, shelter, and medical aid are indispensable, it is deeply problematic that the distribution of aid in different areas in the country is highly uneven. Needs are estimated to be greatest in territory controlled by opposition forces – yet it is here that least aid is being delivered. In 2015, for example, only 27% of World Health Organisation administered medical aid reached opposition areas, as did the same share of food aid delivered by the World Food Programme only last month. Under the umbrella of the UN, both are the biggest humanitarian actors in their fields. Why are these imbalances occurring, and why are they critical for future peace negotiations and reconstruction?

The Syrian war

In Syria, the multitude of armed groups, estimated to number several hundred, complicates the distribution of aid as much as the fact that the country is now engulfed in not one, but two wars. Since 2011, civilians have been caught up in the original conflict between the regime and opposition groups seeking a change of government. But another battle is being fought between these opposition groups and Daesh, which proclaimed the establishment of their so-called Islamic State in July 2014. In areas controlled by the latter, the US-led international alliance is attacking Daesh positions across Syria and Iraq, while the Syrian and Russian air forces target other opposition-held areas.

Given that the presence of armed groups, their alliances and infighting differ significantly at the local level, humanitarian actors are thus operating in a highly fragmented terrain that requires often daily negotiations and re-evaluation of safety concerns for their own staff.

An aid system controlled by the government

To some extent, aid imbalances occur in war zones anywhere in the world. Generally, humanitarian aid can only be delivered when belligerents grant aid organisations permission to access people in need and guarantee for the security of their staff. Syria is exceptional, however, in the severity and persistence of aid imbalances. Although belligerents on all sides have interfered with aid deliveries, the Syrian government still controls about half the Syrian territory, thus presenting the single largest threat to impartial aid. By claiming to uphold Syrian sovereignty, it has quietly retained tight control over the aid system in place.

Only 17 INGOs are permitted to operate in designated areas of the country with limited reach, and their choice of local partners is limited to NGOs licensed by the government. Even after more than five years, the UN are still not allowed to carry out needs assessments in the country independently of the government, and they have remained obliged to issue the annual Syrian Humanitarian Response Plan (SHARP) – which is the basis for planning and monitoring the response each year – jointly with them. Even if convoys are approved for deliveries into opposition areas through rapidly changing bureaucratic procedures which can stretch over months, they are regularly stripped of surgical equipment and even delivery kits at government checkpoints.

Contravening the Hippocratic Oath and IHL, anti-terrorism legislation has rendered the medical treatment of anyone associated with the opposition a crime since June 2012. Intimidation, arrests and killings of medical staff, such as ambulance drivers, doctors and nurses were common at the beginning of the war, while medical facilities including hospitals, blood banks and coordination centres are regularly being subjected to targeted attacks.

Horrifying accounts have emerged from those trapped in such conditions, such as in Eastern Aleppo, where the remaining population was evacuated over the past week after years of heavy assault. By designating all opposition-held areas as being controlled by “terrorists” – an expression which is by no means limited to Daesh – the regime has portrayed the populations in these territories as undeserving of aid. In so doing, it puts the lives of millions in need at risk.

Fear of losing access

Although the UN have long denounced the blockade of aid to opposition areas as an illicit  war tactic, they have continued to compromise for fear of losing access, which is becoming more and more restricted. Today, 5.47 million live in hard-to-reach areas and 861,200 are trapped in areas under siege in Syria alone. Although, again, it is not only the government conducting sieges, 15 out of 18 areas are currently besieged by its armed forces. Sieges seek to enforce surrender – just as as Darayya did after 2.5 years without aid to civilians. Where humanitarian aid does reach opposition areas, airstrikes by Syrian and Russian government forces destroy residential neighborhoods and carry out targeted strikes on medical facilities, leaving not only wounded fighters, but also civilians without resort.

Conversely, not only has the government ensured that the vast majority of aid is channeled towards areas under its own control, but it has also used its leverage to strengthen its economy. Citing a lack of alternatives, the UN have paid tens of millions of US-dollars to implementing organisations and suppliers owned or run by individuals associated with the government who are under EU sanctions. These are not legally binding for the UN – yet current practice render them devoid of meaning. All these measures are without consequences for the government.

A parallel system: the unofficial humanitarian response

While opposition areas are systemically being deprived of direly needed humanitarian aid, an unofficial response has quietly emerged in parallel to the UN-led response which is co-ordinated with the government through SHARP. Early in the conflict, hundreds of local NGOs and expat-founded NGOs abroad sought to fill the gap the UN-led response left in opposition-held territory. From the conflict’s onset, the government refused to licence local NGOs in these areas, knowing full well that these are indispensable partners for major INGOs, most of whom had no prior experience of working in the country.

While it is impossible to establish the actual financial volume of the unofficial deliveries, which are not accounted for in the annual SHARPs, they are highly unlikely to reach levels anywhere near that of the official UN-led response. Although Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) warned that since the beginning of the war that opposition-areas were being strongly disadvantaged in life-saving aid, it took three years until UN resolution 2156 was implemented, which allowed for additional cross-border deliveries mainly from Turkey – with deeply insufficient results, as present figures show. If local NGOs are permitted to work with the official response at all, strict monitoring processes are put in place on money spent, and rightly so. In the view of some, however, the recent revelations on UN-suppliers render these requirements into a farce.

Why do belligerents seek to control aid?

Where belligerents can ensure access to aid in areas under their own control, a resemblance of normality can be maintained in which former state services are being replaced by external assistance. Before the war, the Syrian government implemented socialist-inspired welfare programmes over the course of decades, including needs assessments, which aimed to maintain political consent even within a highly repressive dictatorship. It is now drawing on humanitarian aid as a substitute. In a similarly systemic manner, Daesh have sought to control humanitarian actors, of which only very few are managing to uphold access and operational independence. In areas controlled by Kurdish forces and different groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, aid deliveries are often facilitated and coordinated by the Local People’s Committees or Local Administrative Councils, respectively.

While these are often credited for their efficiency, they are nonetheless political bodies who should not seek to monopolise aid deliveries for political gain. Belligerents seek to portray access to aid as a testimony to their ability to fulfill basic needs and protect survival. Where they manage to secure regular access to aid, the result is an order which is functional and might appear as either a continuation of the previous status quo or as a credible alternative to the latter. It is that perception which, by blocking aid deliveries to populations in territories under the control of the enemy, is sought to be destroyed with the aim of undermining their respective quest for legitimacy.

The dangers of Syria’s aid imbalances

Aid imbalances are dangerous not only because they raise the question as to who is most disadvantaged in receiving aid, but also because other wars have shown that access to social services and aid influence the directions in which people move. Demographic changes are a decisive factor in the outcome of war. From the viewpoint of belligerents, deserted neighborhoods are more difficult to defend because they lower the morale amongst fighters. For civilians, aid imbalances which privilege areas under the control of a given warring party over others deepen existing divides. Populations in areas less reached – especially if imbalances occur over long periods of time – will be physically and mentally weaker, exposed to poorer living conditions, and with comparatively fewer options to reach out for assistance. Violence, and in the Syrian case aerial bombardments in particular, prompt populations to flee; access to life-saving resources influence where they seek refuge.

