Sources:
African Union Website: AU in a Nutshell
NY Times: Defeated Ivory Coast Lender Moves to Seize Banks
Bloomberg: Ivory Coast Rivals Preparing for War, Kenyan Prime Minister Odinga Says
NPR: Ivory Coast Leader Tries to Seize Regional Bank
NY Times: Ivory Coast: Incumbent Seizes Utility
NY Times: Diplomacy Again Falls Short in Tense Ivory Coast Standoff
In an election on Nov. 28, the Ivory Coast elected challenger, Alassane Ouattara, the winner of its presidential race. Since the Election Commission announced Ouattara the winner, the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, has challenged the results of the election, claiming voter fraud. However, the United Nations certified the results, and nearly all foreign governments have recognized Ouattara as the rightful winner. The results of the election, coupled with many people believing that Gbagbo will refuse to step down from the presidency, have caused unrest within the nation. World leaders worry that both sides of the political rivalry are preparing for war.
The United Nations has reported that there have been at least 271 people killed in violent clashes following the election. The Human Rights Watch recently accused Gbagbo-loyal militia and security forces of targeting, murdering, and raping Ouattara supporters. Witnesses report that Gbagbo’s security forces either willfully ignored or joined militia forces in murdering Ouattara supporters. The Gbagbo administration and its allies deny any association with the incidents.
Recent events indicate that Gbagbo is unlikely to step down peacefully. This week, Gbagbo ordered that the regional central bank’s offices be seized. Prior to the bank’s seizure, Gbagbo was operating without government funds; in December, the Central Bank of West African States, a bank that groups several Western African countries’ treasuries, denied Gbagbo access to the nation’s accounts and made it necessary for him seek Ouattara’s approval before the bank would allow withdrawals. Without approval, Gbagbo will not be able to pay for, and therefore control, the nation’s military and security forces and civil servants after the end of his legitimate term. Following the seizure, the Gbagbo government ordered local bank employees to follow its instructions, rather than those from the bank’s headquarters in Senegal. The bank protested the seizure and immediately ordered the offices in the Ivory Coast to shut down until further notice. The following day, Gbagbo ordered the seizure of the country’s electric company.
Gbagbo’s refusal to step down from power, along with his seizures, suggests an unstable future for the Ivory Coast. Other African countries are working hard to prevent the Ivory Coast from civil war. Recently, the African Union, an organization that provides a forum for African countries to discuss matters of common concern and that helps the continent effectively promote its own interests, appointed Kenya’s prime minister to mediate the crisis. The African Union, which consists of 53 nation members, has temporarily suspended the Ivory Coast’s membership and urged Gbagbo to transfer the presidential powers and office to Ouattara immediately. The European Union has prohibited almost all trade with the Ivory Coast in order to pressure Gbagbo to end his presidential term. Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWA), a group of 15 Western African countries whose mission is to promote economic integration through the region, has threatened to use force to remove Gbagbo from the head of state if he refuses to leave. Many West African heads of state are currently lobbying both the U.N. and the United States to back ECOWA forces if such action is needed to oust Gbagbo.
Discussion:
1. Should the U.S. back ECOWA if force is necessary to oust Gbagbo?
2. What else should other African countries do to persuade Gbagbo to step aside for Ouattara?
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The Countries of the “Northern Triangle” Rise as the New Launch Pad for Drug Distribution in Central America
Sources:
The Economist: Organized Crime in Central America: The Rot Spreads
The Economist: El Salvador’s President: So Far, So Good
Federation of American Scientists: U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: the Mérida Initiative and Beyond
The Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have in the past two years risen to the forefront of the war on drugs. With harsher crackdowns on the drug cartels in Mexico, the cartels have looked to launch their drug supplies from nearby locations with less police pressure. The major source of cartel pressure in Mexico has come from the Merida Initiative, a “counterdrug and anticrime assistance package” launched in 2007 between the United States and Mexico. The Merida Initiative has provided a total of $1.8 billion in the form of arms and police training for various countries throughout Central America and the Caribbean, and $1.5 billion of this funding has gone directly to counter the drug cartels in Mexico. Ten years ago this would have been a good strategy given that Mexico was the largest “staging post” for drug distribution to the United States. However, with the recent pressures placed on the cartels in Mexico, they have simply moved south into the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Over the past ten years these three countries have simultaneously grown into the major launch pad for drugs imported from Columbia and Venezuela into the United States and have achieved the highest rates of murder in the world. As such, these countries are now notoriously known as the “Northern Triangle,” a region fraught with poverty and violence.
