Month: April 2011
DC lunch: women of courage
Yes, I did make it to both lunchtime events today, Mona Makram-Ebeid at the Middle East Institute and Shirin Ebadi at the Carnegie Endowment. Hard to beat that for a ringside seat to observe the changing Middle East.
A former member of the Egyptian parliament now at the University of Cairo, Professor Makram-Ebeid was at pains to underline the liberal, democratic, non-sectarian, non-religious character of the Egyptian revolution, which sought “dignity, justice, freedom and human rights.” The problem is that in the aftermath Egyptian institutions are still fragile, the constitution is still one that gives the president the power to eliminate freedom, and the forces competing for influence include the army, the Muslim Brotherhood and the various liberal democratic opposition forces, which are notably less strong and more fragmented than the other two.
The liberal democratic opposition wants a date certain for constitutional reform as well as a new electoral law that makes the system more proportional (rather than majoritarian). They did not like the army’s insistence on amending the old constitution and submitting it to referendum, but that is water under the bridge. What they need to do now is to prevent a “rift between the people and the army” while they prepare themselves for elections by unifying and attracting Muslim moderates. No strong liberal democratic force can emerge without Islamic elements within it. The older secular parties are weak. Turkey and Indonesia provide examples of democratic Islamic states, but Egypt will develop its own model.
The Muslim Brotherhood, she thought, would be more manageable within the system than outside it. The National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak is still a serious threat, as are the Salafists and jihadists who have suddenly emerged. The Army is the key to ensuring these elements do not disrupt the transition to democracy.
What does Egypt need from the U.S.? Moral support and economic assistance, the latter in the form of renegotiation of Egypt’s debt (with generous forgiveness) and retrieval of stolen assets. This will be larger than the official aid package, which should focus on promoting democratic civil society. Egypt will try to resuscitate tourism and hopes Egyptian expatriates will help. Cairo will have to be careful in rooting out corruption not to damage the productive economy.
Professor Makram-Ebeid finished with a flourish, quoting MLK:
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
The second game of my lunch time double header was a conversation with Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. She would have appreciated that arc of history bending towards justice, but started off with another bon mot:
If you can’t eliminate injustice, at least tell everyone about it
Living now in exile in Atlanta, she has done just that in The Golden Cage. But today’s event was more about Iran than about the book.
Bottom line: Iran is like the fire under embers.
By which I took her to mean that it may burst into flame at any moment, even though it seems under autocratic control at the moment. She still believes, and works for, the motto of the revolution: “independence and freedom.” But that is not what the current government is delivering. Iranians have lost freedom since the time of the Shah. They don’t freely elect their representatives and their government is busy helping Bolivia and rebels in Senegal, things that have nothing to do with the welfare of Iranians.
Women, who have a high level of culture in Iran and constitute 65% of university students, face discrimination: the testimony of two women is required in court to equal the testimony of a man, their lives are compensated at half the rate of a man’s, they need written permission of their husbands to travel. It is no surprise that many women are found in the Green Movement opposition.
She prefers nonviolence as the means in Iran; the goal is democracy and human rights. It is not yet clear whether this can be achieved within the current constitutional regime or will need a new one. Many rights are guaranteed in the constitution in word, but not implemented in practice by the government. The government uses violence against the citizens; governments that do this will fall.
Asked whether she would opt for peace or justice in a post-revolution Iran, she replied it would depend on circulstances. She was vigorous in denouncing the Iraqi government’s attack on the Mujahadeen el Khalq (MEK) at Camp Ashraf, insisting they are refugees and should not be forced back to Iran, where they would be mistreated. She refused to be drawn out on whether the MEK is a terrorist organization, saying only a court could decide that.
U.S. sanctions, she thought, are not really “sanctions,” i.e. punishments. The U.S. has the right to regulate its trade. Iran may not like it, but Washington is within its rights.
The nuclear program is not a particular source of pride for Iranians, who view it as hurting them because of sanctions and in any event don’t want to see another Fukushima reactor incident in Iran. Besides, they’ve got more important things to worry about. Like private internet access, which is nominally allowed by the law but not yet implemented.
She was in no mood to give advice to President Obama (and I imagine would prefer to give it privately), but did say that she appreciated his Nowruz (New Year’s) message, which had the right approach.
I admit: lunch took more than an hour. But it was worth it! It would be hard to find two more eloquent exponents of a revolution in progress and one not yet quite started.
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Disingenuous is the polite term
President Omar al Bashir of Sudan is, to put it politely, disingenuous in this attempt at a straight-up interview by The Guardian. He manages to underestimate the number of displaced people in Darfur by more than a factor of 10, suggests that demonstrations in Sudan failed only because the opposition had no support in the country, claims the International Criminal Court indicted him for political reasons and in the concluding moments offers to come to the aid of Southern Sudan to help it deal with its instability (no doubt caused in part by Khartoum). He wants only peace, not war.
