It's still the one - By Daniel Yergin | Foreign Policy

Oil's very future is now being seriously questioned, debated, and challenged. The author of an acclaimed history explains why, just as we need more oil than ever, it is changing faster than we can keep up with.

BY DANIEL YERGIN | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

On a still afternoon under a hot Oklahoma sun, neither a cloud nor an ounce of "volatility" was in sight. Anything but. All one saw were the somnolent tanks filled with oil, hundreds of them, spread over the rolling hills, some brand-new, some more than 70 years old, and some holding, inside their silver or rust-orange skins, more than half a million barrels of oil each.

This is Cushing, Oklahoma, the gathering point for the light, sweet crude oil known as West Texas Intermediate -- or just WTI. It is the oil whose price you hear announced every day, as in "WTI closed today at …." Cushing proclaims itself, as the sign says when you ride into town, the "pipeline crossroads of the world." Through it passes the network of pipes that carry oil from Texas and Oklahoma and New Mexico, from Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and from Canada too, into Cushing's tanks, where buyers take title before moving the oil onward to refineries where it is turned into gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, home heating oil, and all the other products that people actually use.

But that is not what makes Cushing so significant. After all, there are other places in the world through which much more oil flows. Cushing plays a unique role in the new global oil industry because WTI is the preeminent benchmark against which other oils are priced. Every day, billions of "paper barrels" of light, sweet crude are traded on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange in lower Manhattan and, in ever increasing volumes, at electron speed around the world, an astonishing virtual commerce that no matter how massive in scale, still connects back somehow to a barrel of oil in Cushing changing owners.

That frenetic daily trading has helped turn oil into something new -- not only a physical commodity critical to the security and economic viability of nations but also a financial asset, part of that great instantaneous exchange of stocks, bonds, currencies, and everything else that makes up the world's financial portfolio. Today, the daily trade in those "paper barrels" -- crude oil futures -- is more than 10 times the world's daily consumption of physical barrels of oil. Add in the trades that take place on other exchanges or outside them entirely, and the ratio may be as much as 30 times greater. And though the oil may flow steadily in and out of Cushing at a stately 4 miles per hour, the global oil market is anything but stable.

---

Oil: The Long Goodbye

An FP Special Report

That's why, as I sat down to work on a new edition of The Prize and considered what had changed since the early 1990s, when I wrote this history of the world's most valuable, and misunderstood, commodity, the word "volatility" kept springing to mind. How could it not? Indeed, when people are talking about volatility, they are often thinking oil. On July 11, 2008, WTI hit $147.27. Exactly a year later, it was $59.87. In between, in December, it fell as low as $32.40. (And don't forget a little more than a decade ago, when it was as low as $10 a barrel and consumers were supposedly going to swim forever in a sea of cheap oil.)

These wild swings don't just affect the "hedgers" (oil producers, airlines, heating oil dealers, etc.) and the "speculators," the financial players. They show up in the changing prices at the gasoline station. They stir political passions and feed consumers' suspicions. Volatility also makes it more difficult to plan future energy investments, whether in oil and gas or in renewable and alternative fuels. And it can have a cataclysmic impact on the world economy. After all, Detroit was knocked flat on its back by what happened at the gasoline pump in 2007 and 2008 even before the credit crisis. The enormous impact of these swings is why British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were recently moved to call for a global solution to "destructive volatility." But, they were forced to add, "There are no easy solutions."

This volatility is part of the new age of oil. For though Cushing looks pretty much the same as it did when The Prize came out, the world of oil looks very different. Some talk today about "the end of oil." If so, others reply, we are entering its very long goodbye. One characteristic of this new age is that oil has developed a split personality -- as a physical commodity but also now as a financial asset. Three other defining characteristics of this new age are the globalization of the demand for oil, a vast shift from even a decade ago; the rise of climate change as a political factor shaping decisions on how we will use oil, and how much of it, in the future; and the drive for new technologies that could dramatically affect oil along with the rest of the energy portfolio.

---

The Capital of Oil
A brief history of Cushing, Oklahoma

The cast of characters in the oil business has also grown and changed. Some oil companies have become "supermajors," such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, while others, such as Amoco and ARCO, have just disappeared. "Big oil" no longer means the traditional international oil companies, their logos instantly recognizable from corner gas stations, but rather much larger state-owned companies, which, along with governments, today control more than 80 percent of the world's oil reserves. Fifteen of the world's 20 largest oil companies are now state-owned.

The cast of oil traders has also much expanded. Today's global oil game now includes pension funds, institutional money managers, endowments, and hedge funds, as well as individual investors and day traders. The managers at the pension funds and the university endowments see themselves as engaged in "asset allocation," hedging risks and diversifying to protect retirees' incomes and faculty salaries. But, technically, they too are part of the massive growth in the ranks of the new oil speculators.

With all these changes, the very future of this most vital commodity is now being seriously questioned, debated, and challenged, even as the world will need more of it than ever before. Both the U.S. Department of Energy and the International Energy Agency project that, even accounting for gains in efficiency, global energy use will increase almost 50 percent from 2006 to 2030 -- and that oil will continue to provide 30 percent or more of the world's energy in 2030.

But will it?

From the beginning, oil has been a global industry, going back to 1861 when the first cargo of kerosene was sent from Pennsylvania -- the Saudi Arabia of 19th-century oil -- to Britain. (The potential crew was so fearful that the kerosene would catch fire that they had to be gotten drunk to shanghai them on board.) But that is globalization of supply, a familiar story. What is decisively new is the globalization of demand.

For decades, most of the market -- and the markets that mattered the most -- were in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. That's also where the growth was. At the time of the first Gulf War in 1991, China was still an oil exporter.

But now, the growth is in China, India, other emerging markets, and the Middle East. Between 2000 and 2007, the world's daily oil demand increased by 9.4 million barrels. Almost 85 percent of that growth was in emerging markets. There were many reasons that prices soared all the way to $147.27 last year, ranging from geopolitics to a weak dollar to the impact of financial markets and speculation (in all its manifold meanings). But the starting point was the fundamentals -- the surge in oil demand driven by powerful economic growth in emerging markets. This shift may be even more powerful than people recognize: So far this year, more new cars have been sold in China than in the United States. When economic recovery takes hold again, what happens to oil demand in such emerging countries will be crucial.

The math is clear: More consumers mean more demand, which means more supplies are needed. But what about the politics? There the forecasts are murkier, feeding a new scenario for international tension -- a competition, even a clash, between China and the United States over "scarce" oil resources. This scenario even comes with a well-known historical model -- the rivalry between Britain and "rising" Germany that ended in the disaster of World War I.

This scenario, though compelling reading, does not really accord with the way that the world oil market works. The Chinese are definitely new players, willing and able to pay top dollar to gain access to existing and new oil sources and, lately, also making loans to oil-producing countries to ensure future supplies. With more than $2 trillion in foreign reserves, China certainly has the wherewithal to be in the lending business.