The “Northern Triangle” has been fertile ground for the Mexican drug cartel— many point to the dire poverty of these countries as the major reason. The average income in these countries is near $2,700 per person, barely a third that of Mexico. Amid the global financial crises, El Salvador’s economy shrank by 3.6%, one of the biggest drops in the region. The country is not expected to reach its pre-recession norm until 2012 because its economic growth is largely dependent on the growth of the United States, which has been slow. Considering the $2.1 billion worth of drugs, arms, and cash seized earlier this year in Guatemala, equal to roughly the same as 5% of the country’s GDP, it is not hard to see why many in financial distress have looked to join with one of the few lucrative ventures in their countries. Mexican mafias, “Zetas” and “Sinaloa,” have found willing and lethal new recruits to ferry drugs, extort, and kidnap, in the countries’ 70,000 street youth gang members known as “Maras.”
Honduras’s Attorney-General Roy David Urtecho, recently stated “Maras” were seeking “to establish themselves as legitimate traffickers instead of street-level thugs.” The 2009 coup in Honduras broke cooperation efforts with foreign states and suspended foreign aid into the country, aid and cooperation necessary to combat organized crime, making Honduras an easy target for increased trafficking. In 2009, 154 drug trafficking flights were logged, up from almost none in 2005. Add to this the assassination of Honduras’s top anti-drugs official in 2009, which seems to have been a Sinaloa hit, and the prospect of these countries freeing themselves from the drug trade appears grim. However the recent adaptation of social, verses militant approaches to countering drug trafficking, may be the solution these countries have been looking for. President Funes of El Salvador initially took a hard-line approach to the drug trade by ordering the army into the streets and banning gang membership, but the effect of this tactic tapered. However, Funes was successful in building other social programs in the country, an approach that could indirectly diminish the strength of the cartel. El Salvador, for example, now has free basic education, and disadvantaged children are given school uniforms and shoes. This year an additional 22,000 children have enrolled in school, which means 22,000 fewer children are likely to become “Maras.”
President Obama appears to believe in the same “social” strategy for curtailing the drug trade. As the term for the initial Merida Initiative draws to an end, President Obama has proposed a new “four-pillar” strategy. Although the first two pillars consist of much of the same tactics as the original initiative, the last two focus on “(3) building a 21st century border between the United States and Mexico, and (4) building strong and resilient communities.” These last two pillars seek to increase the secure flow of people and goods between the United States and Mexico and to improve conditions in cities prone to cartel violence through social programs and alleviating poverty. Although initial implementation of the last two pillars will largely be in Mexico, hopefully the combined efforts of presidents from the United States, the countries of the Northern Triangle and Mexico will give this strategy greater success than initiatives of the past.
Discussion:
1) Given the assassination of drug officials in Honduras in 2009, are efforts to counter drug cartels by ordering armies and police into the streets a good strategic approach to the problem, or does the approach just lend to more violence?
2) Can social programming be justifiably funded by and through the Merida Initiative, an initiative specifically started to counter the “war on drugs?”
The Economist: Organized Crime in Central America: The Rot Spreads
The Economist: El Salvador’s President: So Far, So Good
Federation of American Scientists: U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: the Mérida Initiative and Beyond
The Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have in the past two years risen to the forefront of the war on drugs. With harsher crackdowns on the drug cartels in Mexico, the cartels have looked to launch their drug supplies from nearby locations with less police pressure. The major source of cartel pressure in Mexico has come from the Merida Initiative, a “counterdrug and anticrime assistance package” launched in 2007 between the United States and Mexico. The Merida Initiative has provided a total of $1.8 billion in the form of arms and police training for various countries throughout Central America and the Caribbean, and $1.5 billion of this funding has gone directly to counter the drug cartels in Mexico. Ten years ago this would have been a good strategy given that Mexico was the largest “staging post” for drug distribution to the United States. However, with the recent pressures placed on the cartels in Mexico, they have simply moved south into the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Over the past ten years these three countries have simultaneously grown into the major launch pad for drugs imported from Columbia and Venezuela into the United States and have achieved the highest rates of murder in the world. As such, these countries are now notoriously known as the “Northern Triangle,” a region fraught with poverty and violence.
