Indigenous women gather before an equality forum in Mexico City, Mexico. Credit: UN Women/Paola Garcia
 
Inter-State wars, terrorism, divided collective security, and peacekeeping limitations remain the same challenges facing multilateralism as when the UN was founded 76 years ago, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council December 2022.

By Jens Martens
BONN, Germany, May 5 2023 (IPS)

The world is in permanent crisis mode. In addition to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the war in Ukraine and other violent conflicts, a worldwide cost of living crisis and an intensified debt crisis in more and more countries of the global South are affecting large parts of humanity.

Scientists are now even warning of the risk of a global polycrisis, “a single, macro-crisis of interconnected, runaway failures of Earth’s vital natural and social systems that irreversibly degrades humanity’s prospects”.

Human rights, and especially women’s rights, are under attack in many countries. Nationalism, sometimes coupled with increasing authoritarianism, has been on the rise worldwide. Rich countries of the global North continue to practice inhumane migration policies toward refugees.

At the same time, they pursue self-serving and short-sighted “my country first” policies, whether in hoarding vaccines and subsidizing their domestic pharmaceutical industries, or in the race for global natural gas reserves. This has undermined multilateral solutions and lead to a growing atmosphere of mistrust between countries.

“Trust is in short supply”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council in August 2022. Consequently, Member States defined one of the main purposes of the Summit of the Future in September 2024 to be “restoring trust among Member States”.

António Guterres had proposed to hold such a Summit of the Future, which he described as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate global action, recommit to fundamental principles, and further develop the frameworks of multilateralism so they are fit for the future”.

The Summit offers an opportunity, at least in theory, to respond to the current crises with far-reaching political agreements and institutional reforms. However, this presupposes that the governments do not limit themselves to symbolic action and voluntary commitments but take binding decisions – also and above all on the provision of (financial) resources for their implementation.

In this context, the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) remains absolutely valid. Without such decisions, it will hardly be possible to regain trust between countries.

The G77 emphasized in a statement on 20 April 2023, “since the Summit of the Future is meant to turbo-charge the SDGs, it must address comprehensively the issue of Means of Implementation for the 2030 Agenda, which includes, but is not limited to, financing, technology transfer and capacity building.”

Of course, it would be naive to believe that the risk of a global polycrisis could be overcome with a single summit meeting. But the series of upcoming global summits, from the SDG Summit 2023 and the Summit of the Future 2024 to the 4th Financing for Development Conference and the second World Social Summit 2025, can certainly contribute to shaping the political discourse on the question of which structural changes are necessary to respond to the global crises and to foster multilateral cooperation based on solidarity.

Our new report Spotlight on Global Multilateralism aims to contribute to this process. It offers critical analyses and presents recommendations for strengthening democratic multilateral structures and policies.

The report covers a broad range of issue areas, from peace and common security, reforms of the global financial architecture, calls for a New Social Contract and inclusive digital future, to the rights of future generations, and the transformation of education systems.

The report also identifies some of the built-in deficiencies and weaknesses of current multilateral structures and approaches. This applies, inter alia, to concepts of corporate-influenced multistakeholderism, for instance in the area of digital cooperation.

On the other hand, the report explores alternatives to purely intergovernmental multilateralism, such as the increased role of local and regional governments and their workers and trade unions at the international level.

Seventy-five years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a key challenge is to create mechanisms to ensure that human rights – as well as the rights of future generations and the rights of nature – are no longer subordinated to the vested interests of powerful economic elites in multilateral decision-making.

Timid steps and the constant repetition of the agreed language of the past will not be enough. More fundamental and systemic changes in policies, governance and mindsets are necessary to regain trust and to foster multilateral cooperation based on solidarity and international law.

Jens Martens is Executive Director of Global Policy Forum Europe

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Anna Ikeda. Credit: Soka University of America Photography

By Anna Ikeda
NEW YORK, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)

The current war in Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is deeply flawed. It relies on the assumption of “rational actors” in power and credibility of threats, which we know are far from reality, especially in times of conflicts.

Beyond their potential use, nuclear weapons continue to threaten us through their mere presence. For instance, resources spent on those weapons hinder the advancement towards achieving the SDGs and building the post-pandemic world. Therefore, they tangibly affect other priority areas to be addressed at the G7 summit.

Thus, this year’s G7 summit presents an opportunity to seriously rethink our understanding of security and international peace.

The 2022 SGI Peace Proposal, authored by our international president Daisaku Ikeda, urges that we must “detoxify” ourselves from current nuclear-dependent security doctrines. Based on this, I offer some recommendations on controlling nuclear weapons:

1. Adopt a No First Use policy

To reduce current tensions and create a way toward resolving the Ukraine crisis, the nuclear-weapon states must urgently initiate action to reduce nuclear risks. With nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use.

For this reason, SGI has renewed its commitment to advocate for the principle of No First Use to be universalized as the security policy of all states possessing nuclear weapons as well as nuclear-dependent states.

We believe that adopting the doctrine of No First Use by nuclear-armed states would significantly stabilize the global security climate and help create a much needed space for bilateral and multilateral dialogue toward ending the conflict.

A No First Use policy would also operationalize the recent statement by the G20 leaders that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible, as well as the statement by the P-5 countries in January 2022 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Certainly, such declaratory policy must be accompanied by changes in actual postures and policies, such as taking all nuclear forces off hair-triggered alert, in order to build mutual trust.

Overall, No First Use would be a critical step toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security and serve as an impetus to advance nuclear disarmament. We therefore urge G7 leaders to seize the opportunity to discuss and announce strategies of risk reduction, de-escalation, and disarmament, particularly by declaring the policy of No First Use.

2. Engage productively in multilateral disarmament discussions and take bold leadership

It is critically important that G7 leaders take bold leadership and renew their commitment to fulfill obligations for disarmament stipulated under Article VI of the NPT.

Equally important would be to further explore the complementarity between the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We especially hope Japan will fulfill its commitment as a bridge-builder by engaging productively in the TPNW discussions, recognizing that, despite divergent approaches, all countries share grave concerns about the potential use of nuclear weapons.

We strongly urge G7 countries to work cooperatively with the TPNW States Parties by committing to attend meetings of states parties to the treaty in the future.

3. Commit to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons

It is often said that a world without nuclear weapons is the “ultimate goal.” However, we have to be sure this goal is achieved before nuclear weapons destroy our world. There have been some calls by experts to set the year 2045 as the absolute deadline for the elimination of nuclear weapons. At the Hiroshima Summit, G7 leaders could possibly agree on setting such a timeline and determine to begin negotiations accordingly.

4. Support disarmament and nonproliferation education initiatives

Lastly, we call on G7 leaders to demonstrate their support for educational initiatives at every level. We strongly hope that they set an example by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and meeting the atomic bomb survivors, to directly hear from them, and learn from their experiences.

To shift the current security paradigm, we must transform the way people think about peace and security, and challenge the dominant narrative that nuclear weapons keep us safe. We need to raise the public’s awareness that the surest way to avoid a nuclear war is by eliminating these catastrophic weapons.

A 2009 nuclear abolition proposal by the SGI president states that, if we are to put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must confront the ways of thinking that justify nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance to the realization of our objectives.

For this reason, we ask for the G7 leaders’ commitment to make available the opportunity for everyone, especially but not limited to young people, to learn about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.

We welcome Prime Minister Kishida’s initiative for the Hiroshima Action Plan, and establishing a “Youth Leader Fund for a world without nuclear weapons.” We hope Japan will exercise its leadership to affirm that the purpose of such initiatives is not to provide only the education about disarmament, but education for disarmament.

To close, the current tensions and uncertainties in the global security climate elevates, not undermines, the value and role of dialogue and diplomacy. Forums like the G7 and the United Nations serve more important functions than ever.

Anna Ikeda is representative to the United Nations of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), and the program coordinator for disarmament of the SGI Office for UN Affairs, where her work focuses on nuclear abolition and stopping killer robots. This is a slightly shortened transcript of her paper presented to the conference on ‘Advancing Security and Sustainability at the G7 Hiroshima Summit‘ at Soka University, Tokyo on March 29, 2023.

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The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Abdo Husen
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

There are about 5 billion people globally who cannot access surgery. In Ethiopia, for every 5,000 needed surgeries per 100,000 people, the country’s health system can only provide 192. Yet, this is Africa’s second largest population, with over 120 million people.

The statistics are worrying. This is further exacerbated by a recently ended two-year war in the northern part of the country that devastated among others, the health sector. There is however an opportunity to build back better as the government institutes post-war reconstruction. This is possible through prioritizing access to surgical care as part of restoring the country’s health system in post-war reconstruction efforts.

Armed conflict increases the demand for health services yet hampers the system’s ability to deliver these services as it disrupts the supply chain, results in direct damage to health facilities, and forces health workers to flee their duty stations. In Ethiopia, unofficial estimates put the proportion of health workers who fled their duty stations at over 90% of the pre-conflict numbers.

Armed conflict increases the demand for health services yet hampers the system’s ability to deliver these services as it disrupts the supply chain, results in direct damage to health facilities, and forces health workers to flee their duty stations

The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. It is a vicious cycle whose victims are innocent civilians. Take for instance patients with open fractures and bullet wounds who require some form of reconstructive surgery. This service is largely unavailable in affected regions, particularly in Tigray. If left untreated, these injuries can result in infections, amputation, permanent disability, or even death.

This was the case for 17-year-old Hakeem* (not his real name). He suffered bone and nerve damages as a casualty of the war. Hakeem was facing the threat of disability from abnormal bone healing and wrist-drop, which is paralysis of the muscles that enable hand function.

Fortunately, he received surgical care that allowed him to return to his daily activities with reduced physical challenges. Not many people have been as lucky. Reports show that over 100,000 people died from lack of access to medical care in war time. This includes lack of access to surgical care.

Additionally, the influx of surgical patients owing to the war has slowed down the already strained health system’s ability to provide non-emergency surgical care. Although not life threatening, these surgical needs have a major impact on improving the quality of life of those in need.

These include cleft lip and cleft palate, which are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth do not form properly during pregnancy. Failure to correct this, often results in social and economic exclusion of patients who are often ostracized by their communities for allegations based on false and harmful cultural and religious beliefs including their participation in witchcraft.

Arguably, the Federal Government of Ethiopia has indeed made efforts toward the rehabilitation of health infrastructure in conflict areas. For example, the government’s effort to restore 36 hospitals in Afar and Amhara. There is however much more to be done. Rebuilding the health system will cost the country an estimated 74.1 billion ETB (Approx. US$1.4 billion).

To restore all social service infrastructure- including health facilities damaged by conflicts in the country, the government has allocated 20 billion ETB into the capital budget for the current fiscal year. This is way below the requisite threshold to rebuild the health services alone.

There is indeed urgent need to prioritize surgical care at the forefront of rehabilitation efforts. The Ministry of Health must provide health workers – including specialist surgical and anesthesia workforce with monetary and non-monetary incentives to return to their pre-war duty stations to fill the gaping vacuum in human resourcing.

The federal government must allocate resources towards the rehabilitation and equipping of all health facilities including surgical theatres in northern Ethiopia. This budgetary allocation must be included in the 2023/2024 budget cycle (2016 Ethiopian fiscal year). Critics could argue that there is simply not enough money to this end.

While the government could be cash-strapped to rebuild different sectors of the economy; it is its ultimate responsibility to ensure the life and health of its citizens. It must therefore seek innovative ways to fund reconstruction efforts. One such way could be through leveraging public private partnerships.

Not only will this provide the necessary funds but has the prospect of being an accountability mechanism to ensure lasting peace as a condition of the disbursement of funds or gifts in kind. These would be tangible steps towards reconstruction, alleviating the suffering of Ethiopians who without these services, continue to suffer preventable medical conditions and deaths.

Abdo Husen is a public health specialist by training, Program Lead at Operation Smile Ethiopia, and a 2023 Global Surgery Advocacy Fellow

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 2023 (IPS)

Come April 1, a post-Ukraine Russia, will preside over the UN Security Council in a month-long presidency on the basis of alphabetical rotation.

But Russia will not be the first or the only country – accused of war crimes or charged with violating the UN charter—to be either a member or preside over the most powerful political body in the United Nations.

Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS the United States has served as president of the Security Council while committing war crimes in Vietnam and Iraq.

France and the United Kingdom, he pointed out, served while committing war crimes in their colonial wars. China has recently served despite ongoing war crimes in Xinjiang.

“So having Russia take its turn as Security Council president would hardly be unprecedented.”

“It is certainly true that Russia would be the first to illegally annex territory seized by military force. However, given how the United States has formally recognized illegal annexations by Israel and Morocco of territories seized by military force, it’s not like Russia is the only permanent member to think that is somehow okay,” declared Zunes.

The ICC has also previously accused several political leaders, including Omar Hassan al-Bahir of Sudan, Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi of war crimes or genocide.

Karim Asad Ahmad Khan was elected on 12 February 2021 as the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Asked at a press conference last week about the anomaly of a member state that commits war crimes presiding over the UN Security Council, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters: “You’re well aware of the rules of the Security Council, including the alphabetical rotation of the Member States of the Security Council for the Presidency of the Council, which is a policy that is held throughout the lifespan of the Security Council,”.

“And we have nothing further to say than that,” he added, just ahead of the ICC announcement.

But in a stunning new development, the ICC last week accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest, along with a similar arrest warrant for Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova.

The announcement on March 17 specifically charged them for the illegal transfer of children out of war-devastated Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia last year, in violation of the UN charter.

Russia, which is not a signatory for the Rome Statute which created the ICC, dismissed the warrants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_indicted_in_the_International_Criminal_Court

In a statement released last week, ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, said “on the basis of evidence collected and analysed by my Office pursuant to its independent investigations, the Pre-Trial Chamber has confirmed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that President Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova bear criminal responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, contrary to article 8(2)(a)(vii) and article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute.”

Incidents identified by the ICC office include the deportation of at least hundreds of children taken from orphanages and children’s care homes. “Many of these children, we allege, have since been given for adoption in the Russian Federation. The law was changed in the Russian Federation, through Presidential decrees issued by President Putin, to expedite the conferral of Russian citizenship, making it easier for them to be adopted by Russian families”.

Thomas G. Weiss, Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told IPS the statement by the UN spokesperson is completely accurate.

“There is no precedent for preventing a rotating chair in the Security Council (SC)—yet another and only the most recent indication of the aberrant way that it was constructed.”

That said, the Russian ambassador will perhaps be squirming in his SC chair after the ICC’s embarrassing arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, he noted.

“While it is extremely unlikely that he will be in The Hague anytime soon, the international pressure will only increase—we should recall the itinerary of Slobodan Milošević”.

Moscow is extremely unhappy with this development, Weiss said, as they were when the General Assembly unceremoniously ejected them from the Human Rights Council last year.

Bouncing Russia off (or Libya in 2011) was an important precedent to build upon for other UN bodies (other than the SC). Moscow detests being isolated, and fought against the decision for that reason, he added.

The biggest “what if?” takes us back to December 1991 when the USSR imploded. That was the moment to have called into question Russia’s automatically assuming the seat of the Soviet Union.

“We have thirty years of state practice, and so, we cannot call that into question (although Ukrainian President Zelensky has); we can only wish that we had raised that question then, instead of heaving a huge sigh of relief that the transition was so smooth,” declared Weiss, who is also Presidential Professor of Political Science, and Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the CUNY Graduate Center.

James Paul, a former Executive Director, Global Policy Forum, told IPS the Russian military campaign in Ukraine has raised many questions about international peace and security. Inevitably the debate has produced heated arguments at the United Nations.

Many Western governments (and liberal “idealists” among their citizenry), he said, would like to punish Russia in various ways through sanctions and isolation, in hopes that this will cause Russia to withdraw its military forces and give up its strategic goals in Ukraine.

“Some have proposed that Russia should not be able to take its monthly rotating seat as President of the UN Security Council in the month of April.”

This is a position that shows weak familiarity with international affairs and the workings of the world’s most powerful state actors, including ignorance of the military history of the Western powers, now so exercised about Russian transgressions, said Paul, author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”—Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37880668-of-foxes-and-chickens

If the Security Council, he argued, had even-handedly denied its rotating presidency to members that break international law, invade other countries, forcibly change the boundaries of sovereign states or engineer the overthrow of elected governments, then all permanent members of the Council (not least the Western powers) would lose their presidencies.

Asked for the UN Secretary-General’s reaction to the ICC arrest warrants, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters March 17: “As we’ve said many times before here, the International Criminal Court is independent of the Secretariat. We do not comment on their actions.”

Asked whether Putin will be permitted to enter the UN premises either in Geneva, Vienna or New York, or meet with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he said: “I don’t want to answer hypothetical questions because … as you know, issues of travel involve others. We will continue… As a general rule, the Secretary-General will speak to whomever he needs to speak in order to deal with the issues in front of him”.

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the ICC announcement was a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014.

“With these arrest warrants, the ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long”.

The warrants, Jarrah pointed out, send a clear message that giving orders to commit or tolerating serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell in The Hague.

“The court’s warrants are a wakeup call to others committing abuses or covering them up that their day in court may be coming, regardless of their rank or position.”

Elaborating further, Paul said in a world of violent and powerful states, the UN is useful because it can bring warring parties together and promote diplomacy and conflict resolution.

“Those calling for punishment for Russia should realize that the United States would (if even-handed rules were enforced) be subject to regular penalties, since it has violated other states’ sovereignty with military forces on many occasions to pursue its own interests,” he noted.

The Iraq War, he said, typifies the US disregard for UN rules and Security Council decisions. US wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan are further high-profile wars of this type. There are dozens of cases.

“Britain and France, too, have used their powerful militaries in contravention of international law, to carry out bloody wars against decolonization as well as later post-colonial interventions to insure access to mines, oil resources, etc.”

The Suez War, launched against Egypt jointly with Israel, was a classic of this genre. Russia and China have had their share of military operations and interventions as well, including Russia’s intervention in Afghanistan and its many wars in the Caucasus.

China, famous for promoting territorial integrity as a principle, annexed Tibet and fought several wars with its neighbor Vietnam, he said.

“So, the Permanent Members of the Security Council have a very poor record when it comes to setting the standard for international law. Even smaller states (with bigger protectors) have been in the invasion business. Israel, Turkey and Morocco come quickly to mind”, declared Paul.

Asked whether the President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi would be willing to meet with President Putin, his Spokesperson Pauline Kubiak told reporters that “President Kőrösi represents all Member States of the General Assembly, which includes Russia. He has been willing and remains willing to meet with President Putin”.

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'The road to Kabul airport was a one-way street, - We couldn't go back. Not to pick up clothes, computer or notebooks, says Afghan journalist Seyar Sirat. Credit: Journalists on the scene of attack against journalists in Tabian Cultural Center, Mazar-e-Sharif, March 11 2023

By Gie Goris
BRUSSELS, Mar 17 2023 (IPS)

Every year, Afghan journalists celebrate their national day on 18 March. This year, there is little reason to party, because of general restrictions, increasing intimidation and a recent attack on journalists. However, at a unique gathering in Brussels, Afghan journalists showed resilience.

‘I have always felt good at my desk,’ says Seyar Sirat. ‘I am rather introverted by nature, and so spending hours in front of my screen for TOLO News was a blessing rather than a curse. Until 15 August 2021, when the world of Afghanistan began to crumble. But even that morning, I continued to work with concentration until the moment the news arrived that President Ashraf Ghani had left the country. That was the moment some people burst into tears. That was the moment I left.’

What we should resist is the idea that Afghan media is helped by helping Afghan journalists flee the country. There they become package deliverers, taxi drivers or cooks, while the country needs their expertise, commitment and courage

Sirat tells his story at the first international gathering of Afghan journalists since the day Kabul fell. Some journalists were able to come over from Afghanistan, others travelled from various European countries where they now live and try to work. And where they have to try to build a second life, “like newborn babies”, as Sirat puts it. In a new language, in a foreign context, but with intense and family ties to the homeland. And with deep, mental scars.

‘The road to Kabul airport was a one-way street,’ Sirat observes visibly emotional. ‘We couldn’t go back. Not to pick up clothes, computer or notebooks. Not to go back to work or old life. Those three days and nights around and at the airport are the most tragic and traumatic moments of my life.’

Dead and injured

There is no shortage of trauma, among Afghan journalists. A colleague from the north of the country informed me of this just a few days ago that on 11 March, in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, there was an attack on a meeting of local journalists from various media. The toll was heavy: three dead and 30 injured, including 16 journalists. Te Afghanistan Journalists Centre confirms. The attack, meanwhile, was claimed by IS-KP, the local branch of Islamic State.

After the attack in Mazar-e-Sharif, a number of journalists ended up in hospital. Even there, they were not reassured by the armed representatives of the current rulers. ‘They should have killed you all,’ they heard from the Taliban, who had to guard and protect them.

In his opening address to the meeting of Afghan journalists in Brussels on 15 March, EU Special Envoy for Afghanistan Tomas Niklasson also referred to that recent tragedy and put it in the broader context of a dramatic deterioration of human rights and rule of law since the Taliban took power. He cited the recent report by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, who was able to document 245 cases of press freedom violations since August 2021. These include not only attacks, but also arrests, arbitrary detention, physical violence, beatings and torture. ‘Most of you will say that this figure is an underestimate,’ Niklasson said. All the journalists present nodded.

Lost space

The trauma does not begin for everyone on 15 August 2021. ‘At least 120 journalists from home and abroad have been killed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years,’ Hujatullah Mujadidi, director of the Afghan Independent Journalist Union, noted in his opening remarks to the meeting. ‘Afghanistan had 137 TV stations, 346 radio stations, 49 news agencies and 69 print media until two years ago. Together, these accounted for 12,000 jobs. Little of that remains. 224 media platforms meanwhile closed their doors and at least 8,000 media workers – including 2,374 women – lost their jobs.’

‘We had finally created space for ourselves after centuries of restrictions,’ says Somaia Walizadeh, a journalist who was able to flee the country. ‘That space has been taken away from us again. Of the few media that were founded, run and nurtured by women, a few still exist. But even there, men now call the shots.’ Reporters Without Borders states that in half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, not a single female journalist is still employed and more than eighty percent of female journalists are out of work. RSF also estimates that 40 per cent of media platforms have ceased to exist and 60 per cent of all media workers became unemployed after August 2021. No wonder, then, that some 1,000 journalists have already fled abroad.