In Syria, data on population movements within the country are still scarce, but the key question is whether those who cannot afford to leave the country are drawn from opposition- into government-held areas out of sheer need. If so, the international aid system threatens to not only enhance social fragmentation, but also further depopulation. In a country where a third of the population has been forced to flee, how will peace negotiations allow for their voices to be heard? For those who remain in the country, in which areas are residents still strong enough to engage, where do factories and business remain functioning that can stem the unfathomable project of future reconstruction, and how will the divides that have been deepening for so long now be bridged?

Future outlook

With every day passing, the aid delivered contributes to shaping the conditions under which peace will be concluded and reconstruction will begin. Aid imbalances are no new phenomenon, but the scale at which opposition-held areas are being disadvantaged in the Syrian case is. The present war has plunged organisations in the official response into a most severe crisis.

In an unprecedented decision, 73 local NGOs declared stopping all collaboration with the UN in October this year in protest against their perceived partiality. It has long been argued that in line with IHL, humanitarian aid must be carried out independently and it must be neutral and impartial in intent, but it is inevitably political in effect. In the Syrian war, however, humanitarian aid has become politicised to the point that it may severely impact on the outcome of the war.

The idea that delivering some aid is better than no aid at all thus represents a dangerous approach. Although slow progress has been made in raising awareness of government interference over the course of this year, the struggles of the unofficial response in opposition areas in particular remain underestimated and underreported. With added pressures resulting from chronic shortages of funding, humanitarian organisations on all sides are caught up in having to reach as many recipients as possible – regardless of where they are located – to meet donor expectations. As a result, there is little room for self-critical reflection, and internal divides on the present responses remain largely invisible for the public.

In contrast to these trends, concrete measures to counter present imbalances are urgently required. These could mean greater numbers of aid drops — similar to those recently resumed in Dayr al-Zur — in areas under siege, hard-to-reach areas, and others where ground access cannot be secured. They also require a coherent approach which does not tolerate interference by any warring party – including the government. For cases where belligerents insist on unacceptable compromises, protocols are needed which allow for humanitarian deliveries to be stopped as result.

If it comes to a point where these measures are being taken, it must be clear that responsibility does not lie with the humanitarian system, but the warring party refusing to abide by the very principles on which humanitarian aid  is based. Addressing these challenges remains an indispensable condition for ensuring even and fair access to humanitarian aid for those in dire need now, and for their prospects of living in the country in the future.

Dr. Esther Meininghaus is a Senior Researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion. 

This article by Chiara Oriti Niosi and Maud Farrugia originally appeared on openDemocracy on 19 December 2014.

A spate of violence against women in the eastern DRC shows that there is still a long way to go on effective implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, 14 years after its adoption.

There are very few roads accessible by car in the South Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One of these is around Bukavu, the provincial capital. The road is used daily by locals, government officials, non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Stabilization Mission for the DRC (MONUSCO), the world’s largest peacekeeping mission.

In this area, over a few months in 2013, at least 40 women were reportedly attacked, sexually assaulted and robbed of all their goods while taking shortcuts on their way to markets. As often happens, such incidents went unreported for a long time, mainly because survivors feared being stigmatised as victims, and had little faith that their assailants would be prosecuted.

What was happening? Too poor to afford basic transportation, heavily burdened Congolese women walk long distances to reach markets to sell their products. Congolese Armed Forces had obstructed the road to Bukavu with illegal barriers, forcing women who lacked the money to pay the tolls to choose the forest by-ways, risking attack.

But even if unreported, the risk of incidents should have been detected. The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road. This should have been striking considering how common it is to see women carrying large loads on their shoulders everywhere in this area of the DRC.The presence of illegal barriers was well known, but despite some on-going efforts to stop them, almost no peacekeepers from the government, non-governmental organisations or MONUSCO noticed the absence of women transporting goods along the road.

This indicates not only a terrible gap in recognising and preventing sexual violence, but also a lack of attention to women’s roles in society, and to women’s potential contributions to security, early warning and early response, and peacemaking. In other words, a lack of concern for what is stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which acknowledges the vital role women can and should play in conflict management, conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Losing direction: the gaps in adopting a gender perspective

In spite of growing efforts to raise awareness and knowledge of Resolution 1325 among international actors and national institutions, many peacebuilders are not yet used to applying a gender perspective. On one hand, the importance of gender is underestimated, and its potential to influence peace and conflict is not recognized. This is partly because gender is so rooted in each society’s behaviour that it is often confused with culture, or not even perceived at all–neither in the local peacekeeping environment, nor in the environment of origin of peaceworkers. Peaceworkers take great trouble not to ‘interfere’ with the culture of local people.

The difficulties associated with discussing gender norms, while remaining sensitive to the cultural autonomy of the local population, end up being used to justify not working with gender at all. On the other hand, those difficulties have also created the perception that working with gender is the exclusive responsibility of specialized experts, with a specific budget. While this can be true for the implementation of gender programs, it is not true for adopting a gender perspective. The transversal nature of gender necessitates acting with a gender perspective.

What dominates is a misinterpretation of ‘gender’, which for most practitioners is largely linked to reducing sexual violence. A shallow interpretation of gender inhibits this aspect of peacework. Although most strategies of civilian protection take into account threats, vulnerabilities, profiles of aggressors and attacks, and even indicators of conflict-related sexual violence, few consider the social roles assigned through gender alongside these other key elements. For example, if collecting water is a role traditionally taken on by women, and (male) armed actors have a record of sexual violence against women, it is crucial that local water points are secured away from them.

But understandings of gender are not only about reducing sexual violence; they are crucial to every aspect of peace and conflict life. The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution. The daily activities conducted by men and women are frequently determined by gender, and can sway and be swayed by conflict and peace contexts.

For instance, women’s and men’s daily activities will expose them to different knowledge. Where women are tasked with collecting water and wood, cultivating fields, childcare or visiting markets, while men maintain a breadwinner role, they will have access to different kinds of information which can be essential to recognize conflict patterns; information about a particular community’s needs, specific security threats, and local power brokers. Humanitarian situations can also challenge gender norms. It has been widely reported amongst Syrian refugees that, because men have been uncomfortable asking for assistance, women have added to their traditional responsibilities by looking for humanitarian aid outside of the home. Acquiring this breadwinner status has left some women on the receiving end of frustrations of their male partners, expressed through violence.The transversal nature of gender, just like peace and conflict, means that gender influences women’s and men’s roles and behaviours in practical ways, from the level of the family to the institution.

