Category Archives: Arsenal Pulse

Brief thoughts and mini-analyses on stories in the news.

Thailand opposition determined to end democracy

  By

As I discussed at great length previously on this blog and on the radio show, Thailand’s elitist and condescending opposition has decided that if they can’t win free elections, nobody gets any elections. Despite the Army’s significant refusal to help them (so far, this time), the opposition made a concerted effort this weekend to put force behind their threats. Not only will they boycott this month’s upcoming elections but they don’t want anyone else to be able to participate either — even if that means turning guns on their fellow citizens. From the NY Times, my emphasis added:

At least six people were injured Saturday in a prolonged daylight gun battle between protesters seeking to block the distribution of ballots in Bangkok and would-be voters demanding that protesters cease their attempts to obstruct national elections on Sunday.
[…]
Ignoring pleas by the United States and the European Union to respect the democratic process — and stoking the anger of many Thais eager to vote — the protesters have blocked the distribution of ballots in parts of Bangkok and southern Thailand, a stronghold of the opposition.

The shooting on Saturday raised fears about further violence during Sunday’s general election, when protesters say they plan to fill the streets and prevent voters from reaching polling stations.

Although they represent a minority of the Thai population of 65 million people, the protesters number in the hundreds of thousands in Bangkok and say they are a vanguard of a social movement to reform Thailand’s democracy. To do so, however, they say they need to suspend democracy and place the country in the hands of an unelected “people’s council” while changes are made.

 
This does not bode well for anyone.

Central African Republic: “Euphoric Destruction”

  By

Warning: This post contains descriptions of extreme violence.

The situation in Central African Republic has descended into total chaos and horrific violence that firsthand observers are comparing to scenes from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 (although — not that this is any consolation — the rate of killing is nowhere near as high).

Over a hundred people in the capital were killed or wounded in the last four days, according to the Red Cross.

Antoine Mbao Bogo, head of the CAR’s Red Cross, said that a total of 35 bodies had been recovered from the streets in many areas of the city over the last three days and eight more bodies had been found on Friday morning.

He said the victims were from both the Muslim and Christian communities.

“A few weeks ago people were dying more from gun wounds… but now it is mostly from things like knives. Sometimes they burn the corpses,” he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa radio programme.

 
Human Rights Watch is claiming that French troops stood by and did nothing as two Muslim men were hacked to death and mutilated at the entrance of the Christian refugee camp at the capital airport in Central African Republic. The French Defense Ministry has yet to comment. The French troops say their mandate is limited to disarming the Muslim militias and does not include intervening when the Christian militias begin attacking.

Technically, this may even be correct, given the comments by the French Defense Minister back in December:

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the goal of the French military mission in the Central African Republic was to provide “a minimum of security to allow for a humanitarian intervention to be put in place”.

 
So, they are interpreting their mandate largely as a political security operation to pave the way for somebody else’s human security operation, which has yet to materialize. That’s not a particularly brave act. French peacekeeping troops, regardless of their orders, can and should act to protect civilians being killed in front of them — as a Dutch court ruled last year on their spineless peacekeepers in Bosnia in the 1995 Srebenica massacre. It’s a moral obligation to get involved when you’re an armed soldier seeing people commit murder in front of your very eyes.

Here’s another account also by Peter Bouckaert, director of emergencies for Human Rights Watch — one of the most vocal eyewitnesses offering news from the ground — published in The Independent:

Last Wednesday, immediately after the Séléka fled the Muslim neighbourhood of PK13 in Bangui, hundreds of anti-balaka fighters arrived, chasing away the remaining inhabitants, who fled to the relative safety of Rwandan peacekeepers at the scene. All around us, homes were being systematically looted and dismantled in an atmosphere of euphoric destruction. The main mosque was dismantled by a crowd of machete-wielding fighters who told us: “We do not want any more Muslims in our country. We will finish them all off. This country belongs to the Christians.”

I pleaded with the anti-balaka fighters to leave the PK13 residents alone, but they showed no sign of mercy, telling me: “You get them out of here, or they will all be dead by morning. We will take our revenge.”

The death records of the Bangui morgue read like a chapter from Dante’s Inferno: page after page of people tortured, lynched, shot, or burnt to death. The smell of rotting corpses is overwhelming, as when people die in such numbers, it is impossible to bury them immediately. On really bad days, no names are recorded, just the numbers of dead. In the 15 minutes we managed to remain amid the stench and horror, two more bodies arrived: a Muslim hacked to death with machetes, and a Christian shot dead by the Séléka.

