By James M. Dorsey
Deutsche Welle
The protests in Libya against corruption throw up the question whether the Tunisian crisis heralds the beginning of the end for autocratic Arab leaders. The West is encouraged and is hoping for lasting change.
The specter of authoritarian regimes falling like dominoes may however be overly optimistic. While there is no doubt that developments in Tunisia have emboldened the discontent across a swath of land stretching from Morocco to the Gulf, it remains to be seen, according to analysts, whether protestors in other Arab countries have the wherewithal to sustain demonstrations and casualties for weeks and to what degree Arab governments have learnt lessons from the Tunisian experience.
Demonstrations in Algeria subsided last week after authorities moved to roll back increases in prices of commodities. Protestors in Jordan have yet to show that they are cut from the same cloth as their counterparts in Tunisia.
Protests in Libya erupted three days ago, but have so far largely gone unnoticed by the international media with the exception of a few reports in the Arab press as well as statements and videos circulated on the Internet by Libyan opposition groups. The Libyan opposition website Almanara reported that demonstrators had clashed with security forces in the town of Al Bayda, 800 kilometers (500 milies) east of Tripoli, after throwing stones at government offices in the town and setting a government office on fire. The protesters were demanding "decent housing and a dignified life," Almanara said.
Libyan activists and opposition groups reported that hundreds of people had also occupied some 600 empty apartments in Beghazi, Libya's second largest city, and 800 units in Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli. The activists said the squatters had been expecting to move into new homes promised to them under a government housing scheme, but had seen apartments they had already paid for awarded to others.
"Bani Walid has no basic services; thousands of people are without houses and the local authority is corrupted, it only delivers services with bribes. Nothing will make Bani Walid calm but freedom, justice and transparency," the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya said in a statement on its website. The Front reported that the lawyers in Benghazi were joining the protests of the squatters.
Lessons to be learned?
Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi appears to have drawn a lesson from President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's failed handling of the protests in Tunisia, ordering police to avoid clashes with demonstrators while protecting government buildings. The country's Revolutionary Council said in a statement that it would investigate the complaints and promised that "all the problems will be solved soon through the legitimate authorities."
At the same time, however, Gaddafi true to his idiosyncratic eccentrism, voiced what other leaders probably believe but have kept to themselves. Describing the departure of Ben Ali as "a great loss" for Tunisia, the Libyan leader said he still considered Ben Ali the country's constitutional leader.
The United States and the European Union have so far responded cautiously to the wave of protests in the Arab world, fearing that the unrest could destabilize the volatile region and bring anti-Western forces to power. "The European Union has an interest in keeping a strong partnership. This is why countries including France, Spain and Italy have not clearly condemned what happened," Ivan Ureta, a professor of international relations at King's College in London, told Deutsche Welle.
A key concern for the US and the EU is that the protests in most Arab countries like Libya and Jordan, where thousands demonstrated over the weekend against government economic policies and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, are backed by Islamist opposition forces.
"As in all cases of revolution, you must be careful what you wish for. The politics and demographics in these countries mean that what replaces the corrupt old regimes could be even worse; strengthening the hands of terrorists and radicals," says Mark Almond, a visiting professor in international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.
Islamist influence
Analysts note that the absence of Islamists in the Tunisian protests is because Tunisia, unlike other Arab countries, has since its independence aggressively sought to ban Islamists from public life.
"Most influential Tunisian Islamists now live abroad, while those who remain in Tunisia have been forced to form a coalition with unlikely secular and communist bedfellows. The nature of the opposition and the willingness of the Tunisian government to back down are not coincidental. If it had been clear that Islamist opposition figures were playing a large role in the current unrest, the government would likely have doubled down on repressive measures," says Michael Koplow, a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, in a commentary in Foreign Policy.
Islamists are nonetheless certain to exploit the widespread discontent and may benefit once protesters realize that change involves a lot more than toppling a corrupt and authoritarian leader. Ben Ali's departure has thrown Tunisia into turmoil. The country, at least for now has lost tourism, one of its main sources of foreign income. With the evacuation of thousands of European tourists, it will be some time before Tunisian tourism regains lost ground.
The rise of secularism
In a first sign of the reemergence of the Islamists, Rached Ghannouchi, the 69-year old leader of Tunisia's banned Nahda or Renaissance movement, announced on Sunday that he was returning to Tunisia from his 22 years in exile in London.
Analysts say that Ghannouchi will encounter a country very different from the one he left. While he still may have supporters in Tunisia, he does not have an infrastructure and many of those Islamists that remained in the country have radicalized and are likely to see Ghannouchi as a spent force too willing to compromise.
More importantly however, Tunisia's long-standing suppression of the Islamists has allowed secularism to build roots that many Tunisians will want to preserve. Tunisian-born Israeli sociologist Claude Sitbon notes that Tunisians on the Internet joked that Ghannouchi would be met at the airport by bikini-clad women. "Women have achieved an amazing status in Tunisia. They wear jeans in the street and bikinis on the beach; women are judges and ambassadors. Tunisians won't want to lose that," Sitbon says.
Showing posts with label Algeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Algeria. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Twin Threats of Protests and Cessation Set Stage for Change in MidEast and North Africa
By James M. Dorsey
A rare wave of protests across the Arab world against widespread economic mismanagement, unemployment, corruption and lack of civil liberties as well as the probable partition of Sudan potentially set the stage for the redrawing of the political map of the Middle East and North Africa.
The protests and referendum likely to establish oil-rich southern Sudan as an independent state spotlight the failure of most Middle Eastern and North African regimes to provide economic prospects for their populations and guarantee security and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities. A spate of recent deadly attacks targeting Christians in Iraq and Egypt has further focused attention on inflamed religious and ethnic tensions and the region’s lack of minority rights.
Middle Eastern governments fear, according to officials and Western diplomats, that an independent southern Sudan will fuel nationalist aspirations of rebels in Darfur, secessionists in southern Yemen; Shiite rebels in northern Yemen; non-Islamist controlled parts of Somalia; Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey; Berbers across North Africa and Azerbaijanis in northern Iran. The region’s military and security dominated regimes also worry that the protests will further embolden their populations to vent boiling anger and pent-up frustration with long-standing authoritarian, corrupt and incompetent rule. Last week’s warning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that record food prices are likely to increase even more as a result of erratic global weather patterns threatens to further tempers and tensions.
Several Arab states have moved to curb commodity prices in a bid to prevent the riots from spreading to their countries. Libya abolished taxes and custom duties on wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk. Morocco has begun subsidizing imports to ensure that the price of soft milling wheat does not rise in tunes with hikes on world markets.
Jordanian King Abdullah in a bid to prevent an escalation of mounting tension between Palestinians and East Bank Jordanians this week ordered his government to reduce prices of commodities, particularly rice and sugar, freeze plans to raise public transportation fees and accelerate initiation of job creation projects. The order came as Jordanian trade unions called for nationwide demonstrations on Friday to demand better living standards and the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. Jordan’s Islamist opposition said it had yet to decide whether it would support the protest, but warned that price hikes would spark “an unprecedented explosion” similar to the turmoil in Tunisia and Algeria.
“The government is seeking to contain mounting public resentment. Events in Tunisia and Algeria are forcing it to act because Jordanians have seen that protests produce results,” says Mohammed Masri, an analyst at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies. Masri was referring to Algeria’s weekend decision to reduce commodity prices in response to sustained daily protests that left at least three people dead, the Tunisian government’s inability to quell a month of demonstrations in which so far up to 50 people are believed to have been killed and Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s bid this week to meet some of the protestor’s demands by announcing that he would not again run for office when his term ends in 2014, firing his interior minister, promising to release detained demonstrators and launching an investigation into corruption. “Price hikes are certain to increase anger at the government’s policies,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, a Jordanian Islamic Action Front spokesman.
While the demonstrations in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt as well as recent soccer riots in Jordan and Iran and human rights-related protests in Kuwait are unlikely to immediately overturn governments, they signal a growing popular refusal across the region to continue to accept the status quo. Even in Saudi Arabia where public protests are particularly rare, unemployed teachers are publicly protesting government job creation policies. Tunisian trade unions have said they would continue their protests despite Ben Ali’s announced concessions.
