COUNTRIES AT THE CROSSROADS GOVERNANCE BLOG

Will the Rule of Law Apply to All Bolivians?

On March 7, a mob of Bolivians occupied the home of Victor Hugo Cardenas, an indigenous politician who served as vice president under former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. The group, which justified the action as an expropriation based on a provision of the new constitution requiring that land holdings serve a social function, also acted roughly with Cardenas’ wife and children. The mob explicitly stated that they specifically targeted Cardenas due to his opposition to the new constitution. The responses of government officials to this seizure have been contradictory and unclear thus far. High-level officials including Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and Deputy Interior Minister Marcos Farfan, however, have implied or stated outright their support for the action. Unfortunately, the incident is but one in a series of occurrences that have observers – even those sympathetic to the Morales administration – scratching their heads regarding the government’s relationship with the rule of law.

In the Cardenas case, indigenous Bolivians determined that the provision on land holdings gave them the green light to apply indigenous communal justice. While it is certainly important to protect the rights of the traditionally exploited indigenous majority, it is very much in the Bolivian government’s own interest that a line be drawn between community justice and mob rule. As a previous post explains, numerous lynchings have been carried out in the name of communal justice. This is in large a product of the lack of an effective state-run judicial system in the countryside, and is by no means unique to Bolivia. While the government has consistently ruled that lynchings cannot be considered a permissible form of communal justice, the will to investigate and punish perpetrators has been lacking, thereby providing ammunition to opposition members who argue that under MAS rule the less progressive elements of community justice will be extended throughout the country.

Another complaint concerns the lack of respect for basic judicial procedures and protections. Since last fall, the situation has been especially troubling. The most egregious violation of habeas corpus transpired during and after the infamous Pando Massacre of September 11, when the government was justifiably preoccupied with apprehending both material and intellectual perpetrators. In the days after the incident, police forces arrested 14 participants in the conflict without showing a court order and used violence both during the initial arrest and the resulting confinement.  In February, months after the massacre, several additional Pando residents were questionably detained. In an ironic twist, the tactics bear an uncanny resemblance to administration those used in the past by anti-drug units against coca growers –many of whom now staff the administration.

Bolivia’s respect for the principle of equality before the law has also been suspect. Since Morales’ election, opposition members have been targeted on a consistent basis. This has frequently played itself out at the upper echelons of Bolivia’s government. Investigations have been initiated into the conduct of several of Bolivia’s former presidents.  Some of the accusations made by Morales and the MAS are plausible (the case against former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada is probably the best example). In several cases, however, allegations have seemed shaky at best and politically motivated at worst. The investigation into former President Eduardo Rodriguez’s involvement in the destruction of Bolivian anti-aircraft missiles in 2006 is illustrative.  While the details of the mysterious transfer of 28 missiles to the United States for destruction are still hazy, Morales immediately called for the indictment of Rodriguez, a well-regarded former head of the judiciary with center-right leanings, on charges of treason.

In addition to former presidents, members of the high courts have been frequently beleaguered when they have protected the rights of opposition members instead of bowing to the wishes of the MAS.  For example, when the Supreme Court ruled that the arrest of Governor Leopoldo Fernandez and others in connection with the Pando massacre was illegal, the government responded by initiating an investigation of two of the Court’s Justices for aiding a fugitive. More recently, the MAS has moved to investigate Justice Eddy Fernandez, the current head of the judiciary, for delaying judicial proceedings in the cases against opposition members including former Minister of Health Tonchy Marinkovic and former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

In response, the opposition has accused the MAS of undermining the justice system. They certainly have a strong case: as there is currently no quorum in the Constitutional Tribunal, the country’s highest legal authority, the court has been inactive during a period in which numerous pressing constitutional questions have arisen. The Supreme Court also is just one vacancy away from being inquorate; in the case of neither court has the government shown any interest in appointing replacements. The unstated goal is likely to be delay until justices can be elected, as provided for in the new constitution. However, the willingness to allow such prolonged institutional paralysis seems to symbolize the Morales administration’s highly ambivalent attitude toward separation of powers and the rule of law.

The chaos currently shaking the foundations of Bolivia’s rule of law is largely rooted in the inability or unwillingness of President Evo Morales and the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party to work within the confines of the country’s political system. In the early 2000s, the MAS was created to challenge a preexisting institutional framework which perpetuated the exclusion of the indigenous majority. Resistance and opposition are at the very core of the party. Thus the generous interpretation of the crisis is that Morales, the embodiment of this social movement, has yet to break free from his confrontational cocalero mentality in favor of a more accommodating approach. The less generous take – offered daily by the opposition – is that the MAS is simply an authoritarian movement. Either way, the result is the persistence of sharp divisions between MAS supporters and Bolivians residing in the opposition stronghold known as the Media Luna.

