Month: May 2012
Iraq watchers, watch this
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) April 2012 Iraq polling sheds expected but clear light on the political situation there: especially among Shia Iraqis and in Baghdad, Prime Minister Maliki is a hit. Among Kurds in the North and Sunnis in the West, that is far less the case. While commentary in Washington has been mostly negative since completion of the U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011, an increasing percentage of Iraqis appreciate Maliki and think the country is heading in the right direction.
There are of course things that could upset the trends, and NDI explicates those:
- Failure to address jobs and basic services concerns
- Sunni insecurities intensify
- Disaffected Shias shifting support
- Ability for opposition groups to emerge and build a strategic campaign
- North’s divisions with Baghdad intensify
But so far, Maliki has a lot to stack up to his credit. Chosen prime minister because he looked weaker than the alternatives, he is proving that he has the vital requirement of a democratic politician: approval (and presumably votes at the next election). The big question is whether he will use his improved position to consolidate democracy in Iraq or undermine it.
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Is the Arab awakening marginalizing women?
The short answer is “yes,” judging from Monday’s discussion at the Woodrow Wilson Center. I missed the beginning but watched the rest on webcast. Since I haven’t seen any other reports of this interesting event here is what I learned:
In Tunisia and Egypt women are suffering setbacks when power is distributed or equality is at issue. They are nevertheless voting for Islamist parties that deal these setbacks, apparently because they believe the Islamists will be less corrupt.
Since 2005, women have also been suffering setbacks in Iraq, which like Egypt had an earlier history of recognition of women’s rights. Tribal forces and Islamist parties are the cause. Illegal practices like child and temporary marriages, honor killings, female genital mutilation and gender based violence are on the increase. The 25% quota for women in parliament has been important to keeping women present in the public sphere.
In Kuwait, the Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood are in power together. They are fierce on social issues and trying to separate women’s issues from other questions, in order to keep them distinct.
In Saudi Arabia, Arab spring has encouraged women to work for change and the King to make some limited moves. The Arab spring inspired the driving campaign, in which about 60 women defied the ban. Activism has increased both on line and at universities. The government is generally trying to look the other way. Religious police will not enforce face covering. The King has authorized women to participate in municipal elections in 2015 and has announced he will appoint women to the Majlis. These are symbolic steps. More important is the government push for women’s employment and campaign against child abuse and domestic violence. Nonviolent progress in Egypt and other places would encourage changes in Saudi Arabia.
Overall, not a pretty picture. When things in Saudi Arabia seem to be progressing more steadily than elsewhere, you know you are in trouble!
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Never again?
Emir Suljagić, who survived the Srebrenica massacre at the age of 19, writes from Sarajevo:
Here is what’s happening in and around Srebrenica in broad strokes. As it happens, the trial of Ratko Mladic, who was in charge of the Republika Srpska (RS) troops there during the massacre 17 years ago, opens today in The Hague.
A political party actively campaigning on genocide denial looks as if it could win the mayoral race in Srebrenica later this year. This is unacceptable to those of us who survived the 1995 genocide there. It would give control over the Potocari Memorial, including my father’s grave and those of many other innocent victims, to people who deny the crimes that led to their deaths.
The Obama administration, including advisors such as Samantha Power and Susan Rice, appear to have taken US policy on Bosnia back to 1992, when Secretary of State James Baker said the United States had no dog in the fight. The American Ambassador to Bosnia, Patrick Moon, is not objecting to RS President Milorad Dodik’s demand to hold the election under the BiH Election Law, putting an end to the “Srebrenica exception.” It allowed all 1991 residents of Srebrenica to cast a vote in the elections regardless where they are at present. There are already around three thousand Serb voters from Serbia currently registered to vote in Srebrenica.
The political parties who do not deny that a genocide happened in 1995 could in theory stop this from happening by blocking the adoption of the Bosnian state budget, which Dodik needs because RS is in financial difficulty. But they have failed to do this, as they are more afraid of Dodik, the US government, and the Europeans than they are of the Srbrenica massacre survivors.
To counter this betrayal, the survivor groups have organized a coalition that will work to register citizens of Bosnia from all over the country to vote in Srebrenica in the upcoming election. This is permitted under Bosnian law. We have about 90 days before the voter lists are completed. I am convinced that we can register around three thousand people to help us stop the graves in Potocari from falling into the hands of those who deny killing those buried in them. No doubt some in the international community will try to stall this process. The survivors will make such attempts public, including to the international media.
The survivors’ associations have misgivings about the presence of international representatives in Potocari on July 11 this year, when the massacre is commemorated annually. It seems better to mark the occasion this year without those who were also absent 17 years ago and have now forgotten the suffering of the victims.