The hardening of the region’s social and economic battle lines creates stark choices for both Middle Eastern and Western governments. Desperate to cling to power, Middle Eastern regimes are likely to increase repression coupled with window dressing measures that create the impression of responding to widespread discontent rather than opt for real political, economic and social reform. This week’s concessions by Ben Ali come after the president’s efforts to squash the protests by charging that the protesters were being manipulated by foreign terrorists failed. Ben Ali’s assertion contrasted starkly with the fact that Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has been conspicuously silent about the ongoing turmoil in its theater of operations and the fact that the protests were void of any Islamist tint.
Western diplomats say that the fact that a majority of the dead in Tunisia were killed by security forces after the Obama administration, the European Union and the United Nations called on Tunisia to exercise restraint in the use of force and respect fundamental freedoms point to a sense of alarm within the government that makes it less susceptible to US and European pressure. “It’s inconceivable that they are not worried that this is the beginning of the end,” one diplomat said.
On a visit to Qatar this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nonetheless signaled that the United States and its European allies may be less persistent in their long-standing preference for stability in the Middle East and North Africa rather than democracy that could initially bring Islamic and more nationalist forces to power – a policy that has fueled anti-Western sentiment among large segments of the region’s population.
Addressing the Forum for the Future launched in 2004 by the G-8 group of industrial nations as a way to promote growth of nongovernmental civil group, Clinton bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open their political systems and economies and warned that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand." Clinton said the region's governments need to share power with civic and volunteer groups to tackle issues like exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources. Pointing to unemployment rates of 20% and up, the secretary said "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and are demanding reforms, including eradication of corruption.
A rare wave of protests across the Arab world against widespread economic mismanagement, unemployment, corruption and lack of civil liberties as well as the probable partition of Sudan potentially set the stage for the redrawing of the political map of the Middle East and North Africa.
The protests and referendum likely to establish oil-rich southern Sudan as an independent state spotlight the failure of most Middle Eastern and North African regimes to provide economic prospects for their populations and guarantee security and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities. A spate of recent deadly attacks targeting Christians in Iraq and Egypt has further focused attention on inflamed religious and ethnic tensions and the region’s lack of minority rights.
Middle Eastern governments fear, according to officials and Western diplomats, that an independent southern Sudan will fuel nationalist aspirations of rebels in Darfur, secessionists in southern Yemen; Shiite rebels in northern Yemen; non-Islamist controlled parts of Somalia; Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey; Berbers across North Africa and Azerbaijanis in northern Iran. The region’s military and security dominated regimes also worry that the protests will further embolden their populations to vent boiling anger and pent-up frustration with long-standing authoritarian, corrupt and incompetent rule. Last week’s warning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that record food prices are likely to increase even more as a result of erratic global weather patterns threatens to further tempers and tensions.
Several Arab states have moved to curb commodity prices in a bid to prevent the riots from spreading to their countries. Libya abolished taxes and custom duties on wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk. Morocco has begun subsidizing imports to ensure that the price of soft milling wheat does not rise in tunes with hikes on world markets.
Jordanian King Abdullah in a bid to prevent an escalation of mounting tension between Palestinians and East Bank Jordanians this week ordered his government to reduce prices of commodities, particularly rice and sugar, freeze plans to raise public transportation fees and accelerate initiation of job creation projects. The order came as Jordanian trade unions called for nationwide demonstrations on Friday to demand better living standards and the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai. Jordan’s Islamist opposition said it had yet to decide whether it would support the protest, but warned that price hikes would spark “an unprecedented explosion” similar to the turmoil in Tunisia and Algeria.
“The government is seeking to contain mounting public resentment. Events in Tunisia and Algeria are forcing it to act because Jordanians have seen that protests produce results,” says Mohammed Masri, an analyst at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies. Masri was referring to Algeria’s weekend decision to reduce commodity prices in response to sustained daily protests that left at least three people dead, the Tunisian government’s inability to quell a month of demonstrations in which so far up to 50 people are believed to have been killed and Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s bid this week to meet some of the protestor’s demands by announcing that he would not again run for office when his term ends in 2014, firing his interior minister, promising to release detained demonstrators and launching an investigation into corruption. “Price hikes are certain to increase anger at the government’s policies,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, a Jordanian Islamic Action Front spokesman.
While the demonstrations in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt as well as recent soccer riots in Jordan and Iran and human rights-related protests in Kuwait are unlikely to immediately overturn governments, they signal a growing popular refusal across the region to continue to accept the status quo. Even in Saudi Arabia where public protests are particularly rare, unemployed teachers are publicly protesting government job creation policies. Tunisian trade unions have said they would continue their protests despite Ben Ali’s announced concessions.
The hardening of the region’s social and economic battle lines creates stark choices for both Middle Eastern and Western governments. Desperate to cling to power, Middle Eastern regimes are likely to increase repression coupled with window dressing measures that create the impression of responding to widespread discontent rather than opt for real political, economic and social reform. This week’s concessions by Ben Ali come after the president’s efforts to squash the protests by charging that the protesters were being manipulated by foreign terrorists failed. Ben Ali’s assertion contrasted starkly with the fact that Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has been conspicuously silent about the ongoing turmoil in its theater of operations and the fact that the protests were void of any Islamist tint.
Western diplomats say that the fact that a majority of the dead in Tunisia were killed by security forces after the Obama administration, the European Union and the United Nations called on Tunisia to exercise restraint in the use of force and respect fundamental freedoms point to a sense of alarm within the government that makes it less susceptible to US and European pressure. “It’s inconceivable that they are not worried that this is the beginning of the end,” one diplomat said.
On a visit to Qatar this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nonetheless signaled that the United States and its European allies may be less persistent in their long-standing preference for stability in the Middle East and North Africa rather than democracy that could initially bring Islamic and more nationalist forces to power – a policy that has fueled anti-Western sentiment among large segments of the region’s population.
Addressing the Forum for the Future launched in 2004 by the G-8 group of industrial nations as a way to promote growth of nongovernmental civil group, Clinton bluntly challenged Middle Eastern leaders to open their political systems and economies and warned that "the region's foundations are sinking into the sand." Clinton said the region's governments need to share power with civic and volunteer groups to tackle issues like exploding populations, stagnant economies and declining natural resources. Pointing to unemployment rates of 20% and up, the secretary said "people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and are demanding reforms, including eradication of corruption.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Middle East Heralds New Year With Winter of Discontent
By James M. Dorsey
The Middle East and North Africa welcomed the New Year with a rare phenomenon: protests in an arc stretching from Algeria to Kuwait, directed against repressive regimes at home rather than a foreign power. The protests are a rare outpouring of pent-up frustration and anger at discrimination and failed economic and social policies as well as corruption in a region that is governed by authoritarian governments intolerant of public criticism.
It is too early to conclude that the protests signal a milestone after which Middle Eastern population groups no longer quietly endure repression and economic deprivation and instead increasingly and publicly challenge their authoritarian leaders. Yet even if they are unlikely to repeat the regime-toppling successes of the velvet revolutions of Eastern Europe, the protests reflect increased chafing at disenfranchisement and lack of opportunity and good governance. Tunisia is witnessing the most-sustained demonstrations against an Arab government in recent history. The New Year's church bombing in Alexandria, Egypt, has sparked a rare public outburst of pent-up Coptic anger. Demonstrators in Algeria this week protested food-price hikes, unemployment and an alleged deterioration of government services. Riots in the southern Jordanian town of Maan erupted following a brawl in which two people were killed. And protests in Kuwait denounced the beating by police of a law professor critical of the government.