But the global petroleum industry is not a go-it-alone business. Because of the risk and costs of large-scale development, companies tend to work in consortia with other companies. Oil-exporting countries seek to diversify the countries and companies they work with. Inevitably, any country in China's position -- whose demand had grown from 2.5 million barrels per day to 8 million in a decade and a half -- would be worrying about supplies. Such an increase, however, is not a forecast of inevitable strife; it is a message about economic growth and rising standards of living. It would be much more worrying if, in the face of rising demand, Chinese companies were not investing in production both inside China (the source of half of its supply) and outside its borders.

There are potential flash points in this new world of oil. But they will not come from standard commercial competition. Rather, they arise when oil (along with natural gas) gets caught up in larger foreign-policy issues -- most notably today, the potentially explosive crisis over the nuclear ambitions of oil- and gas-rich Iran.

Yet, despite all the talk of an "oil clash" scenario, there seems to be less overall concern than a few years ago and much more discussion about "energy dialogue." The Chinese themselves appear more confident about their increasingly important place in this globalized oil market. Although the risks are still there, the Chinese -- and the Indians right alongside them -- have the same stake as other consumers in an adequately supplied world market that is part of the larger global economy. Disruption of that economy, as the last year has so vividly demonstrated, does not serve their purposes. Why would the Chinese want to get into a confrontation over oil with the United States when the U.S. export market is so central to their economic growth and when the two countries are so financially interdependent?

Not a Threat: Chinese workers at a
construction site in Africa.

Oil is not even the most important energy issue between China and the United States. It is coal. The two countries have the world's largest coal resources, and they are the world's biggest consumers of it. In a carbon-constrained world, they share a strong common interest in finding technological solutions for the emissions released when coal is burned.

And that leads directly to the second defining feature of the new age of oil: climate change. Global warming was already on the agenda when The Prize came out. It was back in 1992 that 154 countries signed the Rio Convention, pledging to dramatically reduce CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere. But only in recent years has climate change really gained traction as a political issue -- in Europe early in this decade, in the United States around 2005. Whatever the outcome of December's U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, carbon regulation is now part of the future of oil. And that means a continuing drive to reduce oil demand.

How does that get done? How does the world at once meet both the challenge of climate change and the challenge of economic growth -- steady expansion in the industrial countries and more dramatic growth in China, India, and other emerging markets as tens of millions of their citizens rise from poverty and buy appliances and cars?

The answer has to be in another defining change -- an emphasis on technology to a degree never before seen. The energy business has always been a technology business. After all, the men who figured out in 1859, exactly 150 years ago, how to drill that first oil well -- Colonel Drake and his New Haven, Conn., investors -- would, in today's lingo, be described as a group of disruptive technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Again and again, in researching oil's history, I was struck by how seemingly insurmountable barriers and obstacles were overcome by technological progress, often unanticipated.

But the focus today on technology -- all across the energy spectrum -- is of unprecedented intensity. In the mid-1990s, I chaired a task force for the U.S. Department of Energy on "strategic energy R&D." Our panel worked very hard for a year and a half and produced what many considered a very worthy report. But there was not all that much follow-through. The Gulf War was over, and the energy problem looked like it had been "solved."

Today, by contrast, the interest in energy technology is enormous. And it will only be further stoked by the substantial increases that are ahead in government support for energy R&D. Much of that spending and effort is aimed at finding alternatives to oil. Yet the challenge is not merely to find alternatives; it is to find alternatives that can be competitive at the massive scale required.

What will those alternatives be? The electric car, which is the hottest energy topic today? Advanced biofuels? Solar systems? New building designs? Massive investment in wind? The evolving smart grid, which can integrate electric cars with the electricity industry? Something else that is hardly on the radar screen yet? Or perhaps a revolution in the internal combustion engine, making it two to three times as efficient as the ones in cars today?

We can make educated guesses. But, in truth, we don't know, and we won't know until we do know. For now, it is clear that the much higher levels of support for innovation -- along with considerable government incentives and subsidies -- will inevitably drive technological change and thus redraw the curve in the future demand for oil.

Indeed, the biggest surprises might come on the demand side, through conservation and improved energy efficiency. The United States is twice as energy efficient as it was in the 1970s. Perhaps we will see a doubling once again. Certainly, energy efficiency has never before received the intense focus and support that it does today.

Just because we have entered this new age of high-velocity change does not mean this story is about the imminent end of oil. Consider the "peak oil" thesis -- shorthand for the presumption that the world has reached the high point of production and is headed for a downward slope. Historically, peak-oil thinking gains attention during times when markets are tight and prices are rising, stoking fears of a permanent shortage. In 2007 and 2008, the belief system built around peak oil helped drive prices to $147.27. (It was actually the fifth time that the world had supposedly "run out" of oil. The first such episode was in the 1880s; the last instance before this most recent time was in the 1970s.)

However, careful examination of the world's resource base -- including my own firm's analysis of more than 800 of the largest oil fields -- indicates that the resource endowment of the planet is sufficient to keep up with demand for decades to come. That, of course, does not mean that the oil will actually make it to consumers. Any number of "aboveground" risks and obstacles can stand in the way, from government policies that restrict access to tax systems to civil conflict to geopolitics to rising costs of exploration and production to uncertainties about demand. As has been the case for decades and decades, the shifting relations between producing and consuming countries, between traditional oil companies and state-owned oil companies, will do much to determine what resources are developed, and when, and thus to define the future of the industry.

There are two further caveats. Many of the new projects will be bigger, more complex, and more expensive. In the 1990s, a "megaproject" might have cost $500 million to $1 billion. Today, the price tag is more like $5 billion to $10 billion. And an increasing part of the new petroleum will come in the form of so-called "unconventional oil" -- from ultradeep waters, Canadian oil sands, and the liquids that are produced with natural gas.

But through all these changes, one constant of the oil market is that it is not constant. The changing balance of supply and demand -- shaped by economics, politics, technologies, consumer tastes, and accidents of all sorts -- will continue to move prices. Economic recovery, expectations thereof, the pent-up demand for "demand," a shift into oil as a "financial asset" -- some combination of these could certainly send oil prices up again, even with the current surplus in the market. Yet, the quest for stability is also a constant for oil, whether in reaction to the boom-and-bust world of northwest Pennsylvania in the late 19th century, the 10-cents-a-barrel world of Texas oil in the 1930s, or the $147.27 barrel of West Texas Intermediate in July 2008.

Certainly, the roller-coaster ride of oil prices over the last couple of years, as oil markets and financial markets have become more integrated, has made volatility a central preoccupation for policymakers who do not want to see their economies whipsawed by huge price swings. Yet without the flexibility and liquidity of markets, there is no effective way to balance supply and demand, no way for consumers and producers to hedge their risks. Nor is there a way to send signals to these consumers and producers about how much oil to use and how much money to invest -- or signals to would-be innovators about tomorrow's opportunities.

One part of the solution is not only enhancement of the already considerable regulation of the financial markets where oil is traded, but also greater transparency and better understanding of who the players are in the rapidly expanding financial oil markets. But regulatory changes cannot eliminate market cycles or repeal the laws of supply and demand in the world's largest organized commodity market. Those cycles may not be much in evidence amid the quiet tanks and rolling hills at Cushing. But they are inescapably part of the global landscape of the new world of oil.

The Associated Press - Muslim groups try to ease fears with accreditation

Image by Koshyk via Flickr

By JEFF KAROUB and DAVID GRANT

DETROIT — As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan winds down, Rami Nashashibi sees a promising fundraising trend for the Chicago charity he runs.