Thus far, Morales has proved reluctant to adapt himself and his party to the formal workings of government under both constitutions old and new. He has been loath to negotiate with or appease the opposition in any way. At the government level, conflict and debate within the congress have been quite heated. In some cases, Morales has even threatened to bypass Congress in order to implement his agenda. For example, before the new constitution was approved, Morales declared his intention to implement the document’s new provisions through the use of decrees if the Congress should prove uncooperative. At other times, the MAS has utilized the cerco to exert pressure on the Congress.  More specifically, the bases of the MAS have surrounded the Congress in order to impel members to vote in favor of such measures as the Constitutional referendum proposal. In the most extreme cases, the MAS rank and file blocked opposition members from entering the building. To be fair, however, the opposition has often been just as disobliging and hostile throughout these deliberations. Nonetheless, the use of coercive tactics, aside from its essential ethical and legal shortcomings, can easily become an irresistable temptation that creates a downward spiral.

The administration seems to have adopted a “we must destroy the institutions in order to save them” stance. The rule of law in Bolivia cannot begin to be protected and enhanced unless President Morales and the MAS send clearer signals that they embrace the concept. An unwillingness to demonstrate magnanimity even at notably strong moments, may even be counterproductive, insofar as it contributes to further polarization and gives the opposition the opportunity to adopt a mantle of democratic righteousness. Despite the violence, judicial inefficiency, and general disorder that has gripped the nation in recent times, Bolivia’s problems are not unresolvable. The compromise on the draft constitution, despite its less than ideal conditions (see above), proved that common ground is possible. For any country with aspirations of progress, however, some things are nonnegotiable. Until Bolivia decides that the rule of law is a priority, the prospects of sustained success will remain cloudy at best.

Photo credit: Flickr user germeister

The Challenge of Bangladesh's Combustible Security Forces

The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny that started on the morning of February 25th – less than 2 months after Sheikh Hasina assumed the office of Prime Minister – has a myriad of implications for Bangladesh. Not only is it a security threat to the state, but it reflects the troubled civil-military relations that have plagued the nation since its independence.

The demands of the mutineers were relatively simple and primarily involved a rectification of their subordinate position vis-a-vis the military. As it stands, the 67,000-man force is tasked with defending Bangladesh’s borders and is classified as a paramilitary organisation. As a result – and in contrast to the army – it is not permitted to be deployed under the UN banner for peacekeeping operations, for which soldiers receive a substantial pecuniary benefit. Furthermore, the BDR is led by army officers seconded to it, who have commensurately little institutional loyalty. Consequently, the ranks of the BDR complain that these officers ignore their grievances and exclude them from special privileges. The BDR claim that the mutiny was a result of these pent-up frustrations.

The immediate result of the mutiny was an estimated death toll of 74, overwhelmingly comprised of officers, but including the wife of the commander of the BDR. Many of the bodies were found in collective graves, mutilated, indicating far more than a surgical decapitation of the officers against whom grievances had arisen. Furthermore, the vast scale of the mutiny means that it cannot be seen as a haphazard attack against a single set of callous officers, but a coordinated rebellion. That the mutiny occurred with seemingly no warning is a sign of a catastrophic intelligence failure in the Bangladeshi security services

The BDR has a rich history and tradition, even compared to centuries-old European units. It is held in very high esteem in South Asia as a professional force dating back to 1795 when the British East India Company formed the Ramgarh Local Battalion, and as the East Pakistan Rifles it fought with great gallantry in 1971 during the war of independence against Pakistan, for which it has earned the nation’s heart, and the nickname The Vigilant Sentinels of Our National Frontier.

The BDR’s continued status as a paramilitary force has two advantages for the state. As it is controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs it represents a significant military asset not controlled by the army – already rumors are rife that the mutiny was engineered by Sheikh Hasina to rid the BDR of its army officers, and so create a private army for her. As a separate issue, the BDR’s role in guarding Bangladesh’s border with India is a highly contentious issue as there are frequent skirmishes between the BDR and India’s Border Security Force (BSF). Stories of the BSF’s incursions into Bangladesh are ubiquitous in the local press, causing outrage and helping provoke the skirmishes between the two forces. These are sources of serious problems between the two nations, but the BDR’s and BSF’s statuses as a paramilitary forces provide insulation against involving their respective militaries proper – potentially leading to full-scale war.

