Roland Marchal

The current crisis in Mali was not unexpected, although most national and international players were eager to maintain an unrealistic view of political developments in this Sahelian country. This crisis reflects the decay of state institutions and practices: the Malian army collapsed and patronage does not mean democracy. The crisis is built on four dynamics that have their own effects: the debatable implementation of previous peace settlements with the Tuareg insurgency; the growing economic importance of AQIM activities in the Sahelian region; the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in Libya; and the inability or unwillingness of Algeria to play the role of regional hegemon now that its rival (Libya) has stopped doing so.

While the Tuareg rebellion has been able to gain from the collapse of the Malian army in the north, it should be noted that the many armed groups have different agendas, and position themselves differently towards the local population and the Malian state. What is unclear is whether they will be able to co-exist on the same territory while trafficking and a protection economy are the only sustainable resources.

The jihadi aspect of some components of the insurgency has to be understood in context and should not be seen as erasing social and economic differences in a heterogeneous northern Mali. It proves the successful demonstration effect that small groups such as AQIM and Ansar ed- Din can have. It should also draw more attention to a regional context that could provide radicals with a wider audience and credibility by building opportunistic coalitions.

The current crisis in Mali is not over, despite the constitutional arrangement that allowed the departure of President Amadou Toumani Touré and the appointment of an interim president, Dioncounda Traoré. The following short analysis tries to make points that should be kept in mind whatever developments occur in the next weeks.

This is the executive summary of a longer NOREF paper. The paper was produced for the Nordic International Support (NIS) Foundation and is published by NOREF in co-operation with NIS

Roland Marchal is a senior research fellow at the National Centre for Scientific Research based at the Centre for International Studies and Researches (CERI/Sciences-Po, Paris). He was the chief editor of the French academic quarterly Politique africaine from 2002 to 2006, and has been researching and publishing on the conflicts and politics in Africa for more than 30 years.

Posted: April 30, 2012 in Social Commentary

The last few weeks has seen a dramatic upsurge in tension between Sudan and South Sudan. The most recent iteration ‘began’ with the occupation, by forces loyal to the South Sudanese government, of the town of Heglig, officially controlled by Sudan and central to the control of north-flowing oil supplies. This was quickly followed by a)war-like rhetoric by Sudan’s President Omar-al-Bashir, b)condemnation of the occupation by the United Nations and [portions of] the International Community, and c) a military offensive by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). South Sudanese forces left Heglig- whether by choice (as claimed by South Sudan) or forced out by the SAF (as claimed by Sudan) being unclear due to the limited access by foreign observers.

The withdrawl from Heglig appears to have calmed the situation somewhat- commentary at the time suggested that an escalation to ‘full-blown war’ (whatever that is) was imminent. Sudan’s Air Force has carried out a number of bombing raids against southern targets (aerial bombardments are denied by Khartoum as a matter of course but well documented by witness accounts and the Satellite Sentinel Project). Bashir has turned his rhetoric narrative from that of the offended avenger to that of the vanquishing hero. Meanwhile, the government of South Sudan has played a more defensive game after receiving the diplomatic equivalent of a yellow card from the International Community.

The reality is, however, while the lines of tactical control have shifted and shifted again, the strategic position is little changed. The conflict between Sudan and South Sudan is fraught and on the brink of erupting. But don’t misunderstand this assertion. This is not just some thuggish brinkmanship between two hot-tempered adversaries that could boil over with a careless word. This is a deeply-rooted conflict, in which the issues, the stakes, and the players are all ingrained in a highly tangled context, decades in the growth.

Let’s take a quick look at what’s going on.

I’ve looked at the Sudans context previously, but for those just joining us, here’s the one paragraph summary of the salient points of the Sudans’ modern history. Sudan gained independence as a single nation following British colonial rule which previously saw it divided, with direct administration of the south as an East African colony, and a proxy rule by the Egyptians in the north, resulting in a country with a deep north-south divide on cultural, religious and ethnic grounds. Khartoum’s governance was challenged by a civil uprising in 1956 that lead to two rounds of near-continual civil war, largely driven by the impact of resource centralization, Islamicization, arabicization and the marginalization of impoverished outlying states. This was further exacerbated by the seizure, via coup, of the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum, led by now- (and still-) President Bashir, who entrenched these policies further. The signing of the internationally-brokered Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 brought an end to open warfare and led, in 2011, to a referendum which saw the south vote overwhelmingly for independence and becoming, a few months later, the world’s newest state. The time since has been characterized by increasing tension between Khartoum and the southern government in Juba, particularly over the official border demarcation between north and south and, by the same token, control over the country’s rich oil reserves that straddle that border.

On the subject of civil war, it’s worth mentioning the Darfur conflict, which kicked off in 2003 and led to a [debatable] 200,000 or more deaths due to a combination of direct combat and disease resulting from displacement. While geographically (and politically) distinct from the war between north and south (see above map for reference), it’s relevant because it shares many root causes, its protagonists many of the same disgruntlements. Darfur rebel groups have long taken their lead from developments in negotiations between north and south, and many of Sudan’s disparate rebel groups have shared a common sympathy and a loose alliance.

It’s also important to understand several aspects of warfare in Sudan. One is the principle of assymetry. Historically, the SAF has held considerable dominance from the perspective of materiel and training (a proper Air Force used to devastating effect against largely civilian targets, and a large convential standing army), while most rebel groups have historically been militias drawn from civilian populations, or at times elements deserted from the SAF (note that the SAF’s dominance on paper is no longer assured). A second issue is the use of proxy militias. The most infamous of these is the Janjawid, ostensibly used by Khartoum (who, characteristically, denies the charge) to carry out massacres and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. However they were used extensively during the north-south conflict, often drawn along ethnic boundaries and exacerbating existing tensions, and often associated with some of the worst crimes against civilian populations. A third issue is heavy international involvement. This manifests itself both in terms of the support given to the various sides of the conflict, and also in the efforts at mediation. While Bashir has perfected the diplomatic Waltz, dancing around sanctions and resolutions to keep the international community on the back foot, Juba all but owes its existence as an independant entity to the direct intervention by NGOs, the UN, and international sponsors.

Before we go further, let’s do a quick recap of the major players.