The heart of the problem

Those who want to do real and independent journalistic work in Afghanistan come up against one difficulty after another. “It was never easy to get reliable information,” says Somaia Walizadeh, “but today it is quasi-impossible. According to her colleague Abid Ihsas, who remains active in Afghanistan, this has to do with the fact that journalists on the ground face Taliban fighters ‘who do not know or recognise the importance of independent media.’ But it doesn’t stop there, he says, because the entire administration under the current authorities is extremely centralised and hierarchised. ‘Every detail and every shred of information has to be approved and released by a higher authority every time.’

But the real root of the problem, according to Ihsas, lies in the deliberately created ambiguity. There is a 10-point regulation – which is very vague – but no real media law. ‘It is never clear what is allowed according to the authorities and what is not. Ultimately, it depends on the moment and the person in front of you. Usually, the rules are communicated verbally and ad hoc. This not only leads to a lot of outright censorship, but also too much self-censorship due to the constant uncertainty.’ Rateb Noori, a refugee journalist, summed it up this way: ‘The fact that relatively few journalists are in jail is not even good news in these circumstances. It mainly shows how effective the intimidation is.’

The insecurity also applies to what journalists do outside their formal assignment. ‘Forwarding a WhatsApp message or liking a tweet or FB message can already get you in trouble,’ says Ahmad Quraishi, director of the Afghanistan Journalists Centre. Other problems he identifies: ‘There are very limited lists of journalists invited to press conferences or given access to those in charge. These almost never include women, and if they do, they are additionally screened and checked.’

Fariba Aram adds that foreign journalists are treated much better than domestic colleagues. ‘It seems that those in power still want a reasonable image in the rest of the world, while in Afghanistan they are averse to anything journalistic,’ she says. Hujatullah Mujadidi of the Afghan Independent Journalist Union confirms that: They are trying to divide us. International against national. Diaspora against interior. “Good media” against “bad media”. That is why it is crucial that journalists and media continue to speak and negotiate with one voice,’ he concludes. True as that be, maybe Tomas Niklasson put it better when he described the journalists in the room as ‘not united, as this is overly ambitious, but connected’.

The hard hand and the long arm of power

Legal uncertainty, censorship, lack of access to information and economic difficulties combine to form an almost insurmountable obstacle for Afghan journalists. And for the hundreds of journalists who continue to practise their profession from Europe, Pakistan, Australia or North America. Indeed, they face the same barriers to information and have to navigate with extreme caution what they write or bring, as there is always a chance that family members left behind will pay the price for their truth-telling.

Someone testified about an article he was to write for an international news site on climate change and air pollution. The requested information never came, but the statement that they knew where his family lived, did. Rateb Noori also had a similar experience. His news site investigated a story on the de facto lifting of the requirement for women to appear on TV wearing a face mask. In that case, it was not the journalist’s family that was threatened, but local colleagues – even though they thought they were safe at their changing hiding addresses.

What to do?

Analysing the current situation proved to be the simple part of the programme. When asked what could or should be done about it, Afghan journalists and their international partners from the EU, Unesco, RsF and the International Federation of Journalists got little beyond tentative ideas. ‘You cannot solve problems that are more than 20 years old in a matter of weeks,’ argued Najib Paikan, who recently had to shut down his own TV station. ‘But what we should resist is the idea that Afghan media is helped by helping Afghan journalists flee the country. There they become package deliverers, taxi drivers or cooks, while the country needs their expertise, commitment and courage.’

That earned Paikan applause, even though everyone knew that leaving is the choice of a large section of now desperate journalists. Moreover, the problems do not disappear when you cross the border, Wali Rahmani, a fugitive media activist, noted. ‘Hundreds of journalists are stuck in Pakistan and are only concerned with survival. Food and shelter for themselves and for their families. They too are entitled to international support.’

At the awards

On the sidelines of the conference in Brussels, the annual Journalist of the Year Awards were also presented. The 2023 Awards went to Mohammad Yousuf Hanif of ToloNews, Mohammad Arif Yaqoubi of Washington-based Afghanistan International TV, and Marjan Wafa, reporter for Killid Radio. Over the past 10 years, a total of 14 journalists received the award, including five women.

By External Source
Mar 14 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
On Commonwealth Day, a powerful reminder of the values—justice, peace, equality, and inclusion.

It is by respecting and protecting those values that the Commonwealth’s 2.5 billion citizens can help shape a different future for their communities, countries, and the planet.

 

People of the Commonwealth: let’s turn our #ValuesIntoAction in the decade ahead.#CommonwealthDay pic.twitter.com/CtQ1VrIq9P

— Commonwealth Foundation (@commonwealthorg) March 13, 2023

Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world, says UN chief.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 13 2023 (IPS)

Islamophobia is a ‘fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world.’

Consequently, suspicion, discrimination and ‘outright hatred’ towards Muslims have risen to “epidemic proportions.”

These are not the words of this convinced secular journalist, but those of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

In fact, a recent report launched ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia (15 March), warns that, motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by 60 Member-States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which designated 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. The resolution stresses that “terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”
This definition emphasises the link between institutional levels of Islamophobia and manifestations of such attitudes, triggered by the visibility of the victim’s perceived Muslim identity.

A threat to Western values?

This approach also interprets Islamophobia as a form of racism, whereby Islamic religion, tradition and culture are seen as a “threat” to “Western values.”

“Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and other horrific acts of terrorism purportedly carried out in the name of Islam, institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to epidemic proportions.”

Widespread negative representations of Islam

At the same time, “widespread negative representations of Islam, and harmful stereotypes that depict Muslims and their beliefs and culture as a threat have served to perpetuate, validate and normalise discrimination, hostility and violence towards Muslim individuals and communities.”

In addition, in States where they are in the minority, “Muslims often experience discrimination in accessing goods and services, in finding employment and in education.”

In some States they are denied citizenship or legal immigration status due to xenophobic perceptions that Muslims represent national security and terrorism threats. Muslim women are disproportionately targeted in Islamophobic hate crimes, adds the United Nations.

Islamophobic ‘hate crimes’

Studies show that the number of Islamophobic hate crimes frequently increases following events beyond the control of most Muslims, including terrorist attacks and anniversaries of such attacks.

“These trigger events illustrate how Islamophobia may attribute collective responsibility to all Muslims for the actions of a very select few, or feed upon inflammatory rhetoric.”

The UN says that many Governments have taken steps to combat Islamophobia by establishing anti-hate-crime legislation and measures to prevent and prosecute hate crimes and by conducting public awareness campaigns about Muslims and Islam designed to dispel negative myths and misconceptions.

A resolution…

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by 60 Member-States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which designated 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

The resolution stresses that “terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”

It calls for a global dialogue on the promotion of a culture of tolerance and peace, based on respect for human rights and for the diversity of religions and beliefs.

Marking the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia in 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that “anti-Muslim bigotry is part of a larger trend of a resurgence in ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazism, stigma and hate speech targeting vulnerable populations including Muslims, Jews, some minority Christian communities, as well as others.”

… and a Plan

In response to the “alarming trend” of rising hate speech around the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.

The Strategy clearly states that hate speech incites violence and intolerance.

The devastating effect of hatred, it adds, is sadly nothing new. However, its scale and impact are now amplified by new communications technologies.

“Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world.”

The numbers

With an estimated total of some 1.8 billion followers worldwide, Islam is the second most spread belief after Christianism (2.2 billion).

Here, it should be reminded that not all Arabs are Muslims, nor all Muslims are Arabs.

In fact, Arab countries are home to just slightly more than 1 in 4 Muslims worldwide, while Asia –in particular South and Southeast Asia– accounts for more than 60% of the world’s Muslims.

The largest Muslim population in a single country lives in Indonesia, which is home to 13% of all the world’s Muslims. Pakistan (with 12%) is the second largest Muslim-majority nation, followed by India (11%), and Bangladesh (10%).

Also the Arabs

In spite of the above, there is still a widespread perception mixing Muslims with Arabs, which extends the anti-Muslim hatred wave to all Arab or Arab-majority societies.

Whatever the case is, recent history shows that several Muslim countries have fallen victims to wars, and military occupation (Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen), while others are scenarios to stark instabilities (Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, just to mention some).

Racism everywhere

No lessons have been learnt from horrific crimes committed against believers. Remember the Holocaust against the Jews?

The evidence is that racism, “xenophobia and related discrimination and intolerance exist in all societies, everywhere. Racism harms not just the lives of those who endure it, but also society as a whole,” stated the UN chief.

“We all lose in a society characterised by discrimination, division, distrust, intolerance, and hate. The fight against racism is everyone’s fight…”

Yes, but is it… really?

Map of Eastern Bloc, 1948.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

Putin’s regime recently suspended Russia’s participation in a nuclear arms agreement with Washington. After the decision Putin declared that the move was a retaliation for the US’s, France’s and Britain’s “targeting” of Russia with nuclear weapons. He was forced to take action to “preserve our country, ensure security and strategic stability”:

“the West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.”

Such rhetoric finds fertile ground in Latin America and Africa, which suffer from a long tradition of Western exploitation carried out under the false flag of peace keeping, democratization and progress. On 26 February, Putin added that a:

“new world is taking shape, being built only on the interests of just one country, the United States. […] I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today.”

The statement is part of a recurrent discourse suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of self-defence, an answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization/NATO’s expansion. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were added to NATO; in 2009 they were followed by Albania and Croatia, in 2017 by Montenegro and in 2020 by North Macedonia.

In 2014, after Ukraine’s corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych had been ousted, pro-Russian unrest erupted in eastern and southern parts of the country. Unmarked Russian tanks and troops moved into Crimea, taking over government buildings, strategic sites and infrastructure. Meanwhile, armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings in the Donbas region.

In 2014 the Donbas was the industrial heartland of Ukraine with 35 per cent of the country’s mining, 22 per cent of its manufacturing industry, providing 20 per cent of energy supply and 18 per cent of water supply. Recently vast amounts of natural gas have been detected underground.

The separatists received considerable support from Russia and Ukrainian attempts to retake separatist-held areas were unsuccessful. In October 2014, Ukraine’s new government made joining NATO a priority. Putin at once declared that the Russian involvement in Crimea and Donbas was a reaction to NATO’s threatening expansion.

Part of Putin’s discourse, repeated by influencers all over the world, is that during a summit in 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachov accepted the reunification of Germany within the framework of NATO, he was given an assurance that NATO would not expand further. The Historian Mary Elise Sarotte has recently tried to disentangle the thorny issue, underlining that no written document of the promise exists. Gorbachov later declared that:

“the topic of NATO-expansion was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. [What was agreed] was that NATO’s military structures would not advance in the sense that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR, after German reunification. Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

During a 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin declared himself to be a stout defender of democracy, nuclear disarmament and international solidarity. Contrary to the US, which had “promised” that NATO was not going to expand beyond the borders of Germany. Putin stated that:

“unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. […] a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians! […] As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” […] I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself, or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?

The answer is beyond doubt. However, as a proverb states “Evil cannot with evil be defended.” Can Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine actually be defended by alluding to the encroachment and support to brutal dictatorships that “democracies” like the US, France and Britain have been guilty of around the globe?

Putin repeatedly refers to “history”. He labels Ukrainian leaders as Nazis, while stating that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Glaring exaggerations – if not outright lies.

History tells us that Russia’s past, like that of other nations, has its hidden skeletons. In 1939, the Soviet Union annexed more than 50 per cent of Polish territory. From 1939 to 1941 about one million Polish citizens were arrested, or deported; including approximately 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned of whom approximately 30,000 were executed. The total loss of lives was 150 000.

On 30 November 1939 the Soviet army attacked Finland. The war ended after three months. The Soviets suffered severe losses and made little headway. To avoid more bloodshed Finland ceded 9 per cent of its territory. In spite of superior air force and heavy tanks the Soviet losses had been considerable – 168 000 dead or missing. The Finns lost 26 000 dead or missing.

In the previously independent Baltic States the Soviets had during 1940-41 carried out mass deportations. They became even more extensive after Soviet Union finally conquered the area. In March 1949, Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals. The total number deported from 1944 to 1955 is estimated at over half a million: 124,000 from Estonia, 136,000 from Latvia, and 245,000 from Lithuania. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees had between1945 and 1958 been more than 20,000, including 5,000 children.

When the Soviet Union fell apart and archives were declassified it was revealed that, between 1921 and 1953, 799,455 executions had been officially recorded. Approximately 1.7 million prisoners had died in Gulag camps, some 390,000 were reported dead during forced resettlements in the 1930s, and during the 1940s at least 400,000 persons died during deportations.

After World War II, the Soviet Union subdued several nations in Eastern Europe, introducing a political system aspiring to gain total control of all citizens and backed by an extensive, repressive apparatus.

Opposition was initially essentially liquidated, while steps towards an authoritative communism were enforced. The General Secretary of a nation’s Central Committee became the most powerful figure, while a Politburo held sway over a party machine lacking a popular foundation, since it in accordance to Leninist ideology favoured a group of three to fourteen per cent of a country’s population. Members of this exclusive group enjoyed considerable rewards, like access to shops with a selection of high-quality foreign goods, as well as special schools, holiday facilities, well-equipped housing, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates.

Suppression of opposition was a prerequisite for retaining power. Citizens were kept under surveillance by political police with raw power and violent persecution of dissidents. In East Germany were Stasi, Volkpolizei, and KdA, in Soviet Union the KGB, in Czechoslovakia STB and LM, in Bulgaria KDS, in Hungary AVH and Munkásörség, in Romania Securitate and GP, in Poland Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, Słuźba, and ZOMO. Nevertheless, people occasionally revolted.

During one day in 1953 an uprising took place in Berlin. It was violently suppressed by tanks and soldiers of the Soviet German forces. More than 150 persons were killed, or missing.

In 1956, a two day protest in Polish Poznan resulted in more than 100 deaths. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Popalavsky suppressed the demonstration. Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzalakowski, eventually hailed as a patriotic martyr.

During two weeks in November 1956, USSR troops killed 2,500 revolting Hungarians, while 200,000 sought political refuge abroad. Some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the Soviet-installed János Kádár government, of those 13,000 were imprisoned.

During the night between 20 and 21 August 1968, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia came to an abrupt end when Eastern Bloc armies under Soviet command invaded Prague. The invasion comported with the Brezhnev Doctrine, compelling Eastern Bloc states to subordinate national interests to a Soviet right to intervene. A wave of emigration followed, with a total eventually reaching 300,000.

The pattern of Soviet invasions of neighbouring states has continued, for example in Georgia and Moldova. In 1991 Tjetjenia declared itself independent and in 1994, 40 000 Russian soldiers invaded the recently proclaimed Tjetjenien Republic. After a year of harsh fighting the capital Grozny was conquered, but another war erupted in 1999. The rebels were vanquished after an effective but exceedingly brutal war. Tjetjenia is now governed by a Moscow-allied clan leader.

Estimated losses of the two wars are 14 000 Russian and 16 000 Tjetjenien soldiers killed, while at least 25,000 civilians were killed and 5,000 disappeared.

One month before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Kazakhstan plunged into political unrest. At the request of President Tokayev, Russian forces headed an intergovernmental Eurasian military alliance, CSTO, which invaded the country. After “pacifying” the protests, CSTO forces evacuated the country after a month.

Considering this history, paired with the Russian destruction of Syrian and Ukrainian towns, it is somewhat difficult to consider Russia as threatened by NATO’s expansion. It is actually not so strange that Russia is feared by its neighbours and that Finland and Sweden are seeking membership in NATO.

The Swedish government is currently supporting an expansion and restoration of Sweden’s once comprehensive, but now neglected network of nuclear shelters, introducing obligatory conscription of youngsters fit for military service, and strengthening the defence of Gotland, a strategically important island located in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

After World War II, the Soviet Union usurped an enclave which actually ought to have belonged to either Poland or Lithuania – Kaliningrad, situated by the Baltic coast and equipped it with the highest density of military installations in Europe. It became headquarter of the large Russian Baltic fleet. In Kaliningrad, Russia has recently built up a formidable military presence encompassing nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers.

Not being a supporter of policies and actions United States has exercised in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, cannot overshadow the fear that most Europeans nurture while facing the powerful giant of the East, which, admittedly, does not have an impressive record when it comes to protecting human rights.

Some sources: Putin, Vladimir (2007) Speech delivered at the MSC http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/24034 Sarotte, Mary Elise (2022) Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pucci, Molly (2020) Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

IPS UN Bureau

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While each context has a unique mix of factors contributing to the growth of violent extremism, UNDP research uncovered common denominators that can inform relevant, coherent responses. Credit: UNDP Somalia

By Noura Hamladji and Samuel Rizk
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2023 (IPS)

There is no better environment for the expansion of violent extremist groups than a vacuum in state authority. It provides ideal conditions for these groups to prey on existing and historical grievances, fill the void with promises of financial support, access to services and attention for marginalized, neglected communities.

But, at what cost?

In sub-Saharan Africa, we are witnessing the toll. In the past decade, violence linked to the influence of global violent extremist groups like Al Qaeda and Daesh has spread swiftly across the region. In 2022, new global epicentres of terrorism were found in sub-Saharan Africa.

With thousands killed and millions displaced, this violence threatens the stability of the entire region and hinders development gains on the continent.

To better understand how violent extremist groups proliferate, and how they impact development and social cohesion, UNDP commissioned unique research to find out what gives violent extremists a foothold in particular contexts.

We looked at the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, DR Congo, Somalia and Northern Mozambique. What we found is that while every country – and district – has its own story, there are clear common denominators that help design relevant, coherent responses.

This new study, Dynamics of Violent Extremism in Africa: Conflict Ecosystems, Political Ecology, and the Spread of the Proto-State complements the research we have done into how and why individuals join violent extremist groups in the Journey to Extremism series.

Filling the void

As they expand in size and resources, buttressed by a link to a global ideological orientation, some violent extremist groups organize in ways akin to local government structures. They begin to compete with the state not only by monopolizing the threat/use of violence – in this case, instilling terror – but also by promising some of the most essential local services that people are aspiring to, such as a relative sense of security, sources of income and swift adjudication of disputes.

They may do so cruelly and oppressively, but even that may initially be attractive to communities weary of years of lawlessness, corruption and chaos. Indeed, the more deeply structured local violent extremist groups have evolved from raiding bands and now show many of the characteristics of a “proto-state”, typified by Daesh in Syria.

As the study findings suggest, the modus operandi of these local violent extremist groups is not centred mainly around persuading people to adopt their ideology. Instead – and often coming from the locality itself – they are grievance entrepreneurs, exploiting local development deficits, and forging alliances of convenience with other violent groups and criminal networks, like smugglers or local militias.

Even so, this does not make them one-dimensional opportunists. Their link to global networks helps to give them direction, binds them together and adds to their appeal. They are both global and local, both ideological and economic alternatives that can be appealing to people living in perceived or de facto state vacuum.

One common finding in this study is that violent extremist groups rarely appear in places well served by stable, predictable governments and governance systems. Instead, they operate where there is already poverty and instability, away from capital cities, in marginalized places where public services are thin or non-existent – all of which are often the product of local power-brokers’ interests.

The lack of trust between communities in these remote and crisis-hit areas and their government is also a common factor highlighted in the research. All too often communities suffer acute insecurity, feeling let down, targeted, and abused by the very state that should be protecting them. Violent extremist groups then plug in to fear or anger among communities and local leaders.

The first step to addressing this growing trend is to understand the political economy of violent extremist groups, and the sources of their power, with a view to halt and reverse their stranglehold on society.

The next step requires collaboration by the international community, supporting national partners not only to address the visible manifestations of the problem, but also to reverse years or decades of state fragility, exclusion and insecurity that emboldened these groups over time.

To this end, UNDP’s work on sub-national and local governance and institutions is critical – resilient, responsive, accountable, transparent, linked to national-level reforms that will have the biggest impact on violent extremist groups’ “business models.”

UNDP also works to empower local communities and local leaders towards positive and inclusive governance and improving access to basic services in under-served areas. This is the way to avoid recreating the same conditions that enabled the governance void to exist in first instance.

Gaining a foothold

It is clear that many of the conflicts which give these groups a foothold are over land and water. Desertification, climate change and poor land management have made traditional ways of life difficult in many places where land has degraded and pastures no longer support herds, nor do farms support crops.

But this need not be irreversible. With careful attention to local power politics, social relationships and trust-building, we can help communities to regenerate land and revive livelihoods – and to capture carbon in the soil in the process, offering local solutions to global problems and giving communities agency in shaping their present and future.

We call it “political ecology”, and with this approach we can simultaneously improve lives and undercut the appeal of violent extremist groups.

Also crucial to this approach is understanding how illicit funds flow around an economy, both inside a country and across borders; how power-brokers depend on and manipulate instability and corruption for greater influence; and which actors have a real interest in reform. This knowledge can help identify and interdict income sources of violent extremist groups while sustainably rebuilding local economies.

A human-centred approach

While there is a common thread of misogyny in the narrative and behaviour of violent extremist groups, women’s roles are not homogenous or predestined to victimhood. On one hand, Boko Haram has used women as suicide bombers and al Shabaab as intelligence sources, but on the other hand women form the backbone of many peacebuilding and victim support efforts, and are the engine of cross-border trade in many areas.

This very diversity makes it more important to ensure that both women and men are fully involved in our efforts, from analysis to implementation to evaluation. In the end, where does the study address our collective approach to human security, to people-centred development, justice and peace?

These conflicts, and all the horrors committed by these groups, leave deep scars, and the trauma is long-lasting. Even in contexts that are not impacted by war, political conflict or pervasive violent extremism, we are starting to understand the cost of recent lockdowns and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, in mental health and alienation.

In conflict zones, the depth of trauma needs much more research, but we know it is severe. And people cope with it in ways that can lead to further violence, at a personal, family and community level. Sadly, that often helps to perpetuate cycles of conflict.

So, if we are to address these historical, multigenerational grievances which violent extremists can prey on, while working to heal their ongoing grief, we need to expand our capacity to provide the mental health and psycho-social support that individuals and communities need.

And if we can do so, we can demonstrate in action the positive alternatives to hatred and violence that these groups peddle.

Development first

A new approach is needed – one that first invests in understanding and complex ways in which these violent extremist groups win hearts and minds in different communities, acting as alternatives to state authority.

With this knowledge, we can work together with national and local governments to ensure a developmental, preventive, inclusive approach where people have access to the rights, goods and services they need to live prosperous lives, thus removing the power that these groups wield. Rather than helping people to get by; getting ahead, with hope and dignity, should be the goal.