I read in Samantha Power’s America and The Age of Genocide: A Problem from Hell about Rafael Lemkin’s lobbying efforts with the Allies at Nuremberg to include genocide in the charges against Nazi leadership. He failed. My friends and I will go all the way in registration process. Because we know, like Dervis Susic, that “what we do for our country will be built into what is bound to happen one day.”
It is sobering to realize how little has changed. July 1995, when more than 8000 people were murdered at Srebrenica, could happen in today’s world as well. Perhaps it already is happening in Syria.
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MEK, yech
This morning’s report that the State Department is close to a decision expected to de-list the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as a terrorist group quickly aroused the cry of “shameful” in the blogosphere.
Hillary Clinton is unquestionably in a difficult spot: a U.S. court has ordered a re-examination of the designation, which was certainly justified at the time it was made. Presumably the issue is whether the MEK, which has managed to hire a lot of high-priced American talent to speak on its behalf, still merits the “terrorist” designation, as it claims to have renounced violence, which it used against not only Iran but also the United States in the past.
Next week’s nuclear talks with Iran complicate the issue. De-listing the MEK just before the talks could derail them. De-listing the MEK after the talks, if they go well, could provoke an unfortunate reaction in Tehran.
Keeping the MEK on the terrorist list is of course an option. Some people think the MEK has been responsible for killing Iranian nuclear scientists. That would certainly rate a terrorist designation, even if no one in America is mourning their loss. If they are not actively involved today in terrorist acts, the MEK would likely not be unique on the list–there are other organizations listed who seem past their terrorist prime. But they may lack the resources to get a court to order a review.
There is one complicating factor: the bulk of MEK’s cadres are being moved from one place in Iraq, where they took refuge under Saddam Hussein, to another. The Secretary of State has said she would decide the de-listing issue once that has been accomplished. This implied approval of de-listing, even if it has nothing to do with the merits of the case.
So it is a difficult choice for the Secretary of State. If she de-lists, she runs the risk of upsetting nuclear talks that are far more important than the MEK. If she doesn’t, she runs the risk of provoking the MEK’s many backers, including in Congress, and losing one day in court. I’d opt to keep them on the list, at least until I was certain they were not responsible for the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists. But there is ample reason to find the issue distasteful.
MEK, yech.
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Time for Athens to export stability
I spent a good part of yesterday on one of my least favorite topics: the name of the country whose capital is Skopje.
I started it with yesterday’s post. The NATOniks on Twitter then told me how out of it I was to think that the Alliance could spare the seconds needed to admit Skopje as a member. After all, it has a hefty agenda: Afghanistan, where it will decide what has already been decided, and smart defense, where it will decide something that will not be implemented. Enlargement, they said, is just not part of the narrative. They also suggested nothing, absolutely nothing, would change Greece’s veto of Macedonian membership.
What about a phone call from the President of the United States asking Athens to stand down in his hometown of Chicago at the NATO Summit there this weekend? It would be The FYROM* entering NATO, not “Macedonia,” in accordance with a 1995 agreement the parties to this “name” dispute signed (and Greece violated, according to the International Court of Justice, when it blocked The FYROM’s entry to NATO at the last summit in Bucharest). Athens, after all, might find it useful to build up some credits in Washington.
One of my Twitter friends suggested yesterday that Greece had won the ICJ case because the court declined to order Greece not to repeat what it had done in Bucharest. Here I need only cite what the Court said, citing a previous decision:
“[a]s a general rule, there is no reason to suppose that a State whose act or conduct has been declared wrongful by the Court will repeat that act or conduct in the future, since its good faith must be presumed”
Misreading this as suggesting the ICJ did not find Greece in the wrong is beyond my ability.
By the end of the day, I was having a perfectly reasonable conversation with Greeks interested in resolving the issue, and seemingly willing to think about The FYROM membership in NATO, if only that does not entail postponing a solution to the name issue forever. That is a reasonable concern, one that could be met by taking the issue to arbitration if it is not solved within a specified time frame. I imagine there are half dozen other solutions that people brainier than I am will think up. It is important also to note that Greece can block Macedonia’s process of gaining membership in the EU at any stage, so it will not have given up all its leverage if it allows The FYROM into NATO.
Greece today is in an uncomfortable position. It is in clear violation of an ICJ decision and is exporting instability to its neighbors and friends. It is going to be really hard to prevent the export of economic instability, since the electorate is rejecting austerity and causing real problems for the Euro and the European Union that will ripple far and wide. Check out your 401k today to see what I mean.
But the export of political instability is avoidable. Ethnic tension in Macedonia is on the increase, in part due to failure to get into NATO. This is a treasured goal of its Albanian population, one of whose political leaders told me last summer that it was vital to his ability to contain and counter growing pan-Albanian sentiment. Pan-Albanianism is also growing in Kosovo, where Belgrade makes no secret of its desire to partition the North, so that it can hold on to the largest single concentration of Serbs in Kosovo (even if most of them live farther south).
