Tag: Ivory Coast
The end is nigh, again!
I made a bunch of predictions a year ago. Here is how they turned out:
- Iran: the biggest headache of the year to come. If its nuclear program is not slowed or stopped, things are going to get tense. Both Israel and the U.S. have preferred sanctions, covert action and diplomatic pressure to military action. If no agreement is reached on enrichment, that might change by the end of 2011. No Green Revolution, the clerics hang on, using the Revolutionary Guards to defend the revolution (duh). I wasn’t far off on this one. No Green Revolution, no military action yet.
- Pakistan: it isn’t getting better and it could well get worse. The security forces don’t like the way the civilians aren’t handling things, and the civilians are in perpetual crisis. Look for increased internal tension, but no Army takeover, and some success in American efforts to get more action against AQ and the Taliban inside Pakistan. Judging from a report in the New York Times, we may not always be pleased with the methods the Pakistanis use. It got worse, as suggested. No I did not anticipate the killing of Osama bin Laden, or the increased tensions with the U.S., but otherwise I had at least some of it right: growing internal tension, no Army takeover, some American success.
- North Korea: no migraine, but pesky nonetheless, and South Korea is a lot less quiescent than it used to be. Pretty good odds on some sort of military action during the year, but the South and the Americans will try to avoid the nightmare of a devastating artillery barrage against Seoul. I did not predict the death of Kim Jong Il, but otherwise I got it right. There was military action during the year, but no artillery barrage against Seoul.
- Afghanistan: sure there will be military progress, enough to allow at least a minimal withdrawal from a handful of provinces by July. But it is hard to see how Karzai becomes much more legitimate or effective. There is a lot of heavy lifting to do before provincial government is improved, but by the end of the year we might see some serious progress in that direction, again in a handful of provinces. This is pretty much on the mark.
- Iraq: no one expects much good of this government, which is large, unwieldy and fragmented. But just for this reason, I expect Maliki to get away with continuing to govern more or less on his own, relying on different parts of his awkward coalition on different issues. The big unknown: can Baghdad settle, or finesse, the disputes over territory with Erbil (Kurdistan)? I did not anticipate the break between Maliki and Iraqiyya, but I pegged Maliki’s intentions correctly. The Arab/Kurdish disputes are still unsettled.
- Palestine/Israel (no meaning in the order–I try to alternate): Palestine gets more recognitions, Israel builds more settlements, the Americans offer a detailed settlement, both sides resist but agree to go to high level talks where the Americans try to impose. That fails and Israel continues in the direction of establishing a one-state solution with Arabs as second class citizens. My secular Zionist ancestors turn in their graves. Wrong so far as I know about the Americans offering a detailed settlement, even if Obama’s “land swaps” went a few inches in that direction. Right about failure and Israel’s unfortunate direction.
- Egypt: trouble. Succession plans founder as the legitimacy of the parliament is challenged in the streets and courts. Mubarak hangs on, but the uncertainties grow. Pretty good for late December, though I was happily wrong about Mubarak hanging on.
- Haiti: Not clear whether the presidential runoff will be held January 16, but things are going to improve, at least until next summer’s hurricanes. Just for that reason there will be more instability as Haitians begin to tussle over the improvements. Presidential election was held and things have improved. Haiti has been calmer than anticipated. Good news.
- Al Qaeda: the franchise model is working well, so no need to recentralize. They will keep on trying for a score in the U.S. and will likely succeed at some, I hope non-spectacular, level. Happy to be wrong here too: they did not succeed, but they did try several times. And they did not recentralize.
- Yemen/Somalia: Yemen is on the brink and will likely go over it, if not in 2011 soon thereafter. Somalia will start back from hell, with increasing stability in some regions and continuing conflict in others. Yemen has pretty much gone over the brink, and parts of Somalia are on their way back. Pretty much on the mark.
- Sudan: the independence referendum passes. Khartoum and Juba reach enough of an agreement on outstanding issues to allow implementation in July, but border problems (including Abyei) and South/South violence grow into a real threat. Darfur deteriorates as the rebels emulate the South and Khartoum takes its frustrations out on the poor souls. Close to the mark, though Darfur has not deteriorated as much as I anticipated, yet.
