Diplomacy & Crisis News

« L’Algérie, puissance émergente ? », telle est la question posée par la journaliste Charlotte Bozonnet dans son article publié vendredi 23 octobre 2015 dans Le Monde et consacré au dossier sur l’Algérie paru dans le numéro d’automne de Politique étrangère (3/2015).

« De l’Algérie, on souligne souvent la paralysie : celle de son président, affaibli par un accident vasculaire cérébral depuis 2013 ; celle de son système politique, où les clans au pouvoir refusent toute transition. Plus rarement ce qui bouge pour ce pays. Dans son dernier numéro, Politique étrangère consacre un dossier éclairant sur l’Algérie, analysant comment ce système, « miné de toutes parts », se voit contesté par son environnement international.

L’économie, d’abord, ou « la chronique d’une crise permanente » dans un pays qui, en quinze ans de manne pétrolière, aura, certes, amélioré le quotidien de ses habitants mais sans parvenir à construire une économie productive. « Au moment où l’Algérie doit faire face à une nouvelle crise pétrolière, l’hyperdépendance de son économie aux hydrocarbures fait craindre un risque systémique », prévient l’économiste Mihoub Mezouaghi. Avec un baril tombé à moins de 50 dollars (44 euros), le modèle de croissance n’est plus viable, faisant craindre une crise aux répercussions politiques.

Immobilisme mortifère

Les mutations de la politique étrangère de l’Algérie, ensuite. « La diplomatie algérienne va devoir se redéfinir face à un monde qui change », souligne Jean-François Daguzan, directeur adjoint de la Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, qui revient sur « l’âge d’or » de cette diplomatie, dont les principes restent les mêmes depuis l’indépendance : soutien à la décolonisation, non-intervention au-delà des frontières, coopération et multilatéralisme. Sauf que la survenue des « printemps arabes » et les menaces à ses frontières bousculent l’édifice.

Le principe de non-ingérence est remis en question, souligne Geoff D. Porter, de la New York University, rappelant que l’attaque contre le site gazier de Tiguentourine, en janvier 2013, a été lancée depuis le territoire libyen. Si l’Algérie reste fidèle à son approche non interventionniste, certains signes traduisent une inflexion.

En 2013, Alger a autorisé Paris à utiliser son espace aérien dans le cadre de l’opération Serval. En mai 2014, un accord de coopération militaire a été signé avec la Tunisie. Et en février, l’Algérie s’est abstenue de condamner les frappes égyptiennes en Libye. « Face à des menaces externes sans précédent, l’Algérie sera peut-être contrainte de se demander, pour la première fois, si les avantages de sa politique de non-ingérence ne vont pas finir par se révéler moindres que les inconvénients », note M. Porter.

Ce dossier de Politique étrangère raconte l’immobilisme mortifère du régime algérien, tout en analysant les défis majeurs auxquels il est confronté. Ses capacités militaires – les plus importantes du Maghreb –, sa situation géographique aux portes du Sahel en font un acteur-clé de la région. Que l’Algérie le veuille ou non. »

Article écrit par Charlotte Bozonnet dans Le Monde, le 23 octobre 2015. © Le Monde, 2015.

(Own report) - Berlin has announced a "German-Russian Youth Year" for 2016/2017. As former Head of the Federal Chancellery Ronald Pofalla (CDU) declared last week at the conclusion of a German-Russian Cooperation Meeting ("Petersburg Dialogue"), cooperation between German and Russian civil societies are "more important than ever." Therefore, the German government's efforts to intensify the German-Russian student exchange program must be supported. Already at the beginning of the Petersburg Dialogue, which has restarted, following a year's interruption, Chancellor Merkel explained that Germany is "interested in a reliable partnership with Russia." Business functionaries are concluding that willingness to cooperate, which had waned due to the Ukraine conflict, is again growing "on both sides." Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, foresees a "diplomatic process" under Berlin's leadership that will lead to a further rapprochement during Germany's OSCE chair - beginning January 1, 2016. Ischinger explicitly points to similarities to the cold war's so-called détente policy, from which the West emerged the winner.