•  Sudan, Republic of- The northern half of what used to be the nation of Sudan and historically refered to as ‘north’ or ‘northern’ Sudan, governed from Khartoum. Population: 30 million. GDP: USD 89 billion (USD 2,700 per capita). Percentage of exports associated with oil prior to secession of South Sudan: 70-90%.
• South Sudan, Republic of- The southern half of what used to be the nation of Sudan, independant since July 2011 and with its capital in Juba. Population: ~10 million. GDP: USD 13 billion (USD 1,500 per capita). Percentage of Sudan’s pre-secession oil fields now in its control: 80% (estimated). Percentage of budget accounted for by oil exports: 98%.
• Omar-al-Bashir- President of Sudan since seizing power in a coup in 1983. There is an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in his name, for charges of war crimes. And (if the author is allowed a brief editorial moment in what will otherwise be a largely impartial analysis) a tool. Prop: Walking Cane.
• National Congress Party (NCP)- The ruling party of Sudan, led by Omar-al-Bashir.
• Salva Kiir- President of South Sudan, ex-soldier & former leader of the SPLA, successor to John Garang (obit. 2005), former First Vice President of Sudan pre-secession. Prop: Cowboy Hat.
• Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)- Main political entity representing the southern Sudanese during the 2^nd civil war (from 1983) and now ruling party of South Sudan, headed by Salva Kir.
• Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)- Armed wing of the SPLM during the 2^nd civil war, the legacy of which now forms the core of the South Sudan Armed Forces (SSAF) and is in the process of being regularized. Highly factional and historically driven by ethnic loyalties and personality cults.
• Sudan People’s Liberation Army- North (SPLA-N)- Anti-Khartoum rebel group with a strong presence in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan. While Kordofan ‘belongs’ to Khartoum, it is ethnically strongly tied to the south, and the SPLA-N is allied with- although tactically and officially independant from- the SPLA
• Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)- Rebel group from Darfur fighting the government in Khartoum.
• Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)- Rebel group from Darfur fighting the government in Khartoum.
• Sudan Revolutionary Forces (SRF)- A relatively recent alliance (late 2011) between various anti-Khartoum rebel groups- the SPLA-N, JEM, and two factions of the SLA (the Minni Minnawi and Abdel Wahid groups), now fighting as a quasi-independant force allied with but not [fully] controlled by Juba. Implicated in the recent occupation of Heglig.
• Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)- Violent Ugandan rebel group known for abduction of thousands of children and the brutal mutilation and murder of civilians, recently made more broadly infamous by the #KONY2012 campagain. Allegedly supported by Khartoum as a proxy militia that occupied the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), who were pro-southern Sudan, and also carried out attacks more recently in southern Sudanese territory. Interestingly, after a couple of years of relative inactivity, the LRA’s operations have picked up pace over the last six months, just as tensions in South Sudan rise. The LRA is currently operating out of eastern Central African Republic and being hunted by US Special Forces and elements from the UPDF.
• United Nations (UN)- The UN has three missions in the Sudans: the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), a peacekeeping mission headquartered in Juba with approximately 12,000 personnel; The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), a peacekeeping mission founded in response to an upsurge of violence in the contested region of Unity State made up exclusively of Ethiopian forces; and the Africa Union-United Nations Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), a largely AU-staffed force of around 20,000 personnel carrying out peacekpeeing operations in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The situation as we find it now is a fabulous entanglement of agendas and historicity, driven more than anything by the need for control over oil resources, exacerbated by decades of political, cultural and military division. Sudan, under pressure from the international community via the CPA mechanism, has had to allow South Sudan to secede, losing up to 80% of its potential oil revenue. South Sudan, for its part, can currently only export its oil via ports in Sudan, thus striking an ongoing deal that 50% of its oil revenue will go to Sudan in exchange for said service. The deal should in theory mean that both nations can benefit from that sticky black nectar. In reality, a series of disagreements- over control of specific oil fields and over the pricing mechanism for oil leading to stoppages of oil flow which threaten both nations’ economies- have meant that the relationship between the two countries has been rendered quite disfunctional.

South Sudan’s occupation of Heglig- roundly slammed by the UN- came on the back of months of sporadic aerial and artillery bombardment by the SAF, as well as allegations of ethnic cleansing of pro-south areas in Sudanese territory. The latter events have created an upsurge in activity by the SPLA-N, which as far as Khartoum is concerned, is little different to a direct attack by regular South Sudan armed forces. Even the nature of the recent occupation of Heglig is under some dispute, with some observers claiming a large portion of the tactical operation used SRF fighters- but certainly with the support and official consent of the SPLM.

So what of prospects for peace or war? Does South Sudan’s withdrawl from Heglig represent a willingness to back down? Certainly, the quick and unequivocal condemnation by UNSG Ban Ki Moon seemed to come as a surprise to Kiir- as it did to a wide range of commentators and analysts, many of whom pointed out that the south’s occupation of Heglig, far from being a unilateraly aggressive act, was a fairly measured reaction after putting up with months of both military aggression and political deviance from the north. Whether the condemnation by the UN was as ill-founded as observers suggest, or whether it was a calculated statement planned to buy some more time for negotiations (of the two capitals, Juba- which relies on so much international support- would be much more likely to react to a statement of condemnation from the UN than Khartoum- for whom such pronouncements are somewhat toothless and pedestrian) remains to be seen.

The pieces are certainly in play for the steady build-up to a protracted conflict. Militarization on both sides of the border has been steadily increasing for months. Two-faced rhetoric is pouring from the politicians- most obviously from the north who, with one mouth placate diplomats with assurances they seek a peaceful resolution, while rallying the Sudanese population with talk of overthrowing Juba with the other.

More critical are the unresolved underlying issues. Unfulfilled commitments from the CPA are a critical component. One of the biggest complaints of the South is that key areas who were promised the opportunity to vote on whether they stayed with Sudan or joined South Sudan have not happened. While the rhetoric used by the South is that they are not concerned with the outcome, only that due process is followed, the reality is these areas are likley to declare for the South, further removing Khartoum’s access to oil.

And while control of the oil revenue remains the single most important factor, the exacerbating factor here is the historical animosity between North and South. A narrative- and a very recent one- exists to mobilize populations for war on both sides of the border. Many soldiers- and just as crucially, their commanding officers- are battle-hardened veterans of a violent conflict. While there have been few direct confrontations between Sudan and South Sudan since the turn of the millenium, proxy conflicts have been many. Meanwhile, the SAF have been fighting engagements in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile fairly consistently since the conflict with the south began to lessen, and by the same token, the SLA, JEM and other pro-south militias have been equally engaged. Add in the evidence of targeted killings of civilians to enrage the South, and remarks that bring forth echos of pre-genocide Rwanda from Bashir, and the political mechanisms to move to a state of war are all but established.

There are reasons, however, to hope that war may be avoided. The shutdown of oil production has effectively frozen the lifeblood of both economies, and without financial resources, a war is unsustainable for very long. It’s expensive to annihilate your enemies.

There is a strong international presence in South Sudan. The international community has long shown itself fairly impotent where Khartoum is concerned, and Bashir has been masterful in giving the UN just enough of what is demanded of it to avoid real penalties, while not really conceding anything at all. However the South is far more dependant on that international support and, as reaction to the recent UN condemnation implies, more likely to react. That said, of course, UN-mandated peacekeeping missions are notoriously ineffective, and it’s unlikely that a significant upsurge in conflict between Sudan and South Sudan would or could be stemmed by the presence of Blue Helmets on the ground. During last year’s fighting in Abyei, peackeepers were accused of taking no action while civilians bore the brunt of the aggression.

One of the biggest factors in the 1983-2005 civil war was foreign interest in control of the oil fields. Then, the war was a proxy conflict in the Cold War, with Khartoum supported by the Soviets (until their demise) and the SPLA supported by the US, who purportedly poured millions of dollars worth of weapons and training into the rebels’ cause. In many senses, the war was eventually ‘won’ by the South (in a somewhat pyrrhic fashion), arguably due in a significant part to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the corresponding loss of support of Khartoum.

Today the stakes are similar- control of oil revenues- although the players (and their politics) differ. The US was one of the architects of the CPA. While having some influence over oil production (and therefore price and revenue) is a key outcome, there is also chatter about the US military footprint on the continent through the medium of AFRICOM, the US Africa Command, and possible interest in establishing an operations base somewhere in the subregion. The considerations aren’t entirely implausible. Khartoum was a target in the war on terror. It provided a home to bin Laden for a period, was Tomahawk’d by Clinton following the 1998 embassy bombings in east Africa, and its conservative application of Islamic principles in governance puts it high up the list of states that make the US twitchy. Regionally, the Sahara has become a major hiding spot for watchlisted insurgency groups, as well as drugs and weapons-smuggling operations. Somalia- where there’s a growing catalogue of evidence for US counter-terrorism and Special Forces operations- is a short plane-ride away. With South Sudan’s government a relatively weak (read: easy to muscle) one, it would make an attractive partner from which to base an operational presence, as well as being geographically strategic.