- Lebanon: the Special Tribunal finally delivers its indictments. Everyone yawns and stretches, having agreed to ignore them. Four indictments were delivered against Hizbollah officials. I was also right about yawning and stretching.
- Syria: Damascus finally realizes that it is time to reach an agreement with Israel. The Israelis decide to go ahead with it, thus relieving pressure to stop settlements and deal seriously with the Palestinians. Dead wrong on both counts.
- Ivory Coast: the French finally find the first class tickets for Gbagbo and his entourage, who go to some place that does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (no, not the U.S.!). The French and UN settled it by force of arms instead of the first-class ticket. Not cheaper, but less long-term trouble.
- Zimbabwe: Mugabe is pressing for quick adoption of his new constitution and elections in 2011, catching the opposition off balance. If he succeeds, the place continues to go to hell in a handbasket. If he fails, it will still be some time before it heads in the other direction. He failed and the predicted delay ensued.
- Balkans: Bosnians still stuck on constitutional reform, but Kosovo gets a visa waiver from the EU despite ongoing investigations of organ trafficking. Right on Bosnia, wrong on Kosovo.
I’m content with the year’s predictions, even if I got some things wrong. Of course I also missed a lot of interesting developments (revolutions in Tunisia, Libya and Syria, for example). But you wouldn’t have believed me if I had predicted those things, would you? Tomorrow I’ll discuss 2012.
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When the going gets rough
While the Libya “contact group” is discussing funding for the rebels, NATO is defending itself from charges of not being sufficiently aggressive and the African Union is proposing a ceasefire, Gaddafi’s forces are trying to take Misrata, the third largest city in Libya.
The rebels have made it clear they won’t accept any deal that keeps Gaddafi in power, but the UN, Arab League, and EU are scheduled to meet anyway with the African Union, which has proposed just that, tomorrow in Cairo.
NATO Foreign Ministers meet Thursday and Friday in Berlin. It will be a difficult meeting for Secretary of State Clinton, who needs to encourage NATO allies to do more even as Defense Secretary Gates resists augmenting U.S. military efforts.
In short: things are going badly for the rebels and the international community, well for Gaddafi.
This does not mean he wins, however. At this point, it looks as if the best he can hope for is a stalemate, with the country divided east and west. Unfortunately, that is a very bad outcome for the international community, one that would burden it for a long time to come and open up all sorts of opportunities for “bad actors” to engage on one side or the other.
Capturing or getting Gaddafi and his family out of Libya has to be the priority, as that could allow Libya to be reunified and create a relatively benign environment in which the EU and Arab League could take the lead on reconstruction. I don’t see how a cease-fire, as Les Gelb proposes, would help that cause. To the contrary, it is doubtful Gaddafi would observe one or that the international community could enforce one. It would allow the two sides to regroup and rearm for the next round, which is not exactly a virtue in my book.
Ivory Coast, of all things, points in the right direction: with Laurent Gbagbo arrested (see video below), not killed, the country has an opportunity to go down a relatively peaceful post-war path. Those who wish Libya well will hope it gets a similar opportunity, soon.
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Counterrevolution, again
With the U.S. Government immobilized by its own self-generated problems–a kind of self-licking ice cream cone phenomenon–dictators are resurgent in the Middle East again. They are doing what they know to do best: killing their own citizens, hoping that will make the popular protests against their interminable rule go away.
In Syria, the demonstrations were once again widespread yesterday, if not gigantic. The killing seems to have focused on the southern town of Deraa, where Bashar al Assad seems to be wanting to demonstrate how really dangerous it is to protest persistently. In Yemen, yesterday’s killing focused on Taiz, a southern town that President Ali Saleh sees as the leading edge of separatism. In Egypt, Tahrir square was cleared in the early morning hours by an army riot. In Libya, Gaddafi continues to make mincemeat of rebel forces, which have also been bombed unintentionally by NATO. Negotiations with the Gaddafi family are ongoing, but Washington seems to be holding a hard line on getting them all out of Libya. In Bahrain, the monarchy continues with a hard line on the demonstrations, which it increasingly paints with a sectarian brush.
It is surprising to me that the dictators think this will work, but they know their own people better than I do. Alistair Crooke published yesterday on foreignpolicy.com a piece on “Syrian exceptionalism” that essentially says Bashar knows best and will win his bet. There will surely be people in the U.S. administration who are also hoping now to stem the tide and save a few really important autocratic regimes (Bahrain and Saudi Arabia foremost) for future use, while arranging soft landings for others (Yemen in particular). Secretary of Defense Gates has been running up his frequent flyer miles with visits to key stalwarts and Gulf states worried about the situation.