After subduing the mutineers by calling in the army, Sheikh Hasina has requested the combined expertise of the FBI and Britain’s Scotland Yard as there has emerged a seemingly widespread opinion that the revolt was not merely over pay, but a part of a larger attack aimed at toppling government. The government’s use of outside help in this matter has two important consequences. Hopefully, it means that the findings of the investigation will not be swept under the carpet to be used at a later date against political opponents, but will become public knowledge. This could increase the current government’s international standing. However, it also signals that the government does not believe itself to be strong enough to deal with the threat by itself, and the military will be watching anxiously.

The military has a history of taking control when civilian incompetence begins to severely threaten the state, not always with the disapproval of the populace. Indeed, the January 2007 army-backed takeover from the previous civilian government was met with widespread gratitude by citizens tired of feuding politicians. Under the latter’s aegis corruption had risen to crippling levels, with Transparency International labeling Bangladesh the globe’s most corrupt country for five years. The caretaker government declared the rooting out of corruption to be their foremost aim, and the anticorruption campaign’s perceived (though questionable) success meant that following the coup the top echelons of the military had an excuse to drag their heels on relinquishing even indirect control in favor of a civilian government. Essentially, a military that sees civilian governments as breeding corruption to such an extent as to endanger the state is a military over which it is difficult to assert civilian control.

Sheikh Hasina is certainly an embodiment of this fear. She had a very turbulent relationship with the previous military-backed caretaker government. During its reign Hasina was accused of extortion, leading to her being barred from entering the country in mid-2007 and subsequently arrested in July. Similar charges were leveled at her principal political opponent, Khaleda Zia. The fact that the entire episode represented the military’s efforts to rid Bangladesh of the two personalities that have fought over the nation for decades, rather than any action targeting solely Sheikh Hasina, does little to mitigate the poor relations between Hasina and the military.

The current crisis, coming so soon after the return of a truly independent civilian government will be incredibly frustrating for the military establishment, whose fears have been confirmed once again. Besides the momentary collapse of Bangladesh’s borders, allowing free rein for smugglers, many of the BDR fled once the army were deployed against them, removing heaps of weapons and military grade explosives. They were followed by local criminal groups who likewise looted the various BDR compounds, and it is feared that these weapons will be sold on the black market to Bangladesh’s Islamist groups.

Sheikh Hasina’s government needs to move quickly to fulfill its duties and gain the public’s confidence, or there is a strong possibility that the military will retake control. That would be catastrophic for attempts at the consolidation of civilian supremacy in Bangladesh, and next time around the army not give up power so easily again. Given Bangladesh’s staggering array of social, economic, and political challenges, this fluidity regarding the most basic facets of governance bodes poorly for policy coherence going forward.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Russell John

Colombia's Uribe and the Shadow of Reelection

In late January, El Colombiano, Medellin’s daily newspaper, purported to have received confirmation from a government minister that President Alvaro Uribe would not seek reelection in 2010. While this would be a welcome development in a country increasingly uneasy about the uncertainty and confusion surrounding Uribe’s possible reelection bid, the chances that the president and his supporters would abandon their efforts at this stage seems unlikely.

The contentious issue of Uribe’s reelection has been the omnipresent backdrop to the country’s political scene for the past year. Throughout this time, Uribe has evaded making any formal announcement regarding his intentions. In Colombia, reelection has been fodder for intense debate with respect to both the constitutionality and legality of such an endeavor, as well as the practical consequences that reelection would effect on the functioning of the country’s political apparatus.

As it stands today, the constitution prohibits Uribe from seeking a third term. While constitutional barriers did not stop Uribe from successfully seeking reelection in 2006, he now has to reckon with the Constitutional Court ruling from his previous bid, which states that, in order to assure that the balance of powers created by the Constitution is preserved, a president may only seek reelection once.

Uribe’s reelection first became a definite possibility in early 2008, when his supporters organized a committee to promote a referendum on a prospective 2010 reelection and collected 5 million signatures from the Colombian populace. A referendum proposal on a constitutional amendment permitting Uribe to run in 2010 was submitted to the Colombian Congress later in the year. This proposal, however, was defeated by the House after a debate on the specific language used in the referendum proposal to discuss the issue of reelection. Instead, in December, the House approved a referendum on an amendment permitting reelection in 2014. At this time, the measure was sent to the Senate, where deliberations are still in progress. As part of the Senate debate, Uribe’s supporters will put forward an amendment to the proposal which would clarify that the reelection bid applies to 2010.  If the referendum is passed by the Senate, it will then require the approval of both the Electoral Council and Constitutional Court before it can be scheduled.