The other major outsider in the deal, however, is probably the most critical. China has vast investment in both Sudan and South Sudan, and is pouring money into developing the oil fields second to none. In 2009 alone, Chinese firms apparently invested USD 8 billion in Sudan, 90% of it going into the oil fields. Pre-secession, it accounted for 50% of foreign direct investment in Sudan. However, while a large portion of its investment has been through Khartoum, since independance it has also moved to shore up relations with Juba, and reported just this week is a USD 8 billion loan scheme. Prior to the oil-pipeline shutdown, South Sudan was providing 5% of China’s oil needs.

What’s key here, and perhaps the best news around, is that China is playing the field on both sides of the border- something that was missing in the 1983-2005 civil war, where both the USSR and the US had unilateral interest in seeing one side win over the other. China, which effectively holds the purse-strings for both Sudan and South Sudan, has no interest in seeing the two nations go to war. It would lose a vast amount of investment, its own personnel and infrastructure have already repeatedly been caught up in hostilities in the region, and to boot it would lose control over a sizeable oil source for which it is ever thirsty. If indications were that China was moving towards supporting one side (e.g. Sudan) over the other, hopes for peace would be very bleak indeed. The fact that they are continuing to invest on both sides of the border offers some hope.

That said, playing the neutral broker in a deal with such high stakes is a very unfamiliar and somewhat awkward position for China, which has consistently been slammed for its ethical track record, particularly in its African investments. Chinese engagement in international diplomacy is at best enigmatic, and this remains true. Salva Kiir has returned in just the last couple of days from a trip to Beijing, bringing with him the confirmation of the USD 8 billion deal. What conversations happened behind closed doors remain unknown for the time being, but it is highly unlikely that Beijing will part with that sort of cash without wanting some assurances that that money won’t be used to buy weapons or simply be bombed out of existence by two belligerents. So far, China has not confirmed whether it will support South Sudanese petitions for a new oil pipeline to be built which would allow South Sudan to export via a third nation. Such a deal would presumably infuriate Khartoum, effectively stemming any chance of benefiting from the southern oil fields.

Of course, to some extent events will be out of the hands of statesmen. Militias like the SRF and the SPLA-N may respond somewhat to the will of Juba, but are not wholly controlled by them, and they are less amenable to the chunks of cash wielded by foreign investors. Should they continue a regime of destabilizing (or retributionary) attacks, the situation along the border is likely to continue to deteriorate. The same can be said for incursions and bombardments by the SAF, which provide the fuel for SPLA-N/SRF wrath. Concerns are that China, with its less than exemplary record on human rights, is not the right intermediary to stop a dirty little conflict like the one currently building on Sudan’s southern border.

There are a lot of moving pieces in the machinery of the Sudans, and things are still unfolding. Even as Kiir returns from Beijing with a promise of full pockets, Sudan has continued bombardments of southern territory, and southern-allied militia have moved against SAF positions in Upper Nile, prompting Khartoum to declare a state of emergency. Behind the scenes, diplomats are scrabbling to keep the communication game alive, reporting with optimism thatboth sides claim to want peace, even while their respective pieces move against eachother along the chequered border. The withdrawl form Heglig appears to have bought a little more time for a brokered solution to be sought, but done little to change the trend towards escalation.

However, a brokered solution will take a lot of time to be reached, never mind implemented, and rest in part at least upon UN and AU statements whose threats for non-compliance carry about as much weight as ‘just wait until your father gets home’. With the underlying issues remaining unresolved, and a history of bad faith in fulfilling promises, there may be little confidence that both parties will abide by their agreements. With trust being eroded on the one hand, and catalytic events moving quicker than diplomacy on the other, if an escalation to destructive war is to be avoided, some very heavy-handed international involvement will be necessary. Finding an actor with both the will and the power to wield this sort of force is difficult. The best hope for this may well be the strategic use of Chinese investment and intervention, but it’s far from a sure bet. Right now, the indications- despite verbal assurances to the contrary- all suggest that Sudan and South Sudan are on a sturdy war footing. All else remaining equal, their stalled economies may restrict the extent to which either side can wage large-scale industrial war. However there’s still plenty of room for things to get very, very nasty, particularly for the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. With significant portions of both Sudan and South Sudan highly food insecure, and hundreds of thousands displaced, the impact of conflict layered on this already fragile humanitarian context could be disastrous.

War between Sudan and South Sudan isn’t a done deal yet, but they continue to teeter on the brink.

For excellent online coverage from the front line of the Sudan conflict, follow @alanboswell and his stories forMcClatchy (and recently, Time)

Original Post 

By ADAM DAVIDSON

Published: March 13, 2012

Illustrations by Peter Oumanski

By his own admission, Daron Acemoglu is a slightly pudgy and fairly nerdy guy with an unpronounceable last name. But when I mentioned that I was interviewing him to two econ buffs, they each gasped and said, “I love Daron Acemoglu,” as if I were talking about Keith Richards. The Turkish M.I.T. professor — who, right now, is about as hot as economists get — acquired his renown for serious advances in answering the single most important question in his profession, the same one that compelled Adam Smith to write “The Wealth of Nations”: why are some countries rich while others are poor?

Over the centuries, proposed answers have varied greatly. Smith declared that the difference between wealth and poverty resulted from the relative freedom of the markets; Thomas Malthus said poverty comes from overpopulation; and John Maynard Keynes claimed it was a byproduct of a lack of technocrats. (Of course, everyone knows that politicians love listening to wonky bureaucrats!) Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s most famous economists, asserts that poor soil, lack of navigable rivers and tropical diseases are, in part, to blame. Others point to culture, geography, climate, colonization and military might. The list goes on.

But through a series of legendary — and somewhat controversial — academic papers published over the past decade, Acemoglu has persuasively challenged many of the previous theories. (If poverty were primarily the result of geography, say, or an unfortunate history, how can we account for the successes of Botswana, Costa Rica or Thailand?) Now, in their new book, “Why Nations Fail,” Acemoglu and his collaborator, James Robinson, argue that the wealth of a country is most closely correlated with the degree to which the average person shares in the overall growth of its economy. It’s an idea that was first raised by Smith but was then largely ignored for centuries as economics became focused on theoretical models of ideal economies rather than the not-at-all-ideal problems of real nations.

Consider Acemoglu’s idea from the perspective of a poor farmer. In parts of modern sub-Saharan Africa, as was true in medieval Europe or the antebellum South, the people who work the fields lack any incentive to improve their yield because any surplus is taken by the wealthy elite. This mind-set changes only when farmers are given strong property rights and discover that they can profit from extra production. In 1978, China began allowing farmers to benefit from any surplus they produced. The decision, most economists agree, helped spark the country’s astounding growth.

According to Acemoglu’s thesis, when a nation’s institutions prevent the poor from profiting from their work, no amount of disease eradication, good economic advice or foreign aid seems to help. I observed this firsthand when I visited a group of Haitian mango farmers a few years ago. Each farmer had no more than one or two mango trees, even though their land lay along a river that could irrigate their fields and support hundreds of trees. So why didn’t they install irrigation pipes? Were they ignorant, indifferent? In fact, they were quite savvy and lived in a region teeming with well-intended foreign-aid programs. But these farmers also knew that nobody in their village had clear title to the land they farmed. If they suddenly grew a few hundred mango trees, it was likely that a well-connected member of the elite would show up and claim their land and its spoils. What was the point?