That said, President Obama has issued strong statements on Syria and Yemen in recent days. He seems much more inclined to emphasize the legitimate aspirations of the people than to help preserve Bashar and Bashir.
It is nowhere written that counterrevolution will fail, and in fact it has often succeeded. Regime principals and their oligarchs are clever about using their remaining power and money to divide the opposition, crack down on the weaker but more militant portion, and preserve at least some vestige of their own privilege and control. We should expect no less from them.
Those who want to complete their revolutions and emerge as free societies with more or less representative governments will somehow need to keep the pressure on. But they will also have to stay united, and plan carefully for where and when to confront their respective regimes nonviolently. The consequences of violent rebellion should by now be obvious to everyone who follows events in Libya–it isn’t pretty, and it may not end well.
PS: Just to complete the picture, in Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo’s forces are reportedly today attacking the hotel where Alassane is headquartered, as well as the French Embassy. You have to wonder when Paris will see fit to take decisive action.
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Barbarities
It doesn’t get much more senseless than this: a pastor in Florida conducts a mock trial of the Koran, then burns it. No one notices, until Afghan President Karzai denounces the Koran burning and arouses the sensibilities of Muslims almost half a world away. A group of them compounds the evil by attacking a local UN office and killing twelve, none of whom have any connection to the Koran burning (and at least four of whom were Afghans). Another nine people died today in Taliban-inspired protests in Kandahar, where the Americans have made an enormous effort to win over the local population.
This isn’t a clash of civilizations; this is a clash of barbarities.
They are not the only barbarities in today’s world. The Red Cross says 800 were killed in fighting over a town in western Ivory Coast between the forces of president-elect Alassane Ouattara and incumbent Laurent Gbagbo. An American testified at trial that he and his U.S. Army comrades wantonly killed innocent Afghans, for the sake of entertainment.
Apart from the obvious, several of these incidents have in common something surprising: the passion to do something “good.” The pastor thinks the Koran is evil–that’s the avowed reason for the mock trial and Koran burning. Those who attacked the UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif were led by imams seeking to punish the evil that had been done to Islam. Outtara and Gbagbo are both fighting for what they claim was the legitimate outcome of an election.
What about those Americans? Entertainment is I guess a “good” of sorts, but it really doesn’t match up with the other good causes implicated in these barbarities. What makes it possible for Americans to kill for entertainment?
They can do this only if they view the Afghans as the “other,” a group that does not merit respect for human life. This is likely to be the case in the other instances of barbarity as well. The “othering” of individuals or groups is at the root of much interethnic and sectarian violence. Americans are not immune, especially if they have reason to fear, or want to instil fear in adversaries (two sides of the same coin).
How to respond to such senselessness? Prosecutions in Afghanistan are clearly in order. The UN, desperately needed in Afghanistan to help with everything from negotiations with the Taliban to feeding and sheltering the poor, will not be able to stay if its staff can be murdered with impunity. The incitement in Florida is truly irrelevant to the need for accountability in Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kandahar.
That said, the church in Florida–I don’t want to name it or give its pastor any more of the publicity he so obviously craves–is abusive. Symbolic acts like the burning of the Koran (or of the New Testament) are constitutionally protected in the U.S. The church folk know this and are using that protection as a shield while they attack Islam. I have no idea how the American justice system will handle this–there is precedent for restraining people from symbolic acts that incite violence. But it seems to me that those ideologically close this pastor have a clear responsibility to stop him from further provocations. This includes his own parishioners as well as much of what is known today as the “Christian right,” which has been quick to ask that American Muslims restrain their own from extremism. Good for the goose, good for the gander.
Accountability in Ivory Coast seems far off, but if Ouattara wants to avoid Gbagbo’s fate he’ll tend to it even before the fighting is over. The appeal for Gbagbo’s people to come over to his side that I’ve published in the previous post is not enough. He needs to restrain his own people and prevent harm to civilians, no matter whom they support. Starting his regime with a massacre will do him no good at all.