Through this approach, we can improve the lives of citizens and communities across the region and turn back the tide of violence and despair. The challenge remains complex and urgent, and our collective responses must overcome by being more informed, adaptive, innovative and inclusive to promote and sustain development and peace.

Noura Hamladji is Deputy Regional Director, Regional Bureau for Africa;
Samuel Rizk is Head of Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions, UNDP

To learn more, visit the UNDP Prevention of Violent Extremism website.

Note: The research study was prepared in a process co-led by the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa (RBA) and the Crisis Bureau (CB) Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions (CPPRI)/Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) Team. The study paper was developed by lead researcher Peter Rundell and supporting researchers Olivia Lazard and Emad Badi, under the editorial direction of Noura Hamladji and Samuel Rizk, and coordination by Nika Saeedi and Nirina Kiplagat.

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Israel's separation barrier as seen from Al Ram.. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 2 2023 (IPS)

Israel of today as a Jewish and democratic state is a contradiction of terms and as such may possibly become transformed into a genuinely democratic Israel tomorrow with justice and equality for all.

In Israel today, citizens who are not Jewish are treated differently than those who are Jewish, who benefit from certain rights and privileges. In a national opinion poll, most Jewish Israelis, about 80 percent, say Jews should get preferential treatment in Israel. Also, nearly half of Jewish Israelis say that Arab Israelis should be expelled or transferred from Israel.

In Israel today, citizens who are not Jewish are treated differently than those who are Jewish, who benefit from certain rights and privileges. In a national opinion poll, most Jewish Israelis, about 80 percent, say Jews should get preferential treatment in Israel. Also, nearly half of Jewish Israelis say that Arab Israelis should be expelled or transferred from Israel

In addition, several years ago Israel passed the “nation-state law”, which among other things, states that the right to exercise national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people and also established Jewish settlement as a national value. While embraced by many Jewish Israelis, the nation-state law was considered apartheid by the country’s non-Jewish population, ostensibly making them second-class citizens.

In a democratic Israel, in contrast, all Israelis irrespective of their religious affiliation would have the same rights and privileges. In such a state, justice and equality would prevail across the entire country’s population, not just for a single dominant religious group.

A democratic Israel would be similar in many respects to Western liberal democracies such as the United States. In that democracy, all religious groups, including Jewish Americans, have the same rights, privileges and equality under the law.

Most Jewish Israelis, some 75 percent across the religious spectrum, continue to believe that Israel can be a Jewish state and a democracy. In contrast, non-Jewish Israelis, including the majorities of Muslims, Christians and Druze, generally do not believe Israel can be a Jewish state and a democracy at the same time; it’s simply viewed as inconsistent.

Further complicating political, legal and human rights matters for Israelis as well as Palestinians are the new government’s recent proposals for judicial reform, which would impact the independence of the Israeli Supreme Court.

Many Israelis have gone to the streets to protest the proposed reform. Objections to the reforms are being raised by former government officials, military officers, business investors and others. Foreign allies, especially officials, Jewish leaders and journalists in America, have also expressed concerns over the proposals. In addition, the majority of Israelis, about two-thirds, oppose the proposed judicial reform.

Turning to demographics, Israel’s population stood at 9.656 million at the end of 2022. The composition of the population was 74 percent Jewish, 21 percent Arab (largely Christian and Muslims) and 5 percent others (Figure 1).

Source: Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

In 1948 when Israel was established, the country’s proportion Jewish was 82 percent of its population of 806 thousand. By the 1960s the proportion Jewish reached a record high of nearly 90 percent. Since that high, the proportion Jewish in Israel has been steadily declining to its current level of 74 percent.

In addition to Israel’s changing demographics, the Jewish Israeli population has not been confined to its 1948 borders. Large numbers have expanded to settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Israel’s Jewish settler population in the West Bank, for example, is now estimated at more than half a million. Many of the estimated 700 thousand Jewish Israelis now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are motivated by their religious mission to restore historic Israel to the Jewish people.

The Jewish settler population is continuing to increase rapidly in the West Bank, which is a top priority of ultranationalist parties who oppose Palestinian statehood.

The Israeli government has also pledged to legalize wildcat outposts and increase the approval and construction of settler homes in the West Bank.

In contrast, the United Nations Security Council and much of the international community of nations, including the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, continue to support the idea of an independent Palestinian state. However, the changing demographics in the West Bank have virtually eliminated the possibility of the two-state solution.

Without the two-state solution, Jewish Israelis face a major challenge affecting their majority status, namely the possibility of the one-state solution.

The one-state solution would involve the entire Israeli and Palestinian populations now living between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River. In such a population numbering approximately 15 million inhabitants, the Jewish population would become a ruling minority of approximately 47 percent, a fundamental change from the sizable Jewish majority of 74 percent in Israel today (Figure 2).

Source: Times of Israel.

Even today the Israeli government is confronting human rights issues with its expansion throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. International, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations as well as independent observers have found Israeli authorities practicing apartheid and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories.

According to those human rights organizations, Israeli government policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians as well as the abuses and discriminatory policies against Palestinians living in the occupied territories.

Israel rejects those accusations, saying it is a democracy and committed to international law and open to scrutiny. The government cites security concerns and protecting the lives of Israelis for its imposition of travel and related restrictions on Palestinians, whose violence in the past included suicide bombings of Israeli cities and deadly attacks against Israelis.

Many have come to the conclusion that given the policies of the current Israeli government, a political path for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully is simply wishful thinking. For some the two-state solution is effectively dead and it is simply waiting for its formal funeral.

In addition, the human cost of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been high and is rising. So far in 2023, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of an estimated 63 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

From 2008 to 2020 the numbers of killed and injured from the conflict among Israelis and Palestinian documented by the UN were 251 and 5,590 deaths, respectively, and 5,600 and 115,000 injuries, respectively. In brief, over that time period approximately 95 percent of those killed and injured due to the conflict were Palestinians (Figure 3).

Source: UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

It is evident that the Israeli government and many Israelis would like to continue the Jewish settler expansion in the West Bank. That expansion clearly has serious consequences for the resident Palestinian population and the Israelis as well as the prospects of an independent Palestinian state.

The demise of the two-state solution and the possible one-state solution also creates a major foreign and domestic dilemma for the United States, Israel’s major political, military and economic supporter and biggest ally.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, estimated at more than 3 billion dollars annually and more than 150 billion dollars cumulatively. Also, America has vetoed scores of United Nations Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, including at least 53 since 1973.

Given America’s commitment to democratic values, freedom of religious beliefs and equality of citizenship, the White House, U.S. Senators, Congressional Representatives as well as the nation’s citizens will be faced with how to respond to the absence of a possible Palestinian state and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

In the absence of the two-state solution, it will become increasingly difficult for the United States to continue its unwavering commitment and unequivocal support in light of Israeli policies and treatment of the Palestinians. Perhaps, consistent with its values and laws, America will decide to support the one-state solution with equality of all inhabitants, regardless of religious identities.

More importantly, in the absence of a truly independent Palestinian state, Israel may slowly come to embrace the one-state solution. Eventually then, especially given the unavoidable demographic realities strikingly visible on the ground, Israel may possibly come to realize that it’s time to transform the Israel of today into a truly democratic Israel of tomorrow with justice and equality for all.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

In Nigeria's Northeast the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition is projected to increase to two million in 2023. Credit: UNOCHA/Christina Powell.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 23 2023 (IPS)

While the world’s biggest powers and their giant private corporations continue to attach high priority to their military –and commercial– dominance, both of them being shockingly profitable, entire generations are being lost to deadly armed conflicts, devastating climate catastrophes, diseases, hunger and more imposed impoverishment.

Part I of this series of two articles focussed on the unprecedented suffering of the most innocent and helpless human beings – children– in 11 countries. But there are many more.

According to the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), hundreds of thousands of children continue to pay the highest price of a mixture of man-made brutalities, with their lives, apart from the unfolding proxy war in Ukraine, and the not yet final account of victims of the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, which are forcing children to sleep in the streets under the rumble, amid the chilling cold.

Nigeria

Nigeria is just one of the already reported cases of 11 countries. UNICEF on 11 February 2023 appealed for 1.3 billion US dollars to stop what it calls “the ticking bomb of child malnutrition.”

The appeal is meant to help six million people severely affected by conflict, disease, and disaster in Northeast Nigeria.

“The large-scale humanitarian and protection crisis shows no sign of abating,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria. “An estimated 2.4 million people are in acute need – impacted by conflict, disaster and disease – and require urgent support.”

The “ticking time bomb” of child malnutrition is escalating in Nigeria’s Northeast, with the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition projected to increase to two million in 2023, up from 1.74 million last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

Already high levels of severe acute malnutrition are projected to more than double from 2022 to a projected 697,000 this year. Women and girls are the hardest hit, said Schmale.

“Over 80% of people in need of humanitarian assistance across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are women and children. They face increased risks of violence, abduction, rape and abuse.”

The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu raised concerns about a worsening security situation, calling for urgent action to address conflicts and prevent “atrocity crimes.”

Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Horn of Africa: the suffering of over 20 million children

By the end of 2022, UNICEF warned of a funding shortfall as the region faces an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season and a poor outlook for the sixth.

The number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has “more than doubled in five months,” according to UNICEF.

“Around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July [2022], as climate change, conflict, global inflation and grain shortages devastate the region.”

While collective and accelerated efforts have mitigated some of the worst impacts of what had been feared, “children in the Horn of Africa are still facing the most severe drought in more than two generations,” said UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Lieke van de Wiel.

“Humanitarian assistance must be continued to save lives and build the resilience of the staggering number of children and families who are being pushed to the edge – dying from hunger and disease and being displaced in search of food, water and pasture for their livestock.”

Nearly two million children across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are currently estimated to require ”urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of hunger.”

In addition, across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia:

• More than two million people are displaced internally because of drought.
• Water insecurity has more than doubled with close to 24 million people now confronting dire water shortages.
• Approximately 2.7 million children are out of school because of the drought, with an additional estimated 4 million children at risk of dropping out.
• As families are driven to the edge dealing with increased stress, children face a range of protection risks – including child labour, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
• Gender-based violence, including sexual violence, exploitation and abuse, is also increasing due to widespread food insecurity and displacement.

UNICEF’s 2023 emergency appeal of US$759 million to provide life-saving support to children and their families will require timely and flexible funding support, especially in the areas of education, water and sanitation, and child protection, which were ”severely underfunded” during UNICEF’s 2022 response.

An additional US$690 million is required to support long-term investments to help children and their families to recover and adapt to climate change.

Meanwhile, more unfolding tragedies for children

The above-reported suffering for the most defenceless human beings–children, does not end here. Indeed, two more major tragedies continue unfolding. Such is the case of the brutal proxy war in Ukraine and the most destructive earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.

“A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” – Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes

A steady flow of UN aid trucks filled with vital humanitarian relief continues to cross the border from Southern Türkiye into Northwest Syria to help communities enduring “terrible trauma” caused by the earthquake disaster, UN aid teams on 17 February 2023 reported.

As UN aid convoys continue to deliver more relief to quake-hit Northwest Syria via additional land routes from Türkiye, UN humanitarians warned that “many thousands of children have likely been killed,” while millions more vulnerable people urgently need support.

“Even without verified numbers, it’s tragically clear the number of children killed, the number of children orphaned is going to keep on rising,” on 14 February 2023 said UN Children Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder.

In Türkiye, the total number of children living in the 10 provinces before the emergency was 4.6 million, and 2.5 million in Syria.

And as the humanitarian focus shifts from rescue to recovery, eight days after the disaster, Elder warned that cases of “hypothermia and respiratory infections” were rising among youngsters, as he appealed for continued solidarity with all those affected by the emergency.

“Everyone, everywhere, needs more support, more safe water, more warmth, more shelter, more fuel, more medicines, more funding,” he said.

“Families with children are sleeping in streets, malls, mosques, schools, under bridges, staying out in the open for fear of returning to their homes.”

“Unimaginable hardship”

“The children and families of Türkiye and Syria are facing unimaginable hardship in the aftermath of these devastating earthquakes,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“We must do everything in our power to ensure that everyone who survived this catastrophe receives life-saving support, including safe water, sanitation, critical nutrition and health supplies, and support for children’s mental health. Not only now, but over the long term.”

The number of children killed and injured during the quakes and their aftermath has not yet been confirmed but is likely to be in the many thousands. The official total death toll has now passed 45,000.

Freezing

Many families have lost their homes and are now living in temporary shelters, “often in freezing conditions and with snow and rain adding to their suffering.” Access to safe water and sanitation is also a major concern, as are the health needs of the affected population.

Ukraine

Months of escalating conflict have left millions of children in Ukraine vulnerable to biting winds and frigid temperatures, UNICEF reports.

Hundreds of thousands of people have seen their homes, businesses or schools damaged or destroyed while continuing attacks on critical energy infrastructure have left millions of children without sustained access to electricity, heating and water.

The list of brutalities committed against the world’s children goes on. The funds desperately needed to save their lives represent a tiny faction of all that is being spent on wars.

A return of non-alignment was evident at the March 2022 UN General Assembly special session on Ukraine. Fifty-two governments from the global south did not support western sanctions against Russia. CREDIT: Manuel Elias/UN

By External Source
Feb 17 2023 (IPS)

An African proverb notes that “when two elephants fight, it is the grass underneath that suffers”. Many states in the global south are, therefore, seeking to avoid getting caught in the middle of any future battles between the US and China. Instead, they are calling for a renewal of the concept of non-alignment. This was an approach employed in the 1950s by newly independent countries to balance between the two ideological power blocs of east and west during the era of the Cold War 

The new non-alignment stance is based on a perceived need to maintain southern sovereignty, pursue socio-economic development, and benefit from powerful external partners without having to choose sides. It also comes from historical grievances during the era of slavery, colonialism and Cold War interventionism.

These grievances include unilateral American military interventions in Grenada (1983), Panama (1989) and Iraq (2003) as well as support by the US and France for autocracies in countries like Egypt, Morocco, Chad and Saudi Arabia, when it suits their interests.

82 southern states refused to back western efforts to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. These included powerful southern states such as India, Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico

Many southern governments are particularly irked by America’s Manichaean division of the world into “good” democracies and “bad” autocracies. More recently, countries in the global south have highlighted north-south trade disputes and western hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines as reinforcing the unequal international system of “global apartheid”.

A return of non-alignment was evident at the March 2022 UN General Assembly special session on Ukraine. Fifty-two governments from the global south did not support western sanctions against Russia. This, despite Russia’s clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which southern states have historically condemned.

A month later, 82 southern states refused to back western efforts to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

These included powerful southern states such as India, Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

The origins of non-alignment

In 1955, a conference was held in the Indonesian city of Bandung to regain the sovereignty of Africa and Asia from western imperial rule. The summit also sought to foster global peace, promote economic and cultural cooperation, and end racial domination. Governments attending were urged to abstain from collective defence arrangements with great powers.

Six years later, in 1961, the 120-strong Non-Aligned Movement emerged. Members were required to shun military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as well as bilateral security treaties with great powers.

Non-alignment advocated “positive” – not passive – neutrality. States were encouraged to contribute actively to strengthening and reforming institutions such as the UN and the World Bank.

India’s patrician prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, is widely regarded to have been the intellectual “father of non-alignment”. He regarded the concept as an insurance policy against world domination by either superpower bloc or China. He also advocated nuclear disarmament.

Indonesia’s military strongman, Suharto, championed non-alignment through “regional resilience”. South-east Asian states were urged to seek autonomy and prevent external powers from intervening in the region.

Egypt’s charismatic prophet of Arab unity, Gamal Abdel Nasser, strongly backed the use of force in conducting wars of liberation in Algeria and southern Africa, buying arms and receiving aid from both east and west.
For his part, Ghana’s prophet of African unity, Kwame Nkrumah, promoted the idea of an African High Command as a common army to ward off external intervention and support Africa’s liberation.

The Non-Aligned Movement, however, suffered from the problems of trying to maintain cohesion among a large, diverse group. Many countries were clearly aligned to one or other power bloc.

By the early 1980s, the group had switched its focus from east-west geo-politics to north–south geo-economics. The Non-Aligned Movement started advocating a “new international economic order”. This envisaged technology and resources being transferred from the rich north to the global south in order to promote industrialisation.

The north, however, simply refused to support these efforts.

Latin America and south-east Asia

Most of the recent thinking and debates on non-alignment have occurred in Latin America and south-east Asia.

Most Latin American countries have refused to align with any major power. They have also ignored Washington’s warnings to avoid doing business with China. Many have embraced Chinese infrastructure, 5G technology and digital connectivity.

Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many of the region’s states declined western requests to impose sanctions on Moscow. The return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil – the largest and wealthiest country in the region – heralds the “second coming” (following his first presidency between 2003 and 2011) of a champion of global south solidarity.

For its part, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has shown that non-alignment has as much to do with geography as strategy. Singapore sanctioned Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Indonesia condemned the intervention but rejected sanctions. Myanmar backed the invasion while Laos and Vietnam refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression.

Many ASEAN states have historically championed “declaratory non-alignment”. They have used the concept largely rhetorically while, in reality, practising a promiscuous “multi-alignment”. Singapore and the Philippines forged close military ties with the US; Myanmar with India; Vietnam with Russia, India, and the US; and Malaysia with Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

This is also a region in which states simultaneously embrace and fear Chinese economic assistance and military cooperation. This, while seeking to avoid any external powers dominating the region or forming exclusionary military alliances.

Strong African voices are largely absent from these non-alignment debates, and are urgently needed.

Pursuing non-alignment in Africa

Africa is the world’s most insecure continent, hosting 84% of UN peacekeepers. This points to a need for a cohesive southern bloc that can produce a self-sustaining security system – Pax Africana – while promoting socio-economic development.

Uganda aims to champion this approach when it takes over the three-year rotating chair of the Non-Aligned Movement in December 2023. Strengthening the organisation into a more cohesive bloc, while fostering unity within the global south, is a major goal of its tenure.

Uganda has strong potential allies. For example, South Africa has championed “strategic non-alignment” in the Ukraine conflict, advocating a UN-negotiated solution, while refusing to sanction its BRICS ally, Russia. It has also relentlessly courted its largest bilateral trading partner, China, whose Belt and Road Initiative and BRICS bank are building infrastructure across the global south.

Beijing is Africa’s largest trading partner at US$254 billion, and builds a third of the continent’s infrastructure.

If a new non-alignment is to be achieved in Africa, the foreign military bases of the US, France and China – and the Russian military presence – must, however, be dismantled.

At the same time the continent should continue to support the UN-led rules-based international order, condemning unilateral interventions in both Ukraine and Iraq. Pax Africana would best be served by:

• building local security capacity in close cooperation with the UN;
• promoting effective regional integration; and
• fencing off the continent from meddling external powers, while continuing to welcome trade and investment from both east and west.

Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Daisaku Ikeda. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

By Daisaku Ikeda
TOKYO, Japan, Jan 18 2023 (IPS)

The Ukraine crisis that erupted in February last year continues with no prospect for cessation. The intensified hostilities have inflicted great suffering in population centers and destroyed infrastructure facilities, compelling large numbers of civilians, including many children and women, to live in a state of constant peril.

The history of the twentieth century, which witnessed the horrors caused by two global conflicts, should have brought home the lesson that nothing is more cruel or miserable than war.

During World War II, when I was in my teens, I experienced the firebombing of Tokyo. To this day, I remember with great vividness getting separated from family members as we fled desperately through a sea of flames, and not learning that they were safe until the following day.

How many people have lost their lives or livelihoods in the ongoing crisis, how many have found their own and their family’s ways of life suddenly and irrevocably altered?

Many other countries have also been seriously impacted in the form of constrained food supplies, spiking energy prices and disrupted financial markets.

It is crucial that we find a breakthrough in order to prevent any further worsening of the conditions facing people worldwide, to say nothing of the Ukrainian people who are compelled to live with inadequate and uncertain supplies of electricity amidst a deepening winter and intensifying military conflict.

I therefore call for the urgent holding of a meeting, under UN auspices, among the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine and other key countries in order to reach agreement on a cessation of hostilities. I also urge that earnest discussions be undertaken toward a summit that would bring together the heads of all concerned states in order to find a path to the restoration of peace.

Together with calling for the earliest possible resolution to the Ukraine crisis, I wish to stress the crucial importance of implementing measures to prevent the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, both in the current crisis and all future conflicts.

Nuclear rhetoric has ratcheted up, and the risk that these weapons might actually be used stands today at its highest level since the end of the Cold War. Even if no party seeks nuclear war, the reality is that, with nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use as a result of data error, unforeseen accident or confusion provoked by a cyberattack.

Along with reducing tensions with the goal of resolving the Ukraine crisis, I feel it is of paramount importance that the nuclear-weapon states initiate action to reduce nuclear risks as a means of ensuring that situations do not arise—either now or in the future—in which the possibility of nuclear weapons use looms. It was with this in mind that in July last year I issued a statement to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in which I urged the five nuclear-weapon states to make prompt and unambiguous pledges that they would never be the first to launch a nuclear strike—the principle of “No First Use.”

Regrettably, the August NPT Review Conference was unable to reach consensus on a final document. But this in no way means that the nuclear disarmament obligations set out in Article VI of the treaty no longer pertain. As the various drafts of the final document indicate, there was widespread support for nuclear risk reduction measures such as the adoption of No First Use policies and extending negative security assurances, by which nuclear-weapon states pledge never to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess them.

The pledge of No First Use is a measure that nuclear-weapon states can take even while maintaining for the present their current nuclear arsenals; nor does it mean that the threat of the some 13,000 nuclear warheads existing in the world today would quickly dissipate. However, what I would like to stress is that should this policy take root among nuclear-armed states, it will create an opening for removing the climate of mutual fear. This, in turn, can enable the world to change course—away from nuclear buildup premised on deterrence and toward nuclear disarmament to avert catastrophe.

Looking back, the global state of affairs during the Cold War era was characterized by a series of seemingly insoluble crises that rattled the world, spreading shockwaves of insecurity and dread. And yet humankind managed to find exit strategies and pull through.

One example of this is the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) held between the United States and the Soviet Union. Intention to hold these was announced on the day of the 1968 signing ceremony for the NPT, which had been negotiated in response to the bitter lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The SALT negotiations were the first steps taken by the US and the USSR to put the brakes on the nuclear arms race based on their nuclear disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT.

