Tuesday 26 April Media reports on Riek Machar’s return to Juba and inauguration as First Vice-President: The New York Times: “Riek Machar, South Sudan Opposition Leader, Returns as Part of Peace Deal” The Wall Street Journal: “South Sudan’s Rebel Leader Returns to Join Government” Voice of America “South Sudan Rebel Chief Sworn In as Vice… Read more »
Trends in Armed Conflict, 1946–2014
Headlines from battlefields in Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine give the impression that the world is becoming ever more violent. Indeed, since 2013 the number of armed conflicts in the world and the number of battle deaths has risen. Fortunately, the long-term trends nevertheless driving the waning of war are still at work.
- Since the Korean War, battle casualties have been declining.
- As a result of the civil wars in Syria and Iraq, casualties have risen to the highest level in 25 years, but are still far below levels of the Cold War.
- The number of conflicts has also risen in 2013 and 2014, although much lower than those in the early 90s.
Read more in a Policy Brief from the Conflict Trends Project at PRIO.
This Week in South Sudan – Week 16
Wednesday 20 April International media reports on Riek Machar’s postponed return: The New York Times: “South Sudan: Uncertainty Over Rebel Leader’s Expected Return” The Guardian “South Sudan peace deal in balance amid opposition leader’s continued absence” Financial Times “Machar’s aborted return sets back peace plans in South Sudan” BBC “South Sudan peace at risk –… Read more »
The Precarious China-Russia Partnership Erodes Security in East Asia
Chinese troops on the march in the Red Square
With the explosion of the Ukraine crisis in spring 2014, Russia made a determined effort to upgrade its strategic partnership with China and achieved instant success. Large-scale economic contracts were signed in a matter of a few months, and the military parades in Moscow and Beijing in respectively May and September 2015, in which the two leaders stood shoulder to shoulder, were supposed to show the readiness of two world powers to combine their military might. In fact, however, the partnership has encountered serious setbacks and as of spring 2016, is significantly off-track.
It is the economic content of bi-lateral cooperation that has registered the most obvious decline. The volume of trade, which the officials promised to double in just a few years, actually contracted in 2015 by about a third comparing with 2014. The economic crisis in Russia and the sharp decline in purchasing power were the main reasons for this setback, and there are no reasons to expect an improvement in 2016 or in the years to come. The dramatic drop of oil prices in 2015 has not only devalued the much-trumpeted “400 billion dollars” gas contract signed in May 2014. It has also destroyed the economic foundation of the partnership because the development of “green fields” in East Siberia and construction of pipelines to China has become entirely cost-inefficient.
The rest of the article is in Contemporary Security Policy, posted April 22.
This Week in South Sudan – Week 15
Monday 11 April President Salva Kiir appointed nine new ambassadors, a move seen as an attempt to solidify his diplomatic roots in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tuesday 12 April The SPLA (IO) accused the South Sudanese government air force of shelling their positions in Wau County, Western Bahr el Ghazal State. The local command… Read more »
Myanmar’s Ethnic Minorities Marginalized More
For the first time in over half a century, Myanmar has a government with a popular mandate, led by the National League for Democracy (NLD). Although the Myanmar armed forces still have extensive political powers under the 2008 constitution, and may seriously curtail the independent action of the new government, the inauguration of President Htin Kyaw represents a radical increase in the internal and international legitimacy of the Myanmar State.
Paradoxically, this coincides with a setback for the country’s ethnic minorities and their struggle for autonomous status. Myanmar’s ethnic minority organisations now face a double marginalisation, militarily as well as politically. It is a new era for Myanmar, but there is trouble ahead for ethnic minorities.
There are two main tiers in Myanmar’s peace process. The first is the process of negotiations between the government and the many ethnic armed groups. The second tier is a wider process of including ethnic minorities in political decision-making at the Union, state and regional levels. The success of the first tier is tremendously important for the second.
- Read more at East Asia Forum, where the full text was posted 13 Apr 2016
This Week in South Sudan – Week 14
Tuesday 5 April The SPLA denied reports that their forces had attacked SPLA (IO) positions in Mundri county, Western Equatoria State. Wednesday 6 April The SPLA admitted carrying out attacks against opposition forces in Wau County, Western Bahr el Ghazal State. However, they denied any violations of the peace agreement, saying they targeted criminals not part of… Read more »
Suicide Bombing ≠ Religious Fervor
Is it just religious fanatics who blow themselves up as suicide bombers?