The Americans have already tried and convicted one of the U.S. Army perpetrators. He got off with a relatively light sentence, apparently in exchange for testimony against his buddies. I find that disgraceful, but I suppose also unavoidable. Let’s hope the others get what they merit, as a clear signal to the rest of our soldiers and marines that the institution they work for will hold them accountable.
My personal inclination would be to put all these perpetrators in the same prison cell together and let them sort it out. I suppose it is better that what will happen is that the respective justice systems will slowly sort out which punishments are merited. Let’s hope they do it quicker and better than usual. Preventing future barbarities requires ending impunity for past ones.
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No joke
The day is done in the Middle East, with no definitive results:
- protests were widespread in Syria, with at least a dozen demonstrators killed
- duelling demonstrations in Yemen came off, I gather peacefully
- Libyan rebels remain on the defensive
Even in Ivory Coast expectations of a definitive end to Gbagbo have not been fulfilled, as fierce fighting is said to continue in Abijian. Ah well, it is April Fools’ Day, and maybe I’m the fool for having hoped for better outcomes.
Srdja Popovic, the Serb Otpor (Resistance) leader who now participates in a network of people training others for “nonviolent conflict” was here at SAIS today. His messages as always to those who seek to overthrow dictators and embark on a path to democracy: unity, planning, nonviolent discipline.
The Syrians are handicapped: they haven’t had time for serious planning, but so far they’ve been pretty good at maintaining nonviolent discipline and unity. If Bashar keeps on giving them the gift of failing to offer serious reform, they may be able to catch up with their planning homework, but maintaining momentum won’t be easy.
Yemen has developed into a more unified movement and seems to be maintaining nonviolent discipline. President Saleh is slippery though and keeps on squirming out of deals that would lead to his stepping down. The demonstrators are going to have to keep it up for a while longer.
Libya and Ivory Coast are violent situations, not nonviolent ones. Each in its own way demonstrates why nonviolent discipline is so important.
Violence in Libya gave Gaddafi the advantage, as his forces are far better equipped and trained than the rebels. A stalemate for weeks while they equipped and trained would be ruinous for Libya and for the coalition supporting UN Security Council resolution 1973. It is important to get Gaddafi and his family out of the country as soon as possible.
In Ivory Coast, president-elect Ouattara showed enormous discipline in resisting a military solution. Now that he has embarked on one, he has the international community–even the African Union–on his side. He needs to keep the military action clean and avoid revenge killings, which would set his administration off on the wrong foot and deprive him of vital international support. He also needs to win quickly, before more innocent people are killed.
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Good behavior and laughter make better revolution
As incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo is being forced out of power by election winner Alassane Ouattara in the Ivory Coast, it is time to remind all concerned that proper behavior of security forces is required of good guys as well as bad guys. This is not only a matter of international humanitarian law but also of good policy. If you are claiming power in the name of democracy or freedom and intending to establish the rule of law, the last thing in the world you should want is for your security forces to begin behaving even remotely like the ones they have just defeated.
This will be important also in Libya, where revenge killings–in particular of Gaddafi “mercenaries” thought to be of non-Libyan origin–have already occurred. The International Criminal Court should not limit its investigation only to the Gaddafi loyalists but should also keep its eye on those generally called “the rebels,” even if actual prosecutions for war crimes may prove technically difficult because the rebel forces are not an organized armed force, or at least don’t appear to be yet.
I am hoping that this problem will not arise in Yemen or in Syria, where the protesters have tried hard to maintain nonviolent discipline. The prerequisite for doing so is to mass large numbers of people, something the regimes will try to prevent by instilling, or re-instilling, fear. It may seem odd, but the winners in nonviolent confrontations are often those who can laugh best at their opponent, a clear metric for the removal of fear.
I’d be the first to admit that Gbagbo and Gaddafi scare me, and it is hard to fault those on the spot who decided to take up arms rather than rely on laughter and massive nonviolent protests. But if they want the rest of the world to help them, they’ve got to keep it clean.
PS: Rival demonstrations in Sanaa today appear to have been relatively peaceful, so far. Saleh is clever, but will it buy him until the end of the year? Sporadic but persistent Twitter reports from Syria suggest the regime is using violence and the threat of violence to prevent demonstrations.
PPS: In Ivory Coast, the outcome is still not quite final, but Outtara is sounding the right notes:
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