For those involved in these talks, to impose constraints on the nuclear policies that had been developed as the exclusive prerogative of the state could not have been easy. Nonetheless, this was a decision indispensable to the survival not only of the citizens of their respective nations, but of all humankind.

Having experienced first-hand the terror of teetering on the brink of nuclear war, the people of that time brought forth historic powers of imagination and creativity. Now is the time for all countries and peoples to come together to once again unleash those creative powers and bring into being a new chapter in human history.

The author is Peace builder and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, who is President of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI). https://www.daisakuikeda.org/ Read full statement here full statement

IPS UN Bureau

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Women receive food rations at a food distribution site in Herat, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

By Chloe Bryer, Azza Karam, Ruth Messinger and Negina Yari
NEW YORK, Jan 12 2023 (IPS)

Can you imagine what it would be like if women were simply not allowed to step outside of their homes, let alone to work for a living? When women choose to do so, and they can afford it, then it is a matter of choice. When women mostly cannot, as is the case in Afghanistan now, not only is half the population imprisoned, but children go hungry, and communities sink deeper into poverty.

World Bank data (as incomplete as it is), indicates that the average number of female-headed households (i.e. households where women are the primary – if not the only – breadwinners), is around 25%.

What that means is, that on average, a quarter of all households around the world depend on women earning an income. Children, families, communities, and nations –depend on women’s work, to the tune of a quarter of their labour force.

Economists are still pointing to the obvious challenges of counting female labour, which often lies disproportionately on the frontiers of the formal economy, such that women continue to serve as reserve armies of labour and frontline workers during industrialization.

Economists who work to document these specificities, also point out that as soon as these frontiers expand or change, women are expelled or relegated to the shadows of the informal economy and piece-rate labour, identifying this as an all too frequent failure to recognize the importance of the kind of work many women engage in, which both keeps an economy running, and enables its expansion and growth.

The Covid-19 Pandemic should have resulted in a clear realisation that all hands are necessary on deck, with so many women actually needed as first responders–the backbone of the public health crisis – everywhere in the world.

As economies take a nosedive and the realities of recession hit many of us, all economies need to be kept running, if not to expand and grow.

And beyond these very real challenges to counting women’s work – and making that work count – there is another very critical reality: culture. Lest we think only of the vagaries of women who take over “men’s jobs” (whatever that means in today’s world), we need to stop being blind to the fact that women are needed to serve other women.

In fact, in many parts of the world, including the supposedly liberal and ‘egalitarian’ Western world, many women still prefer to receive life-saving direct services from other women – in public health, in sanitation, in all levels of education, in nutritional spaces, and many, many others.

Now let us pause a moment and consider humanitarian disaster zones, where women and girls often need to be cared for – and this can only be done by and through other women.

Then let us envision a reality one step further – let’s call it a socially conservative country, which is facing humanitarian disaster, and is heavily dependent on international organisations (governmental and non- governmental) for the necessary humanitarian support.

How is it conceivable that in such a context, women can be excluded from serving? And yet this is precisely what the Taliban have decreed on December 24, when it barred women from working in national and international NGOs. And this is after they banned women from higher education.

Many international NGOs halted their work in Afghanistan, explaining that they cannot work without their women staff – as a matter of principle, but also as a question of practical necessity. Yet, the United Nations – the premier multilateral entity – continues to see how they could compromise with the Taliban rule, for the sake of ‘the greater good – real humanitarian needs’.

Thank goodness they are letting the UN continue to work with their women employees, runs one way of thinking. We will not fail to deliver humanitarian needs, runs another UN way of thinking.

Of course, humanitarian needs are essential to human survival – and thus, should never be held hostage. But why is the United Nations being accountable for humanitarian needs only?

Meanwhile, the Taliban claim that these edicts about womens’ work and education are a matter of religious propriety, a claim which, as of this moment, is not strongly challenged by another multilateral entity – the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), encompassing 56 governments and members of the United Nations.

While individual governments have spoken out, this multilateral entity has remained relatively silent on the Islamic justice of such a decree. Is it because this multilateral religious entity sees no need to speak to humanitarian needs?

Or is it because it sees no value to hard economic realities where women’s agency plays a central role? Or perhaps it is because there is no unanimity on the Islamic justification behind such decrees?

In light of this hostage-taking of humanitarian relief efforts, a group of women of faith leaders, have come together to ask some simple questions of the two multilateral entities involved. They have sent a letter with over 150 international NGO sign ons.

Multilateralism is supposed to be the guarantor of all human rights and dignity, for all people, at all times. But as governmental regimes weaken, so do traditional multilateral entities heavily reliant on those governments. Time for community based transnational networks based on intergenerational, multicultural, gender sensitive leaders.

Rev Dr Chloe Bryer is Executive Director, Interfaith Center of New York; Prof Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace; Ruth Messinger is Social Justice Consultant, Jewish Theological Seminary; and Negina Yari is Country Director, Afghans4Tomorrow

IPS UN Bureau

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By External Source
Dec 13 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 
Q1: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) faces one of the most long-standing, complex protracted crisis on the globe. In such a context, how important is it for aid stakeholders to support the education sector among the multitude of urgent priorities in the country? Why must education be a leading priority?

“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”, says the proverb. To deprive children of their education is to deprive oneself of an excellent tool for emancipation and personal development. Without education, there is no development, no social cohesion, and no peace. An educated population is a population that is aware of and armed to face the many challenges and obstacles that will be on its way to sustainable development and peace. Without education there is no development and without development there is no peace.
We have experienced that support to education can contribute to peaceful cohabitation between communities that can be affected by inter-community conflicts, as their children are called upon to attend together the schools we have supported. At these schools, children learn moral values and this can lead to sustainable solutions as the school shapes generations that can live together without discrimination.

Q2: The UN system works with the Government and partners to strengthen complementarity and coherence between emergency relief, development, and peacebuilding efforts – the ‘triple-nexus’ – in Tanganyika Province, DRC as the region gradually becomes more peaceful. As part of these efforts, ECW funding supports UN, civil society, and local community partners to jointly deliver holistic education programmes to vulnerable girls and boys. Can you explain what this “triple nexus” means in the DRC, how it translates into action and why it is so important?

The whole nexus approach is an approach based on the search for durables solutions, by addressing vulnerabilities and tackling causes, including structural causes, which I like to call the Gordian knots. In many conflict-affected countries and fragile states, most of the efforts, investments, aid, go towards the symptoms, the effects, the consequences. And year after year, the same things are repeated. But the same recipes will not have different results. A prolonged, chronic humanitarian crisis has causes. Let’s look for them, let’s try to understand them, let’s have a common understanding, with development, peace, human rights, and humanitarian actors together. Once we have found the causes, what are the best remedies, or the paths to the remedies. A land problem? A problem of access or distribution of resources? A problem of identity, of justice? Extreme poverty? the list can be long, but it is important to name the problem(s) and then work with the right actors, with an inter-disciplinary approach because problems are usually intertwined. Two issues we will work on with this approach are, for example, chronic food insecurity and durable solutions for internally displaced people, including in the Tanganyika province for the latter.

Q3: You recently stated “We need more instruments like Education Cannot Wait”, noting that ECW operates with humanitarian speed and achieves development depth in crises. This is an important acknowledgement and recognition of ECW’s work in the UN and of multilateral systems operating in crises contexts. Could you elaborate further on your statement, particularly the why and the how?

Development should almost never stop. Because we should always do our level best to help people get back on their feet and get on with their lives. Always do our level best to get local systems, including public services, running and the local economy back on stream. In crisis context, we can call it emergency development. To avoid falling into the humanitarian dependency trap, which can hurt people’s dignity and sometimes induce harmful behaviours and practices. So, everything that can be done to help with this, with a development lense – agriculture cannot wait; health cannot wait; job creation cannot wait; business development cannot wait; building a house cannot wait – should become part and parcel on our way of thinking and way of working. This is also the nexus at work.

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Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

By A.H. Monjurul Kabir
NEW YORK, Nov 10 2022 (IPS)

We are living in a world where both our bilateral and multilateral achievements, consensuses on human rights and social justice, and our resolve to public good are being tested like never before.

Now, more than ever, we need to bring to life the values and principles of the UN Charter in every corner of the world. Due to the powers vested in its Charter and its unique international character, the UN can act on the issues confronting humanity, including:

• Maintain international peace and security
• Protect human rights
• Deliver humanitarian aid
• Promote sustainable development
• Uphold international law

Given my own personal trajectory in human rights advocacy and development cooperation, let me focus on aspects of sustainable development and consider whether we need to change and adopt any new approach to it to end extreme poverty, reduce inequalities, and rescue the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from exclusionary practices.

Development or Sustainable Development must be inclusive: In fact, inclusion at the heart of Development Cooperation. Inclusive development is the concept that every person, regardless of their identity, is instrumental in transforming their societies.

Development processes that are inclusive yield better outcomes for the communities that embark upon them. The UN was created to promote the rights and inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented populations in the development process and leads the UN’s response to addressing the needs and demands of those in in adversity and youth.

Therefore, the UN implements activities that combat stigma and discrimination, promote empowerment and inclusion of marginalized or underrepresented groups, and improve the lives of populations in high-risk situations.

It is important that we also adopt this in institutional and management settings: For example, UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) recently conducted its first survey on Racism and Racial Discrimination in five languages.

The survey was intended to capture data reflecting the Asian perspective in the UN system. It is planning to issue a report on the survey’s findings to support and address many critical issues of racism and racial discrimination. There are other networks who are addressing different elements of intersectionality including but not limited to, gender, disability, ethnicity, identity etc.

So, the world and its challenges have become much more intersectional, which calls for a robust and intersectional approach to development cooperation.

Intersectional Approach: An intersectionality lens allows us to see how social policy may affect people differently, depending on their specific set of ‘locations,’ and what unintended consequences particular policies may have on their individual lives.

By listening to the most marginalized and/or disadvantaged groups of a community, development organizations can help combat oppression at all levels of society and rebuild communities from the ground up.

Take the example of Persons with Disabilities. They are not a homogenous group, and this should be reflected in our policy advocacy and communications by considering intersectionality—the intersection of disability together with other factors, such as gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, refugee, migrant or asylum seeker status.

For example, a person with disability also has a gender identity, may come from an Indigenous group and be young, old, a migrant or live in poverty.

At the UN System, it is time to adopt an intersectional approach in our development cooperation, policy advocacy, programming, operational support, planning and budgeting. An intersectional approach considers the historical, social, and political context and recognizes the unique experience of the individual based on the intersection of all relevant grounds.

This approach allows the experience of discrimination, based on the confluence of grounds involved, to be acknowledged and remedied. Using an intersectionality lens to approach our development practice means moving beyond the use of singular categories to understand people and groups and embracing the notion of inseparable and interconnected sets of social ‘locations’ that change through time, vary across places, and act together to shape an individual’s life experience and actions.

This would go a long way to contribute to the SDGs’ Leave No One Behind principle (LNOB). The new approach calls for invigorating existing practices, making them more innovative, effective, and efficient.

Innovation: We need to think of innovative approaches and instruments to attract and channel new resources to finance our developmental aspirations, as outlined in the 2030 SDGs now more than ever.

Reliable and well-administered development financial institutions with a well-defined mandate and sound governance framework will continue to be an important vehicle to accelerate inclusive economic and social development.

They can create new channels to crowd-in the private sector. Moreover, they can play a catalytical role by generating new knowledge, convening stakeholders, and providing technical assistance to build capacity in the private and public sectors. Mutual collaboration between and across public and private sector is critical to harness the full potential of innovation and innovative approaches.

Let us not forget new media’s growing impact on both inclusive participation leveraging innovative practices.

New Media: New media, including mobile and social media, could help demystify international institutions and encourage participation. The new media is also critical to widen the breadth of accessibility for persons with disabilities or those who live in rural and/or remote, hard to reach areas.

Alongside this, there could be more regular interactions by the leadership of intergovernmental organisations with multi-stakeholders including civil society, organisations of persons with disabilities, and the media, and the creation of accessible databases of statistical and other information and knowledge on their work.

Notwithstanding the Ukraine war, work at the UN continues. The world body can and should continue to play a constructive role in both development cooperation, crisis management, peace building, and post-conflict stabilization. It should continue to focus on crises from Afghanistan to Mali and Ukraine itself.

However, it must explore new and innovative and intersectional ways to support inclusive development, climate justice and resilience, peacekeeping, and other global and regional key priorities.

Otherwise, the SDGs will not be even near to their desired destination in 2030 or beyond.

Dr. A.H. Monjurul Kabir, currently Global Policy and UN System Coordination Adviser and Team Leader for Gender Equality, Disability Inclusion, and Intersectionality at UN Women HQ in New York, is a political scientist and senior policy and legal analyst on global issues and Asia-Pacific trends.

For policy and academic purposes, he can be contacted at monjurulkabir@yahoo.com and followed on twitter at mkabir2011

This article is from a blog based on a speech delivered by the author, in his personal capacity, at an event commemorating the UN’s 77th anniversary organized by UN-ANDI– a New York-based global network of like-minded Asian staff members of the UN system who strive to promote a more diverse and inclusive culture and mindset within the UN.

IPS UN Bureau

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Colosseum at the Prayer with the Pope and the representatives of the workd’s religions. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Nov 7 2022 (IPS)

Arms are raised, stretched out towards the sky, holding white cards with the word “peace” written in different languages. A girl, a refugee from Syria, reads the Rome’s “Appeal for peace”: “With firm conviction, we say: no more war! Let’s stop all conflicts […] Let dialogue be resumed to nullify the threat of nuclear weapons.” Pope Francis singed it in front of the people gathered at the Colosseum, holding the word “peace” in their hands, as representatives of the world’s religions did as well. Shortly before, members of those different religions gathered for prayer to invoke peace in their different traditions—a prayer that is “a cry” inside the ancient amphitheater.

“This year our prayer has become a heartfelt plea, because today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that in the last century endured the horrors of the two world wars – and we are experiencing a third. Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet the situation that we are presently experiencing is particularly dramatic…”, the Pontiff warned. “We are not neutral, but allied for peace, and for that reason we invoke the ius pacis as the right of all to settle conflicts without violence,” he added.

The same “raised hands” marched for peace on Saturday in Rome when around 100.000 people from different organizations called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and in all the other armed conflicts.

The prayer with the Pope was the last act of a three-day interreligious dialogue, held at the end of October in the Italian capital and introduced by the presidents of the French and Italian republics, Emmanuel Macron and Sergio Mattarella. The first convocation was in Assisi, in 1986, willed by John Paul II. Since then, it has been promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Christian community whose fundamentals are prayer, serving the poor and marginalized, and peace. For the role it has played in mediating conflicts, it has been named the “UN of Trastevere” after the city center neighborhood where it is headquartered and where the peace agreement in Mozambique was signed thirty years ago.

Flags at the rally for peace in Rome on Saturday. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Leaders and believers of various religions and secular humanists have woven relationships, prayed, and confronted each other. They hand over a map drawn by many voices, too many to account for in the space of an article. “The cry for peace” meeting is also an invitation to “do”. It offers a map of concrete steps, things done and to do, best practices, imagination, with a key word: dialogue. “And dialogue does not make all reasons equal at all, it does not avoid the question of responsibility and never mistakes the aggressor with the attacked. Indeed, precisely because it knows them well, it can look for ways to stop the geometric and implacable logic of war, which is [escalation] if other solution are not found”, explained Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

World scenarios are made even more worrying by the risk of nuclear escalation in the Ukrainian war—a war on the doorstep of that part of Europe that has cultivated peace inside, but that has let armed conflict flourish elsewhere. “The lack of this commitment [outside Europe] let the war reach its borders, indeed—in some ways—penetrate within it, even in its deepest fibers,” said Agostino Giovagnoli, historian of the Community of Sant’Egidio. “Today war threatens Europe also because it threatens the alternative imagination which is at the basis of the European architecture. War, in fact, is banal: it does not consist only of a fight on the ground but it is also a form of ‘single thought,’” he added.

This “single thought” has changed the European attitude, according to Nico Piro, special correspondent and war journalist of the RAI, the Italian national public broadcasting company. “After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Europe as in Italy, a political monobloc in favor of [fighting] has emerged from right to left. It is standing out what I named ‘PUB’ [Pensiero Unico Bellicista], a Bellicist-Single-Thought … [It] projects a stigma on anyone who asks for peace, on anyone who has a doubt or raises a criticism of the idea that fueling the war serves to end it […],” he said. “What has peace become then? No longer a tool to stop and prevent armed conflicts but a by-product of war.”

Yet, among the many voices that met in Rome, one word resounds, whispered and then said: kairos. The “critical moment” is now. The war in Ukraine is the “wake-up call” that must be grasped, that cannot be missed, widening our view from Europe to those never-ending conflicts all over the world. Among the many lessons from Sant’Egidio’s dialogue, two should be learned to grasp that kairos: working together daily to build peace in every single life and returning to working together as a community of states, relaunching the multilateral message.

Sant’Egidio’s interreligious dialogue “The cry for peace”. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“Whoever saves a single life saves the whole world,” the Talmud says. Or “an entire world” as Riccardo di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, suggested, since every human being has the potential to create “a new, unique world.” Thus, peace means recognizing the value of each single life, in sharp contrast to the logic of war, in which “the life of the enemy is no longer life. It’s not the same. [That’s] war, [which] dehumanizes everyone a priori in the name of life,” according to Mario Marazziti, member of the Sant’Egidio community. This also happens here, in Europe, where those fleeing wars, hunger, and persecution are allowed to die at sea, “dehumanized,” reduced to numbers.

Unique are the lives to be saved, but also unique are the lives of those who save and of those who build peace by “taking care.”

Gégoire Ahongbonon has a chain in his hand. He puts it around his neck and shows the heavy metal rings to the audience. There was a man chained with that same metal, naked, tied to a tree, like many others. His only fault was a psychiatric disorder. Ahongbonon saved over 70,000 people, “sentenced to death” because they were ill. He is the founder of the Association Saint Camille de Lellis that works in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He asked a tough question: “Are we different from them? Are we different from this person, we? […] What did they do wrong? They were born like all of us.”

Saving those lives is already making peace, eradicating the roots of violence and discrimination and planting those of peace, as Mjid Noorjehan Adbul is doing in Mozambique. She is the clinical head of the network of centers for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, opened by Sant’Egidio’s DREAM program, a program of excellence operating in 10 countries. She, a Muslim, is surprised when people ask her why she works with Catholics: “We all have the same goal,” she replies. For twenty years, she has been working to ensure health care for those who cannot afford it. In fact, she was the first one to use antiretroviral therapy in her country. “There is no peace without care,” she said, quoting Pope Francis – “care” for eradicating “the culture of waste, of indifference, of confrontation.” Ex-patients, like those “women who have experienced the stigma firsthand and put themselves at the service of other ill people,” are now helping to build a new health culture – she explained.

Saving lives, restoring hope, choosing the paths of dialogue, and designing an architecture of peaceful coexistence should also be the aim of politics. The multilateral message, legacy of the twentieth century’s “unitary tensions,” however, needs new impetus.

“Those who work for peace are realistic, not naive!” Cardinal Zuppi said. Realistic as it was Pope Bendetto XV that called for an end to the “useless slaughter” that was the First World War. He had a very clear vision of the need for a multilateral architecture, a league among nations that could guarantee lasting peace. A realistic way to design the future still seems to be the one built on a permanent, global agorà that creates space for dialogue. “No multilateralism, no survival,” argued Jeffery Sachs, a speaker at one of the fourteen forums that shaped the meeting agenda. However, the United Nations – the organization founded on the ruins of the Second World War to make the “no more war” reality – risks to be “delegitimized”. That’s something to be avoided, according to Zuppi. “… We are aware that the United Nations is a community of nations. Its every failure represents a weakening of international determination and makes us all losers,” warned Shayk Muhammad bin Abdul Karim al Issa, general secretary of the Muslim World League.

Today, however, multilateralism needs to adapt: “We need a multilateralism that is just and inclusive, with equitable representation and voice for developing countries”, said Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, Undersecretary for Africa in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affaris and Peace operations. “At heart of [UN’s effort to adapt] is the need to engage earlier and proactively, and not to wait react to a crisis after it has escalated”, she added. A multilateralism that does not act only after a conflict breaks out, but that is able to prevent it and to build peace also by supporting “the resilience of local communities”.

The Kairos, the right moment, is now even if there is war in Ukraine and elsewhere because peace must be built even when war is raging. “How to live now?” wonder those who have seen the destruction and the ferocity of an armed conflict, like Olga Makar, who took care of Sant’Egidio school of peace in Ukraine. “This is the question every Ukrainian asks him or herself. In those first days of war, when I felt my life was broken, I found an answer: our houses are destroyed, our cities are in ruins, but our love, our solidarity, our ability to help others, our dreams cannot be destroyed”.

Words that echo in those of Pope Francis: “Let us not be infected by the perverse rationale of war; let us not fall into the trap of hatred for the enemy. Let us once more put peace at the heart of our vision for the future, as the primary goal of our personal, social and political activity at every level. Let us defuse conflicts by the weapon of dialogue”.

IPS UN Bureau

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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton.

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Oct 28 2022 (IPS)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen walks into a diplomatic minefield these days. He supports UN resolutions against Putin but does not want to jeopardize the long-standing friendship with Russia. At the same time, he tries to be less dependent on the West, both economically and politically.

“Right now, Russia has a good understanding with most countries in Southeast Asia. For example, the new Philippine president wants a better relationship with Moscow, we have excellent contacts with Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos, but less with Cambodia.”

Last month, Cambodia backed the United Nations (UN) resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories. Earlier this year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also signed a resolution against the invasion of Ukraine. As a result, the Russian ambassador to Cambodia Anatoly Borovik posted a rather vicious message on Twitter. “It was Moscow that assisted Phnom Penh in the most difficult period in its history”, Borovik wrote to refresh Cambodia’s memory. It is a reference to the long-standing friendship between the two countries.

Turbulent 80s

This friendship goes back to the mid-1950s when Cambodia just gained independence from France and the Soviet Union supported the then king Norodom Sihanouk, who didn’t want to choose sides between the West and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

But Borovik’s tweet refers to the 1980s when the Vietnamese army took control of Cambodia after having ousted Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot from power.

Boycott

The United States had not yet digested the Vietnam War and wanted this Vietnamese occupier to leave. Various Western countries supported this demand. Cambodia urgently needed emergency aid, after the devastation of the Khmer Rouge, but was boycotted. Only a limited number of countries, with the Soviet Union in the lead, tried to get food and medicines to the affected population.