In other cases, working with women directly can be crucial to achieving a sustainable peace. In reintegration programs especially, working with ex-combatants’ wives can be very helpful. Social connections with the host community, which are crucial for a sustainable reintegration, are often created by women via childcare, visits to the market and so on. In all these senses, a gender perspective can provide opportunities to drive positive changes towards peace and gender equality.

Yet gender often is not included in peacekeepers’ observations. Why? One explanation is that in conflict situations, “hard issues”, such as armed attacks or massive destruction, are much more visible, easier to monitor and with immediate measurable impact, and so are more easily included in protection strategies. In contrast, gender issues come across as “soft issues”, and are often confined to the domain of “women’s issues”. Gender issues are not seen as priorities that must be considered for stepping towards peace; rather, they are considered ‘consequences’ of the conflict to which provide assistance.

Commonly, gender is very much associated with women, rather than the gendered roles of women and men; women in conflict situations are mostly seen as vulnerable objects of peacekeeping initiatives. This understanding of gender relegates women to passive victimhood–rather than to persons that are not vulnerable per se, but are in a condition of vulnerability. This misinterpretation is very costly: not only reducing peace operations’ capacity to prevent violence, but also the participation of key active elements able to promote a sustainable peace.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 suffers from this bias: it is often treated as an appendix to weightier matters, rather than being integral to conflict resolution or sustainable peace. The titular focus of Resolution 1325 on Women (rather than Gender), Peace and Security may itself be problematic. It risks being misinterpreted as advocating that the security of women be dealt with differently (and separately) from that of men; stressing the need to promote protection and participation of women, rather than highlighting the interdependence of women’s and men’s security for lasting peace. The existence of specific security threats towards a targeted group, for example the frequency with which sexual violence is directed against women and girls, or the forced recruitment into armed groups of children, does not mean that consequences will affect only that part of the population. Nor does it follow that the strategies of prevention should focus only on the ‘at risk’ group.

Rather, the consequences of violations affect the population as a whole, at all levels of society. Attacks against women on routes to market have not only consequences for the victim personally, but on family relationships, where the victim suffers discrimination, and the husbands frustration. The socio-economic stability of the community itself is put at risk when the markets are closed due to declining participation. Consequently, such attacks have consequences also at a regional and national level. Indeed, security does not mean only protection against threats, but the creation of a protected environment at all levels: domestic, community, institutional, and international. Each man and each woman has a role to play in all those levels of security.

Gender equality has further implications for security. If men and women do not have the same access to opportunities and rights, the security and peace of the society at large is compromised. An imbalance of rights and participation at the family level can have repercussions nationwide. What is essential is the interaction and participation of women and men together to build peace and prevent conflict.

The greater aim of Resolution 1325 to integrate a gender perspective into all aspects of conflict prevention and resolution is thus missed in many efforts to implement it. Indeed, this tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors. This is only part of the picture. Training all mission personnel in operating with a gender perspective is more important.

It is true that there is an immediate need to increase the number of women (military, police and civilian) deployed in peace support operations and to elevate their roles to those of their male counterparts. Female peacekeepers can play crucial roles in certain areas, including women’s protection: assisting women victims of violence, and patrols and community engagement in contexts where social norms restrict contacts between women and men. Female peacekeepers challenge broad conceptions around women’s–and men’s–roles in security. For instance, a Uruguayan female helicopter pilot with MONUSCO has aroused enormous interest among Congolese women, which has supported the mission’s engagement with local people. In Liberia, Indian female peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) have assumed a very high profile role guarding the President’s office. The percentage of women enrolling in the Liberian National Police rose from 13 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009. The tendency to dissociate, as opposed to integrate, gender into security and conflict resolution strategies also risks feeding the idea that the security and protection of women can only be provided for by women as security actors.

However, the presence of female peacekeepers is often the sole emblem of the UNSC resolution. While this is indeed part of the solution, the key is for each actor–male or female, military or civilian–to learn and to act with a gender perspective in all situations. In order to achieve this, a gender perspective needs to be taught, continuously cultivated and practiced before, during and after peace operations.

Getting it right: South-South collaboration

Sharing similar experiences and lessons learned between regions is an excellent way to gradually adopt the gender perspective. Latin America and Africa, for example, are regions that share a number of structural characteristics and face comparable challenges: post-colonial states, corruption, insecurity, inequality, young governments, histories of long-lasting internal conflicts, and post-dictatorial contexts. South-South collaborations between these regions enables a thoughtful approach based on the experiences countries have acquired over the years. Such collaborations, moreover, are all the more pertinent as many Troop Contributing Countries to peace operations deployed in Africa are from Latin American countries. Currently, 12 Latin American and Caribbean states contribute over 1,500 peacekeepers to UN missions in Africa, with the Uruguayan and Guatemalan commitments to MONUSCO being the largest.

Resolution 1325 was originally neglected at the Latin American level. Since 2007, RESDAL’s investigations on women in the armed forces across the Latin American region have revealed a number of issues, including a lack of data on the subject, and a lack of discussion of gender issues within peace operations. The research papers promote collaboration between civil, military and police actors to improve gender equality within democratic institutions, and are an important resource for Latin American practitioners. As a result of such efforts, Resolution 1325 and related material were incorporated into the regional agenda within three years, notably in the IX Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas.

RESDAL has been uniquely positioned to use this regional advocacy experience to progress the Women, Peace and Security agenda in international peace operations. After conducting fieldwork in Haiti, DRC and Lebanon, where Latin American countries participate in United Nations peace operations, it became clear to RESDAL that it was necessary to carry out regular and pre-deployment training for military peacekeeping forces. To this end, RESDAL instigated a programme of classes on gender promotion in peacekeeping operations at various centers across Latin America that consider international legal frameworks and field experiences, as well as local understandings of gender.

The implementation of Resolution 1325 cannot take shortcuts: the path to adopt is that of a comprehensive, multi-actor and practical gender approach. The 15th anniversary of Resolution 1325 next year provides an opportunity to follow such a path, advocating for an approach based on fieldwork and South-South collaboration to work with women and men towards a lasting peace.

Chiara Oriti Niosi specializes in reducing sexual violence in conflict, with several years of experience at the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO). She currently works at RESDAL in the Women, Peace and Security program.

Maud Farrugia holds a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is Assistant Researcher for the Women, Peace and Security program of RESDAL. 

Featured image: A MONUSCO vehicle on patrol in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. Source: Flickr | MONUSCO

Jobbik, described as a radical right-wing populist party, has enjoyed considerable success in Hungary’s elections. What accounts for the party’s popularity among certain segments of the Hungarian electorate?

