• GOVERNANCE: U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes • RESOURCES: Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria • ARMED CONFLICT: Ethnic Cleavages and Irregular War: Iraq and Vietnam • GOVERNANCE: State Structure and Electoral Systems in Post-Conflict Situations • CONFLICT RESOLUTION: Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace Accords • GENDER: Women and Conflict: An Introductory Guide for Programming • ARMED GROUPS: Private Security Companies Within Security Sector Reform Programmes • CHILDREN: Children in Conflict: Eradicating the Child Soldier Doctrine • DEVELOPMENT: Afghanistan’s Endangered Compact • HEALTH: Coming to Terms with the Humanitarian Imperative in Iraq • DISPLACEMENT: Internal Displacement in Central African Republic: A Protection Crisis • HUMAN RIGHTS: Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities GOVERNANCE Securing Tyrants or Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes RAND Corporation The United States has provided assistance to the security forces of a number of repressive states that do not share its political ideals. This practice raises several questions, the answers to which have significant policy implications: Has U.S. assistance improved the effectiveness of internal security forces in countering security threats? Has it improved the accountability and human rights records of these forces? What is the relationship between improving security and improving accountability and human rights? This study addresses these questions by examining the results of U.S. assistance to four states: El Salvador, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Overall, these analyses suggest that efforts to improve the effectiveness, human rights, and accountability of internal security forces are more likely to be successful when states are transitioning from repressive to democratic systems. In addition, several factors are critical for success: the duration of assistance, viability of the justice system, and support and buy-in from the local government. Continue Reading More on Governance and Security RESOURCES Chop Fine: The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria Human Rights Watch Nigeria has produced several hundred billion dollars worth of oil since independence in 1960, but ordinary Nigerians have derived appallingly little benefit from all of that wealth. This situation exists primarily because successive governments, both military and civilian, have stolen or misused much of Nigeria's tremendous oil wealth. The head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has stated that the country lost as much as $380 billion to corruption and waste between 1960 and 1999, the year Nigeria's current government came to power. The human rights impact of those losses has been profound, as funds that government could have spent on basic health care and primary education for Nigeria's citizens have instead been squandered or embezzled. Nigeria’s public schools and clinics have been left to crumble and wither away and Nigerians have suffered greatly from the decay of those vital public services. Accurate statistics do not exist, but one million Nigerian children are believed to die each year before the age of five, and most of those children lose their lives to diseases that are easily preventable or treatable at low cost. The country is also thought to have the world’s second-highest number of maternal deaths each year, trailing only India. Public primary schools have reached the point of near-collapse in many areas, with many children passing through the system without learning to read. Continue reading More on Natural Resources and Armed Conflict ARMED CONFLICT Ethnic Cleavages and Irregular War: Iraq and Vietnam Yale University The conflict in Iraq has been commonly portrayed as an instance of "ethnic" or communal civil war, a radically different conflict from "ideological" wars such as Vietnam. The authors argue that such an assessment is misleading, as is its theoretical foundation, which we call the "ethnic war model." In fact, wars where ethnicity is implicated take a variety of forms. Empirically, they show that neither Iraq nor Vietnam conform to the ethnic war model’s predictions. On the one hand, the sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni militias in Iraq is not the only conflict taking place in this country; it is, also, not simply the outcome of deep and intractable sectarian cleavages prevalent in Iraqi society; instead, its current shape and form is, to an important extent, a legacy of the US occupation. On the other hand, although Vietnam was a society riven by ethnic cleavages, the Vietnam War fails to conform to the ethnic war model. The authors, therefore, ask why Vietnam looks so different from Iraq. Theoretically, they explore the links between cleavages and civil war and show that there is no necessary overlap between ethnic conflict and ethnic war. Although some ethnic conflicts evolve into ethnic wars, many others develop into classic irregular wars. The latter display dynamics that are virtually indistinguishable t? ideological civil wars. They suggest that the role of the state is essential in transforming conflicts with salient ethnic cleavages into either ethnic or irregular wars. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this analysis for the current situation and future prospects in Iraq. Continue reading More on Armed Conflict GOVERNANCE State Structure and Electoral Systems in Post-Conflict Situations International Foundation for Election Systems The State Structure and Electoral Systems in Post-Conflict Situations describes how well designed and managed elections can create legitimate political structures that promote negotiation and political stability, offers solutions to problems that undermine the peace process, and addresses such themes as federal and unity states, protection of minority rights, and governmental efficiency. If well designed and managed, elections can create legitimate political structures which promote concilliation and lead to controversial issues being solved through negotiations. If poorly designed and managed, they can simply restart passionate disputes and undermine the peace process. Careful consideration of the closely related issues of state structure and electoral systems is therefore essential at an early stage of any peace process. Identifying the requirements of state structure and electoral system design - such as protection of minority groups with seperate identity at a national or sub-national level-can help achieve robust political solutions. Continue reading More on Governance and Security CONFLICT RESOLUTION The Perils of Profiling: Civil War Spoilers and the Collapse of Intrastate Peace Accords Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs // Harvard University When civil wars are settled through negotiations, some of the parties to the settlement often emerge as "spoilers" and prevent implementation of the accords, thereby plunging a country back into civil war. Potential spoilers will seize upon any opportunity to destroy peace if they find it in their best interest to do so. The key to deterring and defeating spoilers lies in the possession and exercise of the material power to coerce or co-opt them, rather than in the capacity to discern their true character or personality type. By preserving the conditions present at the signing of the accord, by minimizing incentives for spoilers to emerge, and by monopolizing material power, peacemakers can defeat would-be spoilers and maintain the precarious peace in countries torn by civil war. Continue reading More on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking GENDER Women and Conflict: An Introductory Guide for Programming United States Agency for International Development This guide focuses on the particular roles, needs, and vulnerabilities of women in conflict settings so that the most appropriate interventions can be determined and initiated. The term “women” is purposefully used because the focus is on their role in environments of instability, fragility, and conflict, rather than on broader gender issues. “Gender” is used where appropriate to refer to social and cultural issues relating to female-male interactions and roles. By focusing on the roles and lives of women, the guide acknowledges that interventions are more effective and lasting when they integrate an understanding of women’s perspectives, while at the same time fostering awareness that crises of fragility and conflict can challenge and alter gender roles - often radically and rapidly. Continue reading More on Gender and Security NON-STATE ARMED GROUPS Addressing the Role of Private Security Companies Within Security Sector Reform Programmes Saferworld The private security industry comprises those actors who provide security for people and property under contract and for profit. Worldwide, the industry is experiencing a period of rapid growth, and, when effectively regulated and fully accountable, can make a valuable contribution to the provision of security. However, the activities of an uncontrolled or poorly regulated private security industry can present unique governance problems, and in transitional or post-conflict states, can act as an obstacle to peacebuilding, good governance and sustainable development. This is of particular importance given that, over the last decade, private actors have increasingly assumed roles that have traditionally been the responsibility of the state. This guidance note aims to equip practitioners with the information and basic research questions necessary to assess whether the private provision of security in a country is problematic and consider how best to incorporate it into existing or planned security sector reform (SSR) or good governance programmes. Continue reading More on Armies, Paramilitaries, Non-State Armed Groups CHILDREN Children in Conflict: Eradicating the Child Soldier Doctrine Carr Center for Human Rights Policy This paper is grounded on the belief that the child soldier problematique might benefit from a more detached analysis than it usually receives. While the authors share the emotional horror at conditions faced by many helpless children forced into violent conflict by unscrupulous adults, we also think that it is not useful to try to separate the problem from its political, security, economic or social contexts. Contemporary dialogue seldom goes deeper beneath the surface of the problem to look at underlying issues associated with basic assumptions about the nature of states or the ways in which political power can be harnessed or challenged by non-state actors. Fundamental notions about the relationships between obligations, agency and human rights under conditions of conflict need also to be considered as part of any serious attempt to intervene on behalf of children. Children are part of larger contexts and thus the attempt to carve out a protected space for them must take into account the social, economic and political factors affecting the communities in which they live. Continue reading More on Children and Armed Conflict DEVELOPMENT Afghanistan’s Endangered Compact International Crisis Group While the growing