Human Security Report Project
 
  Issue 43
July 2008
   
  Human Security Research is a monthly mailing list service that highlights significant new human security-related research published by university research institutes, think-tanks, IGOs and NGOs.
   
  What's New in Human Security Research :

RECONSTRUCTION: Exploring Afghan Perceptions of Civil-Military Relations
GOVERNANCE: Investing in Tragedy: China's Money, Arms, and Politics in Sudan
CHILDREN: Last in Line, Last in School 2008: Supporting Education for Children Affected by Conflict
CONFLICT RESOLUTION: Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa
HUMAN RIGHTS: Counterinsurgency and Human Rights
CHILDREN: The State of the World's Girls 2008 - Special Focus: In the Shadow of War
GOVERNANCE: The History of Violence and the State in Indonesia
RECONSTRUCTION: After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq
ARMED CONFLICT: Armed Conflict and Schooling: Evidence from the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
CONFLICT RESOLUTION: The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation
CLUSTER MUNITION: The Economic Impact of Cluster Munition Contamination in Lebanon
GENDER: Gender-based Violence in Iraq

RECONSTRUCTION

Afghan Hearts, Afghan Minds: Exploring Afghan Perceptions of Civil-Military Relations
European Network of NGOs on Afghanistan / The British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group
Throughout Afghanistan, there are silent but chilling reminders of the constant loss of innocent lives in a conflict which has spanned three decades, and one that continues to claim innocent lives today: crowded graveyards; a gravelike structure in a provincial capital to remind passers-by of the children killed in a roadside bomb. The identities of the killers and the victims may change but the result for the majority Afghans remains the same – a lack of security against a stark backdrop of continuing poverty and underdevelopment. Within donor-countries, politicians, media and the public are beginning to question the achievability of stability and reconstruction in Afghanistan. At the same time, donor governments have sought to integrate their aid, foreign policy and military agendas in an effort to find a ‘comprehensive approach’. Pressure from donor governments and military actors to deliver ‘instant’ development and democracy is pushing NGOs into unexplored territory and promoting an uneasy marriage between ‘the three Ds’ – development, diplomacy and defence. Efforts by the international community and national actors to put appropriate and effective coordination mechanisms in place, design and implement joint strategies have proven difficult.
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More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
GOVERNANCE
Investing in Tragedy: China's Money, Arms, and Politics in Sudan
Human Rights First
China’s interest in Sudanese oil has no mysterious cause. It will be visible to every Olympic athlete this summer. Each day, Beijing needs another 6.6 million barrels of oil to keep the nation lighted, moving and warm, the greatest thirst in the world after the United States’. Every year, China’s economy expands more than ten percent. Oil has been a prize in the conflicts in Sudan, or at least a key aspect of the background. Most of Sudan’s reserves lie in the central or southern parts of the country, and Khartoum has always sought control, both of the oil going out and money coming in. When the large North-South civil war began in 1983, the national government quickly mobilized proxy fighters to evacuate southern villages around two of the newly-discovered oil fields. The proxies did more than that: they burned, looted, and forced children into slavery. Matters only worsened when, in 1989, the Khartoum government was ousted by militants who wanted to impose an even stronger Islamic influence on the nation’s political and legal systems. China has been Khartoum’s key partner in developing the infrastructure necessary to extract and transport oil. For instance, it helped develop pipelines that stretch for more than 1,000 kilometers from oil fields to Port Sudan. China has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars to further develop Sudan’s ability to refine the oil it is extracting.
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More on Governance


CHILDREN
Last in Line, Last in School 2008: How Donors Can Support Education For Children Affected By Conflict and Emergencies
Save the Children
This report updates Save the Children’s 2007 publication "Last in Line, Last in School: How donors are failing children in conflict-affected fragile states", which exposed the international community’s neglect of education in CAFS and in emergencies. Last in Line highlighted the stark disparity between education aid to middle- and low-income countries and that made available to CAFS. The latter receive only one-fifth of total education aid, despite being home to half the world’s out-of-school population. One year on, the picture remains gloomy: one in three children in CAFS never go to school, and although there is growing consensus about the need to address the challenges of education in CAFS, the overall increase in education aid to CAFS has been minimal. In recent years an expanding body of literature concerning education in fragile states and humanitarian crisis has emerged. This, combined with international pressure from many international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), has led to greater political attention being paid to this issue.
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More on Children and Armed Conflict

CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel
Chatham House
This report is a study of three peace processes in the Horn of Africa, a region of Africa distinguished by the prevalence and persistence of armed conflict. It deals with the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process concluded in October 2004 and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005. It examines in turn the background and historical context of the conflicts that these peace agreements here intended to resolve. It charts the developments since the agreements were signed, seeking to assess how far they have achieved successful outcomes for peace and stability. The results are very mixed. The Algiers Agreement continues to provide a framework for relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. But it has not created a permanent settlement between the two sides and now seems unlikely to do so. The two instruments created by Algiers to help Ethiopia and Eritrea reach a permanent peace were the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission and the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). These both appear to have run their course.
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More on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking
HUMAN RIGHTS
Counterinsurgency and Human Rights
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Writing doctrine for countering insurgency faces two major problems. The first is that governments, their institutions and their people, have changed since the last time they considered the problem. How government bodies are organized, their understanding of their responsibilities in complex interagency, and how they interact and work together are different. The structures and approaches developed for El Salvador, Vietnam, Algeria, Northern Ireland, and Malaya have been dismantled, and, in many cases the lessons learned forgotten. The inter-departmental and international gearing, a key feature of some past campaigns, is rusty and the organizational understanding across and between governments is a work in progress. Nevertheless, we are at a historic turning point in the evolution of counterinsurgency doctrine, something which is reasonably well known and increasingly better understood. John Mackinlay, David Kilcullen and Steven Metz are but three who have pointed out things have changed. While insurgency remains a highly political form of warfare, it is its character, not its nature, which has changed.
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More on Human Rights


CHILDREN
The State of the World's Girls 2008 - Special Focus: In the Shadow of War
Plan International
Over 200 million girls are living in poverty in states teetering on the brink of chaos. Up to ninety per cent of victims of modern war are civilians; a substantial proportion are women and children. 100,000 girls are child soldiers. Millions of girls affected by war are unprotected, voiceless and invisible, ignored by their own governments and by international donors. Yet in some countries fragility and conflict can give girls new opportunities, reveal new strengths and alter their status both inside and outside the family. Policy discussion and action at either national or international level rarely takes into account the specific needs and rights of girls and young women. There is some recognition that investment in girls’ education and health is vital to build up a strong, resilient and secure population but not enough is being done about it. This report records girls’ voices and stories as they call on governments and the United Nations (UN), on non-governmental organisations (NGO s) and on their own families and communities to fulfil their rights and recognise their particular needs. They want to contribute to the society they live in and seek the means, capital and legal protection to become economically self sufficient and politically visible.
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More on Children and Armed Conflict


GOVERNANCE
The History of Violence and the State in Indonesia
Centre for Research on Inequality Human Security and Ethnicity
When did violence first begin in the region we now know as Indonesia? Indeed it is difficult to determine this. However, in the collective memory of Indonesians, particularly the Javanese, discussions on violence and political intrigue will often refer to the case of Tunggul Ametung and Ken Arok in Java. There are other cases from other kingdoms of the day, however this is the most famous. In the 13th century, when Tunggul Ametung was in power in Java, an intriguing incident took place at the palace of Tumapel. Ken Arok, one of the palace guards known for his history of committing robbery, murdered Tunggul Ametung and walked away from the murder while Kebo Ijo, another palace guard, was punished after being falsely accused of the murder. Violence was not only recorded in Java but also in other kingdoms at the time, including Aceh. Before the Europeans came to the archipelago, rulers and even locals were already familiar with the term which foreign observers call “amok”, such as the case in Banten in 1648, when a person ran amok in the market and murdered several people. It seems, however, that the incidents of violence which took place before the arrival of the Europeans were caused either by the elites or by the citizenry, and thus cannot be described as systematic or state-based violence.
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More on Governance


RECONSTRUCTION
After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq
RAND Corporation
Major combat operations in Iraq lasted approximately three weeks, but stabilization efforts in that country are, as of this writing, ongoing. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps are increasingly taxed by the demands of the continuing insurgency, with more than 100,000 troops expected to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The evidence suggests that the United States had neither the people nor the plans in place to handle the situation that arose after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters took to the streets, damaging much of Iraq’s infrastructure that had remained intact throughout major combat. Iraqi police and military units were nowhere to be found, having largely dispersed during combat. U.S. military forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country were not prepared to respond rapidly to the initial looting and subsequent large-scale public unrest. These conditions enabled the insurgency to take root, and the Army and Marine Corps have been battling the insurgents ever since. Why was the United States so unprepared for the challenges of postwar Iraq? As part of a larger study of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF), RAND Arroyo Center examined prewar planning for postwar Iraq and the subsequent occupation to seek an answer to this question and to draw lessons and recommendations from the Iraq experience.
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More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction


