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Why Lesotho Matter

There's a political crisis in Lesotho--and it matters far beyond the borders of the tiny African country, which is nestled inside South Africa.

Late last month, military forces in the small kingdom surrounded key government installations prompting the prime minister and newly appointed commander of the armed forces to flee to neighboring South Africa. Since then, mediation by the regional inter-governmental body, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), returned Prime Minister Thomas Thabane to power. But the incident underscores the general democratic backsliding the region has undergone over the last few years -- and the central role SADC has played in condoning it.

Just a short time ago, Lesotho was a democratic success story. After decades of political instability, the kingdom reinstated multiparty democracy in 1998 only to witness significant violence following the release of the results. However the kingdom rebounded to hold its first peaceful election in 2002. Since then Lesotho has garnered very little attention. But far from the headlines, political infighting threatened the fragile stability Lesotho gained. Elections in 2012 saw the ruling party of Pakalitha Mosisili gain the most seats in parliament but still resign to allow a coalition government take power which held an absolute majority. The resignation avoided a repeat of post-election violence but also created the perfect conditions for political instability as the fragile coalition struggled to maintain power. In June, Thabane suspended parliament for nine months to avoid a no confidence vote amid rumors of possible coup attempts.

The details of exactly what happened on August 30 remain unclear but it appears that such political infighting is what led to the attempted coup by the military. As before, SADC mediators were called upon to help diffuse the situation. But SADC’s involvement may be a mixed blessing. Its involvement in Zimbabwe did little to prevent rampant election rigging in last year’s election and the organization was largely silent on possible irregularities in contentious districts in the recent South African election. Attacks on civil society and the press in Zambia has received little commentary and SADC has been nowhere to be seen as the last absolute monarchy in Africa, Swaziland, imprisons human rights lawyers and journalists. Rather than uphold its own established principles, the organization suspended and then redrafted the jurisdiction of the SADC Tribunal which made several rulings against member states, embarrassing governments that sought to extend their power, whether by legal means or not. Prior to this summer, Lesotho served as one of the bright spots in the SADC region; now even that is in dispute.

Civil society organizations in the region have been warning of this democratic backslide for years, but recent events are bringing the issue to the forefront of discussion. The recent appointment of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to chair the regional organization also undermines its democratic credentials. While Mugabe’s rise to the chairmanship can be seen as bringing Zimbabwe in from the diplomatic cold, it also provides organizational support for a regime that repeatedly violates SADC’s own principles and calls for reform. If nothing else, this is a major diplomatic victory for Mugabe, but underscores the trend of supporting long entrenched leaders over democratic norms.

The stakes are high for SADC to right the path they are on regarding democratic standards. Mozambique is facing a general election next month while Zambia will face elections next year. The two main political parties in Mozambique, Frelimo and Renamo, have spent months negotiating an amnesty agreement to stop the political violence that threatens to reverse the gains it made since the end of the country’s civil war in 1992 but will be facing a new president regardless of which party wins the election. Zambia hasn’t seen its president, Michael Sata, in months amid rumors of ill health and infighting amongst the ruling party.

As more foreign investment goes into the region, the stakes for political instability grows. With this background, the continuing uncertainty in Lesotho takes on greater meaning. SADC mediation may have returned Thabane to the State House but the larger political issues remain unaddressed. The more SADC is willing to back leaders but not their institutions or their populations, the more democracy in the region will be undermined. The need for SADC to step up is large, but what remains unknown is whether they are up to the task.

Originally appeared on UN Dispatch

Is Estonia the Next Ukraine?

Last week Russian security forces abducted an Estonian security officer along the country’s border with Russia. The incident is a serious development, but is also merely one of several that have analysts looking at Estonia as the possible next theatre for Russian ambitions.

Russia and Estonia have never enjoyed a particularly smooth relationship, thanks in part to different interpretations of Soviet and Russian actions and Estonian independence. Estonia declared independence in 1918 and enjoyed recognized independence until the outbreak of World War II when Germany and the Soviet Union made a deal that granted the Soviets control over the Baltic states, including Estonia. Faced with overwhelming slaughter following a complete military blockade by Soviet forces, the Estonian government capitulated to Soviet rule, only to then be taken over by Germany. Soviet forces again occupied Estonia after defeating German forces in 1944, an event celebrated in Russian history. Russia continues to see this annexation as a liberation, while Estonia views it as an occupation. This fundamental divide explains why Estonia was so quick to reassert their independence as the Soviet Union faced increasing internal turmoil, but also why Russia does not understand Estonia’s reticence towards them. It has also left complicated legal consequences regarding citizenship and rights for the country’s ethnic Russian minority.

