Diplomacy & Crisis News

Despite an uncertain global economic landscape, Africa’s prospects are positive, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging the continent’s leaders to use recent gains to address rising social and economic inequalities.

The appointment of Avigdor Liberman as Israel's new defense minister is jolting the country’s politics and sparking fears of a "shoot first, and ask questions later" military policy.

Acknowledging the sustained progress made on rebuilding Liberia after the 1999-2003 civil war, the United Nations Security Council today terminated an arms embargo against the country and dissolved the related mechanisms, namely the sanctions Committee and the expert panel.

Two Muslim students who refused to shake their female teacher's hand will be fined $5,000 if they don't do it.

"We need your support," Antonio Rodiles says.

Two United Nations agencies said today they are supporting the Government of Haiti in a vaccination campaign against cholera that aims to reach 400,000 people in 2016.

The United Nations today launched the #WildforLife campaign against illegal trade in wildlife, warning that such trade is pushing species to the brink of extinction, robbing countries of their natural heritage and profiting international criminal networks.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan has strongly condemned the killing of Veronika Racková, a Slovakian nun and medical doctor who was shot on 15 May in Yei, while on a humanitarian mission, and later succumbed to her wounds.

President Obama plans to lease a house in DC's posh Kalorama neighborhood.

Sweden's cabinet reshuffle came after a series of incredibly awkward missteps.

The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has suspended its visit to Ukraine after being denied access to places in several parts of the country where it suspects people are being deprived of their liberty by the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU.

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has welcomed Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court decision to free an award-winning investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.

2015 Global Thinker Marjan Minnesma and Gasland director Josh Fox debate the best—and perhaps only—way to spurn action on climate change: Terrify people.

At the second United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) taking place in Nairobi this week, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) was among a group of agencies launching a new tool and report that recommends ways to protect threatened coral reefs.

Lies told by 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle continue to mount.

Two United Nations agencies have begun providing both seeds and food to nearly 50,000 hungry farming families in some areas of the conflict-torn Central African Republic (CAR) to ensure that they don’t eat seeds meant for planting.

An independent State Department watchdog revived Hillary Clinton’s e-mail headaches with a stinging criticism Wednesday of the Democratic front-runner’s use of a personal server for work messages -- arousing an issue her campaign has tried to dismiss as overblown.

Following the disappearance of three shareholders and two staff members from a bookstore in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, Swedish diplomacy has unwillingly been drawn into the international spotlight. One of the missing bookseller’s, Gui Minhai, was given Swedish citizenship in 1996 after studying in Sweden in the 1980s. Despite Gui having requested in a video posted by China’s official media that Sweden did not intervene in the affair, the Swedish government could not ignore the incident because of diplomatic protocol.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has also made clear that it does not accept China’s response to the situation. A consular official from the Swedish Embassy has voiced its government’s annoyance at having a request for contact with Gui turned down. The embassy has also repeatedly asked for clarification from China over the incident.

Ironically, Sweden is perceived as being one of China’s closest allies in the West. During the Cold War, Sweden was one of only a few countries that maintained a workable relationship with China; the positive tie between the two countries was probably one reasons why Gui went to Sweden to study. Although Sweden was once a European hegemonic power, it has adopted a policy of neutrality since its influence has declined.

In 1950, diplomatic relations between Sweden and China were officially established and ambassadors were exchanged. This marked Sweden as the first Western state to establish diplomatic relations with communist China. Sweden also supported the admission of China to the UN, and bilateral trading and economic relations between the two countries were built before those with any other Western country.

Today, Sweden is China’s biggest trading partner in Northern Europe, while in turn China is the biggest export market for Sweden. Recently, Sweden has strengthened its cooperation with China in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As IKEA has become an international paradigm in terms of its contribution to CSR, it has also become the role model for China’s “Opening-up Policy” and “One Belt One Road” initiative.