It is only fair to note that he also declines the privilege of hosting Gaddafi in Sudan, noting the importance of friendship with the Libyan people. That’s about the clearest indication I’ve seen this week that Gaddafi is in real trouble.
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Lessons from Serbia applied in Middle East and North Africa
The press has caught on to some of the connections between Serbia’s Otpor legacy and popular rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa. Srdja Popovic is one of the links. Here is his presentation at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on April 1, 2011. A powerpoint is no substitute for Srdja, but I can’t figure out (yet) how to upload him to a blog post!
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You reap what was sown
A reader tweets:
Personally I prefer Bosnia to stay one single state. But how can we say YES to #Kosovo but NO to #RS and Croats in Bosnia!?
This in my view is an important and legitimate question, one that merits more of an answer than I am able to fit into 140 characters. A Serb colleague has been asking me this question for many years. So here goes.
The Bosnia and Kosovo outcomes are different because of the different history and evolution of the two places. I am not talking ancient history here, but recent events. And Belgrade played a critical decisionmaking role in these events. I’d even say it was Belgrade that determined the two different outcomes.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgrade supported the effort of Republika Srpska (RS) to secede by force of arms, starting in 1992 by ethnically cleansing the territory the RS controlled. The leadership and other officers of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) were in fact officers of the then-Yugoslav National Army (JNA). This effort failed in 1995, when an attack on Sarajevo precipitated NATO bombing that tilted the military situation in favor of the Federation (mainly Croat and Bosniak) forces. The Dayton ceasefire that ensued and the Dayton agreements saved the VRS from imminent defeat and gave to Republika Srpska 49 per cent of the territory, in exchange for its remaining inside Bosnia as one of two “entities” (the other being the Federation). Thus Slobodan Milosevic at Dayton snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of defeat, since he would have been blamed had the Federation forces taken Banja Luka and Brcko. But he signed away any right the RS might claim to secession and independence.
What about the Croats? They did not ask for or get a separate entity at Dayton. This I know since I conducted, with Michael Steiner, the Federation negotiations that took place in the first ten days there. Why? Because the Bosnian Croats were getting an excellent deal: half the Federation, when they were far less than half its population, and one-third of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, when they likely weren’t at the time of Dayton more than 10 per cent of its population. Tudjman was also concerned to prevent the emergence of an Islamic Republic in central Bosnia, which the Federation did by tying the Bosniaks to a governing structure they shared with the Croats.
In Kosovo, Belgrade tried to prevent the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) from gaining independence from Serbia by force of arms, using ethnic cleansing to try to redress the population balance in a province of Serbia that had become heavily Albanian. This effort also ended with a NATO bombing campaign, which in turn ended with a UN Security Council resolution in which Milosevic again snatched a kind of victory from the jaws of defeat, as it put Kosovo under UN administration and appeared to require a new UN resolution to change that outcome. It looked as if Kosovo would, like RS, not be able to secede and declare independence.
So the initial outcomes in the two places were about as favorable to Serbia’s interests as possible under the particular circumstances, which included two failed military campaigns and extensive ethnic cleansing as well as NATO intervention. Milosevic, contrary to what many may think, proved much better at diplomacy than fighting. But post-war developments diverged in the two places.
Kosovo, guided by the UN, U.S. and EU, implemented extensive provisions to protect Serbs and other minorities (standards before status, then the Ahtisaari Plan) and decided to declare independence in February 2008. Seventy-six states have now recognized its sovereignty, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has advised–in response to Belgrade’s request–that the declaration of independence did not violate international law.
Of course RS could also declare independence. But Belgrade at Dayton signed away its right to do so (and RS leaders had authorized Milosevic to speak for them at the negotiation). Any case at the ICJ would likely be decided differently for the RS than for Kosovo. And it is unlikely in any event that under current circumstances RS would get any significant recognition. It has done little to welcome back its Croat or Bosniak populations, and its secession would likely lead to a result that no one in the international community (including Serbia and Croatia) wants: the creation of a non-viable Islamic state in central Bosnia with irredentist ambitions.
Note: I have not above used the legal arguments about whether Kosovo was a “federal” unit of former Yugoslavia or not. Bosnia certainly was a federal unit with the right to independence and declared it in 1992 in accordance with the Badinter criteria, which included a referendum that passed by a wide margin, with many Serbs boycotting. RS was certainly not a federal unit of the former Yugoslavia, so according to the Badinter criteria it did not have the right to secession. Kosovo is arguable both ways. So I’ve chosen not to argue at all.
Note some more: The Badinter Commission was asked:
Does the Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as one of the constituent peoples of Yugoslavia, have the right to self-determination?
