Terrorists and Pirates: An Alliance of Convenience. By Ryan Mauro
Friday, May 01, 2009
In his Salon.com article titled “Our Misguided Fight Against Somali Pirates,” John Feffer from the Institute for Policy Studies asks “Those teenage high-seas renegades are not about to team up with terrorists, so why is the U.S. military devoting so much attention to them?” While Freer is correct in pointing out that the pirates and terrorists are not ideological allies, it is a mistake to assume that the pirates are not willing to become valued business partners of radical Islamic terrorist groups including those linked to Al-Qaeda.
Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda affiliate labeled by the State Department as a terrorist organization, currently controls southern Somalia. The recent media attention given to the taking of an American cargo ship captain hostage and subsequent rescue will no doubt motivate this group to partner with pirates, if for no other reason than to try to steal some of the spotlight. Indeed, shortly following the incident, al-Shabaab claimed credit for firing mortars near a visiting U.S. congressman.
Already, senior Al-Qaeda member Sa’id Ali Jabir Al-Khathim al-Shihri, has instructed his Somali allies to “increase your strikes against the crusaders at sea and in Djibouti.” Earlier in April, an al-Shabaab spokesperson praised the pirates, saying they were “protecting the coast against the enemies of Allah.” The leader of the Ras Kamboni Brigades, another radical Islamic group said to be linked to Al-Qaeda, said the pirates were “part of the Mujahideen” despite being “money-seekers.” Those that dismiss the possibility of a link between pirates and terrorists underestimate the forces of radical Islam’s ability to establish relationships of convenience, and underestimate the greed of pirates with a clear will to bypass principles for the sake of profit.
At the Somali Piracy Conference on April 7, Ambassador David H. Shinn conceded there was “no evidence that piracy is directly linked to international terrorism, although many Somali groups get a cut of the ransom money.” Citing Jane’s Intelligence Review, Shinn explained that the two forces cooperate on arms smuggling, and the pirates are reportedly helping al-Shabaab develop maritime capabilities.
While the relationship is based on business and not ideology, it doesn’t make it any less beneficial to al-Shabaab. He says that they sometimes receive a “protection fee of 5 to 10 percent of the ransom money. If al-Shabab helps to train the pirates, it might receive 20 percent and up to 50 percent if it finances the piracy operation.”
Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, has also said such a link exists. He told Reuters in August that “According to our information, the money they make from piracy and ransoms goes to support al-Shabaab activities onshore.”
Nor is al-Shabaab the only radical Islamic group utilizing piracy. According to The Long War Journal, “Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, Jeemah Islamiyah, is often engaged in piracy, as are the Philippine affiliates Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group. The pirates and terrorists are often one in the same, or if not, are in close cooperation.”
This isn’t to say that they don’t sometimes fight one another, as all criminal and terrorist groups sometimes do. Ambassador Shinn accurately described the relationship as “fragile.” As a marriage of convenience, this relationship will fracture and subsequently heal depending on the interests of each party.
Three incidents in 2008 demonstrate this dynamic.
In April 2008, Somali pirates were paid a $1.2 million ransom to release a Spanish fishing boat and its 26 crewmembers. Al-Shabaab reportedly received five percent of the ransom, which local residents said was smaller than what the terrorist group demanded. In this case, they were business partners.
In September 2008, pirates hijacked a Ukrainian vessel which contained arms, including grenade launchers and 33 Russian T-72 tanks destined for Kenya. Al-Shabaab’s requests to receive some of the weapons from the ship were rebuffed by the pirates, who opted to take a $3.2 million ransom and released the ship and crew. Although no reports indicate that a portion of the ransom was given to terrorists, the possibility can not be ruled out. Here, al-Shabaab was rejected, but they did not declare armed conflict on the pirates, ending future deals.
These examples contrast with when pirates seized a Saudi supertanker. Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, a spokesperson for the Islamic Courts Union which was allied with al-Shabaab, condemned the act saying “Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships…we shall do something about that ship.” Radical Islamic militants then raided a port in an attempt to locate the pirates and the ship. In this case, pirates became the enemies of the terrorists. Despite this clash, the wounds were ultimately healed as Al-Qaeda has praised the recent pirate attacks on non-Muslim ships.
Some experts, such as John Feffer, mistake this on-again off-again relationship as meaning radical Islamic forces in Somalia won’t team up with pirates that do not attack Muslim ships. In fact, even this standard may not be consistently held, as Al-Qaeda has repeatedly attacked Muslims. Feffer describes the Islamic Courts Union, the former al-Shabaab ally from which Somalia’s current “moderate” president comes from, as a force against pirates, and even gives credit to Al-Shabaab’s condemnation of piracy as un-Islamic.
While leaders of the current Somali government may be against piracy, al-Shabaab’s condemnation is meaningless as the above information shows, and that group controls southern Somalia. When terrorist attacks can be carried out for thousands of dollars, the effect of a business relationship between some pirates and terrorists should not be downplayed.
Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com and the Assistant-Director of Intelligence at C2I. He’s also the National Security Researcher for the Christian Action Network and a published author. He can be contacted at TDCAnalyst@aol.com.
Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label africa. Show all posts
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Zuma: South Africa's likely next president is no Mandela-like godhead
Judging Zuma. By Mark Gevisser
South Africa's likely next president is no Mandela-like godhead.
WSJ, Apr 20. 2009
Campaigning in his kwaZulu-Natal heartland this past week, Jacob Zuma took aim at one of his sharpest critics, the Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The cleric had "strayed" from his pastoral responsibilities by criticizing him, said Mr. Zuma, who has been fighting charges of fraud and racketeering for much of the past decade: "As far as I know, the role of priests is to pray for the souls of sinners, not condemn them."
The comment, coming from the man destined to be South Africa's next president, marks a watershed in the country's politics. For it is an admission by Mr. Zuma himself that South Africa's leaders are no longer the liberating godheads in the mold of Nelson Mandela. No: They are flawed and even errant human beings, "sinners" making do in an imperfect and often hostile world.
Mr. Zuma, the ruling African National Congress's candidate for president in Wednesday's general elections, was responding to comments by Mr. Tutu that he was unsuitable for the presidency. Like many other South Africans, Mr. Tutu believes the ANC leader is irrevocably compromised by the charges against him, even though they were dropped earlier this month amid findings that the chief investigator had abused the prosecutorial process.
Mr. Zuma insists that he was the victim of a political conspiracy masterminded by his predecessor and rival, former South African president Thabo Mbeki. But at the very least, Mr. Zuma was shown to have lived for a decade off the largesse of a benefactor who actually served time in jail for having solicited a bribe on his behalf.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) insists that despite the "collusion" of the chief investigator with Mr. Zuma's political enemies, the "substantive merits" of the case remain. It would have been far preferable for the matter to have been tested in court rather than prejudged by the NPA, which now stands accused of having been manipulated politically by Mr. Zuma, just as it once was by Mr. Mbeki. What makes this accusation even stronger is that the evidence of prosecutorial abuse -- a series of covert recordings -- was submitted to the authorities by Mr. Zuma himself, who could have only acquired them from the intelligence services.
Many also believe that even though Mr. Zuma was acquitted of rape charges in 2006, he showed appalling judgment by admitting to having had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman who regarded him as a "father"; by claiming that he inoculated himself against infection with a postcoital shower; and by allowing a mob of misogynist supporters to wreak havoc outside the court.
With all of the above, not to mention the fact that his finances and personal life are in perpetual shambles (he is a polygamist with several wives and around 20 children) and that he has no formal education, Mr. Zuma would seem ill-suited to the presidency of Africa's most sophisticated state and its flagship democracy.
And yet the ANC leader is likely to win Wednesday's elections with a significant majority (probably more than 60%), and has become a figure of cult popularity, particularly among the poor.
His popularity rests on several foundations. First, the century-old ANC remains "home" to most black South Africans; moving away from it would be tantamount to abandoning one's family. Second, Mr. Zuma's flawed humanity appeals greatly to ordinary people. A man of humble rural origin, he has struggled through life, and many of his supporters identify with his appetites and indiscretions. He styles himself as the purveyor of common home truths rather than the high-minded intellectualisms of his aloof predecessor. Such homeboy populism offers the impression that he is accessible and responsive, in sharp contrast to Mr. Mbeki.
Despite a significant increase in service delivery in the 15 years since the ANC came to power, most South Africans remain desperately poor and feel excluded from the banquet of victory at which a small but ostentatious new black elite now sups. Mr. Zuma himself is perceived to have been ejected from this elite by Mr. Mbeki and his cronies, because he was not sophisticated, educated or slick enough. He is the first ANC leader who does not hail from the small black professional elite. Ordinary people identify with his seeming alienation from this elite and sense, in his extraordinary ascendancy, the possibilities for their own redemption. They relate most of all to his victimhood, and they admire his ability to overcome it.
Mr. Zuma has certainly proven himself a remarkably resilient politician, even if he has earned the reputation of being all things to all people, telling shopfloor audiences one thing and their bosses another, with little indication of a coherent vision. His candidacy was dependent on the active sponsorship of the left, particularly South Africa's powerful labor movement. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to steer the middle ground between his supporters' socialist agendas and the imperatives of the market.
But there are indications that while he will not tamper much with the economic orthodoxies established by his predecessor, he might provoke a return to conservative patriarchy at odds with the liberal democratic values of the Mandela-era ANC. He has often articulated a social conservatism about matters such as teen pregnancy and homosexuality and urged faith communities to challenge those interpretations of the constitution -- such as the right to abortion -- with which they are uncomfortable.
In crime-ridden South Africa he talks tough, but in a way that suggests the easy solutions of vigilantism: He once suggested that murder and rape suspects should forfeit their rights. Recently, he indicated that he would overlook the highly regarded deputy chief justice, Dikgang Moseneke, for a promotion, because Mr. Moseneke once made a statement that he owed his allegiance to the people rather than to the ANC.
Even if he is the victim of a conspiracy, there are troubling signs in the way Mr. Zuma has handled his legal travails and appears to have manipulated the organs of state to have the charges against him dropped. Under Mr. Mbeki and now Mr. Zuma, the ANC has confused party and state to such an extent that South Africa has become a de facto one-party state. The ruling party has become seduced by its own liberation mythologies and has developed an unduly proprietary sense of ownership over South Africa's destiny (Mr. Zuma likes to talk about how it will rule until the messiah's coming). Flowing out of this is a system of patronage and kickback politics that undermines the very "developmental state" it promises to establish. For this reason, many lifelong ANC supporters, myself included, will be voting for the opposition for the first time when we go to the polls on Wednesday.
Mr. Gevisser is Writer in Residence at the University of Pretoria and the author of "A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream," just out from Palgrave Macmillan.
South Africa's likely next president is no Mandela-like godhead.
WSJ, Apr 20. 2009
Campaigning in his kwaZulu-Natal heartland this past week, Jacob Zuma took aim at one of his sharpest critics, the Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The cleric had "strayed" from his pastoral responsibilities by criticizing him, said Mr. Zuma, who has been fighting charges of fraud and racketeering for much of the past decade: "As far as I know, the role of priests is to pray for the souls of sinners, not condemn them."
The comment, coming from the man destined to be South Africa's next president, marks a watershed in the country's politics. For it is an admission by Mr. Zuma himself that South Africa's leaders are no longer the liberating godheads in the mold of Nelson Mandela. No: They are flawed and even errant human beings, "sinners" making do in an imperfect and often hostile world.
Mr. Zuma, the ruling African National Congress's candidate for president in Wednesday's general elections, was responding to comments by Mr. Tutu that he was unsuitable for the presidency. Like many other South Africans, Mr. Tutu believes the ANC leader is irrevocably compromised by the charges against him, even though they were dropped earlier this month amid findings that the chief investigator had abused the prosecutorial process.
Mr. Zuma insists that he was the victim of a political conspiracy masterminded by his predecessor and rival, former South African president Thabo Mbeki. But at the very least, Mr. Zuma was shown to have lived for a decade off the largesse of a benefactor who actually served time in jail for having solicited a bribe on his behalf.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) insists that despite the "collusion" of the chief investigator with Mr. Zuma's political enemies, the "substantive merits" of the case remain. It would have been far preferable for the matter to have been tested in court rather than prejudged by the NPA, which now stands accused of having been manipulated politically by Mr. Zuma, just as it once was by Mr. Mbeki. What makes this accusation even stronger is that the evidence of prosecutorial abuse -- a series of covert recordings -- was submitted to the authorities by Mr. Zuma himself, who could have only acquired them from the intelligence services.
Many also believe that even though Mr. Zuma was acquitted of rape charges in 2006, he showed appalling judgment by admitting to having had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman who regarded him as a "father"; by claiming that he inoculated himself against infection with a postcoital shower; and by allowing a mob of misogynist supporters to wreak havoc outside the court.
With all of the above, not to mention the fact that his finances and personal life are in perpetual shambles (he is a polygamist with several wives and around 20 children) and that he has no formal education, Mr. Zuma would seem ill-suited to the presidency of Africa's most sophisticated state and its flagship democracy.
And yet the ANC leader is likely to win Wednesday's elections with a significant majority (probably more than 60%), and has become a figure of cult popularity, particularly among the poor.
His popularity rests on several foundations. First, the century-old ANC remains "home" to most black South Africans; moving away from it would be tantamount to abandoning one's family. Second, Mr. Zuma's flawed humanity appeals greatly to ordinary people. A man of humble rural origin, he has struggled through life, and many of his supporters identify with his appetites and indiscretions. He styles himself as the purveyor of common home truths rather than the high-minded intellectualisms of his aloof predecessor. Such homeboy populism offers the impression that he is accessible and responsive, in sharp contrast to Mr. Mbeki.