The “Northern Triangle” has been fertile ground for the Mexican drug cartel— many point to the dire poverty of these countries as the major reason. The average income in these countries is near $2,700 per person, barely a third that of Mexico. Amid the global financial crises, El Salvador’s economy shrank by 3.6%, one of the biggest drops in the region. The country is not expected to reach its pre-recession norm until 2012 because its economic growth is largely dependent on the growth of the United States, which has been slow. Considering the $2.1 billion worth of drugs, arms, and cash seized earlier this year in Guatemala, equal to roughly the same as 5% of the country’s GDP, it is not hard to see why many in financial distress have looked to join with one of the few lucrative ventures in their countries. Mexican mafias, “Zetas” and “Sinaloa,” have found willing and lethal new recruits to ferry drugs, extort, and kidnap, in the countries’ 70,000 street youth gang members known as “Maras.”
Honduras’s Attorney-General Roy David Urtecho, recently stated “Maras” were seeking “to establish themselves as legitimate traffickers instead of street-level thugs.” The 2009 coup in Honduras broke cooperation efforts with foreign states and suspended foreign aid into the country, aid and cooperation necessary to combat organized crime, making Honduras an easy target for increased trafficking. In 2009, 154 drug trafficking flights were logged, up from almost none in 2005. Add to this the assassination of Honduras’s top anti-drugs official in 2009, which seems to have been a Sinaloa hit, and the prospect of these countries freeing themselves from the drug trade appears grim. However the recent adaptation of social, verses militant approaches to countering drug trafficking, may be the solution these countries have been looking for. President Funes of El Salvador initially took a hard-line approach to the drug trade by ordering the army into the streets and banning gang membership, but the effect of this tactic tapered. However, Funes was successful in building other social programs in the country, an approach that could indirectly diminish the strength of the cartel. El Salvador, for example, now has free basic education, and disadvantaged children are given school uniforms and shoes. This year an additional 22,000 children have enrolled in school, which means 22,000 fewer children are likely to become “Maras.”
President Obama appears to believe in the same “social” strategy for curtailing the drug trade. As the term for the initial Merida Initiative draws to an end, President Obama has proposed a new “four-pillar” strategy. Although the first two pillars consist of much of the same tactics as the original initiative, the last two focus on “(3) building a 21st century border between the United States and Mexico, and (4) building strong and resilient communities.” These last two pillars seek to increase the secure flow of people and goods between the United States and Mexico and to improve conditions in cities prone to cartel violence through social programs and alleviating poverty. Although initial implementation of the last two pillars will largely be in Mexico, hopefully the combined efforts of presidents from the United States, the countries of the Northern Triangle and Mexico will give this strategy greater success than initiatives of the past.
Discussion:
1) Given the assassination of drug officials in Honduras in 2009, are efforts to counter drug cartels by ordering armies and police into the streets a good strategic approach to the problem, or does the approach just lend to more violence?
2) Can social programming be justifiably funded by and through the Merida Initiative, an initiative specifically started to counter the “war on drugs?”
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Bemba Trial Marks Crucial Point in International Criminal Court’s History
Sources:
The Economist: International Justice: In the Dock, but for What?
The Washington Post: Witness at War Crimes Trial Weeps Over Girl’s Rape
The Guardian: Bemba Trial: The International Criminal Court Takes on Gender Crimes
CNN: Militia Leader Accused of Crimes Against Humanity Goes on Trial
International Criminal Court: Situation in the Central African Republic
Wikipedia: International Criminal Court
Last Monday marked the start of the long awaited trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo in The Hague, Netherlands. Bemba was formerly the vice president of the Democratic Republican of Congo. He is on trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for both war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, pillaging, and rape. These alleged crimes did not take place in Congo, but in the bordering country of the Central African Republic from October of 2002 to March of 2003.