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his FIDESZ party have consolidated their status as preponderant political actors in Hungary. Further along the right angle of the political spectrum, Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) currently stands as the second most popular party in the country. This short piece sets in context the reasons behind Jobbik’s appeal to certain segments of the Hungarian electorate, including an overview of the party’s formation trajectory and a brief assessment of Jobbik’s prospects for the future.

Jobbik’s political origins and intra-party structure

Jobbik was made up by a variety of grass-roots nationalist groupings. At its early stage (2003-2004), the party had brought under its auspices initiatives as diverse as an aggregate of nationalist student groupings (the Jobboldali Ifjúsági Közösség, Right-Wing Students Association) and a nucleus of political activists that later evolved, at least partially, into the (unarmed) self-styled militia of the Magyar Gárda (‘Hungarian Guard’). From an instrumental perspective, Jobbik has been highly keen on political activism and the intensive mobilization of its popular bases of support. In particular, the party has been harshly criticized for its links with the Magyar Gárda and the ensuing implications for a more militant (occasionally violent) engagement into politics. By contrast to other far right parties across the ‘new’ Europe and the preponderant status of their leaders, the chairman Gábor Vona does not enjoy a status comparable to that of, say, Marian Kotleba in the ‘Our Slovakia’ party or Volen Siderov in Bulgaria’s Ataka. This more ‘horizontal’ and devolved arrangement has enabled Jobbik to approach a variety of target-groups within the frame of its political campaign.

Reaching out to the masses: Capitalizing on corruption and Hungary’s economic crisis

The period between 2006 and 2008 saw the delegitimization of the Socialists (MSZP), on charges of corruption. This resulted into MSZP’s rapid decline of popularity and the decisive restructuring of Hungary’s party landscape. For a start, Jobbik demanded that political crime is introduced to the Hungarian penal code as a separate legal category. In light of these developments and the subsequent outbreak of the economic crisis (2008), the absence of potent political forces on the left of the MSZP facilitated Jobbik’s campaign of artificial anti-capitalism. The party embedded the concept of so-called ‘Eco-social National Economics’ into its political programme (2010). In this platform, Jobbik has called for the renegotiation of Hungary’s foreign debt, the establishment of a banking system independent from the interference of multinational corporations, the state-ownership of sectors such as health and education and the long-term renationalization of various others. This campaign of artificial anti-capitalism enhanced Jobbik’s appeal to these segments of the society mostly imperiled by Hungary’s economic stagnation. Jobbik’s more concrete emphasis on social issues and adoption of an, ostensibly, leftist platform on the economy signified the major departure from MIÉP (Hungarian Justice and Life Party) and older initiatives of the Hungarian far right.

Appealing to the youth

Jobbik’s extensive involvement in social media such as Facebook serves as a rough indication of the party’s popularity among the Hungarian youth. Its leadership has been successful in orchestrating a fashionable youth sub-culture around the party with plenty of happenings and other infrastructure (e.g. nationalist rock-bands such as Hungarica and Kárpátia and Internet portals such as barikad.hu and kuruc.info, etc.). In addition to economic and social welfare anxieties, Jobbik has managed to take advantage of a rather common grievance among the younger generation in Hungary and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This is, namely, the allegation that mainstream parties are either built upon nepotism or dominated by the older generation, leaving little space for the political representation of young people. By contrast, Jobbik’s links to the Magyar Gárda, and its political activism as a whole, have refrained pensioners and other elderly voters from opting for the party.

Centering on unresolved problems

Jobbik has also capitalized on social grievances and unresolved problems that do not necessarily interweave with corruption and the economic crisis. In its political programme (2010), the party dedicates an entire section to ‘Gypsy Issues’. In its own words ‘. . . the coexistence of Magyar and Gypsy is one of the severest problems facing Hungarian society . . . a potential time-bomb’. ‘Gypsy crime’ is introduced as a separate category and the programme acknowledges that ‘. . . certain criminological phenomena are predominantly and overwhelmingly associated with this minority’. Further along the text, the party equates ‘Gypsy integration’ with ‘assimilation into society-at-large’ through ‘work and not welfare’.

Words have matched with deeds. Between 2007 and 2011, the Magyar Gárda performed a string of ‘patrolling operations’ in areas seen as threatened by ‘Gypsy crime’ and other activities such as blood-donation and charity work. These activities took place in impoverished localities across the Hungarian northeast (e.g. Miskolc and Debrecen). This is one of the least developed parts of the country, with a long record of friction between the local population and the Roma minority. In October 2011, the successful mobilization of the Magyar Gárda in the northeastern district of Gyöngyöspata resulted in the departure of the Roma community, the resignation of the local mayor and the Jobbik candidate’s victory in the elections that followed. The utilization of the Magyar Gárda undoubtedly brandished Jobbik’s image to these rural residents that consider themselves excluded by the remote, or even absent, state. Most importantly, Jobbik has managed to establish its electoral stronghold in the northeast.

An apparent shift?

The last few years have witnessed the more decisive turn of the ruling FIDESZ towards the right. In particular, Viktor Orbán has displayed a tough stance in regards to the refugee crisis and staunchly objected to the soft borders principle within the EU. Back in autumn 2015, the Hungarian Premier rushed to justify the erection of a razor-wire fence along the Serbian-Hungarian border on the basis that ‘European and Christian values must be safeguarded…Hungary must be free to defend its borders’. More recently, on October 2^nd, 2016, Orbán called an (unsuccessful) referendum on the EU refugee quotas for Hungary.

Until lately, the ruling party’s gradual shift towards the right also facilitated Jobbik’s political engagement. Nevertheless, now this seems to be evolving into a boomerang for Vona and his associates. Although it remains Hungary’s second most popular party in its own right, some of the latest opinion polls demonstrate that Orbán’s capitalization on public anxieties over the refugee crisis has cost a non-negligible percentage of voters to Jobbik. In this light, the party assumed a neutral stance during the latest referendum. Although he also objects to the refugee quotas arrangement, Vona refrained from granting his assent to what he dubbed ‘Viktor Orbán’s personal project’.

Consequently, the last months have witnessed an apparent shift on the part of Jobbik. In its programmatic statements, Jobbik’s leadership declares the party ‘non-Islamophobic’. Gábor Vona, Márton Gyöngyösi, and other high-rank affiliates have been networking extensively in countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan. Moreover, Jobbik has been quick to strike a ’pro-Palestine’ outlook and castigate Israel not solely for its aggression against the Palestinians but also over the, allegedly, belligerent foreign policy towards other states in the Middle East (namely Iran). Nevertheless, the new realities of the refugee crisis and the wave of sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2016, have demonstrated that the party can be situationally-adaptive in its outlooks on the Muslim world. Endorsing a body politics approach, Jobbik has recently become highly vocal over the necessity to safeguard Europe’s Christian pillars of identity and protect Hungarian and European women from the ‘rapacious Islamic invaders’.