ARMED CONFLICT
Armed Conflict and Schooling: Evidence from the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
University of Illinois / World Bank
Civil conflict has affected almost three-fourths of all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it is critical but difficult to measure the medium to long-term consequences of wars. Pioneering research by Collier (1999) examines the impacts of armed conflict from a macroeconomic angle and there is a growing literature in which researchers debate the magnitude of the long-term negative consequences of wars and armed conflicts. Davis and Weinstein (2002) find that recovery from World War II Allied bombings on Japanese cities was extremely strong. Brakman, Garrtesen and Schramm (2004) arrive at similar conclusions, showing that Allied bombings on West German cities had a significant but only temporary impact. Miguel and Roland (2006) present similar evidence from the American bombing in Vietnam, finding no impact of heavier bombing on poverty rates, consumption levels, literacy, infrastructure, or population density. Chen, Loayza and Reynal-Querol (2007), analyze 41 countries involved in civil wars between 1960 and 2003 and find that once the war ends and lasting peace begins, recovery in economic performance, health, education, and political development is significant. Despite the deaths and destruction caused by civil wars, there is limited research that examines the microeconomic impacts of war for non-combatants, although this is slowly changing as data from war regions becomes available.
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More on Armed Conflict


CONFLICT RESOLUTION
The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation
MICROCON
The European Union, historically conceived as a peace project, has considered conflict resolution as a cardinal objective of its fledgling foreign policy. The Lisbon Treaty explicitly states that the EU aims to promote peace and that its role in the world would reflect the principles that have inspired its creation, development and enlargement. The EU views as critical “indicators” of conflict prevention and resolution issues such as human and minority rights, democracy, state legitimacy, dispute resolving mechanisms, rule of law, social solidarity, sustainable development and a flourishing civil society. This suggests that the Union aims at transforming the structural features of violent conflict, eradicating what Galtung (1969, 1994) defines as the seeds of structural violence: social injustice, unequal development and discrimination. As such, many of its policy instruments can influence conditions and incentives at the micro level. Beyond foreign policy objectives, the EU also makes use of policy instruments to promote conflict transformation through “constructive engagement” with conflict parties.
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More on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking


CLUSTER MUNITION
Counting the Cost: The Economic Impact of Cluster Munition Contamination in Lebanon
Landmine Action
This report seeks to estimate and project the economic cost of cluster munition contamination resulting from the 2006 conflict in Lebanon. It focuses on three areas: the cost of lost agricultural production specifically caused by cluster munition contamination; the cost of responding to cluster munition contamination through internationally assisted clearance and risk reduction operations; the economic cost of deaths and injuries directly resulting from this contamination. Different methodologies and assumptions have been used in approaching these issues – resulting in upper and lower estimates of the cost. The methodologies and assumptions adopted are explained in detail in the report and its annexes. For all three areas of analysis, additional costs will have been incurred, and will continue to be incurred, as a result of cluster munition contamination which cannot be estimated in a reasonable or systematic way based on available data. Considering only the costs of lost agricultural production, and estimating based on the size of average land holdings in affected areas, post-conflict cluster munition contamination would have cost some 3,105 individual landowners an average of around US$8,000 each – this in a country where the 2006 per capita GDP as US$5,300. In the area hardest hit by contamination the primary economic activities are agricultural, further exacerbating the impact.
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More on Small Arms, Light Weapons and Landmines


GENDER
Gender-Based Violence in Iraq
NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq
Since 2003, the media has documented the rising civilian death toll in Iraq. A few reports have described the increase in violence against women. However, most government, UN and human rights organisations’ reports fail to disaggregate the numbers of casualties and injured or accounts of violence by sex and, accordingly, it is almost impossible to know the incidence of gender-based attacks. The issue of disaggregated data is decisive; without a complete understanding of who is being targeted and the nature of the violence, it is difficult to analyse the crisis accurately or to optimise the protection response. However, the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH) does not publish statistics about whom or even how many Iraqis are being killed. And, as crimes against women and girls are not reported because of stigma, fear of retaliation/re-victimisation (‘honour killing’) or lack of confidence in the police to investigate the complaint, where data is available, it is reasonable to assume that the actual number of women who are attacked, abducted, raped and killed is much higher than the data indicates.
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More on Gender


Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Report Project at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University. The Human Security Report Project 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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