 

A group of Uighurs in Urumqi. Picture: AP

When will the unrest in Xinjiang cease?  The latest attack in a long series of aggressions was recently reported by Radio Free Asia, when at least 17 assailants, armed with knives, set upon innocent Han Chinese coal miners sleeping in their dormitory beds in Baicheng on September 18.  Before the morning came, more than 50 people had been killed and dozens wounded.  The attackers, which Xinjiang authorities suspect to be ethnic Uighurs, all escaped into Tianshan Mountains near the borders of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Radio Free Asia cited a Baicheng official as suggesting the attackers were seeking vengeance for their families having been punished for violating strict regulations on the practice of Islam.  The regulations, such as barring women from veiling their faces or barring men from sporting long beards, were implemented by local authorities in an effort to combat religious extremism in a region with a significant Muslim population.

The Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur population, which at one point represented 85% of Xinjiang’s population some 65 years ago to less than 50% today, have been blamed for recent violence throughout the region and in other areas of China. Beijing argues the attacks by Uighurs are being orchestrated by foreigners who seek to establish an independent state in Xinjiang called “East Turkestan,” or a replica of “Uyghuristan” (932–1450) modeled after neighboring Central Asian nations.  Previously, two “Eastern Turkestan Republics” survived between 1931–34 and 1944–49, and Chairman Mao Zedong at one point promised “self-determination” and the right to secede from the Communist state, before eventually withdrawing the full offer of independence and instead conceding the title “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” in 1955.

Despite living in a so-called “autonomous region”, the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang have long been persecuted.  Back in May, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan U.S. federal government body, reported “unprecedented violations” against Muslims in China—urging the U.S. Department of State to re-designate China’s government as a top-tier violator, along with 16 other countries, including Myanmar, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

China denies the allegations, maintaining it guarantees religious freedom while recognizing five official religions—Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism and Protestantism.  Yet those who worship must do so under the watchful eye of patriotic religious associations, who impose strict government controls on the practice of their faith, to include the removal of crosses and the crackdown on underground churches.  It is these strict government controls on Islam, along with dwindling economic opportunities for Uighurs, which are put forth by analysts, exiles and activists for the increase in social unrest and violence.  

While other factors are certainly in play, the strict regulation of Islam is only exacerbating social unrest and contributing to more violence and is contrary to Beijing’s edicts on religious freedom.  In a speech in May 2014, President Xi Jinping stated that while teachings by religious leaders need to be grounded in patriotism, “law-abiding” worshippers must be protected as the ruling Communist Party cracks down on extremists. But these law-abiding worshipers deserve not only protection, but freedom to practice their religion, including the right as Muslims to wear veils, head scarves, jilbabs, clothing with the crescent moon and star, and to wear long beards.

Following Xi’s speech in May, China’s highest court, highest prosecution office and the Ministry of Public Security issued instructions in September 2014 urging court officials, prosecutors and police to distinguish between the illegal acts of religious extremists and ordinary religious activities.  According to the instructions, officials should avoid discriminating against any religion or ethnic minority, and should not interfere with citizens’ freedom to practice their religion.

Yet with reporting out of Xinjiang restricted and shoddy,outside observers have difficulty ascertaining the scope and scale of discrimination taking place.  We may also never know whether or not these latest terrorists were radicalized by inhumane treatment, trained abroad or motivated by economic factors.  If Beijing really wants to garnish international support for its crackdown on Islamic extremism (and truly has nothing to hide), allowing foreign journalists to operate freely in the region would go along way toward courting international condemnation and support for its efforts.  The alternative course of further restrictions will only result in more attacks, greater radicalization, and further criticism by international human rights groups.  With this latest failure, a new approach is clearly needed.