The wave of discontent follows a series of underreported economically inspired protests in recent years across North Africa -- including in Tunisia's southern Gafsa mining province in early 2008, in Morocco's impoverished port city of Sidi Ifni in the same year, and in various Egyptian towns over the past several years -- as well as ethnic and political clashes sparked in recent weeks by soccer rivalries in Jordan and Iran. A draw last week in the world's most violent soccer derby between Cairo arch-rivals Al Ahly and Zamalek sparked speculation by Egyptian sports commentators that the government had fixed the match to prevent potential soccer riots that could turn political. Algeria this weekend postponed all national soccer league matches in a bid to prevent games from turning into anti-government protests.
Read further at World Politics Review
The Middle East and North Africa welcomed the New Year with a rare phenomenon: protests in an arc stretching from Algeria to Kuwait, directed against repressive regimes at home rather than a foreign power. The protests are a rare outpouring of pent-up frustration and anger at discrimination and failed economic and social policies as well as corruption in a region that is governed by authoritarian governments intolerant of public criticism.
It is too early to conclude that the protests signal a milestone after which Middle Eastern population groups no longer quietly endure repression and economic deprivation and instead increasingly and publicly challenge their authoritarian leaders. Yet even if they are unlikely to repeat the regime-toppling successes of the velvet revolutions of Eastern Europe, the protests reflect increased chafing at disenfranchisement and lack of opportunity and good governance. Tunisia is witnessing the most-sustained demonstrations against an Arab government in recent history. The New Year's church bombing in Alexandria, Egypt, has sparked a rare public outburst of pent-up Coptic anger. Demonstrators in Algeria this week protested food-price hikes, unemployment and an alleged deterioration of government services. Riots in the southern Jordanian town of Maan erupted following a brawl in which two people were killed. And protests in Kuwait denounced the beating by police of a law professor critical of the government.
The wave of discontent follows a series of underreported economically inspired protests in recent years across North Africa -- including in Tunisia's southern Gafsa mining province in early 2008, in Morocco's impoverished port city of Sidi Ifni in the same year, and in various Egyptian towns over the past several years -- as well as ethnic and political clashes sparked in recent weeks by soccer rivalries in Jordan and Iran. A draw last week in the world's most violent soccer derby between Cairo arch-rivals Al Ahly and Zamalek sparked speculation by Egyptian sports commentators that the government had fixed the match to prevent potential soccer riots that could turn political. Algeria this weekend postponed all national soccer league matches in a bid to prevent games from turning into anti-government protests.
Read further at World Politics Review
Monday, November 1, 2010
Al Qaeda Threat Heightens Need to Resolve Western Sahara
It’s hard to see the United States’ faltering efforts to resolve the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian dispute as a model for conflict resolution. Yet, parallels between the Middle East conflict and the Arab world’s other seemingly intractable dispute in the Western Sahara that has soured relations between Morocco and Algeria, suggest otherwise.
Resolution of the 35-year old conflict, one of Africa’s longest festering disputes, has become more urgent with the realization that lack of cooperation between North African and Sahel nations undermines efforts to stem the rise of Al Qaida’s affiliate in the region, Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The need to align North African nations was driven home by AQIM’s brazen kidnapping in Niger in September of seven foreigners, including five Frenchmen, that threatens France's major source of uranium. Algeria, which backs Polisario, the Sahrawi liberation movement in its dispute with Morocco, last month refused to participate in a meeting in the Malian capital Bamako organized by the G8 Counter-Terrorism Action Group to discuss AQIM because of the presence of Moroccan representatives.
While there are obvious differences between the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the conflict in the Western Sahara, similarities between the two suggest that the most recent Middle East peacemaking experience may be applicable.
At the heart of both conflicts is annexation of territory that has displaced population groups and subjected them to occupation. The parties to both conflicts pay lip service to international peace efforts but in practice act to subvert them. Both conflicts position a Western-backed ally against a liberation movement supported by influential regional powers. The United States and Europe, despite their support for the occupying power in both conflicts, pay lip service to the rights of the dispossessed.
It is these similarities that positions Middle East peacemaking as a model for preventing the festering conflict in the Sahara from playing into AQIM’s hands. The Obama’s administration message to Israel that security can only be achieved by accommodating Palestinian national aspirations is applicable to Morocco too: regional security demands a two-state solution. Morocco and the Sahrawis need to agree on a formula that balances Moroccan claims of sovereignty with Sahrawi demands for independence.
The roadmap adopted by the Middle East Quartet, which groups the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia is equally applicable to the Western Sahara based on UN Security Council resolutions that call for a negotiated solution and recognition of the Sahrawi right to self-determination. A Saharan roadmap would allow the international community to empower former US diplomat and current UN envoy Chris Ross with the same mandate given to US Middle East peace negotiator George Mitchell: impose a one-year deadline within which the parties seriously negotiate a resolution of their seemingly intractable differences.
To provide the roadmap, the international community would have to come together as it did in the case of the Middle East rather than ignoring the dispute in the Sahara or adopting contradictory policies.In the past the United States was the only power seeking to bring the parties to the negotiating table with little support from its fellow council members. That is no longer a tenable situation with AQIM’s increasingly brazen operations and threats by Polisario, the Saharan liberation movement, to revive its armed struggle.
Resolution of the 35-year old conflict, one of Africa’s longest festering disputes, has become more urgent with the realization that lack of cooperation between North African and Sahel nations undermines efforts to stem the rise of Al Qaida’s affiliate in the region, Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The need to align North African nations was driven home by AQIM’s brazen kidnapping in Niger in September of seven foreigners, including five Frenchmen, that threatens France's major source of uranium. Algeria, which backs Polisario, the Sahrawi liberation movement in its dispute with Morocco, last month refused to participate in a meeting in the Malian capital Bamako organized by the G8 Counter-Terrorism Action Group to discuss AQIM because of the presence of Moroccan representatives.
While there are obvious differences between the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the conflict in the Western Sahara, similarities between the two suggest that the most recent Middle East peacemaking experience may be applicable.
At the heart of both conflicts is annexation of territory that has displaced population groups and subjected them to occupation. The parties to both conflicts pay lip service to international peace efforts but in practice act to subvert them. Both conflicts position a Western-backed ally against a liberation movement supported by influential regional powers. The United States and Europe, despite their support for the occupying power in both conflicts, pay lip service to the rights of the dispossessed.
It is these similarities that positions Middle East peacemaking as a model for preventing the festering conflict in the Sahara from playing into AQIM’s hands. The Obama’s administration message to Israel that security can only be achieved by accommodating Palestinian national aspirations is applicable to Morocco too: regional security demands a two-state solution. Morocco and the Sahrawis need to agree on a formula that balances Moroccan claims of sovereignty with Sahrawi demands for independence.
The roadmap adopted by the Middle East Quartet, which groups the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia is equally applicable to the Western Sahara based on UN Security Council resolutions that call for a negotiated solution and recognition of the Sahrawi right to self-determination. A Saharan roadmap would allow the international community to empower former US diplomat and current UN envoy Chris Ross with the same mandate given to US Middle East peace negotiator George Mitchell: impose a one-year deadline within which the parties seriously negotiate a resolution of their seemingly intractable differences.
To provide the roadmap, the international community would have to come together as it did in the case of the Middle East rather than ignoring the dispute in the Sahara or adopting contradictory policies.In the past the United States was the only power seeking to bring the parties to the negotiating table with little support from its fellow council members. That is no longer a tenable situation with AQIM’s increasingly brazen operations and threats by Polisario, the Saharan liberation movement, to revive its armed struggle.
Monday, September 27, 2010
AQIM Kidnappings Spark Criticism of Ransom Payments
Last week’s kidnapping of five French nationals in northern Niger by an Al Qaeda affiliate is likely to be a watershed in regional and international efforts to combat terrorism in the Sahel.
The kidnapping also threatens to open a rift between European Union members about how to confront the threat to foreign nationals in northern Africa. In an apparent about face following a failed French-Mauritanian attack in July on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Al Qaeda affiliate, and the subsequent murder of a French hostage, France has signaled that it is willing to negotiate with the kidnappers of five employees of state-owned Avera, the world’s largest operator of nuclear plants. The apparent reversal of French policy has sparked criticism from Britain as well as Algeria.