insurgency is attracting increasing attention, long-term efforts to build the solid governmental institutions a stable Afghanistan requires are faltering. Following conclusion of the Bonn process, which created the country’s elected bodies, the Afghan government and the international community committed at the London Conference (31 January-1 February 2006) to the Afghanistan Compact, which identified “three critical and interdependent areas or pillars of activity” over five years: security; governance, rule of law and human rights; and social and economic development. The government signed on to realising a “shared vision of the future” for a “stable and prosperous Afghanistan”, while over 60 nations and international institutions promised to provide the necessary resources and support. A year on, even those most closely associated with the process admit that the Compact has yet to have much impact. Afghans and internationals alike still need to demonstrate the political will to undertake deep-rooted institutional changes if the goals of this shared vision are to be met. Continue reading More on Development and Security HEALTH Coming to Terms with the Humanitarian Imperative in Iraq Feinstein International Center, Tufts University Highlighting major changes in the context in Iraq and rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation, this brief report summarizes an Iraq country study to be issued in final form later this month as part of the Humanitarian Agenda 2015: Principles, Power and Perceptions (HA 2015) initiative, an independent research project of the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University. Following a series of observations about how humanitarianism is currently perceived in Iraq, this report highlights findings regarding the operational environment, donor environment, and strategic policy environment. The interviews conducted comprise a valuable compilation of field-based evidence, provided at a time of mounting access difficulties and diminishing awareness of the situation on the ground. In addition to extensive interviews, the report draws heavily upon work conducted in the region and the regular monitoring of developments by the Humanitarianism and War Project in 2004 and 2005, thus spanning a three-year period. It concludes with 20 recommendations for the UN system, Red Cross / Red Crescent Movement, humanitarian NGOs, the NGOs Coordinating Committee in Iraq (NCCI) and donors. Continue reading More on Health and Security DISPLACEMENT Internal Displacement in Central African Republic: A Protection Crisis Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Forced displacement in the Central African Republic (CAR) – along with deaths, physi-cal injuries and material destruction – is one of the main consequences of more than a decade of political instability caused by a series of mutinies, military coup attempts and armed conflicts. The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) is reported to have tripled during 2006, from 50,000 in April to an estimated 150,000 at the end of the year. This increase is largely due to persistent insecurity in the north of the country where the government is fighting several rebel groups. Roaming bandits (so called coupeurs de route or Zaraguinas) and livestock thieves also plague the north, where the state presence – as in much of the rest of the country outside the capital – is weak or non-existent. Some 50,000 people are estimated to have fled across the border into neighbouring Chad, and another 30,000 into Cameroon. There are also reports about civilians fleeing towards Sudan in the north-east. Continue reading More on Refugees and Internally Displaced People HUMAN RIGHTS Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities Council on Foreign Relations A lot has been said about the need to take action to stop and prevent mass atrocities. But less has been done. States continue to engage in mass atrocities, in part because they believe it will be tolerated by the rest of the world. Other states tend to acquiesce because they do not perceive their national interests are at stake. Finding a workable way out of this cycle is not simply a matter of scruples; it is also a matter of security. The author points to the UN’s acceptance of the notion that sovereignty may need to be compromised when a government is unable or unwilling to provide for the basic needs of those within its state borders. The challenge for the international community is to translate this principle into practice. To that end, this report recommends that the new UN secretary-general take genocide prevention as a mission statement and mandate, and place it at the center of his and his organization’s agenda. The report also makes a number of recommendations for the United States and others to build a sustainable capacity for genocide prevention that is substantial enough to deal with inevitable crises, but sustainable given other national security demands. Feinstein makes a strong case that this is doable—that is, if the international community is prepared to do it. Continue reading More on Human Rights Compiled by Robert Hartfiel Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Centre at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. The Human Security Centre produces the annual Human Security Report and is funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information on human security visit the Human Security Gateway, an online research and information database that contains a broad range of human security-related resources. 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