worldpolicy.org

Iranian Press TV reported on Sunday Iran’s intention to construct ten additional uranium enrichment facilities. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has requested Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity for domestic use through 500,000 additional centrifuges by 2020. Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi explained that the decision was a direct response to the recent criticisms from the United Nations, and especially the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany). “We had no intention of building many facilities like the Natanz site,” Salehi said, “but apparently the West doesn’t want to understand Iran’s peaceful message.” In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner labeled Iran’s decision “a bit childish.” Also on Sunday, more than 200 members of the Iranian parliament signed a letter urging Ahmadinejad to restrict the IAEA’s presence in Iran, and some called for Iran’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Withdrawal would eliminate the West’s already limited inspection capability in Iran, but in so doing would signal malicious intent—beyond Iran’s stated peaceful intent for civilian energy—that might prompt harsher sanctions and perhaps even preemptive military action from Israel or others. As to Iran’s peaceful nuclear power generators, Russian sources told Reuters on Monday that the Bushehr plant—which Iran has contracted to Russia for an estimated $1 billion—will likely begin generating electricity in March 2010, coinciding with the Russian New Year.

Results from the Honduran presidential election, in which voters have appeared to reject President Manuel Zelaya, are putting the United States and Brazil at odds over the future of the Latin American nation. Zelaya, who was ousted from the presidency in a military coup in June, apparently lost to opponent Porfirio Lobo, who according to provisional election results won about 56 percent of the vote. The United States praised the vote; a U.S. State Department spokesman said the “the Honduran people took a necessary and important step forward.” But Brazil, which has hosted Zelaya in its embassy in Tegucigalpa since mid-September, said it would not recognize the results because of the military coup. “Brazil will maintain its position because it’s not possible to accept a coup,” said Brazilian president Luiz Inacio da Silva. Zelaya has called the election a “fraud” and tried to get Hondurans to boycott the vote.

The government of Dubai announced on Monday that it will not guarantee the debt of the investment firm Dubai World. The Director General of Dubai’s finance department, Abdulrahman al-Saleh, warned that creditors are responsible for their own lending decisions. “Creditors need to take part of the responsibility for their decision to lend to the companies. They think Dubai World is part of the government, which is not correct.” The federal United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged cautiously on Monday to lend to Dubai banks, hoping to allay a crisis of confidence similar to, if on a far smaller scale, that which crippled the global economy last fall. “We will look at Dubai’s commitments and approach them on a case-by-case basis,” an anonymous UAE official told the press. “It does not mean that Abu Dhabi will underwrite all of their debts.” The Dubai finance department last week requested a six-month standstill on all Dubai World debts, including that of its property development subsidiary, Nakheel, totaling some $59 billion. Dubai World, a major impetus for Dubai’s stellar economic growth, had invested in lavish real estate projects, including artificial islands in the Persian Gulf and properties in Manhattan and Las Vegas. The standstill request surprised global investors who believed, and were told by Dubai officials, that the emirate would face no financial troubles in the near future. Mr. Saleh cautioned that global markets were overreacting to the news of Dubai’s standstill request and that, while firms will take losses in the near future, they will emerge stronger as the government restructures the businesses.

Trade chiefs from over 150 countries gathered in Geneva as the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened its first ministerial conference in four years. The conference, which commenced on Monday, was arranged as “a platform for ministers to review the functioning” of the multilateral trade body, said Director-General Pascal Lamy. Though it is not a negotiating forum, Lamy still urged the ministers to speed up their progress on the eight-year-old Doha Development Round, the WTO’s currently stalled round of trade negotiations. “The best way of strengthening the [international trade] system is concluding this round,” said Lamy, as world leaders set a new 2010 target to conclude the process. “Now we need action, concrete and practical action, to close the remaining gaps.” Developing countries echoed his call for urgency; the Cairns group, an alliance of 19 nations that account for more than 25 percent of the world’s agricultural exports, expressed its dismay at the lack of progress on Doha. The group of 33 developing countries (dubbed the G-33) also called for action, noting that it would stand firm to preserve developing-country interests as the Doha round proceeds, particularly on the contentious special safeguard mechanism (SSM)—the right to retain protective tariffs on agriculture should imports surge or prices drastically fall—that led to last year’s breakdown in talks. The conference (which will conclude on Wednesday) is set to address other trade-related issues as well, such as improving the resolution of trade disputes, preventing protectionism, enlarging membership, and cooperating with other international organizations.