Speaking at the United Nations, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that paying ransom to hostage takers would only encourage more abductions and killings of foreign nationals. Hague’s remarks constituted not only a shot across the bow of France but also criticism of Spain which is believed to have paid AQIM up to Euros 8 million earlier this year for the release of three Spanish aid workers.
Algerian President Abdelazi Bouteflika for counter terrorism, Mohamed Kamel Rezag Bara, told the UN this week that AQIM had earned $25 million from ransoms in the past two years, making it wealthier than its parent. The UN Security Council on Monday issued a statement expressing concern about the rising number of kidnappings and reminding UN members of their duty to prevent the financing of terrorist acts. Analysts note that various international conventions and Security Council resolutions implicitly ban ransom payments, but do not do so explicitly. The African Union last year called for the criminalization of the payment of ransoms, a call that is likely to find enhanced support in the wake of the abductions in Niger.
Analysts say further that the resolution of the French hostage crisis is likely to determine the future of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel. Tension, they say, could drop if France achieves a negotiated release of the French captives. Military action or the assassination of the hostages by their abductors would, however, likely lead to a more sustained series of clashes with regional and possibly French-led forces in the Sahel.
The kidnapping also threatens to open a rift between European Union members about how to confront the threat to foreign nationals in northern Africa. In an apparent about face following a failed French-Mauritanian attack in July on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Al Qaeda affiliate, and the subsequent murder of a French hostage, France has signaled that it is willing to negotiate with the kidnappers of five employees of state-owned Avera, the world’s largest operator of nuclear plants. The apparent reversal of French policy has sparked criticism from Britain as well as Algeria.
Speaking at the United Nations, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that paying ransom to hostage takers would only encourage more abductions and killings of foreign nationals. Hague’s remarks constituted not only a shot across the bow of France but also criticism of Spain which is believed to have paid AQIM up to Euros 8 million earlier this year for the release of three Spanish aid workers.
Algerian President Abdelazi Bouteflika for counter terrorism, Mohamed Kamel Rezag Bara, told the UN this week that AQIM had earned $25 million from ransoms in the past two years, making it wealthier than its parent. The UN Security Council on Monday issued a statement expressing concern about the rising number of kidnappings and reminding UN members of their duty to prevent the financing of terrorist acts. Analysts note that various international conventions and Security Council resolutions implicitly ban ransom payments, but do not do so explicitly. The African Union last year called for the criminalization of the payment of ransoms, a call that is likely to find enhanced support in the wake of the abductions in Niger.
Analysts say further that the resolution of the French hostage crisis is likely to determine the future of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel. Tension, they say, could drop if France achieves a negotiated release of the French captives. Military action or the assassination of the hostages by their abductors would, however, likely lead to a more sustained series of clashes with regional and possibly French-led forces in the Sahel.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Niger Abductions Draw France, EU into Northwest African Conflict
James M. Dorsey
World Politics Review
Last week's brazen kidnapping of seven foreigners, including five Frenchmen, by al-Qaida-linked militants in a uranium mining town in Niger has increased pressure on both France and the European Union to become more militarily involved in the region's fight against jihadists. The kidnapping threatens France's major source of uranium for its nuclear power plants, calls into question the practice by some European governments of paying ransoms to free hostages, and throws down the gauntlet for the EU in its counterterrorism efforts.
In response to the abductions, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and seven of his European counterparts urged EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to increase EU engagement in security and development in the Sahel, one of the world's poorest regions, arguing that the "populations there must have . . . another perspective than that offered by terrorists." Now, France has reportedly deployed 80 troops, including anti-terror and special operations forces, as well as reconnaissance aircraft to Niamey to support efforts to locate the abductees.
France and Spain have already found themselves increasingly drawn into the conflict in the Sahel due to a spate of kidnappings of their nationals by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaida's northwest African affiliate that operates primarily in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger.
With no claim of responsibility issued yet, it remains unclear whether the seven, who worked for both the French state-owned nuclear company Areva and a subsidiary of the French contractor Vinci, were abducted by the militants themselves or by Tuareg tribesmen cooperating with the jihadists. A Tuareg leader denied involvement despite Niger government claims that the kidnappers were heard speaking Tamachek, a Tuareg language. Kouchner said the tribesmen may have kidnapped the foreigners to sell them to AQIM.
The kidnappings are the first to strike directly at foreign economic interests. Earlier incidents targeted primarily aid workers and tourists, and were designed to fill AQIM's coffers with the proceeds of ransom payments. Avera's Niger operations produce half of the uranium used in French nuclear reactors. The company employs 2,500 people at the Cominak and Somair uranium mines, as well as at the Imouraren mine still under development. Imouaren, expected to become Africa's biggest uranium mine, will make impoverished Niger the world's second-largest uranium producer when it is brought online in 2014.
Last week's abductions threaten those ambitions. Over the weekend, Avera and Vinci began evacuating foreign nationals from Arlit, the town from which the seven were abducted while asleep in their homes, as well as from other areas threatened by AQIM and rebel tribesmen. The kidnappings also mark a milestone in AQIM operations as they are the first against a hardened target: Arlit is protected by some 350 Nigerien troops, and located in an area in which the militants had not been active. The abductions also constitute a setback for Avera's efforts to reduce widespread local resistance to its operations. Local NGOs and tribesmen accuse the company of bribing Tuareg rebels, polluting underground aquifers, aggravating a chronic water shortage, and exposing its employees to uranium contamination.
Nigerien military officials believe the seven hostages were moved to Mali, where past hostages have been held. Nigerien pilots spotted three vehicles, which they believe were transporting the hostages, moving at high speed toward the Malian border. Mauritanian forces assisted by French reconnaissance have launched an offensive in the area to clear the militants and drug dealers from what is currently a no-man's land. Algerian military officials and local sources say the Mauritanians are encountering stiff resistance from an AQIM field commander, Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid, described as radical and inflexible.
The fate of the seven hostages is likely to depend on which of AQIM's rival commanders controls them. In July, a joint French-Mauritanian military operation -- the first against AQIM known to involve Western combat troops -- failed to liberate 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau, who was subsequently killed by the militants. Malian negotiators say the hostages are at greater risk if Abu Zaid, who is believed to be responsible for Germaneau's death as well as for last year's killing of British hostage Edwin Dyer, gains control of them. By contrast, AQIM's leader in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has emerged in past negotiations as a less dogmatic dealmaker, willing to free hostages in return for a ransom and the release of jailed militants.
AQIM released two Spanish hostages shortly after July's failed military operation in a prisoner exchange with Mauritania that is believed to have also involved a payment of $5 million in ransom to the militants. In a statement, the jihadists said the release of the Spaniards demonstrated that they were still open for business. AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droudkel suggested that the group would test whether the killing of Germeneau in retaliation for the July raid had caused France to reconsider its approach.
Earlier this year, France had acquiesced to the release of French hostage Pierre Camette in exchange for the liberation of jailed militants in Mali. In the aftermath of the July raid, Droudkel warned that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had opened "the gates of hell on himself, his people and his nation." In response, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared his country at war with AQIM, and the French Foreign Ministry said that France's military forces were "fully mobilized" to counter "threats uttered by assassins."
Last week's abductions could escalate French and EU involvement in what is increasingly becoming not just an African but also a European problem. They are also likely to strengthen opposition to the paying of ransoms, which serve to embolden the militants while ensuring that they are able to fund further operations.
A 2008 French defense white paper (.pdf) identified the mineral- and oil-rich Sahel as one of four regions crucial to French national security. At the same time, the document and subsequent French defense planning called for reducing the number of France's African bases from four to three. Speaking after the abductions, Sarkozy warned that "the Sahel zone is extremely dangerous. . . . [This] shows that we must redouble vigilance." The recent developments could also lead France to redouble -- or at least maintain -- its presence there, too.