Online donations ranging from $50 to $2,500 to his Inner-City Muslim Action Network have increased over the past weeks as part of an aggressive Ramadan Internet marketing push on the group's Web site and through social networking sites, he said.

But Nashashibi also credits the influx of online donations to his organization becoming one of the nation's first to be accredited by the Better Business Bureau's newest charity wing tailored for Islamic nonprofits.

Those involved in the accreditation program hope it along with the election of President Barack Obama — who has voiced his commitment to work with U.S. Muslims — will allow many Muslim groups to move past the mistrust that has come to define their post-9/11 relationship with the federal government.

After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Islamic charities came under intense scrutiny in the United States over fears that some had ties to terror groups. The Bush administration shuttered nine Muslim charities, raided six others and froze the assets of one.

The crackdown sent chills through the country's Muslim community as many became fearful about giving to charity, which is called zakat and is one of Islam's five requirements. The American Civil Liberties Union said in a report this summer that some Muslims had stopped donating or limited how much they give out of worry they could be swept up in a federal investigation.

Since then, Islamic organizations have struggled to find ways to erase the cloud of suspicion and ease donors' concerns. Last year, the BBB partnered with Muslim Advocates, a legal organization based in San Francisco, to create the Muslim Charities Accreditation Program, which evaluates nonprofits and trains leaders on compliance with the government's legal and financial rules.

In August right before the start of Ramadan and the Islamic calendar's peak period for donating, Nashashibi's group and two others — the UMMA Community Clinic in Los Angeles and the Islamic Networks Group in San Jose, Calif. — were the first to complete the program's rigorous review.

"Because the Muslim charities have been particularly in the public focus, I think they have a greater interest in demonstrating to the public that they are just like every other charity, they meet standards like everybody else," said H. Art Taylor, president and CEO of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.

About 17 other Islamic charities are in varying stages of the review process, according to Muslim Advocates. The program's effect on donation levels won't be known until after Ramadan ends, but those involved say it's increased interest and is drawing donors from a wider geographical area.

The 20 standards for accreditation include regular board of director meetings, increased detail and frequency of financial statements and performance assessment of officers.

The key is putting the charities on firm financial and operational footing that leaves no doubt about what they do and how they do it, said Akil Vohra, counsel for the Muslim Charities Accreditation Program.

"The key part of this is transparency," he said. "Donors want to know the same thing: Where is our money going? Where is it being used?"

Nashashibi said one of the challenges has been reconciling anonymous giving, reinforced by a religious and cultural principle that "the best zakat is when the right hand doesn't know what the left hand has given," with the issue of transparent bookkeeping.

"Sometimes that spirit of giving can be perceived to be at odds with the needs, for instance, to list all of your donors in annual reports and all of the financial transparency records," Nashashibi said.

He said his group already performed audits of its books because of contracts with major foundations. But the accreditation process "really helped with putting a little fire under us to usher in an even more intense collection of documents (for review)."

Nashashibi said his community organization hasn't come under government scrutiny and didn't suffer a drop in donations since 9/11. But he said the accreditation has offered "an additional layer of comfort" to donors.

His group seeks to raise $225,000 by Sunday — $30,000 of which it hopes come from online donations — as part of its Ramadan drive called "Grow Your IMAN Campaign."

"What we've seen so far is a broad, diffuse set of donations, particularly online, which could be attributed to the accreditation," said Nashashibi, who is the organization's executive director.

UMMA Community Clinic also has received more online donations. President and Chief Executive Yasser Aman said the accreditation adds "that extra leverage — especially for communities that are not familiar with Muslim institutions or community clinics."

"It's opening the doors to communication," he said of the accreditation.

But while any effort that offers some protection to Muslim charities is worthwhile, it's too early to say if the BBB accreditation will forestall future government scrutiny, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Past cases ... seem to be more politically oriented than financially oriented," he said.

On the Net:

• Inner-City Muslim Action Network: http://www.imancentral.org
• UMMA Community Clinic: http://www.ummaclinic.org
• Islamic Networks Group: http://www.ing.org

Related articles by Zemanta

• US Treasury Recognizes Start Of Ramadan (cehwiedel.com)

Lebanon’s Shadow Government | Foreign Affairs

Image by moogdroog via Flickr

How Hezbollah Wins by Losing

Mohamad Bazzi
MOHAMAD BAZZI is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a journalism professor at New York University.

On July 14, a mysterious explosion rocked the southern Lebanese town of Khirbet Silim, destroying a building. United Nations peacekeepers later claimed that the building was a Hezbollah weapons depot that had accidentally blown up. Hezbollah, a Shiite militia with close ties to Iran, has remained silent about the blast's cause, but the group made clear that it does not appreciate the renewed international attention focused on its arsenal.

Under the Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, blue-helmeted UN troops are responsible for intercepting illegal weapons shipments and shutting down storage sites south of the Litani River. But when UN troops tried to raid another suspected weapons cache in Khirbet Silim a few days after the explosion, hundreds of villagers surrounded the soldiers, pelted them with rocks, and forced them to withdraw. Peacekeepers fired warning shots in the air as they cleared a path out of town. Ever since, black-capped Hezbollah men have stood guard outside the house.

Since the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections, an alluring but simplistic narrative has emerged in the West: because Hezbollah and its allies were defeated at the polls, the militant group would lose some of its luster and a pro-American political coalition would rule Lebanon. In fact, Hezbollah remains the country's dominant military and political force. Moreover, it holds the key to both domestic and external stability -- its actions will determine whether there is another war with Israel or if Lebanon will once again be wracked by internal conflict. By losing the election, Hezbollah also avoided being held accountable by Lebanon's other sects -- without power, there is little responsibility.

Under the Saudi-brokered Taif Accord that ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war, all of the country's militias were disarmed. But Hezbollah was allowed to keep its weapons as a "national resistance" against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in May 2000. When the Israelis withdrew, many Lebanese asked why Hezbollah did not give up its arms and become a strictly political movement. Hezbollah insisted that because Israel was still occupying a tiny strip of land -- called Shebaa Farms -- at the murky intersection of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, its mission of resistance was not over. The UN later determined the area to be Syrian, not Lebanese, territory.

The last war began after Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006. Hezbollah miscalculated, and Israel launched its most intense attack since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The offensive crippled the country's infrastructure, displaced one million people, cut Lebanon off from the world, and killed more than 1,000 Lebanese -- the majority of them civilians. Hezbollah, in turn, fired nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel, killing 43 civilians. During 34 days of fighting, 120 Israeli soldiers were killed, many of them by Hezbollah's potent arsenal of antitank rockets. Throughout the war, the Lebanese army remained on the sidelines. Today, it is still as ill-equipped and ill-trained as it was in 2006, and it is unlikely to be involved if another war breaks out. The main difference now is that the army is deployed in southern Lebanon, alongside 13,000 UN peacekeepers.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah officials have ratcheted up their rhetoric, pledging that they are ready for war with Israel and warning against UN attempts to seek out Hezbollah's weapons and rockets. Hezbollah leaders boast that the group now has an even larger and more potent stash of missiles than it did three years ago. Israeli officials -- who are also escalating their war rhetoric -- estimate Hezbollah's arsenal at between 40,000 and 80,000 rockets.