I encountered another side of Acemoglu’s thesis during what must have been one of history’s great natural economic experiments: post-Saddam Hussein Baghdad. On April 9, 2003, the day the city was captured, one of the world’s most tightly controlled economies suddenly became a free-for-all. Amid the chaos, many former state functionaries turned into entrepreneurs. Nearly every engineer from the ministry of housing, it seemed, had opened his own construction company. Satellite TVs, once illegal to all but a very small elite, were sold on every major street. Under Hussein, only one company (widely rumored to be monitored by the intelligence service) offered Internet access, and it was incredibly bad and expensive. After it was gone, there were so many new Internet companies that I had far more access options then than I do today in Brooklyn.

Yet the American authorities, who had not planned for this budding free market, all but destroyed it when they gave the bulk of new contracts to large companies outside the country. Often, these outsiders subcontracted to Iraqi firms with close ties to the state’s new political establishment. By the anniversary of the United States invasion, it was clear that economic success would again come from connections and corruption rather than talent and hard work. Today, Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt nations on earth. An Iraqi friend once told me that he had hoped we would teach the Iraqis how to be Americans. Instead, the Americans learned how to be Iraqi.

cemoglu, Robinson and their collaborators did not come up with the idea that incentives matter, of course, nor the notion that politics play a role in economic development. Their great contribution has been a series of clever historical studies that persuasively argue that the cheesiest of slogans is actually correct: the true value of a nation is its people. If national institutions give even their poorest and least educated citizens some shot at improving their own lives — through property rights, a reliable judicial system or access to markets — those citizens will do what it takes to make themselves and their country richer. This suggests, among other things, that instead of supporting one-off programs promoting health or agricultural productivity, the international community should focus its aid efforts on deep political and economic change.

Perhaps just as interesting, “Why Nations Fail” also shows the effects of different economic and political systems over the centuries. The sections on ancient Rome and medieval Venice are particularly compelling, because they show how fairly open and prosperous societies can revert to closed and impoverished autocracies. It’s hard to read these sections without thinking about the present-day United States, where economic inequality has grown substantially over the past few decades. Is the 1 percent emerging as a wealth-stripping, poverty-inducing elite?

Well, maybe. Acemoglu and Robinson’s frequent collaborator Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told me that financial firms have so thoroughly co-opted the political proc­ess that the American economy has become fundamentally unsound. “It’s bad and getting worse,” he told me. Barring some major shift in our political system, he suggested, the United States could be on its way to serious economic failure.

Charles Calomiris, an economist at Columbia University, is less worried. But it’s not because he thinks that banks haven’t co-opted our political system. “We’ve never had a good banking system,” he says. “What’s amazing about America is that we’ve been the most successful economy in the world while being crippled by political constraints on the quality of our banking system.” This has been going on since the 1700s, Calomiris says, and he doesn’t see any reason for the United States’ economy to stop growing anytime soon.

Acemoglu and Robinson are on the pessimistic side of optimism about the United States’ chances of a resurgence. Congress, they told me, is too heavily influenced by the wealthy, and the advent of super PACs has only given elites more power. Yet Acemoglu surprised me when he said he was encouraged by the rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. While neither has an especially coherent or subtle economic agenda, both show that, however frustrated they might be, large numbers of Americans still believe they can influence the political process to improve their fortunes. Since the future of American economic health lies in its people, Acemoglu explained, as long as Americans believe they can influence the process, they will.

But, he quickly pointed out, what if Americans find their protests have no impact? What if the United States becomes a truly extractive nation, with violent repression of protest or — in some ways, worse — the grudging acquiescence of the beaten-down masses? While many Americans are frustrated by the divisive, often angry public debates over our economic future, we may only be in real trouble at the very moment that they shut up.

Adam Davidson is the co-founder of NPR’s Planet Money, a podcast,blog, and radio series heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.”

Original Post

Published March 12, 2012

I first became aware of the problem of ‘odious debt’ when I was seconded from the UK Treasury to work for the government of Nelson Mandela. The apartheid regime in South Africa had borrowed from private banks through the 1980s, most of which went to finance the military and security services and to sustain the repression of the majority of its citizens.  As a result, the new democratic government in South Africa inherited about $40 billion of international debt (in today’s prices).  The question for my colleagues in the South African Treasury was whether to pay this debt, or to renounce it as odious.  In the end they decided to pay, to protect their credit rating and ensure that they would be able to access global financial markets in future.  Ministers even opposed a lawsuit seeking reparations from banks that had helped finance the apartheid regime, because “we are talking to those very same companies named in the lawsuits about investing in post-apartheid South Africa.” 

All this is bad for two reasons. First, it means that illegitimate governments can be sustained in power by rogue creditors, undermining the effectiveness of sanctions. Second, it means that when a new, legitimate government comes to power, it is saddled with the debts of its predecessors. The ‘rainbow nation’ of Nelson Mandela’s South Africa would have got off to a better start if it had not had to service apartheid-era debts.

In principle donors from creditor nations could choose to write off these debts; but this has an opportunity cost within fixed aid budgets, and it is not politically appealing to use aid to bail out rogue creditors who have been making money lending to illegitimate governments. So in practice the successor government are often left with a huge debt to pay.

There is a disarmingly simple solution to this problem.

The main financial and legal centres of the world should declare that any contracts signed after today by a regime which has been designated illegitimate will be regarded as odious, and will not be enforceable in their jurisdictions.

Take Syria today. The regime of Bashar Al-Assad has been declared illegitimate by the United Nations and the Arab League. The European Union and United States have imposed sanctions, which make it illegal for their citizens to engage in certain kinds of trade with that government. But some Russian companies continue to sell arms, presumably on credit, and Syria is looking for someone to buy their heavy crude oil. Weirdly, those contracts, which would be illegal for European citizens, will be enforceable in British and American courts against any future Syrian government.

As Tim Harford says in the Financial Times this weekend:

This is an elegant idea. By drawing a clear line between existing debt, which is to be respected, and all future debt, which will be regarded as odious, it reassures creditors lending to the governments of poor countries. It frees innocent people from debts not of their making. And, cleverly, it undermines odious regimes by making it hard for them to promise credibly that they will repay their creditors.

The idea was first proposed by Michael Kremer and Seema Jayachandran, and it has been developed by a Center for Global Development Working Group which looked in detail at how it could be applied. We have now published  an updated two-page policy brief by Kim Elliott and me and a new FAQ.

We have also put together a four-and-a-half minute video explaining how this approach could be applied to Syria today:

Many of us feel a sense of helplessness about events in Syria. The least we can do is call any new contracts with the regime what they are: odious and illegitimate, and promise that when Assad falls, debts incurred by him from today will not be visited upon those who will be working to rebuild the nation

Kim Elliott’s post on the CGD blog has more.  If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please add them to the discussion there.

Original Post

JOHN CAMPBELL

Africa in Transition

Campbell tracks political and security developments across sub-Saharan Africa.

March 15, 2012

Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir attends the opening ceremony of the Connect Arab Summit in Doha March 6, 2012. (Mohammed Dabbous/Courtesy Reuters)

Even as Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir escalates his rhetoric against the United States and mobilizes paramilitary forces against insurgencies within Sudan, opposition parties in Khartoum are calling for him to step down. While the opposition seems too weak and fragmented to pose a serious threat to al-Bashir for now, its statements are a reminder that al-Bashir must watch his back.

On March 3, al-Bashir urged the Sudanese to mobilize for war and to deploy the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces against multiple insurgencies. In a ceremony, the PDF pledged its undying loyalty to al-Bashir and ascribed the insurgencies to American imperialism, international Zionism, and resurgent colonialism.