Despite a significant increase in service delivery in the 15 years since the ANC came to power, most South Africans remain desperately poor and feel excluded from the banquet of victory at which a small but ostentatious new black elite now sups. Mr. Zuma himself is perceived to have been ejected from this elite by Mr. Mbeki and his cronies, because he was not sophisticated, educated or slick enough. He is the first ANC leader who does not hail from the small black professional elite. Ordinary people identify with his seeming alienation from this elite and sense, in his extraordinary ascendancy, the possibilities for their own redemption. They relate most of all to his victimhood, and they admire his ability to overcome it.
Mr. Zuma has certainly proven himself a remarkably resilient politician, even if he has earned the reputation of being all things to all people, telling shopfloor audiences one thing and their bosses another, with little indication of a coherent vision. His candidacy was dependent on the active sponsorship of the left, particularly South Africa's powerful labor movement. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to steer the middle ground between his supporters' socialist agendas and the imperatives of the market.
But there are indications that while he will not tamper much with the economic orthodoxies established by his predecessor, he might provoke a return to conservative patriarchy at odds with the liberal democratic values of the Mandela-era ANC. He has often articulated a social conservatism about matters such as teen pregnancy and homosexuality and urged faith communities to challenge those interpretations of the constitution -- such as the right to abortion -- with which they are uncomfortable.
In crime-ridden South Africa he talks tough, but in a way that suggests the easy solutions of vigilantism: He once suggested that murder and rape suspects should forfeit their rights. Recently, he indicated that he would overlook the highly regarded deputy chief justice, Dikgang Moseneke, for a promotion, because Mr. Moseneke once made a statement that he owed his allegiance to the people rather than to the ANC.
Even if he is the victim of a conspiracy, there are troubling signs in the way Mr. Zuma has handled his legal travails and appears to have manipulated the organs of state to have the charges against him dropped. Under Mr. Mbeki and now Mr. Zuma, the ANC has confused party and state to such an extent that South Africa has become a de facto one-party state. The ruling party has become seduced by its own liberation mythologies and has developed an unduly proprietary sense of ownership over South Africa's destiny (Mr. Zuma likes to talk about how it will rule until the messiah's coming). Flowing out of this is a system of patronage and kickback politics that undermines the very "developmental state" it promises to establish. For this reason, many lifelong ANC supporters, myself included, will be voting for the opposition for the first time when we go to the polls on Wednesday.
Mr. Gevisser is Writer in Residence at the University of Pretoria and the author of "A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream," just out from Palgrave Macmillan.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
WaPo Editorial: A Solution for Somalia
A Solution for Somalia. WaPo Editorial
What it will take to stop the threats of piracy and terrorism
WaPo, Tuesday, April 14, 2009; Page A16
SKILLFUL SHOOTING by U.S. snipers rescued an American ship captain from Somali pirates Sunday -- along with an Obama administration facing its first foreign emergency. Unfortunately, no silver bullets are available for the growing threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean or the toxic anarchy that has spawned it.
President Obama said in a statement Sunday that "we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for those crimes." Those actions are certainly necessary, and they speak for themselves. But they don't begin to address the underlying problem, which is Somalia's long-standing status as a failed state and the desperation and extremism growing among its Muslim population.
Since the Clinton administration abandoned a U.N. mission in Somalia 15 years ago, the United States has tried ignoring the chaos there, using proxies to subdue it and targeting its worst elements with airstrikes. An international naval task force has been cruising along the coast for months to deter piracy. All along, the country's misery and the threat it poses to the United States and other Western countries have steadily worsened. It's not just the pirates, who have staged at least 66 assaults so far this year and hold more than a dozen ships and 200 foreign crew members hostage. As senior U.S. officials have repeatedly acknowledged, a radical Islamist militia that controls much of Somalia has ties to al-Qaeda, which has used its Somali base to stage attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets in Africa and is believed to be training foreign militants -- including some Somali Americans -- for future operations.
Again and again, mostly for political reasons, U.S. administrations have refused to absorb the lessons Somalia teaches, in tandem with pre-2001 Afghanistan and the tribal territories of present-day Pakistan. Those lessons are that stateless territories, particularly in the Muslim world, can pose a significant threat to U.S. interests and even homeland security, and that the danger can be adequately addressed only by helping a state authority emerge to fill the vacuum.
Last week's crisis offers the Obama administration an opportunity to avoid perpetuating past errors. No, we aren't advocating another massive U.N. intervention in the country backed by U.S. troops. As the Bush administration discovered late last year, there is no appetite among America's European or African allies for such an operation. But what would be possible is a concerted push to strengthen the most recent attempt at a Somali government -- a not-unpromising coalition between moderate Islamists and various clan-based factions. The government needs massive economic aid, training and equipment for an army and coast guard, and help in brokering political deals.
A coordinated international effort to build up a Somali government and security forces would cost many billions of dollars and take many years to pay off. It would consume U.S. diplomatic capital and be domestically controversial -- like the nation-building missions underway, at last, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is also the only way to end the threats of piracy and terrorism from the Horn of Africa.
What it will take to stop the threats of piracy and terrorism
WaPo, Tuesday, April 14, 2009; Page A16
SKILLFUL SHOOTING by U.S. snipers rescued an American ship captain from Somali pirates Sunday -- along with an Obama administration facing its first foreign emergency. Unfortunately, no silver bullets are available for the growing threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean or the toxic anarchy that has spawned it.
President Obama said in a statement Sunday that "we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for those crimes." Those actions are certainly necessary, and they speak for themselves. But they don't begin to address the underlying problem, which is Somalia's long-standing status as a failed state and the desperation and extremism growing among its Muslim population.
Since the Clinton administration abandoned a U.N. mission in Somalia 15 years ago, the United States has tried ignoring the chaos there, using proxies to subdue it and targeting its worst elements with airstrikes. An international naval task force has been cruising along the coast for months to deter piracy. All along, the country's misery and the threat it poses to the United States and other Western countries have steadily worsened. It's not just the pirates, who have staged at least 66 assaults so far this year and hold more than a dozen ships and 200 foreign crew members hostage. As senior U.S. officials have repeatedly acknowledged, a radical Islamist militia that controls much of Somalia has ties to al-Qaeda, which has used its Somali base to stage attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets in Africa and is believed to be training foreign militants -- including some Somali Americans -- for future operations.
Again and again, mostly for political reasons, U.S. administrations have refused to absorb the lessons Somalia teaches, in tandem with pre-2001 Afghanistan and the tribal territories of present-day Pakistan. Those lessons are that stateless territories, particularly in the Muslim world, can pose a significant threat to U.S. interests and even homeland security, and that the danger can be adequately addressed only by helping a state authority emerge to fill the vacuum.
Last week's crisis offers the Obama administration an opportunity to avoid perpetuating past errors. No, we aren't advocating another massive U.N. intervention in the country backed by U.S. troops. As the Bush administration discovered late last year, there is no appetite among America's European or African allies for such an operation. But what would be possible is a concerted push to strengthen the most recent attempt at a Somali government -- a not-unpromising coalition between moderate Islamists and various clan-based factions. The government needs massive economic aid, training and equipment for an army and coast guard, and help in brokering political deals.
A coordinated international effort to build up a Somali government and security forces would cost many billions of dollars and take many years to pay off. It would consume U.S. diplomatic capital and be domestically controversial -- like the nation-building missions underway, at last, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is also the only way to end the threats of piracy and terrorism from the Horn of Africa.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
U.S. Welcomes African Union's Call to Action on Mauritania
U.S. Welcomes African Union's Call to Action on Mauritania. By Gordon Duguid, Acting Deputy Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman
US State Dept, Bureau of Public AffairsWashington, DC, March 26, 2009
The United States welcomes and supports the March 24 African Union Peace and Security Council’s reaffirmation of its decision to impose targeted sanctions on civilian and military individuals that maintain the unconstitutional status quo in Mauritania. The coup d'etat in Mauritania has proven to be a dangerous and destabilizing precedent for the continent and we join the African Union in its rejection of unconstitutional changes in government.
PRN: 263
US State Dept, Bureau of Public AffairsWashington, DC, March 26, 2009
The United States welcomes and supports the March 24 African Union Peace and Security Council’s reaffirmation of its decision to impose targeted sanctions on civilian and military individuals that maintain the unconstitutional status quo in Mauritania. The coup d'etat in Mauritania has proven to be a dangerous and destabilizing precedent for the continent and we join the African Union in its rejection of unconstitutional changes in government.
PRN: 263
US Provides $3.7 million to Assist Senegal with Food Security
USAID Provides $3.7 million to Assist with Global Food Security in Senegal
US State Dept, March 25, 2009
DAKAR, SENEGAL - The U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is providing more than $3.7 million in assistance to lower rates of malnutrition and increase food security of families in Senegal.
Of this $3.7 million, USAID is providing $2.7 million to improve community-based nutrition efforts and agriculture production in the regions of Ziguinchor, Sedhiou and Kolda in Senegal. The program, implemented by USAID partners Catholic Relief Services and Christian Children's Fund, will provide community-based nutrition programs for malnourished children; build community awareness for the importance of good nutrition and how to prevent malnutrition; educate farmers on the benefits of improved seed varieties; organize seed fairs that will make improved seed varieties available; and provide microloans to community-based groups.
USAID is also providing $1.05 million to the United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO) to provide regional coordination of food security and agriculture efforts. With this funding, FAO will strengthen livelihoods and improve the nutritional status of the most vulnerable households affected by rising food prices.
"USAID's assistance will help thousands of families struggling to cope with the immediate impacts of the global food and financial crisis on their households," said Regina Davis, Principal Regional Advisor of USAID/OFDA's Regional Office for West and North Africa. "These projects will provide viable alternatives to increase self-sufficiency and lower overall malnutrition rates in vulnerable households."
US State Dept, March 25, 2009
DAKAR, SENEGAL - The U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) is providing more than $3.7 million in assistance to lower rates of malnutrition and increase food security of families in Senegal.
Of this $3.7 million, USAID is providing $2.7 million to improve community-based nutrition efforts and agriculture production in the regions of Ziguinchor, Sedhiou and Kolda in Senegal. The program, implemented by USAID partners Catholic Relief Services and Christian Children's Fund, will provide community-based nutrition programs for malnourished children; build community awareness for the importance of good nutrition and how to prevent malnutrition; educate farmers on the benefits of improved seed varieties; organize seed fairs that will make improved seed varieties available; and provide microloans to community-based groups.
USAID is also providing $1.05 million to the United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO) to provide regional coordination of food security and agriculture efforts. With this funding, FAO will strengthen livelihoods and improve the nutritional status of the most vulnerable households affected by rising food prices.
"USAID's assistance will help thousands of families struggling to cope with the immediate impacts of the global food and financial crisis on their households," said Regina Davis, Principal Regional Advisor of USAID/OFDA's Regional Office for West and North Africa. "These projects will provide viable alternatives to increase self-sufficiency and lower overall malnutrition rates in vulnerable households."
Friday, March 20, 2009
Strategic partnership signed to advance water utilities in the Middle East and Africa
Strategic partnership signed to advance water utilities in the Middle East and Africa
USAID, March 20, 2009
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Water Association (IWA) signed an agreement today at the Fifth World Water Forum to work together to increase access to clean drinking water and sanitation throughout the Middle East and Africa by strengthening water utilities and their regional associations. This partnership focuses specifically on access to clean drinking water and sanitation for the urban poor, water safety and quality management, leadership gaps and climate change.
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are facing a water crisis. In this arid region, supplies of renewable water are limited while demand is rapidly rising due to population growth, agricultural use, and increasing industrialization and urbanization. Daily per capita water consumption is low throughout the region, and the cost of supplying water continues to increase. In response, pressures on water operators to improve their efficiencies and capacities are growing.
By synchronizing program planning and leveraging financial and non-financial resources, USAID and IWA will work to strengthen water utilities and their regional associations, such as the Arab Countries Water Utility Association (ACWUA) and African Water Association (AfWA).
USAID and IWA will address this common objective by:
USAID and IWA will promote leadership strengthening for mid-level water and wastewater management professionals to build up the water and sanitation sector. USAID is promoting Middle East leadership in the sector by bringing twenty-five future leaders from nine Middle Eastern countries together to discuss issues that they will face as leaders in ten years time. IWA has a Young Professionals group and mentorship program that offers support and guidance. Both parties will collaborate on curriculum design and creating linkages among young professionals across countries and regions, as well as connections to senior mentors in order to build leadership capacity and networks in support of Future Water Leader career development.
USAID, March 20, 2009
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Water Association (IWA) signed an agreement today at the Fifth World Water Forum to work together to increase access to clean drinking water and sanitation throughout the Middle East and Africa by strengthening water utilities and their regional associations. This partnership focuses specifically on access to clean drinking water and sanitation for the urban poor, water safety and quality management, leadership gaps and climate change.
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are facing a water crisis. In this arid region, supplies of renewable water are limited while demand is rapidly rising due to population growth, agricultural use, and increasing industrialization and urbanization. Daily per capita water consumption is low throughout the region, and the cost of supplying water continues to increase. In response, pressures on water operators to improve their efficiencies and capacities are growing.