On August 10, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his administration would hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attacks on Israeli targets by Hezbollah. "It should be clear that the Lebanese government, as far as we are concerned, is responsible for every attack -- every attack -- launched from its territory against Israel," Netanyahu told Israel Radio. "It cannot hide and say, 'Well, that's Hezbollah, and we don't control them.'"

Some political leaders and analysts in Lebanon interpreted Netanyahu's comments as a signal that Israel would no longer distinguish between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah, especially while the group has a sizable bloc in parliament and seats in the cabinet. Other Israeli officials have suggested that Israel would retaliate against Lebanon if Hezbollah makes good on its promise to avenge the February 2008 assassination of its military commander, Imad Mughniyah, in Damascus -- an act of revenge that Israel worries could take the form of an attack on Israeli tourists, embassies, or other targets outside Israel.

A few days after Netanyahu's comments, Israeli President Shimon Peres tried to calm tensions by once again drawing a distinction between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah. "There was not in the past nor is there now any reason for Lebanon to be Israel's enemy or for Israel to be Lebanon's enemy," Peres said. But Netanyahu's warning is more representative of the Israeli military and political establishment, which both view Hezbollah as a significant danger.

Despite the increasing threats, neither side has an immediate interest in launching a war. Israel is more concerned about Iran than Hezbollah, although if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, it is likely that the militia would be part of the Iranian retaliation. Aside from an Iranian-Israeli confrontation, Hezbollah is absorbed in internal Lebanese politics and cannot afford to be seen as instigating another war with Israel. The Shiite group's other main backer, Syria, is trying to improve its relations with Saudi Arabia and the United States, and Damascus would likely frown upon renewed conflict in the region. But the danger of heightened rhetoric and a military buildup is that the situation could get out of control.

Not surprisingly, Hezbollah's response to the Israeli threats has been defiant. At a rally in southern Beirut on August 14, marking the third anniversary of the war's end (what Hezbollah calls its "divine victory"), the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, laid out his new military strategy. Speaking from an undisclosed location, he warned Israel, "If you launch another war on south Lebanon, imagining that you can bomb any city or village in Lebanon, I will tell you this: today we are capable of shelling any city or town in your usurping entity." Nasrallah, who appeared on giant television screens before a crowd of tens of thousands, also vowed to order missile strikes on Tel Aviv if Israel bombs Hezbollah's base of support: the southern suburbs of Beirut. This is an important shift, because during the 2006 war, Israel largely avoided bombing central Beirut, and Hezbollah refrained from firing missiles on Tel Aviv.

In his speech, Nasrallah advanced the idea that Hezbollah's weapons buildup and overall military capability is a deterrent to Israel -- trying to convince the Lebanese that a stronger Hezbollah will prevent a war. "You might ask, 'Do we have the power to prevent a war?' I will reply, 'Yes, there is a very real possibility that, if we cooperate with one another as Lebanese, we will be able to prevent Israel from launching a war against Lebanon,'" Nasrallah told the crowd, which included members of most Lebanese political factions. "I stress to you that there will be surprises in any new war with Israel, God willing. By saying this to the Israelis, we can deter and prevent them. Let them think a million times before waging a war on Lebanon. Let them look for other ways to confront us, but not war."

This is a dangerous assumption on Nasrallah's part because the Israelis have shown that they are not willing to live indefinitely with a well-armed Hezbollah. Nasrallah's argument is also intended to justify the arms buildup to the Sunnis and Christians of Lebanon -- who, due to the militia's recent takeover of West Beirut, are far more worried today about Hezbollah's weapons than they were in 2006.

In May 2008, Hezbollah ignited the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war. Huddled at home in front of their televisions during the weeklong battle, the Lebanese relived one of their worst memories: masked gunmen demanding people's identity cards. The image of gunmen stopping civilians at checkpoints to sort -- and often murder -- them on the basis of religion is perhaps the most enduring symbol of the country's civil war. In response to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's orders outlawing Hezbollah's underground fiber-optic communication network and dismissing a Hezbollah-affiliated security chief at the Beirut airport, the militia dispatched hundreds of heavily armed fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut. They quickly routed Sunni militiamen, seized their political offices, and shut down media outlets owned by the Sunni leader Saad Hariri (son of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri). On May 15, Siniora's government rescinded its orders, Hezbollah pulled its fighters off the streets, and leaders of the two factions headed to Qatar to negotiate under the Arab League's auspices. That led to a deal for a national unity government, which remains in place today and forms the basis of the next cabinet.

But three months after the parliamentary elections, the pro-Western coalition that won the vote is floundering in the morass of Lebanon's peculiar sectarian politics. The coalition chose Saad Hariri as its prime minister-designate, but he struggled for months to form a cabinet and finally withdrew in frustration on September 10. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman will now consult with legislators on naming a new prime minister -- although Hariri could be asked once again. This political vacuum gives Hezbollah free rein to continue building up its military and escalating its rhetoric of war. In the absence of a strong central state, Hezbollah will remain the most powerful force in Lebanon -- and its weapons will guarantee its dominance.

Related articles by Zemanta

• World Briefing | Middle East: Lebanon: Hariri Is Told to Try Again (nytimes.com)

The Right's Fringe Festival - Nation

By Sebastian Jones

September 16, 2009

AP Images
Demonstrators holds up banners during the taxpayer rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington, Sept. 12, 2009.

This Saturday, some 70,000 people marched through downtown Washington, DC. Organizers of the "Taxpayer March on DC" crowed on their website that "thousands of local organizers and grassroots Americans" took to the streets because they've had "enough of the out of control spending, the bailouts, the growth of big government and soaring deficits." Pretty straightforward, bread-and-butter economic conservatism, right?

So imagine my surprise when, having just arrived at the march, I saw a thin, tall, bearded fellow with a boonie cap jogging up Pennsylvania Avenue shouting "White Power!" A few people looked around awkwardly, not sure how to react, but mostly the crowd just moved along. Why wouldn't they, after all, when just a few paces down the road an elderly man was showing off his "McCarthy Was Right!" sign, or when numerous placards compared the president to various genocidal tyrants, or when the most common mass-produced poster (courtesy of an antiabortion group) demanded that we "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy"?

This was only a sampling of the hateful language on display at the rally, which was only tangentially about taxation. More accurately, the event was a FreedomWorks-organized, corporate-funded, Fox News-fueled celebration of every conservative political and cultural cause of the past fifty years. Milling around the crowd, it was impossible to miss the references to issues as disparate as blocking investigations of CIA torture, promoting assault weapons and God "judging" America for homosexuality. Confederate flags were flown, Obama was told to "go back to Kenya," and so forth and so on. The crowd itself was almost exclusively white--and its members had come to get their country back.

Up on the podium, speakers put a more positive spin on the gathering; one actually echoed (with no sense of irony) a famous line from Barack Obama's stump speech, claiming the tea party was "not here to represent white America or black America. We're here for the United States of America." A more candid assessment came a few minutes later, however, when a singer took the stage and summed up the America those gathered at the base of the Capitol pined for. She was a "proud Christian American," anticommunist and Bible-believing. In fact, the most common rallying cry--beyond "You lie!" and "Can you hear me now?"--was that protesters wanted their country back, their republic restored. A country, one could only assume, that resembled the crowd.