In response, on March 5, the opposition Umma Party, the Communist Party, and the Popular Congress Party (PCP) said that al-Bashir’s mobilization call was issued not in the interest of the Sudanese people but rather for the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The three parties called for the Sudanese people not to respond to al-Bashir and for the president to step down from office. The political secretary for the PCP called for a transitional government. He called on the Sudanese people to overthrow the NCP. The leader of the Umma party accused the NCP of making war against its own citizens in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, an approach, she said, that earlier resulted in the secession of South Sudan. A spokesman for the Communist Party called on the Sudanese people to reject “the policy of war.”

Strong stuff in a country where the the regime shows itself capable of exceptional brutality in Darfur and in the contested border regions in the South. Yet, al-Bashir apparently calculates that it is not in his best interests to initiate all-out repression against his opposition. Or, perhaps he does not feel himself strong enough to be able to do so.

Original post

 Seth Kaplan

March 12, 2012

Social cohesion is an underappreciated but crucial element in development, state building, and poverty reduction.

It is an especially important factor in determining whether a state is fragile or not. As I argued in Fixing Fragile States:

Two factors above all others decide how a country’s political, economic, and societal life evolves: a population’s capacity to cooperate (which depends, for the most part, on the level of social cohesion) and its ability to take advantage of a set of shared, productive institutions (especially informal institutions at the crucial early stages of development when formal institutions are usually feeble and ineffectual). . . . These two ingredients shape how a government interacts with its citizens; how officials, politicians, and businesspeople behave; and how effective foreign efforts to upgrade governance will be. Together with the set of policies adopted by the government, they make up the three major determinants of a country’s capacity to advance.

Fragile states are deficient in both these areas. And the combination of political identity fragmentation and weak national institutions works in a vicious cycle that severely undermines the legitimacy of the state, leading to political orders that are highly unstable and hard to reform.

But social cohesion has rarely attracted the attention it deserves from the development community. Dependent on sociopolitical factors that are hard to measure, analyze, and understand, it holds no prominent place in any international agency’s programming. Like almost everything related to the “software” of how states work, it is all too easily ignored.

This may be changing at least at the margins—in conferences and reports. The World Bank, for instance, is using it to discuss jobs in its forthcoming World Development Report. And the OECD recently published Perspectives on Global Development 2012: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World.

This is progress of a sort, but these conferences and reports are missing something important. Instead of seeing social cohesion as a “complex cultural, psychological and social phenomenon,” as Duncan Green put it on his blog earlier this year, they look at economic issues and technocratic solutions. The OECD report, for instance, promotes redistribution via progressive tax reform and increased and more pro-poor public spending; investment in education; protecting poor people against volatility via social protection and improved labor market institutions such as the minimum wage.

There is nothing particularly wrong with most of this agenda, but it does not get to the heart of the matter. A country with high levels of social cohesion would likely have a leadership with an interest in introducing programs that helped the poor. A country that had little social cohesion would likely have a leadership that had little interest in helping the poor. These proposals matter far less than trying to figure out what affects elite attitudes and what might be done to make elites feel that the poor is “one of us.”

What the development community fails to understand is that there are two distinct types of social cohesion, and it only focuses on one.

“Vertical social cohesion” looks at levels of inequity on the assumption that substantial differences in income are both inherently unfair and damaging to the wellbeing of societies.

“Horizontal social cohesion,” on the other hand, looks at how strong is the “social glue” that ties people to each other on the assumption that feelings of togetherness matter more both to the wellbeing of individuals and to the long-term health of a society.

The development field has no way to grasp the importance of the latter because it does not fit within the paradigm of how development is supposed to work as understood by donors. It has nothing to do with economics, technical training, and governance indicators. It cannot be improved with vaccines, a school building program, or investments in agriculture. And it certainly cannot be measured and tracked over time.

Vertical social cohesion fits nicely with the liberal ethos that most people in the field know. Horizontal social cohesion is much more likely to matter to conservatives, but few of these play an active role in any part of the aid industry. As a result, many things that matter to making states work better—including nation building, religion, and informal institutions—gets short shrift.

But these things are tremendously important, especially in the early stages of development when formal state institutions are weak, and unable to play an important role in economic and political governance.

The countries most successful at promoting development and reducing poverty have been horizontally social cohesive, not vertically so, because of how important this is when governments do not work well. Places like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the rest of East Asia have improved the lives of over a billion poor people over the past two generations not because they had “good governance,” progressive taxes, or followed a certain policy playbook, but because they had the social glue that lubricated business and encouraged leaders to focus on inclusive development.

Donors have often been befuddled by fragile states, with some even calling them awicked problem. These difficulties, however, say more about donors than they do about fragile states.

Understanding these places requires understanding their software. The problems they face are more fundamental than other countries—something is wrong with their basic operating system—something than the standard aid tools cannot fix. It requires great creativity in programming to address the structural, psychological, and institutional issues that have produced societies divided against themselves.

Such programming is not easy for organizations that would rather focus on problems at the individual level (the MDGs) and show results within a short timeframe. It requires much more knowledge about societies and patience with long payback periods than donors have, especially today.

Given the growing importance of fragile states, is it not about time the development community focused on the social cohesion that matters most?

Original Post

by Duncan Green, Head of Research for Oxfam GB

OK, time for a series of posts on agricultural policy. Regular readers will know that I am a huge fan (as well as friend) of Ha-Joon Chang. Routledge recently published a book edited by Ha-Joon that I think is very important indeed. Unfortunately, it’s only come out in very expensive hardback (a snip at £85), and the FAO, which funded it, is not known for its publicity machine, so here’s some background and excerpts.

‘Public Policy and Agricultural Development’ aims to do on agricultural policy what Ha-Joon’s 2002 book ‘Kicking Away the Ladder’ did on industrial policy, namely reclaim the lessons of history to refute the ideas of the Washington Consensus and instead suggest a much more activist role for the state (although its conclusions on ag are less statist than Ha-Joon’s work on industrial policy in books likeKicking Away the Ladder).

The book builds on detailed case studies of 11 developed countries in their earlier stages of development and the experiences of 10 developing and transition economies in the last half century. It presents six detailed case studies of agricultural policy in the last half century in two Latin American countries (Chile and Mexico), two African countries (Ethiopia and Ghana), and two Asian countries (India and Vietnam).

It covers a huge range of ag policy issues, including land policy (land tenure reform and land quality improve¬ment), knowledge policy (research, extension, education, and information), credit policy (specialized banks and agricultural credit co-operatives), physical inputs policy (irrigation, transport, electricity, and divisible inputs such as ferti¬lizer, seeds, and farm machinery), policies intended to increase farm income stability (price stabilization measures, insurances, and trade protection), and policies intended to improve agricultural marketing and processing.

The core message is that ‘despite distinctive country-specific issues, agricultural policy challenges that confront countries at earlier stages of economic development, today and in the past, are remarkably similar across countries….. today’s rich countries all grappled with landlessness, fragmentation of holdings, lack of irrigation and other rural infrastructure, backward technologies, limited availability of credit to small farmers, excessive price fluctuations, limited availability and poor quality of farm inputs (especially fertilizers), poor warehousing and marketing facilities (which often force farmers to sell at the wrong time and wrong prices), food insecurity, and trade shocks.”

This means that there is a lot that countries can learn from other experiences, both historical and contemporary’. It frees our “policy imagination” by showing that the range of policies and institutions that have pro¬duced positive outcomes for agricultural development has been much wider than any particular ideological position – be it the pre-1980s statist one or the pro-market ‘New Conventional Wisdom’ of the Washington Consensus (NCW) – would admit. It also shows that the willingness to experiment with new policies and institutions, and the willingness to learn from other countries’ successes and improve upon their solutions, were important in all agricultural success stories.