Since Estonia reasserted its independence in 1991, most of its ethnic Russian minority has been left in limbo. Since most ethnic Russians are the consequence of the Soviet occupation, Estonia did not recognize them as native citizens in 1991 despite the fact they compromised roughly a third of the country’s population. Naturalization rules required non-citizens to have a basic knowledge of the Estonian language, something that many ethnic Russians did not have. As a result, many ethnic Russians were left stateless. Outreach programs have reduced Estonia’s stateless population from 32% in 1992 to 6.5% in 2014, but at the same time nearly 7% of Estonian residents have now acquired Russian citizenship according to the Estonia’s Ministry of the Interior. Even though Estonia is one of the least populated EU states, it also holds one of the highest percentages of non-nationals as permanent residents. As the Estonian government continues to advance Estonian language, culture and historical narrative, many ethnic Russians feel neglected by the country they have called home for three generations.

This feeling of neglect extends beyond nationality and language. While Estonia has prospered economically since reasserting its independence in 1991 – joining both the EU and NATO – many ethnic Russians remain economically marginalized and face limited opportunities without knowing the Estonian language. More than 20 years after the country broke away from the Soviet Union, ethnic Russians are increasingly looking towards Moscow for political direction, a role that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been more than happy to fill as part of his program of rehabilitating Soviet history and symbols to invoke the grandeur of Russian empire.

Despite all this so far things have been relatively calm in Estonia. But an incident in 2007 regarding the removal of a statute commemorating World War II Soviet war dead in the Estonian capital of Tallinn created a major diplomatic incident that highlights the political instability possible due to these divisions. Ultimately ethnic Russians rioted for several days in Tallinn while pro-Kremlin youth placed the Estonian embassy in Moscow under siege, all with the tacit approval of the Russian government, until international pressure forced officials to reign in the youths. The entire incident only lasted about a week but underscores the very real fissures that lay under the surface and the possible powder keg that may be there. It also demonstrates the very real influence Moscow can have in causing unrest if it chooses.

That influence is already on full display in Eastern Ukraine, and already played out in numerous breakaway regions in Georgia and Moldova. Following the Russian annexation of Crimea in March, comments by Russian diplomats regarding the treatment of ethnic Russians in the Baltic states – and in Estonia in particular – have placed relations at an even further low than before. All three Baltic states are members of NATO and the EU, leading many to believe that Russia may increase its rhetoric but will stop short of actual engagement as seen in Ukraine. But the forcible abduction of an Estonian official, just days after President Obama gave a speech in Tallinn confirming that NATO would defend the Baltic states in the face of any Russian aggression, puts that analysis in doubt.

Now analysts are having to contend with a real possibility that the Baltic states will be the next of Putin’s foreign adventures. If so, despite their small size, it will have far wider consequences than the current conflict in Ukraine. With their NATO membership, any attack on Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania will inevitably lead to a much wider conflict between the West and Russia, the type that can reshape Eastern Europe as we know it today.

Originally appeared on UN Dispatch

Why Hong Kongers Are Protesting in Record Numbers

Far from the more dramatic headlines of the summer, pro-democracy protests have rocked Hong Kong. Unlike in mainland China, there is a strong protest culture in Hong Kong but these protests – and the underlying issues that belie them – may mark an indelible turning point for the special relationship Hong Kong shares with Beijing, with neither side willing to back down or compromise with the other.

When the British handed over control of the former colony to China in 1997, there were plenty of questions about how the capitalist and democratic city would fit within communist China. The notion of “one country, two systems” and the city’s status as the country’s first Special Administrative Region gave hope that Hong Kong could continue to function unimpeded by the political limitations often found in mainland China. In the years since, while Hong Kong does enjoy more freedom than the mainland, it also increasingly faces political pressures from the central government. Like pro-democracy activists in mainland China, those in Hong Kong have faced crackdowns in recent years as Beijing is willing to give the locals a leash, but not one long enough to stray from the central tenants of the communist government.