One of the most popular memes on display was veneration of Joe Wilson, the South Carolina representative who interrupted the president's recent address to Congress by shouting "You lie!" In this crowd, it was "Joe Wilson for president." The man had done a courageous thing, with many accepting his inaccuracy about illegal immigrants getting government-funded healthcare in Obama's proposed plan as fact, and even more suggesting he ought not apologize for breaching the rules of decorum. Instead, Wilson was a hero to be congratulated. Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, Wilson was opposed by 68 percent of Americans for his outburst, according to a USA Today/ Gallup poll. A mere 21 percent supported Wilson--but those at Saturday's tea party fell into a subgroup of that number--the 6 percent who told pollsters they were "thrilled" by Wilson's actions.

While much of the rhetoric and ideology was recycled, the event was different and more successful than past efforts thanks to the dual involvement of corporate interests and Fox News. For example, parked on the edge of the National Mall was the "American Energy Express," a bus on a "town hall tour" launched by the American Energy Alliance (AEA), a recent outgrowth of the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative think tank that has received funding from ExxonMobil and Valero Energy. AEA's director is a former registered lobbyist and Tom DeLay staffer, while other alliance employees have Republican Party and oil industry connections.

Fox News, perhaps the most vociferous anti-Clinton advocate in the late 1990s and Bush-booster over the past eight years, had parked its mobile unit just a few yards away from the Energy Express, and a small crowd had gathered around with supportive signs. Throughout the day, I met people who complained bitterly about the lack of media presence, about the "Communist Broadcasting Service" and the "Communist News Network." But the crew members from Fox News were heroes, and the greatest hero of all was Glenn Beck. For them, Beck was the only truth-teller among the communist infiltrators, exposing the sinister work of ACORN, the Czars and FEMA "death camps." Sure, FreedomWorks had organized the event, but Beck had selected the date, hoping to "bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001...united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created."

During the event, Matt Kibbe, a FreedomWorks organizer, went onstage to announce that ABC News had estimated the crowd in attendance to be 1 to 1.5 million strong--a claim which Michelle Malkin and other conservative bloggers inflated to 2 million by day's end, and which ABC News took the rare step of denying. Looking at the assembled crowd, this was a truly insane claim to make: the masses hardly stretched past Third Street; 1.5 million would have covered an additional ten blocks.

Yet, as I walked around after Kibbe's announcement, I heard people coming up with even higher numbers. "Two million, at least," one man shouted into his phone. Another, borrowing a phrase from Beck, proclaimed, "We really do have Washington surrounded!" Online, pictures of old rallies (missing buildings that are currently on the Mall) were distributed as proof the mainstream media was downplaying the real crowd and widely reposted on conservative blogs. Glenn Beck went on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning and claimed that 1.7 million had assembled, citing a "university study" from a university he was unable to name. On the train home, the protesters sitting around me were in a celebratory mood--they felt they had assembled an impossibly large crowd and brought their message to Washington in an unprecedented manner. The politicians had no choice but to listen, to ax climate change legislation, to stop healthcare reform, to give them their country back, they said. There's no harm in this illusion, really, so long as it is clear that it is only the reactionary fringe that harbors it.

About Sebastian Jones

Sebastian Jones is a freelance writer based in Washington, DC

Related articles by Zemanta

• Glenn Beck: 1.7 Million Attended Tea Party March; Cites "University Of -- I Don't Remember" (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• DNC Has Fun With Glenn Beck in New "Dancing with the Czars" Video (usnews.com)
• Trish Nelson: My Letter to Rupert Murdoch (huffingtonpost.com)
• When Ignoring The Race Card Is Worse Than Playing It (mydd.com)

Obama Zaps E. Europe Star Wars - Nation

Image by kshep via Flickr

posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 09/17/2009

The right-wing regimes of the "new Europe" -- that is, the post-Soviet governments in eastern Europe that emerged, during the Bush administration, as the staunchest backers of American empire -- are yelping over the decision by the Obama administration to cancel Bush-era plans to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

For Obama, who was never enthusiastic about the plan, it's a strong indication that he's serious about rebuilding relations with Russia. And the decision may have implications for Iran policy, too.

In an article entited: "U.S. to Shelve Nuclear Missile Shield," the Wall Street Journal reports today:

"The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

"The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials. The findings, expected to be completed as early as next week following a 60-day review ordered by President Barack Obama, would be a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January...

"But the decision to shelve the defense system is all but certain to raise alarms in Eastern Europe, where officials have expressed concerns that the White House's effort to ‘reset' relations with Moscow would come at the expense of U.S. allies in the former Soviet bloc."

Predictably, the neoconservative Weekly Standard is outraged, calling it a "complete capitulation to Russia's Vladimir Putin," and adding:

"The consequences of this action in Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine and in other countries that feel vulnerable to Russian power, will be disastrous. It is a major American retreat in the face of Russian bullying. And we will get absolutely nothing for it."

The Standard does pick up on the link to Iran, saying that:

"The Obama administration, which is appeasing Russia in the hopes that Moscow will help put pressure on Iran, has made this mammoth concession just a few days after Moscow declared that it had no intention of supporting sanctions against Iran."

It's true that, earlier this week, President Medvedev of Russia hinted that Moscow might not look unfavorably on new sanctions against Iran, saying:

"Sanctions are not very effective on the whole, but sometimes you have to embark on sanctions and they can be right."

And earlier this year, there were reports that Obama was seeking to obtain a quid pro quo from Moscow, offering to cancel the missile defense system in exchange for Russia's support on Iran. It's unlikely, however, that Russia will go along with truly harsh sanctions against Tehran, despite Medvedev's comments. More likely, the Russian president was trying to make Iran a bit more nervous as it enters talks with the P5 + 1, which includes both Russia and the United States.

At the American Enterprise Institute, too, Gary Schmitt is unhappy:

"It looks like not only have we hit the reset button when it comes to Russia, but now with our friends in Central Europe--except this time, it's a big fat 'no thank you' for your willingness to stick your neck out to protect allies."

The London Times flips out:

"Vladimir Putin could be forgiven for having a celebratory shot of vodka with breakfast this morning at news that President Obama plans to abandon America's missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.

"His implacable opposition to the project has paid off, leaving the Kremlin emboldened in its drive to re-establish a strategic 'sphere of privileged interests' over Russia's former Soviet satellites.

"By trading the loyalty of Poland and the Czech Republic to satisfy Russia's security concerns, the United States is signalling that it no longer contests Moscow's right to assert its interests in Eastern Europe."

And it adds:

"For Mr Putin, the lesson of today's decision is clear. Intransigence pays dividends because the US and the European Union lack the patience or determination to face Moscow down. That is a lesson that send alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power of Russia's former Soviet dominions."

The truth is that the decision to put a missile defense system was both stupid and needlessly provocative. Stupid, because the system doesn't work and because the threat from Iran is nonexistent. And provocative, because it was part of the Bush administration's neo-Cold War effort to bolster and expand NATO, pressure Russia militarily in south and central Asia, back adventurist states such as Georgia, and otherwise poke the Russian bear with sharp sticks. Obama wants cooperation with Russia -- on energy policy, on Iran, on terrorism, and above all on disarmament and de-nuclearization -- and he's willing to put his money where his mouth is.