“When I came to Cambodia in 1984, as a reporter for the state news agency TASS, there were also many Russian doctors, technicians, and engineers”, says Russian professor Dmitry Mosyakov about that period. Today he is head of the center for Southeast Asia at the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. “The Soviets were very close to the Cambodians, almost like a family”, Mosyakov recalls.

Prime Minister Hun Sen

One year after Mosyakov’s arrival, in 1985, Cambodia gets a new prime minister: Hun Sen. He is a former Khmer Rouge soldier who later defected and was brought to power by the Vietnamese. Today, 37 years later, he is still in office. He rules the country with an iron fist, has opposition leaders thrown in jail, and manipulates the elections. The United States and the European Union are watching disapprovingly.

That’s why it is striking that the European lobby has been able to convince Hun Sen to support a pro-Western resolution against Russia. “This is because Cambodia is still economically dependent on the American and European markets for export. The prime minister wants to change this in due course, for example, he is currently looking at the Eurasian Economic Union, led by Russia,” says Cambodian journalist Chhengpor Aun. He writes about his country’s foreign policy for ‘Voice of America’ and ‘The Diplomat’, among others.

Ambiguous

To keep the line with Moscow open, Cambodia has only signed UN resolutions with a humanitarian undertone. “For example, Cambodia supported a declaration on the protection of civilians, but abstained when the vote to suspend the rights of Russia in the UN Rights Council was taken”, explains Chhengpor Aun.

Professor Dmitry Mosyakov deplores Cambodia’s ambiguous attitude. “It was good that our ambassador referred to the 1980s and the support Cambodia received back then,” he responds. “Right now, Russia has a good understanding with most countries in Southeast Asia. For example, the new Philippine president wants a better relationship with Moscow, we have excellent contacts with Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos, but less with Cambodia.”

Communism

When ideological ties to communism were severed in the early 1990s, the relations between the two countries cooled down. Russian aid was reduced in a very short time and the West regained influence.

Because of this historical link, some veterans of Hun Sen’s party would rather not support UN resolutions against Putin. “This is nothing more than a sentiment from the past,” says journalist Chhengpor Aun. “In any case, the Prime Minister’s foreign policy is much more pragmatic than his authoritarian domestic policy.”

Coup de theatre

Chhengpor Aun thus refers to a major coup de theatre that awaits Cambodian politics. Hun Sen has announced that he will make his son Hun Manet prime minister next summer, albeit after the national elections. “This will be the last and most important game in Hun Sen’s long career,” Mosyakov says. “I think a lot will change with the son in power, including international relations.”

Evidently, the West disapproves of this undemocratic shift in power, but Hun Sen does not want the EU or the US to interfere in his political plans. Nevertheless, the western countries are at the table during the ASEAN summit, which traditionally takes place in November and which Cambodia is chairing this time.

Between East and West

ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but several major world leaders are also invited to the annual meeting. An American, a European, but also a Chinese, and a Russian delegation is expected in Phnom Penh.

“As the Khmer proverb goes, ‘merl gee, merl aing’, the Prime Minister will have to look closely at the others and at himself, to make sure he doesn’t say anything wrong,” Chhengpor Aun summarises the situation. Hun Sen will need everyone around the table to make his economic and political plans work.

In any case, history seems to be repeating itself. Just like during the Cold War, a small country like Cambodia is suddenly right in the middle between East and West.

A group of young women dance and burn their hijabs during a protest in Iran's Bandar Abbas. Credit: social media

By Arina Moradi
COPENHAGEN, Oct 25 2022 (IPS)

It’s been over a month since Bayan, a 30-year-old Persian language teacher, last left her home in the Kurdish city of Piranshahr, 730 northwest of Tehran. Her parents believe they must protect her from what might happen to a protester in Iran.

Thousands of young women and men have been chanting “Women, Life, Freedom” in the Iranian streets since mid-September. However, there are many more Iranian women nobody has seen so far among the protesters. Like Bayan, many yearn for freedom without being able to leave their family homes

“I told them that I am ready to die now in this fight rather than languish to death in this country,” this woman tells IPS over the phone. Like the rest of those interviewed from the Danish capital and who live inside Iran, she doesn’t want to disclose her identity for fear of reprisals. Her family, she adds, are afraid of detention, torture and especially the possibility of being subject to sexual violence by security forces inside detention centres.

After the tragic death of Mahsa Amini -the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd died in police custody after she was detained in Tehran for “inappropriate attire”-, thousands of young women and men have been chanting “Women, Life, Freedom” in the Iranian streets since mid-September. However, there are many more Iranian women nobody has seen so far among the protesters. Like Bayan, many yearn for freedom without being able to leave their family homes.

It’s doubtless easier for the men. Despite the brutal anti-riot forces’ crackdown, Soran, Bayan’s younger brother, says he has joined almost every protest in the city. His parents have been warning him of the possible consequences too, but they can’t stop him from leaving the house.

“I tried to convince my parents to let my sister join me, but they wouldn’t allow it. So we found a safer way to participate,” the 24-year-old Kurd tells IPS. They have worked together on a list of contacts of many journalists outside of the country.

“My brother goes out to join the protests and also gather news. I contact the journalists from the list to let them know what´s going on here: I send them videos, pictures and the name of those we think have been arrested by security forces,” explains Bayan. “I hope what I do helps somehow.”

Ammunition used by the Iranian secfurioty forces in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province during anti-regime protests. Credit: courtesy

According to the state news agency IRNA, more than 1000 people including journalists have been arrested across Iran, but the actual number is estimated to be much higher.

There has been no official data on the number of detainees in Iran’s recent protests, In its October 18 report, The United Nations warned about “mass arrests of protesters,” including the detention of at least 90 civil rights activists, human rights defenders, lawyers, artists, and journalists.

Iranian journalist Niloofar Hamedi is among those captured. On September 16, Hamedi gained access to Kasra Hospital in Tehran, where Mahsa Amini was being treated following her detention by the morality police. Hamedi would later publish a photo of Amini’s parents hugging and crying in the hospital. The picture quickly spread along with Hamedi’s reporting on Amini’s death, something which eventually spiralled into nationwide protests

In the country’s capital Tehran, Neda, a 38-year-old mother of two also does her bit. Since the very beginning, she has sheltered dozens of protesters who were chased by security forces and needed a place to hide.

“It first happened on the second night of the protests in Tehran. A group of six young women and men were slamming the door asking for help as police were chasing them in the streets. It was before midnight. I opened the door as fast as possible and closed it even faster. The kids woke up and we were all in a panic. I got so emotional that I cried and hugged one of the girls. Some of them cried too. I can’t forget their young innocent faces,” the Iranian woman tells IPS over a phone conversation.

Since that night, Neda is always ready whenever there is a protest in their neighbourhood. She delivers food, water, medicines or whatever is needed by the protesters who hide from the anti-riot forces.

“One night, there was a young boy who was shot in his right leg. I called a friend of mine who is a doctor to treat him at my place. We couldn’t risk taking him to the hospital for security reasons.”

Neda says all she wants is to see the end of the Islamic Republic’s power. “I wish to see my kids growing up in a country where there is respect for women, freedom, and equality. I just want to see the fall of this regime with my own eyes.”

However, she finds it difficult to convince her husband to let her leave the house and join the protesters in the streets.

“Everybody expects a mother of two to stay home with the kids. I feel like I am on fire. I stay at home while these young people risk their lives being in the streets. Sometimes I feel so powerless and guilty,” she admits.

Women in Saqqez, Kurdistan province, holding hands amid anti-regime protests in October 12, 2022. Credit: Courtesy

Behind the slogan

As of October 15, at least 215 people including 27 children have been killed in the protests in Iran, Norway-based group Iran Human Rights reported.

“The reckless state violence which has even targeted children and prisoners, along with the false narratives presented by Islamic Republic officials, make it more crucial than ever for the international community to establish an independent mechanism under the supervision of the UN to investigate and hold the perpetrators of such gross human rights violations accountable,” the organization’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in the report.

On October 17, Amnesty International also called on the UN Human Rights Council to hold a special session on Iran “as a matter of urgency” and urged the Council to establish “an independent mechanism with investigative, reporting and accountability functions to address the most serious crimes under international law and other gross human rights violations committed in Iran.”

Iranian authorities have blamed the west for instigating the unrest. “Who would believe that the death of a girl is so important to Westerners?” the country’s foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian, said on October 15.

Despite the growing crackdown by Iranian security forces, protests keep spreading all across the country thanks to people like 41-year-old Hana. She lives with her husband and their two kids in Bukan, 478 kilometres west of Tehran, in Azerbaijan province. This city of around 200,000 has seen waves of protests and public strikes in the past month. However, she could not join the protesters in the streets.

“I stayed home to take care of the children and my husband went out to protest. He believes that kids need me more than they need him in case of detention, injuries or even death due to the security forces’ brutal crackdown on the protesters,” Hana tells IPS over the phone.

She owns a women’s clothing shop and she has joined all the strikes to show objection to the state. The security forces have broken her shop’s windows and many others in the city as a tactic to force them to end the strike.

“I didn’t give up. It’s the least I could do to contribute to the uprising,” says the Iranian woman. “Women, life, and freedom,” she insists, is much more than a slogan.

“It’s a lifetime goal for most Iranian women who have been suffering all kinds of pressure from their families, from society and, above all, from the state and its anti-women laws.”

Nuclear Test. Credit: United Nations

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Sep 26 2022 (IPS)

A Mexican joke goes: “I kill people for money. But you are my best friend, so I will kill you for nothing.”

This seems to be the dominating thinking of the five permanent members of the so-called Security Council, who, according to their own definition, hold the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

“The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression,” they say, while calling upon parties to a dispute to settle it “by peaceful means.”

Nevertheless, they self-attribute the strange right of launching wars.

“In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorise the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

In 2020, the report estimates that nine countries spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, $27.7 billion of which went to a dozen defence contractors to build nuclear weapons. Those contractors then spent $117 million lobbying policy makers

These five Security Council power monopolists –United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China– are the world’s major possessors of all kinds of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), be them nuclear, biological, or chemical, among others, some of them would be still unknown.

Their power seems unlimited. In fact, no matter if the other 190 plus countries adopt democratic decisions within the UN General Assembly — any one of the world’s five biggest WMD holders can override them through their self-proclaimed “veto” right.

The war cheerleaders

Now that the Western politicians and mainstream media are tirelessly spreading panic about the –real or not– threat that a nuclear war is already looming, the UN General Assembly continues to mark on 26 September each year the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

That said, is there any real chance to achieve such an ambitious goal?

The facts

The following are just some of the key findings:

• Today around 12,705 nuclear weapons remain. Countries possessing such weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernise their nuclear arsenals.

• More than half of the world’s population still lives in countries that either have such weapons or are members of nuclear alliances.

• While the number of deployed nuclear weapons has declined since the height of the Cold War, not one nuclear weapon has been physically destroyed pursuant to a treaty. In addition, no nuclear disarmament negotiations are currently underway.

The MAD doctrine

Meanwhile, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence –known as the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) principle, still persists as an element in the security policies of all possessor states and many of their allies.

This MAD means that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender, with second-strike capabilities, would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.

Despite not being permanent members of the so-called Security Council, there are four more nuclear armed States: India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

The nine of them continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals and although the total number of nuclear weapons declined slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, the number will probably increase in the next decade.

Such a Mutual Assured Destruction simply means that any of the big nuclear powers –or all of them– would be able to kill the whole world, not only their arbitrarily-declared “enemies” but also their best “allies” (read friends).

The false promise

The above data comes from the prestigious global peace research body, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which on 13 June 2022 launched the findings of its Yearbook 2022.

According to SIPRI, Russia and the USA together possess over 90% of all nuclear weapons. Of the total inventory of an estimated 12.705 warheads at the start of 2022, about 9.440 were in military stockpiles for potential use.

Nukes on “high operational alert”

Of those, an estimated 3.732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, and around 2.000—nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the USA—were kept in a state of “high operational alert,” according to SIPRI’s 2022 Yearbook Global nuclear arsenals are expected to grow as states continue to modernise.

“These [nuclear] weapons offer false promises of security and deterrence – while guaranteeing only destruction, death, and endless brinkmanship,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on 20 June 2022.

The big frustration

Frustration has been growing amongst UN Member States regarding what is perceived as the slow pace of nuclear disarmament, warns the UN on the occasion of this year’s International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

“This frustration has been put into sharper focus with growing concerns about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of even a single nuclear weapon, let alone a regional or global nuclear war.”

Who profits from mass destruction?

The 2017 Nobel Peace Laureate: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), is a coalition of non-governmental organisations promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nations nuclear weapon ban treaty.

Its report: “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” unveils one year of the cycle of spending on nuclear weapons from countries to defence contractors to lobbyists and think tanks and back again.

“In 2020, the report estimates that nine countries spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, $27.7 billion of which went to a dozen defence contractors to build nuclear weapons.”

Those contractors then spent $117 million lobbying policy makers and up to $10 million funding think tanks writing about nuclear weapons to ensure they can continue to line their pockets with nuclear weapon contracts for years to come, ICAN reports.

The contractors are all profiled in detail in the Don’t Bank on the Bomb list of nuclear weapon producers.

The International Campaign defines nuclear weapons as “the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in the scale of the devastation they cause, and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they are unlike any other weapons.”

Too many ‘nuclear endorsers’

ICAN also reports on 26 countries (plus the five hosts) who “endorse” the possession and use of nuclear weapons by allowing the potential use of nuclear weapons on their behalf as part of defence alliances, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

These “nuclear endorsers” are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey.

By the way: in the aftermath of World War II, the United States warned China that they had enough nukes to destroy the whole world… up to four times. China responded that it had enough nuclear weapons to do so… only once.

Now that the number of nuclear weapons has since then notably increased and that they are technologically modernised, does anybody know how many times the war lords can now destroy the world?

By Stefan Löfven
STOCKHOLM, Sep 21 2022 (IPS)

As world leaders gather in New York for the opening of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly this week, the security horizon is undoubtedly dark.

From the geopolitical shockwaves of the war in Ukraine, to military spending, nutrition and food security, to our stewardship of the planet, far too many key indicators are heading in a dangerous direction.

We can, and must, turn them around. In the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his 2021 report Our Common Agenda, ‘the choices we make, or fail to make, today could result in further breakdown, or a breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future’.

Making the right choices requires political will and leadership, based on the best available knowledge. That last aspect is SIPRI’s stock in trade.

A ‘watershed moment’

The theme for the 77th General Assembly session is ‘A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges’.

Evidence of these interlocking challenges is everywhere: the floods in Pakistan, war and insecurity afflicting every region of the world, the erosion of arms control and stagnation in disarmament, rising hunger, the economic and political turmoil that has followed the Covid-19 pandemic, and the list goes on.

These interlocking challenges share some common features. Their consequences, and often their drivers, do not respect borders or alliances. They are characterized by uncertainty and volatility. They tend to cut across traditional policy domains.

This has a clear implication: the only realistic path towards a ‘greener, better, safer future’ on this planet lies through cooperation. Countries, societies and sectors must work together to meet global challenges, put aside tensions and political polarization, and restore their faith in institutions and the rules-based international order.

Earlier this year, Secretary-General Guterres invited me to become co-Chair of his High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, alongside Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Liberia.

The Advisory Board’s task is to come up with concrete suggestions for how to improve cooperation at the multilateral level, how we can ensure it is fit to meet the challenges of an unpredictable future and the urgently needed transition to more sustainable, peaceful societies. To accomplish this mission, we will rely heavily on science and expertise.

Addressing the crisis of the biosphere

SIPRI’s Environment of Peace report explores the most dangerous sets of interlocking challenges we face: the complex and unpredictable ways that climate change and other environmental crises are intertwining with more human-centred aspects of security.

Besides providing policy insights, the Environment of Peace report documents the indirect pathways linking climate change impacts and insecurity, and the interactions between climate, conflict and food security, thus continuing SIPRI’s contributions to working out how UN peace operations must adapt to climate change.

The biosphere crisis can only be successfully addressed through cooperation. Countries need to share green technologies and innovative solutions.

They need to agree on fair ways to share vital natural resources and settle disputes peacefully. There must be give and take; action in one society to mitigate impacts on another.

Countries also need to agree on fair ways to distribute the burdens, costs and benefits of a green transition. From South Asia to sub-Saharan Africa to Indigenous communities around the world, those most vulnerable to the impacts of the crisis of the biosphere are often those least responsible for causing it—something illustrated starkly most recently by the devastating floods in Pakistan.

There is a clear moral case for wealthier, industrialized countries to meet their climate finance commitments and to compensate the most affected countries for loss and damage. But there is also a strong security case for doing so. Localized insecurity can quickly spread.

From national security to common security

A logical response to such threats to their shared interests would be for countries to put differences aside and pull together. Instead, they have, by and large, followed a path of division and militarization.

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year, that was clear. SIPRI data shows large increases in global military expenditure in the last two years, as well as in arms imports to Europe, East Asia and Oceania.
All of the nuclear-armed states are modernizing or expanding their arsenals.

At the same time, we are also seeing rapid and radical developments in weapon systems, technologies and even ways of executing a conflict.
A new, expensive and risky arms race is well under way. There is an urgent need to breathe new life into nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control.

Disappointingly, the recent 10th Review Conference of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) ended without agreement on the way forward. However, there were signs of hope.

The conference produced much to build on in the next five-year review cycle. Notably, all of the five NPT-recognized nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) agree on the necessity of measures to reduce strategic risks.

These will be important steps. However, what is needed most of all is a shift away from the pursuit of security through military capability to investing in peace and common security. Once again, cooperation will be key.

How evidence underpins cooperation

Successful cooperation needs to be underpinned by reliable, non-partisan information and analysis. As Secretary-General Guterres declares in Our Common Agenda: ‘Now is the time to end the “infodemic” plaguing our world by defending a common, empirically backed consensus around facts, science and knowledge.’

The Secretary-General correctly characterizes ‘facts, science and knowledge’ as a public good that it is in everyone’s interest to protect. They provide valuable common ground for discussion—even when trust between the parties is lacking.

They inform effective solutions. They make it possible to verify that others are following rules and living up to commitments. They give early warning of emerging challenges and imminent dangers.

The Environment of Peace report highlights the fact that risks and uncertainty lie not just in the external challenges we face, but also in the actions taken to address them in the transition towards sustainability.

This transition needs to happen at unprecedented scale and speed, using novel solutions in an environment of uncertainty. There will inevitably be setbacks, unintended, unanticipated consequences of well-intentioned policies.

There will also be resistance, parties who need convincing that the costs justify the benefits.
To keep the transition just and peaceful will demand communication, cooperation, trust and agility to deal with unexpected risks and change course quickly to avert them.

For this, we will need to produce and disseminate even more reliable and verified information. SIPRI will continue to be a resource in this regard.

Opportunities for change

The UN General Assembly has a highly ambitious agenda for transformative change. The landmark Summit of the Future, scheduled for September 2024, has been billed as ‘the moment to agree on concrete solutions to challenges that have emerged or grown since 2015’.

The COP27—the 27th Conference of the Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—coming in November, and the much-postponed 15th Conference of the Parties of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity in December are other important opportunities to reduce future security risks at the multilateral level.

However important intergovernmental forums like this are, the task of tackling our interconnected challenges is continuous and society-wide. Solutions need to come at the multilateral, national and subnational levels.

And they need to engage a broad range of stakeholders, from youth to Indigenous Peoples to the private sector. Reliable information and expertise must be available to guide all of this.

I am both proud and daunted to be picking up the mantle of Chair of the SIPRI Governing Board as we confront these difficult challenges ahead.

SIPRI’s core mission as a source of freely available, reliable evidence, fair-minded analysis and balanced assessment of options, as a convenor of dialogues, and as a provider of support to the formulation and implementation of international agreements and instruments remains as important as ever.

Stefan Löfven (Sweden) is Chair of the Governing Board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

IPS UN Bureau

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An Afghan girl in the Nawabad District of Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammad Haya Burhan

By John Sifton
NEW YORK, Sep 8 2022 (IPS)

This week, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, released his first report. It is a catalog of abuses under Taliban rule since August 2021 and their devastating impact on Afghans.

The report also highlights the devastating humanitarian impact of the country’s economic crisis, caused in part by actions by foreign governments, noting that “all parties bear degrees of responsibility for failures to deliver economic and social rights.”

The report describes “staggering regression in women and girls’ enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.” It notes that “in no other country have women and girls so rapidly disappeared from all spheres of public life,” echoing a recent statement by UN experts describing “wide-spread, systematic and all-encompassing” attacks on the rights of women and girls.

The report also details Taliban abuses against officials from the former government, journalists, and religious minorities, among other rights concerns.

As someone who worked in Afghanistan before the first Taliban government fell in 2001, I have witnessed Taliban oppression firsthand. The report’s details are distressingly familiar.

Under the Taliban, the rule of law has no meaning. It isn’t even clear what “the law” is. Since last year, when the Taliban revoked the country’s constitution and stated that all laws needed to comply with Sharia, or Islamic law, it hasn’t been clear which laws and regulations are in force or how crimes are to be handled.

Instead, there are only “evolving and arbitrarily interpreted rules and decrees,” according to the UN report, and legal cases “are handled idiosyncratically across jurisdictions and venues,” while basic crimes are “often dealt with by security forces without involving prosecutors or judges.”

In short, “the law” is whatever a Taliban official might say it is. A situation more threatening to human rights is hard to imagine.

The Taliban authorities should take the report’s recommendations seriously. Most urgently, they should rescind abusive policies that violate the rights of women and girls, protect religious minorities, and engage with the special rapporteur and other UN offices to develop reforms.

The UN Human Rights Council is due to discuss the findings of the report later this month. States should take this opportunity to renew the mandate of the special rapporteur and to establish a new body that will investigate abuses and advance accountability.

Afghans are entitled to better than what the Taliban have given them: A life with few freedoms, no real justice, and where half the population is shut out of education and work.

John Sifton is the Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch. He has previously served as a researcher and as Acting Deputy Washington Director. He focuses on South and Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and terrorism and counter-terrorism issues worldwide.

IPS UN Bureau

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As you know, after four years as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, my mandate ends next week, on 31 August.

The world has changed fundamentally over the course of my mandate.

Michelle Bachelet

Polarization within and among States has reached extraordinary levels and multilateralism is under pressure.