World Politics Review
Last week's brazen kidnapping of seven foreigners, including five Frenchmen, by al-Qaida-linked militants in a uranium mining town in Niger has increased pressure on both France and the European Union to become more militarily involved in the region's fight against jihadists. The kidnapping threatens France's major source of uranium for its nuclear power plants, calls into question the practice by some European governments of paying ransoms to free hostages, and throws down the gauntlet for the EU in its counterterrorism efforts.
In response to the abductions, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and seven of his European counterparts urged EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to increase EU engagement in security and development in the Sahel, one of the world's poorest regions, arguing that the "populations there must have . . . another perspective than that offered by terrorists." Now, France has reportedly deployed 80 troops, including anti-terror and special operations forces, as well as reconnaissance aircraft to Niamey to support efforts to locate the abductees.
France and Spain have already found themselves increasingly drawn into the conflict in the Sahel due to a spate of kidnappings of their nationals by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaida's northwest African affiliate that operates primarily in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger.
With no claim of responsibility issued yet, it remains unclear whether the seven, who worked for both the French state-owned nuclear company Areva and a subsidiary of the French contractor Vinci, were abducted by the militants themselves or by Tuareg tribesmen cooperating with the jihadists. A Tuareg leader denied involvement despite Niger government claims that the kidnappers were heard speaking Tamachek, a Tuareg language. Kouchner said the tribesmen may have kidnapped the foreigners to sell them to AQIM.
The kidnappings are the first to strike directly at foreign economic interests. Earlier incidents targeted primarily aid workers and tourists, and were designed to fill AQIM's coffers with the proceeds of ransom payments. Avera's Niger operations produce half of the uranium used in French nuclear reactors. The company employs 2,500 people at the Cominak and Somair uranium mines, as well as at the Imouraren mine still under development. Imouaren, expected to become Africa's biggest uranium mine, will make impoverished Niger the world's second-largest uranium producer when it is brought online in 2014.
Last week's abductions threaten those ambitions. Over the weekend, Avera and Vinci began evacuating foreign nationals from Arlit, the town from which the seven were abducted while asleep in their homes, as well as from other areas threatened by AQIM and rebel tribesmen. The kidnappings also mark a milestone in AQIM operations as they are the first against a hardened target: Arlit is protected by some 350 Nigerien troops, and located in an area in which the militants had not been active. The abductions also constitute a setback for Avera's efforts to reduce widespread local resistance to its operations. Local NGOs and tribesmen accuse the company of bribing Tuareg rebels, polluting underground aquifers, aggravating a chronic water shortage, and exposing its employees to uranium contamination.
Nigerien military officials believe the seven hostages were moved to Mali, where past hostages have been held. Nigerien pilots spotted three vehicles, which they believe were transporting the hostages, moving at high speed toward the Malian border. Mauritanian forces assisted by French reconnaissance have launched an offensive in the area to clear the militants and drug dealers from what is currently a no-man's land. Algerian military officials and local sources say the Mauritanians are encountering stiff resistance from an AQIM field commander, Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid, described as radical and inflexible.
The fate of the seven hostages is likely to depend on which of AQIM's rival commanders controls them. In July, a joint French-Mauritanian military operation -- the first against AQIM known to involve Western combat troops -- failed to liberate 78-year-old French hostage Michel Germaneau, who was subsequently killed by the militants. Malian negotiators say the hostages are at greater risk if Abu Zaid, who is believed to be responsible for Germaneau's death as well as for last year's killing of British hostage Edwin Dyer, gains control of them. By contrast, AQIM's leader in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has emerged in past negotiations as a less dogmatic dealmaker, willing to free hostages in return for a ransom and the release of jailed militants.
AQIM released two Spanish hostages shortly after July's failed military operation in a prisoner exchange with Mauritania that is believed to have also involved a payment of $5 million in ransom to the militants. In a statement, the jihadists said the release of the Spaniards demonstrated that they were still open for business. AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droudkel suggested that the group would test whether the killing of Germeneau in retaliation for the July raid had caused France to reconsider its approach.
Earlier this year, France had acquiesced to the release of French hostage Pierre Camette in exchange for the liberation of jailed militants in Mali. In the aftermath of the July raid, Droudkel warned that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had opened "the gates of hell on himself, his people and his nation." In response, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared his country at war with AQIM, and the French Foreign Ministry said that France's military forces were "fully mobilized" to counter "threats uttered by assassins."
Last week's abductions could escalate French and EU involvement in what is increasingly becoming not just an African but also a European problem. They are also likely to strengthen opposition to the paying of ransoms, which serve to embolden the militants while ensuring that they are able to fund further operations.
A 2008 French defense white paper (.pdf) identified the mineral- and oil-rich Sahel as one of four regions crucial to French national security. At the same time, the document and subsequent French defense planning called for reducing the number of France's African bases from four to three. Speaking after the abductions, Sarkozy warned that "the Sahel zone is extremely dangerous. . . . [This] shows that we must redouble vigilance." The recent developments could also lead France to redouble -- or at least maintain -- its presence there, too.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Release of Spanish Hostages: Questions and Insights
This week’s release of two Spanish hostages by an Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa raises questions about the steadfastness of the refusal by Western nations to negotiate with terrorists. It also constitutes a victory for the group’s Algerian faction focused more on kidnapping of foreigners as a business than on achieving political goals.
In a statement to Spanish newspaper El Pais, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Al Qaeda affiliate that operates primarily in Algeria, Mauritainia, Mali and Niger suggested that Spain had met its demand for payment of a $5 million ransom for the hostages. The Spanish government has declined to comment on whether it had cut a deal with the militants. The hostages were kidnapped in Mauritania in November while riding in a convoy delivering supplies to poor villages.
It became apparent that the two hostages, Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual, were about to be released after Mauritania last week threw the jihadists a bone by extraditing to Mali a key Malian AQIM operative, Omar Sid'Ahmed Ould Hamma. Hamma had been convicted to 12 years in prison for kidnapping the two Spaniards as well as Alicia Gomez, a third Spaniard who was released in March. His release had been part of AQIM’s demands.
Spain's ransom payment and Hamma's release would not be the first time European and West African authorities have entered into negotiations with AQIM. Mali released four Islamists earlier this year in an apparent swap for French hostage Pierre Camatte, freed by AQIM in February. The release soured its relations with Algeria, Mauritania and Niger who accused Mali of being soft on terrorism.
The group, which grew out of the Salafist movement in Algeria and has since shifted south into the vast and lawless Sahel, also killed British captive Edwin Dyer last year after London refused to give in to its demands.
Analysts and Malian officials say Hamma’s release was as much designed to achieve the release of the remaining hostages as it was to deepen divisions within the Al Qaeda affiliate and complicate its relations with allied rebel Tuareg tribesmen. The Tuareg accuse the Malian government of failing to implement a 2008 agreement that was supposed to end their tribal insurgency and grant the Tuareg greater rights.
Relations between Al Qaeda and the Tuareg became strained last month when an AQIM commander, Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid, accused the Tuareg of assisting a French-Mauritainian attack that last month failed to liberate 78-year old French hostage Michel Germaneau and killed six jihadists. Abu Zaid charged that the Tuareg had pinpointed the whereabouts of the AQIM operatives. In retaliation, Abu Zaid abducted and killed Mirzag Ag El Housseini, a Tuareg customs officer whose brother is senior commander in the Malian army. In a statement, AQIM’s leader in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that his group would retaliate against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” who had cooperated in the raid. The French Foreign Ministry says its forces are “fully mobilized” to counter “threats uttered by assassins.”
Abu Zaid had been urging the commander of AQIM’s wing in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, under whose control the Spaniards were, to execute them in retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid. Mali had been quietly negotiating the release of the Spanish hostages with Belmokhtar. Malian officials say that the extradition of Hamma enabled Belmokhtar to cut a deal and claim political success. Hamma’s extradition contrasts starkly with Mauritania’s participation in the French-led raid and its past refusal to negotiate with the jihadists.
In its statement, AQIM said the release of the hostages demonstrated to France that "it was possible to deal rationally with the Mujahedeen (Islamic fighters). It was possible to avoid the aggravation, irritation and anger that led to the killing of their national."