‘Rethinking Public Policy in Agriculture’ has the potential to be highly influential in changing the way we think and talk about agriculture and development, reclaiming the lessons of history, and providing a rich set of experiences and ideas for policy and institutional reform. At the core of these experiences is the role of smallholder agriculture, and what governments need to do to help them become a driver of development. At first glance, that fits in very well with some of the core messages of the GROW campaign, but Oxfam’s women and ag specialist, Sally Baden, will address that tomorrow.

And if you’re still hungry for more, here’s a bit more detail from Ha-Joon’s overview chapter.

“Land reform is today supported in only very muted and market-based forms (e.g. no ownership ceilings), but Japan and other East Asian countries had a very successful comprehensive land reform system that included strict landownership ceilings.

State-backed specialized rural banks and credit subsidies are only reluctantly accepted by the NCW, but all of today’s rich countries used these devices. Profit- driven micro-finance is favoured over credit co-ops in the current orthodoxy, but many of today’s rich countries used the latter successfully. Ghana’s rural banks, half owned by the government and half by the local community, are an innovative variation on the theme.

While marketing boards are routinely denounced by the orthodoxy, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Denmark and some other European countries had benefited from effective export marketing boards.

Co-ops are these days not exactly discouraged, but the central role that they played in the development of agro-processing and marketing in Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Japan are not sufficiently emphasized by the proponents of the NCW.

Price stabilization measures are frowned upon by the NCW, but many of today’s rich countries used them and some had great success with them, such as the USA and Japan. More recently, Chile has used a very effective price stabilization scheme.

Facilities like state-subsidized agricultural insurances, public provision or subsidization of warehousing facilities, and input (e.g. fertilizer) quality control were some of the very effective policies used by today’s rich countries (and some of today’s developing countries, like Chile in the case of state-subsidized insurances). These policies are not actively objected to by today’s orthodoxy, but they are not given sufficient attention.

All these issues suggest that the contents of the agricultural policy tool-box for today’s developing countries will be significantly enriched if history is taken more seriously.

Third, our study reveals that the exact institutional forms of successfully delivering critical needs of the agricultural sector vary enormously across time and space.

There were successes with all forms of delivery in all sorts of countries – public provision (e.g. agricultural research in the USA, extension in the Netherlands, irrigation in Vietnam, seeds in Mexico, rural credit in Germany), private provision (e.g. marketing services through contract farming in Zambia, machinery services in Egypt), private delivery subsidized by the state (e.g. agricultural insurances in Chile, certain types of research in The Netherlands), public– private partnerships (e.g. irrigation in Sweden), cooperatives (e.g. butter and bacon processing and marketing in Denmark, credit co-ops in Germany), state–cooperative partnerships (e.g. rural banks in Ghana, export marketing in Denmark, fertilizer supply in Korea) – which suggests that the standard dichotomy between the public sector and the private sector is crippling our policy imagination.

Likewise, our study reveals cases of failures with many of these delivery modes. Public provision failed miserably in agro-processing in Ghana before the 1980s. Private provision failed spectacularly in fertilizer supply in post-socialist Hungary, agricultural education in post-socialist Ukraine, and extension and fertilizer supply in post-reform Ghana. Sometimes both the public sector and the private sector failed in the same area, suggesting that the causes of the problem lie deeper than ownership form – rural credit in Zambia and seed supply in Ghana. Cooperatives in many developing countries were not very successful, giving them a bad name.

All these examples suggest the importance of a pragmatic approach not hidebound by pro-state or pro-private sector ideologies. Indeed, one important common characteristic of success stories is their willingness to pick solutions that do not neatly fit into ideological boxes.”

Original Post

Deaths in childbirth would drop further if the bank cut fees and expanded grants in its spending on reproductive health

Posted by

Tuesday 6 March 2012 12.09 GMTguardian.co.uk

Children hold placards during a campaign in Freetown against maternal deaths in Sierre Leone, which has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP

Every minute of every day, one woman dies somewhere in the world due to preventable complications in pregnancy or childbirth. That’s a total of 1,000 women dying each day, or 365,000 dead each year, from pregnancy-related causes. Despite research that shows an overall decrease in worldwide maternal mortality since 1980, millions of women and girls still face a staggering risk of death or disability during pregnancy and childbirth.

The World Bank boasts that it has positioned itself as a “global leader” in reproductive health, especially for youth and the poor, having committed$96m to reproductive health projects in 2011. However, the bank fails to mention that this total represents just 0.2% of its $43bn budget for the financial year ending 2011. The bank also overlooks the fact that almost half of its reproductive health projects in Sub-Saharan Africa — where women have a one in 16 chance of dying during pregnancy or childbirth — are funded by loans. These loans leave poor countries indebted and threaten to divert domestic spending away from vital public health services. Such spending cuts are devastating for poor women, who not only suffer directly from reduced access to healthcare but are responsible for the health of their households.

There is a striking mismatch between countries’ maternal mortality rates and the bank’s spending on reproductive health. While Sierra Leone (where women face a one in 21 risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth over their lifetime) receives the greatest amount of reproductive health funding per person at $7.43, Rwanda (where the risk of dying is one in 35) receives just $0.38 per person. Women in Niger, Liberia and Somalia face an average lifetime one in 17 risk of maternal death, yet these countries receive no reproductive health funding from the bank at all.

While the World Bank’s approach to reducing maternal mortality responds to many leading causes of maternal death, such as haemorrhage, infection and obstructed labour, its investments virtually ignore the risk of maternal injury and death that stem from unsafe abortion.

Globally, unsafe abortions account for 67,900 (13%) maternal deaths each year; approximately half occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the bank’s Reproductive Health Action Plan acknowledges the severe risk of maternal death and injury due to unsafe abortion, particularly for adolescents, the majority of bank-funded reproductive health projects do not include any interventions to address it.

For example, the bank’s Health System Performance projectin the west African country of Benin, which allocates about $5m to reproductive health, acknowledges that infections stemming from unsafe abortion are the second leading cause of maternal death at four of Benin’s referral hospitals. However, none of the project activities directly addresses this alarming statistic. Although four of the bank’s 39 current reproductive health-related projects in sub-Saharan Africa include interventions to reduce maternal death from unsafe abortions, none include indicators to measure if these interventions are actually carried out.

Also troubling is the fact that many of the World Bank’s current reproductive health projects promote healthcare user fees, despite overwhelming evidence that such fees drastically reduce women’s healthcare access, exacerbate poverty and undermine efforts to reduce maternal mortality.

For example, the World Bank’s $4.3m reproductive health vouchers in western Uganda project, which ended in December 2011, required women to purchase $2 vouchers that entitled them to prenatal and postnatal care, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and facility-based delivery. This is a prohibitive amount in Uganda, where half the population lives on less than $2 per day.

The World Bank must re-evaluate its strategies for reducing maternal mortality if it is ever going to live up to its claim of being a “global leader” in improving reproductive health. The bank must increase the number of grants it provides to expand access to reproductive and maternal healthcare — including post-abortion care — and eliminate any fees attached to these vital services.

Original Post

Companies investing in land in Africa and elsewhere need guidelines to ensure the human rights and dignity of local communities are protected

Posted by

Tuesday 6 March 2012 14.11 GMTguardian.co.uk

During a recent visit to Kampala, Uganda, we heard multiple stories of people being forced to move because the government or local business wanted to acquire land they had inhabited for generations. In one case, the bodyguard of a government official addressing disputes over a land acquisition project opened fire on protesters, killing two. The official and his guard now face murder charges. Such cases, where disproportionate force is used against people resisting land projects, are becoming common in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Farmworkers tend plants at a palm oil plantation near the town of Bako, in Ethiopia, owned by an Indian company. Photograph: Jose Cendon/Getty

As Liz Alden Wily pointed out on the Poverty Matters blog, many plots of land throughout Africa do not have individual ownership or well-recognised customary titles for collective ownership. This lack of clear ownership rights allows investors – domestic or foreign, state-owned or private, small or large – to stake a claim.

