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Breaking news: M23 Rebels capture Goma

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By Fred Robarts

For the past few days, I have been glued to Twitter  for updates on the situation in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern Congo. According to the latest reports, the Congolese national army has now retreated from the city, leaving it in the hands of the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group.  An M23-associated twitter feed has just claimed “the city is safe, population should return home, shops should be open, activities back to normal, let’s wait”. Journalists on the spot say M23 commanders have been parading in Goma before crowds of supporters.

The news has sparked student-led demonstrations against the UN in Kinshasa and Kisangani: the peacekeeping force had long promised to defend Goma, and the Security Council has been unable to do more than issue a press release and apply targeted sanctions to one of the M23 leaders. That these events take place in the shadow of the crisis in Gaza may be no coincidence. It has certainly limited news coverage and diplomatic attention.

Meanwhile, countless displaced people have nowhere to go, faced with the double threat of victorious rebels and (arguably more problematic) humiliated army troops. (Oxfam have just released a report on the plight of civilians in eastern Congo generally.)

On 1st January 2013, Rwanda will take up its seat on the Security Council. Having broken just about every rule in the UN Charter by directly backing a rebellion in a neighbouring country, and not for the first time, this represents a great failure of diplomacy and does not bode well for next year’s deliberations on Congo in New York.

Here in the UK, Andrew Mitchell’s decision to overrule his officials’ objections by providing budgetary support to Rwanda is looking worse than ill-judged. Let’s hope his successor Justine Greening will recognise that UK taxpayers won’t stand for subsidising proxy wars.

Fred Robarts was the Coordinator of last year’s UN Group of Experts on the DRC

Morality and war: the cost of dehumanization

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By Katharine Cornish

Around this time last year, Private Andrew Holmes pleaded guilty to murdering an Afghan teenager. He was the second to plead guilty after Jeremy Morlock was sentenced to 24 years in prison on counts of murder, conspiracy, illegal drug use, and obstruction of justice in March of last year. The case, involving five American soldiers, brought to the forefront concerns of moral decay within the US military.

Recently, King’s own David Fisher launched the paperback version of his book entitled “Morality and war: can war be just in the twenty-first century?”  A response to the recent spike in military scandals, Professor Fisher uses just war theory to assert a pressing need for renewed morality in the military.

I attended the launch and found myself struck by one key question: why do we need to train officers in morality when a legal framework dictating their behaviour already exists? Certainly all Western military officers are trained in the tenants of international humanitarian law, with the Geneva Conventions setting out clear parameters for the treatment of civilians and prisoners of war. In contrast to the subjective nature of morality, international humanitarian law seems to provide a clear-cut guide of do’s and don’ts, which can be taught and memorized like any other drill. With military courts prepared to punish and hold officers accountable, isn’t this legal framework enough?

Engaging in combat requires a departure from Western social norms. The battlefield serves as a unique place, where killing a fellow human being becomes justified in the context of war. So how do young soldiers overcome their moral upbringings and detach these feelings from violence in war? Just war theory would teach us that sometimes violence is necessary to protect innocent civilians, state citizens, and defend important values like justice. But war always involves the threat of an enemy, and dehumanizing that enemy ensures that soldiers do not find themselves conflicted – having to reconcile entrenched respect for human life and a mission to kill during a critical moment of combat.

Perhaps it is this method of conditioning soldiers to dehumanize their enemy that is at the core of the trend we’ve observed since Iraq. In attempting to produce disciplined soldiers ready to kill the enemy, the result has been Frankenstein’s army – a new wave of soldiers capable of shocking cruelty and brutality, perhaps demonstrated most vividly in Abu Ghraib. But it is not the first time we have seen this, the My Lai massacre proved long ago how dehumanizing the enemy lends itself to brutality, as American troops murdered hundreds of unarmed civilians in Vietnam.  In both cases, the result was public uproar and a soiled reputation, doing little to advance any justified cause.

Is it possible then to create an army of moral individuals prepared to kill in a justified war? Clearly, Western armies possess large numbers of people who, whether for moral reasons or fear of consequence in court, retain violence for appropriate situations in war. However, the war crimes carried out by Western forces over the last decade cannot be ignored. Thus, while I support Professor Fisher’s revival of just war, I think we must consider the impact of dehumanization training on military moral decay.

Dehumanization is a dangerous tool. It has been successfully used to provoke genocide, as seen in Rwanda and against the Jews during the Second World War. Feeding on strong emotions of hatred and anger, faced with such conditioning, ethics and reason are easily thrown to the wayside. As long as a military culture of dehumanization persists, Professor Fisher’s virtues of justice, practical wisdom, courage, and self-control will remain hopeful ideals and human rights violations will continue to blemish Western wars.

Katharine Cornish is an MA candidate in the Conflict, Security, and Development programme. She is currently on leave from the Canadian International Development Agency, where she managed development projects in Sudan and South Sudan.