Another characteristic of Swedish diplomacy is its “human rights diplomacy*.” As a member of the European Union and the home of the Nobel Prize, Sweden uses “the protection of human rights” as part of its “soft power diplomacy.” It has proactively criticized human rights violations by other countries, for example, the US’ bombing of Vietnam and the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the USSR. Sweden has also been the main fund provider for the UN Human Rights Council, Refugee Council and others.

As a consequence, Sweden is seen as an appropriate location for NGOs involved in international human rights and civil society to establish themselves. More recently, the EU has included “human rights” as an important value in promoting its own external relations, and in doing so, mirrors Sweden’s strategy of “human rights diplomacy”.

There are precedents for Sweden jeopardizing its economic interests in order to safeguard its “human rights diplomacy”. For example, in 2015, Saudi Arabia cancelled the opening address at an Arab League meeting in Cairo which was to have been given by the Swedish minister of foreign affairs; it was irritated because the speech contained comments about women’s and human rights. The minister in question had earlier criticized Saudi Arabia’s lashing and jailing of a blogger for “insulting Islam”.

When Saudi Arabia cancelled the speech, Sweden immediately terminating its defense-related trade agreement with the country, which included a USD500-million-worth contract for weapons. In response, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador in Sweden and criticized Sweden for interfering in its internal affairs. The tension between the two countries escalated. At the same time, the relationship between Europe and Saudi Arabia also deteriorated. However, certain EU member states, including Germany and the UK, have shown an unwillingness to go so far as sacrificing their economic interests to promote values. Sweden, on the other hand, has been able to uphold its value of human rights and earn the respect of human rights advocates.

The incident with Saudi Arabia has further links with Sweden’s foreign policy. On being appointed minister of foreign affairs, Margot Wallström announced she planned to pursue a feminist and human-rights foreign policy with an emphasis on equality. As such, Sweden recognizes Palestine as a nation and supports the state-building movement in Western Sahara, which is under pressure. Recently, Morocco (which controls the area) blocked the opening of the first IKEA store in the kingdom. A number of Swedish enterprises have since jointly urged the Swedish government to maintain an equable relationship with Saudi Arabia in order not to affect their business. This pressure has not triggered significant response domestically.

However, the Causeway Bay Bookstore saga present a different scenario as Sweden has to deal with a rising China. Beijing has posed a serious challenge to Sweden’s “human rights diplomacy.” If China provides Sweden with some room for maneuver, it is likely the issue can be solved in a restrained manner. But if it continues its present assertiveness without providing a way out for Sweden, it risks to jeopardize the long-advocated working relationship between China and Sweden.

*Human Rights Diplomacy: This recent model in Western diplomacy bears the official aim of “promoting and safeguarding human rights.” It is often used to adjust bilateral relations and economic policy in accordance with the level of human rights in the state concerned. Some states targeted in human rights diplomacy view it as a means for other nations to interfere in their internal affairs. They believe the situation in each country is different and the concept of Western human rights may not be applicable everywhere. In general, China opposes “human rights diplomacy.”

The post Causeway Bay Incident: Swedish Diplomacy under Challenge appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Social media can do a lot of good for a brand’s image. It can be a place where an audience comes together to share their love of a brand, posting pictures and stories to engage with it.

It can also rip a brand to pieces: remember #AskSeaWorld. Sea World fell under public scrutiny for their treatment of orcas, due to the success of the film Blackfish. They invited the public to ask questions online using the hashtag #AskSeaWorld. Of course, they were hoping for real questions from concerned citizens.

But they forgot that they were opening up their Q&A to the world and disaster ensued. Rather than changing the conversation—their intended goal—they highlighted it and gave people a launchpad from which to collectively criticize Sea World. In fact, though the hashtag was first introduced more than a year ago, it is still in active use on Twitter today.

Another great (cautionary) example of trying to use a hashtag to reframe a narrative comes from the NYPD. During a particularly difficult time for their “brand” due to violence in the community, they invited the internet to come together and share nice stories about the NYPD using the hashtag #MyNYPD. What happened was as intense as it was predictable.

Israel—a country whose very mention can start fights on college campuses and at family dinners—decided that this was a model worth emulating. To celebrate Israeli Independence Day, Prime Minister Netanyahu hosted a Twitter conversation inviting people to ask him questions about Israel using the hashtag #AskNetanyahu. Unsurprisingly, chaos ensued.