Furthermore, the party has intensified its charges of corruption against FIDESZ and ostensibly watered down its rhetoric on ‘Gypsy crime’. The extent to which this new strategy may facilitate Jobbik to reclaim its lost voters from FIDESZ remains to be seen within the immediate future. Lastly, Gábor Vona’s decision to purge the more extremist elements from the party (April 2016) was interpreted by various commentators, in Hungary and abroad, as an early indication of Jobbik’s firmer shift towards the mainstream of Hungarian politics. Nevertheless, it is still rather precarious to jump to concrete conclusions; let alone presume that Jobbik might drastically antagonize FIDESZ’s predominance in the country’s political scene in the near future.

Vassilis Petsinis is a visiting researcher at Tartu University (Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies). His specialisation is European politics and ethnopolitics with a regional focus on central and eastern Europe (including the Baltic States). He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. His personal profile on academia.edu can be accessed here.

Originally set up the mid-1980s, the temporary village guard system’s purpose was to act as a local militia in towns and villages, protecting against attacks and reprisals from the insurgents of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Has this system been successful as a counter-terrorism strategy and does it still have a role in the Turkey of today?

In any counterinsurgency strategy, the separation of “bad guys” from the rest of the population is a significant objective which has a direct impact on the effectiveness of the campaign. To achieve this objective, forming, arming and using local militias may be a viable strategy, particularly in rural, remote, harshly mountainous and tribal contexts in which security forces face difficult challenges to reach the local population. In recent years, the “Sons of Iraq” or the “Anbar Awakening” case in Iraq and the “Tribal Security Forces (Arbakai)” case in Afghanistan are contemporary examples of this strategy.

Does the strategy of forming local militias yield successful results? The existing, yet limited, literature on this subject has opened the door to speculations and interpretations that are more journalistic than scholarly. To better elucidate the effectiveness of forming local militias, this article presents the case of the “Temporary Village Guard System” (Geçici Köy Koruculuğu Sistemi)” in Turkey, which was first initiated in 1985 and has been fully active since.

Turkey’s Village Guards System

Since being founded in 1978, Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has caused approximately 20,000 fatalities, including about 11,000 civilians and 9,000 security personnel. In the meantime, about 20,000 PKK members were killed and about 6000 were captured and imprisoned. In order to thwart PKK-initiated violence, Turkish authorities have implemented many different countermeasures ranging from repressive to accommodative strategies, including the village guard system. As of January 2016, the monthly salary is approximately the equivalent of U.S. $400, along with clothing expenses and some social security benefits that came with passage of the amendments between the 74^th article and 82^nd article of the Village Law on March 26, 1985.

With this legally founded, centrally appointed, and state-paid “security force,” the Turkish government created a civilian militia in the Kurdish populated southeast provinces of Turkey. Except for 300 Ulupamir Guards, who immigrated to the Van province from Kyrgyzstan, all village guards are ethnically Kurd. To supplement the employed village guard system, a “voluntary village guard” program was added in 13 more provinces, which led to the expansion of this system to 22 provinces in 1993, the year in which violence reached its peak level over the course of the conflict with the PKK. The difference between the two programs is that, while the employed village guards receive monthly salary and health benefits, the voluntary village guards do not receive a salary but are entitled to health compensation and benefits. The size of temporary and voluntary civilian armed force reached almost 60,000 by the end of the 1990s, accounting for almost one-third of the armed forces in the Kurdish region.

As of August 2013, Muharrem Güler, then the Interior Minister of Turkey, announced that there are currently 65,456 village guards, 46,113 of whom are employed (interestingly 337 of them are women) and 19,343 of whom are voluntary (161 of them are women). Currently, the village guard system is implemented in 23 provinces. Most of the village guards are employed on the border between Iraq, Iran, and in the extremely mountainous provinces of Hakkari, Sirnak and Van because PKK has been using safe heavens in Iraq and Iran for years.

All village guards, whether voluntary or hired, work under the supervision of the provincial Gendarmerie Commands and receive two weeks of basic military training from their provincial governor immediately after joining.

To better understand the debate, it may be useful to examine the existing arguments for and against the Village Guard System.

Arguments Favoring the System

1. The village guard system has been seen a success story in Turkey’s strategy against the PKK-initiated violence to such an extent that it has become one of the main pillars of counterterror strategy. If the village guard system had not been initiated, the state authority in the region would have eventually collapsed.
2. The village guards have first denied the mobility of the PKK both by separating them from the rest of the population as a bottom-up means of isolating them, and then prevented them from gaining territorial control.
3. The village guards have provided intelligence to the security forces both on the territory and the activities of the PKK.
4. The village guards have not been forced by the security forces to join this system. The existence of more than 25,000 voluntary village guards, who are not paid by the government, is a proof of this.
5. PKK’s numbers has never exceeded the number of the village guards, even during the early 1990s, the period in which the number of the armed terrorists reached its peak level of 11,000. This is an indicator showing the low level of popular support to the PKK.

Arguments against the System

1. The state pitched brother against brother. If it hadn’t been for the village guards, this conflict would have never reached this intensity.
2. The village guard system is a typical reflection of state tradition on the Kurdish issue. Enmeshed in the Kurds’ tribal networks, it exacerbated the tensions in the region. The equipping of the village guards, who were without even basic military training, increased instability in the entire region. The guard system introduced virtually extinguished social order in Kurdish daily life.
3. The village guard system was used by the state officials as a repressive mechanism to recruit villagers.
4. The village guards are poorly disciplined and inadequately trained.
5. The village guards have been accused repeatedly in past years of drug trafficking, corruption, theft, rape, and other abuses. Inadequate oversight exacerbated the problem, and in many cases the security forces allegedly protected village guards from prosecution.
6. Several reports document concerns regarding human rights violations resulting from the village guard system in Turkey.
7. The village guard system has been responsible for deepening mistrust and ethnic divisions in an already troubled region.
8. The village guards have moved with their families into villages that were evacuated in the 1990s and now the original villagers are returning to their villages to find the Village Guards already living there.
9. The establishment of village guards made civilians more vulnerable to attacks.

Has the village guard system in Turkey really worked as a counterterror strategy?

In military terms, and despite its drawbacks and unintended consequences, the village guard system in Turkey worked well as a counter-terror strategy between 1985 and 1993 and achieved the objectives of separation of the local population from the terrorists and denying the PKK control of their hoped-for secessionist territory. Early success gained just after the implementation of the militia system needed a follow-up before the insurgency adapts. In the following years, however, it gradually waned in effectiveness when considering the increased number of PKK attacks in the period of 1993-1999, and caused increasing socio-economic and political micro-level cleavages in the region. As the big inertia in a dispersed system means resistance to change, the guards system could not easily be modified, meaning the strengthening of the existing micro-cleavages and the emergence of the new ones.