International human rights groups have accused Bemba, the leader of the political party and militia known as the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), of using the MLC to kill, rape, and pillage civilians in the Central African Republic in order to assist the Central African Republic’s then president in his fight against rebel forces. Bemba, as the MLC’s commander in chief, is accused of failing to prevent and punish the MLC’s war crimes and atrocities. This is the ICC’s first case trying the commander of a military force for failing to responsibly handle his troops.
Bemba’s trial marks a critical point in the ICC’s history. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court treaty established the ICC in July of 2002. There are currently 114 countries that have either signed or ratified the treaty, including the United States. The main purpose of the ICC is to provide an international tribunal that has jurisdiction over four different types of crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Since its creation in 2002, there have only been a handful of trials in the ICC. Critics of the tribunal condemn its slowness, the expensive natural of its operations, and even its credibility. The Bemba trial is a chance for the ICC to silence some critics by holding a fair and speedy trial in the midst of high publicity.
The Bemba trial also marks a significant point in history, because it is the first trial in which sex crimes are part of the main focus. Bemba’s trial is an opportunity for the ICC to prove it is serious about the prosecution of sex crimes. The tribunal needs to set a firm precedent that sex crimes will not be tolerated in order to discourage their occurrence in the future.
Sex crimes have been historically used to demoralize and terrorize civilians into submission. Sexual violence in conflicts usually results in increased numbers of AIDS, gang rapes, and unwanted pregnancies. Often victims of sex crimes are wrongfully blamed within their cultural groups. If successful, the International Criminal Court’s trial of Bemba should be a step in the right direction for the prosecution, punishment, and declination of sexual violence in times of conflict. Hopefully, it will also bring more peace to the Central African Republic and its survivors, many of whom have been waiting almost a decade for justice.
Discussion:
1. Do you think there should be an international tribunal, like the ICC, to try crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression? Why or why not?
The Economist: International Justice: In the Dock, but for What?
The Washington Post: Witness at War Crimes Trial Weeps Over Girl’s Rape
The Guardian: Bemba Trial: The International Criminal Court Takes on Gender Crimes
CNN: Militia Leader Accused of Crimes Against Humanity Goes on Trial
International Criminal Court: Situation in the Central African Republic
Wikipedia: International Criminal Court
Last Monday marked the start of the long awaited trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo in The Hague, Netherlands. Bemba was formerly the vice president of the Democratic Republican of Congo. He is on trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for both war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, pillaging, and rape. These alleged crimes did not take place in Congo, but in the bordering country of the Central African Republic from October of 2002 to March of 2003.
International human rights groups have accused Bemba, the leader of the political party and militia known as the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), of using the MLC to kill, rape, and pillage civilians in the Central African Republic in order to assist the Central African Republic’s then president in his fight against rebel forces. Bemba, as the MLC’s commander in chief, is accused of failing to prevent and punish the MLC’s war crimes and atrocities. This is the ICC’s first case trying the commander of a military force for failing to responsibly handle his troops.
Bemba’s trial marks a critical point in the ICC’s history. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court treaty established the ICC in July of 2002. There are currently 114 countries that have either signed or ratified the treaty, including the United States. The main purpose of the ICC is to provide an international tribunal that has jurisdiction over four different types of crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Since its creation in 2002, there have only been a handful of trials in the ICC. Critics of the tribunal condemn its slowness, the expensive natural of its operations, and even its credibility. The Bemba trial is a chance for the ICC to silence some critics by holding a fair and speedy trial in the midst of high publicity.
The Bemba trial also marks a significant point in history, because it is the first trial in which sex crimes are part of the main focus. Bemba’s trial is an opportunity for the ICC to prove it is serious about the prosecution of sex crimes. The tribunal needs to set a firm precedent that sex crimes will not be tolerated in order to discourage their occurrence in the future.
Sex crimes have been historically used to demoralize and terrorize civilians into submission. Sexual violence in conflicts usually results in increased numbers of AIDS, gang rapes, and unwanted pregnancies. Often victims of sex crimes are wrongfully blamed within their cultural groups. If successful, the International Criminal Court’s trial of Bemba should be a step in the right direction for the prosecution, punishment, and declination of sexual violence in times of conflict. Hopefully, it will also bring more peace to the Central African Republic and its survivors, many of whom have been waiting almost a decade for justice.
Discussion:
1. Do you think there should be an international tribunal, like the ICC, to try crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression? Why or why not?
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