Day: February 23, 2014
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Caracas yesterday, via @MiguelMarSan:
Buzzfeed offers this explanatory video:
Venezuela is more evenly divided than Ukraine, and President Maduro’s abuses have been less flagrant. Many previous opposition demonstrations have failed, as the Chavez/Maduro administration retains a good deal of popularity. But even the poor are now joining the protests. Unclear how this is going to pan out.
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Mapping the conflict in Aleppo
From September 2013 to January 2014, Caerus Associates worked with local research teams in Aleppo to conduct an assessment of the conflict in the city using First Mile Geo, a cloud-based map and data analytics platform. Thursday morning the American Security Project hosted a briefing in which Dr. David Kilcullen and Nathan Rosenblatt of Caerus reported their findings. The full report can be downloaded here.
Dr. Kilcullen (CEO, Caerus) explained that the report is not a policy prescriptive exercise. Above all else, Syria is a humanitarian tragedy. When working in a conflict zone, it is extraordinarily difficult to approach a civilian community to find out what is happening without jeopardizing or endangering them. Caerus has successfully done so in Aleppo.
Matt McNabb (CEO, First Mile Geo) described how over the last 3.5 years Caerus has been trying to understand how to enable local communities and NGOs to collect, share, and make visible insights that are apparent to people living on the ground but that are not obvious to outsiders. How can we make visible that which is hyper local in places of crisis? Through the report they were able to acquire information and drive local data-driven decision-making. Now the report is widely available to any interested parties.
Nathan Rosenblatt (MENA Analyst, Caerus) answered the question, why study Aleppo? In addition to being Syria’s largest and most diverse city, it is heavily divided and contested. With barrel bombs being regularly dropped by the Syrian government, thousands of people have fled the city. Conflict in Aleppo is relevant to and a microcosm of what is happening in Syria. Furthermore it has both urban/rural and ethnic/sectarian dynamics. Aleppo’s fate be similar to that of Mosul or Benghazi. The situation is difficult to control. This creates opportunities for non-state armed groups and terrorist networks to find safe havens and to thrive. One of the things that most motivates Caerus is how to identify armed groups that are exerting control over Aleppo. This helps to understand how groups take hold in the future and how they got there. This is important for future studies of the city and more generally Syria.
The findings of the report were the following:
1) The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has grown and evolved. Al Qaeda-affiliated ISIS actively imposes its ideology on residents in Syria. It is growing in the poorest parts of Aleppo and the newest areas of urban growth. ISIS directs its efforts towards “soft targets” – places away from the front-lines. These areas are less threatened by the regime and are not well protected by other opposition groups closer to the fighting. ISIS still controls more neighborhoods (10) than any other armed opposition group, despite their efforts to drive it out of Aleppo.
2) There has been a rise in “franchise” brigades. The total number of armed groups has been decreasing every month. The strongest brigades in each neighborhood are franchising the smaller brigades and becoming larger. Through this consolidation of brigades, they became larger, but fewer in number.
3) At the beginning of the research, regime-held bakeries charged 3-5 times more than those in opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo. In October 2013, regime-held area bakeries returned to pre-war bread prices and were cheaper than the opposition bakers. This is because the Syrian government only has one land supply route into Aleppo. When cut, the price of basic necessities rises. It wasn’t until October that the regime regained access to this route.
4) Opposition-held Aleppo’s most vulnerable neighborhoods receive some of the least assistance.
5) In four months of surveying 561 residents, Caerus learned that almost 40% of Aleppo residents – across all districts – believe no one is a legitimate representative of the Syrian people. In comparison, 21.3% of those surveyed believed the Free Syrian Army was the most representative and 12.1% believed the Assad regime was. As these two groups are the ones participating in the Geneva talks, these results suggest that neither has much legitimacy on the ground in Syria.
6) Regime support is not monolithic.
7) The regime deploys its Air Force Intelligence, the strongest agency in its security apparatus, to crush dissent. It now controls 10 out of 22 regime-held neighborhoods.
8) Armed groups from both sides set up checkpoints, restricting citizens’ movement and cutting off travel to and from Aleppo.