This entire process has felt rather disingenuous. Uribe claims that his only interest is in the maintenance of his “democratic security” policy, but most Colombian observers have long been convinced that he longs for another term. Throughout the last few months, intrigue and irregularities have tarnished the inner workings of Colombia’s democracy. They have also led to unwelcome comparisons with Uribe’s nemesis, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who recently achieved success in his own bid to end reelection limits altogether.

Aside from the general distraction caused by the time spent reading smoke signals, a certain amount of government bullying may have been responsible for the House’s decision on the referendum. According to leading newsweekly Semana, the measure “was approved by the House of Representatives after a mini coup d’état by the government in the congress at the stroke of midnight- and via some irregular extra sessions.” According to Senator Juan Fernando Cristo, by decreeing that extra sessions take place while Congress was in session rather than in recess, Uribe was essentially sending the message that “nobody is leaving until you vote on this.” It was also reported that all six government ministers presided over the vote, while advisors guarded the doors to ensure that no votes were lost. 

What’s more, limit-pushing of a similar sort may taint Colombian politics in the future. The Electoral Council and the Constitutional Court may well object to the referendum due to both the procedural irregularities and strict rules which prohibit constitutional revisions that do not respond to a previous error in interpretation. A scandal regarding referendum financing is also at issue. Specifically, the foundation responsible for funding the referendum has refused to disclose information on its contributors. Semana predicts that the government will attempt to fill the Constitutional Court’s vacant seats with supporters of Uribe in order to ensure that the measure passes despite these irregularities, while a highly optimistic (from the Uribista perspective) article in leading daily El Tiempo suggests that the government feels confident that the Court will not strike down a referendum that has both the necessary signatures and the approval of congress.

The reelection issue, and the murkiness that has surrounded it, has already had a decidedly negative impact in terms of governance. As noted above, the level of transparency surrounding the matter has been insufficient. In addition, the fate of many other potential candidates hangs in the balance. As Semana notes, qualified and viable candidates for the presidency have been unable or unwilling to begin campaigning while Uribe’s candidacy remains questionable. Ironically, potential Uribista candidates are the ones most directly affected by this uncertainty. According to Colombia Reports, those few Uribistas who have decided to vote against Uribe’s reelection and organize their own campaigns have been targeted by the government. 

Should the attempt to reelect Uribe prove successful, the consequences will be even more unfavorable. The country’s healthy rotation of power is at stake. A 2010 Uribe reelection would mean 12 years of uninterrupted presidential rule in a country in which the executive is invested with expansive powers in comparison with the other branches of government. The upshot of such a development could be that, if Uribe is reelected, the precarious balance of power in the country will be debilitated. More specifically, the Colombian Constitution of 1991 includes provisions which protect public institutions from overbearing presidential control by ensuring that important public appointments do not coincide with presidential terms. By the end of a third term, however, Uribe will have appointed all or a substantial portion of the members of some of the country’s key institutions, including the Constitutional Court, the State Council, the Superior Council of the Judiciary, and the National Bank, all of which stand to be increasingly dominated by Uribe and his followers. This has led both Colombians and outsiders to warn against a turn towards caudillismo in the country.

However, Uribe confronts significant obstacles in several regards. There is some (though decreasing) probability that the referendum proposal will be defeated by one of the institutional bodies. The language regarding 2010 vs. 2014 will need to be reconciled. For reasons stated above, the Electoral Council or the Constitutional Court may find fault with the proposal for a referendum on 2010, if not on 2014. In addition, even if the proposal for a referendum is passed, it is by no means certain that the Colombian people will vote in favor of a constitutional amendment. While Uribe has enjoyed incredibly high popularity, the level of support for his reelection has recently declined to around 50%.

Nevertheless, even if the proposal for a referendum is defeated, reelection could be made possible through a direct constitutional reform. In this scenario, Uribe supporters would look to the Congress to endorse his reelection bid. Reelection by this route, however, is still difficult to attain due to the fact that the constitutional reform would need to be passed twice by both houses of Congress. Given that it is already well into 2009, the clock is ticking. In the meantime, those concerned with Colombia’s potential turn for the worse can only adopt a “wait and see” approach. Colombia’s institutions have long been admired within the region, and their durability is particularly notable considering the country’s tumultuous history and the distinct institutional deficit in most neighboring countries. Whatever happens with the reelection issue, the president and his followers would be well-served by keeping in mind that those institutions are far more important than any one man.

Photo Credit: Flickr user A Look Askance

Returning Hutus are Another Test for Rwandan Justice

In January the Rwandan government took the dramatic step of sending troops to the DRC to aid their former foes’ suppression of the Hutu-comprised Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The short strategic incursion – already finishing – has had a ripple-effect in the country. Not only was their three-way mission successful in targeting the FDLR, but recently, with renewed vigor, Congolese-UN forces have launched further military operations against the Rwandan Hutus.