On Iran, the issue is not whether Russia will join in imposing sanctions on Iran, but whether Russia will join the United States is trying to solve the problem diplomatically. The plain fact is that it will be exceedingly difficult to get Iran to agree to a deal over its uranium enrichment program without Russia's strong diplomatic involvement.

President Obama deserves high praise for this action.

UPDATE From the text of the White House announcement this morning:

"The United States ... will be testing and updating a range of approaches for improving our sensors for missile defense. The new distributed interceptor and sensor architecture also does not require a single, large, fixed European radar that was to be located in the Czech Republic; this approach also uses different interceptor technology than the previous program, removing the need for a single field of 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland. Therefore, the Secretary of Defense recommended that the United States no longer plan to move forward with that architecture. ...

We also welcome Russian cooperation to bring its missile defense capabilities into a broader defense of our common strategic interests."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Iran, Israel, And The Missile Shield (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Turkey to buy long-range missile defense system (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• U.S. missile decision sparks European reaction (cbc.ca)
• Analysis: Barack Obama's missile shield decision will be cheered in Russia (telegraph.co.uk)
• Obama to Shift European Missile Shield Plan (abcnews.go.com)
• Obama's Missile Defense Concession Holds an Opportunity for European Security (usnews.com)

Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program Brown Bag Lecture Series

Image via Wikipedia

Southeast Asia Program Brown Bag Lecture Series

Wednesday, September 23 – “Personal Narratives and Historical Experience in Southeast Asia”, Roxana Waterson (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore), 12:00PM-1:30PM, Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave, Ithaca.
(http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/southeastasia/calendar/index.asp?id=11501)

Interest in personal narratives and life histories has been growing in recent years, but attention to this form of research material in anthropology has always been patchy. As an anthropologist with long experience of fieldwork in Indonesia (specifically with the Sa’dan Toraja people of South Sulawesi), Roxana Waterson realized that some of my older acquaintances who were born near the beginning of the twentieth century had lived extraordinary lives. They had experienced all the dramatic social transformations that accompanied successive political developments as Indonesia moved from colonialism, through wartime occupation by the Japanese and the struggle for Independence, to the emergence of a new nation-state. The possibility of
identifying as “Indonesian” developed along the way as well. She became interested in the potentials of life narratives – not just of the famous, but of ordinary people - to provide insights into the interface between personal experience and great historical events. Her recently published book, Southeast Asian Lives: Personal Narratives and Historical Experience (Singapore University Press/Ohio University Press, 2007), draws together several such life narratives, as recounted and reflected upon by anthropologists working in different regions of Southeast Asia, with a view to exploring more fully the potentials of this kind of research for social scientists. In this talk, Professor Waterson shall discuss some of these life narratives, and their contributions to ananthropology that seeks to do justice to personal experience.

International Crisis Group - Women and Radicalisation in Kyrgyzstan

Click here to view the full report as a PDF file in A4 format. For more information about viewing PDF documents, please click here. This document is also available in MS-Word format

Women and Radicalisation in Kyrgyzstan

Asia Report N°176
3 September 2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Kyrgyzstan’s in­creasingly authoritarian government is adopting a counter-productive approach to the country’s growing radicalisation. Instead of tackling the root causes of a phenomenon that has seen increasing numbers, including many women, joining groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), it is resorting to heavy-handed police methods that risk pushing yet more Kyrgyz towards radicalism. The authorities view HT, which describes itself as a revolutionary party that aims to restore by peace­ful means the caliphate that once ruled the Mus­lim world, as a major security threat. But for some men and ever more women, it offers a sense of identity and belonging, solutions to the day-to-day failings of the society they live in, and an alternative to what they widely view as the Western-style social model that prevails in Kyrgyzstan. Without a major effort to tackle endemic corruption and economic failure, radical ranks are likely to swell, while repression may push at least some HT members into violence. This report focuses pri­marily on the increasingly important role that women are playing in the movement.

Related content Kyrgyzstan: A Deceptive Calm, Asia Briefing N°79, 14 August 2008 Thematic issue: Gender and Conflict CrisisWatch database: Kyrgyzstan All Crisis Group Kyrgyzstan reports

HT is banned in Kyrgyzstan and operates clandestinely. There are no accurate membership figures. It may have up to 8,000 members, perhaps 800 to 2,000 of them women. To join, individuals participate in formalised training, take examinations, an oath of loyalty and pledge to recruit others. But while HT’s membership is still small, support for it in the wider population is growing.

In post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, where many have responded to 70 years of atheism by embracing religion, HT’s un­compromising Islamic message has gained considerable acceptance. Women, especially those living in rural or con­ser­vative areas where traditional gender norms pre­vail, turn to HT to find meaning in their restricted social roles. The party’s activists regard the growth in those who count as sympathisers if not actual members as a critical component of a long-term strategy – a currently quiescent element of society that would be ready accept a caliphate once it begins to take form.

There are limits to HT’s expansion. In other countries, HT has sought to function as an elite organisation, not a mass movement based in the poorer sectors of the society, and there is no clear sign that the Kyrgyz party has as yet been able to substantially expand its appeal to the educated, middle class, either male or female. The degree to which it has spread from its original, pre­dominantly Uzbek, base in the south into the majority ethnic Kyrgyz community in the north is unclear. And HT’s restrictive view of women’s roles in an avowedly revolutionary party could well limit its growth among female sympathisers who may be deeply critical of the regime but unwilling to abandon the freedoms they enjoy in a secular society.

The government hardened its position on Islamist groups following an October 2008 protest in Nookat, prose­cu­ting and imprisoning a number of HT members, in­clud­ing two women. Officials justify their response to the incident by saying that HT had become too militant in its challenge to the state and had to be taught a lesson. They insist that energetic police action is coupled with political dialogue with believers. In fact, however, secu­rity methods prevail. Civilian elements of the govern­ment tasked with reaching out to the religious com­mu­nity take at best a distant, secondary part. They are either too inefficient and uncoordinated, or simply reluctant to do anything that impinges on the responsibilities of the powerful security establishment.

A policy based on repression will play into HT’s hands and may even accelerate its recruitment. HT has a sophisticated political organisation that resembles that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and even, to a degree, successful communist undergrounds. It thrives on the perception of social injustice, economic collapse and repression. It views prison as the ultimate test of party resolve and will regard a crackdown as an opportunity to provide new martyrs and draw new recruits. Women, whether presently members themselves or not but whose husbands are arrested, may feel compelled to assume a more public role in petitioning authorities.

Despite the pro­­­­minent role they played in the Nookat protest, the government has not implemented policies aimed specifically at discouraging women from joining HT. Kyrgyzstan’s progressive legislation on gender equality and its quotas for women representatives in government have little impact on the lives of those most likely to join HT. Religious women in particular feel that women in government do not represent their views, because most are proponents of secularism. Non-govern­men­tal organisations (NGOs) are not reaching out to such women. They suffer from a lack of credibility with religious women and feel compelled to concentrate on projects they can secure funding for from donors rather than grassroot initiatives such as helping mothers by providing after-school programs for young children – something HT does for its women members.