Frustration with these limitations is the reason behind Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), a pro-democracy protest movement advocating for universal suffrage in Hong Kong ahead of the 2017 elections. The election will be the first where the region’s Chief Executive is elected directly by the people rather than a small committee of electoral legislators choosing the Chief Executive. However, what control Beijing would exert over the elections remained a serious question. Last year the Chairman of the Law Committee of the National People’s Congress, Qiao Xiaoyang, stated that the executive would have to be someone who did not confront the central government. Such statements put the local population on notice and provided one more sign of Beijing’s encroachment following the current Chief Executive odd choice to give his 2012 inaugural speech in Mandarin, the language of Beijing, rather than the Cantonese language spoken by most of Hong Kong’s people.

As a result, OCLP vowed to protest throughout 2014. And protest they have. Although the July 1 anniversary is typically marked with protests, this year saw the largest protest in a decade. It, and other protests like it since, have been repeatedly cleared by police. But the issue is not going away. Days before the 17th anniversary of Chinese rule, an unofficial referendum on universal suffrage put on by OCLP saw nearly 800,000 people vote on the issue. Rather than be persuaded, local and national leaders declared the vote illegal and began cracking down on key pro-democracy activists and media outlets.

Thus it comes as little surprise that China announced this past weekend that rather than allow unimpeded universal suffrage, any candidate for Chief Executive would have to first gain the approval of a pro-China nominating committee, a procedural obstacle that will likely block more liberal or pro-democracy candidates before the election even begins. The new regulations are considered more limiting than the current system and provides the worst possible outcome for OCLP. It also sets the stage for even deeper divisions between Hong Kong and Beijing.

Given the growing frustrations in Hong Kong and the low approval ratings for Beijing, such tensions should not be ignored. Even if the OCLP movement fades in the coming weeks as many predict, the underlying struggle will not. Beijing’s recent actions suggest it is not ready for an actual “one country, two systems” framework while the Hong Kong protests suggest it is no longer willing to compromise. While most media outlets focus on potential conflict between China and its neighbors over competing claims in the South China Sea, it is possible the next major conflict could come much closer to home. That conflict is more likely to look like Tiananmen than Nanking but would still have lasting consequences for all involved and could reshape China as we know it today.

Originally appeared on UN Dispatch

Australia has a Problem

In recent years Australia has received quite a bit of criticism for its harsh policies towards asylum seekers and refugees. Last week new information on its treatment of Syrian refugees revealed the lengths Australia is willing to go to remove some of the world’s most vulnerable people from its shores. It also calls into question the ability of the international community to enforce refugee rights, even among Western governments.

Although Australia was a settler colony, the country has never been pro-immigration. This sentiment manifested for decades after independence with the“White Australia Policy” which heavily favored limited European immigration while prohibiting non-Europeans from living, working or gaining citizenship in Australia. Following World War II, the government gradually dismantled the core provisions of the policy, officially removing race and country of origin from immigration criteria in 1973. But while the White Australia Policy is no longer on the books, different government policies have taken its place with the same anti-immigrant sentiment.

Over the last 20 years, the bulk of this ire has been directed towards refugees and asylum seekers, particularly those who arrive by unauthorized boat. Australia introduced mandatory detention for unauthorized arrivals in 1992, removing pre-existing limits on how long someone could be held in favor of the option of indefinite detention if needed. In 2001, following an increase in unauthorized arrivals from Central and South Asia, the government launched the “Pacific Solution” policy that excised many of the island territories around Australia from the country’s official migration zone and established offshore detention centers on Manus Island and Nauru to house potential asylum seekers while they waited for their claims to be evaluated. Detention often lasts months, sometimes even years, as detainees wait for a decision on their asylum application.

The government claims such policies are for national security but it has also been quite vocal in recent years in support of deterrence as an official government policy. This approach ranges from using prolonged detention, whether justified or not, to advertising assurances that no matter the validity of their claim an asylum seeker will not gain resettlement in Australia. The recent treatment and return of several intercepted Sri Lankan asylum seekers – despite Australia’s acknowledgment of widespread state-sponsored torture by the Sri Lankan government and the likelihood that those sent back would face imprisonment – highlights the harshness of this policy and the depths Australia will go to deter any other refugees from trying to come to its shores.

This is all quite shameful but the revelation by The Guardian of interdepartmental emails from the Australian Department of Immigration show just how deep the anti-refugee pathos within the government has gotten. A tiny fraction of the estimated 3 million Syrian refugees in the world have successfully made it to Australian territorial waters but even that is too much for the government to handle. The emails reveal repeated attempts to coerce Syrian refugees to repatriate even though they legitimately fear they will be killed upon their return. One email recounts the options presented to Syrians detained on Manus Island – indefinite detention or return, but never the possibility of resettlement. So far it is understood that all five Syrians on Manus have elected for indefinite detention over repatriation and possible death.