 
The controversial “peacekeeping” troops from neighboring Chad continue to get into increasingly violent clashes with Christian militias and civilians as they evacuate their own citizens — and, unfortunately, the Séléka leaders who launched the waves of attacks in the first place.

In contrast, some of the other regional peacekeepers seem to be taking a more aggressive role in intervening between armed groups and unarmed civilian targets. For the Rwandan troops, who are by and large commanded by Tutsi officers who witnessed the 1994 anti-Tutsi genocide firsthand, this is deeply affecting.

A commander of the Rwandan troops told me that their intervention in the Central African Republic crisis is deeply personal for him and his troops: “What we see here reminds us of what we experienced in Rwanda in 1994,” he told me, “and we are absolutely determined not to let 1994 happen again.”

 
But they are utterly unprepared and under-equipped to cope with the scale of the unfolding violence. As in the Rwandan Genocide, it’s extremely hard for a small foreign peacekeeping force to stop autonomous, decentralized bands of machete-wielding irregulars and armed “civilians” who aren’t taking orders from anyone and have been whipped into a murderous frenzy.

Even the fresh UN troops from the EU probably won’t help as they’ve been tasked primarily with aiding the existing French protection details on the Christian camps in the capital. With the tables turned on the Muslim population, the Christians — while still at risk — aren’t the most vulnerable right now. The United Nations mission also remains in dire need of emergency funds.

More intervention troops to Central African Republic?

  By

As the reciprocal mass killings continue to rage across the Central African Republic despite the rising numbers of regional African Union troops and existing French United Nations troops, the U.N. is now saying they may need at least ten thousand intervention troops, several thousand more than have already been ordered to the country. These troops, unlike many peacekeeping missions, are authorized to use proactive force to protect civilians and end violence.

The AU intervention force — which has already clashed repeatedly with protesters and militia groups over their conflicts-of-interest in the country — will soon be at 6,000. The UN has also already cleared 600 more intervention troops to come in from the European Union. Former colonial ruler France alone has 1,200 troops on the ground, mostly protecting key points in the capital, including refugees at the airport.

More than 1 in 5 people in the country has been forced to flee their homes, caught in the vengeful crossfire of Muslim and Christian militias after a rebel coalition was disbanded and went on a rampage last year. Unlike the reasonably cautious negotiation progress seen in next-door South Sudan, the C.A.R. has not seen much relief from the violence and humanitarian crisis, despite the efforts of a dozen leaders from across the region, who even secured the appointment of a new bridge-building president recently.

The large country, facing a refugee crisis of one million, will probably realistically require more than even ten thousand. But if the lengthy problems with the neighboring Congo missions are any indication, a United Nations force will always be under-manned relative to the scale and geography of the crisis. Plus, with the recent deaths of peacekeeping troops in South Sudan, while protecting refugees on a UN base, it’s going to be a tough sell right now to get countries to contribute boots on the ground.

Egypt insurgents shoot down military chopper

  By

Long anticipated/suspected, it’s now been dramatically confirmed that the Egyptian Sinai insurgency is in possession of functioning portable surface-to-air missiles acquired in the deluge of weapons that flooded North Africa during and after the Libyan Civil War. This was demonstrated when a militant group used one this weekend to take down a military helicopter, killing all five crew members on board, in front of dozens of witnesses. They later posted a video showing the attack and falling aircraft.

Meanwhile, anti-military protesters clashed with troops in Cairo, leaving over 60 dead, 250 injured, and more than 1,000 under arrest.

Let slip the birds of war!

  By

Not a great start for efforts to bring peace on Earth in 2014.

In what some are interpreting as an ominous sign for world peace, two white doves released from the Vatican have been attacked by two larger birds.

The doves were set free as a symbol of peace from a balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square during Pope Francis’ weekly Angelus prayers, held at noon every Sunday.

But moments later, a seagull and a black crow swooped down and attacked the doves, pecking at them repeatedly, as tens of thousands of people watched on.

The crow chased down the dove and grappled with it as the white bird tried to fly away.

The Sunday prayers called for an end to violence in Kiev, with the Pope saying there was a need for dialogue between the Ukraine government and opposition.

 

Tough being caught between a crow and a seagull. Is this some weird living metaphor for Ukraine being caught between Russia and the European Union? Or perhaps the civilians caught between the Syrian regime and Syrian insurgents? The interpretive possibilities are endless.
gull-dove

Tunisia still setting regional example

  By

Flag-of-TunisiaAmong the Arab Spring countries, Tunisia was not only the first to get the ball rolling but has also made the most sustained progress toward a durable liberal democracy, with majority rule and minority rights.

