AFGHANISTAN: Caught in the Conflict: Civilians and the International Security Strategy in Afghanistan
This paper makes recommendations on how the security strategy of the international community should be changed in order to minimise the harm caused to Afghan civilians and reduce the disruption to
development and humanitarian activities in the current environment in Afghanistan. As independent humanitarian organisations, which adhere to humanitarian principles, the eleven NGO signatories to this paper cannot and will not comment on the efficacy of the security strategies adopted by any of the parties to the conflict in Afghanistan. The paper does not attempt to address all dimensions of the current conflict, but
focuses specifically on issues which concern or relate to international security strategies and military forces as they affect Afghan civilians. It therefore addresses issues of relevance to officials in troop-contributing
countries, for whom the recommendations are primarily intended. In particular, the paper is directed at politicians, policymakers and military officials attending the NATO Heads of State and Government Summit on
3-4 April in Germany. As NATO has command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which has the primary international security mandate for Afghanistan, the policies adopted by NATO have
major repercussions for the safety and welfare of Afghan civilians. ActionAid // AfghanAid // CARE Afghanistan // ChristianAid // CordAid // Dacaar // ICCO // International Rescue Committee // Marie Stopes International // Oxfam International // Save the Children UK (3 April)
More on Afghanistan |  | 
TIMOR-LESTE: Groups, Gangs, and Armed Violence in Timor-Leste
On 11 February 2008 Major Alfredo Reinado and a group of ex-F-FDTL1 soldiers known as the Petitioners, accompanied by allied ex-PNTL2 members, attacked the residence of President Jose Ramos Horta in
Dili. The president, returning home from jogging, was shot and seriously wounded; security officers killed Reinado and one of his men. Less than two hours later, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's motorcade came
under fire from a group led by Petitioner leader Lieutenant Gastao Salsinha. The shock of these coordinated attacks ended a brief respite from gang violence that had plagued the country through December 2007.
Reinado was known as a key player in a wider network of gangs, political front groups, and patronage groups within the political elite. Although the Petitioners had been a destabilizing force in Timorese politics and
society for two years, the threat was not well anticipated. Armed groups and gangs are not a new phenomenon in Timor-Leste, but evolved from clandestine resistance groups during the Indonesian colonial period
to a heterogeneous multitude of collectives, including disaffected veterans, clandestine groups, political fronts, martial arts groups (MAGs), village-based gangs, youth collectives, and security organizations. Small Arms Survey // Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva (17 April)
More on Timor-Leste | |
ECUADOR: Ecuador's Humanitarian Emergency: The Spillover of Colombia's Conflict
The term 'refugee crisis' usually conjures images of Africa, the Balkans and other war-torn regions. It may come as a surprise, then, that one of the world's most severe refugee crises is taking place in the same
time zone as Washington, D.C. Over the past nine years, an estimated 300,000 Colombian refugees have crossed their country's border with Ecuador. They have fled persecution, threats, disappearances, murders,
deliberate displacement, and recruitment by the parties to Colombia's long, drug-funded war between government forces, leftist guerrillas, and paramilitary militias, all of which violate human rights with great
frequency. These refugees do not live in camps, but subsist among the Ecuadorian population. 250,000 are 'invisible,' with no rights to international protection, education, health, or employment. While Ecuador has
the most liberal asylum policy of its South American neighbors, it cannot come close to doing what is needed to provide protection and basic services for the large number of Colombians arriving in Ecuador every
day. Ecuador's northern border is home to over 85 percent of all Colombian refugees, asylum seekers and population in need of protection. The region includes five provinces, Esmeraldas, Carchi, Imbabura,
Sucumbios and Orellana, and spans 400 miles. International Policy Report // Center for International Policy (30 April)
More on Ecuador | |
SOMALIA: The Scarcity of Land in Somalia: Natural Resources and Their Role in the Somali Conflict
The conflict in Somalia has drawn academic attention in various ways. The majority of the academic research has focused on the dynamics of state failure, foreign military intervention, and clan structures. The
scarcity of natural resources, in particular of land, however, has played a significant role in fostering conflict and in the collapse of the government in 1991 and has drawn significantly less scholarly attention. On the
one hand, pastoral societies have regularly crossed the border into neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, raising the threat of possible spill-overs. On the other hand, the scarcity of land has fueled inter-clan rivalries,
especially when specific clans have had access to government resources and posts, while others have been marginalized and not represented in the country's political landscape. A historical perspective, as
proposed by this Occasional Paper, might illuminate one of the underlying roots of conflict and state failure and might also help address central problems to conflict resolution in Somalia. It is the thesis of this Paper
that in the fertile river areas of southern Somalia, natural resources and especially land have become a key driver of armed conflict. By looking at the current conflict from a historical perspective and by
considering core issues such as access to land more closely, bottom-up approaches in conflict resolution might be developed on a broader basis and in the end be more effective in a country that is still best
described as a pastoral society. Bonn International Center for Conversion (30 April)
More on Somalia | |
PAKISTAN: Police & Law Enforcement Reform in Pakistan: Crucial for Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism Success
Since 9/11 and the consequent US/NATO military action in Afghanistan, Pakistan's troubled northwestern frontier has come under increasing pressure from militant and terrorist organizations operating in the area.