Important protest movements occurred in every region of the world demanding an end to structural racism, respect for economic and social rights, and against corruption, governance deficits and abuse of power – in many instances accompanied by violence, threats and attacks against protesters and human rights defenders, and at some times against journalists.

Some led to real change in the country. In other cases, rather than listening to the voices of the people, governments responded by shrinking the space for debate and dissent.

Over the past few months – once the COVID situation allowed me to resume official country visits – I have been to Burkina Faso, Niger, Afghanistan, China, Bosnia, Peru and Bangladesh. I have been able to see first-hand the impact of climate change, armed conflict, the food-fuel-finance crisis, hateful rhetoric, systematic discrimination, and the human rights challenges around migration, among other issues.

The UN Human Rights Office has worked, in a myriad of ways, to help monitor, engage and advocate for the protection and promotion of human rights. As I have said before, at the UN, dialogue, engagement, cooperation, monitoring, reporting and public advocacy must all be part of our DNA.

We have worked to try to help bridge the gap between government and civil society, to support national implementation of human rights obligations and advise on reforms to bring laws and policies into compliance with international standards, to expand our presences in-country so we are a in a better position to work closely with the people on the ground. We have spoken out in private and public on country-specific and broader issues. And we have seen some progress.

The recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the UN General Assembly last month marked the culmination of many years of advocacy by civil society. I am proud of my Office’s support and strong backing of this movement throughout the course of my mandate.

The extreme weather events of the past few months have again driven home, powerfully, the existential need for urgent action to protect our planet for current and future generations. Meeting this need is the greatest human rights challenge of this era – and all States have an obligation to work together on this, and to walk the talk, to fully implement the right to a healthy environment.

The response to the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss must be centred in human rights, including the rights to participation, access to information and justice, and by addressing the disproportionate impact of environmental harms on the most marginalized and disadvantaged.

There has also been steady progress towards abolition of the death penalty – some 170 States have abolished or introduced a moratorium, in law or in practice, or suspended executions for more than 10 years. The Central African Republic, Chad, Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea are among those who have taken steps to fully abolish the death penalty.

Other States, including Liberia and Zambia are also actively considering abolition. Malaysia announced that it will abolish the country’s mandatory death penalty, including for drug related offences. As of today, 90 States have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the key international treaty prohibiting the use of the death penalty.

Concerns remain, however, about the increased use or resumption of capital punishment in other countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Singapore, and others like China and Viet Nam continue to classify data on its use as a state secret, limiting the possibility of scrutiny.

I have – from the beginning of my mandate – pushed for greater recognition of the indivisibility and interdependence of economic, social and cultural rights with civil and political rights. The effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought into stark focus this interdependence.

States must draw lessons from the pandemic and the current food-fuel-finance crisis by designing long-term measures to build better and stronger universal public health and social protection systems.

Social protection coverage must facilitate access to health care, protect people against poverty and ensure essential economic and social rights, including food, water, housing, health and education. I also call on States to adopt proactive measures, including food, agriculture and fuel subsidies, to mitigate the impact of the crises.

All of this needs to be designed with people as part of the solution, through investment in inclusive, safe and meaningful channels for debate and participation at all levels.

Governing is tough – I know because I have twice been President of my country, Chile. There are always many pressing demands, challenges and problems to address. But governing is about prioritizing – and human rights must always be a priority. In many situations my Office has been covering, there is a lack of political will to take the necessary steps to really tackle a situation head on. Political will is key – and where there is a will, there is a way.

States often invoke their own particular context when faced with allegations of human rights violations and when called upon to take steps to address them. Context is indeed important – but context must never be used to justify human rights violations.

In many instances, sustained advocacy on key human rights issues, grounded in international human rights laws and standards, bears fruit. In Colombia this month, the incoming administration has pledged a shift in its approach on drug policy – from a punitive to a more social and public health approach.

By addressing one of the deep-rooted causes of violence in Colombia, this approach could be instrumental to better protect the rights of peasants, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and of people who use drugs, both in Colombia and globally.

My Office has been advocating – globally – for a human rights-based approach on drug policy, and is ready to assist.

The worldwide mobilization of people for racial justice, notably in 2020, has forced a long-delayed reckoning with racial discrimination and shifted debates towards a focus on systemic racism and the institutions that perpetrate it.

I call on all States to seize this moment to achieve a turning point for racial equality and justice. My Office is working on its second report to the UN Human Rights Council on this issue, to be presented next month.

I have always sought – even on the most challenging issues – to encourage dialogue, to open the door for further exchanges. This means listening as well as speaking, keeping our eyes and ears to the context, identifying entry points and roadblocks, and trying to build trust incrementally, even when it seems unlikely.

During my four years as High Commissioner, I had the privilege of speaking to so many courageous, spirited, extraordinary human rights defenders:

The brave, indomitable women human rights defenders in Afghanistan;

The determined mothers of the disappeared in Mexico;

The inspirational staff working at a health centre in Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, serving victims of sexual violence;

The wisdom and strength of indigenous peoples in Peru, who are on the frontlines of the impact of climate change, illegal mining and logging, and defend their rights in the face of serious risks;

And the empathy and generosity of communities hosting internally displaced people in Burkina Faso.

I found allies in traditional village leaders in Niger, who were working in their own ways to advance human rights in their communities; I met young people from Malaysia, Sweden, Australia, Costa Rica and elsewhere whose resourcefulness, creativity and ambition was palpable;

I shared the pain of the father in Venezuela who showed me the sports medals his teenage son had won, before he was killed during protests in 2017;

And I shared the tears of the mother I met in Srebrenica who carried hope that 27 years after her son disappeared, she will one day find his remains and lay him to rest next to his father’s grave.

Last week, I spoke with Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.

One teacher I met told me he had earned distinctions in all his classes at school in Myanmar and had dreamed of being a doctor. Instead, he has spent the past five years in a refugee camp, having had to flee his country – because he is Rohingya. “I still cry at night sometimes when I remember my dream,” he told me, adding that “my Buddhist friends are now doctors in Myanmar.”

My own experience as a refugee was much more comfortable, with the means to continue my education and with a good standard of living – but the yearning for one’s homeland, the desire of so many of the Rohingya to return home resonated deeply with me. Sadly, the conditions needed for them to be able to return to their homes in a voluntary, dignified and sustainable way are not there yet.

Today marks five years since more than 700,000 Rohingya women, children and men were forced to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh – and Myanmar’s human rights catastrophe continues to worsen, with the military (the Tatmadaw) maintaining military operations in Kayah and Kayin in the southeast; Chin state in the northwest; and Sagaing and Magway regions in the Bamar heartland.

The use of air power and artillery against villages and residential areas has intensified. Recent spikes in violence in Rakhine State also seemed to indicate that the last fairly stable area of the country may not avoid a resurgence of armed conflict. Rohingya communities have frequently been caught between the Tatmadaw and Arakan Army fighters or have been targeted directly in operations. Over 14 million need humanitarian assistance.

We continue to document gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law on a daily basis, including repression against protesters and attacks against civilians that may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

I urge the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of Myanmar, to insist on prompt restoration of civilian rule, and accountability for violations committed by security forces.

Yesterday marked six months since Russia’s armed attack. Six unimaginably terrifying months for the people of Ukraine, 6.8 million of whom have had to flee their country. Millions of others have been internally displaced. We have documented at least 5,587 civilians killed and 7,890 injured. Of these casualties, nearly 1,000 are children.

Six months on, the fighting continues, amid almost unthinkable risks posed to civilians and the environment as hostilities are conducted close to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

I call on the Russian President to halt armed attack against Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia plant needs to be immediately demilitarized.

Both parties must respect, at all times and in all circumstances, international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The international community must insist on accountability for the many serious violations documented, some of which may amount to war crimes.

I am alarmed by the resumption of hostilities in northern Ethiopia. Civilians have suffered enough – and this will only exacerbate the suffering of civilians already in desperate need. I implore the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to work to de-escalate the situation and immediately cease hostilities.

I also urge a renewed focus by the international community on protracted – often forgotten – crises including the situation in Yemen, Syria, the Sahel and Haiti.

And I urge continued support for the UN Human Rights Office, the UN human rights treaty bodies, and the UN Special Procedures mechanism, all of which work tirelessly in defence of international human rights laws and standards.

The journey to defend human rights never ends – and vigilance against roll-backs of rights is vital. I honour all those who, in their own ways, are working to defend human rights. As a woman and a lifelong feminist, I want to pay particular tribute to women human rights defenders, who have been at the forefront of social movements that have benefitted all of us. They have often been the ones bringing to the table the unheard voices of the most vulnerable. I will continue to stand with you as I return home to Chile.

To end, I would like to thank you journalists, based here in Geneva and across the globe, for the indispensable work that you do. When we in the UN Human Rights Office raise the alarm, it is crucial that it rings loudly, and this is only possible when the world’s media gets the stories out there.

Michelle Bachelet is the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This article is based on her address to reporters on August 25. She was elected President of Chile on two occasions (2006 – 2010 and 2014 – 2018). She was the first female president of Chile and served as Health Minister (2000-2002) as well as Chile’s and Latin America’s first female Defense Minister (2002 – 2004).

IPS UN Bureau

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By External Source
Aug 24 2022 (IPS-Partners)

About the Podcast

Regarded as one of the modern world’s icons of diplomacy, what is Kofi Annan’s legacy today? What can we learn from him, and how can we prepare for tomorrow, based on his vision for a better world?

In this exclusive 10-part podcast, Ahmad Fawzi, one of Kofi Annan’s former spokespersons and communication Advisor, will examine how Kofi Annan tackled a specific crisis and its relevance to today’s world and challenges.

Kofi Annan’s call to bring all stakeholders around the table — including the private sector, local authorities, civil society organisations, academia, and scientists — resonates now more than ever with so many, who understand that governments alone cannot shape our future.

Join us on a journey of discovery as Ahmad Fawzi interviews some of Kofi Annan’s closest advisors and colleagues including Dr Peter Piot, Christiane Amanpour, Mark Malloch-Brown, Michael Møller and more.

Listen and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud

Brought to you by the Kofi Annan Foundation and the United Nations Information Service.

 

Kofi Time: The Official Trailer

Join us as we take a journey of discovery about Kofi Annan’s leadership style and what makes it so relevant and important today.

Multilateralism: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown | Episode 1

In this episode, Lord Malloch Brown shares insights with podcast host Ahmad Fawzi on how Kofi Annan strengthened the United Nations through careful diplomacy and bold reforms, and how significant advances were made during his tenure as Secretary-General. He comments on the state of multilateralism today, as the organization is buffeted by the crisis in Ukraine and the paralysis of the Security Council.

Making Peace: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Christiane Amanpour | Episode 2

In this episode of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. Together, they discuss a world in turmoil, and what would Kofi Annan – who did so much for peace – do today?

Christiane shares her thoughts on the ‘Kofi Annan way’, the difficult job mediators and peacebuilders face, and the courage they must show. With Ahmad, they deliberate whether there is a type of ‘calling’ for those who work in this field.

Health Crises: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Dr Peter Piot | Episode 3

In this episode of Kofi Time, our special guest is Dr Peter Piot. Dr Piot discusses how he and Kofi Annan worked together to reverse the HIV/AIDs tide that swept through Africa in the 1990s, through patient but bold diplomacy, innovative partnerships and an inclusive approach that brought to the table previously marginalized communities. Dr Piot and podcast host Ahmad Fawzi discuss whether this approach be replicated today as the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and must prepare for future heath emergencies.

Fighting Hunger: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini | Episode 4

In episode 4 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Catherine Bertini. Ms. Bertini discusses how she worked with Kofi Annan to fight hunger and malnutrition around the world. Not only is access to food far from universal, but it is also severely impacted by conflicts and climate change. As food prices increase and access becomes even more challenging, how can we replicate Kofi Annan’s approach to improving food systems to make sure no one gets lefts behind on the path to food security globally?

Leadership: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Michael Møller | Episode 5

In episode 5 of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews diplomat Michael Møller on Kofi Annan’s special kind of leadership. A respected leader among his peers and the public, Kofi Annan served the people of the world with courage, vision and empathy. Embodying moral steadfastness and an acute political acumen, his leadership was one of a kind. What drove him, and how can we emulate his leadership style to face today’s global challenges?

Human Rights: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Zeid Raad Al Hussein | Episode 6

In episode 6 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Zeid Raad Al Hussein. Zeid discusses his friendship with Kofi Annan and how they worked together to protect human dignity and promote human rights. Through the creation of the Human Rights Council and International Criminal Court, Kofi Annan played a critical role in establishing the mechanisms that we have today to protect human rights and fight impunity. How can we uphold Kofi Annan’s legacy and ensure that respect for human rights is not just an abstract concept but a reality?

Podcast Host & Guests

Ahmad Fawzi Kofi

Time Podcast Host

Mr Fawzi is the former head of News and Media at the United Nations. He worked closely with Kofi Annan both during his time as Secretary-General and afterwards, on crises including Iraq and Syria. Before joining the United Nations, he worked for many years in broadcast journalism, as a news editor, reporter and regional news operations manager. From 1991 to 1992, he was the News Operations Manager for the Americas for Visnews — now Reuters Television. Also with Reuters Television, Mr Fawzi served as Regional News Manager for Eastern Europe, based in Prague, from 1989 to 1991 — a time of tumultuous political change in that region. Concurrently with his assignment in Prague, he coordinated coverage of the Gulf war, managing the war desk in Riyadh, as well as the production centre in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. In 1989, Mr Fawzi was Reuters Television Bureau Chief for the Middle East, based in Cairo. Prior to that, he worked in London as News and Assignments Editor for Reuters Television. Previously, he was Editor and Anchor for the nightly news on Egyptian Television.

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown

Episode 1 Guest

Mark Malloch‐Brown is the president of the Open Society Foundations. He has worked in various senior positions in government and international organizations for more than four decades to advance development, human rights and justice. He was UN Deputy Secretary‐General and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. He previously Co-Chaired the UN Foundation Board. Malloch-Brown has worked to advance human rights and justice through working in international affairs for more than four decades. He was UN deputy secretary‐general and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. Before this, he was administrator of the UNDP, where he led global development efforts. He covered Africa and Asia as minister of state in the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Other positions have included World Bank vice president, lead international partner in a political consulting firm, vice-chair of the World Economic Forum, and senior advisor at Eurasia Group. He began his career as a journalist at the Economist and as an international refugee worker. He was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. Malloch-Brown is a Distinguished Practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, an adjunct fellow at Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth Program, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Christiane Amanpour

Episode 2 Guest

Christiane Amanpour is a renowned journalist, whose illustrious career has taken her from CNN where she was Chief international correspondent for many years, to ABC as a Global Affairs Anchor, PBS and back to CNN International for the global affairs interview program named after her. She has received countless prestigious awards, including four Peabody Awards, for her international reporting and her achievements in broadcast journalism. She served as a member of the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of Expression and Journalist Safety. She is also an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2007 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

Dr Peter Piot

Episode 3 Guest

Dr Peter Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. He has led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and women’s health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter Piot was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008. Under his leadership, UNAIDS has become the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS. It has brought together ten organizations of the United Nations system around a common agenda on AIDS, spearheading UN reform Peter Piot was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College; London and he held the 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” Chair at the College de France in Paris. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Catherine Bertini

Episode 4 Guest

An accomplished leader in food security, international organization reform and a powerful advocate for women and girls, Catherine Bertini has had a distinguished career improving the efficiency and operations of organizations serving poor and hungry people in the United States and around the world. She has highlighted and supported the roles of women and girls in influencing change. She was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate for her transformational leadership at the World Food Programme (WFP), which she led for ten years, and for the positive impact she had on the lives of women. While in the US government, she expanded the electronic benefit transfer options for food stamp beneficiaries, created the food package for breastfeeding mothers, presented the first effort to picture healthy diets, and expanded education and training opportunities for poor women. As a United Nations Under-Secretary-General, and at the head of the World Food Programme for ten years (1992 to 2002), she led UN humanitarian missions to the Horn of Africa and to Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. During her time serving with WFP, Catherine Bertini was responsible for the leadership and management of emergency, refugee, and development food aid operations, reaching people in great need in over 100 countries, as well as advocacy campaigns to end hunger and to raise financial resources. With her World Food Prize, she created the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education to support programs to increase opportunities for girls and women to attend school. At the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where she is now professor emeritus, she taught graduate courses in humanitarian action, post-conflict reconstruction, girls’ education, UN management, food security, international organizations, and leadership. She served as a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation early in its new agricultural development program. Bertini is now the chair of the board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Concurrently, she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She has been named a Champion of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. She is a professor emeritus at Syracuse University.

Michael Møller

Episode 5 Guest

Mr Møller has over 40 years of experience as an international civil servant in the United Nations. He began his career in 1979 with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and worked for the United Nations in different capacities in New York, Mexico, Iran, Haiti, Cyprus and Geneva. He worked very closely with Kofi Annan as Director for Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary-General between 2001 and 2006, while serving concurrently as Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General for the last two years of that period. Mr Møller also served as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Cyprus from 2006 to 2008 and was the Executive Director of the Kofi Annan Foundation from 2008 to 2011. From 2013 to 2019, Mr Møller served as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva as well as Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Conference of Disarmament. He currently is Chairman of the Diplomacy Forum of Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. A Danish citizen, Mr Møller earned a Master’s degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom.

Zeid Raad Al Hussein

Episode 6 Guest

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein is IPI’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Zeid served as the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018 after a long career as a Jordanian diplomat, including as his country’s Permanent Representative to the UN (2000-2007 & 2010-2014) and Ambassador to the United States (2007-2010). He served on the UN Security Council, was a configuration chair for the UN Peace-Building Commission, and began his career as a UN Peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia. Zeid has also represented his country twice before the International Court of Justice, served as the President of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court from 2002-2005, and in 2005, authored the first comprehensive strategy for the elimination of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Operations while serving as an advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Zeid is also a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working together for peace, justice and human rights, founded by Nelson Mandela. Zeid holds a PhD from Cambridge University and is currently a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

Coral Bell, one of the finest strategic thinks of contemporary times had famously, but somewhat optimistically, advocated that peace-treaties be written without first fighting the wars. Her image of a ‘crisis slide’ saw the process beginning when adversaries are persuaded that there is no way out other than going to war. Thereafter it becomes an inexorable descent to the abyss of a military conflict. This simple but incontrovertible logic was extrapolated from her perception of global politics through the lens of a ‘classical realist’. So, can it be argued that China and the United States are slowly but surely approaching this dangerous watershed point? Rapidly evolving events following Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to Taiwan sadly point to this possibility.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The visit is now over. But the dust from the storm it raised is far from settling down. There is also no telling when that would come about and if at all. The backdrop of the issue is a complex one. China has always claimed Taiwan as a renegade island-province with a destiny of union with the mainland. Now the US had shifted its diplomatic recognition of the Chinese state from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 under the “One China “principle. This generally acknowledges that Taiwan is a part of China. That also initiated an era of cooperation between the two powers, the US and China. China took advantage of the calm in their relations, tweaked its policies of socialism to achieve phenomenal economic and strategic growth and power, now being seen as the rising challenger to the sole hyperpower. Inevitably competition trumped collaboration with frequent verbal hostilities. China believed US was chipping away at the “One China” policy when thrice he stated last year that the US would fight to defend Taiwan if China attacked it, even though, the White House walked back on it. Naturally on all sides, including Taiwan, hawks and doves emerged in the governance system.

Nancy Pelosi was a hawk. An anti-China posture provided a modicum of unity across the aisle, a rarity in current US politics, and naturally as Speaker she relished the opportunity to forge it. Mid-term elections were upcoming, and popular causes were in demand at home or abroad. Besides, Pelosi was 82, an age at which most public figure contemplate leaving behind a heritage. So, despite some wariness from Biden as well as the Pentagon, she chose the option that demonstrated obvious moral, and even physical (as security was also a factor). She plumbed for the visit. When China warned retaliation, many on the US side publicly thought it was a bluff worth being called. Thus, China saw itself placed in a situation where it was damned if it reacted and damned if it didn’t. It was a textbook ‘crisis slide’ situation as imagined by Coral Bell.

So, China reacted, and how! It reacted in three ways. First against Taiwan. Almost immediately it launched massive unprecedented live -fire military drill, for the first time, flying ordnance cross Taiwan. The manoeuvres included large number of warships, fighter jets and bombers, also featuring latest military hardware, including J-20 stealth fighters, and DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missiles. The exercises, some of which continue at writing, were conducted from six zones, encircling the entirely island, simulating a blockade in a possible future invasion of the island. The Chinese operated across the ‘median line’ along the Taiwan straits, which earlier they had respected, if not in theory, at least in practice, breaking an unofficially accepted taboo. On the economic and commercial side China stopped export of sand for construction and import of some kind fruits and fishes, said to be mainly from the constituency of the Taiwanese President, Tsai ling-wen, who is reputed to be pro-independence.

More significant perhaps for the world were the second set of measures directed against the US. China suspended all talks on crucial issues of climate change, cooperation on drug control, combating transnational crime and repatriation of illegal immigrants. The dialogues and working meetings between military leaders were also scrapped. A consultative mechanism on maritime military security was also ended. These actions are bound to have extremely negative ramifications for peace, security, and stability of the region. For good measure China also slapped stiff personal and targeted sanctions on Pelosi, her travel mates, and their families. Pelosi’s grandson reportedly queried if that would mean his ticktock subscription is ended! The Chinese, using social media, were said to have responded that the implications extended to hundreds of millions of dollars of an investment company that Pelosi’s husband was closely linked with, with huge interests in Hongkong and China. That would be a sobering thought for many! It was now a battle with no holds barred!

As was anticipated, the US felt compelled to be involved in a tit-for-tat retort. The White House declared that the country was set to conduct new “air and maritime transits” in the Taiwan Straits during the coming weeks. It reiterated the oft cited language (which could be indicative if a measured tone) that the US would “continue to fly, sail and operate where international law allows., consistent with our longstanding commitment to freedom of navigation”. So, some of this is bound to happen, and it should surprise no one. Also, the second visit of the US legislators to Taiwan, less than two weeks after Pelosi’s, though low-keyed, was meant to make the point that the Chinese military exercises will not be a deterrent to the US. But the circu8mstances this time round would be different and more dangerous, as the earlier ‘confidence building measures ‘(CBMs) are no longer in place, and any accident could lead to catastrophic consequences.