By synchronizing program planning and leveraging financial and non-financial resources, USAID and IWA will work to strengthen water utilities and their regional associations, such as the Arab Countries Water Utility Association (ACWUA) and African Water Association (AfWA).
USAID and IWA will address this common objective by:
- Supporting and strengthening regional water utility associations by providing information and expertise on business planning and programs and services;
- Brokering and facilitating global or regional Water Operator Partnerships, e.g. partnerships between mentor and recipient water operators;
- Working together to create a regional Future Water Leaders program; and
- Collaborating on and disseminating pertinent information such as reports, analyses, and resources.
USAID and IWA will promote leadership strengthening for mid-level water and wastewater management professionals to build up the water and sanitation sector. USAID is promoting Middle East leadership in the sector by bringing twenty-five future leaders from nine Middle Eastern countries together to discuss issues that they will face as leaders in ten years time. IWA has a Young Professionals group and mentorship program that offers support and guidance. Both parties will collaborate on curriculum design and creating linkages among young professionals across countries and regions, as well as connections to senior mentors in order to build leadership capacity and networks in support of Future Water Leader career development.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Chinese Navy's Somali Cruise
The Chinese Navy's Somali Cruise, by J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
World Defense Review, Mar 12, 2009
Since the beginning of January, three vessels of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) – the Guangzhou-class destroyer Wuhan, the Lanzhou-class destroyer Haikou, and the Qiandahou-class supply ship Weishanhu – have been operating in the Gulf of Aden and other waters off as part of a worldwide naval mobilization against the Somali pirates whose attacks, as I warned in this column three weeks ago, are more likely to increase in the coming months, notwithstanding the attention which the international community has focused on the problem. The piracy certainly provides the People's Republic of China (PRC) with a legitimate reason for dispatching the flotilla. At the end of December, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told the International Herald Tribune's Mark McDonald that seven of the 1,265 Chinese vessels which passed through those waters in 2008 had been attacked; one of them, the Tianyu No. 8, a Chinese fishing boat whose capture along with its crew of twenty-four (including sixteen Chinese nationals) I reported here last November, was only released last month after its owners paid an undisclosed ransom.
Thus, on the face of it, the dispatch of the PLAN flotilla is completely understandable. Six months ago in a column attempting to draw attention to the crisis before the hijacking of the MV Faina with its cargo of thirty-three refurbished Russian-designed T-72 tanks, grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns, and other armaments made it front-page news worldwide, I observed that "in addition to other commerce, some 11 percent of world's seaborne petroleum – some 3.3 million barrels – must pass through the very waters currently infested with the Somali pirates." China, however, is even more vulnerable to this threat. As I likewise reported here last year, "the PRC sources about one-third of all its energy needs to Africa, with perhaps one-quarter of its African oil imports originating in Sudan's oilfields" – and all of this is exported via the Marsa al-Bashair terminal near Port Sudan, from whence it must transit on tankers down the Red Sea and through the narrow Bab-el-Mandab straits – 2-mile-wide Bab Iskender and 16-mile-wide Dact-el-Mayun – into the Gulf of Aden, where the pirates await them. And even if vessels do not need to pass through this choke point, the seizure in November of a supertanker loaded with two million barrels of Saudi oil, the Liberian-registered MV Sirius Star, simply underscores a different Chinese vulnerability: Saudi Arabia is China's top supplier of petroleum, exporting 720,000 barrels a day to the PRC in 2008, a figure that will more than double to 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015, according to a study last month by John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Saudi British Bank.
However, as I argued here two weeks ago, "while the two dozen or so cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and other surface combat vessels which various countries have dispatched to the region ... have made for great political theater and may have even proven useful in escort duty along narrowly defined sea lanes, there are simply not enough of them to make a real dent in the operations of the pirates." Hence there must be considerations, political and otherwise, beyond any marginal tactical utility motivating the launching of the PLAN's first major operation abroad. As the annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community which Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last month: "China's international behavior is driven by a combination of domestic priorities, primarily maintaining economic prosperity and domestic stability, and a longstanding ambition to see China play the role of a great power in East Asia and globally."
First, there are domestic political considerations. While the Chinese military establishment does not have to worry about the public accountability that its counterparts in democracies must concern themselves with, nonetheless high-profile missions like the deployment to the strategic waterways of the western Indian Ocean can help it to justify to the civilian leadership spending increases like the 14.9 percent jump in the official military budget for 2009 over last year's spending in the current global economic climate. In fact, as Reuters reported last week, in presenting the budget before the opening of the annual session of the National People's Congress, parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing, a former foreign minister, specifically cited "enhancing the military's emergency response capabilities in disaster relief, fighting terrorism, maintaining stability and other non-warfare military operations" like the counter-piracy deployment as reasons for the double-digit rise at a time when, as The Economist recently observed, thousands of factories on the mainland were shutting down for want of business and, as the Brookings Institution's Cheng Li writes in the current issue of Foreign Policy, President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders are worried that "if China is no longer able to maintain a high growth rate or provide jobs for its ever growing labor force, massive public dissatisfaction and social unrest could erupt."
Second, China's leaders are constrained to maintain appearances abroad. With the navies of a number of other reemerging or rising powers, including Russia, India, and the first-ever joint European Union naval operation away from Europe, heading for the Gulf of Aden, the PLAN's absence would have conspicuous, especially since the PRC occupies a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council which, in no fewer than four resolutions last year, called upon "States interested in the security of maritime activities to take part actively in the fight against piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia." While it is well and fine for President Hu to visit four African nations – Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Mauritius – during his first trip abroad this year (he also stopped in Saudi Arabia), the African partners Beijing has been assiduously cultivating also want to see concrete commitments to their security priorities. Moreover, as the commander of Chinese naval forces, Admiral Wu Shengli, acknowledged in an interview with the official Xinhua news agency before the send-off for the flotilla: "The expedition will show China's active attitude in maintaining the world's peace and safety. It could also embody the Navy's resolution and capacity to accomplish diversified military missions to deal with multiple threats to national security." And, reiterating China's commitment to the specific mission off Somalia, the People's Daily reported this week that PLAN deputy chief of staff Rear Admiral Zhang Deshun disclosed for the first time that the deployment would be ongoing with the current flotilla, which had completed 110 patrols as of this past weekend, being relieved in late April or early May: "We feel this is not a short mission. The length of the mission depends on the Somali political situation and whether Somali pirates can be eventually kept away." Admiral Zhang also some officers and sailors from the first deployment would stay over to transfer their experience to their replacements.
Third, the deployment has also given the PRC an opportunity to assert its military umbrella not only over its recently reclaimed territories of Hong Kong and Macau, but also over what Beijing views as the breakaway province of Taiwan. According to the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, China Daily, "the fleet will protect Chinese vessels and crews, including those from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, that seek protection when passing through the area, as well as foreign ships on request." As could have anticipated, the declaration caused no little consternation on Taiwan, to say the least, especially after it became public that a boat own by the Formosa Plastics Group, a Taiwanese conglomerate with interests in biotechnology, petrochemical processing, and the manufacture of electronics, had received an escort from the PLAN flotilla.
Fourth, the vessels dispatched on the mission – respectively, a Guangzhou-class multirole missile destroyer launched in 2004, a Lanzhou-class destroyer launched in 2003, and a Qiandahou-class supply ship launched in 2004 – represent the modern PLAN as well as China's domestic naval industry at their best. The captains and crews all have experience in the international spotlight. For example, two years ago, the supply ship currently accompanying the Somali flotilla, the Weishanhu, accompanied the destroyer Guangzhou on port calls to Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and France. The State Council defense white paper, China's National Defense in 2008, released in January, declared that: "Since the beginning of the new century, in view of the characteristics and laws of local maritime wars in conditions of informationization [sic], the Navy has been striving to improve in an all round way its capabilities of integrated offshore operations, strategic deterrence and strategic counterattacks, and to gradually develop its capabilities of conducting cooperation in distant waters and countering non-traditional security threats, so as to push forward the overall transformation of the service." The deployment, in a certain respect, is a demonstration to the world of how far China has come in meeting these objectives.
Fifth, even as it shows itself off to other navies, the deployment gives the PLAN an unparalleled opportunity to observe the operations and tactics of other fleets up close in relatively tight quarters. U.S.-led coalition vessels in Combined Task Force 151 (CTF 151), which was stood up in mid-January with the mandate of focusing solely on counter-piracy operations in and around the Gulf of Aden, currently include the Ticonderoga-class Aegis guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mahan, and the Royal Navy's Type 23-frigate HMS Portland. These ships will soon be joined by the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group – the Nimitz-class nuclear supercarrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers USS Gettysburg and USS Vicksburg, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Halyburton, the Henry J. Kaiser-class replenishment oiler USNS Big Horn, and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Sacagawea – and its eight air squadrons. Russia has the nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser RFS Pyotr Velikiy ("Peter the Great"), flagship of the North Fleet, deployed to the area. And naval elements from some of China's East Asian neighbors, including South Korea and Japan, may be coming soon.
Sixth, the Chinese navy now has a reason to do in the maritime environment off the east coast of Africa what the 1,636 PLA personnel assigned to six UN peacekeeping missions in Africa – more than the four other permanent members of the Security Council combined – have been doing: achieving a level of tactical and operational familiarity with the African environment that few other outside countries have mastered since the end of the colonial period. (See my October 25, 2007 analysis on Chinese participation in peacekeeping missions in Africa.)
Seventh, while it is far from the most pressing reason for sending a flotilla to the waters off Somalia, Chinese leaders and others will not be unaware of the stake the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has attempted to acquire in the country's potential petroleum deposits through a deal struck with Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, then head of the faltering "Transitional Federal Government" (see my August 14, 2007 report on the affair). While there is no question of trying to pursue any claims, much less attempting any further explorations given, as I chronicled last month, the current state of anarchy and slow collapse of the shaking remnants of the interim authority, now under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, of the Somali deployment is a success, what is to say that another Chinese naval force could not return one day in a different show of force to "facilitate" recognition of the earlier accord?
Eighth, while the deployment can be interpreted as proof of the PRC's increasing willingness to bear its share of the burden for the maintenance of the freedom of the seas and other global commons – American policymakers have long complained about China's "free ride" on the security framework which the United States provides – that same engagement might also signal something not quite as benign. Two years ago, referring to a 1993 incident when the U.S. Navy stopped and detained a Chinese container ship thought to be carrying chemical weapons materials to Iran (none were ultimately found after a three week stand-off), one of China's most influential strategists, Zhang Wenmu, made a case for a globally-deployed, assertive naval capacity which deserves to be quoted in full:
Wherever China's interests lead, there too must follow China's capabilities to protect those interests. And as the nation's economic interests expand into the global market, China must consider the problem of safeguarding its global and regional interests. The most crucial conduit connecting China with the region and with the rest of the world is the sea lanes, and therefore, China must have a powerful navy. The oil imports that China consumes from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia will mainly pass through these sea lanes. China's trade is also 90 percent dependent on sea lane transport. If all goes well and other nations behave fairly, China will certainly act in accordance with WTO rules. But what if others don't act so fairly? It is not difficult for the West to find a pretext to impose sanctions on China. The Yinhe incident in 1993 is a classic case of how the United States has attempted to make an issue out of nothing. Precisely because China's navy did not have the capability to resist, China had little choice but to let them board the ship to make the so-called inspections. In an era when development is the core national interest, China would secure nothing if it did not have a strong navy.
The determining factor shaping the rise and fall of a country ultimately is not just the size of its total economic volume but also the strategic ability of the country; that is, the ability to use national forces to achieve political goals. Many cases in history have shown that the main reason for a country to be strong is more than a rise in prosperity or technological advancement but the effective application of such technology and wealth in national politics, especially military power ...
In the current era, where maritime transportation is a key factor to success of the flow of goods and commodities for the globalized economy, a powerful navy able to effectively control the sea passages will receive increasingly greater attention by all nations, particularly China.
The incident earlier this week whereby five Chinese ships, including a (PLAN) intelligence vessel, shadowed and blocked an unarmed civilian-manned American oceanographic ship, USNS Impeccable, operating in international waters south under the authority of the Military Sealift Command, is disconcerting, following as it does on the harassment, again in international waters, of another unarmed U.S. civilian ship, USNS Victorious, just last week by a Chinese patrol boat. These incidents are a reminder of the challenges that the United States and its allies can expect from a resurgent China shaking off what it views as the humiliating stain of colonialism on what is otherwise a millennial history of imperial glory. While alarmism contributes nothing to strategic analysis, neither is reflexive irenicism a particularly useful policy perspective. Hence, occasioned by these unfortunate incidents, American policymakers and analysts need to take another closer look at the recent deployment of a PLAN flotilla to the already crowded waters off the eastern coast of Africa, trying to understand China's strategic calculus and discerning its implications for American interests, both in the region and beyond. Hysteria may be out of order, but prudent caution is still called for.
— J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.
Dr. Pham is the author of over two hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).
In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review Online's military blog, The Tank.
World Defense Review, Mar 12, 2009
Since the beginning of January, three vessels of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) – the Guangzhou-class destroyer Wuhan, the Lanzhou-class destroyer Haikou, and the Qiandahou-class supply ship Weishanhu – have been operating in the Gulf of Aden and other waters off as part of a worldwide naval mobilization against the Somali pirates whose attacks, as I warned in this column three weeks ago, are more likely to increase in the coming months, notwithstanding the attention which the international community has focused on the problem. The piracy certainly provides the People's Republic of China (PRC) with a legitimate reason for dispatching the flotilla. At the end of December, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told the International Herald Tribune's Mark McDonald that seven of the 1,265 Chinese vessels which passed through those waters in 2008 had been attacked; one of them, the Tianyu No. 8, a Chinese fishing boat whose capture along with its crew of twenty-four (including sixteen Chinese nationals) I reported here last November, was only released last month after its owners paid an undisclosed ransom.