 

David Cameron’s announcement that the UK will be sending troops to support UN blue helmets in Africa was welcome news. The UN has long struggled to secure enough of the right forces for its missions, since few countries with elite trained and equipped forces commit them to peacekeeping operations.

Boko Haram is evolving under the pressure of combined military operations by the Lake Chad Basin states, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. It has suffered significant conventional military defeats and lost most of the territory it loosely controlled in late 2014, but, despite this, it is not a spent force and continues to exact an unacceptable humanitarian toll.

Among the three principal politicians who have struggled for power in Côte d’Ivoire since 1995, President Alassane Ouattara, 73, is the only one still in the game and is most likely to win the presidential election on 25 October.

 

Palestinian protesters hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers during clashes in Betunia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah October 11, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

The growing insecurity in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel proper and the occupied territories are simply the symptoms of a more complex political issue that has been neglected and exploited.

The real historical context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is routinely muffled; only that all too familiar distorted narrative gets a pass, especially in the U.S. commercial media. Throughout history, countering the dominant narrative has never proven easy.

Make no mistake—with this latest violent uprising and draconian policies imposed to crush it—at stake is not only peace in Israel and Palestine or Middle East, but peace around the world.

Lost Opportunity

As soon as Barack Obama was elected  president of the United States, a bipartisan group of ten former senior government officials that included the likes of Chuck Hagel, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and chaired by Brent Scowcroft, approached him with a document entitled The Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement. Their main concern was that “unless the president tackles this problem early it is unlikely to be done at all.  Political capital will erode; domestic obstacles will grow; other issues will dominate; and the warring parties will play for time and run the clock.” The old “peace process” model has resulted in  nothing more than a 22 years of spiraling apartheid-like repression, brutal violence, and systematic oppression.  Among other things, the group recommended the city of “Jerusalem as home to both capitals.”  That, needless to say fell onto deaf ears.

Today, the Palestinians demand the cancellation of the Oslo Accords that proved nothing more than “an endless process which has delivered neither an end to hostilities nor a coherent framework for peace.” The latter was impossible to achieve since Israel has been and continues to swallow the 1967 occupied territory—where the Palestinian state was to be founded—one settlement expansion at a time.

Anatomy of a Violent Intifada

Before readers delve into the argument made in this article, he or she must ask oneself:

Would 67 years of systematic oppression that includes mass expulsion, arbitrary arrests, brutal military incursions, checkpoint involving psychological subjugation, denial of basic human rights, and economic strangulation be long enough to motivate anyone to defend him or herself by any means or snap and transgress beyond self-defense?

How long would it take the average person under similar circumstances to consider the violent option for self-preservation, and when he or she cannot find a suicide belt, a hand grenade, or an automatic weapon, take up on a slingshot or a kitchen knife to randomly stab those whom he or she considers the sustainers of his misery? Especially when settler extremists protected by the Israeli Special Forces periodically invade one’s holy site chanting this provocative chant “the mosque will burn and the temple rebuilt.”

 Demonization Run Amok

In an attempt to sustain the old anti-Palestinian narrative and deflect the role of his policies in inciting this latest outburst of violence, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to dumbing down history by making an outlandish public claim that is on par with Colonel Gaddafi’s “al-Qaida drugged up the Libyan people’s coffee”.

Speaking to the World Zionist Congress before his trip to Germany, Netanyahu makes this bizarre assertion that in 1941: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews…And mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’” It gets eerily comical when he quotes Hitler meekly consulting the mufti “So what should I do with them?” and the mufti promptly responding with this holocaust epiphany “Burn them.”

There was a worldwide diplomatic censure, ridicule, and condemnation. “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust… We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman.

The harshest criticism of Netanyahu’s remarks came from the Jewish scholars, historians and politicians in Israel. Dina Porat, chief historian of Yad Vashem, called his wild remarks “completely erroneous, on all counts.”

Could This Turn Into a Religious War?