Its answer, in typically oblique Europeanese, was this:
(i) that the Serbian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia is entitled to all the rights concerned to minorities and ethnic groups under international law and under the provisions of the draft Convention of the Conference on Yugoslavia of 4 November 1991, to which the Republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia have undertaken to give effect; and
(ii) that the Republics must afford the members of those minorities and ethnic groups all the human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in international law, including, where appropriate, the right to choose their nationality.
In American, that would be “no,” but the Serb community’s minority rights have to be respected.
Bottom line: Kosovo is independent because of what Belgrade tried to do there; RS will not be independent because of what it and Belgrade did in Bosnia and at Dayton.
That’s why the outcomes in Kosovo and Bosnia are different: because their evolution and circumstances, largely determined by decisions made in Belgrade, are different. None of this was done by the people who are today in power in Belgrade, but you reap what was sown.
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Getting Gaddafi out also requires diplomacy
Tony Cordesman’s tirade against the half-hearted effort NATO is making against Gaddafi’s forces in Libya is all the rage today on my twitter feed. I don’t really disagree with anything he says, but I hope his piece does not distract attention from what really matters: the effort to get Gaddafi out of Tripoli and out of Libya, preferably to someplace that will keep him on a short leash.
Cordesman is of course correct that intensifying the military effort is an important part of the effort to get him to leave. But it should not be the only thing we are doing.
It is hard to write about this because whatever is happening is necessarily out of the public eye. While there are rumors of Washington and London looking for a place to park the Gaddafi family, it is to be expected that we won’t know where that is until the time comes. I trust London and Washington will be prepared to ensure that the family has access to the financial resources it might need to live a prosperous life, though not one in which it can continue to hire a mercenary army (or suborn its hosts). Immunity from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity is not available (to anyone), but I trust the country that takes the Gaddafis will not be a state party the International Criminal Court.
The problem of course is that Gaddafi may not go. Military means have proven repeatedly and frustratingly ineffective against individuals, whether they be Ratko Mladic (an accused Serbian war criminal), Charles Taylor (who was finally snagged by his Nigerian hosts), Saddam Hussein (who wasn’t captured for more than six months after the U.S. occupied Iraq) or Laurent Gbagbo (the recently surrendered former president of Ivory Coast). Nor is American intelligence much good at predicting where foreign leaders will be so that they can be snagged by the specially trained Special Forces that do that kind of thing.
But if there is something that needs doing besides the intensified military effort that Tony Cordesman recommends, it is an intensified diplomatic effort to get him out of there. I take the Libyan Foreign Minister’s attempt to suggest that Gaddafi might be ready to retire in place, allowing free and fair elections, as a pretty clear sign that the Colonel is feeling the pressure. But it would be foolish to fall for that as a solution. He has to go if Libya is to be free. Even then, it will have a long road ahead.
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If only we had 10 plagues to send
It’s the second night of Passover and Bashar al Assad is still not letting his people go. The notion that he can get away with abolishing the emergency law from the books but continuing to shoot demonstrators illustrates how thoroughly imbued with authoritarianism this supposed paragon of reform really is. As I said yesterday, Syrians can accept it or they can press on for something better.
What they should not do is look to the international community for much help. There is no military option in Syria. The Americans have supposedly been providing assistance to an anti-regime broadcaster operating from London, and in due course it will no doubt come out that someone or other (most likely American or Serbian, maybe Tunisian or Egyptian) has provided training to the protesters in what is properly termed these days “nonviolent conflict.” I have no doubt my own image, which appears repeatedly in the film Bringing Down A Dictator (about the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia) is familiar to both the Syrian police and demonstrators. But none of the above amounts to any substantial assistance.
The Iranians are accusing the Saudis and Jordanians of pumping up the demonstrations. That seems unlikely, to say the least. Amman has its own problems. Riyadh’s preference for stability seems to extend to Bashar al Assad, despite the Saudi rivalry with Damascus for influence in Lebanon and Syria’s alignment with Tehran. The Syrian protesters are mainly on their own, as much as the Tunisians and maybe more than the Egyptians before them.
The lack of substantial foreign support should not discourage. The protesters are better off being genuinely and profoundly Syrian. What they lack is mass, which comes from inside the country. It is mass that protects the protesters and strains the regime. If the demonstrations are going to succeed, the protesters are going to have to convince many more Syrians to join them in the streets and to stay there for an extended period. This will require extraordinary nonviolent discipline, organizational acumen, and good humor.
Unfortunately, there is no modern equivalent of the ten Biblical plagues. I would gladly call them down on Bashar, whose cynical reform/violence trick should not succeed on the merits. But life isn’t fair, and Syrians will have to make their own good fortune.
Second Seder tonight, and you can be sure I’ll be putting in a good word for them.
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