Thus, on the face of it, the dispatch of the PLAN flotilla is completely understandable. Six months ago in a column attempting to draw attention to the crisis before the hijacking of the MV Faina with its cargo of thirty-three refurbished Russian-designed T-72 tanks, grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns, and other armaments made it front-page news worldwide, I observed that "in addition to other commerce, some 11 percent of world's seaborne petroleum – some 3.3 million barrels – must pass through the very waters currently infested with the Somali pirates." China, however, is even more vulnerable to this threat. As I likewise reported here last year, "the PRC sources about one-third of all its energy needs to Africa, with perhaps one-quarter of its African oil imports originating in Sudan's oilfields" – and all of this is exported via the Marsa al-Bashair terminal near Port Sudan, from whence it must transit on tankers down the Red Sea and through the narrow Bab-el-Mandab straits – 2-mile-wide Bab Iskender and 16-mile-wide Dact-el-Mayun – into the Gulf of Aden, where the pirates await them. And even if vessels do not need to pass through this choke point, the seizure in November of a supertanker loaded with two million barrels of Saudi oil, the Liberian-registered MV Sirius Star, simply underscores a different Chinese vulnerability: Saudi Arabia is China's top supplier of petroleum, exporting 720,000 barrels a day to the PRC in 2008, a figure that will more than double to 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015, according to a study last month by John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Saudi British Bank.
However, as I argued here two weeks ago, "while the two dozen or so cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and other surface combat vessels which various countries have dispatched to the region ... have made for great political theater and may have even proven useful in escort duty along narrowly defined sea lanes, there are simply not enough of them to make a real dent in the operations of the pirates." Hence there must be considerations, political and otherwise, beyond any marginal tactical utility motivating the launching of the PLAN's first major operation abroad. As the annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community which Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last month: "China's international behavior is driven by a combination of domestic priorities, primarily maintaining economic prosperity and domestic stability, and a longstanding ambition to see China play the role of a great power in East Asia and globally."
First, there are domestic political considerations. While the Chinese military establishment does not have to worry about the public accountability that its counterparts in democracies must concern themselves with, nonetheless high-profile missions like the deployment to the strategic waterways of the western Indian Ocean can help it to justify to the civilian leadership spending increases like the 14.9 percent jump in the official military budget for 2009 over last year's spending in the current global economic climate. In fact, as Reuters reported last week, in presenting the budget before the opening of the annual session of the National People's Congress, parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing, a former foreign minister, specifically cited "enhancing the military's emergency response capabilities in disaster relief, fighting terrorism, maintaining stability and other non-warfare military operations" like the counter-piracy deployment as reasons for the double-digit rise at a time when, as The Economist recently observed, thousands of factories on the mainland were shutting down for want of business and, as the Brookings Institution's Cheng Li writes in the current issue of Foreign Policy, President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders are worried that "if China is no longer able to maintain a high growth rate or provide jobs for its ever growing labor force, massive public dissatisfaction and social unrest could erupt."
Second, China's leaders are constrained to maintain appearances abroad. With the navies of a number of other reemerging or rising powers, including Russia, India, and the first-ever joint European Union naval operation away from Europe, heading for the Gulf of Aden, the PLAN's absence would have conspicuous, especially since the PRC occupies a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council which, in no fewer than four resolutions last year, called upon "States interested in the security of maritime activities to take part actively in the fight against piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia." While it is well and fine for President Hu to visit four African nations – Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Mauritius – during his first trip abroad this year (he also stopped in Saudi Arabia), the African partners Beijing has been assiduously cultivating also want to see concrete commitments to their security priorities. Moreover, as the commander of Chinese naval forces, Admiral Wu Shengli, acknowledged in an interview with the official Xinhua news agency before the send-off for the flotilla: "The expedition will show China's active attitude in maintaining the world's peace and safety. It could also embody the Navy's resolution and capacity to accomplish diversified military missions to deal with multiple threats to national security." And, reiterating China's commitment to the specific mission off Somalia, the People's Daily reported this week that PLAN deputy chief of staff Rear Admiral Zhang Deshun disclosed for the first time that the deployment would be ongoing with the current flotilla, which had completed 110 patrols as of this past weekend, being relieved in late April or early May: "We feel this is not a short mission. The length of the mission depends on the Somali political situation and whether Somali pirates can be eventually kept away." Admiral Zhang also some officers and sailors from the first deployment would stay over to transfer their experience to their replacements.
Third, the deployment has also given the PRC an opportunity to assert its military umbrella not only over its recently reclaimed territories of Hong Kong and Macau, but also over what Beijing views as the breakaway province of Taiwan. According to the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, China Daily, "the fleet will protect Chinese vessels and crews, including those from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, that seek protection when passing through the area, as well as foreign ships on request." As could have anticipated, the declaration caused no little consternation on Taiwan, to say the least, especially after it became public that a boat own by the Formosa Plastics Group, a Taiwanese conglomerate with interests in biotechnology, petrochemical processing, and the manufacture of electronics, had received an escort from the PLAN flotilla.
Fourth, the vessels dispatched on the mission – respectively, a Guangzhou-class multirole missile destroyer launched in 2004, a Lanzhou-class destroyer launched in 2003, and a Qiandahou-class supply ship launched in 2004 – represent the modern PLAN as well as China's domestic naval industry at their best. The captains and crews all have experience in the international spotlight. For example, two years ago, the supply ship currently accompanying the Somali flotilla, the Weishanhu, accompanied the destroyer Guangzhou on port calls to Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and France. The State Council defense white paper, China's National Defense in 2008, released in January, declared that: "Since the beginning of the new century, in view of the characteristics and laws of local maritime wars in conditions of informationization [sic], the Navy has been striving to improve in an all round way its capabilities of integrated offshore operations, strategic deterrence and strategic counterattacks, and to gradually develop its capabilities of conducting cooperation in distant waters and countering non-traditional security threats, so as to push forward the overall transformation of the service." The deployment, in a certain respect, is a demonstration to the world of how far China has come in meeting these objectives.
Fifth, even as it shows itself off to other navies, the deployment gives the PLAN an unparalleled opportunity to observe the operations and tactics of other fleets up close in relatively tight quarters. U.S.-led coalition vessels in Combined Task Force 151 (CTF 151), which was stood up in mid-January with the mandate of focusing solely on counter-piracy operations in and around the Gulf of Aden, currently include the Ticonderoga-class Aegis guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mahan, and the Royal Navy's Type 23-frigate HMS Portland. These ships will soon be joined by the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group – the Nimitz-class nuclear supercarrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers USS Gettysburg and USS Vicksburg, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Halyburton, the Henry J. Kaiser-class replenishment oiler USNS Big Horn, and the Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Sacagawea – and its eight air squadrons. Russia has the nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser RFS Pyotr Velikiy ("Peter the Great"), flagship of the North Fleet, deployed to the area. And naval elements from some of China's East Asian neighbors, including South Korea and Japan, may be coming soon.
Sixth, the Chinese navy now has a reason to do in the maritime environment off the east coast of Africa what the 1,636 PLA personnel assigned to six UN peacekeeping missions in Africa – more than the four other permanent members of the Security Council combined – have been doing: achieving a level of tactical and operational familiarity with the African environment that few other outside countries have mastered since the end of the colonial period. (See my October 25, 2007 analysis on Chinese participation in peacekeeping missions in Africa.)
Seventh, while it is far from the most pressing reason for sending a flotilla to the waters off Somalia, Chinese leaders and others will not be unaware of the stake the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has attempted to acquire in the country's potential petroleum deposits through a deal struck with Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, then head of the faltering "Transitional Federal Government" (see my August 14, 2007 report on the affair). While there is no question of trying to pursue any claims, much less attempting any further explorations given, as I chronicled last month, the current state of anarchy and slow collapse of the shaking remnants of the interim authority, now under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, of the Somali deployment is a success, what is to say that another Chinese naval force could not return one day in a different show of force to "facilitate" recognition of the earlier accord?
Eighth, while the deployment can be interpreted as proof of the PRC's increasing willingness to bear its share of the burden for the maintenance of the freedom of the seas and other global commons – American policymakers have long complained about China's "free ride" on the security framework which the United States provides – that same engagement might also signal something not quite as benign. Two years ago, referring to a 1993 incident when the U.S. Navy stopped and detained a Chinese container ship thought to be carrying chemical weapons materials to Iran (none were ultimately found after a three week stand-off), one of China's most influential strategists, Zhang Wenmu, made a case for a globally-deployed, assertive naval capacity which deserves to be quoted in full:
Wherever China's interests lead, there too must follow China's capabilities to protect those interests. And as the nation's economic interests expand into the global market, China must consider the problem of safeguarding its global and regional interests. The most crucial conduit connecting China with the region and with the rest of the world is the sea lanes, and therefore, China must have a powerful navy. The oil imports that China consumes from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia will mainly pass through these sea lanes. China's trade is also 90 percent dependent on sea lane transport. If all goes well and other nations behave fairly, China will certainly act in accordance with WTO rules. But what if others don't act so fairly? It is not difficult for the West to find a pretext to impose sanctions on China. The Yinhe incident in 1993 is a classic case of how the United States has attempted to make an issue out of nothing. Precisely because China's navy did not have the capability to resist, China had little choice but to let them board the ship to make the so-called inspections. In an era when development is the core national interest, China would secure nothing if it did not have a strong navy.
The determining factor shaping the rise and fall of a country ultimately is not just the size of its total economic volume but also the strategic ability of the country; that is, the ability to use national forces to achieve political goals. Many cases in history have shown that the main reason for a country to be strong is more than a rise in prosperity or technological advancement but the effective application of such technology and wealth in national politics, especially military power ...
In the current era, where maritime transportation is a key factor to success of the flow of goods and commodities for the globalized economy, a powerful navy able to effectively control the sea passages will receive increasingly greater attention by all nations, particularly China.
The incident earlier this week whereby five Chinese ships, including a (PLAN) intelligence vessel, shadowed and blocked an unarmed civilian-manned American oceanographic ship, USNS Impeccable, operating in international waters south under the authority of the Military Sealift Command, is disconcerting, following as it does on the harassment, again in international waters, of another unarmed U.S. civilian ship, USNS Victorious, just last week by a Chinese patrol boat. These incidents are a reminder of the challenges that the United States and its allies can expect from a resurgent China shaking off what it views as the humiliating stain of colonialism on what is otherwise a millennial history of imperial glory. While alarmism contributes nothing to strategic analysis, neither is reflexive irenicism a particularly useful policy perspective. Hence, occasioned by these unfortunate incidents, American policymakers and analysts need to take another closer look at the recent deployment of a PLAN flotilla to the already crowded waters off the eastern coast of Africa, trying to understand China's strategic calculus and discerning its implications for American interests, both in the region and beyond. Hysteria may be out of order, but prudent caution is still called for.
— J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.
Dr. Pham is the author of over two hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).
In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review Online's military blog, The Tank.
USAID and IOM Announce HIV Prevention and Care for Farm Workers
USAID and IOM Announce HIV Prevention and Care for Farm Workers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2009
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - MARCH 10, 2009 - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Southern Africa launched a new program to reduce HIV vulnerability of farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces.
The three-year, $5.1 million project is funded by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and administered by USAID. A recent release study by the IOM, identified high levels of unsafe sexual behaviour among farm workers - including extremely low condom use in casual sex and high levels of multiple, concurrent sexual partners. This report guided the development of an HIV prevention outreach effort to reach the high risk farm worker population.
The project will be known as "Ripfumelo," which means "believe" in xiTsonga. It will target 20,000 seasonal, temporary, and permanent farm workers in South Africa, including documented and undocumented migrant workers through increasing the technical capacity of its implementing partners: Agri-IQ, CHOiCE and the Hoedspruit Training Trust. This increased capacity will lead to the provision of sustainable HIV prevention and care services to farm workers.
"One prevention program doesn't fit all people's needs. Farm workers face higher risks of getting and spreading HIV than many other groups. Our prevention efforts tackle their vulnerabilities, including alcohol abuse, that arise from many factors related to poverty and the transitional lifestyle of migrant workers," said USAID Southern Africa Director Dr. Carleene Dei.
The project will develop a network of stakeholders working specifically on HIV-related issues to reduce the high incidence and impact of AIDS on farm workers, their families and their communities. Partnerships are encouraged among local, provincial, and national government agencies, as well as between public/private entities.
Julia Hill-Mlati, IOM regional project manager, reports, "HIV prevention efforts often focus purely on medical issues and fail to consider interrelated factors that affect people's vulnerability to the AIDS virus. This reason prompts our USAID Ripfumelo project to address the contextual issues such as workplace policies, improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting healthy recreational activities."
Ripfumelo intervention activities include:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2009
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - MARCH 10, 2009 - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Southern Africa launched a new program to reduce HIV vulnerability of farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces.
The three-year, $5.1 million project is funded by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and administered by USAID. A recent release study by the IOM, identified high levels of unsafe sexual behaviour among farm workers - including extremely low condom use in casual sex and high levels of multiple, concurrent sexual partners. This report guided the development of an HIV prevention outreach effort to reach the high risk farm worker population.