As Taliban militants raided a house used by UN personnel in the Afghan capital, reports were circulating that the Obama administration plans to secure 10 major population centers in Afghanistan as part of its shift in strategy in the eight-year war. President Barack Obama will make his final decision “in the coming weeks,” according to a White House spokesman, which could entail more troops in the country’s largest cities, but not necessarily more soldiers overall. October has become the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. With just a month before the presidential runoff between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah, the Taliban again attacked Western officials, this time a guest house where about 20 UN election workers were staying. Six were killed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying three militants wearing suicide vests carried out the assault. “This is our first attack,” a Taliban spokesman told the Associated Press. In a related story, The New York Times reported that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Karzai, has been paid by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for most of the past eight years for services such as fielding recruits for a paramilitary force operated by the CIA. Ahmed Karzai denied any involvement.

The systematic killing and raping of protesters in Guinea in September was “premeditated and pre-planned at the highest level,” the U.S.-based human rights organization Human Rights Watch reported on Tuesday. Last month, thousands of demonstrators gathered at a large sports stadium in Conakry, Guinea, to protest the expected presidential candidacy of junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. Activists say 157 people were killed and over 1,000 were injured when soldiers opened fire on the crowd, though government officials put the toll at 57. Following an in-depth investigation, Human Rights Watch concluded that the killings, as well as widespread sexual violence that included the brutal public raping of dozens of women, were organized and committed by the elite Presidential Guard, known commonly as “red berets.” The group also found evidence that the armed forces attempted to hide evidence of these acts by seizing the bodies and burying them in mass graves. “There is no way the government can continue to imply the deaths were somehow accidental,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This was clearly a premeditated attempt to silence opposition voices.” Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for an international United Nations-led inquiry into the violence, with which Captain Camara has promised to cooperate. Workers in Guinea are now holding a nationwide strike to commemorate the victims of the violence.

Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, on trial for war crimes in the Hague, is being accused of directing an ethnic cleansing campaign to rid his state of Muslims. In its opening remarks, the prosecution portrayed Karadzic as a man “who harnessed the forces of nationalism, hatred and fear to implement his vision of an ethnically separated Bosnia” and had direct contact with those carrying out the killings. Karadzic is facing two charges of genocide and nine charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He is refusing to cooperate with the trial, however, saying he needs nine months to prepare his defense. But though Karadzic was not present at the trial’s opening, his chilling words recorded on phone taps during the conflict were entered into evidence by the prosecution. “They have to know that there are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo…it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die,” read the transcripts. “They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth.” Karadzic was indicted in 1995 for crimes committed during the 1992-95 war, which left more than 100,000 people dead. Among other incidents, he is accused of masterminding the killing of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995. Officials are worried that Karadzic is attempting to draw out the proceedings, much like former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic did during his trial, which ended without a verdict after four years. Milosevic died in custody.

Senior U.S. officials will travel to Honduras Wednesday to try to salvage negotiations between ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti, which collapsed just days ago over the issue of Zelaya’s return to power. The Micheletti administration had said they were open to talks and would consider withdrawing from the presidency—but only if Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup in June, gave up his claim to the nation’s highest office. Zelaya flatly rejected this, saying “it would be unseemly, indecent for the Honduran people if I was to negotiate on the position which they elected me to.” Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon; his deputy, Craig Kelly; and Dan Restrepo, the White House’s special assistant for Western Hemisphere affairs; were expected to meet with each leader individually in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa to try to facilitate a solution. “It is important that it be a Honduran solution,” a spokeswoman for the State Department told the Wall Street Journal on the eve of the talks. “Everything is on the table.”

Hamas has instructed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to refrain from voting in the upcoming January elections. President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the rival Fatah movement (which governs the West Bank), has called for parliamentary and presidential voting, and is reportedly attempting to unite rival Palestinian factions against Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules Gaza. The Interior Ministry in Gaza said it “rejects the holding of elections in the Gaza Strip because they were announced by someone who has no right to make such an announcement and because it came without national agreement.” According to a report in the Arabic newspaper al-Ayyam, Abbas wants all Palestinian factions and some independents to appear in one electoral list to show unity against Hamas. The latest dispute between the two rival factions threatens to further sour relations, which have been testy since Hamas routed Fatah from Gaza in 2007. Egypt has made attempts at reconciling the two parties via a pact that would have set June 28, 2010, as the next date for elections. Though Abbas has called for a January ballot, he may consider delaying the elections. In the past, Abbas has said he would agree to a summer vote if Hamas agreed to reconcile, and Hamas has also hinted that it would participate then. But with tensions rising, some Hamas leaders have countered that the group may hold a separate election of its own in Gaza this coming January.