Partition in Macedonia and Kosovo would lead quickly and irrevocably to partition in Bosnia, and guess where else? Cyprus. Thus, Greece’s resistance to Macedonian membership in NATO and refusal to recognize Kosovo are politicies that risk undermining one of Athens’ most cherished goals: reunification of Cyprus.
The first law of holes is to stop digging. Athens has a real stake in the unity and territorial integrity of The FYROM, Kosovo, Bosnia and Cyprus. Greece should quietly reverse its position and allow The FYROM into NATO at Chicago, provided it gets a firm commitment to resolve the name issue within a defined time frame. That would clear one problem and gain Athens a good deal of credit. Then I’ll want to talk with Greek friends about recognizing Kosovo, which would remove still another issue that risks precipitating partition in Cyprus.
It is time for Athens to export stability.
*The FYROM, for the uninitiated, is “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” the name by which the country entered the United Nations and many other organizations soon after independence.
PS: I thought you all would enjoy this reaction from one of my Twitter followers: “Greece is and always was a lighthouse of stability in the region. NATO member, EC member, EU zone member and u claim instability?”
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Chicago holds a key to the Balkans
Soren Jessen-Petersen* and I drafted this piece as an op/ed but it didn’t sell. Sign of our times–the Balkans are not a priority in Washington, or even in Chicago. So we are posting it here, in advance of the NATO Summit next weekend.
The Balkans are superficially peaceful this spring. Serbia held elections May 6, having happily achieved the envied status of a candidate for European Union (EU) membership earlier this spring, as has Montenegro. Croatia is scheduled to enter the EU next year. After a long hiatus under a caretaker government, Bosnia is enjoying a moment of relative comity among its notoriously fractious Croats, Serbs and Muslims. This fall, Kosovo will complete its four and a half-year tutelage under an “international civilian representative” who supervised its independence.
But there are still serious problems that need to be resolved and little sign of progress. The 49 per cent of Bosnian territory that Serbs govern is without the plurality of its population that was non-Serb before the war. Its independence-seeking president makes no secret of his resistance to their return and disdain for the government in Sarajevo. He has succeeded in getting the EU to deal directly with him and his minions on many issues that need to be resolved before Bosnia can even become a candidate for membership.
Kosovo may be independent, but the government in Pristina has no control over the northern 11% of its territory, where the Serb population refuses to accept the substantial autonomy it would be permitted under the internationally negotiated “final status” settlement for Kosovo.
Perhaps the most delicate of today’s Balkans problems lies in Macedonia, whose population is about one-quarter ethnic Albanian. Small-scale violence between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians has been all too frequent this spring. Both groups are nervously watching northern Kosovo, fearing that partition there could lead to heightened ethnic conflict throughout the Balkans and beyond. Partition could ensue not only in Macedonia but also in Bosnia and Cyprus.
Then there is Chicago. There is strong support in Macedonia for NATO membership, which could occur at the NATO Summit May 20-21 in the windy city. But Greece objects to Macedonia using that name, which Athens would like to reserve for itself, claiming that Skopje’s use of it signifies designs on Greek territory as well as history and culture.
Macedonia has completed all the requirements for NATO membership, which include meeting political and economic criteria as well as putting the military under civilian control. Macedonian soldiers have served with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were embedded in fighting units with the Vermont National Guard. The American who commanded the Macedonians in Afghanistan says they were up to U.S. military standards and carried their portion of the burden well.
But Greece will not agree to NATO membership for Macedonia, or a date to begin negotiating its EU membership, unless it changes its name. Athens has even refused to allow Macedonian NATO membership under the name used for UN membership (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or The FYROM), despite a 1995 agreement to do so.
This Greek resistance is creating a strong reaction in Macedonia, where the exasperated prime minister benefits politically from defying Athens by renaming the airport after Alexander the Great and putting a statue of him in downtown Skopje.
The International Court of Justice, in a resounding victory for Skopje, decided in December that Athens acted illegally in blocking membership in NATO at the last Summit. It would be wrong for this injustice to be repeated in Chicago.
NATO and the EU are the two strong poles of attraction that keep the Balkans on the path towards a democratic and prosperous future. In order to find the political will to proceed with difficult reforms, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro need to see the prospect of NATO and EU membership as real. Macedonia’s entry into NATO at Chicago and Croatia’s entry next year into the EU are the best current opportunities to demonstrate that the region’s aspirations can be fulfilled, solidifying a still fragile peace.
*Daniel Serwer, an American, and Soren Jessen-Petersen, a Dane, teach at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. They have both worked on and in the Balkans for more than 15 years.
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