Pakistan's deficient and flawed law enforcement capacity in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the adjacent North West Frontier Province (NWFP) have helped Pakistani Taliban and other
terrorist groups expand their influence and strongly challenge the state's writ. Outgunned and outfinanced, on average 400 police officers have been killed every year in terrorist attacks since 2005. Controversial
and haphazard Pakistani military action in the area has led to more instability, and limited resistance in FATA has now become a growing ethnic insurgency. As is clear from the turmoil in the NWFP's Swat district,
any army action can provide no more than a breathing space to the state; only police and law enforcement actions can help the state reestablish its writ and stabilize the area. A timely police action can be more
effective in quelling emergent insurgencies. My research into the 2007 Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) crisis in Islamabad, where a strong military operation led to hundreds of deaths and dozens of retaliatory suicide
attacks, also indicates that: (a) an effective police action in time (2004-05) could have avoided the later bloody clash and (b) the police lacked authority and the permission of the state and its important institutions to
legally pursue the rebel clerics in the mosque (during the 2004-07 timeframe). Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (20 April)
More on Pakistan | |
ARMED CONFLICT: The Tormented Triangle: The Regionalisation of Conflict in Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic
In February 2008, approximately four thousand rebels from eastern Chad travelled a thousand kilometres across the entire country to attack the capital, N'Djamena, with the aim of ousting President Idriss Deby.
At first sight this seemed to be a strictly Chadian affair: an attack by a disenfranchised group of men from one of Chad's marginalised peripheries against their corrupt government. However, a closer look reveals a
more complicated regional picture. The weapons and pick-up trucks that the Chadian rebel used in the attack were provided by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. The rebels had prepared their attack in
western Darfur and north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR), and many fighters among their ranks were mercenaries from these areas. Deby was nearly ousted, but in the end he managed to repel the
rebellion and stay in power. The reason for this is that the leaders of the main groups attacking N'Djamena -- the Union des forces pour la democratie et le developpement and the Rassemblement des forces pour le
changement -- quarrelled over who would succeed him. Furthermore, as the rebels became bogged down and ran out of ammunition, France, a longstanding ally of Deby, decided to support him and allow weapons
provided by Libya to reach the Chadian capital. Also crucial was the military support of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a rebel group from western Sudan, whose leadership hails from the same tribe as
Deby -- the Zaghawa. This attack in N'Djamena was a manifestation of a process of armed conflict regionalisation that has connected the crises in Darfur, eastern Chad and north-eastern CAR. London School of Economics // Development Studies Institute (23 April)
More on Armed Conflict | |
HEALTH: Health and Conflict: A Review of the Links
The four horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Pestilence, Famine, War and Death -- working together for the demise of humanity illustrate the in many ways obvious connection between health and armed conflict. The
purpose of this review of the field of conflict and health is to elucidate what research has shown about how the four horsemen work together: how pestilence, famine and death interact with war. Another focus is
how working to stop one of the horsemen in his tracks can help hinder the others: can struggling against disease and famine build peace? Obvious connections, yes, but ideally, a knowledge based policy framework
within health and conflict would entail a solid foundation of how public health phenomena are associated with war and conflict; their prevalence and incidence; the ways in which positive or negative outcomes are
produced; as well as the costs of alternative policies. As this review will make clear, we are far from that state. In fact one of the most frequent phrases in this paper is some variant of 'it is difficult to show'.
One of the methodological problems is that it in many situations are neither that easy, nor that fruitful, to distinguish between the pre-conflict, conflict, and post conflict phase. This is also a profound practical
problem in peace and reconciliation work, as well as a tragedy for those that experience war. The Fafo Research Foundation (16 April)
More on Health and Security | |
PEACEBUILDING: Building Peace in the Absence of States: Challenging the Discourse on State Failure
Over the past two decades a great deal has been written and argued about state failure, fragile or weak states. International organisations such as the World Bank and several UN departments have commissioned
research and published policy recommendations on the issue. Governments in some countries of the North have also been very busy providing analysis, with the focus mostly on increasing their own citizens' safety.