The only effective long-term strategy is political. For this, however, Kyrgyzstan – and its neighbours in Central Asia, all of whom face similar problems – needs to take serious steps to eradicate systemic corruption and improve living conditions. Economic crisis and rigged elections strengthen HT’s appeal to those who feel socially and politically dispossessed and buttress its argument that Western democracy and capitalism are morally and practically flawed. All states in the region need also to differentiate between a political struggle against HT and the desire of large segments of their societies to demonstrate renewed religious faith by adopting some traditional attributes of Islam – beards in the case of men, for example, and headscarves for women. As Central Asia becomes a major supply route for NATO’s expanded war in Afghanistan, Western powers with an increased interest in the region’s stability should caution against repressive policies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Kyrgyzstan:

1. Conduct a comprehensive study on the socio-demographic characteristics and needs of religious women, starting with a pilot project in Osh and Jalal-Abad and the areas around the towns of Nookat, Aravan, Uzgen and Karasuu, which are considered the hotbed of Islamic radicalism in the country.

2. Develop, based on the results of this study, social and economic policies targeting religious women that include:

a) employment schemes (at first in sectors acceptable for religious women like education, health care and social work) and vocational training opportunities; and

b) rehabilitation of social services, including kindergartens and after-school programs, that would lighten women’s workload at home and allow them to pursue outside employment.

3. Develop and implement a system of financial assistance at the local level for poor families, especially those headed by single mothers, and raise government assistance for maternity leave, sick leave to care for children, alimony and support for children with dead or missing fathers.

4. Organise, in cooperation with the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (DUMK), free study groups on Islam at the neighbourhood level that are led by respected, knowledgeable women from local communities.

5. Encourage DUMK, financially and by providing domestic and international expertise, to design a program of outreach to religious women that would ensure their greater participation in the local religious community.

6. Shift the focus from prohibiting hijab in public schools to implementing measures that would ensure better attendance and graduation rates from secondary schools by girls (especially in rural and southern areas) and deliver a basic secular curriculum in women’s madrasas.

7. Set up an inter-agency task force on radicalisation whose remit includes developing specific policies relevant to religious women and assign the lead role to a non-security government body in order to establish better information sharing and decrease the influence of law enforcement agencies; ensure that concerns of religious women are separated from the agenda on gender equality.

8. Take steps to change the climate of secrecy and taboo around religious radicalism by encouraging greater public discussion on the causes of and ways to address radicalisation, and welcoming more in-depth research by domestic and international experts.

To Donors:

9. Expand programs for women beyond gender issues to include projects for religious women and joint initiatives for both secular and religious women on practical matters (e.g. water quality, coping with male labour migration, pre-school education).

10. Fund research and survey activities by the government, local think tanks and academics on the topics of religious women and female radicalisation.

11. Adjust aid priorities by channelling more funding to grassroots projects that address practical concerns of religious women and engage secular and religious audiences within local communities, as opposed to large-scale institutional initiatives.

12. Encourage local NGOs to reach out specifically to religious women in their advocacy and service provision initiatives.

13. Encourage the government to incorporate the policies on religious women as a distinct component of its institutional agenda.

To the U.S., Russia and Other Members of the International Community with Particular Influence:

14. Warn the government that its recent policy shift, which relies disproportionately on security measures in dealing with Islamic radicalism, threatens to stimulate rather than undermine the appeal of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and has potential to generate a popular backlash.

15. Call upon the government to conduct a new investigation and new trials in the Nookat case that observe due process and exclude evidence obtained through torture.

To Domestic Civil Society:

16. Initiate specific projects to address daily concerns of religious women and seek partnerships on such initiatives with religious NGOs.

17. Combine any advocacy on gender equality with more regular community work and, whenever possible, service provision to enhance credibility.

Bishkek/Brussels, 3 September 2009

International Crisis Group - Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontent

Click here to view the full report as a PDF file in A4 format. For more information about viewing PDF documents, please click here. This document is also available in MS-Word format

Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontents

Africa Report N°153
4 September 2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by its chairman and prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has radically reformed Ethiopia’s political system. The regime transformed the hitherto centralised state into the Federal Democratic Republic and also redefined citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds. The intent was to create a more prosperous, just and representative state for all its people. Yet, despite continued economic growth and promised democratisation, there is growing discontent with the EPRDF’s ethnically defined state and rigid grip on power and fears of continued inter-ethnic conflict. The international community should take Ethiopia’s governance problems much more seriously and adopt a more principled position towards the government. Without genuine multi-party democracy, the tensions and pressures in Ethiopia’s polities will only grow, greatly increasing the possibility of a violent eruption that would destabilise the country and region.

The endeavour to transform Ethiopia into a federal state is led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has dominated the coalition of ethno-nationalist parties that is the EPRDF since the removal in 1991 of the Derg, the security services committee that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The EPRDF quickly institutionalised the TPLF’s policy of people’s rights to self-determination and self-rule. The federal constitution ratified in 1994 defined the country’s structure as a multicultural federation based on ethno-national representation.

The government has created nine ethnic-based regional states and two federally administered city-states. The result is an asymmetrical federation that combines populous regional states like Oromiya and Amhara in the central highlands with sparsely populated and underdeveloped ones like Gambella and Somali. Although the constitution vests all powers not attributed to the federal government in them, the regional states are in fact weak.

The constitution was applauded for its commitment to liberal democracy and respect for political freedoms and human rights. But while the EPRDF promises democracy, it has not accepted that the opposition is qualified to take power via the ballot box and tends to regard the expression of differing views and interests as a form of betrayal. Before 2005, its electoral superiority was ensured by the limited national appeal and outreach of the predominantly ethnically based opposition parties. Divided and disorganised, the reach of those parties rarely went beyond Addis Ababa. When the opposition was able to challenge at local, regional or federal levels, it faced threats, harassment and arrest. With the opportunity in 2005 to take over the Addis Ababa city council in what would have been the first democratic change of a major administration in the country’s history, the opposition withdrew from the political process to protest flaws in the overall election.

The EPRDF did not feel threatened until the 2005 federal and regional elections. The crackdown that year on the opposition demonstrated the extent to which the regime is willing to ignore popular protest and foreign criticism to hold on to power. The 2008 local and by-elections went much more smoothly, in large part because the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) was absorbed with internal and legal squabbles, and several other parties withdrew after their candidates experienced severe registration problems. The next federal and regional elections, scheduled for June 2010, most probably will be much more contentious, as numerous opposition parties are preparing to challenge the EPRDF, which is likely to continue to use its political machine to retain its position.

Despite the EPRDF’s authoritarianism and reluctance to accept genuine multi-party competition, political positions and parties have proliferated in recent years. This process, however, is not driven by democratisation or the inclusion of opposition parties in representative institutions. Rather it is the result of a continuous polarisation of national politics that has sharpened tensions between and within parties and ethnic groups since the mid-1990s. The EPRDF’s ethnic federalism has not dampened conflict, but rather increased competition among groups that vie over land and natural resources, as well as administrative boundaries and government budgets.

