Freedom at Issue

Of Scapegoats and Straw Men

Peruvian president Alan Garcia took to the pages of Lima’s most august newspaper, El Comercio, on Sunday 10/29 to decry what he sees as (sorry, Spanish only) an unpardonable ideological rigidity on the part of his opponents, which he characterizes thusly:

“Y es que allí el viejo comunista anticapitalista del siglo XIX se disfrazó de proteccionista en el siglo XX y cambia otra vez de camiseta en el siglo XXI para ser medioambientalista.”

“And it’s that [in a town that voted to oppose new mining ventures] the old anticapitalist communist of the 19th century unmasked himself as the protectionist of the 20th and now changes his stripes in the 21st to be an environmentalist.”

The president’s proposition is to launch Peru into the developed world by throwing open Peruvian resources, from aquaculture to mines, to private capital investment. Garcia contrasts this innovative vision against the sagging principles of an army of unspecified straw men, who seek to block rural development because peasant community lands are deemed “by demagoguery and trickery” to be sacred and who “have created the figure of the ‘uncontacted tribesmen’” (by which he means Peru’s very real isolated indigenous tribes) in order to obstruct the exploitation of $90/barrel oil reserves in the Amazon. It continues from there, bringing in mining, an industry where environmental concerns are “so last century” (“un tema del siglo pasado”), aquaculture, agriculture, and even education.

Would that it were so easy, Sr. Presidente! While those who would deny the potential utility of capital investment are fringe indeed, there aren’t very many people like that. However, there are a great many people who welcome investment but do not think the Peruvian state has yet proved itself trustworthy to carry out many of its appointed duties, whether the task is holding mining firms accountable for environmental harm, improving and enforcing basic labor standards, extracting the state’s fair share of resource-based income, or enacting direct or indirect redistribution programs to combat the country’s entrenched inequality. These folks would like to see Garcia expend some political capital on reforms before the government allows investment capital expanded space in what are undeniably fragile ecological and social environments.

Having presided over Peru in two very different eras – the 1980s of internal conflict and economic collapse, and the current era of relative peace and economic expansion – Garcia knows how hard it is to govern a geographically large, socially fragmented country. In particular, Peru has suffered from underdeveloped institutions ranging from disarticulated political parties to a judiciary that lacks the confidence of 95% of the population. But changing those things is difficult and time-consuming, and achieving success is uncertain. Better and easier, it seems, to find the magic bullet – resource exploitation, clearly – that will lead Peru to the Promised Land, and boldly identify the scapegoat – environmentalists, apparently – that always seems to get in the way.

Weekly Governance Links: (mostly negative) Asia Edition

The ever-invaluable International Crisis Group has issued a new report (free registration required) on southern Thailand, where a poorly-understood insurgency has been raging for several years. The report focuses on the government’s strategy of combating the insurgents through the use of “poorly trained, loosely supervised militias in a volatile conflict in which civilians are the main victims.”

Bhutan may have improved its Crossroads scores significantly but it still has some pressing human rights issues, mostly involving the ethnic Nepalis known as Lhotshampa. Human Rights Watch reports on the problem of discrimination against ethnic Nepali children.

A few weeks ago we posted an item regarding the corruption conviction of former Philippine President Joseph Estrada. We remarked that although it represented a success, it did not necessarily herald a sea change in Philippine anticorruption efforts. Sadly, even this one victory was short-lived – on October 25 Estrada received a pardon from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Also related to corruption, the Jakarta Post notes that the pace of Indonesian anticorruption efforts seems to have slowed in recent months.

China recently completed its 17th Communist Party Congress, which is always the subject of detailed speculation regarding the party’s inner workings and internecine battles. The Council on Foreign Relations provides background on the workings of the CCP, while the New York Times analyzes the congress’s aftermath.

In Bangladesh, a high-profile committee called to action by the caretaker government recommends an overhaul of relations between different levels of government.

Preparing for a Long-Term Struggle

On October 22 the Council of the Americas hosted a discussion at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the vexing issue of crime and security in Latin America. The keynote speaker was Adm. James Stavridis, the current head of US Southern Command, promoted “mano en guante” (gloved hand) rather than “mano dura” (iron fist) anti-crime techniques, implicitly acknowledging that hard-line tactics are unlikely to work and that governments must improve coordination between security forces and communities. Importantly – and in contrast with past US policy – he advocated a circumscribed and clearly defined role for the military in internal policing, and stated that “bright shining lines” must exist between military and police functions. This is a critical point for human rights in the region; the atrocious human rights record of militaries in the region is partly accounted for by the fact that military training is often directly at odds with the sensitivity needed for effective anti-crime actions. In addition, the degree of military impunity when abuses do occur exceeds even that of the police in many Latin American countries.