The simple answer is absolutely, yes; if it hasn’t already. That said, it is time to reassess the Palestine-Israel issue through the faith prism. Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land is a sacred geographical area for all the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yet, there has never been a single interfaith conference lead by high profile clerics from all these three religious groups to deescalate religious tensions and have serious dialogue on how to share these sites.

Traditionally, the round tables of peace were always crowded by secularist politicians from both sides who often use religion for political expedience.

Now that the two-state solution is out of the question; that leaves only two plausible scenarios: The one-state solution or self-annihilation. Contrary to the naysayers, the one-state solution is a viable alternative for coexistence and sustainable peace.

If such option could work between blacks and Afrikaners of Apartheid South Africa, why could it not between two Semitic ethnic peoples of Abrahamic roots? All that is needed is objective political will and broad-minded religious vision. We have no choice but to give it our collective best shot. It is our only hope.

 

The Taliban takeover of Kunduz in Northern Afghanistan this week is the visible part of an insurgency iceberg that has grown larger, more destructive, and more threatening to the Afghan coalition government and to the Obama administration’s Titanic-like exit strategy.

As the world marks Polio Day today, Pakistan remains the greatest impediment to a polio-free world. The country has more polio cases than any other, reflecting a double policy failure: to prioritise the health of its citizens, and to curb violent extremism. Pakistan's deadly conflicts increase the likelihood the disease could spread to other countries.

Los apuñalamientos, tiroteos, protestas y choques en Jerusalén, Cisjordania, Gaza e Israel constituyen una de las mayores amenazas para el presidente palestino, Mahmud Abbas, y su estrategia de negociaciones bilaterales, diplomacia y cooperación con Israel en materia de seguridad. La agitación -su causa inmediata fue el establecimiento de más restricciones al acceso palestino a la mezquita de al Aqsa- refleja el sentimiento de los palestinos de que sus dirigentes han fracasado, que deben defender sus derechos nacionales incluso desafiando a sus líderes si es necesario, y que la era de Abbas está llegando a su fin.

Seul survivant politique parmi les trois hommes qui se disputent le pouvoir depuis 1995, Alassane Ouattara est favori pour remporter aisément l’élection présidentielle du 25 octobre. Henri Konan Bédié, leader du Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) et ancien chef de l’État, a volontairement écarté son parti de la compétition pour faciliter la victoire du président sortant. Laurent Gbagbo, son adversaire en 2010, est en prison. Ses sept concurrents du moment n’ont ni l’envergure, ni le soutien d’un grand parti qui leur permettraient de gagner. L’enjeu n’est donc pas tant le résultat d’une élection à priori sans surprise que sa suite et les choix qu’effectuera le président Ouattara pour les cinq prochaines années s’il est réélu.

Since the Islamic State began seizing significant amounts of territory in northern Syria and Iraq, policy makers and analysts have focused primarily on the question of whether America should arm the Kurds to fight the jihadi group.

La Comisión ha demostrado su enorme utilidad en contextos en los que las instituciones públicas ordinarias no funcionan, o están cooptadas por poderes oscuros.

(Own report) - The EU's Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Cameroon, soon to be implemented, will drive this African country deeper into poverty, Yvonne Takang, Executive Secretary of the Cameroonian civic organization ACDIC explained in an interview with german-foreign-policy.com. The Economic Partnership Agreement, ratified under pressure from Brussels last year in a hush-hush operation, will endanger Cameroon's "agriculture and regional integration," warned Takang, and hamper the country's industrialization. She also signaled resistance to the agreement's implementation. Since 2002, the EU has been seeking to conclude EPAs with former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions to open markets for European businesses, create attractive investment opportunities, and secure imports of cheap raw materials. The planned deregulation will leave the weaker national economies in Africa unprotected. A well known example of the negative consequences is the local chicken production in Ghana, which virtually collapsed after this West African country opened its markets to European - including German - poultry exports. German slaughterhouses, on the other hand, benefitted, significantly increasing their chicken exports and profits.