Besides bringing clear political and economic benefits to the DRC, the amplified fighting is increasing the rate of Hutu refugees returning to Rwanda. Many of these are forced: the Congolese government has deported nearly 3,000 Hutus – rebels and civilians alike – in the last month. Others are leaving simply because they no longer have a place in the DRC, encouraged by the low-intensity but sustained human rights abuses committed by the Congolese soldiers. The Rwandan government is very actively encouraging the return of Hutus so that it may continue to forge a “post-tribal” Rwandan nation; indeed, it is only now, when the survivors of both sides of the Rwandan genocide have returned, that one can truly learn what the social cost of 1994 and its aftermath has been.

The stories of the returnees are very interesting, and hold a glimpse into what is to come. Hitherto many had been dissuaded from returning by rebel Hutu leaders who told them that the Tutsis in Rwanda would surely kill or imprison them; instead, what has come from the state is a massive education and socialization drive to create ‘Rwandans’ with none of the other classifications that led to the 1994 slaughter. The first step in this process is a stint in one of a series of camps where the returnees at taught how to be citizens of their new nation. Subsequently, they are told to live in mixed villages: Hutus and Tutsis side-by-side. This top-heavy integration process has had limited success in inducing reform, even though some initiatives, such as police officers receiving training in community relations to make them impartial, have been undertaken.

However, the legal system in particular has confounded the government’s efforts to maintain power and build a nationalism-based state while simultaneously suitably punishing those responsible for Rwanda’s notorious recent history. The major issue is the Gacaca court system. This is a community-based tribunal arrangement that was reformulated in 2004 with great power to punish people involved in Rwanda’s civil war. While the courts handed down hundreds of thousands of sentences in a period far faster than the ordinary court system could ever hope to achieve, they are rife with government manipulation, corruption, preferential treatment, and the tolerance of torture. Furthermore, to maintain their hold on power, the Tutsi-led state has effectively silenced evidence given of their own massacres: there have been no prosecutions to date against Rwandan Patriotic Front personnel – now the country’s governing party – and this lack of judicial impartiality is severely hampering efforts at fostering unity. As a result, Amnesty International has specifically called for countries not to extradite people accused of war-crimes currently detained in their countries, stating that they should rather begin the proper legal process themselves.

Many of the Hutus now returning are in a particularly weak position. Their very flight may be viewed as evidence of culpability, even though some portion of those who fled did so due to fear of unjust persecution. Meanwhile, few will be able to muster the resources necessary to defend themselves – or bribe court officials, as so many others have done. With the Gacaca courts scheduled to finish by the summer, treatment of these returning Hutus will serve as one of the final legacies of the system. The debate over whether justice has been achieved – and more broadly, over how much credit President Paul Kagame’s government deserves for reconstruction, given its weak record on democracy – will long rage in Rwanda. In this light, it will be well worth keeping an eye on what happens to these long-exiled returnees. Their fate may well symbolize the success of the reconciliation enterprise more generally.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Boyznberry

Pakistan's Long-Brewing Political Showdown

Three days of violence in Pakistan’s Punjab province was the popular reaction to the Supreme Court’s barring of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from politics last week. The ruling was generally viewed as a blatantly political act by an unpopular and unconstitutional court that is beholden to President Asif Ali Zardari, who broke a campaign promise to restore an independent Supreme Court.

In the Asian Human Rights Commission’s report on the year 2008 in Pakistan, the Commission describes the popular resistance to the Supreme Court and the Zardari administration that has been building since ex-strongman Pervez Musharraf dismissed nine of the fourteen Supreme Court Justices in late 2007. Last year’s parliamentary elections, the first credible elections in Pakistan in a decade, were supposed to mark a return to the rule of law and democracy. Indeed, Zardari made written promises before his election in September that he would restore the 2007 court within 30 days of taking power. Instead, only three Supreme Court justices were restored. They, and the other new appointments, were made to take loyalty oaths much like those that Musharraf demanded of his tame appointees. Pakistani lawyers were the most active protesters against Musharraf’s illegal firings, and continued their protests when it became clear that the Zardari government meant to keep a puppet court instead of restoring justices who would defend the constitution. Zardari’s credibility was damaged further by the violent police reaction to the protests, the arrest of more than one hundred lawyers on criminal charges, and the suspension of five lawyers’ license to practice law.