But ownership isn’t the only issue. Titled or untitled, land is often taken over without due process by invoking the loosely defined doctrine of eminent domain (by which the government can appropriate private property). And where there are contracts, they often disproportionately favour those with power. The principles of participation, transparencyand accountability, which form the cornerstone of the notion of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), are usually absent in such transactions.

Corporate buyers typically contend that any investments they make in land will bring economic benefit to communities as well as to the government – and the acquirer. But the story in Africa (and elsewhere) shows that benefits too often are shared only between companies and local elites, while surrounding communities end up worse off.

What leads so many land deals in Africa to such destructive results for local communities? One factor is that those people most affected by land deals usually lack financial resources and the negotiating power to defend their rights. Their claims to land ownership are easily exploited by governments and by some companies. But there are signs that situation may finally be changing.

In 2010 the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in considering a case by the Endorois people of Kenya, moved towards institutionalising and providing greater protection to traditional ownership of land. The commission concluded: “Traditional possession of land by indigenous people has the equivalent effect as that of a state-granted full property title”, and that “indigenous peoples who have unwillingly lost possession of their lands, when those lands have been lawfully transferred to innocent third parties, are entitled to restitution thereof or to obtain other lands of equal extension and quality”.

This is an encouraging sign of greater legal protection for traditional landholders. But for the growing number of companies investing in Africa, what – in practical terms – should be done when states offer prime land on a platter? How should companies respond if they learn that people who lived off that land are likely to be evicted forcefully, and are unlikely to have any documentation proving ownership of the place from which they were forcibly removed?

To ensure that the process of acquiring or using land is transparent, and in keeping with international human rights principles, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has launched an effort to develop guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources. The focus of this effort on the state’s role in protecting rights is of vital importance.

Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, has called for guidelines to protect the vulnerable against land grabbing. Earlier, the UN Human Rights Council’s unanimous adoption of guiding principles to implement the protect-respect-remedy framework on business and human rights (pdf) is another step in the right direction. It clarifies state obligations to protect human rights from abuses involving private participants such as companies, the independent responsibility of all businesses to respect human rights, and where there is a governancegap, the need for remedies that are consistent with human rights standards.

But the reality remains that states often fail to protect human rights. So what should companies do? In an effort to provide practical guidance based on international human rights principles and standards, theInstitute for Human Rights and Business embarked in 2009 on a project on business responsibilities towards use and acquisition of land. This initiative has resulted in a set of draft guidelines (pdf) targeted at the business sector, which are due to be finalised later this year.

The guidelines are based on the principles of transparency, accountability and non-discrimination, and provide step-by-step advice to businesses to help them avoid conduct that undermines human rights. Such steps won’t be sufficient to ensure corporate respect for human rights in all cases, but they are a necessary stage in an ongoing process of due diligence that will help companies ensure they respect the dignity of local communities. We think that is a good place to start.

• Salil Tripathi is director of policy at the Institute for Human Rights and Business. Wambui Kimathi is senior consultant for Africa at the institute

Original Post

Middle East Briefing N°32, 5 March 2012

Kofi Annan’s appointment as joint UN/Arab League Special Envoy arguably offers a chance to rescue fading prospects for a negotiated transition in Syria.  It must not be squandered.

 I. OVERVIEW

One year into the Syrian uprising, the level of death and destruction is reaching new heights. Yet, outside actors – whether regime allies or opponents – remain wedded to behaviour that risks making an appalling situation worse. Growing international polarisation simultaneously gives the regime political space to maintain an approach – a mix of limited reforms and escalating repression – that in the longer run is doomed to fail; guarantees the opposition’s full militarisation, which could trigger all-out civil war; and heightens odds of a regional proxy war that might well precipitate a dangerous conflagration. Kofi Annan’s appointment as joint UN/Arab League Special Envoy arguably offers a chance to rescue fading prospects for a negotiated transition. It must not be squandered. For that, Russia and others must understand that, short of rapidly reviving a credible political track, only an intensifying military one will remain, with dire consequences for all.

Annan’s best hope lies in enlisting international and notably Russian support for a plan that:

• comprises an early transfer of power that preserves the integrity of key state institutions;
• ensures a gradual yet thorough overhaul of security services; and
• puts in place a process of transitional justice and national reconciliation that reassures Syrian constituencies alarmed by the dual prospect of tumultuous change and violent score-settling.

Such a proposal almost certainly would be criticised by regime and opposition alike. But it would be welcomed by the many Syrians – officials included – who long for an alternative to the only two options currently on offer: either preserving the ruling family at all costs or toppling the regime no matter the consequences.

II. THE REGIME’S DEAD-END

Kofi Annan

Even if the regime can survive for some time, it has become virtually impossible to see how it can ultimately prevail or restore normalcy. It might not fall, but it would become a shadow of itself, an assortment of militias fighting a civil war. Today, it continues to enjoy substantial military superiority over the opposition (a reflection of its monopoly on heavy weaponry and a still substantial reservoir of troops, security officials and civilian proxies) and for the most part has succeeded in both containing peaceful protests and fending off armed groups. Yet, it has been unable to achieve sustained progress anywhere in the country. Its conduct on the ground – including excessive use of force by regular troops, the security sector’s sectarian behaviour, persistent resort to civilian proxies, horrendous treatment of detainees and indiscriminate punishment of entire swathes of the population – precludes even a semblance of normalisation.

Given enough time, the regime might be able to destroy the urban and social fabric of entire neighbourhoods, as it appears to have done in parts of Homs. But that will only reinvigorate protests and armed resistance elsewhere.

Politically, the regime has mobilised its narrowing, if still significant popular base; exacerbated and exploited the Alawite minority’s fears; but shirked serious outreach that could possibly appeal to the growing number of Syrians appalled by large-scale, brutal repression. As even the most pragmatic opposition members see it, the dialogue it proposes would be a pointless exercise designed to validate its pre-cooked, unilateral and limited reforms. The constitutional referendum on 26 February was a case in point: it touched on what mattered least (the status of the Baath party, already an empty shell) and ignored what mattered most (the security services’ sectarian make-up and shameful performance, and the nature of the country’s leadership). The latter is critical: President Assad retains significant backing but, having behaved as leader of one camp determined to crush the other, he has forfeited any claim to nationwide legitimacy.

III. THE INTERNATIONAL CACOPHONY

Faced with mounting casualties and a political deadlock, outside actors at best have been ineffectual, at worst have poured oil on fire. Many have chosen to view the crisis primarily through the prism of its regional strategic stakes – who wins and who loses in the event of the regime’s collapse – and have done nothing to advance prospects for a negotiated transition.

The regime’s closest allies – Iran and Hizbollah – for the most part have offered it unconditional backing, reiterating that it is the victim of a foreign conspiracy aimed at a member of the so-called axis of resistance. Reports periodically surface that they have sought contact with opposition figures, purportedly to explore a possible compromise. But they continue to lavish the regime with political and material support while deploying none of their considerable leverage to pressure Damascus to change course. They will be even less inclined to do so the more they sense that their foes are coming to the opposition’s rescue and the more they see the crisis morphing into a regional proxy war.

