Brains Like a Shoe

I am unusually struck by the lack of good news in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. So before I list the stories on human rights violations, civil conflict, and war that grabbed my attention, lets begin with two stories that could – if spun skillfully – seem like positive developments.

First, Mike Smith at Dipnote (the State Department’s blog) discusses how peacekeeping offers new opportunities for U.S.-China relations. In the long-run, greater Chinese involvement in UN peacekeeping seems like it could help fill critical capacity gaps – and if China would do this in coordination with the United States so much the better. With such a bright horizon, we will therefore today focus on China’s commitment of engineers to the UN/African Union hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) – and not its diplomatic and military support of the Khartoum regime.

As for the other encouraging item, Claudio Guler for ISN Security Watch argues that “a spate of recent international judicial actions is nipping at heels of the some of the world’s most powerful states and suggesting that although a culture of impunity persists, getting off scot-free is little by little on the wan.” This article helps confront the recent rhetoric by some governments and academics that the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other mechanisms of international justice are new tools of western imperialism. The ICC prosecutor’s interest in crimes committed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the recent Goldstone report help undermine this claim. I would also add the British court’s surprise arrest warrant for Israeli former foreign minister Tzipi Livni to the list.

But now to the news that is difficult to put in a positive light.

Three recent articles on Eritrea reveal “a lonely nation under a glass.” For the Washington Post, Stephanie McCrummen writes two compelling pieces this week about life in Eritrea and the political strategy of the regime to insulate itself and defy the world. The BBC then highlights the disappearance of the entire Eritrean soccer team in Kenya. This is the young men’s third attempt to flee their country.

News on Monday that airstrikes killed at least 35 civilians in Northwestern Yemen. It is strongly suspected that the Saudis were responsible – which “could amplify anger against the Saudis among Yemeni tribes” and escalate the conflict. What’s worse, the Houthi rebels in the North have blamed the United States for the attack. Waq-al-Waq does not believe American officials though would act so foolishly. And what’s even worse than that, the BBC reports that Somali refugees in Yemen have been forced at gunpoint to join the civil war.

In Egypt, Kefaya – the anti-Mubarak group – announced that it plans to boycott the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. Even the potential of Mohamed El-Baradei, the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as an independent candidate does not seem enough to motivate these activists to give the elections any sort of legitimacy.

Finally, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) released a stark report on the state of human rights in the Middle East. Hannah Allam provides a useful summary of the report that finds ”a dramatic rollback of civil liberties and human rights in the past year, with similar violations from the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa.”

Oh, and on top of all of these items, did I mention another crackdown in Khartoum this week and the quagmire in Darfur?