Human rights in Azerbaijan

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By Jane Smith*

In the build-up to the Eurovision Song Contest last May, an unusual amount of media attention was paid to the state of human rights in Azerbaijan. For this small country in the South Caucasus, coveted energy supplies have been both a friend and foe. The oil and gas interest has made European politicians markedly soft on the government, despite a human rights record which leaves much to be desired.

Eleven years after Azerbaijan’s acceptance to the Council of Europe, two major rights issues stand out: the forced evictions faced by inhabitants of four Baku neighbourhoods – victims of the government’s desire to turn Azerbaijan’s capital into a modern metropolis in the image of Dubai – and the lack of freedom of expression, which puts anti-establishment media and activists at serious risk.  Now that the Eurovision spectacle is over, the spotlight should remain on these issues, and the European community should put pressure on the Azerbaijani government to address them.

According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released last February, since 2008, home owners have been forcibly evicted from four Baku neighbourhoods without adequate warning or fair compensation. One of these neighbourhoods, Bayil, is home to the Baku Crystal Hall, the venue where the Eurovision Song Contest took place. Mindful that this neighbourhood would be scrutinized by the international media, the government’s determination to develop it became even more resolute.

Several hundred residents were kicked out of their homes to make way for a new road and park. Zarifa Aliyeva, a 47-year-old woman who lived in the Bayil neighbourhood, told HRW that she was woken up one morning by the sound of a bulldozer demolishing her apartment building. Given barely enough time to gather their belongings, Zarifa and her family were forced to leave their home. Now they live in a one-bedroom apartment. When government urban regeneration programmes clash with the rights and economic interests of normal citizens, there is evidence that the latter suffer.

Recently, the Council of Europe has put pressure on the Azerbaijani government to stop using imprisonment as a tool for political retaliation by opening up the issue for public debate. Though this undoubtedly represents a step in the right direction, for some of Azerbaijan’s outspoken journalists, it may seem like too little too late. Khadija Ismailova, an investigative journalist who has been highly critical of the government, would have reason to be disillusioned with the Europeans.

In March 2012, Ismailova was the victim of a blackmail campaign in which intimate footage of her and her boyfriend – recorded by a secret camera placed in her bedroom – was posted on the internet. In a country where honour killings still take place, this vicious campaign was not only a grave violation of privacy, but potentially exposed Ismailova to great danger. Unfortunately, she is not the first or the last government critic to face intimidation. After making a Youtube video in which they mocked the Azerbaijani government’s decision to import two donkeys from Germany, Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli – the so-called ‘Donkey Bloggers’ – were slammed with two-year prison sentences. A dozen journalists and activists are still locked up in the country’s jails, and many more face threats from the authorities which make their work virtually impossible.

The Azerbaijani government managed to keep the pro-democracy protests inspired by the Arab Spring under the international radar. However, in the long run, it is unlikely that they will be able to silence the chorus of anti-regime voices.

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NOTES

[*] The name has been changed.

The Day After Tomorrow

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By Maura James

Finally, after a brutal campaign season the United States has peacefully re-elected the forty-fourth president of the United States.  From four-year olds in the swing state of Ohio to grandmothers in the red state of Texas there is one fact over which all Americans are rejoicing this week – the campaign, including the relentless attack adds sponsored by super PACs, is over!  The world can be thankful that the victory was decisive enough that we do not have to listen to Wolf Blitzer and Martin Bashir explain the difference between the popular vote and electoral college vote in a multitude of confusing ways while the outcome of the elections hangs in the balance of the Supreme Court for days (circa 2000).

In the aftermath of the Obama/Romney campaign the world should remember that America is a country of issues, and every first Tuesday in November Americans do not just vote for elected officials but also state measures.  This year was no exception, and though over shadowed by the presidential race, there were some pretty big issues on the ballot.  In my home state of Maryland everything from same-sex marriage to increased gambling was in the hands of voters.  In addition to same-sex marriage, on many ballots this year, was medical marijuana, assisted suicide, death penalty repeals, mandatory health care repeals, and illegal immigrant reform.  I will briefly recap results of some issues here.

Washington State, Minnesota, Maryland, and Maine all had same-sex marriage measures on the ballot.  Washington, Maryland, and Maine voted to legalize same-sex marriage, while Minnesota narrowly failed to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage.  In all states the vote was close, with a gap of four or five percentage points in most states.  Legislative bans, similar to the Minnesota ban on same-sex marriage, are a current popular trend in US state legislatures.  It allows states to pre-emptively illegalize social measures or, in the case of healthcare, federal government mandates.  Later legislatures can reverse laws put into place by these bans, and issues can be taken to court to overturn the ban.

A large state issue this year was health-care with five states voting on mandatory health care bans or measures.  With Obamacare slated to begin in 2014, this was an important issue not just for state citizens but for the president to watch as well.  The results were mixed.  In Florida the measure to reject mandatory insurance was narrowly turned down.  With a large elderly population, it seems that voters were convinced seniors would be safe and perhaps benefit from the Obama healthcare reforms.  In Missouri, Alabama, and Wyoming mandatory healthcare was rejected by a strong majority.  This will make 2014 all the more interesting since states have put measures in place today to prevent federal health care intervention.