Argentina’s government has demanded the resignation of the Honduran ambassador to Buenos Aires. The request came from Honduras’ ousted president, Manuel Zelaya,
who cited the ambassador’s public support for the coup that removed the
democratically elected leader in June. The Argentine foreign ministry said in a statement that it “ordered the cessation of functions” of Ambassador Carmen Eleonora Ortez Williams because of her support for Honduras’ interim regime, led by Roberto Micheletti. The de facto government, which has been internationally condemned and isolated since taking power on June 28, is not recognized by Buenos Aires, which supports the Organization of American States’ calls for Zelaya’s reinstatement. Zelaya, who met Thursday with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, praised the OAS for its support and called on the international community, particularly the United States, to take more “drastic actions” against Micheletti’s government.

In celebration of Pakistan’s Independence Day, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has lifted a ban on political activities in the nation’s tribal regions. The seven federally administered tribal areas (FATA) along Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan will now be allowed to publicly organize political parties and campaigns, actions that had been banned in 1996. Announcing the change during a public address, Zardari vowed to “defeat the militant mindset” which has plagued the tribal areas since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The region has been home to spillover violence from clashes between local tribes and Taliban or Al Qaeda militias. Under the ban, adults in the the region were allowed to vote for a representative in the Pakistani assembly but were not allowed to organize political parties of their own. As a result, Islamist candidates would privately campaign through their mosques, increasing Islamist presence in the national assembly. Zardari, an important ally of President Barack Obama, received a boost last week when the Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was allegedly killed by a U.S. missile attack on South Waziristan, one of the tribal regions where the Taliban have been especially active. Taliban officials have vehemently denied reports of their leader’s death.

Leaders from the four major nations of the trans-Sahel region—Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria—concluded a two-day summit in Algiers on Thursday where they addressed joint efforts to combat cross-border terrorism. Concerns that radical militant groups have regained strength in the region reappeared most recently in last week’s suicide bombing at the French Embassy in Mauritania, believed to be organized by a group that trains in Mali and Algeria. In July, several al-Qaeda attacks in Algeria, directed particularly at foreigners, signaled the groups surge in regional influence, which some expect to increase as typical strongholds like Afghanistan and Pakistan become overrun with U.S. armed forces. The four-nation meeting set a general framework for cooperation in combating terrorism, though specific military commitments were not announced. Some military strategists say that even with cooperation, it may be difficult to contain the regional threat. “How are four armies with marginal capabilities and different languages going to communicate in the middle of the Sahara?,” asks Clint Watts, a former counter terrorism expert at West Point. “Hunting down international terrorist networks is not their thing.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will not run with a Shiite coalition in January national elections, according to aides close to the leader. Maliki, a Shiite, has revealed his intentions of running on a multi-ethnic ticket comprised of both Sunni and Shiite candidates. The leader will leave the United Iraqi Alliance, a predominantly-Shiite coalition which holds a vast majority in the Iraqi parliament, in the hopes of forming a “truly national alliance.” Maliki has aimed to bridge sectarian divides within his nation that intensified after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. News of Maliki’s decision came amid growing tensions between his Dawa party and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) which dominates the United Iraqi Alliance. SIICE leaders have criticized Maliki and his fellow Dawa leaders for their “pride and vanity,” and have accused Maliki of becoming a pawn of Sunni Baathists.

Read more about Nouri al-Maliki in the spring ‘09 issue of the World Policy Journal in Ned Parker’s article, Machiavelli in Mesopotamia: Nouri al-Maliki Builds the Body Politic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived at Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s seaside residence in Sochi on Friday to discuss economic relations between the two nations. Amid reports on Thursday that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is finally showing growth (thus ending its recession far earlier than it expected), Merkel said she was still eager to work out bilateral agreements with Russia that are essential for continued recovery. Russia’s Sberbank has committed to buying a large share of struggling German automaker Opel, which has become a major liability for the German government during the financial crisis. Russian newspapers also reported on Friday that Sistema, a Russian holding company, will purchase a stake in Germany’s Infineon Technology. Investment bankers at Russia’s Renassaince Capital called this move, which was set to be discussed by the two leaders today, strictly political–a sign of how eager the two governments are to cooperate. Observers say Medvedev also has much to gain from the meeting, particularly in securing Merkel’s support for the Nord Stream oil pipeline, which is set to be finished by 2012 and will channel oil directly from Russia to Germany’s Baltic Sea coast.