The project will be known as "Ripfumelo," which means "believe" in xiTsonga. It will target 20,000 seasonal, temporary, and permanent farm workers in South Africa, including documented and undocumented migrant workers through increasing the technical capacity of its implementing partners: Agri-IQ, CHOiCE and the Hoedspruit Training Trust. This increased capacity will lead to the provision of sustainable HIV prevention and care services to farm workers.
"One prevention program doesn't fit all people's needs. Farm workers face higher risks of getting and spreading HIV than many other groups. Our prevention efforts tackle their vulnerabilities, including alcohol abuse, that arise from many factors related to poverty and the transitional lifestyle of migrant workers," said USAID Southern Africa Director Dr. Carleene Dei.
The project will develop a network of stakeholders working specifically on HIV-related issues to reduce the high incidence and impact of AIDS on farm workers, their families and their communities. Partnerships are encouraged among local, provincial, and national government agencies, as well as between public/private entities.
Julia Hill-Mlati, IOM regional project manager, reports, "HIV prevention efforts often focus purely on medical issues and fail to consider interrelated factors that affect people's vulnerability to the AIDS virus. This reason prompts our USAID Ripfumelo project to address the contextual issues such as workplace policies, improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting healthy recreational activities."
Ripfumelo intervention activities include:
- Tackling discriminatory gender dynamics and prejudices through the training of male role models as gender advocates.
- Promoting peer-led education and referrals to relevant services and support.
- Facilitating access to health services, including prevention, counselling and testing, home-based care and treatment.
- Integrating locally tailored Social and Behavioural Change Communication programs that are developed and disseminated by local Change Agents.
- Developing and implementing interventions that address some of the contextual factors that impact on HIV vulnerability, such as improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting recreational activities.
- Creating a conducive environment by strengthening workplace policies and programs.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Somali Americans Recruited by Extremists
Somali Americans Recruited by Extremists. By Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson
U.S. Cites Case of Minnesotan Killed in Suicide Blast in Africa
Washington Post, Wednesday, March 11, 2009; Page A01
Senior U.S. counterterrorism officials are stepping up warnings that Islamist extremists in Somalia are radicalizing Americans to their cause, citing their recruitment of the first U.S. citizen suicide bomber and their potential role in the disappearance of more than a dozen Somali American youths.
In recent public statements, the director of national intelligence and the leaders of the FBI and CIA have cited the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis who blew himself up in Somalia on Oct. 29 in one of five simultaneous bombings attributed to al-Shabaab, a group with close links to al-Qaeda.
Since November, the FBI has raced to uncover any ties to foreign extremist networks in the unexpected departures of numerous Somali American teenagers and young men, who family members believe are in Somalia. The investigation is active in Boston; San Diego; Seattle; Columbus, Ohio; and Portland, Maine, a U.S. law enforcement official said, and community members say federal grand juries have issued subpoenas in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
Officials are still trying to assess the scope of the problem but say reports so far do not warrant a major concern about a terrorist threat within the United States. But intelligence officials said the recruitment of U.S. citizens by terrorist groups is particularly worrisome because their American passports could make it easier for them to reenter the country.
Al-Shabaab -- meaning "the youth" or "young guys" in Arabic -- "presents U.S. authorities with the most serious evidence to date of a 'homegrown' terrorist recruitment problem right in the American heartland," Georgetown University professor Bruce R. Hoffman says in a forthcoming report by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private firm that monitors Islamist Web sites.
The extent of al-Shabaab's reach into the U.S. Somali community, estimated at up to 200,000 foreign-born residents and their relatives, will be the subject of a hearing today by the Senate homeland security committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).
U.S. officials give varying assessments of the problem. On Feb. 25, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told reporters that the relationship between Somalis in the United States and in Somalia "raises real concerns about the potential for terrorist activity" and "constitutes a potential threat to the security of this country."
Two days later, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III appeared to play down the concern, calling Ahmed "just one manifestation of a problem" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, of young men in the United States being recruited to fight with terrorists overseas. Federal authorities have investigated cases of U.S. fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
Mueller added in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations: "We certainly believe that [Ahmed] was recruited here in the United States, and we do believe that there may have been others that have been radicalized as well."
Overall, U.S. intelligence officials assess that "homegrown" extremists are not as numerous, active or skilled here as they are in Europe, but authorities remain focused on what Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the "likelihood that a small but violent number of cells may develop here."
Domestic radicalization has been a greater concern in Europe than in the United States, whose economic mobility, assimilative culture and historic openness to immigrants have provided some insulation, U.S. officials suggest. In the year before the 2005 London transit attack, Britain in particular struggled with reports that al-Qaeda was secretly recruiting Muslims at British universities and that up to 3,000 Britons had returned over a decade from the terrorist group's camps.
U.S. authorities have been wary of stereotyping Somalis or overstating concerns, with Mueller recently comparing the situation to that in Ireland, another country with civil strife, terrorism and a large immigrant community in the United States but little violence here.
Al-Shabaab's ranks may also diminish now that an Islamist government has replaced a U.S.-backed Ethiopian occupation in Somalia. "It's very difficult to see how launching an attack using a sleeper cell in the United States would in any way serve their interests," said Kenneth J. Menkhaus, a political scientist at Davidson College who specializes in East Africa.
The FBI investigation of Ahmed's death may help determine how broad the problem is. The coordinated bombings in two cities about 500 miles north of Mogadishu represented "a qualitative leap" of terrorist capabilities and were probably the work of al-Shabaab, according to a United Nations monitoring group. In February 2008, the State Department designated al-Shabaab a terrorist group.
Little has been said publicly about Ahmed, a naturalized citizen who reportedly moved to Minneapolis in 1996 and graduated from high school there. As accounts of his death spread, distraught Somali American families came forward in Minneapolis, alleging that the first young man left a year ago, then eight more on Aug. 1, followed by seven on Election Day. Four families spoke out publicly, and U.S. authorities confirmed the names of Burhan Hassan, 17, and Mustafa Ali, 17, high school seniors who families said attended the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center mosque.
Relatives tell similar stories. Hassan was a bookworm who wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer and spent time after school and on weekends at the mosque, Minnesota's largest, which Ali also attended, said Osman Ahmed, 43, Hassan's cousin. Two 19-year-olds were studying medicine and engineering at the University of Minnesota, but they became antisocial, speaking and eating less as they grew more devout, Ahmed said.
Hassan had no job and no money, but when he did not come home Nov. 4, his family discovered that his passport, laptop computer and cellphone were gone, and they found paperwork for nearly $2,000 in airfare, Ahmed said. He said Universal Travel, a nearby travel agency, had said an adult claiming to be a parent paid for tickets for several youths.
"We believe a minority group are recruiting these kids and brainwashing them and financing and arranging the travel," Ahmed said. "Those who are recruiting kids here can harm us here."
He said the young men periodically call their relatives, who say they repeat terse, scripted statements that they are safe and in Somalia studying, but nothing more.
Somalis as a whole may be vulnerable to radical appeals because their home country has been torn by two decades of political strife and they are among the youngest, poorest and newest immigrants to the United States. According to a U.S. census report, nearly 60 percent of Somali immigrants arrived since 2000; their average age is 26.8 years; and 51 percent live in poverty, with a median household income of $21,461, compared with the national median of $61,173.
Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minnesota, said the group first alerted the local FBI a year ago, when family members believed Sakaria Sharif Macruf had left and been killed fighting in Somalia. He later turned up alive but with al-Shabaab in Kismaayo, a city in southern Somalia under the group's control, Ahmed said.
Jamal said U.S. government policies since 9/11 helped push alienated youths toward radicals.
"You have high rates of young guys unemployed. You have a high rate of dropouts. They're difficult to integrate and work into the mainstream." He said religious extremists worked with youths and "gave them hope in their lives -- then indoctrinated them into this violent, radical ideology."
Mahir Sherif, a lawyer for the mosque, said its imam, Abdirahman Ahmed, and a youth coordinator were barred from flying last winter by U.S. authorities in connection with the investigation. But Sherif said there is no evidence that mosque leaders recruited, financed or facilitated young men to go to Somalia and accused Jamal and his allies of acting out of hatred for the Muslim religious establishment.
The Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center "does not engage in political activities, has not and will not recruit for any political cause and never will be in support of terrorist philosophy or acts," Sherif said, adding: "The center unequivocally condemns suicide bombings and all acts of indiscriminate violence."
E.K. Wilson, a spokesman for the FBI in Minneapolis, declined to comment on the probe but said: "We're aware some of these young kids have traveled to the Horn of Africa to train, possibly to fight, with terrorist groups. We're trying to expand our outreach effort in the Somali American community here in Minneapolis to cover a broader base of the population here."
Earlier last year, Ruben Shumpert, an African American convert to Islam from Seattle, was killed in a U.S.-supported rocket attack near Mogadishu after he fled to Somalia in part to avoid prison after pleading guilty to gun and counterfeiting charges in the United States.
Another man, Boston native Daniel J. Maldonado, now 30, became in February 2007 the first American to be charged with a crime for joining Islamist extremist fighters in Somalia. Maldonado moved to Texas, changed his name to Daniel Aljughaifi and traveled to Africa in 2005, according to government court filings. He was captured by Kenyan soldiers in 2007 and returned to the United States, where he is serving a 10-year prison term.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
U.S. Cites Case of Minnesotan Killed in Suicide Blast in Africa
Washington Post, Wednesday, March 11, 2009; Page A01
Senior U.S. counterterrorism officials are stepping up warnings that Islamist extremists in Somalia are radicalizing Americans to their cause, citing their recruitment of the first U.S. citizen suicide bomber and their potential role in the disappearance of more than a dozen Somali American youths.
In recent public statements, the director of national intelligence and the leaders of the FBI and CIA have cited the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis who blew himself up in Somalia on Oct. 29 in one of five simultaneous bombings attributed to al-Shabaab, a group with close links to al-Qaeda.
Since November, the FBI has raced to uncover any ties to foreign extremist networks in the unexpected departures of numerous Somali American teenagers and young men, who family members believe are in Somalia. The investigation is active in Boston; San Diego; Seattle; Columbus, Ohio; and Portland, Maine, a U.S. law enforcement official said, and community members say federal grand juries have issued subpoenas in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
Officials are still trying to assess the scope of the problem but say reports so far do not warrant a major concern about a terrorist threat within the United States. But intelligence officials said the recruitment of U.S. citizens by terrorist groups is particularly worrisome because their American passports could make it easier for them to reenter the country.
Al-Shabaab -- meaning "the youth" or "young guys" in Arabic -- "presents U.S. authorities with the most serious evidence to date of a 'homegrown' terrorist recruitment problem right in the American heartland," Georgetown University professor Bruce R. Hoffman says in a forthcoming report by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private firm that monitors Islamist Web sites.
The extent of al-Shabaab's reach into the U.S. Somali community, estimated at up to 200,000 foreign-born residents and their relatives, will be the subject of a hearing today by the Senate homeland security committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).
U.S. officials give varying assessments of the problem. On Feb. 25, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told reporters that the relationship between Somalis in the United States and in Somalia "raises real concerns about the potential for terrorist activity" and "constitutes a potential threat to the security of this country."
Two days later, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III appeared to play down the concern, calling Ahmed "just one manifestation of a problem" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, of young men in the United States being recruited to fight with terrorists overseas. Federal authorities have investigated cases of U.S. fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
Mueller added in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations: "We certainly believe that [Ahmed] was recruited here in the United States, and we do believe that there may have been others that have been radicalized as well."
Overall, U.S. intelligence officials assess that "homegrown" extremists are not as numerous, active or skilled here as they are in Europe, but authorities remain focused on what Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the "likelihood that a small but violent number of cells may develop here."
Domestic radicalization has been a greater concern in Europe than in the United States, whose economic mobility, assimilative culture and historic openness to immigrants have provided some insulation, U.S. officials suggest. In the year before the 2005 London transit attack, Britain in particular struggled with reports that al-Qaeda was secretly recruiting Muslims at British universities and that up to 3,000 Britons had returned over a decade from the terrorist group's camps.
U.S. authorities have been wary of stereotyping Somalis or overstating concerns, with Mueller recently comparing the situation to that in Ireland, another country with civil strife, terrorism and a large immigrant community in the United States but little violence here.
Al-Shabaab's ranks may also diminish now that an Islamist government has replaced a U.S.-backed Ethiopian occupation in Somalia. "It's very difficult to see how launching an attack using a sleeper cell in the United States would in any way serve their interests," said Kenneth J. Menkhaus, a political scientist at Davidson College who specializes in East Africa.
The FBI investigation of Ahmed's death may help determine how broad the problem is. The coordinated bombings in two cities about 500 miles north of Mogadishu represented "a qualitative leap" of terrorist capabilities and were probably the work of al-Shabaab, according to a United Nations monitoring group. In February 2008, the State Department designated al-Shabaab a terrorist group.
Little has been said publicly about Ahmed, a naturalized citizen who reportedly moved to Minneapolis in 1996 and graduated from high school there. As accounts of his death spread, distraught Somali American families came forward in Minneapolis, alleging that the first young man left a year ago, then eight more on Aug. 1, followed by seven on Election Day. Four families spoke out publicly, and U.S. authorities confirmed the names of Burhan Hassan, 17, and Mustafa Ali, 17, high school seniors who families said attended the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center mosque.