In a statement to Spanish newspaper El Pais, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Al Qaeda affiliate that operates primarily in Algeria, Mauritainia, Mali and Niger suggested that Spain had met its demand for payment of a $5 million ransom for the hostages. The Spanish government has declined to comment on whether it had cut a deal with the militants. The hostages were kidnapped in Mauritania in November while riding in a convoy delivering supplies to poor villages.
It became apparent that the two hostages, Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual, were about to be released after Mauritania last week threw the jihadists a bone by extraditing to Mali a key Malian AQIM operative, Omar Sid'Ahmed Ould Hamma. Hamma had been convicted to 12 years in prison for kidnapping the two Spaniards as well as Alicia Gomez, a third Spaniard who was released in March. His release had been part of AQIM’s demands.
Spain's ransom payment and Hamma's release would not be the first time European and West African authorities have entered into negotiations with AQIM. Mali released four Islamists earlier this year in an apparent swap for French hostage Pierre Camatte, freed by AQIM in February. The release soured its relations with Algeria, Mauritania and Niger who accused Mali of being soft on terrorism.
The group, which grew out of the Salafist movement in Algeria and has since shifted south into the vast and lawless Sahel, also killed British captive Edwin Dyer last year after London refused to give in to its demands.
Analysts and Malian officials say Hamma’s release was as much designed to achieve the release of the remaining hostages as it was to deepen divisions within the Al Qaeda affiliate and complicate its relations with allied rebel Tuareg tribesmen. The Tuareg accuse the Malian government of failing to implement a 2008 agreement that was supposed to end their tribal insurgency and grant the Tuareg greater rights.
Relations between Al Qaeda and the Tuareg became strained last month when an AQIM commander, Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid, accused the Tuareg of assisting a French-Mauritainian attack that last month failed to liberate 78-year old French hostage Michel Germaneau and killed six jihadists. Abu Zaid charged that the Tuareg had pinpointed the whereabouts of the AQIM operatives. In retaliation, Abu Zaid abducted and killed Mirzag Ag El Housseini, a Tuareg customs officer whose brother is senior commander in the Malian army. In a statement, AQIM’s leader in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that his group would retaliate against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” who had cooperated in the raid. The French Foreign Ministry says its forces are “fully mobilized” to counter “threats uttered by assassins.”
Abu Zaid had been urging the commander of AQIM’s wing in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, under whose control the Spaniards were, to execute them in retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid. Mali had been quietly negotiating the release of the Spanish hostages with Belmokhtar. Malian officials say that the extradition of Hamma enabled Belmokhtar to cut a deal and claim political success. Hamma’s extradition contrasts starkly with Mauritania’s participation in the French-led raid and its past refusal to negotiate with the jihadists.
In its statement, AQIM said the release of the hostages demonstrated to France that "it was possible to deal rationally with the Mujahedeen (Islamic fighters). It was possible to avoid the aggravation, irritation and anger that led to the killing of their national."
Friday, August 20, 2010
French Raid on Al Qaeda Paves Way for Spanish Hostage Release
Last month’s French-Mauritanian attack on Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa failed to liberate a 78-year old French hostage, but in an unexpected twist, has driven a wedge between the jihadists and their Tuareg tribal allies in the region and is fomenting tension between Al Qaeda commanders, according to Western and West African intelligence sources.
The emerging divide between the affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Tuareg who accuse the Malian government of failing to implement a 2008 agreement that was supposed to end their tribal insurgency and grant the Tuareg greater rights offers President Amadou Toumani Toure as well as US, French and British counterterrorism efforts in the region an opportunity to substantially weaken the jihadists to whom local tribes provide a crucial lifeline. It has also provided an opening for the release of two Spanish hostages held by the jihadists.
AQIM commander Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid has accused the Tuareg of assisting the French-led attack in which six jihadists were killed by pinpointing the whereabouts of the AQIM operatives. To revenge the betrayal, Abu Zaid last week abducted and killed Mirzag Ag El Housseini, a Tuareg customs officer whose brother is senior commander in the Malian army. In a statement, AQIM’s leader in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that his group would retaliate against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” who had cooperated in the raid. The French Foreign Ministry says its forces are “fully mobilized” to counter “threats uttered by assassins.”
Mauritania, despite the threats, this week threw the jihadists a bone by extraditing to Mali a key Malian AQIM operative, Omar Sid'Ahmed Ould Hamma, who was convicted to 12 years in prison for kidnapping three Spaniards last November. Alicia Gomez, one of the hostages, was released in March. Analysts say the extradition was designed to set the stage for the release of the two remaining Spanish hostages and fuel differences of opinion between AQIM commanders about the fate of the Spaniards. The analysts and Malian officials say Abu Zaid is urging AQIM’s leader in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, under whose control the Spaniards are, to execute them in retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid.
Mali has been quietly negotiating with Belmokhtar the release of the hostages. Malian officials say that the extradition of Hamma may enable Belmokhtar, who is demanding a ransom, to cut a deal and claim political success. Hamma’s extradition contrasts starkly with Mauritania’s participation in the French-led raid and its past refusal to negotiate with the jihadists. Mauritanian relations with Mali soured earlier this year after the government in Nouakchott accused Mali of being soft on terrorism by releasing in February four AQIM operatives in exchange for French hostage Pierre Camatte.
The emerging divide between the affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Tuareg who accuse the Malian government of failing to implement a 2008 agreement that was supposed to end their tribal insurgency and grant the Tuareg greater rights offers President Amadou Toumani Toure as well as US, French and British counterterrorism efforts in the region an opportunity to substantially weaken the jihadists to whom local tribes provide a crucial lifeline. It has also provided an opening for the release of two Spanish hostages held by the jihadists.
AQIM commander Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid has accused the Tuareg of assisting the French-led attack in which six jihadists were killed by pinpointing the whereabouts of the AQIM operatives. To revenge the betrayal, Abu Zaid last week abducted and killed Mirzag Ag El Housseini, a Tuareg customs officer whose brother is senior commander in the Malian army. In a statement, AQIM’s leader in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that his group would retaliate against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” who had cooperated in the raid. The French Foreign Ministry says its forces are “fully mobilized” to counter “threats uttered by assassins.”
Mauritania, despite the threats, this week threw the jihadists a bone by extraditing to Mali a key Malian AQIM operative, Omar Sid'Ahmed Ould Hamma, who was convicted to 12 years in prison for kidnapping three Spaniards last November. Alicia Gomez, one of the hostages, was released in March. Analysts say the extradition was designed to set the stage for the release of the two remaining Spanish hostages and fuel differences of opinion between AQIM commanders about the fate of the Spaniards. The analysts and Malian officials say Abu Zaid is urging AQIM’s leader in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, under whose control the Spaniards are, to execute them in retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid.
Mali has been quietly negotiating with Belmokhtar the release of the hostages. Malian officials say that the extradition of Hamma may enable Belmokhtar, who is demanding a ransom, to cut a deal and claim political success. Hamma’s extradition contrasts starkly with Mauritania’s participation in the French-led raid and its past refusal to negotiate with the jihadists. Mauritanian relations with Mali soured earlier this year after the government in Nouakchott accused Mali of being soft on terrorism by releasing in February four AQIM operatives in exchange for French hostage Pierre Camatte.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Soccer vs. Islam: Football and Militant Islam Compete For Hearts and Minds
By James M. Dorsey
Nowhere does football enthusiasm involve a greater act of courage and defiance than in the war-ravaged, football-mad Arab nation of Somalia. With large chunks of the country controlled by al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab jihadists, football is often a question of life or death. Players and enthusiasts risk execution, arrest and torture -- and not just in Somalia. More than 70 people in neighboring Uganda were killed earlier this month when al-Shabab suicide bombers hit popular spots where fans were watching the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.
The bombings, the first major attacks by al-Shabab beyond Somalia’s borders, sought to persuade Uganda to withdraw its 3,000 troops from the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia and reconsider its plans to send reinforcements. But by targeting football, they also highlighted militant Islam’s love-hate relationship with the game -- a useful bonding and recruitment tool capable of competing with militant Islamists for hearts and minds.