The AHRC followed up by releasing a note on March 3 stating that the Supreme Court was sabotaging democracy in Pakistan. The ruling banning Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from politics was described as “a two sentence, non-reasoned order.” They went further to state that the court’s “allegiance is not to the people of the country, but pledged to those in power.” Nawaz Sharif, whose presidency followed that of Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, was barred from politics on the basis of his criminal convictions, which were handed down by a kangaroo court under Musharraf. The charges of irregularities in the election of Shahbaz are slightly more credible, but also not lacking elements of political motivation.

The Supreme Court has lacked credibility since 2007, when Musharraf declared a state of emergency to extend the powers he had seized by force. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chuadhry and eight others declared the move unconstitutional, for which they were dismissed at gunpoint. Justices of the new court were sworn in under a Provisional Constitutional Order that included language declaring their loyalty to Musharraf and not the Pakistani constitution. Musharraf’s party was soundly defeated in the February 2008 elections, and the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N branch) formed a coalition government dedicated to restoring the constitution. The chairmen of these parties were Zardari and Sharif, respectively, and the two men managed to put aside their ambitions long enough to force Musharraf’s resignation. After Zardari’s election, it became clear that he intended to keep the Supreme Court as a political tool, and PML-N split with the PPP.

The fallout between the PML-N and the PPP and the animosity between their leaders represents Pakistan living down to its traditional dysfunction. In the eyes of most analysts, both men have always put their own good before Pakistan’s. While Bhutto was Prime Minister, her husband Zardari was known as Mr. Ten Percent for the kickbacks he demanded in return for patronage positions. The corruption of the Bhutto/Zardari regime was quite well documented, as shown in this enormous Times piece. Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister both before and after Bhutto and was deposed and exiled by Musharraf. He was considered equally corrupt – if less successful. At least in his case some irony tempers the tragedy of his abuses; his stunningly lengthy corruption rap sheet is marred by accusations against the prosecutor. Thus, Pakistanis can be forgiven for seeing little new in all the machinations.

Since Zardari’s puppet court banned the Sharifs from politics, popular displeasure has run high. Shahbaz was chief minister of a Punjab, which is Pakistan’s richest province and is home to half of its population. Both brothers called for protests, which unsurprisingly turned violent. Nawaz Sharif feigned disapproval of the violence, but claimed that it was the will of the people; Zardari used military force against the protestors; Sharif moved closer to the edge, saying that violence will continue if Islamabad attempts to regain control, and even telling the police not to obey the federal governor.

With Sharif calling for a march on Islamabad and adopting the pose of a revolutionary, Zardari has been goaded into cracking down even further, barring the gathering of groups of more than four people in Punjab and Sindh and arresting and harassing numerous Sharif supporters. What happens over the weekend could be momentous in determining Pakistan’s short- and medium- term political future. All this is occurring, of course, at a moment when the rest of the world is begging the country to focus its attention on Islamic militancy and the effects of the economic crisis. If there’s one thing Pakistan’s political class has repeatedly demonstrated, however, it’s that it has no time for such interruptions of its ongoing soap opera.

Photo Credit: Flickr user orionoir

Mexico's Calderon, in His Own Words

A new feature on the Crossroads blog will feature translations of governance-related articles from their original foreign language sources. The following translation provides excerpts of a long interview with Mexican president Felipe Calderon published last week by Mexico City’s El Universal newspaper. The interview was conducted by Jorge Zepeda Patterson, El Universal’s editorial director and formerly a very incisive weekly columnist for the paper.

From a governance perspective, several things stand out in the interview. First of all, Zepeda’s questions are very well-targeted and hit on real points of weakness within the Mexican government, including human rights issues, corruption, institutional stagnation, and the question of how political will can be translated into concrete achievements.

Calderon’s answers are of variable quality. He deserves credit for his forthrightness about the scale of the crime problem as well as his dual acknowledgments that institutional reconstruction is necessary and that previous administrations – including that of his National Action Party colleague, Vicente Fox – were overly lax in their attitude toward drug traffickers. However, some of his other answers are suboptimal from a human rights and governance perspective. For instance, while even the most idealistic activist understands that isolated incidents of abuse are inevitable in a conflict on the scale of Mexico’s war against the cartels, Calderon is overly mild in discussing the issue, and in fact comes close to adopting a “to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs” attitude. This is unfortunate: Mexico continues to suffer from severe deficits in human rights, and in 2008 the military received hundreds of complaints from civilians about its actions. Signals matter, and it would have been far more encouraging for the president to firmly state that human rights abuses are unacceptable and will be investigated.