Relatives tell similar stories. Hassan was a bookworm who wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer and spent time after school and on weekends at the mosque, Minnesota's largest, which Ali also attended, said Osman Ahmed, 43, Hassan's cousin. Two 19-year-olds were studying medicine and engineering at the University of Minnesota, but they became antisocial, speaking and eating less as they grew more devout, Ahmed said.
Hassan had no job and no money, but when he did not come home Nov. 4, his family discovered that his passport, laptop computer and cellphone were gone, and they found paperwork for nearly $2,000 in airfare, Ahmed said. He said Universal Travel, a nearby travel agency, had said an adult claiming to be a parent paid for tickets for several youths.
"We believe a minority group are recruiting these kids and brainwashing them and financing and arranging the travel," Ahmed said. "Those who are recruiting kids here can harm us here."
He said the young men periodically call their relatives, who say they repeat terse, scripted statements that they are safe and in Somalia studying, but nothing more.
Somalis as a whole may be vulnerable to radical appeals because their home country has been torn by two decades of political strife and they are among the youngest, poorest and newest immigrants to the United States. According to a U.S. census report, nearly 60 percent of Somali immigrants arrived since 2000; their average age is 26.8 years; and 51 percent live in poverty, with a median household income of $21,461, compared with the national median of $61,173.
Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minnesota, said the group first alerted the local FBI a year ago, when family members believed Sakaria Sharif Macruf had left and been killed fighting in Somalia. He later turned up alive but with al-Shabaab in Kismaayo, a city in southern Somalia under the group's control, Ahmed said.
Jamal said U.S. government policies since 9/11 helped push alienated youths toward radicals.
"You have high rates of young guys unemployed. You have a high rate of dropouts. They're difficult to integrate and work into the mainstream." He said religious extremists worked with youths and "gave them hope in their lives -- then indoctrinated them into this violent, radical ideology."
Mahir Sherif, a lawyer for the mosque, said its imam, Abdirahman Ahmed, and a youth coordinator were barred from flying last winter by U.S. authorities in connection with the investigation. But Sherif said there is no evidence that mosque leaders recruited, financed or facilitated young men to go to Somalia and accused Jamal and his allies of acting out of hatred for the Muslim religious establishment.
The Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center "does not engage in political activities, has not and will not recruit for any political cause and never will be in support of terrorist philosophy or acts," Sherif said, adding: "The center unequivocally condemns suicide bombings and all acts of indiscriminate violence."
E.K. Wilson, a spokesman for the FBI in Minneapolis, declined to comment on the probe but said: "We're aware some of these young kids have traveled to the Horn of Africa to train, possibly to fight, with terrorist groups. We're trying to expand our outreach effort in the Somali American community here in Minneapolis to cover a broader base of the population here."
Earlier last year, Ruben Shumpert, an African American convert to Islam from Seattle, was killed in a U.S.-supported rocket attack near Mogadishu after he fled to Somalia in part to avoid prison after pleading guilty to gun and counterfeiting charges in the United States.
Another man, Boston native Daniel J. Maldonado, now 30, became in February 2007 the first American to be charged with a crime for joining Islamist extremist fighters in Somalia. Maldonado moved to Texas, changed his name to Daniel Aljughaifi and traveled to Africa in 2005, according to government court filings. He was captured by Kenyan soldiers in 2007 and returned to the United States, where he is serving a 10-year prison term.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires
Sudan's Day in Court, by Joseph Loconte
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 06, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Brushing aside warnings of retaliations against vulnerable refugees, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this week for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for atrocities committed in Darfur. A three-judge panel charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing "an essential role" in the murder, rape, torture, and displacement of thousands of civilians. Although it is important that an international body has moved against the Sudanese leader--a radical Islamist who has waged war against Christians in the south and Muslims who resist his rule in the north--the court's action is fraught with problems. Already it has exposed the moral liabilities of an international tribunal that lacks any means of enforcement.
For eight months European leaders have pushed for the arrest warrant against the Sudanese president, the first aimed at a sitting head of state. The Economist magazine called it "a pretty clear victory for international human-rights activists." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the decision "has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man." Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times and Pulitzer-prize winner for his commentary on Sudan, saw the ruling as a "step toward accountability and deterrence." Fouad Hikmat of the International Crisis Group expected the court's action to prod the government "to engage the international community a bit more."
ICC enthusiasts should put away the champagne for now. Within minutes of the court's announcement, thousands gathered in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to denounce the decision. "We are telling the colonialists we are not succumbing," Bashir said. "We are not submitting. We will not kneel." Within hours, Bashir met with leaders of several humanitarian groups and ordered them to leave the country. Organizations such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders--which provide food and medical care for thousands of refugees in Darfur--are apparently being forced out of the region.
As aid workers explain, the Sudanese government despises international relief agencies operating in Darfur. Aid agencies have performed heroic work in keeping alive the very people Bashir and his janjaweed militias have tried to exterminate. Some groups have offered evidence of government-backed raids on refugee camps, embarrassing the regime. Equally important, the physical presence of aid workers has helped discourage attacks on civilians from government forces. "One of the humanitarian services we provide is protection through pressure," a relief worker told me. "That pressure through presence is suddenly gone, and there will be a lot of people vulnerable to attack."
Quite a lot, in fact. Since the civil war erupted in 2003, at least 300,000 people have died and about 2.7 million have been displaced. They live as internal refugees or in camps in Chad and the Central African Republic. They struggle to survive with inadequate sanitation, health care, and food. Women and young girls are often the victims of sexual assault. Humanitarian convoys already face attacks from soldiers, militias, bandits, and rebels. If relief organizations are kicked out of the area, thousands of civilian deaths could follow.
This is what political theorists mean by moral hazard: When a political decision, however just in intent, carries consequences that threaten to frustrate justice and further endanger innocent lives. Some diplomats and relief workers--let's call them moral realists--warned against the ICC's ruling for months. They predicted that Bashir would use the decision as a political rallying cry. They expected the government to expel aid organizations.
It appears that the realists were right. Utopian hopes in the irrepressible power of international edicts are colliding with stubborn facts on the ground. The court has no way to enforce its decisions, no police or military to arrest the accused. The Sudanese government has vowed to ignore the warrant. Although 108 countries are parties to the 2002 Rome Statute that established the court--the United States is not a signatory--many have little interest in apprehending Bashir if he were to set foot on their soil. African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, unable to offer much protection to refugees, have no authority to arrest the president. The international community shows no stomach for military action, such as protecting the "no fly" zones over refugee camps that are being bombed by Sudanese planes.
The upshot is that the International Criminal Court has handed the Sudanese dictator a means to strengthen his reign of terror. As an aid worker told me: "It has created an opportunity for him to pound Darfur and to punish his opponents." Even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, an ICC supporter, criticized the court's ruling as "a serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur." Critics fear that it also could disrupt the fragile peace agreement reached between the north and south in 2005.
What does this mean for the credibility of the International Criminal Court? Liberals remain obsessed with the United Nations and other international institutions as the sole repositories of moral authority. We are told that democratic governments--especially the United States, whose "international image" suffered under George W. Bush--lack the standing to challenge even the worst despots. The Washington Post's Colum Lynch summed up this attitude nicely, if unconsciously, in an interview on PBS's Newshour. He was asked whether the United States could press for Bashir's arrest: "It doesn't have the moral high ground to do that," he said, "because it's not a member of the court."
Allow the words to linger: It doesn't have the moral high ground because it's not a member of the court. Here is a presumption posing as an argument. Why should the International Criminal Court, a creature of the diplomatic delusions of European elites, represent the summit of moral wisdom on the world stage? Its judges are not subject to democratic checks and balances. It has yet to secure a successful prosecution. Even the court's supporters admit it has weak oversight provisions. Given its status as a U.N. body, the ICC risks being politicized and turned into a megaphone to excoriate U.S. foreign policy--the fate of the now discredited U.N. Human Rights Council.
There may be ways to prevent these unhappy outcomes for the ICC, but it's worth asking why there isn't an African solution to an African problem, especially the problem of genocide. This latest crisis in Sudan is also a religious crisis--a spiritual struggle within Islam. Most of the news reports this week somehow failed to mention it, but near the center of Sudan's heart of darkness is a violent strain of Islamist ideology. The conflict in Sudan is extremely complex, of course, involving a toxic mix of ethnic, tribal, racial, religious and economic motives. Rebel groups, mostly non-Arab, have felt marginalized from the nation's economic resources. Abuses against civilians have been committed by virtually all sides.
Yet there is little debate that the ideology of the Khartoum government--an Arab regime devoted to the violent imposition of Islamic law--has been a driving force behind the atrocities. It is not only the government that must be confronted, but its political theology.
It is not yet clear that the Obama administration, still finding its foreign policy footing, is prepared for this challenge. When asked at a press conference this week whether the United States would arrest Bashir if he entered the country (to attend a meeting at the United Nations, for example), State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid dodged the question. "Let's ask the lawyers to get us an answer on this so we are not speculating." So much for moral clarity. It will require better answers than that if, as the administration claims, the promotion of human rights is to be "central" to U.S. foreign policy. "I am looking for results," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a State Department event last month. "I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest number of people."
If saving and improving lives is the goal in Sudan, then the Obama administration will need to look beyond the International Criminal Court, and look quickly.
Joseph Loconte is a senior research fellow at the King's College in New York City and a frequent contributor to the THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 06, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Brushing aside warnings of retaliations against vulnerable refugees, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this week for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for atrocities committed in Darfur. A three-judge panel charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing "an essential role" in the murder, rape, torture, and displacement of thousands of civilians. Although it is important that an international body has moved against the Sudanese leader--a radical Islamist who has waged war against Christians in the south and Muslims who resist his rule in the north--the court's action is fraught with problems. Already it has exposed the moral liabilities of an international tribunal that lacks any means of enforcement.
For eight months European leaders have pushed for the arrest warrant against the Sudanese president, the first aimed at a sitting head of state. The Economist magazine called it "a pretty clear victory for international human-rights activists." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the decision "has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man." Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times and Pulitzer-prize winner for his commentary on Sudan, saw the ruling as a "step toward accountability and deterrence." Fouad Hikmat of the International Crisis Group expected the court's action to prod the government "to engage the international community a bit more."
ICC enthusiasts should put away the champagne for now. Within minutes of the court's announcement, thousands gathered in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to denounce the decision. "We are telling the colonialists we are not succumbing," Bashir said. "We are not submitting. We will not kneel." Within hours, Bashir met with leaders of several humanitarian groups and ordered them to leave the country. Organizations such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders--which provide food and medical care for thousands of refugees in Darfur--are apparently being forced out of the region.
As aid workers explain, the Sudanese government despises international relief agencies operating in Darfur. Aid agencies have performed heroic work in keeping alive the very people Bashir and his janjaweed militias have tried to exterminate. Some groups have offered evidence of government-backed raids on refugee camps, embarrassing the regime. Equally important, the physical presence of aid workers has helped discourage attacks on civilians from government forces. "One of the humanitarian services we provide is protection through pressure," a relief worker told me. "That pressure through presence is suddenly gone, and there will be a lot of people vulnerable to attack."
Quite a lot, in fact. Since the civil war erupted in 2003, at least 300,000 people have died and about 2.7 million have been displaced. They live as internal refugees or in camps in Chad and the Central African Republic. They struggle to survive with inadequate sanitation, health care, and food. Women and young girls are often the victims of sexual assault. Humanitarian convoys already face attacks from soldiers, militias, bandits, and rebels. If relief organizations are kicked out of the area, thousands of civilian deaths could follow.
This is what political theorists mean by moral hazard: When a political decision, however just in intent, carries consequences that threaten to frustrate justice and further endanger innocent lives. Some diplomats and relief workers--let's call them moral realists--warned against the ICC's ruling for months. They predicted that Bashir would use the decision as a political rallying cry. They expected the government to expel aid organizations.
It appears that the realists were right. Utopian hopes in the irrepressible power of international edicts are colliding with stubborn facts on the ground. The court has no way to enforce its decisions, no police or military to arrest the accused. The Sudanese government has vowed to ignore the warrant. Although 108 countries are parties to the 2002 Rome Statute that established the court--the United States is not a signatory--many have little interest in apprehending Bashir if he were to set foot on their soil. African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, unable to offer much protection to refugees, have no authority to arrest the president. The international community shows no stomach for military action, such as protecting the "no fly" zones over refugee camps that are being bombed by Sudanese planes.
The upshot is that the International Criminal Court has handed the Sudanese dictator a means to strengthen his reign of terror. As an aid worker told me: "It has created an opportunity for him to pound Darfur and to punish his opponents." Even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, an ICC supporter, criticized the court's ruling as "a serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur." Critics fear that it also could disrupt the fragile peace agreement reached between the north and south in 2005.
What does this mean for the credibility of the International Criminal Court? Liberals remain obsessed with the United Nations and other international institutions as the sole repositories of moral authority. We are told that democratic governments--especially the United States, whose "international image" suffered under George W. Bush--lack the standing to challenge even the worst despots. The Washington Post's Colum Lynch summed up this attitude nicely, if unconsciously, in an interview on PBS's Newshour. He was asked whether the United States could press for Bashir's arrest: "It doesn't have the moral high ground to do that," he said, "because it's not a member of the court."
Allow the words to linger: It doesn't have the moral high ground because it's not a member of the court. Here is a presumption posing as an argument. Why should the International Criminal Court, a creature of the diplomatic delusions of European elites, represent the summit of moral wisdom on the world stage? Its judges are not subject to democratic checks and balances. It has yet to secure a successful prosecution. Even the court's supporters admit it has weak oversight provisions. Given its status as a U.N. body, the ICC risks being politicized and turned into a megaphone to excoriate U.S. foreign policy--the fate of the now discredited U.N. Human Rights Council.