Though the DREAM act to allow children of illegal immigrants, many of whom were brought into the United States as babies, to receive services and funding for higher education has been shot down in the federal congress many times, states took the issue to the polls this past Tuesday.  Maryland narrowly passed legislation to allow children access to funds for university if they have served in the military and/or attended two years of community college.  Whereas Montana overwhelmingly passed a bill that denies illegal immigrants basic services and subsequently forces many of them to choose to leave the state or country.

These ballot measures, though rarely covered by international media especially during a presidential campaign, are barometers of the nation.  When many pundits and theorists claim populations are moving to extremes, these issues offer concrete evidence of where a state and nation stand.  Seeing how close many of these votes were suggests the American public is more in the middle than the world usually thinks.  Looking at state-by-state results gives legislators an idea of how difficult it will be to find compromise in Washington.  Better than any presidential vote, these issues offer a window into American politics and the way the nation is headed in the next four years.

To see an interactive map of all the election results from Tuesday and the specific map on ballot issues used as a reference in this article go to Politico.

Correction: November 13th, 2012
The original version of this article stated that Minnesota passed a ban on same sex marriage. This amendment did not pass.

Is Mali set to be the next Afghanistan?

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By Peter Douglas

With Mrs Clinton holdings talks with Algerian President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika to secure Algeria’s backing for military force against militants in northern Mali the possibility of a serious international intervention in the region is increasing.

Reports of new Jihadist fighters flooding into Northern Mali from Algeria, Sudan, and the Western Sahara the destabilisation of the Sahel is becoming an increasingly urgent issue.  Since April,  al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian originating fundamentalist group, and Tuareg allies Ansar Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) have taken over Northern Mali, partitioning the region and imposing Islamist Sharia law.  Shock waves are rippling through the international community as this rebel movement steadily gains momentum with insurgents flowing into the region from Libya and Sudan. Wikimedia provides an informative map showing the areas of Mali currently occupied, alongside key towns and cities under rebel control.

Malian government ineffective

Mali it appears is incapable of a legitimate response. Recovering from a recent military coup in March, the central government are far from achieving any level unity or political capacity sufficient to produce decisive action against the increasingly established rebel groups. Political chaos defines the Malian capital Bamako and neither the highly unpopular interim president Dioncounda Traoré, nor Cheick modibo Diarra, the prime minister – who left his job as a astrophysicist  at NASA to take on the role – have managed to produce a unified response to the crisis. With Mali politically and militarily unable to deal with this increasingly diverse rebel force now running the northern region, calls have been made for a transnational response. The UN Security Council has called on West African nations to ready a military force against AQIM, and on October 12th approved a resolution urging West African states to prepare a force of up to 3,000 troops that would attempt to recapture northern Mali. Both France and the United Nations insist any invasion of Mali’s north must be led by African troops.

Whilst Algeria, with its powerful army, was at first opposed to any military intervention in Mali, a stance which the US has been successfully attempting to budge.

Fears of a ‘new Afghanistan’

Western states are right to be concerned. Many fear that northern Mali could become the new Afghanistan. The vast arid expanse beyond Timbuktu provides the perfect no-man’s-land where extremists can freely train, traffic arms and plot terror attacks abroad. The partitioned area has essentially become a pseudo state for Islamic fundamentalists. However, it is not necessarily the US who are most fearful of a lawless Mali. France, the former colonial ruler of countries across the Sahel is seen as a prime target. With French hostages being held in the country, and fears of French Islamic militants receiving training in the region, the European state whose president recently promised “a new chapter” in engagement on the continent may well have a controversially significant role in any military operations in Mali.

Moral validation

Alongside diplomatic dialogue, horror stories from this insurgent controlled region stories are coming thick and fast, laying a terrifying and bloody ethical justification for future military intervention. In the northern regions beyond government control, a harsh version of sharia law operates, where robbers and drunks have had hands, feet and even heads cut off. Equally dreadful accounts of Islamists buying child soldiers from their families and compiling a list of exploitable unmarried women who are pregnant or had borne children set emotive moral grounds to accompany Western security concerns.

Future Western Intervention

On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany would be prepared to take part in a European mission to train and provide logistical support for Malian security forces. European Union members are considering a noncombat training mission to help the interim Malian government. This accompanies reports of France putting surveillance drones in the region.

The all to predictable, but by no means unjustified criticism of post-colonial intent has been posited, Algerian Tuareg chief, MP Mahmud Guemama, arguing in the Algerian newspaper, Elkhabar that: “What the United States and France are asking will cause a lot of problems,” warning that such action had “colonial objectives.”

The official line is that a planned military push to reclaim northern Mali from armed rebel groups is unlikely to begin before next year. However, with rebel groups gaining strength, and the emergence of an Islamic fundamentalist, Al-Qaeda controlled pseudo-state drawing ever closer, it would be unwise to take this stance too seriously.