Backed by radical Saudi clerics, some jihadists denounce football as a satanic game designed to take the faithful away from devotion to Islam. Somali jihadists see football as competition for recruits in the world’s foremost failed state where unemployment is rampant and youth have little to look forward to. Youngsters are rustled from the pitch and forced to join the ranks of the jihadis. Jihadists have repeatedly warned the Somali football federation to halt organization of tournaments. In the country’s only football stadium in the partly jihadi-controlled capital Mogadishu, Somalia’s national team clears the pitch of bullets and bodies before training sessions. Threats forced private broadcaster Shabelle to move its operations to Mogadishu’s African Union-protected airport from where it broadcast the World Cup opening ceremony.
In the Middle East and North Africa, a part of the world pockmarked by repressive regimes, football competes with political Islam as a venue to release frustration against authoritarian leaders. As a result, some Islamists seek to co-opt the game while others aim to suppress it. In a controversial religious ruling in 2005, militant Saudi clerics condemned football as an infidel invention and redrafted its International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) rules to differentiate the game from what they described as ‘the heretics.’ The ruling did things like ban the words “foul,” “goal,” “penalty,” and clothes like shorts and T-shirts, and ordered players to spit on anyone who scored a goal. “All fun is bootless except the playing of a man with his wife, his son and his horse,” said Sheikh Abu Ishaaq al Huweni-Huweni. “Thus, if someone sits in front of the television to watch football…he will be committing bootless fun…We have to be a serious nation, not a playing nation,” he said citing the hadith, the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, but ignoring the prophet’s endorsement of physical exercise.
The fatwa was condemned by more mainstream Saudi clerics, who recognize that Saudis are football-mad and passionate about their national team, which historically has fared well in FIFA competitions. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, afraid that believers would forget their daily prayers during the World Cup, rolled out mobile mosques on trucks and prayer mats in front of popular cafes where men gathered to watch matches. More sensitive is the issue of women’s sports, including football. With Saudi Arabia threatened with suspension by the International Olympic Committee if it does not this year create frameworks for women’s sports, debate is raging among the country’s powerful clergy and in the media. Physical education classes are banned in state-run Saudi girls schools and female athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympics. Women's games and marathons are often canceled if the clergy gets wind of them. Clerics argue that women’s sports are corrupting and satanic and would spread decadence. Nonetheless, women have quietly been establishing their own football and other sports teams with the backing of members of the ruling Al Saud family and under the wings of hospitals or ‘health club.’
Football, despite the condemnation by militant Islam’s most radical fringe, has served Islamists well. Foreigners who fought in Afghanistan organized football matches after the Soviet withdrawal to maintain contact. The perpetrators of the 2004 Madrid subway bombings played football together and a number of Hamas’ suicide bombers trace their roots to the same football club in Hebron. “A reliable predictor of whether or not someone joins the Jihad is being a member of an action-oriented group of friends,” Scholar Scott Atran told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in March. “It's surprising how many soccer buddies join together.”
Osama Bin Laden is said to enjoy playing center forward. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh played defense for one of the Gaza’s local clubs. Haniyeh recently employed football in efforts to heal the rift between Hamas and their secular rivals in Fatah. When Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, it also took over the administration of all Gaza clubs, prompting a rupture with the West Bank-based, Fatah-dominated Palestinian Football Association (PFA) that halted association football in the strip. In a tentative step earlier this year toward Palestinian reconciliation, Hamas and Fatah agreed to jointly administer the Gaza football federation. This allowed for competitive matches in Gaza for the first time in three years. For Gazans, football matches constitute a rare opportunity in a politically restrictive society to release pent-up emotions.
Nowhere is soccer more of a political football than in relations between the Egyptian government and the Islamist opposition. Football passions exploded late last year with violent clashes between Egyptian and Algerian fans on three continents and -- for the first time since the 1969 football war between Honduras and El Salvador -- brought the world to the brink of a soccer-inspired conflict. Egypt recalled its ambassador to Algeria while Algeria slapped Egyptian-owned Orascom telecom’s Algerian operation with a tax bill for more than half a billion dollars, prompting Libyan leader Col. Moammer Gadaffi to intervene to prevent the dispute from escalating. The Egyptian government was quick to fan the flames and ride the tide of emotion in a rare opportunity to bolster its image at the expense of the Islamists. “The violence expressed years of depression of a population that constantly witnesses social, financial and political failure,” said Ahmed al-Aqabawi, a professor at Azhar University. “Soccer is their only ray of light.”
Nowhere does football enthusiasm involve a greater act of courage and defiance than in the war-ravaged, football-mad Arab nation of Somalia. With large chunks of the country controlled by al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab jihadists, football is often a question of life or death. Players and enthusiasts risk execution, arrest and torture -- and not just in Somalia. More than 70 people in neighboring Uganda were killed earlier this month when al-Shabab suicide bombers hit popular spots where fans were watching the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.
The bombings, the first major attacks by al-Shabab beyond Somalia’s borders, sought to persuade Uganda to withdraw its 3,000 troops from the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia and reconsider its plans to send reinforcements. But by targeting football, they also highlighted militant Islam’s love-hate relationship with the game -- a useful bonding and recruitment tool capable of competing with militant Islamists for hearts and minds.
Backed by radical Saudi clerics, some jihadists denounce football as a satanic game designed to take the faithful away from devotion to Islam. Somali jihadists see football as competition for recruits in the world’s foremost failed state where unemployment is rampant and youth have little to look forward to. Youngsters are rustled from the pitch and forced to join the ranks of the jihadis. Jihadists have repeatedly warned the Somali football federation to halt organization of tournaments. In the country’s only football stadium in the partly jihadi-controlled capital Mogadishu, Somalia’s national team clears the pitch of bullets and bodies before training sessions. Threats forced private broadcaster Shabelle to move its operations to Mogadishu’s African Union-protected airport from where it broadcast the World Cup opening ceremony.
In the Middle East and North Africa, a part of the world pockmarked by repressive regimes, football competes with political Islam as a venue to release frustration against authoritarian leaders. As a result, some Islamists seek to co-opt the game while others aim to suppress it. In a controversial religious ruling in 2005, militant Saudi clerics condemned football as an infidel invention and redrafted its International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) rules to differentiate the game from what they described as ‘the heretics.’ The ruling did things like ban the words “foul,” “goal,” “penalty,” and clothes like shorts and T-shirts, and ordered players to spit on anyone who scored a goal. “All fun is bootless except the playing of a man with his wife, his son and his horse,” said Sheikh Abu Ishaaq al Huweni-Huweni. “Thus, if someone sits in front of the television to watch football…he will be committing bootless fun…We have to be a serious nation, not a playing nation,” he said citing the hadith, the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, but ignoring the prophet’s endorsement of physical exercise.
The fatwa was condemned by more mainstream Saudi clerics, who recognize that Saudis are football-mad and passionate about their national team, which historically has fared well in FIFA competitions. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, afraid that believers would forget their daily prayers during the World Cup, rolled out mobile mosques on trucks and prayer mats in front of popular cafes where men gathered to watch matches. More sensitive is the issue of women’s sports, including football. With Saudi Arabia threatened with suspension by the International Olympic Committee if it does not this year create frameworks for women’s sports, debate is raging among the country’s powerful clergy and in the media. Physical education classes are banned in state-run Saudi girls schools and female athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympics. Women's games and marathons are often canceled if the clergy gets wind of them. Clerics argue that women’s sports are corrupting and satanic and would spread decadence. Nonetheless, women have quietly been establishing their own football and other sports teams with the backing of members of the ruling Al Saud family and under the wings of hospitals or ‘health club.’
Football, despite the condemnation by militant Islam’s most radical fringe, has served Islamists well. Foreigners who fought in Afghanistan organized football matches after the Soviet withdrawal to maintain contact. The perpetrators of the 2004 Madrid subway bombings played football together and a number of Hamas’ suicide bombers trace their roots to the same football club in Hebron. “A reliable predictor of whether or not someone joins the Jihad is being a member of an action-oriented group of friends,” Scholar Scott Atran told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in March. “It's surprising how many soccer buddies join together.”