Indeed, this gets at the most significant missing concept in the interview: impunity. One of the key drivers of Mexico’s rule of law problems is the fact that criminals are hardly ever punished for their crimes. Likewise with corruption, which is why Zepeda does well to bring up the embarrassing fact that no major political figure has been convicted of corruption since 1999, a reality that no Mexican would attribute to a newfound zeal for probity among public officials. Calderon’s statement that new institutions are needed is welcome, but it would have been even better had he explicitly noted the obvious thread running between crime, human rights abuses, and corruption: impunity.

The excerpts are long, so the rest can be found below the fold.

Filipino Muslims' Grievances and the Difficult Path to Peace

In a February report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) assessed the prospects for a resolution of the ongoing conflict between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The report, which was released six months after the dissolution of autonomy negotiations between the two entities, is predominantly pessimistic. According to the ICG, settlement of the autonomy issue is entirely out of the question before the end of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s term in 2010.

The conflict between the Philippines government and the MILF is by no means new. The MILF is an offshoot of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an organization which first began to advocate the formation of a separate Islamic state in the Philippines in the 1960s. The MILF split from the MNLF in 1978, when the MNLF became resistant to the idea of an armed insurgency. After the MNLF reached a semi-autonomy agreement with the Philippine government in 1987 and then a cease-fire agreement in 1996, the MILF took the helm of the resistance movement and has, with the exception of short periods of cease-fire, continued to fight for more expansive rights and autonomy in the Mindanao region ever since. The most recent surge of violence erupted after the Supreme Court ruled that the autonomy agreement reached between the MILF and the government this past August was unconstitutional. The subsequent toll was severe: hundreds died and several hundred thousand people were displaced in the months following the breakdown.

The grievances of the MILF are numerous. Most of them, however, are linked to the group’s allegation that Filipino Muslims, most of who belong to the Moro ethnic group residing on Mindanao, suffer persecution and discrimination at the hands of both their government and their fellow citizens. While Muslims make up between 5 and 9 percent of the Filipino population, over 90 percent of the population is Christian. The MILF claims that members of Christian religions dominate all sectors of society, while Muslims are at best ignored and at worst victimized. The group has thus demanded more extensive provisions for self-government and greater control over resources in Mindanao. In a 2001 interview, Hashim Salamat, the founder of the MILF, explained that “the situation here in Mindanao is very, very difficult for the Muslims in general. Our people here have been oppressed for a very long time. This province has been totally neglected.” Where governance is concerned, this is especially problematic. Namely, it raises questions about respect for religious freedom in the country.

At first glance, freedom of belief and conscience is ostensibly well protected in the Philippines. The Constitution provides for the free exercise of religion and the Philippine government has not made any overt attempt to restrict the right of Muslims to practice in recent times. This is corroborated by the 2007 edition of Countries at the Crossroads, in which the Philippines received a score of 5.33 out of 7.0 in the Freedom of Conscience and Belief subcategory. In addition, in its 2008 International Religious Freedom Report on the Philippines, the U.S. State Department claims that the Philippines government actively supports the practice of Islam through such agencies as the Office of Muslim Affairs.

Nevertheless, a more thorough examination of the situation reveals a darker picture. While the rights of Muslims may be officially upheld, the trials they face in their daily lives are substantial. Findings from the 2008 International Religious Freedom Report are especially illuminative. Most notably, according to the report, the effort made by the government to promote development amongst the Muslim population in Mindanao has been less than satisfactory. Today, Filipino Muslims are concentrated in the country’s poorest region and often lack basic services.
In addition, the attempt made by the government and the Christian majority to integrate Muslims into the country’s social fabric can only be described as half-hearted. The disproportionately sparse Muslim representation in the country’s political scene is especially salient. According to the report, there are 10 Muslim district representatives and 2 Muslim party list representatives in the House of Representatives, a body which has a total of 236 members. In addition, the Department of State’s 2009 Human Rights report revealed that discrimination against Muslims is especially pronounced in the workplace. For example, Muslims claim to have trouble finding work unless they use Christian pseudonyms and wear Western clothing. The report explains that the predominantly Christian “national culture, with its emphasis on familial, tribal, and regional loyalties, created informal barriers whereby access to jobs or resources is provided first to those of one's own family or group network.” This hostile treatment of the Muslim population has only been exacerbated by the intermittent terrorist attacks carried out by Muslim extremist groups like the Abbu Sayyaf Group.

While the situation of Muslims is rather grim, this is not to say that the Philippine government has completely turned a deaf ear to the issue. In the education sector, the government’s endeavor to modernize the madrassahs in the Mindanao region by improving the schools’ math, science, and English programs is especially commendable. What’s more, the government is not entirely to blame for the problem. Many Muslims have been to a certain extent unwilling to make a strong effort to become integrated into a greater Filipino society to which they feel no strong ties. The MILF, for its part, has at times maintained an ambiguous relationship with more radical Islamist groups responsible for the Philippines’ worst terror attacks.