Nearly every other Arab Spring nation has regressed severely. For example, Egypt today marked its 3rd anniversary of the January 25 Protests that led to the fall of their dictator by celebrating and lauding … their new dictator. Neighboring Libya also still seems to be making progress, very slowly, but is pretty chaotic. Syria is mired in bitter civil war and the other countries generally suppressed their protests.

In contrast, Tunisian politicians have met their country’s bumps and protests with negotiations and compromise, again and again, thus avoiding disorder and civil war.

The leading, moderate Islamist party was amenable to compromise after last July’s Egypt coup showed them a much darker alternative, and the secular opposition parties were largely also very reasonable in negotiations. When a key opposition figure was assassinated last year, everyone managed to walk back from the brink of chaos and went back to working out their differences.

Yesterday, that resulted in parliament agreeing on a new constitution that exceeded expectations all around. A formal vote within parliament is scheduled for Sunday and it could enter force next week.

It’s still going to be a challenging road ahead but Tunisia is getting a new constitution that seems pretty well balanced and includes some really impressive provisions. Here’s a BBC analysis of the new document by Naveena Kottoor:

The majority of the members of the Tunisian constituent assembly are very keen to stress that this constitution is a consensus document, that reflects the unity as well as the diversity of the country.

Confronted with political stalemate and protests on the domestic front and the removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in Egypt last year, the governing Islamist Ennahdha party agreed to a number of concessions, including the removal of references to Islamic law.

The final text states that Islam is the religion of the Tunisian state, but guarantees religious freedom.

Article 45 puts a burden on the state to protect women against violence and ensure equal representation of men and women in elected institutions, a milestone in the Arab world.

But whether this new constitution will indeed pave the way for more democracy, transparency and accountability will depend on whether the principles enshrined in the text will be respected by Tunisian politicians and be put into practice in the coming months and years.

 
Tunisia is setting an example for the Middle East & North Africa region that there is another course and that societies with big differences can still come together and talk it out until there’s a solution that works for everyone.

Non-state surveillance

  By

In an op-ed in the NY Times Sunday Review, Jeffrey Rosen discusses James Madison’s views on privacy and surveillance. In particular, Rosen argues that Madison made a slightly odd distinction between government invasions of privacy (which he wanted restricted) and the same from businesses or other people (which he didn’t really care about much). Then Rosen asks whether that distinction is valid or even still up to date.

In practice, the neo-Madisonian distinction between surveillance by the government and surveillance by Google makes little sense. It is true that, as Judge Pauley concluded, “People voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly private information to trans-national corporations which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it.”

But why? Why is it O.K. for AT&T to know about our political, religious and sexual associations, but not the government?

[…]

That distinction is unconvincing. Once data is collected by private parties, the government will inevitably demand access.

More fundamentally, continuously tracking my location, whether by the government or AT&T, is an affront to my dignity. When every step I take on- and off-line is recorded, so an algorithm can predict if I am a potential terrorist or a potential customer, I am being objectified and stereotyped, rather than treated as an individual, worthy of equal concern and respect.

Justice Louis Brandeis, the greatest defender of privacy in the 20th century, recognized this when he equated “the right to be let alone” with offenses against honor and dignity.

But he also lamented that American law, unlike European law, was not historically concerned with offenses against what the Romans called honor and what in more modern terms we call dignity. European laws constrain private companies from sharing and collecting personal data far more than American laws do, largely because of the legacy of Madisonian ideas of individual freedom, which focus on liberty rather than dignity.

What Americans may now need is a constitutional amendment to prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures of our persons and electronic effects, whether by the government or by private corporations like Google and AT&T.

 

Europe is way more aggressive about trying to curb private amassing of data. Meanwhile, both the U.S. government and private mega corporations — aided by the gushing of the American media — are pitching the concept of “big data” as a godsend and cure-all, thus necessitating mass collection and indefinite storage of data. Can’t throw all the data points in the data stew if you haven’t held on to all of them, the logic goes.

And it’s a fair question raised in this article. The phone company or the internet businesses knowing all our private information (and movements and habits) is allowed freely. Yet the government is supposed to be following various restrictions, due to the Bill of Rights — but why? Why don’t the protections extend to the private corporations? We’ve seen time and again that they willingly turn over all their data for “national security” and “public safety” reasons, sometimes without even being asked through a court order.

Our government need not construct a surveillance state unconstitutionally when corporate America will do it for them.

Addendum: On a partially related note, I highly recommend this article by Virginia Eubanks in The American Prospect: “Want to Predict the Future of Surveillance? Ask Poor Communities.”

Marginalized groups are often governments’ test subjects. Here are a few lessons we can learn from their experiences.