Netanyahu tweeted from his personal handle @netanyahu and was also backed up by the more official channel @IsraeliPM. He responded to questions with text and short videos, both in English and in Hebrew. Some of the interactions were positive:

• He was asked if the dress was blue and white or black and gold. “The colors of the dress were clearly blue and white. Like my pen. Like my suit. Like our flag.”
• When asked if he was “human,” @IsraeliPM responded “01111001 01100101 01110011.”
• When asked if he would fire the person responsible for the hashtag, he responded, “Nope. Actually, I’m going to give… her a treat. You want to see her?” He then panned the camera down to show his very sweet dog sitting quietly at his side.

But of course, for every positive questioner, there were 1000 more looking to insult, provoke and ask truly difficult policy questions, ranging from Israel’s treatment of Holocaust survivors to their conflict with the Palestinians. If you search Twitter right now for the hashtag, here are the top images you will find:

Even though the Q&A component of the hashtag started—and ended—over a week ago, people are still using the hashtag to attack Netanyahu personally and Israeli policy towards the Palestinians in general. The campaign, rather than starting a positive conversation, instead served as an online space for critics. The movement was already there, and this campaign simply provided them with a gathering place.

The most retweeted instance of the hashtag, including any tweet sent by @Netanyahu or @IsraeliPM (save for the 01111001… tweet), was actually a bit of an ambush. Netanyahu received this question:

He saw the tweet, gauged that it was a real question from a real person (a journalist in fact!) and responded accordingly:

Hasan then responded:

Hasan’s response garnered over 500 retweets. What it did not garner: a response from Netanyahu. Therein lies one of the challenges of taking questions so publicly. A “real” or “fair” question can quickly turn into something the brand, organization, business or—in this case—world leader may not be prepared to answer. To me, this single interaction was more problematic for Netanyahu than any other component of the whole mess. He started a conversation that he was not prepared to finish. This made him look weak.

A town hall is a hard thing to manage. You never know what kind of questions you are going to get and once it starts, you are trapped. You cannot end it early because things are not going your way. Hosting a town hall on Twitter is like handing infinite microphones to an infinite crowd and then inviting them to pelt you with them as hard as they can.A quick search of keywords associated with the hashtag reveals the myriad hazards that overshadowed any potential political gain.

And yet it happened. And really, it’s still happening. While you probably won’t get an answer from him anytime soon, feel free to head over to Twitter and #AskNetanyahu any pressing questions you might have for him. You won’t be alone. Here is the current usage of #AskNetanyahu on Twitter.

Fun post script to the campaign: it even earned itself its very own parody handle! The fake @Ask_Netanyahu has over 3000 real followers. And it shares with its audience such nuggets as “I don’t believe in God, but God gave me the land,” “Had a long day reviewing records of newborns from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. I need to update my #KillList” and “I’ve initiated strategic long term planning consultations with George Zimmerman’s life coach.“

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

The post With #AskNetanyahu, Bibi Asks for Trouble appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Henri Ladyi works to demobilize children from militias in the DRC.

In 2003, Henri Ladyi turned his back on the endless fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when he started working at a small peace group called Centre Résolution Conflits. Twelve years later he has been called “Africa’s Schindler” for his efforts towards peacebuilding in the eastern DRC.

The vast Democratic Republic of Congo has seen many decades of suffering before and after independence from Belgium in 1960. The colony was originally a private fiefdom of Belgium’s King Leopold II. But Belgium had to take it over in 1908 from the king’s International Association of the Congo (IAC) after a public outcry. This private company had, not unlike the militias that plague the east of Congo today, achieved Leopold’s quotas on exports like rubber through a regime of forced labour, mass executions, torture and mutilation.