The ongoing crisis in Honduras, stemming from the June 28 coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya, does not lend itself to many obvious solutions acceptable to both sides. A second-best solution may be all that the new mediator, former Nobel Peace Prize winner and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, might be able to achieve.

Thursday’s separate meetings of Arias with Zelaya and then the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, indicated possible common ground, but also no immediate solutions. Neither met his interlocutor, though the talks will continue.

Thus far, the United States has backed the Arias mediation, which has bought Washington time before it may have to cut its military assistance to Honduras, which U.S. law mandates once a democratic government has been removed extra-constitutionally. The history of U.S. military cooperation with the government and military of Honduras has remained extensive, since the 1980s, when Honduras hosted the U.S.-backed Contra rebels, who were attempting to undermine the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua.

Not surprisingly, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have persuaded Zelaya, after their Tuesday meeting in Washington, to negotiate, rather than rush right back to Honduras to attempt to take power. On Sunday, July 5, Zelaya had unsuccessfully attempted to land his airplane in the capital, Tegulcigalpa. The Honduran army, though, blocked the air strip, while also killing at least one protestor that had gathered in solidarity to receive Zelaya at the airport.

With elections scheduled for later this year, the simplest procedure might simply be to let the voters decide between the two presidential claimants. The problem here, though, is that the Honduran Supreme Court has already ruled that Zelaya is ineligible to compete under the existing, single term-limit system. Indeed, his desire to run again for office was exactly what spurred the apparent coup in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

If it succeeds, the universally condemned Honduran military coup could send a disastrous signal to Latin America and beyond that the long slog of democratization can be interrupted on a moment’s impatience.

Deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s past performance leaves much to be desired, but so do the nation’s institutions, which need democratic reform, not military mentorship. Honduras represents an archetypal “Tier-II” category of democracy. As a nation, it has underperformed in forming a broad democratic alliance, and often bent the rules to build the rule of law.

It needs time, patience, and nurturing—even when democratically elected leaders govern undemocratically.

The unpopular, populist President Zelaya built a narrow coalition, alienating the business community while attempting to overturn single-term limits on the executive office. Zelaya had damaged his democratic credentials by failing to respect judicial independence in disagreeing with the Supreme Court decision to strike down his planned plebiscite that sought to allow him to run for president again. The vote (which would have amended the constitution) was planned for this past Sunday—though it is not clear he intended it to be binding.

Things heated up even further when the chief of the army, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, refused to allow the army to provide logistical support for the referendum. Zelaya promptly fired him, and the Supreme Court jumped back into the fray, demanding he be reinstated. In the end, the military, legislative leaders, and the president failed to work out compromises, even with some mediation from the U.S. ambassador, to prevent the breakdown of democracy.

The new ruling authoritarian coalition claims to be using a constitutional solution to the crisis by protecting the new president, Roberto Micheletti, who was previously head of the legislature. Indeed, many Hondurans have argued that a coup did not actually occur, since the legislature and Supreme Court had declared Zelaya’s referendum and various other acts to have been unconstitutional. In response, the court played its own constitutional card, by ordering the armed forces to reestablish a “democracy.” Thus, Micheletti’s constant public refrain: “democracia, democracia, democracia.”

Barring the chorus of claims from both sides over what is “constitutional” and what is not, it is important to note that, most likely, this was a classic middle-class coup—a Brumarian moment of relief for the privileged, bolstered by constitutional distortions to correct constitutional distortions. Zelaya had won office on a conservative, law-and-order ticket but increasingly had adopted the populist tendencies of many of his fellow Latin American leaders, alienating broad swathes of the legislature and the business community.

Perhaps the new regime (if it remains in power) may actually keep its word and reconfigure itself democratically, as it claims. Occasionally, when democratic leaders govern undemocratically, a new authoritarian alliance can put things right. But, in practice, it is usually the exception to the rule and a pretext for other aims—all too often, it is might that makes right. Worse, coups signal that the military is to be the arbiter. But in Honduras, the “man on horseback,” as the military is depicted, often governs in nineteenth-century, caudillo (”strongman”) fashion, making order by giving orders.

Read the rest of this entry »