Reasons for the decline in effectiveness

The village guard system in Turkey was originally initiated under the assumption that the emergent threat (PKK bandits) was so local and small that it was not considered to require commitment of national security forces. This perception of PKK fighters as “a few bandits” led the Turkish government officials to the authoritization of the system in a temporally (initially, the system was designed for a two-years long period ) and spatially (only in three provinces) limited setting. However, there emerged many institutional problems as the number of village guards was enormously expanded from 800 men to 40,000 men only within a one-year-long period. The primary sources of these shortfalls would be sorted as follows: the absence of comprehensive vision at the national level and the implementation of the planning and recruitment strategy of the system at the provincial level. The absence of a national-level institutional framework which would standardize the system led to the differentiating practices in the provinces. The dramatic rise within a short period of time, when combined with the attempt of government to micro-manage the village guard system at the provincial level, led not only to confusion about the rights, missions and responsibilities of the village guards but also caused different (sometimes contradicting) practices in the following years. Fast expansion meant both weak control at the national level and different interpretations of the operational use of the guards at the provincial level.

Furthermore, the formation of local militias may not only have pros and cons in the sphere of security but also may lead to implications in the socio-cultural sphere. The persistent characterization of the village guards as “traitor,” and the prevalent use of the term “Jash” (a Kurdish slang word for donkey) by PKK supporters to refer to Kurdish village guards, indicates the significance of the local political structure when analyzing the local dynamics of the conflict in Turkey. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the system has also changed the nature of conflict by first pushing the conflict into new areas and creating new micro-cleavages (whether tribal or at the family level) in the provinces.  These results, which clearly emphasize the explanatory power of local political structures in an ethnic conflict, confirm Stathis Kalyvas’s theorization. That is, when examining the dynamics of an ethnic conflict in a comparative perspective, Kalyvas points out that local political structures and rivalries among local groups have a great impact on shifting alliances, which are considered as acts of treason by rival factions.

The allegation of human rights violations by militias seem to be inevitable. The absence or lack of sufficient legal mechanisms to investigate accusations, especially in combination with low levels of transparency and accountability, may lead to structural legal problems and emotional conflicts over justice in the Afghan and Iraq cases as in the Turkish case.

To demobilize or not to demobilize?

The Turkish government has been in a dilemma when deciding on the fate of the village guard system. Opinions about this issue highlight two options for the government, each of which can take two forms.

The first option is demobilization. One form of this option is “honorable demobilization,” which implies that the government will end the guard system after providing all material and social rights and benefits to the retired and serving guards, and publicly elevating the history of the guards for their role in the Turkish state’s armed struggle against the PKK.  The other form, “dishonorable demobilization,” implies that the government will end the guard system with few rights and benefits for retired and serving guares, and will meticulously search the history of the guards to bring to justice those who allegedly committed crimes.  Interviewees who favor dishonorable demobilization argue the need to establish memorial sites for those crimes and brutalities allegedly committed by the guards, with periodic visits by government officials to these sites to keep the collective memory fresh.

The second option is to maintain and continue the guards system. With this option, there again appear to be two alternative forms.  One form is the maintainance of the system after a comprehensive revision that examinines the strengths, drawbacks and conseuqences of the system in the domains of security, law and politics so as to make it more effective and efficient. The other form is the maintainance of the status-quo which implies the continuation of the village guards as an open-ended commitment not restrained by definite limits, restrictions, or structure.

Currently, the Turkish government seems to embrace the last altenative; that is, maintainance of the system as it is in an open-ended process. With the information at hand, it is difficult to predict which option the Turkish government will embrace in the near future. Sooner or later, however, when the government decides on the village guard system, this decision will surely be a strategic one which directly affects the evolution of ongoing clashes.

Metin Gurcan is an Istanbul Policy Center Researcher specializing in security issues.

In our two-part discussion ‘Countering Militarised Public Security in Latin America’,  Sarah Kinosian and Matt Budd explore the roots of the increasing trend towards militarisation of  public security across Central and South America and ask what lessons can be learnt from alternative methods. Part 2 is available here.

Across Latin America, governments are sending their militaries into the streets to act as de facto police forces in the face of disproportionally high crime and violence rates. This trend has been going on for several years, but has accelerated in 2013. With the move to deploy over 40,000 troops for citizen security in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro joined a growing list of leaders throughout the region – in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and Dominican Republic, to name a few– that have relied on their militaries to carry out police duties. Yet, in the past 20 years, there are no regional examples in which relying on soldiers for the security of citizens for an extended period of time has brought crime rates down.

Aside from being ineffective, there are other problems associated with militarization of law enforcement. This tactic might offer short-term political or security gains, but it does not provide a long-term solution to the causes of crime. While the presence of the armed forces can slow violence initially, it often just displaces crime to another area, which can return once the troops leave. Sending soldiers to the streets also raises human rights concerns, as the armed forces are trained to track and kill an enemy with as much force as necessary.

Police, on the other hand, are theoretically trained to use minimal force, investigate crimes, and respect the rights of citizens. When governments deploy troops, the differences between the functions of the police and the military get lost and the line between citizen and enemy becomes blurred. Yet each of the countries mentioned above has weak, corrupt, public institutions, particularly penal and justice systems, which have yielded high rates of impunity and crime. Shifting tides in the drug trade, the expansion of organized crime and rampant inequality, has exacerbated these problems. While police reform efforts are underway, they are flagging, largely due to a lack of funding and/or political will.

So why, instead of heavily investing in police reform, have governments in Latin America increasingly turned to the military to solve public security problems? With the highest murder rate in South America, and a corrupt government with a strong military tradition, Venezuela provides an ample case study.

The Shadow of Chávez

When Hugo Chávez died in March, he left behind an economy in shambles, a dysfunctional judicial system, a broken prison system, security forces rife with corruption, and a politicized government bureaucracy incapable of tackling the resulting spike in organized crime, violence and drug trafficking. In the two decades since Chávez took power, murder rates doubled  – or tripled according to some sources  – and in 2012, Venezuela had the second-highest homicide rate in the world[1]. Caracas, the country’s capital, on its own registers one of the highest murder rates globally, as gang warfare and high levels of street crime plague most urban centers. The country also has become a major hub for drugs transiting from Colombia to the United States and Europe.

In a post- Chávez Venezuela, the dire security situation appears to be getting worse. In May, just two months after taking office, Chávez’s handpicked successor, President Nicolás Maduro, sent 3,000 members of the military and police to man roadblocks, carry out raids and patrol the streets of Caracas. The deployment was part of an initiative known as “Plan Patria Segura,” (or “Safe Homeland Plan”) which has been expanded to include over 40,000 members of the security forces. Soon, about 80,000 security forces will have been deployed and the military will have an active role in every state. Although the initiative was set to end this October, it looks like troops will be on the streets well past 2013.

