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.