There may be ways to prevent these unhappy outcomes for the ICC, but it's worth asking why there isn't an African solution to an African problem, especially the problem of genocide. This latest crisis in Sudan is also a religious crisis--a spiritual struggle within Islam. Most of the news reports this week somehow failed to mention it, but near the center of Sudan's heart of darkness is a violent strain of Islamist ideology. The conflict in Sudan is extremely complex, of course, involving a toxic mix of ethnic, tribal, racial, religious and economic motives. Rebel groups, mostly non-Arab, have felt marginalized from the nation's economic resources. Abuses against civilians have been committed by virtually all sides.
Yet there is little debate that the ideology of the Khartoum government--an Arab regime devoted to the violent imposition of Islamic law--has been a driving force behind the atrocities. It is not only the government that must be confronted, but its political theology.
It is not yet clear that the Obama administration, still finding its foreign policy footing, is prepared for this challenge. When asked at a press conference this week whether the United States would arrest Bashir if he entered the country (to attend a meeting at the United Nations, for example), State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid dodged the question. "Let's ask the lawyers to get us an answer on this so we are not speculating." So much for moral clarity. It will require better answers than that if, as the administration claims, the promotion of human rights is to be "central" to U.S. foreign policy. "I am looking for results," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a State Department event last month. "I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest number of people."
If saving and improving lives is the goal in Sudan, then the Obama administration will need to look beyond the International Criminal Court, and look quickly.
Joseph Loconte is a senior research fellow at the King's College in New York City and a frequent contributor to the THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
WaPo: war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan
Hold the Handcuffs. WaPo Editorial
Will an international arrest warrant for Sudan's president help the people of Darfur?
TWP, Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A18
THE ISSUING of an arrest warrant yesterday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court prompted a predictable blizzard of celebratory statements from human rights groups and other Western advocates for the war-torn region of Darfur. What is interesting is that many of those same groups acknowledged that the war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan.
"The more likely outcome is that [Mr. Bashir] will remain in power with no prospect of ending up before the ICC anytime soon," said the International Crisis Group, adding that the regime might react by attacking U.N. relief personnel or refugee camps in Darfur, declaring a state of emergency or cracking down on its political opposition. Physicians for Human Rights anticipates "a likely spike in violent attacks."
It is easy to feel some moral satisfaction when one of the world's most brutal rulers is designated a fugitive from justice. Perhaps the warrant will send a shiver down the spine of Syria's Bashar al-Assad or Burma's Than Shwe. The ICC itself could use a morale boost: Six years after its creation, it has yet to convict a single war criminal and has put only one on trial. But it is hard to imagine much cheer in the camps of Darfur, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has failed to muster adequate troops or even helicopters and has not been able to provide security; or in southern Sudan, where a fragile peace between the Bashir regime and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is at the point of collapse.
Some advocates appear to hope that the arrest warrant will spur Western governments to make a larger commitment to ending the violence in Sudan -- by supplying troops or helicopters, seeking new U.N. sanctions against the regime, or setting up a no-fly zone over Darfur. A review is underway in the Obama administration, and a special envoy probably will be named. But the factors that deterred President Bush from intervening in Darfur haven't much changed. China is ready to block any forceful action by the Security Council, while Western armies are stretched thin by deployments elsewhere.
So the best use of the ICC warrant may be as a bargaining chip with Mr. Bashir and his Chinese and Arab allies. The court's treaty allows for the Security Council to suspend a prosecution for a renewable one-year-period; Beijing and the Arab League will press for that step. That gives the Obama administration an opportunity to set a price. That price should be Mr. Bashir's exclusion from a presidential election scheduled for this year, the completion of a peace settlement with the principal Darfuri rebel groups and the full implementation of the peace accord in southern Sudan. With Sudan's oil revenue plummeting, Mr. Bashir and his party just might find that such an accommodation is in their interest. If they choose instead to respond to the arrest warrant with another wave of violence, Western governments will have to find means to respond.
Will an international arrest warrant for Sudan's president help the people of Darfur?
TWP, Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A18
THE ISSUING of an arrest warrant yesterday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court prompted a predictable blizzard of celebratory statements from human rights groups and other Western advocates for the war-torn region of Darfur. What is interesting is that many of those same groups acknowledged that the war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan.
"The more likely outcome is that [Mr. Bashir] will remain in power with no prospect of ending up before the ICC anytime soon," said the International Crisis Group, adding that the regime might react by attacking U.N. relief personnel or refugee camps in Darfur, declaring a state of emergency or cracking down on its political opposition. Physicians for Human Rights anticipates "a likely spike in violent attacks."
It is easy to feel some moral satisfaction when one of the world's most brutal rulers is designated a fugitive from justice. Perhaps the warrant will send a shiver down the spine of Syria's Bashar al-Assad or Burma's Than Shwe. The ICC itself could use a morale boost: Six years after its creation, it has yet to convict a single war criminal and has put only one on trial. But it is hard to imagine much cheer in the camps of Darfur, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has failed to muster adequate troops or even helicopters and has not been able to provide security; or in southern Sudan, where a fragile peace between the Bashir regime and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is at the point of collapse.
Some advocates appear to hope that the arrest warrant will spur Western governments to make a larger commitment to ending the violence in Sudan -- by supplying troops or helicopters, seeking new U.N. sanctions against the regime, or setting up a no-fly zone over Darfur. A review is underway in the Obama administration, and a special envoy probably will be named. But the factors that deterred President Bush from intervening in Darfur haven't much changed. China is ready to block any forceful action by the Security Council, while Western armies are stretched thin by deployments elsewhere.
So the best use of the ICC warrant may be as a bargaining chip with Mr. Bashir and his Chinese and Arab allies. The court's treaty allows for the Security Council to suspend a prosecution for a renewable one-year-period; Beijing and the Arab League will press for that step. That gives the Obama administration an opportunity to set a price. That price should be Mr. Bashir's exclusion from a presidential election scheduled for this year, the completion of a peace settlement with the principal Darfuri rebel groups and the full implementation of the peace accord in southern Sudan. With Sudan's oil revenue plummeting, Mr. Bashir and his party just might find that such an accommodation is in their interest. If they choose instead to respond to the arrest warrant with another wave of violence, Western governments will have to find means to respond.
Monday, March 2, 2009
US State Dept: Assassinations in Guinea-Bissau
Assassinations in Guinea-Bissau, by Robert Wood, Acting Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman, US State Dept
Washington, DC, March 2, 2009
The U.S. strongly condemns the violence that occurred in Guinea-Bissau over the weekend that resulted in the assassination of President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces General Batista Tagmé Na Waï.
We call for calm and for all parties in Guinea-Bissau to respect the rule of law and follow the established constitutional order regarding succession.
We will continue to monitor events as they unfold.
# # #
PRN: 2009/182
Washington, DC, March 2, 2009
The U.S. strongly condemns the violence that occurred in Guinea-Bissau over the weekend that resulted in the assassination of President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces General Batista Tagmé Na Waï.
We call for calm and for all parties in Guinea-Bissau to respect the rule of law and follow the established constitutional order regarding succession.
We will continue to monitor events as they unfold.
# # #
PRN: 2009/182
Monday, February 23, 2009
U.S. Welcomes Mauritanian President's Proposed Dialogue
U.S. Welcomes Mauritanian President's Proposed Dialogue. By Robert Wood
Acting Department Spokesman, US State Dept, Washington, DC, February 23, 2009
The United States welcomes the proposal made by President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheick Abdallahi to the International Contact Group that met in Paris on February 20, 2009 to discuss Mauritania. President Abdallahi proposed a dialogue that will develop a consensual and lasting solution predicated on restoring the President's constitutional functions, an honorable exit for the members of the junta, and early and transparent presidential and legislative elections. President Abdallahi's initiative conforms fully with the demands of the international community and offers an inclusive and democratic basis for a durable resolution of the current crisis. We call upon the people of Mauritania, as well as their international partners, to seize this opportunity to restore constitutional order and to end political paralysis and international estrangement.
PRN: 2009/142
Acting Department Spokesman, US State Dept, Washington, DC, February 23, 2009
The United States welcomes the proposal made by President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheick Abdallahi to the International Contact Group that met in Paris on February 20, 2009 to discuss Mauritania. President Abdallahi proposed a dialogue that will develop a consensual and lasting solution predicated on restoring the President's constitutional functions, an honorable exit for the members of the junta, and early and transparent presidential and legislative elections. President Abdallahi's initiative conforms fully with the demands of the international community and offers an inclusive and democratic basis for a durable resolution of the current crisis. We call upon the people of Mauritania, as well as their international partners, to seize this opportunity to restore constitutional order and to end political paralysis and international estrangement.
PRN: 2009/142
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
US Provides Malaria Assistance to Zimbabwe
USAID Provides Malaria Assistance to Zimbabwe
USAID, February 11, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The collapse of the health system has left the people of Zimbabwe at great risk of contracting illnesses such as cholera, which claimed more than 3,400 lives, and increased the threat of a malaria epidemic.
To help mitigate a malaria outbreak, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting emergency indoor residual spraying to fill gaps in the country's traditionally strong malaria control program.
Timing is critical; in most years spraying should be completed by December. But Zimbabwe's national malaria program lacks the financial resources to achieve three quarters of its scheduled spraying, which would target 20 high-risk districts and protect more than 400,000 households.
To respond to the critical gap and avoid another catastrophic epidemic caused by the near collapse of Zimbabwe's health sector, USAID provided $200,000 in emergency funding, matched with £200,000 from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). This accelerated program will apply the insecticide in February and March before the usual peak in cases in April and May. USAID and DFID coordinated the program with the World Health Organization and implementing partners John Snow International, Crown Agents, and PLAN International, which organized the operation's logistics, personnel, equipment, and management needs.
Indoor residual spraying applies a WHO-approved insecticide to the indoor walls, ceilings, and eaves of houses to kill or shorten the lifetime of mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite. Decades of experience have shown that timely and properly conducted spraying can have an immediate and dramatic impact on malaria transmission. Combined with the increased deployment of long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets, diagnostics, and drugs, indoor residual spraying will play a major role in reducing the risk of a malaria epidemic in Zimbabwe-and yet another burden in an already severe humanitarian crisis.
For more information about USAID's malaria programs visit:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/malaria/index.html and http://pmi.gov/.
USAID, February 11, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The collapse of the health system has left the people of Zimbabwe at great risk of contracting illnesses such as cholera, which claimed more than 3,400 lives, and increased the threat of a malaria epidemic.
To help mitigate a malaria outbreak, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting emergency indoor residual spraying to fill gaps in the country's traditionally strong malaria control program.
Timing is critical; in most years spraying should be completed by December. But Zimbabwe's national malaria program lacks the financial resources to achieve three quarters of its scheduled spraying, which would target 20 high-risk districts and protect more than 400,000 households.
To respond to the critical gap and avoid another catastrophic epidemic caused by the near collapse of Zimbabwe's health sector, USAID provided $200,000 in emergency funding, matched with £200,000 from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). This accelerated program will apply the insecticide in February and March before the usual peak in cases in April and May. USAID and DFID coordinated the program with the World Health Organization and implementing partners John Snow International, Crown Agents, and PLAN International, which organized the operation's logistics, personnel, equipment, and management needs.
Indoor residual spraying applies a WHO-approved insecticide to the indoor walls, ceilings, and eaves of houses to kill or shorten the lifetime of mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite. Decades of experience have shown that timely and properly conducted spraying can have an immediate and dramatic impact on malaria transmission. Combined with the increased deployment of long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets, diagnostics, and drugs, indoor residual spraying will play a major role in reducing the risk of a malaria epidemic in Zimbabwe-and yet another burden in an already severe humanitarian crisis.
For more information about USAID's malaria programs visit:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/id/malaria/index.html and http://pmi.gov/.
Friday, February 6, 2009
USAID Assists in Aftermath of Liberia's Caterpillar Infestation
USAID Assists in Aftermath of Liberia's Caterpillar Infestation
USAID, February 6, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing assistance after a caterpillar infestation in Liberia has destroyed crops, contaminated water supplies, and temporarily forced residents from homes and farms in three counties in northern and central Liberia, particularly Bong County.
In response to the infestation, USAID is providing $100,000 for pest-control activities and water and sanitation programs in areas contaminated by caterpillar excrement. In addition, two USAID experts arrived in Monrovia on February 2 to conduct an environmental assessment of the infestation.
"The American people are standing by Liberians in their time of need," said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. "We will work closely with the Liberian government's task force to help meet immediate needs, and we will look for longer term solutions to minimize effects of future pest infestations."
According to international media reports, the infestation has affected more than 500,000 people residing in approximately 100 villages. The Government of Liberia reported that the current infestation is the country's worst in three decades, and dispatched pest-control experts and insecticide-spraying teams to affected areas. On February 4, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that although caterpillars had affected agriculture, the infestation had not damaged staple crops, such as maize, rice, sorghum, and millet. On January 26, the President of Liberia declared a nationwide state of emergency and requested international assistance.
USAID will continue to monitor the situation in conjunction with humanitarian partners and is prepared to provide additional assistance should it be necessary.
For more information about USAID's emergency programs, please visit: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for nearly 50 years.