The panel that followed featured two professors and a journalist discussing their experiences researching crime in the region. Professor Athanasios Hristoulas of Mexico City’s ITAM, who has conducted in-depth research on the mara gangs plaguing Central America, noted several interesting features of mara activity, including their code, known as the “vida loca” (crazy life, though decidedly not the Ricky Martin kind), which revolves around the trinity of hospital (for wounds incurred in combat with other gangs or the police), prison, and death. He also described several interesting facets of intra-regional variation; for example, maras have been much less successful in Mexico due to the stronger familial and social networks in that country (which notably did not suffer from deeply traumatic wars like the countries in Central America). Professor Desmond Arias of John Jay, for his part, noted that in addition, the significantly less problematic mara problem in Nicaragua, as opposed to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, stems largely from the fact that Nicaraguans were much more likely to emigrate to Miami rather than Los Angeles, where the maras originally emerged from that city’s notorious gang breeding grounds. Professor Arias also directly connected the rise of powerful gangs in some countries, especially Brazil, to governance failures, insofar as the poorly planned delivery of social services allowed gangs to step in and co-opt community support by providing some (minimal) services. Finally, Alfonso Corchado of the Dallas Morning News used dramatic journalistic imagery to illustrate the grave conditions along the US-Mexico borderlands, where narcotraffickers have successfully infiltrated, intimidated, or co-opted nearly all Mexican institutions, from the military to the media, with deleterious effects on efforts to improve governance.

For all the substance within the description of research, proposed solutions were somewhat hazier. This is no denigration of the panelists: given the scale of the problem and the differences in crime patterns from country to country, it would take an immodest soul to lay out a concise set of solutions. As the panelists noted, limiting damage, initiating institutional reform, and building local networks, all while attempting to better understand root causes, presents the most promising path for long-term progress.

Weekly Governance Links: Africa Edition

The New York Times takes a look at Eritrea, a country stuck in the brutal grip of repressive leader Isaias Afwerki. Dan Connell, the author of the Countries at the Crossroads Eritrea report, is quoted in the piece.

A report from Burkina Faso describes a demonstration for increased pay by members of the military. This occurs in the shadow of the troubling military-police clash that occurred in December 2006.

Disturbingly harsh words from Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa regarding opposition to that country’s constitutional revision process, which some argue has been stacked in the president’s favor.

International IDEA has released a regional survey regarding political party development in southern Africa that includes a number of countries featured in the Crossroads survey.

On a more technical note, a recent report from the Center on Global Development notes that the effects of trade liberalization in African countries have not been as expected, and that influence-peddling accounts for an important portion of this.

Finally, the African Elections Database provides a very useful tool for finding details of the most current elections results throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mubarak ♥ Civil Society

After years of idly sitting on the statute books, the 1996 Egyptian law banning female genital mutilation (FGM) is finally gaining some advocates and some teeth. As detailed in the New York Times, an unusual coalition of government officials, high-ranking Muslim clerics, and civil society groups has formed with the goal of eradicating the ancient practice. The previous problem had been a loophole: while the practice was banned, doctors were allowed to perform the procedure for “medical reasons.” This was exploited to the point that FGM has remained near-universal in Egypt for reproductive age women. However, after the death of an 11-year old girl at a clinic earlier this year, the minister of health issued a formal decree completely banning FGM and threatening doctors with prosecution. This was greeted with derision from conservative sectors of society, and unsurprisingly, diktats from Cairo have had only marginal effect on traditional attitudes.

Since then, however, the government has been actively involved in shutting down clinics and has engaged high-profile personalities such as the Grand Mufti of Egypt and Suzanne Mubarak, the president’s wife, in media campaigns. More surprisingly, civil society—whose relations with the Mubarak government have ebbed from already-low levels in recent years—has been consulted by the government and acted as the pivotal link between the high-profile campaign and on-the-ground change. Consistent and sustained effort from the government and true engagement with its citizens is something that comes unnaturally to the Mubarak regime. Nonetheless, the government appears to have realized that if it simply shuts down clinics, the practice will be performed in hidden and likely unsanitary conditions. Therefore, it must find ways of changing opinion within the country. For the Mubarak government this approach will be quite novel. It will have to employ democratic mechanisms such as consistent application of the law, encouragement of public discussion, and permission for civil society organizations to work freely.

Success would undoubtedly be a triumph for women’s rights in the region. What would it mean for the government? Certainly not that civil society is to be empowered – that would represent too dramatic a shift to be plausible. But given Mubarak’s welding shut of the door to democracy in recent years, even small steps toward recognizing the benefits of engagement will represent a welcome change.