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Last week, the United States welcomed the re-election of Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who won the nationwide presidential election by an 18 percent margin over opposition leader General Sarath Fonseka.

In a statement issued after the final results were announced, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs P. J. Crowley commended the country for “the first nationwide election held in decades.” Despite cautious praise of the electoral process, what remains to be seen in this deeply divided nation is whether the second term policies of this administration will be truly “free and fair.”

Under the rule of President Rajapaksa (and his three brothers), the ruling party has been credited with ending the 30-year civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the process of this brutal military campaign, it also earned widespread condemnation for its disregard for human rights norms, rampant corruption, and excessive militarization. Unfortunately, it is likely that the Rajapaksa regime will interpret the election results as a renewed mandate to reinforce its policies of the past.

Even more unfortunate, however, is the reality that Sri Lanka’s presidential system (which both candidates claimed they would abolish) provides virtually no checks and balances on the all but unrestricted power of the executive branch. Capitalizing on this power, the president has already declared that he will dissolve Parliament in an effort to secure a ruling coalition to reinforce his decisions.

While Rajapaksa’s leadership will now last for six more years, it is likely that severe internal and external challenges facing the regime will emerge in the very near future. Read the rest of this entry »

America’s European partners in its war on terror are not committing on when or whether to take in any detainees from Guantánamo. “There was nobody very hot about this, that’s perfectly true,” said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg on January 26, after a meeting of the European Union. His nation holds the rotating presidency of the 27 member EU which includes 21 of the 26 members of NATO.

Austria is against taking any released prisoners. The parliament of Finland is split on the issue. Denmark would need to change its asylum laws to accept any detainees. Sweden sees no political or national security benefit in admitting them. Poland has no experience in dealing with this kind of prisoners. Italy and Spain would consider a U.S. request only if endorsed by the EU.

European opposition to this plan is vociferous. “I do not understand why we give the impression that Germany needs to accept prisoners. Guantánamo was established by the U.S. We did not run it. We did not use it,” says Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the Christian Democrats.

“Don’t forget these inmates are not kittens-it’s a risk for us to bring them into Europe.” says the Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen. London has already made a “significant contribution,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband. England has already accepted nine of its citizens and six of its residents formerly imprisoned at Guantánamo.

France has found little support for its plan to lead an EU fact-finding mission to Guantánamo to ascertain the background of the current detainees and assess the security risks in accepting at least 60 persons who, while they face no charges in the United States, are likely to be tortured or persecuted if returned to the countries of their origin. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the many reasons Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games was that, it was hoped, a massive influx of international visitors—journalists in tow—would help push the central government to lessen restrictions on China’s own domestic media. One dramatic outcome would have been a lasting breach in the Great Firewall of China, the country’s highly advanced internet censorship apparatus.

While policies relaxed for foreign journalists reporting from China during the Olympics appear to be a welcome, permanent fixture, citizens reporting on events within China still have their work cut out for them. Four months after the lighting of the Olympic torch there seems to be little official progress in the movement to expand internet free speech to the masses of the great Middle Kingdom. China’s citizens, however, think otherwise.

Glowing praise issued from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on the success of the Beijing games conveniently did not mention the few crackdowns, arrests, and internet censorship activities that occurred during the month-long spectacle.

Such admonishment was left to others, like Human Rights Watch’s Minky Worden, who chastised the IOC for leaving out of its fact sheets “the extent to which the International Olympic Committee lowered its standards on human rights around the Beijing Olympic Games.” Similarly, Bob Dietz of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) commented, “I think, in the end, the government’s approach to the media hasn’t changed that much.”

Indeed, a recent report from CPJ concludes “more Internet journalists are jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium…45 percent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors.” China continues its ten-year streak at the top of this list. Read the rest of this entry »

As always, summer in Western Europe is a quiet time. People tend to take much of the European Union mandated four weeks (at minimum) of paid work leave during August. Official discussions about managing the crisis created by the Ireland’s early June rejection of the Lisbon Treaty have been put off until October, although last week Ireland’s European Affairs Minister, Dick Roche, hinted at the next step by saying that a second vote was necessary if Ireland wants to remain an integral member of the European Union. The implication being that Ireland must continue to vote until they come up with the right answer. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s economy falters, and the Poles are going home.

According to a report released this summer by Britain’s Institute for Public Policy Research, nearly half of the Eastern European migrants who moved to Britain when EU enlargement made it possible in 2004 and 2007, have returned home as the U.K. economy continues its regression. The United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics found that even though the population grew by 388,000 in 2007 (one of the smallest jumps in recent years), the proportion of growth attributable to immigration decreased.

The Poles and other Eastern Europeans have left the U.K., and if they’ve not gone home, they’ve gone elsewhere—to France, for example, which opened its employment ranks to the 12 newest members of the European Union in July, a year ahead of schedule. While economists likely applaud the economically driven pattern of trans-European migration, it seems it is just what social nationalists fear—migrants driven purely by financial motives rather than a desire to relocate and become part of a national community.

France, which assumed the presidency of the European Union in July, introduced a draft European pact on immigration and asylum this summer. It addressed the issues of national values and identity with these lines in the preamble:

“The European Council recognizes the interest of the integration contract for third-country nationals who are admitted for long-term residence on their territory and encourages member States to propose it at a national level. This integration contract must be compulsory. It will include the requirement of learning the national language, European national identities and values, such as respect for other people’s physical integrity, equality between men and women, tolerance, compulsory schooling and education for children.” [Emphasis mine]

As I wrote in the summer 2008 issue of World Policy Journal, even politicians have difficulty defining their country’s identity—of which “values” form the essential part—as independent from those of Europe. The European Union is expected to adopt France’s pact when it reconvenes in October.

Yet while Western Europe has been fairly quiescent on their long summer holidays, the Balkan region, which includes several states that are next in line to be considered for EU membership, has been roiling. Read the rest of this entry »

In the uproar over France’s denial of Faiza Mabchour’s citizenship application over her wearing of the niqab, many commentators have found it easy to condemn France for being racist/religionist/whatever-ist you want to call it. But the reality is that people are uncomfortable with people who look different—and societies adopt clothing as a political tool for many different purposes and in many different contexts.

In a delicious irony, as American pundits were wringing their hands over France and the veil, a small Illinois town passed a law banning baggy pants that reveal underwear—a case of preventing (mainly) men from revealing too much, as opposed to punishing a woman for revealing too little.

Many Westerners—and yes, even we New Yorkers who believe ourselves to be sophisticated and tolerant—would be deeply uncomfortable when faced with the prospect of more and more people on the street whose faces we cannot see. It is folly to ignore that visceral reaction.

How can France address the deep-seated fears about the niqab? The answer turns out to be the same as the answer to how it can protect Muslim women’s rights and French values.
Read the rest of this entry »