May 2010

May 31, 2010 Chaiwat Satha-Anand [Published in The Bangkok Post as “The effect of violence on the future of reconciliation”, May 28, 2010: op-ed.] That the military would succeed in defeating the UDD, also known as the “red shirts”, and in securing the city space occupied by many who came from rural Thailand was never in doubt.  In fact, some from within the security community might regard this operation as a success given the resulted “low” number of casualties. What certainly is , however, is how the military solution chosen by the government and violent methods incorporated by some UDD leadership will shape the form of continuing political conflict in this society. This article is an attempt to understand the violence effect of the “May 19 incident” on Thai society, especially on future reconciliation efforts.  I would argue that any future reconciliation effort with some hope of success would have to begin...

. Nevertheless, true to Tennyson’s poem of the Crimean War, “Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do and die”, the top officers went along with obeying the orders they were given. The big question now is how to withdraw “with honour” from Iraq. That is important to the soldiers. President Barack Obama has promised to be out by next year. How he sees it today, given the post election infighting in Iraq, is unclear. When he was a senator he told a Congressional hearing that if the US wanted to totally eliminate Al Qaeda from Iraq and have a solid Iraqi state they would be there for decades but “if our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo, but there’s not huge outbreaks of violence, there’s still corruption, but the country is struggling along but it’s not a threat to its neighbours and is not an Al Qaeda...

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in the process of reaching out to the Palestinians, was murdered by an extreme Jewish militant. Although there was an outpouring of grief there were a good 30 to 40% who thought and even said “good riddance”. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak went to the Wye plantation outside Washington DC and negotiated face to face with Yasser Arafat and President Bill Clinton the media hailed an agreement as nearly done and then tore into Arafat for scuppering it. But the fact is Barak could not have won Knesset (the parliament of Israel) approval for what he conceded and, indeed, he raised the bar on Arafat so high that he must have known that Arafat would not make the great final leap. Maybe it was all just a masterful piece of public relations meant to get America off Israel’s back and to undermine Arafat’s standing. The latest...

May 13, 2010 Jonathan Power   The stability of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous state, seems to defy the doomsayers. When the democratically elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo, ended his second term of office a quiet, self-effacing academic, Umaru Yar’Adua was elected. Last week he died, not yet 60. He is succeeded by his equally self-effacing, non dictatorial deputy, Goodluck Jonathan. Not everything Yar’Adua did was good – his most grievous sin was to fire Nuhu Ribadu, the path-breaking head of the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that prosecuted successfully many of the country’s most egregiously corrupt governors. But he did achieve two very important things, as he battled his debilitating illness. With remarkable perseverance he did what his predecessor had tried and failed to do to bring to the point of success negotiations with the armed militants who were bent on destroying the foreign owned oil industry and the oil...

Short text in English below Per Gahrton ger ut engelskspråkig bok om Georgien, Rosenrevolutionen och Ossetienkriget – stödjer EU:s Tagliavinirapport och kritiserar Bildts oreserverade Saakashvili-stöd Per Gahrton, ordförande i den gröna tankesmedjan Cogito ger i dagarna ut en engelskspråkig bok om Georgien, Rosenrevolutionen och Ossetienkriget hos det brittiska förlaget Pluto Press. Gahrton har följt utvecklingen i Georgien under de senaste tjugo åren och var personlig vän med landets premiärminister efter Rosenrevolutionen 2003, Zurab Zhvania, som omkom under mystiska omständigheter 2005. Under sin tid som EU-parlamentariker var han s k rapportör för Sydkaukasien. Han har flera gånger varit valobservatör i Georgien. Han har också sedan länge följt utvecklingen i Sovjetunionen och Ryssland och har “working knowledge” i ryska. Gahrton intar överlag samma hållning som EU:s s k Tagliavini-rapport om Ossetienkriget, d v s att det startades av Georgies president Saakashvili som därmed brott mot folkrätten, men att Ryssland genom att inte...

say that if the nationalist drum roll reached a certain crescendo public opinion would welcome an Indian nuclear attack on Pakistan, totally careless of the consequences. Today also there is the insurgency of the Maoists in eastern India, fuelled by the deep poverty of India’s tribal peoples who rarely live beyond the age of forty. Yet there is a strong other side of India. There is the Gandhian tradition of non-violence and the value of the worth of the individual which suits the world’s largest democracy well. There is the continuing success of democracy, a functioning if very slow legal system and a free press that are much more than just a safety valve for anti-government anger. They are sophisticated instruments for the pacific settlement of disputes and resentments. There is the influence of the fast growing middle class which is educated enough to understand the futility of violence and...