Police Corruption

One reason Maduro has turned to the troops is that Venezuela’s police are among the most corrupt in Latin America. As in Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras, police in Venezuela have been dismissed by the public as ineffective, corrupt, abusive and complicit with organized crime. In 2012, a Transparency International survey found Venezuelans considered the police to be the most corrupt entity in the country.

This is not a recent problem – even before Chávez’s reign, the country’s police forces were accused of excessive use of force, unlawful killings of civilians, extortion, torture, forced disappearances and involvement in organized crime. By 2009, even the government admitted police were responsible for up to 20 percent of all crimes. In one poll, 70 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Police and criminals are practically the same.”

As with many forces throughout Latin America, police are underfunded, poorly trained and many times outgunned by criminals. This, compounded by high levels of impunity for officers and officials and a lack of central government control over the country’s 134 police units, has allowed organized crime to penetrate state institutions at every governing level.

Reform measures put into motion by Chávez in 2009 aimed to centralize law enforcement and create a professionalized national police force. The new body, the National Bolivarian Police (PNB), would be less militarized and given human rights training from a civilian-run policing university. Officers would be vetted and their salaries would be doubled while a council that included human rights activists would oversee the reform’s implementation.

According to Venezuela experts David Smilde and Rebecca Hanson, while “Venezuelans do not seem to think police corruption or inefficiency are major causes of crime, they do seem to believe that a professional police force and improved judicial and penal system could reduce crime.”

However, challenges still exist. With just under 14,500 officers, the reformed force lacks manpower, as well as the funding and political will necessary to tackle the spiraling violence. Also, several of the reforms, such as the increased wages, have yet to be implemented.

Despite Venezuelans support for the idea of citizen security reform, public support for the PNB appears to be one of its obstacles. For many citizens, the PNB’s tactics appear ineffective and “soft,” according to Smilde. While many residents prefer the humanist theory behind the force, many people in poor, crime-heavy areas see a more hard-line approach as the only option to target the sky-high levels of insecurity.

A History of Military culture 

Part of this public acceptance lies in the country’s entrenched military culture. The military dominated politics in Venezuela throughout the 19^th century until the fall of a military dictatorship in 1958. The institution’s role then subsided, until Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998. Under Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution,” strong civil-military ties were forged, with troops being deployed to oversee social projects like food distribution and housing construction. Military members also gained personal voting rights and were placed in top positions in the government.

Although Chávez initiated police reform, he focused even more attention and resources on the armed forces. Around the same time that he created the PNB, he set up two more militarized initiatives: the Bolivarian National Militia, a military-trained group of civilians that would act as liaisons between the army and the people, and the Bicentennial Security Dispositive, a military unit intended to target high-crime areas.

Maduro has continued the military’s social and political role by surrounding himself with former and current military members, increasing the armed forces’ salary budget, creating new “Bolivarian militias” headed by former military members and pledging $4 billion (USD) to “increase the defensive capacity of the country.” He has also announced the creation of a new bank, television channel and cargo company, all for the armed forces.

Given this context, as Smilde has noted, it is no wonder that for the average Venezuelan citizen, the military “represents order and efficiency against a background of chaos and dysfunction, and giving it an important social role appears logical.”

Political motivations

Maduro also has political motivations for sending in the military. Stuck in Chávez’s image, Maduro has been parroting his predecessor’s strategies and playing up the tight links between the military and the “Bolivarian Revolution.” In part, the troop deployment is a way to continue Chávez’s legacy and rally support for the government. Because of lingering popular support for Chávismo, the public has not turned on him and despite high inflation, shortages of basic goods, power blackouts, soaring murder rates, and corruption scandals, most polls indicate Maduro maintains a 45-50 percent approval rating.

By deploying the military, Maduro has shown the public he is responding to the security problem. In general, amid calls for security improvement, it becomes politically difficult to wait for the gradual progress of police reform. “It is a political response to a political problem” according to Venezuelan expert and NYU professor Alejandro Velasco.

What impact?

Although the Maduro administration claims murders have dropped by over 30 percent, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence projects the country will record 25,000 homicides in 2013 – 4,000 more than in 2012. Even in the areas where military presence has mitigated crime, what happens when the military leaves?

Another concern is the lack of accountability for the military in Venezuela. Unlike the PNB, the armed forces are given no civilian human rights training and there is no mechanism for civilians to report incidents of abuse. There have been at least ten incidents of violations since July, including the shooting of a mother and her daughter by the National Guard. And while Maduro’s approval ratings have barely dipped, those for Plan Patria Segura show a downward trend.

What now?

In Venezuela and elsewhere, there are not a lot of hopeful choices to curb the immediate high crime levels. However, police reform is a key part of improving the security situation. As one U.S. State Department official recently said of Honduras, where a military police unit was just created, “the creation of a military police force distracts attention from civilian police reform efforts and strains limited resources.” This same logic applies to Venezuela – Maduro must politically and financially invest in police reform to strengthen and expand the role of the PNB. Police must also receive sufficient training, resources and supervision to ensure transparency. The public can begin to trust the police when they are the ones enforcing the rule of law.

A line must be drawn between civilian and military leadership, and the role of the armed forces clearly defined and distinct from that of the police. To curb corruption, improved mechanisms for investigating police and military criminality must be established while civilian-led vetting and oversight systems put in place for police and military members. Finally, strong justice and penal systems are fundamental, otherwise those committing crimes will have little reason to stop doing so and prisons will continue to be violent bastions of criminal education. Police reform must not be pushed aside due to short-sighted politics; without a concerted effort to get troops off the streets, Venezuela is vulnerable to descending into an unchecked cycle of criminality, both in society and within its security forces.

Golden Dawn, a Greek Neo-Fascist party, has gradually enjoyed greater success in Greek and European parliamentary elections. What are the drivers behind this development?

The Greek Golden Dawn, a violent neo-Nazi party, has remained in the margins of the Greek political system for most of its political life. However, within the context of the emerging economic crisis both in Europe and in Greece, the party marked an electoral breakthrough in May and June 2012, receiving 7 per cent of the vote in May and 6.9 per cent in June, translating into 21 and 18 parliamentary seats out of 300 respectively. As the economic crisis unfolded, and societal upheaval in Greece became reinforced by the emerging migration crisis, the party retained its support in the 2014 European Parliament Elections receiving 9.38 per cent of the vote; and in the January and September 2015 general elections, when it retained third place in the party system with 6.28 and 6.99 per cent of the vote respectively.