This includes secret service agencies: since the 1990s, for example, the United States' Central Intelligence Agency has funded a Political Instability Task Force, which is composed of researchers from various
universities. This group has published reports on state failure and presented a global forecasting model of instability. In addition, several US-based think tanks have published extensively on the subject. European
academia has also given considerable attention to the issue, and several universities are conducting research on fragile states in order to elaborate policy recommendations for improving governance mechanisms and
increasing the effectiveness of peacebuilding missions. Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management (9 April)
More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction | |
INTERNATIONAL LAW: When to Indict? International Criminal Indictments, Peace Processes, & Humanitarian Action
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's July 2008 request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for President al Bashir of Sudan on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and
genocide sparked a firestorm of praise, criticism, anxiety, and relief in equal measure among peacekeepers, aid workers, diplomats, and human rights activists. Opponents of the Prosecutor's move argued that it
amounted to a call for regime-change and would imperil any future peace negotiations and the still-incomplete deployment of peacekeepers. At the same time, human rights organizations hailed Ocampo's courage
and lauded the request as a bold and long-overdue step towards challenging impunity for state-sponsored violence against civilians. And between these two camps, thousands of aid workers on the ground in Darfur
worried about further access restrictions and harassment by government authorities. The potential reach of the ICC poses new dilemmas for humanitarian actors operating in tense politicized conflicts, where aid
workers are often on the frontlines. For example in Darfur, the government's tight control over access to its territory has put aid workers in the uncomfortable position of serving as primary eyewitnesses to alleged
atrocities and, subsequently, the primary targets of government suspicion. The Brookings Institution // University of Bern // Project on Internal Displacement (21 April)
More on International Law, Justice and Accountability | |
AID: Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: 2009 Update Trends in Violence Against Aid Workers and the Operational Response
In 2008, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in violent attacks. This toll is the highest of the 12 years that our study has tracked these incidents. The absolute number of attacks
against aid workers has risen steeply over the past three years, with an annual average almost three times higher than the previous nine years. Relative rates of attacks per numbers of aid workers in the field have
also increased -- by 61%. The 2008 fatality rate for international aid workers exceeds that of UN peacekeeping troops. This HPG Policy Brief updates the findings from the 2006 report Providing Aid in Insecure
Environments: Trends in Policy and Operations. Its analysis follows on from that report, providing the global incident data for the last three years. It identifies new trends and highlights issues in the three most
violent contexts for aid workers at present: Sudan (Darfur), Afghanistan, and Somalia. Overseas Development Institute // Humanitarian Policy Group (7 April)
More on Humanitarian Intervention | |
TERRORISM: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2009
The European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT) seeks to establish basic facts and figures regarding terrorist attacks, arrests and activities in the European Union (EU).The TE-SAT is based
mainly on information contributed by the EU member states resulting from criminal investigations into terrorist offences. It summarises the nature and volume of terrorism and related phenomena in the EU by
presenting facts and figures on terrorist attacks and arrests, and describing trends identified over the period between 2006 and 2008. To some member states the threat from Islamist as well as ethno-nationalist and
separatist terrorism remains high. However, the overall number of terrorist attacks in all member states in 2008, excluding the UK, decreased by 24 percent in comparison to 2007. For 2008 seven member states
reported a total of 515 failed, foiled or successfully perpetrated terrorist attacks. Thirteen member states arrested a total of 1009 individuals for terrorism. The majority of arrests were carried out on suspicion of
membership of a terrorist organisation. Other reasons for arrest were attack-related offences, propaganda, financing of terrorism, facilitation and training. Europol (16 April)
More on Terrorism | |
TERRORISM: 2008 Report on Terrorism
Approximately 11,800 terrorist attacks against noncombatants occurred in various countries during 2008, resulting in over 54,000 deaths, injuries and kidnappings. Compared to 2007, attacks decreased by 2,700, or
18 percent, in 2008 while deaths due to terrorism decreased by 6,700, or 30 percent. As was the case last year, the largest number of reported terrorist attacks occurred in the Near East, but unlike previous years,
South Asia had the greater number of fatalities. These two regions were also the locations for 75 percent of the 235 high-casualty attacks (those that killed 10 or more people) in 2008. Terrorist use of kidnappings
for ransom increased significantly in 2008. The number of kidnappings in South Asia during 2008 rose by 45 percent, although kidnappings worldwide remained about the same. The number of kidnappings in
Pakistan rose sharply by 340 percent and in Afghanistan by about 100 percent, while in India the number rose by 30 percent. National Counterterrorism Center (30 April)
More on Terrorism | |
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