It is to be noted that in some ways China, too, as its own ‘bureaucratic politics’. President Xi Jinping is set to secure an unprecedented third term in office later this year that could consolidate his power for the entirety of his lifetime. His aim to bring the ‘China Dream’, or Zhao Guomeng, a set of complex prescriptions for ‘national regeneration, is forcing him to tread a path different from the liberal economics of the Deng Xiaoping era. This entails slowing growth to spread its fruits among a wider matrix, a policy that surely would have opposition, however unarticulated within the apparently monolithic Chinese Communist Party. What would be seen in China as Xi’s crowning glory would be the reunification of the mainland and Taiwan. As of now it is thought to be left to “a later generation”. Should Xi perceive a burgeoning tendency on Biden’s part to whittle down the “One China principle”, he may decide to advance the reunification action.

So, can a war be avoided? Can the two major protagonists concerned be prevented for inexorably marching into battle, mainly because they have, by their words and actions, walled off all the pathways leading out of the battlefield? It would be much more than a huge pity if that were to happen. It would help if all parties could better understand the compulsions of the other, including the need to sometimes behave in a manner that is overtly irrational. That would entail an extremely sophisticated analysis of perceptions, and management of missteps under trying circumstances. However, it is to be expected that nations claiming superpower ranking should be capable of that. There is not much else that can be done to make the possibility of war less probable.

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif in the field.

By External Source
NEW YORK, Aug 19 2022 (IPS-Partners)

As we come together to celebrate people helping people on this year’s World Humanitarian Day, we honor the courageous and remarkable humanitarians delivering on the frontlines to help us achieve our goals for peace, universal human rights, and education for all.

It takes a village to raise and support a child in a humanitarian crisis. In our efforts to deliver on the Grand Bargain Agreements, Sustainable Development Goals and global commitments to ensure human rights, Education Cannot Wait is connecting donors, governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, the private sector and local non-profits to provide the world’s most vulnerable children and adolescents with the safety, protection and opportunity of a quality education.

In places like Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen, these frontlines heroes are risking their lives because they believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and because they believe education is our most powerful tool in building a better world.

Today, 222 million children and adolescents worldwide are impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises who require urgent educational support. It will take a global village to reach these children.

As we honour the commitment and sacrifice of the 460 aid workers who were attacked in 2021, and the 140 who tragically lost their lives, we call on the people of the world’s global village to rise up against violence, to rise up against oppression, and to unite in our global actions to deliver on our promises of 222 Million Dreams.

This is our promise for a more peaceful world as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Convention and the United Nations Charter. This is our promise to deliver quality education through local action with global impact for crisis-affected girls and boys left furthest behind.

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Excerpt:

Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: UNAMA/Freshta Dunia

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Aug 19 2022 (IPS)

After the horrendous tragedies of 9/11 in the year 2001, the US intervened in Afghanistan. Promising statements such as “we are going to smoke them [Al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors] out” and “we are after ending terrorism” received warm receptions.

Even the West’s main adversaries, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, endorsed the war against radicalism. Dozens of thousands of soldiers, the most sophisticated military equipment, and billions of US dollars began to inundate Afghanistan to smolder the fanatics out of this country and annihilate barbarism. Afghans assumed that after years of wars and calamities, peace, security, and serenity were at their doorsteps.

In the ensuing twenty years, 3,600 foreign soldiers (2,500 Americans) sacrificed their lives, 34,000 (21,000 Americans) were wounded, and dozens of thousands were traumatized. Furthermore, about 70,000 Afghan soldiers, 47,000 civilians, and 53,000 Taliban militants perished. Though the number of wounded and traumatized Afghans cannot be precisely evaluated, the sequels of war affected the entire population.

However, in August 2021, the US and its allies evacuated Afghanistan hastily, handing it over to those they had to “smoke out,” shattering the hopes of respect for human rights, democracy, good governance, progress, and trust in a promising future.

Not only Afghans but the world is now holding its breath as the Taliban are considered unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous. What instigated the “submission of the West” would be arduous to comprehend at this stage as intervening states retain crucial information for concealment necessities. However, there is an absolute need to understand and draw lessons based on the available evidence.

Despite noticeable improvements in areas such as women’s emancipation in main cities and freedom of expression, many aspects of the West’s intervention and actions between 2001 and 2021 in Afghanistan did not fulfill the objectives. A detailed analysis would not fit the scope of this article. However, the following flaws were indisputable:

A – The Bonn Deal in December 2001

The “Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan” ignored decades of transformation in the country. It did not address the root causes of repeated crises. The assumption that only “like in the past two and half centuries, only Pashtun leaders can govern this country” was erroneous.

In particular, the resistance against the Soviet Union and communist regimes, the Mujahidin tragic era, and the first Taliban rule had generated new realities. Other ethnic groups had significantly gained political, military, and social apprehensions.

In addition, the euphoria of “kicking out the terrorists and their protectors” was such that not only the so-called “legitimate government,” recognized by the International Community since 1992, was sidelined, but the idea of incorporating a few elements of the Taliban, known to the US and its allies, to the negotiating table was disregarded.

At least, it would have split the extremist movement from the onset of the West intervention. As a result, the “broad-based government” was senseless for reconstructing a war-torn country and seemed nothing but a reward to former warlords, Western loyalists, and political traders.

Nepotism, tribalism, rampant corruption, dilettantism, loyalty to foreign interests, and many other flagrant handicaps promptly affected central and provincial governance systems.

B – Afghan Leadership

The pick, by the US, of the Head of Provisional Authority, who then became the Chairman of the Transitional Administration and twice President of the country (2001 – 2014), astonished many. He and his successor (2014 to 2021) were not recognized for any significant contribution against terrorism or political and management skills.

Therefore, the lack of clear strategies to build a nation and forge a promising future marred their administrations. Senior executives and politicians of the country felt “fuehrer” and untouchable, granting all privileges and rights to themselves and little or nothing to the people.

The creation of the General Independent Administration for Anti-Corruption in 2004 was a significant failure; the first head had to resign, and the second was a convicted drug dealer in the US. Its replacement in 2008 by the High Office for the Oversight and Anti-Corruption did not prove helpful as the same “senior officials and staff” remained in place.

Those who wished to prosecute corrupt individuals, including the President’s family members and close allies, were instantly dismissed. Others against whom rock-solid proof of misdeeds existed were shielded.

Efforts by the second President and his Chief Executive as of 2014 did not curb the swindle! The 18 “anti-corruption” organs, headed by their underhand devotees, lacked coordination, and business as usual persisted.

The ousted Taliban began to regroup in Pakistan at the beginning of 2002, strengthen their ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations further, and commit suicide attacks within Afghanistan on military structures and crowded public areas. Many were convinced of the complicity of senior government officials.

C – The US and its Allies

The enthusiasm for “smoking out” Al-Qaeda and their protectors from Afghanistan and “ending terrorism” did not last long in Western capitals. Already as of 2003, they were cognizant of cronyism, kleptocracy, and other appalling realities in the country.

Instead of providing immediate remedies by compelling the inept leaders to accomplish their duties, they let the situation corrode hoping that “it will improve with time!” The establishment of SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) by the US Congress in January 2008 did not change much. Its reports on mismanagement of resources often went unattended.

The state of affairs became worse in 2009 due to election rigging. The silence of the West was a tacit endorsement of the misdeed. Suggestions to opt for a transitional government composed of competent, honest, unbiased, and ethically-bound young individuals, from within the country, were ignored under the pretext that it would be contrary to the constitutional order. However, the election fraud in 2014 was such that the US opted to put aside the constitution. A government based on an unworkable political agreement was founded.

Despite its promising nature, the hurdle relied on the fact that there was no change in the people who run State affairs. The US and its closest allies closed their eyes and ears to the widespread malfunctions, including in the security apparatuses. Such a situation permitted the Taliban to grow in strength, grab more territory, and finally take over the government on 15 August 2021.

D – Other Most Concerned Countries

The Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran monitored the failure of Western intervention in Afghanistan from its onset. It is fair to say that they rejoiced in the “defeat of the US.” Pakistan maneuvered to manage Afghanistan through the Taliban.

They had learned from the failure of their first attempt (1996-2001) and had conveniently prepared the new generation of Islamic clerics. India and Central Asian countries earnestly endeavored for a peaceful Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia had an ambiguous policy.

While it was part of the International Coalition to fight terrorism, the espousal of Saudi nationals to extremist movements in Afghanistan was undeniable, a fact that the government in Riyadh could have prevented.

E – The United Nations (UN)

The UN’s role seemed the most questionable. Victims of decades of imposed tragedies, the Afghan people expected this organization to stand for them. Unfortunately, it miserably failed to do so. Instead, the UN bogged down in rubber-stamping the desires of the strongest.

In Bonn, it did not push for addressing the root causes of decades of conflict to “save succeeding generations [of Afghans] from the scourge of war,” as its Charter stipulates and endorsed the irremediable provisional agreement. Then, it became the ratifying organ of repeated rigged elections, depriving Afghans of their fundamental rights.

The accusation of Taliban activists benefitting from the “return of refugees” program to settle in the northern provinces of Afghanistan surfaced in some circles. In addition, it assumed the prime role in managing multi-lateral aid to the Afghan people, amounting to hundreds of billion US dollars.

There are accounts of endemic mismanagement, corruption, and inefficiency. However, the UN has not investigated its actions. This is a serious blow to its image and leadership, providing further elements for skeptical to consider it a redundant and unaccountable organization.

F – The Syndrome of Easy Money

Experts believe that the availability of “easy and extirpated money” provided at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, which began on 7 October 2001, laid down the foundation of corruption and the future demise of the republic. A few who then became the bigwigs of the regimes profited immensely from its flow.

Most scholars trusted that the West, led by the US, would implement an answerable government model that functioned in their societies. Subsequently, the public pressure on the leaders to use international sympathy and unlimited support in addressing the root causes of the conflicts, building a solid nation based on a new framework suitable to all ethnic groups, and developing appropriate confidence-building measures was weak!

The fact that hundreds of billions of US dollars per year will have an end did not figure in many assumptions. Despite democratic avenues, most remained “infirm” on their leaders’ rampant corruption, nepotism, tribalism, and inefficiency.

With the above in mind, there was no chance for the republic to sustain itself in Afghanistan. The Taliban rule the country again. The question is could they keep it?

Saber Azam is a former official of the United Nations and author of Soraya: The Other Princess, Hell’s Mouth: A Journey to the Heart of West African jungles, and numerous political and scientific articles [https://www.saberazam.com].

IPS UN Bureau

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Women receive food rations at a food distribution site in Herat, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Sayed Bidel

By Sima Bahous
NEW YORK, Aug 15 2022 (IPS)

In the year that has passed since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan we have seen daily and continuous deterioration in the situation of Afghan women and girls. This has spanned every aspect of their human rights, from living standards to social and political status.

It has been a year of increasing disrespect for their right to live free and equal lives, denying them opportunity to livelihoods, access to health care and education, and escape from situations of violence.

The Taliban’s meticulously constructed policies of inequality set Afghanistan apart. It is the only country in the world where girls are banned from going to high school. There are no women in the Taliban’s cabinet, no Ministry of Women’s Affairs, thereby effectively removing women’s right to political participation.

Women are, for the most part, also restricted from working outside the home, and are required to cover their faces in public and to have a male chaperone when they travel. Furthermore, they continue to be subjected to multiple forms of Gender Based Violence.

This deliberate slew of measures of discrimination against Afghanistan’s women and girls is also a terrible act of self-sabotage for a country experiencing huge challenges including from climate-related and natural disasters to exposure to global economic headwinds that leave some 25 million Afghan people in poverty and many hungry.

The exclusion of women from all aspects of life robs the people of Afghanistan of half their talent and energies. It prevents women from leading efforts to build resilient communities and shrinks Afghanistan’s ability to recover from crisis.

There is a clear lesson from humanity’s all too extensive experience of crisis. Without the full participation of women and girls in all aspects of public life there is little chance of achieving lasting peace, stability and economic development.

That is why we urge the de facto authorities to open schools for all girls, to remove constraints on women’s employment and their participation in the politics of their nation, and to revoke all decisions and policies that strip women of their rights. We call for ending all forms of violence against women and girls.

We urge the de facto authorities to ensure that women journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society actors enjoy freedom of expression, have access to information and can work freely and independently, without fear of reprisal or attack.

The international community’s support for women’s rights and its investment in women themselves are more important than ever: in services for women, in jobs and women-led businesses, and in women leaders and women’s organizations.

This includes not only support to the provision of humanitarian assistance but also continued and unceasing efforts at the political level to bring about change.

UN Women has remained in country throughout this crisis and will continue to do so. We are steadfast in our support to Afghan women and girls alongside our partners and donors.

We are scaling up the provision of life-saving services for women, by women, to meet overwhelming needs. We are supporting women-led businesses and employment opportunities across all sectors to help lift the country out of poverty.

We are also investing in women-led civil society organizations to support the rebuilding of the women’s movement. As everywhere in the world, civil society is a key driver of progress and accountability on women’s rights and gender equality.

Every day, we advocate for restoring, protecting, and promoting the full spectrum of women’s and girls’ rights. We are also creating spaces for Afghan women themselves to advocate for their right to live free and equal lives.

One year on, with women’s visibility so diminished and rights so severely impacted, it is vital to direct targeted, substantial, and systematic funding to address and reverse this situation and to facilitate women’s meaningful participation in all stakeholder engagement on Afghanistan, including in delegations that meet with Taliban officials.

Decades of progress on gender equality and women’s rights have been wiped out in mere months. We must continue to act together, united in our insistence on guarantees of respect for the full spectrum of women’s rights, including to education, work, and participation in public and political life.

We must continue to make a collective and continuous call on the Taliban leadership to fully comply with the binding obligations under international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party.

And we must continue to elevate the voices of Afghan women and girls who are fighting every day for their right to live free and equal lives. Their fight is our fight. What happens to women and girls in Afghanistan is our global responsibility.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Pinched between two antagonistic blocs, the United Nations was in a deadlock for decades. Credit: United Nations

By Marc Saxer
BERLIN, Jul 18 2022 (IPS)

With the invasion of Ukraine, Russia effectively destroyed the European peace order. Now, Europe needs to find ways to contain its aggressive neighbour, while its traditional protector, the United States, continues its shift of focus to the Indo-Pacific.

This task, however, becomes impossible when China and Russia are driven into each other’s arms because, if anything, the key to end the war in Ukraine lies in Beijing. China hesitates to be dragged into this European war as bigger questions are at stake for the emerging superpower:

Will the silk road be wrecked by a new iron curtain? Shall it stick to its ‘limitless alliance’ with Russia? And what about the territorial integrity of sovereign states? In short: for China, it is about the world order.

The unipolar moment after the triumph of the West in the Cold War is over. The war in Ukraine clearly marks the end of the Pax Americana. Russia and China openly challenge American hegemony. Russia may have proven to be a giant with clay feet, and has inadvertently strengthened the unity of the West.

But the shift of the global balance of power to East Asia is far from over. In China, the United States has encountered a worthy rival for global predominance. But Moscow, Delhi, and Brussels also aspire to become power hubs in the coming multipolar order.

So, we are witnessing the end of the end of history. What comes next? To better understand how world orders emerge and erode, a quick look at history can be helpful.

What is on the menu?

Over the course of the long 19th century, a great power concert has provided stability in a multipolar world. Given the nascent state of international law and multilateral institutions, congresses were needed to carefully calibrate the balance between different spheres of interest.

The relative peace within Europe, of course, was dearly bought by the aggressive outward expansion of its colonial powers.

Marc Saxer

With the founding of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundations of a liberal order were laid after the end of World War II. However, with the onset of the Cold War, this experiment quickly ran into a quagmire.

Pinched between two antagonistic blocs, the United Nations was in a deadlock for decades. From the Hungarian Revolution over the Prague Spring to the Cuban missile crisis, peace between the nuclear powers was maintained through the recognition of exclusive zones of influence.

After the triumph of the West in the Cold War, American hyperpower quickly declared a new order for a now unipolar world. In this liberal world order, rule-breaking was sanctioned by the world’s policeman.

Proponents of the liberal world order pointed to the rapid diffusion of democracy and human rights around the globe. Critics see imperial motifs at work behind the humanitarian interventions. But even progressives place great hopes in the expansion of international law and multilateral cooperation.

Now that the West is mired in crises, global cooperation is again paralysed by systemic rivalry. From the war in Georgia over the annexation of Crimea to the crackdown in Hong Kong, the recognition of exclusive zones of influence is back in the toolbox of international politics.

After a short heyday, the liberal elements of the world order are jammed again. China has begun to lay the foundations of an illiberal multilateral architecture.

How will great power competition play out?

In the coming decade, the rivalries between great powers are likely to continue with undiminished vigour. The ultimate prize of this great power competition is a new world order. Five different scenarios are conceivable.

First, the liberal world order could survive the end of the unipolar American moment. Second, a series of wars and revolutions can lead to the total collapse of order. Third, a great power concert could bring relative stability in a multipolar world but fail to tackle the great challenges facing humanity.

Fourth, a new cold war may partly block the rule-based multilateral system, but still allow for limited cooperation in questions of common interest. And finally, an illiberal order with Chinese characteristics. Which scenario seems the most probable?

Many believe that democracy and human rights need to be promoted more assertively. However, after the fall of Kabul, even liberal centrists like Joe Biden und Emmanuel Macron have declared the era of humanitarian interventions to be over.

Should another isolationist nationalist like Trump or others of his ilk come to power in Washington, London, or Paris, the defence of the liberal world order would once and for all be off the agenda. Berlin is in danger of running out of allies for its new value-based foreign policy.

In all Western capitals, there are broad majorities across the ideological spectrum that seek to up the ante in the systemic rivalry with China and Russia. The global reaction to the Russian invasion shows, however, that the rest of the world has very little appetite for a new bloc confrontation between democracies and autocracies.

The support for Russia’s attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine – values especially smaller countries unwaveringly adhere to – should not be read as sympathy for a Russian or Chinese-led order, but as deep frustration over the US empire.

Seen from the Global South, the not-so-liberal world order was merely a pretext for military interventions, structural adjustment programmes, and moral grandstanding. Now, the West comes to realise that in order to prevail geopolitically, it needs the cooperation of undemocratic powers from Turkey to the Gulf monarchies, from Singapore to Vietnam.

The high-minded rhetoric of the systemic rivalry between democracies against autocracies is prone to alienate these much-needed potential allies. But if even the West were to give up on universalism of democracy and human rights, what would be left of the liberal world order?

Are the great power rivalries that play out in the background of the war in Ukraine, the coups in Western Africa and the protests in Hong Kong only the beginning of a new period of wars, coups, and revolutions?

The ancient Greek philosopher Thucydides already knew that the competition between rising and declining great powers can beget great wars. So, are we entering a new period of disorder?

Not only in Moscow and Beijing, but also in Washington, there are thinkers that seek to mitigate these destructive dynamics of the multipolar world through a new concert of great powers. The coordination of great power interests in fora from the G7 to the G20 could be the starting point for this new form of club governance. The recognition of exclusive zones of influence can help to mitigate conflict.

However, there is reason for concern that democracy and human rights will be the first victims of such high-powered horse-trading. This form of minimal cooperation may also be inadequate to tackle the many challenges humankind is facing from climate change over pandemics to mass migration.

The European Union, an entity based on the rule of law and the permanent harmonisation of interests, may have a particularly hard time to thrive in such a dog-eat-dog world.

Not only in Moscow, some fantasize about a revival of imperialism that negates the right to self-determination of smaller nations. This dystopian mix of technologically supercharged surveillance state on the inside and never-ending proxy wars on the outside is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984. One can only hope that this illiberal neo-imperialism is shattered in the war in Ukraine.

The Russian recognition of separatist provinces of a sovereign state have rung the alarm bells in Beijing. After all, what if Taiwan follows this model and declares its independence? At least rhetorically, Beijing has returned to its traditional line of supporting national sovereignty and condemning colonialist meddling in internal affairs.

There are debates in Beijing whether China should really side with a weakened pariah state and retreat behind a new iron curtain, or would benefit more from an open and rules-based global order.

So, what is this ‘Chinese Multilateralism’ promoted by the latter school of thought? On the one hand, a commitment to international law and cooperation to tackle the great challenges facing humankind, from climate change over securing trade routes to peacekeeping.

However, China is only willing to accept any framework for cooperation if it is on equal footing with the United States. This is why Beijing takes the United Nations Security Council seriously, but tries to replace the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund with its own institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

If Chinese calls for equal footing are rejected, Beijing can still form its own geopolitical bloc with allies across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. In such an illiberal order, there would still be rule-based cooperation, but no longer any institutional incentives for democracy and human rights.

Hard choices: what should we strive for?

Alas, with a view of containing an aggressive Russia, a rapprochement with China may have its merits. For many in the West, this would require an about-face. After all, the recently fired German admiral Schönbach was not the only one who wanted to enlist Russia as an ally for a new cold war with China.

Even if Americans and Chinese would bury the hatchet, a post-liberal world order would pose a predicament for Western societies.

Is the price for peace really the right to self-determination of peoples? Is cooperation to tackle the great challenges facing humankind contingent on the rebuttal of the universality of human rights? Or is there still a responsibility to protect, even when the atrocities are committed in the exclusive zone of influence of a great power rival?

These questions go right to the West’s normative foundation.

Which order will prevail in the end will be determined by fierce great power competition. However, who is willing to rally around the banner of each different model differs significantly. Only a narrow coalition of Western states and a handful of Indo-Pacific value partners will come to the defence of democracy and human rights.

If this Western-led alliance of democracies loses the power struggle against the so-called axis of autocracies, the outcome could well be an illiberal world order with Chinese characteristics.

At the same time, the defence of international law, especially the inviolability of borders and the right to self-defence, are generally in the interest of democratic and authoritarian powers alike. An alliance for multilateral cooperation with the United Nations at its core finds supports across the ideological spectrum.

Finally, there could be issue-based cooperation between different centres. If ideological differences are set aside, hybrid partners could cooperate, for instance, in the fight against climate change or piracy, but be fierce competitors in the race for high-tech or energy.

Thus, it would not be surprising if the United States were to replace their ‘alliance of democracies’ with a more inclusive coalition platform.

Politically, Germany can only survive within the framework of a united Europe. Economically, it can only prosper in open world markets. For both, a rules-based, multilateral order is indispensable. Given the intensity of today’s systemic rivalry, some may doubt its feasibility. However, it is worth remembering that even at the heyday of the Cold War, within the framework of a constrained multilateralism, cooperation based on common interests did occur.