Belgium administered the region as a colony, but did little to develop it or create a type of civic national identity of the sort which has kept the peace in multi-ethnic countries like the United States or Great Britain. When independence came the Congo’s new politicians unsurprisingly failed to build a functional central government or control the new ‘Armée Nationale Congolaise’ (ANC). General Joseph Mobutu, who had risen through the ranks of the ANC, eventually seized power. His regime became a Western-backed kleptocracy for the duration of the Cold War. Its three decade rule, and the manner of the Mobutu’s final fall in 1997, were almost as ruinous for the DRC as Leopold II.

When conflict reached his area in 1997, Henri Bora Ladyi was a young man in the Ituri area of the DRC’s north-eastern Orientale province. The invasion had started the year before, as Mobutu’s meddling in neighboring Rwanda finally caught up with him. A full-scale rebellion against his dictatorship had begun during 1996 in the eastern border provinces of North and South Kivu. In concert with the armies of neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, rebel units swept westwards as Mobutu’s renamed Forces Armées Zairoises (FAZ) and his regime more or less dissolved.

For years the DRC’s state apparatus had been gradually ceasing to function in more and more parts of the country as the regime’s mixture of waste, incompetence and corruption undermined the formal economy. But the fall of the central government completed the country’s ruin. It set off a scramble by neighboring governments and their local allies to seize control of the DRC’s vast mineral wealth in an orgy of looting.

In the first 1996-1997 war Ituri was on the invasion path of the Ugandan army and its allies. But it also suffered from the same type of ethnic hatreds that had caused so much inter-Congolese violence, and left the fractured country prey to its neighbors. Under Mobutu, the north-eastern region had seen major outbreaks of violence between Ituri’s Lendu and Hema ethnic groups in 1972, 1985 and 1996. These earlier struggles revolved around the historically unequal land distribution between the two communities dating back to pre-Belgian times and favoring the Hema.

A politicized Mobutu-era land law passed in 1973 was also a recurring source of conflict. Under its provisions, people could purchase already-inhabited property, and then present title to the land in court two years later, by which time it became incontestable. The Lendu alleged the Hema elite used it to drive Lendus off valuable land, with the help of complicit Hema officials and forged documents. Certainly many Hema leaders thrived economically in the DRC’s chaotic economic conditions, and in the late 1990s some used their greater wealth and clout to further marginalize and exploit the Lendu.

Thus in 1998, when a second regional war began on the heels of the first, the Ituri area was still occupied by the Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF). The UPDF wished to exploit Ituri’s resources of gold, diamonds, coltan, timber, and coffee. Human Rights Watch has chronicled how it used its control of the region to illegally export resources, especially gold, to international buyers. The money gained was then used to support local Hema warlords who helped in the Ugandan operation.

Elite Hema landowners, in their efforts to drive the Lendu off land they considered theirs, also called upon members of the Ugandan army to help them. Those Lendu not run off were often forced to work in the majority Ugandan-controlled mines under threat of violence. This state of affairs inevitably produced a negative reaction in response to the actions of Hema and Ugandan forces. The Lendu quickly formed their own militant groups to fight back and violence rose sharply by 1999.

Henri described the pressure put on him at the time to choose sides in vivid terms. When the Ugandans arrived in Ituri he was running a telecoms bureau in the provincial capital of Bunia, telling the BBC in Kinshasa what was happening in this eastern part of the Congo. Members of the local community would often come and use his satellite phone or other office equipment and he had a talent for making useful connections.

But the bureau itself also made him a target for Hema militants, who suspected him of passing on information about their operations to his Lendu compatriots. Henri was tortured several times by the militiamen, once having metal batons interwoven between his fingers and having his hands crushed. Even when he managed to talk his way out, his own people treated him as a potential traitor, shooting up his office and ransacking his home as warnings.

As events deteriorated his Lendu community demanded protection from its young men. Henri remembers members of his family joined Lendu militia groups and several of his relatives were killed in the violence. Political shifts meant Bunia changed hands several times, and at one point during the struggle Henri found himself press ganged into joining the ranks of the temporarily victorious Lendu militants in order to prove his loyalties.