Bernt Hagtvet, Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, has been active in the Norwegian media lately, stating that only religion (he focuses mostly on Islam) brings the fervor to commit suicide attacks as part of a political struggle – or “only religious totalitarian movements have capabilities to create a fanaticism strong enough to suicide.”
This is not true.
Firstly, there is ample evidence showing that a deterministic relationship between suicide missions and having a religious agenda or ideology is wrong. It is right that more suicide bombers today belong to Islam than any other religion, but their general levels of religiosity and particularly knowledge of Islam is up for debate. Scott Akran in his article published in Science, for example, reported that suicide terrorists are generally only moderately religious, hence not necessarily the epitome of radical religious fervor. Many have tried to offer simple explanations of suicide terrorism, which is likely to be a misguided effort.
Secondly, suicide violence is used by a number of groups, not all Muslim, and not all religious. Expert on South Asian violent movements, Iselin Frydenlund, asked the timely question of whether the overriding focus on Islam for us to overlook that suicide bombings have also been carried out by Christians, Hindus and secular martyrs? Her op. ed. in the major Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet and post at the PRIO Blog point to statistics of suicide attacks that were carried out in the period 1980-2001. It shows that 60 percent of attacks were carried out in the Muslim part of the world, but that a third of these attacks were carried out by groups with a secular orientation, such as the Kurdish liberation movement PKK. The group that has carried out the most suicide attacks in the period 1980-2001 is the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. LTTE accounted for more than 40% of all suicide attacks during this period. While the LTTE is a secular movement, the LTTE soldiers were not Muslims, but Hindus and Catholics. For more statistics on the development of suicide terrorism, see the Global Terrorism Database.
These examples show the need for more comparative and empirical studies. More importantly, however, it shows with even more clarity the need for focus on sound evidence in the public debate. Both researchers and media should get better here. In collecting and presenting such evidence, researchers must try as much as possible to distance themselves from seeing the world through the glasses of the current day and letting the contemporary and the media focused version of reality overshadow the true nature of a phenomenon.
Benjamin Acosta, Journal of Peace Research 2016; 53: 180-196
Yes, today, many suicide bombers are Muslims, and many suicide bombers refer to religion as justification for their acts. The havoc and human suffering they cause cannot be underplayed or negated. However, the victims are mostly among their Muslim brethren. Research by Benjamin Acosta, published last month in Journal of Peace Research, shows that most suicide attacks have involved an Islamist organization directly striking a Muslim target. Rather than resulting from religious fervor, Acosta argues, suicide tactics are used for organizational survival, and constitutes a “fashionable” tactic that spreads within networks of similar organizations as less powerful organizations want to increase their status by imitating more powerful groups.
Furthermore, most suicide attacks, as many as 95%, are carried out by individuals in their own home country (e.g. study by Kruyger and Laitin in Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness. Eds. Philip Keefer and Norman Loayza. Cambridge University Press, 2008). This does not mean, however, that only Muslims and/or individuals motivated by religious doctrines or ideas become suicide bombers. Simplified narratives that misrepresent what the world looks like, equating suicide terror with religion, surface again and again and are unhelpful if we want to understand the root causes of such violence.
The EU-Turkey Refugee Deal is Costly – Especially for the Refugees
Syrian and Iraqi refugees arrive from Turkey to Skala Sykamias, Lesbos island, Greece. Photo: CC-BY via Wikipedia
The agreement reflects the EU’s self-interest just as much as Turkey’s, but takes little account of the interests and rights of the refugees.
On Friday 18 March, Turkey and the EU concluded a deal designed to put an end to refugees’ use of the sea route to travel from Turkey to Greece, because the route is costing too many lives, and because the EU and Turkey want to get the flood of refugees under control.
The majority of the refugees and migrants who have arrived in Europe in recent months have travelled via this route.
The EU’s website claims that the agreement “removes the incentive to seek irregular routes to the EU, in full accordance with EU and international law”.
The core of the deal is a “one in, one out” system: for every Syrian refugee the EU sends back across the Aegean to Turkey, another will be resettled from Turkey to the EU.
Humanitarian organizations have been strongly critical of the deal, with Amnesty International’s UK director, Kate Allen, stating: “This is a dark day for the Refugee Convention, a dark day for Europe and a dark day for humanity.”Read More
This Week in South Sudan – Week 13
Tuesday 29 March The Government of Sudan issued a directive ending cross border movement in the south, effectively closing its border with South Sudan. MTN South Sudan announced it is cutting jobs and cancelling expansion plans in face a U.S. dollar shortage and falling subscriptions due to the country’s economic crisis. Four people were killed… Read more »