However at least one Syrian detained at Nauru did elect to try to return. In order to facilitate that, Australian officials shared his identity and personal information with the Syrian government to get official travel documents. In this case, it appears the officials had permission from the Syrian to share this information with the Syrian consulate, but based on the emails it also appears officials were preparing to do this even before permission was granted. That impetus – to respect and abide by the laws of a state engaged in massive crimes against humanity against its own people while blatantly flouting commitments under international law – is increasingly the defining characteristic of Australian immigration policy.

Human rights groups and UNHCR have been vocal in their objections to these draconian measures but that is the extent of action by the international community. Last year Australia took the extraordinary step of excising the entire continental mainland from the Australian migration zone, in essence completely removing Australia from its own borders for the purposes of immigration and ostensibly their commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Such measures sound insane because they are; the move is unprecedented under international law. But aside from criticism by UNHCR who stated it still considers the Refugee Convention to be binding on Australia, nothing has happened. Asylum seekers continue to be detained for months offshore or forcibly returned, in full violation of said convention.

Of course there are very real reasons to try and deter refugees from making the dangerous journey by boat to Australia; people smuggling is a brutal and exploitive industry that rarely places any value on the safety of its human cargo. But Australia’s claims that such policies are out of humanitarian concern fail in view of the country’s history and the goals openly stated by politicians. Furthermore, no other feasible alternatives are being provided that actual deter an asylum seeker from attempting to make the trip. Much like the debate over “Fortress Europe” and the US “border crisis”, the issue is not whether refugees should be protected in the abstract but rather whether the refugees risking their lives to gain the protection of these states are the “right kind” of refugees. International law does not allow for that distinction and neither should the national policies of any state.

Originally posted on UN Dispatch

Inching Ever Closer to Ukraine’s Tipping Point

Last week clashes between pro-Russian and pro-Kiev protesters came to the usually quiet and ethnically diverse port city of Odessa. While calm has now returned to the city after three days of rioting, the violence that occurred last week serves as a reminder of how fragile Ukraine has become since the Euromaidan protests started last year and how quickly things can escalate in the increasingly fragmented eastern and southern provinces.

Who started the violence on May 2 depends on which media accounts you read but it appears a small pro-Russian group assaulted a rally of football Ultras holding a rally for Ukrainian unity. Both sides were armed which led to several people in the crowd being shot, including at least three journalists who were covering the clashes. When the pro-Russian activists retreated to a local administrative building, the rival crowd retaliated with Molotov cocktails that started a deadly fire, trapping and killing over 30 inside the building. The total death toll reached at least 46 with many more injured in a city that has seen numerous rival protests, but no violence until now.

The developments in Odessa are just the latest to demonstrate how precarious the situation in Ukraine has become. In the days following the violence in there pro-Russian crowds attacked the city’s police station to free arrested protesters and the government sent in elite National Guard units to restore order and maintain control over some of Ukraine’s last remaining sea access after the secession of Crimea. Elsewhere in the east, Ukrainian troops continued to clash with a pro-Russian militia that took control of the city of Slovyansk resulting in casualties on both sides and pro-Russian mobs attacked government buildings in Donetsk as the self-proclaimed “people’s government” advocates for a referendum on the status of the region similar to the referendum Crimea held in March. Descriptions of the fighting throughout Eastern Ukraine is increasingly not about protesters and activists against security forces but illustrate scenes straight out a war zone complete with heavy machine guns and tanks firing on organized militias and less organized mobs.

Those scenes may portend a new reality for Ukraine. As the former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul warns of a possible full Russian invasion, the acting president of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov told Ukrainian TV that Russia was already at war with the country. Fears of a civil war come as the country prepares for national elections on May 25 to elect a president after the Euromaidan protests forced former President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February. While it was originally hoped that the election would mark the end of the crisis that started with mass protests last November, it now appears that if the election does occur, it may make tensions far worse in a country where there are no clear-cut sides.

What is clear is time is running out for Ukraine to find a viable solution while avoiding a much wider conflict. With thousands of Russian troops stationed on the border in both the east and south in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, each day of violence inside Ukraine brings the possibility of a tipping point that will be difficult to come back from. The violence in Odessa may be one more step towards that line or may wind up being an isolated event, but it serves as a reminder of how high the stakes are with each new protest as Ukraine seeks for a common identity that can unite all of its’ different ethnic groups.

 

Originally posted at UN Dispatch