In the end, the most direct way to ensure that the rights of the Filipino Muslims are protected would be to grant their request for greater autonomy in the Mindanao. As this is unfeasible for the time being, a micro-level approach aimed at addressing the basic needs of the Muslim population by investing in socio-economic development and fostering inter-faith dialogue would be a step in the right direction.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Mark Navales

A(nother) New Dawn of Saudi Reform?

Two weeks ago a slight but noticeable rumble took place at the very highest levels of Saudi state power that could result in a myriad of interconnected changes for the kingdom’s politics and society. Essentially, King Abdullah moved against entrenched conservatives in the religious establishment. However, the ‘reforms’ will also rein in the religious police, could signal the coming of preliminary steps to enhance the role of women in public affairs, and may help modernize practices in some of the most anachronistic realms of Saudi society.

First on the agenda was the dismissal of Sheik Ibrahim al-Ghaith, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice – which oversees the religious police – after numerous complaints about their overzealous repression of the populace’s perceived un-Islamic behaviour. As recently as a few years ago, such citizen outrage could never have even been aired publicly, let alone resulted in action to by a monarch to rectify the complaint. As other key personnel have changed little, the responsibility for acting upon the long-standing issue should be attributed to the king.

King Abdullah also removed Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan, chief of the Supreme Court of Justice, a man who in September advocated the lynching of TV network owners who aired ‘morally corrupt’ programmes. This is a very welcome change indeed, and may stem bouts of uncontrolled extremism as well as gradual moderation within the judiciary; however, if King Abdullah does not institutionalize his reforms, they will remain only as effective as his successor.

The form of the Grand Ulema Commission – the ultimate religious authority in the nation, which also issues religious edicts – has also been changed; for the first time, it will represent a far more diverse range of Sunni sects, instead of solely the conservative Hanbali group that has controlled it to date. This is an important step in diluting the influence of hard-liners and will allow Saudi Arabia to engage the problems in the Middle East in a far more conciliatory and diplomatic way, even as national leaders are still able to derive all-important moral and spiritual legitimacy from the Commission.

Lastly, a woman was appointed as Deputy Minister for girls education - the highest rank a women has ever held in the state. As a recent Freedom House special report elaborated upon in detailed, women’s rights are not supported in any way, shape, or form in the kingdom and so they are unduly affected by every socioeconomic ill, from rampant rural poverty to the sub-par education system.

Relations between the monarchy and the religious establishment have never been entirely calm. As the House of Saud derives a great deal of its legitimacy by claiming to safeguard Sunni Islam – in 1986 Fahd bin Abdul Aziz took the title ‘Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,’ effectively clarifying his personal view of his mission – the support of the clerics is vital to the regime’s continued rule. Yet this has not stopped previous clashes of interests. For example, in December 1992 King Fahd ousted seven senior clerics because two months previously they had not denounced religious figures who opposed the continued stationing of US military personnel on Saudi soil.

However, the new shake-up appears to have a very different purpose. It does not merely seek to replace a few clerics who have frustrated the monarch; rather, it seeks to revise the basic power distribution between the various factions of the Sunni majority. This has occurred in tandem with efforts to review the kingdom’s official relationship with other religions and perhaps even start a new era of inter-faith and inter-denominational collaboration.

For instance, in November 2007 King Abdullah visited the Pope in the Vatican to promote dialogue, a key issue as Saudi Arabia’s 1.5m Christians are not permitted to worship openly. In June 2008, a three day Sunni-Shia conference was held in Mecca with the goal of improving relations between the two sects. King Abdullah brought former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as his guest of honour. The two wanted to present a Sunni kingdom that could look favourably upon its moderate Shia subjects, and the following month the monarch co-chaired an interfaith dialogue conference in Madrid that brought together representatives of many major religions to reinforce the common values shared by their respective faiths.

The significance of these measures is very much debatable. They can be dismissed as superfluous since apart from a few personnel, little has changed, and the religious conferences were more symbolic than politically significant. Powerful conservatives certainly seem inclined to view things in this light. Nevertheless, King Abdullah may well be trying to reinvigorate his reputation as a reformist, which has taken a hit due to his cautiousness since ascending the throne. If all goes well, this could even be the beginning of a more moderately Islamic state that is capable of collaboration with, among others, its Shia counterparts. The reshuffle has given King Abdullah room to manoeuvre, but whether he intends or is able to use it to begin to truly modernise Saudi Arabia will not become apparent for some while. In the meantime, there is little the outside world can do but sit and watch.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Shabbir Siraj