He talked his way into job as a technician which kept him away from the frontlines, but by the spring of 2003 the tides of war had changed again. This time it was Hema fighters who were advancing on the city and they were looking for revenge. Even Henri could not talk his way out of this kind of trouble. Instead when Hema soldiers came searching to kill him, he had to flee into the bush with his young family.

Henri fled with 5,000 other refugees through the jungle towards the safety of Beni in neighboring North Kivu province. It was a week-long two hundred kilometers trek on foot and he was in an angry mood, with plans to buy weapons in the city and run them back to his brothers in Ituri to continue the struggle. But along the way an incident happened which was to change the course of Henri’s life.

At a village called Gety, militiamen held up the refugees, paranoid about traitors hidden inside their ranks. A massacre loomed over the mass of displaced people trapped there as the militants debated their fate amongst themselves. A natural leader, Henri asked to speak to their leader, despite being threatened with a machete to keep quiet. He knew already he was persuasive; unasked he took a dangerous gamble and negotiated with the militia commander for the refugees’ lives and freedom.

“As the eldest child there is no one do things for you.” Henri says with a laugh. “You learn to be the responsible one when you are very young.”

After a night of bargaining Henri got his way; the commander agreed to let the displaced civilians go. It was the start of a new direction in his life. When he arrived in Beni, instead of continuing with his plans to become a gun-runner, Henri got to hear of a church based peace group that was working with displaced people. The Centre Résolution Conflits (CRC) organization had also had to relocate twice because of the war, but was continuing to hold peace rallies and invite its congregations out to learn how they could promote peace in the region. Henri joined it, and by 2004 he had become risen to become the CRC’s director. Eleven years later and he has never looked back.

CRC’s work has lead Henri into all sorts of situations as it has developed down the years. The group retain a reputation as effective mediators, a mixed blessing in a dangerous part of a country filled with guns. In one case they were asked to negotiate between the UN and a rebel militant group holding a village hostage. The UN was threatening to storm the settlement, while the militants believed themselves possessed by spirits that made them immune to physical harm. Eventually the CRC were able to resolve the situation by negotiating safe passage for the fighters out of the village.

In another instance Henri was contacted by militia commanders with too many mouths to feed. Wishing to barter for supplies they offered to demobilize some of the child soldiers in their ranks in return for goats. A bizarre exchange rate of goats for children had to be worked out; undeterred Henri went into the bush to negotiate and a ratio of ten animals for 40 children was agreed. With the help of UK charity Peace Direct, one of CRC’s international partners, enough goats to free 100 child soldiers were sent.

As the CRC has persuaded fighters to demobilize, or let children and teenagers leave the bush to return home, its operations have had to change to cope. The CRC has faced the task of reintegrating these fighters into communities filled with their former victims and often it is no longer a just a case of overcoming interethnic hatreds. Over time many militia groups degenerated into fronts for banditry or just formed to terrorize their own areas into handing over food and other supplies.

Many ex-fighters, adults, children and youths, are psychologically scarred by the terrible things they have seen and done, and afraid of communal rejection as well as revenge attacks. Faced by a lack of support and economic alternatives in one of the world’s poorest countries, they can easily be seduced back into armed groups.

Still based in North Kivu, Henri and the CRC have piloted a number of projects designed to mitigate these problems as much as they can. As well as disarming ex-combatants and returning them home, they try to give each a skill that can make them employable. Special efforts are made to prepare communities for the return of ex-fighters, so they are not rejected out of hand. Child soldiers are returned to their families or placed with special trained foster parents and then returned to school or given a livelihood.

Similarly for women who have suffered rape or sexual assault at the hands of the various combatants, they provide trauma counseling and micro-finance to set up small businesses. The organization also run community radio stations in more than 70 places, supporting interactive clubs which broadcast discussions by the community members about local issues, including the dangers of joining militia groups.

It has been twelve years since the end of the formal end of the war that set Henri on this path and he recently celebrated another anniversary with CRC. Although his work may never quite end, the legacy as a peace-builder he leaves behind him will be a proud one.

This article first appeared in H Edition magazine and is re-published here with kind permission.

The post A New Direction: Henri’s Story appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.