The ideology of Golden Dawn

The Golden Dawn is unlike all other parties in the Greek parliament; and most other far right parties in Europe. While the party itself rejects the fascist label, it nonetheless espouses all core fascist- and more specifically Nazi- principles. In our book, we show the party rejects liberalism and socialism and endorses what it terms the ‘third biggest ideology in history’, i.e. nationalism, combined with support for an all-powerful state premised on ‘popular sovereignty’. In its manifesto the party states that being a member of the Golden Dawn entails the acceptance of the following principles: the establishment of the state in accordance to nationalism; the moral obligations that derive from this ideology including the rejection of any authority that perpetuates societal decline; the acceptance of nationalism as the only authentic revolution; the establishment of the popular state in which there are no inequalities on the basis of wealth; racial supremacy and more specifically the belief in the continuation of the ‘Greek race’ from antiquity to the modern day; the idea that the state must correspond and be subservient to the nation/race; and the nationalization of all institutions.

The fascist myth of palingenetic ultra-nationalism constitutes a key ideological premise underpinning the party’s discourse. The ideology of the Golden Dawn may indeed be categorised within the ‘ethnic nationalism’ variant, emphasising blood, geneaology and the perennial nature of the Greek nation. The party emphasises ties with ancient Greece, past wars, imperial experience during the Ottoman years and invasion in the 1940s. In this context, the party makes frequent references to ancient Greece, emphasising the heroic traits of those belonging to the Greek nation. Historical figures, whether heroes of ancient Greece, Byzantium, the Greek War of Independence, the Second World War or Cyprus are glorified for their heroism, bravery and sacrifice. By referring to a very large array of officially recognised historical events, personalities and national identity traits and placing them within the ethnic election framework, the Golden Dawn successfully integrates them into its ultra-nationalist palingenetic ideology.

The Golden Dawn seeks ‘catharsis’. The party’s key goal is to eliminate all political divisions and cleanse the nation from outsiders. Communists are identified as those internationalists that seek the annihilation of the Greek nation. Contributing to this ethnocide are also Greece’s external enemies, which include all foreigners who according to the Golden Dawn contribute to the moral and cultural decay of Greece, for example people of Jewish origin and all immigrants.

Militarism hence is the key to both the Golden Dawn’s ideology and organizational structures. The army is the ultimate value, they claim. A value that encloses within it ‘blood, struggle and sacrifice’. The party’s members see themselves as ‘street soldiers’ fighting for the nationalist cause. This places violence at the heart of Golden Dawn’s activities and illustrates their distinctive view of democracy as a bourgeois construct only to be used as a means for achieving their ultimate goal: its abolition, as its leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos claims. It also explains the link between Golden Dawn members and army officials, as well as the organization of ‘paramilitary orders’ or ‘battalions’.

Therefore the party should be understood as neo-Nazi, not because of its past use of Nazi paraphernalia, but rather because its ideology and organizational structures fulfil the criteria of what constitutes a neo-Nazi group. Its association with a large number of violent acts resulted in the imprisonment of the majority of its MPs including the party leader in 2013/2014. 70 defendants, which include the party leader and the party’s MPs, went on trial in Spring 2015 on charges including murder, grievous bodily harm and sustaining a criminal organization. The trial remains on-going.

Accounting for the rise of Golden Dawn

How may we explain the rise and sustained support for the Golden Dawn? The Golden Dawn’s electoral fortunes have coincided with both the economic and migration crises that have affected Europe as a whole. For example, in 2012 during the peak of Greece’s economic crisis, the country’s unemployment was at 24.5 per cent with youth unemployment at 55.3 per cent. In 2013 these figures increased to 27.5 and 58.3 respectively. The government deficit was -8.6, which increased in 2013 to -12.1. In addition, Greece experienced the bulk of the migration crisis as the entry point for a high number of refugees who travel from Turkey to the islands of Kos, Chios, Lesvos and Samos. For example, an estimated number of 856.723 refugees arrived by sea in 2015 and 169.459 in 2016.  It would make sense to seek causal links between the economic and migration crises on the one hand, and the rise of the Golden Dawn on the other. However, the adoption of a comparative logic suggests that this argument does not hold when subjected to empirical scrutiny. Other European countries that were also severely affected by the Eurozone and/or migration crises have not experienced a comparable rise in support for the far right. For example, Spain’s unemployment levels are second in the EU after Greece with 24.8 per cent in 2012 and 26.1 per cent in 2013. Youth unemployment in Spain is also very high at 52.9 per cent in 2012 and 55.5 in 2013. Portugal’s somewhat lower unemployment rates at 15.8 per cent in 2012 and 16.4 per cent in 2013 are still above the EU average. The same goes for the country’s youth unemployment rates at 37.9 per cent in 2012 and 38.1 in 2013.

We posit an alternative explanation that takes into account the broader implications of the crises of Greek society. We understand the rise of the Golden Dawn as a response to a perceived breach of the social contract in Greece. Therefore, we see this rise not as question of intensity of economic and/ or migration crisis, but rather as a question of the nature of the crisis, i.e. economic and/migration versus overall crisis of democratic representation. Extreme right parties such as the Golden Dawn are more likely to experience an increase in their support when a societal crisis culminates into an overall crisis of democratic representation. This is likely to occur when severe issues of governability impact upon the ability of the state to fulfil its social contract obligations. The perceived inability of the state to mediate the effects of the crisis and to deliver services based on the redistribution of the collective goods of the state. When state capacity is limited or perceived to be limited, then the result is the delegitimization of the party system as a whole. This is because the system is perceived as incapable to address the crisis and mediate its socioeconomic effects. This breach of the social contract is accompanied by declining levels of trust in state institutions, resulting in party system collapse.

Conclusion

If we are right, then the Golden Dawn is a specific symptom of a broader institutional pathology. Therefore in order to contain this phenomenon, political actors should focus on institutional reform in order to restore the domestic social contract and reintegrate key social groups back into the political mainstream. More specifically:

1. Empower the middle class: because the middle class is key to both economic prosperity and democratic stability. Weak democratic institutions and widespread corruption have resulted in the weakening of the middle ground and this is what allows extremist groups to co-opt middle-class voters. Unless we address this institutional pathology at its core, extremism will keep recurring.
2. Welfare reform: because the appropriation of key social groups into the mainstream depends on social security. The greater the insecurity, and the broader the populace it affects, the greater the potential of extremist elements to co-opt these social groups that would otherwise support mainstream alternatives.
3. Strengthen civil society institutions: Because civil society fosters tolerance. Greek civil Society is weak at all levels: weak structure, limited impact and limited membership. There is a wider sentiment of public distrust towards this type of organisations in Greece because of the long tradition of corruption and clientelistic relations that prevail.
4. Reform the education system: Because education is a key means of socialisation that institutionalises political culture. The type of socialisation that occurs from an early age at the school level is the one that becomes most embedded. And, because people of a younger age are more easily moulded into violence and extremism, they tend to occupy a large portion of far right party membership. As long as the Greek education system promotes exclusion and vilifies the other through official textbooks, it will continue to offer opportunities for right-wing extremism.

Dr Sofia Vasilopoulou is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York.

Dr Daphne Halikiopoulou is an Associate Professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Reading.