Furthermore, ethnic federalism has failed to resolve the “national question”. The EPRDF’s ethnic policy has empowered some groups but has not been accompanied by dialogue and reconciliation. For Amhara and national elites, ethnic federalism impedes a strong, unitary nation-state. For ethno-national rebel groups like the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front; Somalis in the Oga­den) and OLF (Oromo Liberation Front; the Oromo), ethnic federalism remains artificial. While the concept has failed to accommodate grievances, it has powerfully promoted ethnic self-awareness among all groups. The international community has ignored or downplayed all these problems. Some donors appear to consider food security more important than democracy in Ethiopia, but they neglect the increased ethnic awareness and tensions created by the regionalisation policy and their potentially explosive consequences.

Nairobi/Brussels, 4 September 2009

International Crisis Group - China’s Myanmar Dilemma

Click here to view the full report as a PDF file in A4 format. For more information about viewing PDF documents, please click here. This document is also available in MS-Word format

China’s Myanmar Dilemma

Asia Report N°177
14 September 2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Each time global attention is focused on events in Myanmar, concerned stakeholders turn to China to influence the military government to undertake reforms. Yet simply calling on Beijing to apply more pressure is unlikely to result in change. While China has substantial political, economic and strategic stakes in Myanmar, its influence is overstated. The insular and nationalistic leaders in the military government do not take orders from anyone, including Beijing. China also diverges from the West in the goals for which it is prepared to use its influence. By continuing to simply expect China to take the lead in solving the problem, a workable international approach will remain elusive as Myanmar continues to play China and the West against each other. After two decades of failed international approaches to Myanmar, Western countries and Beijing must find better ways to work together to pursue a wide array of issues that reflect the concerns of both sides.

Related content Advocacy page Myanmar: Normalising Aid Relations All Crisis Group North East Asia reports All Crisis Group Burma/Myanmar reports

The relationship between China and Myanmar is best characterised as a marriage of convenience rather than a love match. The dependence is asymmetric – Myanmar has more to lose should the relationship sour: a protector in the Security Council, support from a large neighbour amid international isolation, a key economic partner and a source of investment. While China sees major problems with the status quo, particularly with regards to Myanmar’s economic policy and ethnic relations, its preferred solution is gradual adjustment of policy by a strong central government, not federalism or liberal democracy and certainly not regime change. In this way, it can continue to protect its economic and strategic interests in the country. In addition to energy and other investments, Myanmar’s strategic location allows China access to the Indian Ocean and South East Asia.

But Beijing’s policy might ultimately have an adverse effect on Myanmar’s stability and on China’s ability to leverage the advantages it holds. Political instability and uncertainty have resulted in a lack of confidence in Myanmar’s investment environment, and weak governance and widespread corruption have made it difficult for even strong Chinese companies to operate there. Myanmar’s borders continue to leak all sorts of problems – not just insurgency, but also drugs, HIV/AIDS and, recently, tens of thousands of refugees. Chinese companies have been cited for environmental and ecological destruction as well as forced relocation and human rights abuses carried out by the Myanmar military. These problems are aggravated by differences in approach between Beijing and the provincial government in Yunnan’s capital Kunming, which implements policies towards the ethnic ceasefire groups.

At the same time, resentment towards China, rooted in past invasions and prior Chinese support to the Communist Party of Burma, is growing. Myanmar’s leaders fear domination by their larger neighbour, and have traditionally pursued policies of non-alignment and multilateralism to balance Chinese influence. Increasing competition among regional actors for access to resources and economic relationships has allowed Myanmar to counterbalance China by strengthening cooperation with other countries such as India, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, North Korea and Malaysia. The military government is intensely nationalistic, unpredictable and resistant to external criticism, making it often impervious to outside influence.

While China shares the aspiration for a stable and prosperous Myanmar, it differs from the West on how to achieve such goals. China will not engage with Myanmar on terms dictated by the West. To bring Beijing on board, the wider international community will need to pursue a plausible strategy that takes advantage of areas of common interest. This strategy must be based on a realistic assessment of China’s engagement with Myanmar, its actual influence, and its economic and strategic interests. The West could better engage China to encourage Myanmar’s government to commit to a truly inclusive dialogue with the opposition and ethnic groups. In addition to talks on national reconciliation, dialogue should also address the economic and humanitarian crisis that hampers reconciliation at all levels of society. At the same time, China should act both directly and in close cooperation with ASEAN member countries to continue support for the good offices of the United Nations as well as to persuade the military to open up.

Myanmar is heading towards elections in 2010 which, despite major shortcomings, are likely to create opportunities for generational and institutional changes. International policy towards Myanmar accordingly deserves careful reassessment. China is encouraging the government to make the process genuinely inclusive, but will certainly accept almost any result that does not involve major instability. While its capacity and willingness to influence Myanmar’s domestic politics is limited, the international community should continue to encourage Beijing as well as other regional stakeholders to take part in a meaningful and concerted effort to address the transition in Myanmar.

Beijing/Jakarta/Brussels, 14 September 2009

Philippines: UN Group Should Highlight Killings of Children | Human Rights Watch

Image by FriskoDude via Flickr

Press Manila to Investigate and Prosecute ‘Death Squads’

September 14, 2009

(New York) - The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child should press the Philippines government to take meaningful steps to investigate death squad killings and prosecute the perpetrators, Human Rights Watch said today. On September 15, 2009, the committee is reviewing the Philippines' compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Death squads, operating with the involvement of local authorities and with virtual impunity in Davao City and elsewhere in the Philippines, have frequently included children among their targets. In Davao City alone, more than 908 people have been killed by death squads since 1998. At least 82 victims, or 9 percent, were children. So far this year, more than 70 people have been killed.

"Children, some of whom already have miserable lives on the street, continue to be among the targets of the Philippines' lawless death squads," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The Child Rights Committee should press the Philippines to prosecute these killings."

Death squads target alleged criminals, including street children and children in conflict with the law. They operate with at least the tacit approval of police officers and local officials.

Human Rights Watch, the Coalition Against Summary Execution and the Kalitawhan Network called on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to give special attention to death squad killings of children in a joint letter sent August 24, 2009.

Also available in:

• 日本語

Burma’s Forgotten Prisoners | Human Rights Watch

Burma’s Forgotten Prisoners

September 16, 2009

The 35-page report showcases dozens of prominent political activists, Buddhist monks, labor activists, journalists, and artists arrested since peaceful political protests in 2007 and sentenced to draconian prison terms after unfair trials. The report was released on September 16, 2009 at a Capitol Hill news conference hosted by Senator Barbara Boxer.

Read the Press Release

Read the Report
ISBN: 1-56432-517-2

Get the Report

• Download report (PDF, 1.51 MB)
• Download excerpt of report in FRENCH (PDF, 103.14 KB)
• この報告書の日本語版ダウンロードはこちら (PDF, 1.13 MB)
• Purchae a printed copy of this report

Table of Contents

• Burma’s Forgotten Prisoners
• Map of Burma
• Key facts about Burma’s Political Prisoners
• Secret trials of political prisoners in late 2008
• The September 2007 Crackdown
• The Cyclone
• The 88 Generation Students
• About Burmese Names
• What can the international community do?
• What can you do?
• Acknowledgements