From arms control over the ban of the ozone-killer CFC to the Helsinki Accords, the balance sheet of this limited multilateralism was not too bad. In view to the challenges facing humankind, from climate change over pandemics to famines, this limited multilateralism may just be the best among bad options. For what is at stake is the securing of the very foundations of peace, freedom, unity, and prosperity in Europe.

Marc Saxer coordinates the regional work of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in the Asia Pacific. Previously, he led the FES offices in India and Thailand and headed the FES Asia Pacific department.

Source: International Politics and Society published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

IPS UN Bureau

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UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 18 2022 (IPS)

South Africa, the home land of the late giant fighter against Apartheid, racism and discrimination – Nelson Mandela “Mandiba”, is already ‘on the precipice of explosive xenophobic violence’ against migrants, refugees, asylum seekers – and even citizens perceived as outsiders.

Just three days ahead of this year’s Nelson Mandela International Day (18 July), a group of independent United Nations human rights experts condemned reports of escalating violence targeting foreign nationals in South Africa.

Today, the world honours a giant of our time; a leader of unparalleled courage and towering achievement; and a man of quiet dignity and deep humanity

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

Known as Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world, the human rights experts warned that the ongoing xenophobic mobilisation is “broader and deeper,” and has become the central campaign strategy for some political parties in the country.

Operation Dudula

In a statement released on 15 July 2022, the United Nations independent human rights experts cited “Operation Dudula” as an example of the spreading hate speech.

Originally a social media campaign, Operation Dudula has become an umbrella for the mobilisation of “violent protests, vigilant eviolence, arson targeting migrant-owned homes and businesses, and even the murder of foreign nationals.”

According to the human rights experts, xenophobia is often explicitly racialised, targeting low-income Black migrants and refugees and, in some cases, South African citizens accused of being “too Black to be South Africans.”

Inequality

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, according to a recent World Bank’s report titled ‘Inequality in Southern Africa’.

The report highlighted how inequality is consistent as 10% of the population owns more than 80% of the wealth.

Out of its 60 million inhabitants, “an estimated 10 million people in South Africa live below the food poverty line, while the unemployment rate is at a record high of almost 40% amongst Black South Africans according to Statistics South Africa.”

Poverty, unemployment and crime are reportedly the greatest sources of contention as Operation Dudula and its members believe that illegal foreigners are the reason that South Africa’s public socioeconomic systems do not benefit its native Black majority.

Impoverished former European colonies –who also fall victims of deepening poverty and inequality–, South Africa’s neighbouring countries- Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the enclaved Lesotho-, have been lastly a source of increasing migration.

Fueled by the Government

“Anti-migrant discourse from senior government officials has fanned the flames of violence, and government actors have failed to prevent further violence or hold perpetrators accountable,” say the UN human rights Special Rapporteurs.

According to the World Bank’s country review, the South African economy was already in a weak position when it entered the pandemic after a decade of low growth.

From 2021, the recovery is expected to continue in 2022, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth expected at 2.1% and to average 1.7% over the medium term.

Commodity prices remain important for South Africa, a major net exporter of minerals and net importer of oil, however, strengthening investment, including foreign direct investment, will be critical to propelling growth and creating jobs.

The World Bank goes on explaining that South Africa has made considerable strides to improve the wellbeing of its citizens since its transition to democracy in the mid-1990s, but progress has stagnated in the last decade.

The percentage of the population below the upper-middle-income-country poverty line fell from 68% to 56% between 2005 and 2010 but has since trended slightly upwards to 57% in 2015 and is projected to have reached 60% in 2020.

Structural challenges and weak growth have undermined progress in reducing poverty, which have been heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, adds the review.

“The achievement of progress in household welfare is severely constrained by rising unemployment, which reached an unprecedented 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021. The unemployment rate is highest among youths aged between 15 and 24, at around 66.5%.”

In her extensively documented, detailed article on IPS: Myths Fuel Xenophobic Sentiment in South Africa, Fawzia Moodley also reported from Johannesburg on a study by the World Bank: Mixed Migration, Forced Displacement and Job Outcomes in South Africa.

Debunking the myth that foreign nationals are ‘stealing’ jobs from locals or are better off than locals is the finding that “one immigrant worker generated approximately two jobs for local residents in South Africa between 1996 and 2011”.

Nelson Mandela

“Today, the world honours a giant of our time; a leader of unparalleled courage and towering achievement; and a man of quiet dignity and deep humanity,” said the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in his message on the occasion of the 2022 Nelson Mandela International Day.

“Our world today is marred by war; overwhelmed by emergencies; blighted by racism, discrimination, poverty, and inequalities; and threatened by climate disaster,” adds Guterres.

“Let us find hope in Nelson Mandela’s example and inspiration in his vision.”

Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity — as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa. See Mandela’s life >>. See also: Mandela Rules >>

“It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.”- Nelson Mandela.

Any politicians listening over there?

Om Ehab, right, with her sisters and children in her home in Beach Camp for Palestine Refugees in Gaza. Credit: UN News/Reem Abaza

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2022 (IPS)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which dates back to the mid-1940s, is one of the longest military confrontations defying a permanent solution – even as it continues to be on the agenda of the United Nations whose primary mandate is the maintenance of international peace and security.

But regrettably there has been no peace nor security in the long-festering battle for a Palestinian homeland.

The multiple peace plans floating around Middle Eastern and Western capitals included a proposed “one-state solution”, a “two- state solution” and the 1993 “Oslo Accords”, a peace treaty based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 aimed at fulfilling the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.

But none of them really got off the ground.

Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), has a new plan for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.

In an interview with IPS, Dr Ben-Meir said after 73 years of conflict, regardless of the many changes on the ground, the political wind that swept the region, and the intermittent violence between Israel and Palestine, the Palestinians will not, under any circumstances give up on their aspiration for statehood.

“Ultimately, the creation of an independent Palestinian state that exists side-by-side with Israel remains the only viable option to end their conflict”, argued Dr Meir, who has taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

“Given however the substantive irreversible fact that were created on the ground since 1967, an independent Palestinian state can peacefully coexist with Israel only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that would subsequently be joined by Jordan,” he said.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the S tate of Palestine, addresses the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By definition, a confederation is a “voluntary associations of independent states that, to secure some common purpose, agree to certain limitations on their freedom of action and establish some joint machinery of consultation or deliberation” [emphasis added].

This is necessitated by the facts and the requirement that all sides will have to fully and permanently collaborate on many levels required by the changing conditions on the ground, most of which can no longer be restored to the status quo ante, he explained.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00438200211066350.

Excerpts from the Q&A follows:

Q: What is unique about the proposed confederation—and how different is it from several of the failed peace agreements over the last 75 years?

A: What is unique about the proposed confederation is that the three countries, as independent states, would join together on issues of common interest that cannot be addressed but in full collaboration under the framework of confederation.

It is imperative for the three main players to address the following facts on the ground and their national security collectively, as they can no longer reverse them to the status quo ante. These constitute the foundation of the confederation and include:

The interspersed Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel proper, which can no longer be separated and is the backbone of confederation;

The intrinsic religious connection all three states have to Jerusalem, including the fact that the Palestinians will never give up on East Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian capital; albeit Jerusalem can never be divided physically, and the border between East and West Jerusalem is only political and applicable for administrative purposes;

The intertwined national security concerns of Israelis and Palestinians; the need to continue the current cooperation in this critical area, and the need to further expand their collaboration once a Palestinian state is created: the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the majority of which will have to remain in place because under no circumstance will Israel ever evacuate all the settlements; the Palestinian refugees who must be resettled and/or compensated, as the right of return has never been considered as a viable option even by the Palestinians, albeit tacitly.

Thus, given the inevitability of coexistence, whether under hostile or peaceful conditions, and the interconnectedness on all the above five levels, the establishment of a confederation as the ultimate goal would allow both sides to jointly resolve and manage their differences.

The above facts must be factored in as they are not subject to a dramatic shift and are central to reaching a sustainable peace agreement.

Q: Has the proposed plan been endorsed or supported by either the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority? And what about Hamas? Any reactions from any of these warring parties?

A: The proposed Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation plan has been discussed with former and current officials and scholars from all three countries. It has been acknowledged and has largely been received well.

They admit (albeit not officially) that given the prevailing conditions—that is, the inter-connectedness between the three parties from the perspectives of territorial contiguity, national security, and economic development—they have little choice but to fully collaborate without compromising their independence as defined by the concept of confederation.

Although publicly Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist, privately it admits that Israel is there to stay and has no choice but to cooperate with Israel on many levels.

Under the proposed confederation, the interaction between Hamas and Israel will only increase by virtue of Gaza’s location and the need of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to connect and transact with one another, which can be done largely through Israel on land.

Q: Do you plan to submit your proposal to the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia and China?

A: Our hope is that once the three countries conclude that there is really no other viable option that will bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and recognize the inevitability of co-existence, the proposal will certainly be endorsed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.

We should bear in mind, however, that once the three countries agree to form a confederation, the Security Council need only to recognize Palestinian independence, which will not be vetoed by any of the five veto-wielding powers because they all support the establishment of a Palestinian state under conditions of peace. Beyond that, the UNSC will have no say about the formation of the confederation.

Q: Depending on the reactions of the Israelis and the Palestinians, would you amend or revise the proposal?

A: Any peace proposal, regardless of its merits, will be subject to modifications to meet some specific nuances that are of special concern to the parties involved. That said, the concept of the confederation itself will not change because it takes into consideration the many facts on the ground that are not subject to change and because it is designed to largely meet the needs and the aspirations of the three countries.

Having said that, there are still issues over which there is no consensus. Jerusalem is a case in point; the Israelis vehemently oppose the surrendering of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and it becoming the capital of the Palestinian state.

The proposal offers a solution whereby the city will remain physically undivided while respecting each other’s inherent affinity and religious connection to the holy sites.

Moreover, both Israeli and Palestinian residents will continue to move freely between the two parts of the city without any restriction, which is exactly the case at the present.

Q: Are you planning to submit the proposal to the UN Secretary-General?

A: I believe that if the UN Secretary General is to look at the proposal, he will more than likely endorse it as it is consistent with his and the majority view of the General Assembly (GA) that the Palestinians are entitled to an independent state of their own.

We are trying now to share it with as many entities—academic and political—to engender greater receptivity. In fact, the entire proposal was published in the Spring issue of World Affairs Journal, and the Journal will have an issue in December dedicated entirely to the proposal.

We will soon seek channels to convey it directly to the Secretary General in the hope that he would formally share it with all the parties involved directly and indirectly.

This includes obviously the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan, and with the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Germany, who will by playing critical roles in various capacities.

Q: If the proposal is eventually accepted by the parties, do you think it would be prudent to seek ratification by the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council, both of which have been involved with the Palestinian issue since its inception?

A: To the best of my knowledge once the proposal is accepted by the three parties it does not need a formal ratification by the General Assembly (GA). Indecently, the GA has already granted Palestine observer status. That said, a full endorsement of the proposal by the GA will enhance both its legitimacy and scope.

As to the UNSC, given that any new application for membership in the UN must be approved by the Security Council, the 15 member states may well have to vote to grant the Palestinians the status of full member state of the UN, which will be a given under the framework of the agreed-upon confederation.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 60 percent of the world's hungry living in areas affected by war and violence. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jul 1 2022 (IPS)

While the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit ended in Madrid on 30 June with net commitments to double spending on weapons and to increase by eight-fold the number of troops in Europe, the total of hungry people worldwide now marks an unprecedented record.

As advanced by IPS in its: NATO Summit Set to Further Militarise Europe, Expand in Africa? The Western military Alliance Declaration states that its member countries continue to face distinct threats from “all strategic directions.”

“The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

Militarising migration policies?

Furthermore, the NATO Summit Declaration emphasises that terrorism, “in all its forms and manifestations, continues to pose a direct threat to the security of our populations, and to international stability and prosperity.”

The Summit, therefore, decided to increase its military deployment in Southern Europe, in particular in Spain and upon its request, as a way to prevent and combat terrorism.

From the Central American Dry Corridor and Haiti, through the Sahel, Central African Republic, South Sudan and then eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen and all the way to Afghanistan, there is a ring of fire stretching around the world where conflict and climate shocks are driving millions of people to the brink of starvation

The decision was adopted by NATO leaders just four days after the massive entry of migrants to the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, both located in the North of Morocco, which was brutally stopped, killing around thirty migrants.

“Instability beyond our borders is also contributing to irregular migration and human trafficking,” says the Declaration.

In short, NATO has opted for further militarising its US, Canada and European countries’ migration policies, which they continue to claim that are based on international laws and human rights, etcetera.

Cyber, space threats?

The Madrid Declaration also says that NATO members “are confronted by cyber, space, and hybrid and other asymmetric threats, and by the malicious use of emerging and disruptive technologies.”

As expected, the NATO Declaration emphasises that the Russian Federation “is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

At the same time, NATO leaders have made a clear reference to China.

“We face systemic competition from those, including the People’s Republic of China, who challenge our interests, security, and values and seek to undermine the rules-based international order.”

Any mention of hunger?

Unless hunger has been dealt with by the Western military Alliance as a “top secret, confidential” topic, the NATO Declaration makes no clear mention of the current unprecedented hunger crisis. Perhaps NATO includes the deadly hunger as part of its package of “threats” to their safety and security?

The fact is that right now 811 million people go to bed hungry every night, the Peace Nobel Laureate World Food Programme (WFP) warns.

The number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared – from 135 million to 345 million – since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.

Money for weapons, not for saving lives

While needs are sky-high, resources have hit rock bottom, warns WFP, while emphasising that it requires 22.2 billion US dollars to immediately reach 137 million people in 2022.

“However, with the global economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between needs and funding is bigger than ever before.”

The urgently needed funding to face the pressing need to save lives is hard to be met. In its Nuclear-Armed Powers Squander $156.000 Per Minute on Their ‘MAD’ Policy, IPS reported on how nine nuclear-armed states spent 82.4 billion US dollars in just one year, prior to the unfolding war in Europe, on these weapons of mass destruction.

Now in view of the NATO Summit decision to further increase military spending to face not only Russia but also to more heavily spending on deadly arms to challenge what they now consider as the Chinese threat, there will be little chance to address the devastating hunger.

Why is the world hungrier than ever?

WFP mentions four causes of hunger and famine. This seismic hunger crisis, it explains, has been caused by a deadly combination of four factors:

• Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 60 percent of the world’s hungry living in areas affected by war and violence. Events unfolding in Ukraine are further proof of how conflict feeds hunger, forcing people out of their homes and wiping out their sources of income.
• Climate shocks destroy lives, crops and livelihoods, and undermine people’s ability to feed themselves.
• The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are driving hunger to unprecedented levels.
• And, last but not least, the cost of reaching people in need is rising: the price WFP is paying for food is up 30 percent compared to 2019, an additional US$42 million a month.

Hunger hotspots: a ring of fire

By the way, none of these factors has been caused by any of these millions of hungry humans.

According to the Rome-based WFP, from the Central American Dry Corridor and Haiti, through the Sahel, Central African Republic, South Sudan and then eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen and all the way to Afghanistan, there is a ring of fire stretching around the world where conflict and climate shocks are driving millions of people to the brink of starvation.

In countries like Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, WFP is already faced with hard decisions, including cutting rations to be able to reach more people. This is tantamount to taking from the hungry to feed the starving.

“The consequences of not investing in resilience activities will reverberate across borders. If communities are not empowered to withstand the shocks and stresses they are exposed to, this could result in increased migration and possible destabilisation and conflict.”

Is this why NATO leaders talk about pouring more billions and even trillions into their fight against “destabilisation and terrorism”?

Credit: UN Peacekeeping

By Riccardo Petrella
BRUSSELS, Jun 30 2022 (IPS)

On Sunday 19 June, we gathered in Sezano, municipality of Verona (VR), at the Monastery of the Common Good to affirm the need and urgency to ban war, all wars, and build peace without yes or no buts.

To the powerful world leaders who want to continue the war in Ukraine (USA, Russia, NATO member states, the European Union which has become a war front, Ukraine) we say STOP your new world war for world domination, of which the one in Ukraine is a dramatic expression.

Why do you still need tens of thousands of dead in the war camps you call liberation camps and tens of millions of people starving to death because of your economic sanctions (countersanctions, retaliations) that only benefit the profits of your big global corporations?

Enough of Putin, Biden, Stoltenberg, Von der Leyen….the world does not need your war in Ukraine. Stop spending over 2.1 trillion dollars on armaments under the hypocritical pretence of saving the peace.

For 70 years, the United States has been at permanent war on every continent with some 800 military bases of occupation in hundreds of countries around the world– and, following the collapse of the Soviet Union– trying to establish themselves in Ukraine as well.

China has only one military base abroad and Russia has only three!

One must know how to lose the victory to know how to build peace.
Because war has never solved problems, it is pure destruction.
War itself is a crime– and if you keep proposing wars, you are a criminal.

The greatest victory is to make peace, because the right to life is a universal right, for everyone and because it shows that you want and know how to live with others. and do not want to dominate others, but live together in the present to promote a future ever more just and united, in common.

Because the world emergency is to put an end to the profits and enrichment of the strongest and collaborate in building hospitals (not tanks), schools (not fighter planes), food production (not fighter planes), to the production of food (not missiles), of drinking water (not toxic gases), to the toxic gases), to the promotion of fraternity (not arms trade).

We must Stop All Wars that are currently martyring and killing people in Syria, Yemen, Congo, Palestine, Western Sahara, Kurdistan, among others.

The cynical silence of the West on the new military invasions by Erdogan’s Turkey in northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria inhabited by Kurdish populations is intolerable.

Inhabitants of the Earth, defend peace and the rights of all! Denunciation is necessary. Building peace, starting with an immediate cessation of hostilities, is even more necessary and positive for all.

Listen to the Intergovernmental Panel on United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which predicts that global warming is three and a half years away to exceed 1.5 degrees.

Do not listen to the US, Russia, France, Britain, China, North Korea, Israel,
India and Pakistan who are building nuclear weapons. Listen to the 130 UN countries that support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Signed in from:
Brussels, Verona, Palermo, Rome, Montreal, Trois Rivières, Coyahique (Patagonia CL), Rosario, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Clermont-Ferrand, Paris, Poitou Charentes, Neuchâtel, Dakar, Beirut, Lisbon, Toronto, Vancouver…

For further information, please contact petrella.riccardo@gmail.com or the Agora ‘s site agora-humanité.org Riccardo Petrella is president of the association.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Credit: NATO.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 28 2022 (IPS)

The three-day North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-NATO Summit in Madrid (28,29, 30 June 2022) is expected to agree to considerably increase Europe’s military power, heavily weaponise Russia’s border, and further expand its presence in Africa, according to a diplomatic source.

Taking advantage of the ongoing Russian “Special [military] Operation” in Ukraine, the NATO leaders are also expected to agree on multiplying by up to five-fold its troops and military potential in Europa, including nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, cyber-attacks and the robotisation of arms, the source told IPS on condition of anonymity.

According to this information, the NATO Summit would plan to especially strengthen the presence of troops and weapons in East Europe and also in South Europe, i.e the Alliance’s Mediterranean countries.

Plans to massively increase the number of forces “at high readiness”

“Nato has announced plans to massively increase the number of its forces at high readiness to over 300,000 troops,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said as quoted by the BBC.

“The bloc’s rapid reaction force currently has 40,000 troops at its disposal, with many of those based along the alliance’s eastern flank.“

Middle East and Africa

Furthermore, it is also expected that NATO Summit agrees on further expanding the Alliance military deployment to the Middle East and Africa, with a special focus on its Northern region, allegdging that this aims at preventing and combating terrorism.

According to the source, NATO clearly intends to “neutralise” Russia as a rival, so that it can focus its strategy towards what the leaders for now agree to call the “Chinese challenge.”

Three of NATO’s member states: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, not only possess “nukes” -which are considered weapons of mass destruction” and the “most destructive arms ever created,” but they also continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals with the most advanced technologies.

Nuclear stockpiles

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 13 June 2022 launched the findings of its Yearbook 2022: of the total inventory of an estimated 12.705 warheads at the start of 2022, about 9.440 were in military stockpiles “for potential use.”

Of those, an estimated 3.732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircrafts, and around 2000—nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the USA—were kept in a state of “high operational alert,” according to SIPRI’s 2022 Yearbook Global nuclear arsenals are expected to grow as states continue to modernise.

The robotisation of weapons

Of special concern is the fact that the growing use of state-of-the-art technologies in operating weapons, including nuclear arms, involves further dangers to the possibility of “human miscalculation.”

“Cyber attacks could manipulate the information decision-makers get to launch nuclear weapons, and interfere with the operation of nuclear weapons themselves,” warns the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

According to this 2017 Nobel Peace Laureate’s report Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending, the increased application of advanced machine learning in defence systems can speed up warfare – giving decision-makers even less time to consider whether or not to launch nuclear weapons.

Countries may be eager to apply new artificial intelligence technologies before they understand the full implications of these technologies, adds ICAN.

“It is impossible to eliminate the risk of core nuclear weapons systems being hacked or compromised without eliminating nuclear weapons.”

Multiplying military spending amidst crisis

According to NATO critics, who marched in thousands in Madrid streets, the ‘feared’ results of the NATO Summit will bring only heavy negative consequences for European citizens.

In fact, both the gas and oil prices, as well as those of commodities and basic food, have marked a sharp rise in European countries, leading to record-high inflation averaging nearly 9% in most of the ‘old continent.’

The expected militarisation of European national budgets will further undermine the already decreasing spending on public health, public education, social services, and unemployment, which were already impacted by the COVID-19 pandemia, according to the critics.

NATO expected plans… in diplomatic words

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg set out his priorities for the Madrid Summit during a speech on 22 June 2022. Speaking at an event organised by Politico, Stoltenberg said: “We will take decisions to strengthen our Alliance, and keep it agile in this more dangerous world.”

The Secretary-General explained that NATO would strengthen its defences, agree a new Strategic Concept, and strengthen its support to Ukraine and other partners at risk.

Stoltenberg said that in Madrid, Allies would recommit to the pledge made in 2014 to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence.

He highlighted the progress that had been made with greater burden-sharing across the whole Alliance: “We must continue to invest more. And invest more together in NATO.” Read NATO Secretary General’s full remarks

Peace, security and safety

In spite of the expected military plans, both NATO sources and those of the European Commission as well as of the national governments of the Alliance member countries, have been emphasising that the sole aim is to strengthen their “defence, peace, security and safety” of their citizens.