9) About 40% of bakeries in opposition-held Aleppo are closed or destroyed. The regime deliberately targets and drops bombs on bread lines. This causes residents to organize and work with neighborhood councils to distribute bread. Now about 90% of bakeries are not open to the public. Instead, bread is distributed by local neighborhood councils. While there is little variability in price, it is generally higher in opposition-held neighborhoods.
10) Caerus identified three municipal institutions that predated the uprising. All three were present in nearly every regime-held neighborhood. None existed in opposition-held areas. Residents in regime-held neighborhoods reported receiving more than 12 hours of electricity from the government grid. In contrast, residents in opposition-held neighborhoods have 6 or fewer hours of grid electricity. The Syrian government provides basic necessities to regime-held neighborhoods and sabotages opposition-held neighborhoods.
More information and interactive maps from the report can also be found here.
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Happy and dull
I did this hangout with RFE’s Gordana Knezevic and Dzenana Halimovic, moderated by Brian Whitmore, Wednesday and forgot to post it:
I also forgot to post this interview with Elton Trota of the Pristina-based Independent Balkans News Agency:
IBNA: How do you assess the negotiation process between Kosovo-Serbia? What are the negative and positive aspects of the talks between Prime Minister Thaci and his Serbian Counterpart, Ivica Daciq?
Serwer: I think the dialogue process has been successful in limited but important ways. I’d like to see it move faster towards what ultimately has to happen: diplomatic recognition and exchange of ambassadors. But Serbia has now accepted the territorial integrity of Kosovo and the applicability of the Kosovo constitution on that whole territory. It has also exchanged liaison officers, under a thin EU cover. Those are steps in the right direction.
IBNA: Is it possible for reconciliation to happen between Balkan nations in the near future, taking into account that it’s a demand that comes from Brussels for good neighboring relations in the region?
Serwer: Reconciliation is different from good neighborly relations. Reconciliation will take a generation, or two. Good neighborly relations are a question of political will. The governing institutions can make that happen whenever they decide to do it.
IBNA: How is Kosovo moving toward the Euro-Atlantic integration? Is this going to be a long journey for the new state?
Serwer: It will be a long journey to the EU, whose requirements are much more elaborate and demanding than NATO’s. Kosovo has the advantage of being able to build its security forces from the ground up to meet NATO requirements. It has already done that for the Kosovo Security Force that exists. It will need to continue in that direction as that is converted into an armed force. Once it has real armed forces, entry into NATO should be quick if Kosovo meets the requirements. The only political obstacle is the non-recognizers, who will need to be convinced that Kosovo in the Alliance is a much better idea than Kosovo outside the Alliance.
IBNA: How is FYR Macedonia moving toward the Euro-Atlantic integration? Will the disputes of this country with its neighboring country make the journey of this country toward EU and NATO accession any longer?
Serwer: The only real hindrance for Macedonia is the “name” dispute with Greece, which is really about Greek and Macedonian identity, not the name. Macedonia’s armed forces have served with distinction in Afghanistan and its governing structures meet NATO requirements, if I understand correctly. I would like to see Macedonia enter NATO sooner rather than later under the interim agreement as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. That won’t be possible for the EU, which is still a long way off in any event.
IBNA: Riots and protests took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the government and the current political class, is the same is expected to happen in Kosovo and FYR Macedonia?
Serwer: I’m not in the riot/protest prediction business, but neither Kosovo nor Macedonia has suffered the stagnation that Bosnia and Herzegovina has suffered for the past eight years or so. Kosovo’s agreement on the north with Belgrade removes one possible source of instability. In Macedonia, I think NATO membership would contribute a good deal to the sense that the country is moving in the right direction. The normal political process in both Kosovo and Macedonia is in much better shape than it is in Bosnia, which is handicapped with a constitution that enshrines nationalists in power and leaves little room for issue-based politics. But the citizens of Kosovo and Macedonia should watch Bosnia with interest, because it is certainly a model to avoid.
IBNA: What will be the fate of northern Kosovo?
Serwer: Northern Kosovo consists of four Serb-majority municipalities that will now govern themselves in many respects, under the overall constitutional framework of the Republic of Kosovo. Its courts and police will be integrated with the system in the rest of Kosovo, and its municipal authorities will participate in an association of Serb municipalities formed under Pristina’s aegis. With any luck, it will prosper a bit more than in the past and become a happy and dull place.
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