USAID, February 6, 2009
Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing assistance after a caterpillar infestation in Liberia has destroyed crops, contaminated water supplies, and temporarily forced residents from homes and farms in three counties in northern and central Liberia, particularly Bong County.
In response to the infestation, USAID is providing $100,000 for pest-control activities and water and sanitation programs in areas contaminated by caterpillar excrement. In addition, two USAID experts arrived in Monrovia on February 2 to conduct an environmental assessment of the infestation.
"The American people are standing by Liberians in their time of need," said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. "We will work closely with the Liberian government's task force to help meet immediate needs, and we will look for longer term solutions to minimize effects of future pest infestations."
According to international media reports, the infestation has affected more than 500,000 people residing in approximately 100 villages. The Government of Liberia reported that the current infestation is the country's worst in three decades, and dispatched pest-control experts and insecticide-spraying teams to affected areas. On February 4, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that although caterpillars had affected agriculture, the infestation had not damaged staple crops, such as maize, rice, sorghum, and millet. On January 26, the President of Liberia declared a nationwide state of emergency and requested international assistance.
USAID will continue to monitor the situation in conjunction with humanitarian partners and is prepared to provide additional assistance should it be necessary.
For more information about USAID's emergency programs, please visit: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for nearly 50 years.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
WaPo: Zimbabwe's False Hope
Zimbabwe's False Hope. Washington Post Editorial
South Africa demands that the West aid a 'unity' government under Robert Mugabe. How to answer?
WaPo, Thursday, February 5, 2009; Page A16
SOUTH AFRICA has won a round in its relentless campaign to preserve Robert Mugabe's hold over a dying Zimbabwe. With the help of its allies in the Southern Africa Development Community, South Africa succeeded last week in coercing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai -- the winner of last year's presidential election -- into accepting a subordinate role in a "unity" government led by the 84-year-old strongman. The deal, which Mr. Tsvangirai bravely resisted for months, will leave Mr. Mugabe in charge of the country's last functioning institutions -- army and police forces that have been waging a campaign of murder, rape and torture against the opposition and human rights activists.
Mr. Tsvangirai relented because he believed that the frightful humanitarian emergency in Zimbabwe left him with little choice. The United Nations estimates that 7 million of the 9 million people remaining in the country need food aid this month. A cholera epidemic has so far infected more than 62,000 and killed 3,100. Schools, hospitals and most businesses have closed, the national currency has been discarded and unemployment is over 90 percent.
The opposition will be placed in charge of the finance, health and education ministries, which it hopes will allow it to solicit and distribute aid to prevent mass death from starvation and disease. As South Africa and its client more cynically calculate, Mr. Tsvangirai's appointment will compel the United States, Britain and other Western governments to lift sanctions and renew economic support, thus preventing what would otherwise be the inevitable collapse of Mr. Mugabe's regime.
The misery of Zimbabwe is indeed compelling -- but the Obama administration and other Western governments should reject South Africa's demands. It long ago became clear that Zimbabwe cannot recover as long as Mr. Mugabe remains in power. South Africa and other neighbors who insist on supporting the criminal regime are free to supply aid. But Western governments must maintain their sanctions -- especially those aimed at individual members of the Mugabe regime and the companies they control.
A State Department statement this week said the administration would consider new assistance and the lifting of sanctions "when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance." What should that include? Mr. Tsvangirai himself is demanding the freeing of more than 30 opposition activists from prison. Legislation must be passed giving the opposition a measure of control over security forces, and replacing the central bank president -- a Mugabe crony -- with a technocrat. Restrictions on the press must be lifted and foreign journalists admitted. Perhaps most important, the government must agree on a plan for a new presidential election, with guarantees for fairness and full international monitoring.
If these steps were taken, Western aid to Zimbabwe might serve some purpose. But they won't be. "Zimbabwe is mine" is Mr. Mugabe's only principle. The first step in any rescue must be prying the country from his grip.
South Africa demands that the West aid a 'unity' government under Robert Mugabe. How to answer?
WaPo, Thursday, February 5, 2009; Page A16
SOUTH AFRICA has won a round in its relentless campaign to preserve Robert Mugabe's hold over a dying Zimbabwe. With the help of its allies in the Southern Africa Development Community, South Africa succeeded last week in coercing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai -- the winner of last year's presidential election -- into accepting a subordinate role in a "unity" government led by the 84-year-old strongman. The deal, which Mr. Tsvangirai bravely resisted for months, will leave Mr. Mugabe in charge of the country's last functioning institutions -- army and police forces that have been waging a campaign of murder, rape and torture against the opposition and human rights activists.
Mr. Tsvangirai relented because he believed that the frightful humanitarian emergency in Zimbabwe left him with little choice. The United Nations estimates that 7 million of the 9 million people remaining in the country need food aid this month. A cholera epidemic has so far infected more than 62,000 and killed 3,100. Schools, hospitals and most businesses have closed, the national currency has been discarded and unemployment is over 90 percent.
The opposition will be placed in charge of the finance, health and education ministries, which it hopes will allow it to solicit and distribute aid to prevent mass death from starvation and disease. As South Africa and its client more cynically calculate, Mr. Tsvangirai's appointment will compel the United States, Britain and other Western governments to lift sanctions and renew economic support, thus preventing what would otherwise be the inevitable collapse of Mr. Mugabe's regime.
The misery of Zimbabwe is indeed compelling -- but the Obama administration and other Western governments should reject South Africa's demands. It long ago became clear that Zimbabwe cannot recover as long as Mr. Mugabe remains in power. South Africa and other neighbors who insist on supporting the criminal regime are free to supply aid. But Western governments must maintain their sanctions -- especially those aimed at individual members of the Mugabe regime and the companies they control.
A State Department statement this week said the administration would consider new assistance and the lifting of sanctions "when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance." What should that include? Mr. Tsvangirai himself is demanding the freeing of more than 30 opposition activists from prison. Legislation must be passed giving the opposition a measure of control over security forces, and replacing the central bank president -- a Mugabe crony -- with a technocrat. Restrictions on the press must be lifted and foreign journalists admitted. Perhaps most important, the government must agree on a plan for a new presidential election, with guarantees for fairness and full international monitoring.
If these steps were taken, Western aid to Zimbabwe might serve some purpose. But they won't be. "Zimbabwe is mine" is Mr. Mugabe's only principle. The first step in any rescue must be prying the country from his grip.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
State Dept: "Zimbabwe: Unity Government"
Zimbabwe: Unity Government. By Robert Wood
US State Dept, Acting Department Spokesman, Public Affairs
Washington, DC, Feb 03, 2009
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has agreed to join a unity government with Robert Mugabe under the conditions called for in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) January 27 Communiqué. The success or failure of such a government will depend on credible and inclusive power sharing by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. The international community must remain engaged and continue to scrutinize actions by Mr. Mugabe to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of this agreement, including respect for human rights and the rule of law. We urge SADC to fulfill its obligation to guarantee that Mr. Mugabe proceeds on a new path toward reconciliation and genuine partnership with the MDC.
The U.S. will only consider new development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance. We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the Zimbabwean people in their time of suffering.
PRN: 2009/098
US State Dept, Acting Department Spokesman, Public Affairs
Washington, DC, Feb 03, 2009
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has agreed to join a unity government with Robert Mugabe under the conditions called for in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) January 27 Communiqué. The success or failure of such a government will depend on credible and inclusive power sharing by Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. The international community must remain engaged and continue to scrutinize actions by Mr. Mugabe to ensure adherence to the letter and spirit of this agreement, including respect for human rights and the rule of law. We urge SADC to fulfill its obligation to guarantee that Mr. Mugabe proceeds on a new path toward reconciliation and genuine partnership with the MDC.
The U.S. will only consider new development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions when we have seen evidence of true power sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance. We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the Zimbabwean people in their time of suffering.
PRN: 2009/098
Thursday, January 29, 2009
US on Madagascar Crisis
Madagascar Crisis
Press Statement by Robert Wood, Acting Spokesman, US State Dept
Washington, DC, January 29, 2009
The United States is deeply concerned by the recent political violence in Madagascar. We call on Malagasy leaders and people to exercise restraint and avoid all further violence. We urge for an immediate resumption of dialogue among principal political actors and the government. The United States reaffirms its commitment to Madagascar’s democratic development, emphasizing that calm and dialogue must be restored in order to effectively pursue development. We expect all parties in this conflict to respect the constitution of Madagascar as they resolve their political differences.
2009/086
Press Statement by Robert Wood, Acting Spokesman, US State Dept
Washington, DC, January 29, 2009
The United States is deeply concerned by the recent political violence in Madagascar. We call on Malagasy leaders and people to exercise restraint and avoid all further violence. We urge for an immediate resumption of dialogue among principal political actors and the government. The United States reaffirms its commitment to Madagascar’s democratic development, emphasizing that calm and dialogue must be restored in order to effectively pursue development. We expect all parties in this conflict to respect the constitution of Madagascar as they resolve their political differences.
2009/086
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
US Sends Additional Assistance for Zimbabwe Cholera Outbreak
USAID Sends Additional Assistance for Zimbabwe Cholera Outbreak
January 28, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to provide assistance to the people of Zimbabwe in the aftermath of a widespread cholera outbreak that began in August 2008. USAID is consigning nearly 440,000 bars of soap-valued at nearly $365,000-to the U.N. Children's Fund, which will provide it to humanitarian organizations to distribute as part of hygiene education programs in areas most affected by the cholera outbreak.
According to the World Health Organization, the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has now affected all provinces and 57 out of 62 districts. As of January 22, 2009, more than 48,000 cases of cholera and 2,755 deaths have been reported.
Cholera is usually transmitted through contaminated water or food. Outbreaks can occur sporadically in any part of the world where water supply, sanitation, food safety, and hygiene are inadequate and spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water. Although cholera is contagious, it can be prevented. USAID and the international community are diligently working in Zimbabwe to help prevent the spread of the disease.
To date, USAID has pledged $6.8 million in emergency assistance for Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak. USAID's assistance is supporting the provision of emergency relief supplies for affected populations, humanitarian coordination and information management, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and health interventions.
This assistance is in addition to the more than $4 million that USAID has provided for emergency WASH programs in Zimbabwe since October 2007. The U.S. Government has provided more than $264 million in humanitarian assistance for Zimbabwe's ongoing health and food crisis since October 2007.
For more information about USAID's emergency humanitarian assistance programs, please visit: www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
January 28, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to provide assistance to the people of Zimbabwe in the aftermath of a widespread cholera outbreak that began in August 2008. USAID is consigning nearly 440,000 bars of soap-valued at nearly $365,000-to the U.N. Children's Fund, which will provide it to humanitarian organizations to distribute as part of hygiene education programs in areas most affected by the cholera outbreak.
According to the World Health Organization, the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has now affected all provinces and 57 out of 62 districts. As of January 22, 2009, more than 48,000 cases of cholera and 2,755 deaths have been reported.
Cholera is usually transmitted through contaminated water or food. Outbreaks can occur sporadically in any part of the world where water supply, sanitation, food safety, and hygiene are inadequate and spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water. Although cholera is contagious, it can be prevented. USAID and the international community are diligently working in Zimbabwe to help prevent the spread of the disease.
To date, USAID has pledged $6.8 million in emergency assistance for Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak. USAID's assistance is supporting the provision of emergency relief supplies for affected populations, humanitarian coordination and information management, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and health interventions.
This assistance is in addition to the more than $4 million that USAID has provided for emergency WASH programs in Zimbabwe since October 2007. The U.S. Government has provided more than $264 million in humanitarian assistance for Zimbabwe's ongoing health and food crisis since October 2007.
For more information about USAID's emergency humanitarian assistance programs, please visit: www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/.
Friday, January 23, 2009
US: Call for Return to Constitutional Order in Mauritania Press Statement
Press Releases: Call for Return to Constitutional Order in Mauritania. By Robert Wood, Acting Spokesman
US State Dept, Washington, DC, January 23, 2009, Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:42:28 -0600
President Abdallahi’s first attempt to return to Nouakchott since his ostensible release from detention by the military junta in December was blocked by junta security forces on January 22. President Abdallahi was denied permission to enter Nouakchott to deliver a planned address outlining his proposal for resolving the political crisis in Mauritania.
This incident and previous junta-organized demonstrations against the return of President Abdallahi to the capital clearly show that he is still being denied basic rights of movement and association and that his personal security may be at risk. We call on the military junta to permit President Abdallahi's full participation in the political process, to assure his freedom of movement and association, and to assure his personal safety.
The junta’s announced plans to organize unconstitutional elections along with its attempts to silence President Abdallahi and his supporters violate democratic norms. We reiterate our call for the immediate return to constitutional order.
2009/074
US State Dept, Washington, DC, January 23, 2009, Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:42:28 -0600
President Abdallahi’s first attempt to return to Nouakchott since his ostensible release from detention by the military junta in December was blocked by junta security forces on January 22. President Abdallahi was denied permission to enter Nouakchott to deliver a planned address outlining his proposal for resolving the political crisis in Mauritania.
This incident and previous junta-organized demonstrations against the return of President Abdallahi to the capital clearly show that he is still being denied basic rights of movement and association and that his personal security may be at risk. We call on the military junta to permit President Abdallahi's full participation in the political process, to assure his freedom of movement and association, and to assure his personal safety.
The junta’s announced plans to organize unconstitutional elections along with its attempts to silence President Abdallahi and his supporters violate democratic norms. We reiterate our call for the immediate return to constitutional order.
2009/074
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