Osama Bin Laden is said to enjoy playing center forward. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh played defense for one of the Gaza’s local clubs. Haniyeh recently employed football in efforts to heal the rift between Hamas and their secular rivals in Fatah. When Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, it also took over the administration of all Gaza clubs, prompting a rupture with the West Bank-based, Fatah-dominated Palestinian Football Association (PFA) that halted association football in the strip. In a tentative step earlier this year toward Palestinian reconciliation, Hamas and Fatah agreed to jointly administer the Gaza football federation. This allowed for competitive matches in Gaza for the first time in three years. For Gazans, football matches constitute a rare opportunity in a politically restrictive society to release pent-up emotions.
Nowhere is soccer more of a political football than in relations between the Egyptian government and the Islamist opposition. Football passions exploded late last year with violent clashes between Egyptian and Algerian fans on three continents and -- for the first time since the 1969 football war between Honduras and El Salvador -- brought the world to the brink of a soccer-inspired conflict. Egypt recalled its ambassador to Algeria while Algeria slapped Egyptian-owned Orascom telecom’s Algerian operation with a tax bill for more than half a billion dollars, prompting Libyan leader Col. Moammer Gadaffi to intervene to prevent the dispute from escalating. The Egyptian government was quick to fan the flames and ride the tide of emotion in a rare opportunity to bolster its image at the expense of the Islamists. “The violence expressed years of depression of a population that constantly witnesses social, financial and political failure,” said Ahmed al-Aqabawi, a professor at Azhar University. “Soccer is their only ray of light.”
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Studies Urges Trans-Atlantic Push For Middle Eastern Reform
If there is one issue beyond the Israeli Palestinian conflict that has damaged US credibility, and to a lesser degree that of the European Union, in the Middle East, it is their failure to stand by their principles of democracy and human rights when it comes to the Arab and Muslim world. Examples of the inherent contradictions of US and EU policy are multiple and glaring: rejection of free and fair elections when the outcome is not to the West's liking such as Hamas' victory in 2006 and the electoral success of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1991, continued support for autocratic Arab regimes in the Middle East and a disregard for human rights in the war on terror.
In his very first days in office, President Barack Obama has signaled his sincerity in seeking to restore US credibility and return it to its adherence to values of respect for human rights and the pursuit of democracy. His executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and ban torture of suspected terrorists as well as his shift in tone although not in substance on Israel and the Palestinians create expectations. While the Middle East has heard this before from Washington and seen no shift in policy either towards the Palestinians or political reform in the Arab world, tangible changes of US policy, if pursued, are likely to be gradual. Given the fragile balance in the Middle East, policy change resembles an oil tanker seeking to change course.
Public opinion in the Middle East recoils from the unqualified support the Bush administration granted Israel in its war on Hamas and the impotence of the international community and Arab governments in seeking to impose a halt to the carnage. Hamas enjoys a groundswell of support from ordinary Arabs and Islamist opposition to Arab governments is riding high on the predicament of their governments. Fear that change would undermine Arab government support for US policy in the region has repeatedly in the past defeated past lofty US promises to nurture democracy in the Middle East. So has concern that change could produce governments more in tune with their people but less attentive to US needs. The Obama administration has yet to prove that it is able and willing to chart a course key to restoring US credibility and true to Obama's declared ambition in what constitutes a treacherous minefield. Inevitably, this would involve engagement with the region's Islamists, something the US and Europe has been reluctant to do even though it has done so on various occasions. To do so, the United States and Europe will have to balance their long-term objective of political reform with short-term geo-strategic goals such as Middle East peace, continued access to the region's energy resources and a coming to grips with Iranian regional ambition.
In a report entitled 'Europe, The United States and Middle Eastern Democracy: Repairing the Breach,' published by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Tamara Coffman Wittes and Richard Youngs, argue that to achieve both short and long term goals, the United States and Europe need to adopt a common approach. In a series of recommendations, they suggest:
1) Establishment of a high-level transatlantic forum to coordinate policies in the Middle East similar to the U.S.-E.U. strategic dialogue on Asia established in 2005.
2) The United States and Europe should leave Arab leaders in no doubt of the West’s continued interest in and attention to democratic growth and human rights improvements in the Middle East, in part through joint statements
3) Europe and the United States should agree on common criteria on rewards and positive conditionality as incentives for reform
4) The allies should uphold the principle that local civil society can seek and accept foreign assistance and make US and European support of Arab civil society non-negotiable
5) The United States and Europe should engage with non-violent Islamist organization, make clear that their defense of peaceful political activism is not selective, and exert pressure on regimes that crack down on such organizations or seek to prevent them from meeting with Western donors
6) US and European government funders should engage in sustained and regular dialogue on funding strategies for democratic development in specific states
7) The United States and Europe should stress that democratic development in the Middle East is a common interest shared with the peoples of the region, not a means to other ends.
For too long, the United States and Europe paid lip service to reform in the Middle East, but feared that commitment to a reform policy could endanger energy supplies, nurture the emergence of forces less inclined to embrace the compromise needed for a two-state solution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict and embolden militant forces. Failure to insist on reform has produced regimes that increasingly lack credibility and opposition groups opposed to the West in part because the West failed to stand against repression and violation of human rights and refused to engage with them.
Lack of Western commitment to reform is stifling indigenous attempts at a more modern interpretation of Islam that challenges the views of the Islamists. Arab regimes, seeking to neutralize the appeal of the Islamists, often close ranks with conservative religious forces opposed to more liberal approaches to Islam, such as the Koranists, an Islamic reformation movement that focuses exclusively on the Koran and opposes implementation of Sharia law.
"For nearly a decade, as (the Koranists have) gained momentum, they have come under increased attack from the Egyptian government for their religious ideas. Al Azhar University, which is based in Cairo and is the leading center for conservative Sunni learning in the world, has rejected the views of the Koranists and has sought to systematically dismantle the movement. To curry favor with this influential religious establishment, the Egyptian government has brutally cracked down on members of the Koranist movement, leading to the imprisonment and torture of over 20 members and the exile of many more," says Ahmed Subhy Mansour, president of Washington's International Quranic Society.
Progress in seeking a modus vivendi for long-term Israeli Palestinian coexistence would ease Western efforts to nudge Arab governments towards democratic reform. Palestine constitutes a double-edged sword for Arab rulers. For too long, it served as a lightening rod that distracted attention from problems at home. Increasingly, Arab inability to further a peace agenda that incorporates Palestinian aspirations and impotence to force a halt to the latest war is fueling support for Islamist opposition groups. A coordinated US and European peace effort would allow the allies to help regimes embark on reform.
In a separate study, India's Strategic Foresight Group, backed by governments or other agencies in Norway, Qatar, Switzerland and Turkey, has concluded that conflict in the Middle East since 1991 has cost the region $12 trillion. The study says the region's population could have been twice as rich as they are today had conflicts, that prevent the Middle East from capitalizing on its location and resources, been resolved. The report looks at the cost of conflict across the region, including the Israeli Arab dispute, the war in Iraq, tension between Iran and Israel rivalry between Hamas and the Palestine Authority and al-Qaeda. It estimates the opportunity costs of conflict in the region at 2% of growth in gross domestic product and suggest that peace coupled with good governance and sound economic policies would allow some countries to grow at 8%. The report says with peace incomes per capita of the population in Israel in 2010 would be $44,241 instead of $23,304, on the West Bank and in Gaza $2,427 as opposed to $1,220 and in Iraq $9,681 against the current $2,375. The report put the cost since 200 of Israeli checkpoints on the West bank impeding Palestinian freedom of movement at 100 million person hours. "Considering the enormity of the costs evidenced in this report which have direct or indirect negative consequences for the whole world, the urgent necessity of a stronger international engagement is inescapable," says Thomas Greminger, a senior Swiss diplomat who worked on the study.
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