Arab states at the forefront of efforts to topple the regime – notably Qatar and Saudi Arabia – also are those most prone to polarise Syrian society and frighten some of its key constituents. Their religious leanings, lip-service to domestic reform and defence of Bahrain’s suppression of its Shiite majority make them dubious champions of personal freedom and human rights. Their priority is removal of a proIranian regime, not transition toward a more democratic one.

Western countries clamour for the regime to fall but are hesitant and uncertain about how to make that happen and, notably in the case of the U.S., worried about what it might entail. By and large, they have taken refuge in a blend of outrage and ever-tightening sanctions. The former assumes a moral credibility neither the U.S. nor Europe truly enjoys in this part of the world; the latter – the remedy of choice when nothing else is at hand – will not affect the regime’s calculus and is catalysing an economic collapse that could turn a socio-political crisis into a comprehensive humanitarian one.

Bereft of good ideas, Washington and its European allies seem endlessly to be waiting for something to happen – for protests to build up as they did in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (the regime is ensuring that this will not occur); for the opposition to unite (an elusive if not illusory goal); for a palace coup (hard to fathom at a time when Assad appears indispensable to the inner circle that surrounds him); for the business establishment to switch sides (that has happened already – but to no visible effect); for Aleppo or Damascus to join the uprising (they have, to a significant degree); or for defections to swell (they will, but only if officers and officials sense the end is in sight).

Russia asserts its neutrality but its actions belie the claim. On 4 February, it vetoed an Arab League-inspired, Western-backed UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned the violence and endorsed the regional group’s proposal for a political transition. Its reasons were various – notably, Moscow is still smarting from the Libyan precedent, when a resolution backing limited intervention was used as license for regime change; it dislikes Western interventionism; fears regional instability; and worries about Islamist gains in its backyard.

Such justifications aside, what Russia failed to do was offer an alternative, viable initiative of its own. Rather, it meekly encouraged Assad to “accelerate” the reform process and urged the opposition to accept it. The outcome was unsurprising: the regime has been further emboldened; the opposition on the ground is ever more convinced that allout armed struggle is the only way forward; and countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia have pledged their wholehearted support to that effort.

The net effect of this international cacophony has been to persuade Syria’s leadership that it need not change a thing. Its allies have proved trustworthy, even as its enemies have done just enough to corroborate the regime’s conspiracy theories but not enough – for now – to pose a serious threat. In turn, this has made it possible for the leadership to continue to live in denial, apparently oblivious to the depth of a crisis it is unable or unwilling to resolve.

Frustrated and lacking a viable political option, Western officials and analysts have toyed with a series of often half-baked ideas, from initiating direct military attacks to establishing safe havens, humanitarian corridors or so-called no-kill zones. All these would require some form of outside military intervention by regime foes that would more than likely intensify involvement by its allies. Even if they were to provoke the regime’s collapse, that in itself would do nothing to resolve the manifold problems bequeathed by the conflict: security services and their civilian proxies increasingly gone rogue; deepening communal tensions; and a highly fragmented opposition.

Today, the proposal given most serious consideration is to arm the opposition. Gulf Arab countries have said they are prepared to do so and may have begun; it is probably unrealistic to stop them. But this too could plunge the nation ever deeper into a bloody civil war without prospects for a resolution in the foreseeable future and almost certainly trigger counter-steps by regime allies, thus intensifying the budding proxy war. Moreover, reports suggest weaponry could transit through Lebanon, thereby virtually guaranteeing that Syria’s civil strife would spill over into its fragile neighbour as well.

Many voices in the Arab world and in the West advocate toppling the regime almost regardless of consequences. This hardly is the way to help overcome fears felt both inside and outside Syria regarding the implications of such a scenario: long-term instability and uncertainty. Even Assad’s supporters have stopped arguing that there is much that he still offers; instead, they claim that any alternative would be far worse. That is the view of many among Syria’s minorities; it also is the view of many within the regime who are prepared to accept political change but only so long as it does not entail the regime’s wholesale liquidation.

All of which underscores the necessity of a negotiated, orderly transition both to bring these constituencies on board and to try to deal with the myriad of post-transition challenges described above.

IV. THE ANNAN MISSION’S SLIM CHANCE

There is every reason to doubt that the regime will accept meaningful negotiations and concessions. If that is to happen, it will be only if and when the leadership is persuaded that the balance of power is tilting against it. This in theory can be achieved in one of two ways. First, the military balance could shift in a manner that compels the regime to sue for a deal. This brings us back to the option of outside – probably Gulf Arab – military assistance to the opposition and to the adverse consequences mentioned earlier. In any event, levelling the military field at best would take significant time. Meanwhile, the country would be further polarised and torn apart, diminishing chances of a compromise while reducing the possibility that regime supporters, whose backing for a genuine transition is critical, will jump ship. Realistically, this is the most likely option; it does not make it the better one.

The second, preferable option involves a shift in the international balance through enlistment of Russia in a genuine diplomatic initiative. For the regime, Moscow is key: losing it would mean losing a significant contributing factor to internal cohesion – the perception that, deep-down, the international community remains ambivalent at the prospect of real political change. Enter Kofi Annan: if the former UN Secretary-General can persuade Russia to back a transitional plan, the regime would be confronted with the choice of either agreeing to negotiate in good faith or facing near-total isolation through loss of a key ally.

Changing Russia’s approach will not be easy. But it might not be unfeasible. Moscow’s priority appears to be less upholding the existing Syrian leadership per se than ensuring some institutional continuity by preserving both the state apparatus and what can be salvaged of the army.

If the proposed transitional plan addresses those concerns and gives Russia an important role in guaranteeing its implementation, it conceivably could be brought on board – all the more so if Moscow can be convinced that its current course maximises the risk of producing the outcome it professes to fear most: chaos, civil war and, over time, the empowerment of more extreme Islamist forces.

Annan faces very long odds. The regime seems determined to crush the protest movement and views any concession as a first step toward its downfall. After months of vicious repression, the opposition appears in no mood to negotiate. To engage the regime without a clear mandate, definite framework for negotiations or the kind of international backing that can sway Syria’s leadership would make it virtually certain that Assad would use the Special Envoy’s visits to present himself as an indispensable interlocutor, issue empty pledges and play for time.

Steps on the ground are urgently needed, including Syria granting international humanitarian organisations immediate access to areas that have experienced the worst of the violence. Beyond that, the only initiative with a chance of success is one that enjoys as broad an international consensus as possible – including both countries that back the regime (such as Russia) and countries that back the opposition (Arab states and Turkey). It should present a set of binding principles, with detailed timelines and modalities to be negotiated by the parties:

• reform of the security sector to ensure that, ultimately, all civilian forces fall under the authority of the interior ministry and all military forces under the authority of the defence ministry, through:
  • restructuring of the army and police;
  • thorough, albeit gradual, overhaul of the security services. In order to undermine the transition, they might well provoke incidents and seek to spread chaos; to counter the threat, international observers could be embedded in them while the reform process is carried out;
  • demobilisation of the regime’s civilian proxies and opposition armed groups;
• early elections for a president and constituent assembly to be monitored by international and Arab observers. The existing security services would have no role in supervising the polls; rather, elements of the army and police, large segments of which have not been involved in the repression, could be charged with providing security;
• formation of an interim unity government, with fair representation for the opposition’s various internal and external components;
• protection of communities most exposed to reprisals pending establishment of a transitional justice system; and
• establishment of national reconciliation mechanisms, as well as a process for local reconciliation between neighbouring localities engaged in reciprocal violence.

V. CONCLUSION

With every day of intensified violence and rising death toll, the possibility of achieving a political solution slips further away. But the alternative is clear, and it is ugly. If the international community surrenders to that fate, all will pay a huge price.

Damascus/Brussels, 5 March 2012

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